Shotgun Riders

by Orrin Russell

  Balum bowed his head. Joe and Caleb did the same. It made sense; no other group of killers was reportedly roaming around this part of the country.

  Buford broke the silence. “You bet your asses it was my brothers. And I’ll tell you what-- you let me go right now and they’ll leave you be. You don’t, and they’ll kill more of your sorry asses one by one until this shithole town ain’t nothing but one big graveyard.”

  “You want me to bloody that lip some more?” said Balum.

  “Bring it,” Buford wagged his fingers and smiled.

  The sheriff looked on, stroking his mustache. “You want me to hang him? I’ll make it a public event, lure his brothers in, kill the whole lot of them.”

  Balum turned away from the cell. He liked this big sheriff with the walrus mustache. “If it was up to me I’d have shot him two weeks ago and left him for the wolves. But this concerns the governor of Texas and the U.S. government. So if he gives you any sass, feel free to bust his nose open. But he’s gotta be alive when we reach Texas.”

  They left the jailhouse with Buford’s insults fading behind them. In a dark tavern they ate supper. They passed the night in a boarding house that had curtains in place of walls and mattresses thin and strangely lumpy. Nonetheless, Balum slept like he’d been drugged. He woke in a fresh state of mind. When he entered the jailhouse to find his prisoner’s face cut and battered like a meat hammer had been taken to it, and Buford making every accusation against the mustachioed sheriff, he didn’t say a word.

  All that day and the next they drove the stagecoach over windswept plains that rolled from one onto another without any noticeable change of vegetation. Not a sign of the five brothers, day or night. Balum tapped his fingers along the rifle barrel and thought about what lay in store. The Bell brothers had money now. That changed things. It meant they had options. But just which option they’d take, Balum couldn’t figure. He liked to worry a problem over with a plug of tobacco in his mouth, and that he did, hour after hour beside Joe on the driving bench, but when they reached the next town on the trail he still had no answer to his question.

  A few days later, sitting in a saloon in the town of Fairview, he finally gave up trying to second guess the Bell brothers. He turned his mind to other matters. Like how did the town come to be named Fairview with such lousy vistas all around? He pulled the mug of beer to his lips and puzzled on it.

  “You think they done run off?” said Caleb. He’d polished off one steak already, and was carving his way through another.

  “Doesn’t seem likely,” said Balum.

  “Where they at then?”

  Balum looked at Joe and back at Caleb. “I’m done flogging my head over it. They’ll show when they show. Until then I aim to enjoy this beer and get a good night’s sleep.”

  And that he did. But not until he’d polished off another drink and wandered into a gambling hall where he lost six dollars on a game of faro. He lost another five at the blackjack table, then walked back through the dark streets of Fairview with his eyes peeled for trouble that never came.

  When he woke in the morning, he had the peculiar sensation that the Bell brothers had escaped with Buford in the night. He slammed his boots on and buckled his gunbelt around his hips and flew out the front door of the hotel with his hat in hand. When he reached the jailhouse he was huffing and his face was red. He pushed open the door and stepped through with his hand near the butt of the Dragoon, but there was Buford sitting sour-faced in his cell, ready with a list of insults.

  The sheriff unlocked the cell and handed Buford over. Joe drove up with the stage. They loaded him, locked the door, and left the town with its mediocre views behind them.

  Four days later they reached Cumberland. Its name was posted on a sign beside a stage road, and Joe guided the draft team onto the worn track and into what could almost be called a city. It had its own stage station, which was the first thing they passed. Though all three were hankering for a home-cooked meal, none was fool enough to suggest eating at the restaurant connected to the station. They drove through a maze of streets, some wide, others narrow, shops and stores lined on each one. At a leatherworker’s shop Balum asked a man in a thick apron where the jail was located. The leatherworker held a hide scraper in his hand. He raised it up and jabbed in the direction they were already pointed and told them two more blocks.

  The jail, when they found it, was large enough and busy enough to employ not only a sheriff, but two deputies also. They had six separate cells for prisoners, three of which were already full of drunks and cheats and a strange-looking fellow dressed in uncured hides. The deputy on duty took Buford off their hands and told them it was no hassle.

  “He’s got five brothers that would like to bust him out,” said Balum. “It’s been over a week since we’ve seen them, but they’re around, you can bet on it.”

  The deputy puffed his chest. “We haven’t lost a prisoner since the jailhouse was built. This place is solid. There’s always someone on duty, day or night. He’ll be here in the morning.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Balum. “Those brothers of his look fairly similar to him. Any chance you’ve seen them around?”

  “Cumberland’s a big town. New folks come in all the time. I haven’t seen any that look like the ones you’re talking about, but I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  Outside the jailhouse, the three split up. Joe to the livery with the stage and horses, Caleb to scout out a restaurant that might serve something worth eating. Balum’s was tasked with finding lodging for the night. They agreed to meet back up in front of the jailhouse in an hour, then parted in separate directions.

