“How long ago was this?”
“Ten or fifteen minutes, I’d say.”
Ace shook his head. “It wasn’t us. We haven’t been out here that long. Chance thought he saw somebody, too.”
“A couple men with rifles,” Chance added.
“The man I saw was on horseback . . . I thought,” Miguel said. “Now I’m not sure of anything.”
An uneasy feeling stirred in Ace’s gut, and he knew it didn’t have anything to do with the midday meal he had eaten. “We were going to walk down to the saloon. Want to come with us?”
“Yeah, I sure will. Anybody who would come out in weather like this might be up to no good.”
The three young men turned toward the saloon again.
* * *
Fontana struggled against the grip of the man holding her but had no chance of breaking free. He was too strong. The big hand pressed over her mouth completely shut off any outcry she might have made.
“Take it easy, girl,” a deep voice said in her ear. “Nobody’s lookin’ to hurt you. Not yet, anyway.”
That didn’t make her feel any better as the man forced her back around the corner and along the corridor toward the landing. From the corner of her eye, she could see down into the main room of the saloon below. As the lightning flashed, she saw how the glare caught the tall man standing in the entrance. He pushed the batwings aside and moved into the saloon with a catlike stride.
Enough lamps were burning in the saloon for her to get a good look at the man’s face as he lifted his head to peer up the stairs toward her. His rugged features were deeply tanned and weathered from years of exposure. Pale hair poked out from under his black hat. His eyes were deep-set, and Fontana felt their power even from the distance.
Silence had fallen over the saloon. Everyone was staring at the newcomer. He had the same sort of compelling fascination that a snake held for a bird or a small animal.
Hank Muller broke that silence by stepping away from the bar and saying hoarsely, “What do you want?” That wasn’t the way he normally greeted customers—but everyone in the Melodian sensed that this was no normal customer.
The man smiled, but the expression was colder than the winds that had swept in with the rain. “Lookin’ for a little shelter from the storm, Hank.”
“Do I know you?” Muller demanded.
From the landing, Fontana could tell he was trying to put up a brave front but was as spooked as everybody else in here.
“It’s been a good long while, but we’ve met,” admitted the stranger in black.
No one had yet noticed Fontana and her captor at the top of the stairs. All eyes were on the man who had just come into the place. That changed as the man holding her began to force her down the stairs. Muller’s eyes swung in that direction.
So did Orrie’s. The little piano player exclaimed, “My God!”
Muller took a step toward the stairs, but the stranger’s hand went swiftly under the long duster he wore and came out gripping a revolver. He thrust the long barrel at the saloonkeeper and barked, “Stay where you are, Muller. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to.”
The stranger had stepped far enough into the room that a couple tables were behind him. Men sitting at those tables could have jumped him, but the menace radiating from him was so powerful that they tried to flee, leaping to their feet and heading for the door.
The batwings parted, and they stopped short. Trying to back up, they practically fell over their own feet. Several more men moved into the saloon, all of them wielding rifles or handguns. They were hard-faced men wearing dusters similar to that of the man who was undeniably their leader.
The man in black smiled at Muller, “You startin’ to figure out who I am, Hank?”
“Good Lord,” Muller breathed out. “You’re Otis McLaren.”
“Never expected to see me again, did you? At least, you were hoping you’d never see me again. But I’ll bet my little brother warned you I’d be back.” McLaren’s smile disappeared, replaced by a bleak expression that scored deep trenches in his cheeks. “I just made it a little too late, that’s all.”
Fontana could tell that Muller was scared, and she didn’t blame him. She was terrified.
But Muller wasn’t the sort to back down. He squared his shoulders and asked, “What the hell do you want?”
“Justice.” McLaren turned his head just slightly and added, “Bring ’em in.”
More members of the outlaw’s gang entered the saloon. A couple pushed a stumbling figure ahead of them. Solomon Horton lost his balance and fell to his knees. One of the men grabbed his arm, jerked him roughly to his feet again, and dragged him to Otis McLaren.
