A Time to Slaughter

by William W. Johnstone

  After the woman sat, he said, “All right, I think I might have figured something.” He saw hope flash briefly in Julia’s eyes. “When do they bring you food and water?”

  “They’ve brought nothing so far.”

  “I’m sure they will. If what you’ve told me is true and not just Moss spinning a windy to scare you, he must consider you a valuable commodity and he won’t let you starve.”

  “I know what you’re planning, Shawn, and it won’t work. Even if you overcome the man, or men, who bring us food, you still have to get up the stairs and into the saloon. Zeb or one of his gunmen will kill you for sure.”

  “A body’s got to try.” Shawn sat in silence for a few moments, then said, “The saloon is still closed. I wonder if there’s a guard?”

  “Sure to be. I don’t think Zeb would leave us alone.”

  “He might figure a locked trapdoor is enough.”

  “Would you?”

  “No, I guess I wouldn’t.”

  “Then there’s your answer.”

  “Well, guard or not, I’m going to give it a whirl.” Shawn stretched again, gauging the extent of his hurt, then reached into his pocket and produced the Smith & Wesson .32, passing it to Julia. “The idiots didn’t search me. If I get the trapdoor open and somebody tries to stop me, blow his fool head off.”

  “But it’s locked.”

  “I know it’s locked, but I’ll get my back against it and push.”

  “Break it apart?”

  “Yeah, either the door or my back.”

  But then a key rattled in the padlock, the trapdoor creaked open, and suddenly it was too late. Too late for everything.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Shawn O’Brien reached out, grabbed the revolver from Julia’s hand, and shoved it into his pocket.

  Broadcloth-covered legs appeared on the stairs, then the barrel of a shotgun. Two other pairs of legs followed, the booted and spurred limbs of Zeb Moss’s hired hardcases.

  For a single wild moment, Shawn thought about drawing the .32 and shooting it out. But five rounds from a belly gun against three scatterguns were not good odds. He let the moment pass. Best to live to fight another day when the deck wasn’t so stacked against him.

  “You’re out of here, O’Brien,” Rance Bohan said, his prodding shotgun making more than a nodding acquaintance with Shawn’s belly.

  “I’m glad you came to your senses, Bohan,” Shawn said. “And Trixie is coming with me, of course.”

  “Wrong on both counts,” Bohan said, his smile ugly. “Trixie stays here and you come with us. We’re going for a little ride. Not far. Just beyond the city limits where it’s quiet-like.”

  “What are you planning, Bohan?” Shawn’s eyes narrowed.

  “You’ll find out. Now get up them stairs or you get it in the belly right here and now. I don’t care. It won’t be me has to clean up the mess afterward.”

  “Bohan, you’re a joy to be around,” Shawn retorted.

  “Yeah, ain’t I though? But you haven’t even seen the worst of me. Not by a long shot, you haven’t.”

  “Shawn . . .” Julia tried to find words and failed. But the tears in her eyes spoke volumes.

  “I’ll be back for you, Julia,” Shawn said. “I promise.”

  Bohan grinned. “Don’t count on it, O’Brien. Now move!”

  Shawn was roughly hustled up the stairs. Behind him he heard Julia’s soft sobs and his fear for her and for him turned to a slow-burning anger.

  He was surprised to see the dawn as he walked out of the saloon, Bohan and the two hardcases close behind him. His horse stood at the hitching rail with three others, saddled and ready for the trail

  “Get up on the hoss, O’Brien,” Bohan said. “I see a fancy move and you’re a dead man.”

  “Where are we headed, Rance?” Shawn asked, knowing it would irritate the gunman.

  “Damn you, I told you that you’ll find out,” Bohan exclaimed. “And don’t call me Rance. The only people I allow to call me by my given name are my friends.”

  “Well, don’t that beat all,” Shawn drawled. “I didn’t think you had any.”

  Bohan’s smile was thin as the edge of a knife. “Keep it up, O’Brien. I’ll soon cut you down to size.”

  Shawn swung into the saddle under the watchful cold eyes of shotgun muzzles. There was no snow, but frost crackled in the air and black clouds hung low over the city.

  Bohan led the way east along the north bank of the Santa Fe River, timbered, snow-covered mountain peaks rising on all sides. He kept close to the bank, riding through heavy stands of cottonwood, wild oak, and willow.

  Shawn tried to guess where they were headed, and why. Only Rance Bohan knew the answer, but he sat thin and dry on his horse and said nothing.

  After an hour of making their way through rough country where every rock they passed was covered in a slick of ice and the wind bit like a snake, one of the hardcases figured it was time to complain. “How much farther, Rance? I say we gun him here and have done. Hell, I ain’t even had breakfast yet.”

  Bohan drew rein and looked around him. “How far can a man with a bullet in his belly crawl? Anybody know?”

  A second hardcase, older, grimmer, and maybe wiser, said, “One time down in the Texas Badlands I seen the body of a ranny who’d crawled three miles across desert country with a Comanche bullet in his gut. Seems to me this cold would ice a man’s belly and he could drag hisself a sight farther.”

  “Damn you fer a talkin’ man, Cletus,” the younger hardcase said, his eyes ugly.

  “Man asked a question an’ I answered it,” Cletus said.

  “Cletus is right,” Bohan said. “We’ll ride a piece longer. I want O’Brien to know he’s dying, but I don’t want him to crawl back to Santa Fe and leave us with a heap of questions to answer.”

  Shawn felt a mix of fear and anger and the savage desire to rip Bohan’s heart out with his bare hands. He felt the solid weight of the .32 in his pocket, but it was not the time to use it. Bohan and his hardcases were on edge and they’d be alert to his every move. Better to bide his time and strike when they least expected it.

  It was thin, mighty thin, but it was all Shawn had and he was determined to make the best of it when the time came and things turned ugly.

  Rance Bohan drew rein. Ahead of him, through a tattered veil of falling snow, he scanned a low ridge, the rocky slope studded with piñon and juniper. Snow lay here and there like discarded hotel sheets and the tops of the taller rock spires had a crest of white, making them look like wise old men who had come down from the mountains.

  “There,” Bohan said, pointing. “We’ll take O’Brien to the top of the ridge and put a bullet in his belly. A gut shot man isn’t going to crawl down from there.”

  The younger hardcase dashed a drip from the end of his nose with a gloved hand. “Gun him here, Rance. Then I’ll dab a loop on him and drag him up among them piñons.”

  Bohan turned to Shawn. “If you got any prayers, O’Brien, say them now. In a few minutes you’ll be hurting too bad for anything but screaming.”

  “You damned tinhorn, Bohan. You go to hell.”

  The gunman smiled. “O’Brien, it’s going to be a real pleasure putting a bullet into you.” He brushed back his caped greatcoat and drew his Colt. His voice was flat, hard, and hollow, the voice of death. “Git off the horse.”

  The time had come for Shawn O’Brien to make his play.

  His hand dropped to the pocket of his sheepskin and closed on the little revolver.

  Rance Bohan sat his saddle, dead for two seconds before the sound of the rifle shot crashed among the surrounding peaks. A bloody hole appeared between the man’s eyes, but he stayed where he was, straight-backed and upright in the saddle.

  The young hardcase, his eyes wild, leveled his shotgun at Shawn. A second rifle shot blew the man out of the saddle. He triggered his scattergun as he fell, and his horse took both barrels of buckshot in the belly. The animal screamed
and dropped on top of him.

  “Mister, I don’t know what the hell is happening here, but I’m out of it,” the older man named Sam said, raising his hands high. Terror showed in a face suddenly drained of color.

  “The hell you are.” The fear Shawn had felt had destroyed any inclination of mercy in him. He triggered the .32 dry into the hardcase’s chest. The man tumbled from the saddle, dead when he hit the ground.

  Shawn watched a drift of gunsmoke from the ridge catch in the wind. Then a buckskinned figure rose from behind a shelf of rock and stood watching him. The man raised his hand in greeting and climbed the ridge to the crest, then disappeared from view.

  Shawn was puzzled. Because of snow and distance he couldn’t make out his savior’s face. He looked like Luther Ironside, but was too short. Apart from Luther, no one else he knew wore buckskins.

  Unless . . .