Another had a limp form draped over his shoulder. He bent and let his burden roll down to the floor. Fontana recognized Crackerjack Sawyer, but she couldn’t tell if the old liveryman was dead or merely unconscious.
The boss outlaw went on. “My brother’s lawyer got word to me what was goin’ on. Pete told him where he could get in touch with me, but I didn’t make it in time to save Pete. All I can do now . . . is avenge him.” McLaren turned and pressed the gun muzzle against the side of Horton’s head.
The lawyer trembled so hard he would have fallen again if not for the other man’s grip on his arm.
“You didn’t keep Pete alive long enough for me to get here,” McLaren said. “But don’t worry, Mr. Lawyer Man. You’re still good for something, so I’m not gonna blow your brains out . . . if you tell me the name of every man on the jury that convicted my brother.”
“I-I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be sorry.” McLaren eared back the revolver’s hammer. “Just talk.”
“You . . . you’ve got two of the jury members right here. Muller and that old man from the livery stable—”
“Horton, you son of a bitch,” Muller broke in. “You’ve got no more guts than an old yellow dog.”
“He’ll kill me!” Horton cried.
McLaren said, “That’s right. I damn sure will. Tell me the others.”
“There was Lee Emory . . . he’s the editor of the newspaper . . . and Colonel Howden over at the hotel . . .” More names spilled from Horton’s slack mouth until he finished with “And . . . and two boys from out of town . . . they’re brothers, their name is Jensen—”
“That’s twelve,” McLaren said. “And I haven’t forgotten about the judge who sentenced Pete to hang, or the prosecutor, or the marshal who arrested him.”
Horton said, “It . . . it was Hoyt Dixon who arrested him. He’s the man your brother shot.”
“Well, somebody else put him back in jail, didn’t they?”
“Miguel Soriano. He’s the deputy who took over as marshal—”
“All right. A greaser marshal, eh? Things really have changed around here. And then there’s old José. We were trail partners once, before he got old and fat. Your letter said he was part of the reason Pete was behind bars to start with. They’re all gonna die, but we’ll start with the jury. They’re the ones who found Pete guilty.” McLaren’s lips drew back from his teeth in a vicious grimace. “Twelve men who are gonna die just like he did.”
“Boss,” one of the outlaws said from the entrance. “Somebody’s comin’.”
* * *
Still half a block from the Melodian, Ace, Chance, and Miguel were close enough to make out a few shapes moving around against the light from inside the saloon. Ace didn’t think anything of that, since he expected the place to have at least a few customers, even on such a stormy afternoon.
A sudden flash of lightning revealed an unexpected sight, however. A man stood in the entrance with one of the batwings pushed back, peering at them. The lightning reflected off the barrel of the gun he held in his hand.
“Who the hell—” Miguel began.
“Look out!” Ace said as the gun in the man’s hand jerked up and spouted flame.
Even as the shot roared out, Ace and Chance had instinctively leaped apart.
Ace’s shoulder rammed into Miguel and knocked him aside, as well. The bullet passed between the Jensen brothers with a flat whap! audible even over the steady roar of the rain.
Miguel staggered from the collision with Ace but didn’t fall down. Ace stayed on his feet although his boots slipped in a puddle. Chance sprawled in the mud but scrambled back up again.
“Spread out!” Miguel called to the brothers.
All three struggled against the slickers to get their guns out, but by the time they reached cover—Miguel behind a parked wagon, Ace behind an overflowing rain barrel, and Chance kneeling at the corner of a porch—they had their Colts in hand.
They didn’t know who had taken that shot at them, and anyway, they couldn’t start blazing away at the saloon. There were bound to be innocent people in there who would be in danger from a stray slug.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
McLaren lunged to the door, grabbed his man by the collar, and jerked him back, throwing him to the floor. “Damn it, Pittman. Why’d you open fire? I wasn’t ready to tell the town we were here yet.”
The outlaw called Pittman clearly didn’t like being manhandled, but he wasn’t going to argue with McLaren. He seemed to have more sense than that. “Sorry, Otis,” he said as he got to his feet. “I saw three tough-looking hombres, and they were heading this way, so I thought—”
“That was your mistake,” McLaren said. “You leave the thinkin’ to me, like usual.”