  He shook his head. No, it couldn’t be him.

  But it was.

  A few minutes later, Uriah Tweedy rode along a thin trail between the drop of the rise and the river, the butt of his old Henry rifle on his right thigh. When he got close enough, Tweedy smiled under his beard. “Howdy, young feller.”

  “Tweedy, what the hell are you doing here?” Shawn looked at the man in wonder.

  “Savin’ your damned fool skin, last I looked.”

  “But you’re shot through and through. You should be in bed.”

  “Yeah, I should be, but I ain’t.”

  “You rode all the way here with a broken shoulder to help me?”

  “The hell I did. I’m here to save the woman I plan to marry up with.”

  “Who?”

  “Who? You mean you don’t know? Why Miss Trixie, you danged fool.”

  Shawn was taken aback. “She’s . . . I mean . . . damn it, Uriah, you’re an old coot.”

  “And she’s a young woman. That’s why I plan to wed her. She’ll be a sweet consolation to me in my old age.” Tweedy looked around him. “An’ speakin’ of sich, where is she?”

  “It’s a long story, and none of it makes for agreeable listening.”

  “Then I’d better hear it. But not here. Weather’s closing in. I say we head for Santa Fe afore it gets dark.” Tweedy’s eyes roamed over the dead men. “These rannies part of the story?”

  “Yes, they are.” Shawn looked at Tweedy as though he could scarcely believe the man was real. “How come you were here just when I needed you, Uriah? It’s . . . well, it’s like a miracle.”

  “Miracle my ass, sonny. Soon as I heard where you was headed I pulled out and followed you, figuring you’d lead me to Miss Trixie.” Tweedy shook his head. “You ain’t exactly a hard man to track. Just as well the Apaches are all in Florida or you’d be a goner fer sure.”

  Shawn let that go, and said, “How did you find me here?”

  Tweedy sighed, as though he was talking with a none-too-bright child. “Wasn’t I in Santa Fe and didn’t I keep an eye on the Lucky Lady saloon? When I seen them three hardcases lead you out of there by the nose and you lookin’ as scared as a rabbit in a coyote’s back pocket, I figured your goose was cooked. Lucky for you them rubes was riding slow, so I got ahead of them.”

  Tweedy was silent for a few moments, then feeling that further explanation was called for, he said, “Sonny, when a man hunts ol’ Ephraim for a living, he knows when to stay out of sight and when to start shootin’. You catch my drift?”

  “Uriah, I can’t go back to Santa Fe. I’m a marked man.”

  “Of course you’re a marked man, so you’ll bed down in the livery stable like I done. The place is run by a broken-down old range cook by the name of Miles Marshwood. He knows how to keep his trap shut and there’s not a hoss or wagon goes in and out of the city Miles don’t know about. We can keep an eye on Zeb Moss and his men and find a way to free Miss Trixie.”

  “Damn, Uriah, it’s thin,” Shawn said. “And dangerous.”

  “Of course it’s thin, unless you got a better idea.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then it’s all we got, so we’ll make the best of it.” Tweedy motioned to the dead men. “Find yourself a rifle and a belt gun. Then we’ll ride.”

  “How does your shoulder feel?” Shawn finally asked.

  “How do you think it feels?” Tweedy demanded.

  “I’d guess it hurts like hell.”

  “Then you’d be right.”

  “What about them?” Shawn pointed to the dead men.

  “What about them?”

  “Should we do something . . . cover them up, maybe?”

  “Hell, sonny, we don’t have time for that. Leave them for the coyotes.” Tweedy thought about that, then added, “That is, if’n coyotes eat their own kind.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The man who stood on the deck of the U.S. Navy’s sloop of war Kansas was dressed in the coarse black robe of a Spanish priest. That he was highly agitated was obvious, the way he kept pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes as though trying to eliminate a vision that continued to haunt him.

  Commander John Sherburne, just thirty-seven years old but with the lined, weathered face of the lifelong sailor, stood beside him. “Father Diaz, the villagers are sure it was slave traders and not common bandits?”

  Father Oscar Diaz took his hands from his eyes, their sockets red from the pressure of his hands. “Those that are still alive say slave traders. They were all dark, bearded men and their leader wore Arab robes.”