All the townspeople in the saloon were too scared to make a sound, so everyone heard the shout from outside.
“Hold your fire! This is Marshal Soriano! Throw down your gun and come out with your hands over your head!”
McLaren grinned coldly at Pittman. “You reckon I ought to send you out, since you’re the one who opened the ball?”
Without waiting for an answer, McLaren turned and went to the entrance, stopping far enough back from the batwings that he couldn’t be seen easily from outside. “Marshal Soriano . . . you’re just the man I want to talk to.” McLaren’s voice was so cold and dead, it sounded like it came from inside a grave.
“I’m not talking to anybody until you come out with your hands up!”
“Oh, I reckon you will,” McLaren said. “Unless you want us to start shootin’ folks in here. There are sixteen of us, so I don’t reckon it’d take very long to wipe out the whole lot of ’em.” He motioned for the outlaw holding Fontana to bring her over from the stairs.
As she was turned over to McLaren, she got her first good look at her captor. He was a big man with a thatch of coarse black hair, a hooked nose, and high cheekbones. Mostly Indian, but his pale blue eyes indicated he had a little white blood in him, too. And pure evil, no matter what his heritage, as she could tell from one glance at him.
The marshal didn’t answer McLaren for several seconds. Then he called, “Take it easy in there. No need for any more shooting. Just tell me who you are and what you want.”
“That’s easy. My name’s Otis McLaren . . . and I want revenge for my brother!”
From where he crouched behind the wagon, Miguel looked over at Ace and Chance. They had all heard the voice from inside the saloon quite plainly.
“McLaren warned us his brother would be back,” Miguel said, quietly enough that the Jensen brothers could hear him but the men inside the saloon could not. “I don’t think anybody really believed him, though.”
“Looks like he was telling the truth,” Ace said. “Maybe we can circle around behind the place and get in from the back.”
As if he had heard them after all, Otis McLaren shouted, “And by the way, Marshal, if you and your friends are thinkin’ about tryin’ any tricks, you’d be advised not to! I got a pretty little gal here who’ll be the first one to die if you do!”
A second later, a scream rang out.
“Fontana!” Chance cried, ready to spring out from behind the porch.
Ace shot him a look that made him pause. “Stay down, blast it. You getting gunned down won’t help Fontana, and you know it.”
Miguel called toward the saloon, “No tricks, I swear! Just don’t hurt anybody, McLaren!”
“Oh, I’ll hurt people, all right, you can count on that! Startin’ with the twelve men who sent my brother to the gallows! I got two of ’em in here already, but you’d better round up the other ten and send them in here, or the floors of this saloon will be runnin’ with blood!” McLaren’s hand was still wrapped up in Fontana’s hair where he had grabbed and twisted it to make her scream. He leered down at her and said, “You better hope that Mex lawman listens to me, gal, because I meant every word I said.”
Huddled next to him, she didn’t doubt that for a second. McLaren was crazy . . . crazy mean. And the men he had brought to Lone Pine with him probably weren’t any better.
She didn’t think the marshal would cooperate with McLaren’s warped lust for vengeance. She hoped he wouldn’t, anyway, although the thought of how McLaren would react to being defied terrified her.
McLaren let go of her hair and gave her a shove that sent her slumping to the floor. He turned back to the batwings and called, “What’s it gonna be, Marshal?”
“Let those people in there go, McLaren!” Miguel replied. “They didn’t have anything to do with what happened to your brother!”
“Two of ’em did, like I told you! Hell, if you’re gonna stall, we’ll just start with them!”
McLaren turned, pointed his revolver at Hank Muller, and went on. “Since the old-timer’s still out cold, we’ll start with you, Muller.” He nodded to his men. “You boys know what to do.”
Fontana cried, “No!” as she lunged up from the floor and grabbed at McLaren’s arm, trying to pull the gun down. Muller was her friend and had always treated her decently. She fought for him without thinking.
But only for a moment.
McLaren’s other arm came up and his hand cracked across her face in a backhanded blow that jerked her head around and made her topple to the floor again.
“You bastard!” Orrie yelled as he lunged toward McLaren instinctively.
Close by and within easy reach, the outlaw who’d captured Fontana upstairs lashed out with a gun, smashing it into the back of Orrie’s head and driving him off his feet. He landed on the sawdust-littered floor and didn’t move. Blood leaked from his head, forming a little crimson pool in the sawdust.
With an ugly grin, McLaren said, “Now, if there’s not gonna be any more dramatics, let’s get on with it.”
Two of the outlaws closed in on Hank Muller.
A burly man who had survived a long time in a tough business, he wasn’t going to just let them do whatever they wanted without putting up a fight. He lashed out at the first man who came within reach of his fists and actually connected with the punch, but then the second man slugged him in the belly. A third joined the fight, got an arm around Muller’s neck from behind, and dragged him backwards. For a long moment, fists crashed into his head and body again and again.
“Don’t kill him,” McLaren said. “You know better than that. Don’t even knock him out. I want him to be awake for every second of what’s gonna happen to him.”
The outlaws beat the fight out of Muller but left him conscious, as McLaren had commanded. The saloonkeeper hung loosely in their grip, his head drooping forward and blood dripping from his smashed nose and mouth. His eyes were open and filled with helpless rage.
McLaren nodded to his men again. The ones holding Muller wrestled him toward the back of the room where the second floor balcony overhung the area where the piano stood. Another outlaw took the rope looped over his shoulder and started fashioning a noose at the end of it. Another walked up the stairs and along the balcony.
“No,” Fontana said in a hollow voice from where she half-lay on the floor. “No!”
“He’s got it comin’,” McLaren said flatly. “If it was good enough for my brother, it’s good enough for him.”
Several of the men who had been drinking in the s
aloon before the fresh hell walked in moved to stand up, unable to contain themselves in the face of the new horror. Members of McLaren’s band who weren’t busy with Muller turned their guns on the citizens, and they had no choice but to sit down again. Their faces were twisted in a mixture of fury and revulsion.
Muller began cursing in a thin voice, but that was cut off when the outlaw with the rope looped it around his neck and drew it tight. He threw it up to the man on the balcony, who caught it and looped it around a couple thick balusters that supported the railing along the edge of the balcony. He dropped the end of the rope back down to the others.
McLaren told one of his men, “Keep an eye on the street out there,” then walked over to face Muller. “You know you deserve this for what you did. Pete was a good kid.”
“He was . . . a vicious killer,” Muller croaked, forcing the words out past the rope pulled tight around his neck. “He gunned down . . . Marshal Dixon . . . and an innocent girl. He got . . . a fair trial. That was . . . more than he deserved. Should’ve been . . . gunned down . . . like the mad dog he was!”
“You’ve said your piece,” McLaren grated. “Hope you’re satisfied with it, because those were your last words, you son of a bitch.” He nodded to his men. “Get it done.”
Those holding Muller let go of him and stepped back as four outlaws hauled on the rope. Muller’s hands went to the strand around his neck and pawed at it, but it was too tight. He couldn’t get his fingers under it. With grunts of effort, the men heaved on the rope, and Muller’s feet came up off the floor.
He began kicking and jerking, and almost instantly his face turned bright red. The men pulled harder on the rope and lifted him more until his feet were a good eight inches off the floor. His face was purple, his eyes wide and protruding until it seemed they would pop right out of their sockets like grapes.
“I sentence you to hang by the neck until you’re dead,” McLaren intoned.
The outlaws held on tight as Muller continued to struggle for breath. His legs flailed wildly in the air. He tried to reach above his head and grasp the rope so he could pull himself up and relieve the terrible pressure on his throat, but he didn’t have the strength. The brutal beating he had endured had made sure of that. His hands slipped away from the rope, and gradually his struggles grew weaker. His swollen face took on a bluish tinge, and his tongue poked grotesquely from his mouth.
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