  “Four young women taken, you say?”

  “Yes, including a bride who was just married this morning.”

  Father Diaz, young and pleasant-faced, trembled all over, as though he stood in snow. But it was fear and shock that caused him to shiver uncontrollably, not cold.

  A man with a measure of stern kindliness in him, Commander Sherburne called for a glass of rum and bade the priest drink hearty. “If ever a man needed a drink, it’s you, Father.”

  The priest touched the glass to his lips, and then said, “Commander, what will you do?”

  “I’ll land and see the village for myself. If it is as you say, and I’ve no reason to doubt you, I’ll pursue the pirate vessel.”

  “The ship is long gone, I fear,” Father Diaz said.

  Sherburne smiled. “This is the newest steam sloop in the United States Navy, Father. We’ll catch her, never fear.”

  “A schooner,” the priest mumbled.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “One of the women said the ship was a schooner and it sailed away south. She is old, and may know these things.”

  Sherburne nodded. “A fast ship, no doubt, but she depends on the wind and can’t outrun the Kansas, never fear.” He turned to the lieutenant at his other side and said, “Lower the jolly boat and tell Sergeant Monroe I want him and two of his marines to accompany me onshore.”

  “I will go with you,” Father Diaz said.

  “You’re welcome to remain on board,” Sherburne said.

  The priest shook his head. “My place is with my flock, Commander. Now more than ever.” He tossed off his glass of rum and seemed glad of it.

  White seagulls glided across a pale blue sky as Commander Sherburne and his men landed on the beach.

  Sergeant Monroe, a profane man, cursed violently as he caught the smell of death. “Damn it. They’re rotting already.”

  Sherburne heard the marine, but ignored his outburst. He jumped into the surf and walked toward the village, a couple sailors close behind him. Monroe and his men followed, their bayonets fixed and eyes wary.

  The scene was as Father Diaz had described. The blacksmith’s body lay on the beach and the village was strewn with corpses, a few shot, the majority hacked with swords. There was blood everywhere, and fat, black flies gorged on open wounds. Higher than the seagulls, but gliding just as elegantly, buzzards waited and watched with their endless patience.

  Women huddled in groups and wailed their grief. A few kneeled silently by the corpses of the
ir menfolk, the restless rustle of the surging surf and the yodel of the gulls their only requiem.

  Father Diaz, his face a mask of pain, said almost apologetically to Sherburne, “The women can’t bury the dead, Commander.”

  For his part the captain of the Kansas was infused with a white-hot anger and, for the first time since he’d entered the service as a boy, the desire to kill the enemy. His ship carried twenty carronades, powerful, close-range weapons, and he made a vow to reduce the slaver schooner to matchwood and its crew to smears of blood and guts on the deck.

  More seamen and the remaining marines were ferried from the sloop to bury the dead, a melancholy task that took until dark to complete.

  Before he left for his ship, Commander Sherburne spoke to the priest. “I’ve done all I can for you, Father, and God knows it was little enough.”

  “To bury the dead is a holy and honorable thing,” Father Diaz said. “And it is much appreciated.”

  “I know you’ll do what you can for the women, Father. Tell them I’ll bring back the girls who were taken.” He tried to offer more words of consolation, but could find none. Finally he said. “Just . . . tell them that.”

  Father Diaz bowed his head, and then said, “The village is gone and it will never come back. I’ll take the women somewhere else, inland, where they’ll feel safe.”

  The commander nodded, but said nothing more.

  The priest raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over Sherburne. “Go with God. And may holy Saint Brendan the Navigator protect you and all who sail with you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was dark when Shawn O’Brien and Uriah Tweedy rode into Santa Fe. The old man led the way to the livery stable, a rectangular timber building with a flat roof, a wide door, and a sign outside.

  LIVERY & FEED STABLE

  ~M. Marshwood, PROP.

  M. Marshwood, prop. was a sour-faced, stringy old man who wore a tattered mackinaw and a scowl as though he’d never been pleased to see anybody or anything in his life. “Oh, it’s you again, Uriah. I reckoned you was gone fer a spell.”