  The stretch of the legs felt like a gift from heaven. For too long Balum had been cooped up on that driving bench. He counted off the days in his head, but too many had passed to keep track. The town around him was too interesting not to take notice of. It had its banks and offices, stores selling fabric, a haberdashery, two barbershops, a coffin maker, several carpenters, more than one blacksmith, and that was all on just one single street. He turned up another and lost himself among pedestrians shuffling about their daily business. Men with pocket watches and fine suits, an old war veteran with two stumps for legs begging before a cantina. Children had left the schoolhouse. They played jacks in the street and around them swerved horses and carriages and an old farmer herding a flock of goats with a polished stick.

  Another couple blocks on, Balum found three hotels side by side. Each rose up two stories in the air, and all three had false fronts that gave the impression of yet a third story on top. He stood in the street with his hands on his hips and spat a bead of tobacco juice into the dust. Any of them would do.

  He chose the one with the most inviting lettering painted on its sign and walked through the double doors. Inside, the floor had been recently swept. Two chairs and a small table rested in the center. Along one wall was a desk with keys hanging on hooks behind it.

  Balum crossed the swept floor and leaned his elbows on the desk. After a minute’s wait he called out. His voice echoed down the hallway that stretched into the belly of the hotel. Along the length of it were doors on either side, and from one of these came a young girl with a bucket and mop. She looked down the hallway into the reception area, then set the bucket on the floor with the mop propped on the wall beside it and walked the length of the hall.

  “Good afternoon,” she said.

  “Ma’am,” Balum tipped his hat. “I’m looking for three rooms for the night. I got the right place?”

  “You do. Can you give me a moment though? I’m nearly finished with the cleaning. Have a seat, I’ll be out in a moment.” She turned back the way she’d come and disappeared down the hallway.

  Balum walked to the two chairs in the center of the reception area and sat on the one facing the doors. He crossed one leg over a knee and stared blankly at nothing. The peaceful silence of the hotel was a welcome change from the constant creaking of the stage wheels and Buford’s ever-cantankerous
presence. He allowed his mind to wander. He thought of Caleb perusing the town for a proper restaurant. He thought of the few saloons he’d just passed by and wondered what games they might offer inside. The chair beneath him was plush and comfortable. He sank into it along with his thoughts.

  A soft tread of footsteps crossed the floor behind him. The reception girl, he figured. He didn’t bother to turn around. Suddenly two hands swept over his head. They cupped his eyes, blocking his vision entirely. He jerked in his seat and dropped a hand to the Dragoon. In that split second of thought he weighed the option of drawing the revolver and shooting blindly into the body behind him, when suddenly a voice in his ear stopped him.

  “Guess who, Balum,” it came in a soft whisper.

  Balum stilled his hand. He caught the whiff of perfume, and at the base of his neck he felt something soft and warm pressing against his skin. There was something in that voice he recognized, something in the smell. It sent his heart pumping faster and caused a stirring in his loins.

  The hands came away. Charlise circled around the chair with a mischievous smile. She bent at the waist and pursed her lips together, and Balum felt his eyes widen at the sight of the woman’s massive cleavage jiggling in front of him. To his right appeared Cynthia, giggling with a gloved hand over her mouth.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  Charlise gave him a slap on the thigh. “Watch your language, Balum; you’re in the presence of ladies.”

  Ladies , thought Balum. Ladies unlike any he’d met before. The way they were dressed, their enormous breasts scrunched up by corsets and spilling from their dresses, they looked more like painted whores. He felt his cock swell at the sight of them. The memories came tumbling back-- the sounds of their moans and the feel of their tongues in his mouth. He had the urge to grab Charlise by the waist and bury his face in her breasts, but he fought it, aware on some level that he was not in Charlise’s Place in Bette’s Creek, but in another place altogether. A public place. A place where he needed to behave himself.

  “I wondered if I’d ever run across you two again,” he said.

  “Well you have,” said Charlise. “And just in time.”

  “Just in time?”

  “We need a little favor from you, Balum.”

  “I’m sure I can help,” he said, blissfully ready to please them. His head swiveled from one to the other. It was truly incredible how similar the two looked. The degree of voluptuousness contained within their dresses seemed something absurd, something scandalous, and the fact that they had greeted him in such a provocative manner sent his head floating like it was detached from his neck.

  “What are you doing sitting out here in reception?” said Cynthia. “Don’t you have a room?”

  “I will in a moment. I’m waiting on the cleaning.”

  “Let’s take him to our room, mommy,” said Cynthia. “It’ll be safer there anyway.”

  “Here, Balum,” Charlise extended a hand. “Come with us.”

  He took her hand in his. The warmth of her fingers further engorged his cock. Again the urge to grab her and smother himself against her body took hold of him. He stood from the chair.

  “What’s the favor?” he asked.

  “We heard you have a stagecoach. We need a little ride is all.”

  “Ah,” Balum mumbled. He barely comprehended her answer. She led him by the hand toward the hallway, and already his mind was leaping ahead to what they would do once they were behind closed doors. Before they reached the women’s room, Balum’s head cleared enough to ask a question. “How did you know I have a stage?”

  “We overheard some men talking about you,” said Charlise.

  “Men?”

  “Foul and dirty,” said Cynthia.

  “Five men? Black curly hair, boney faces?”

  “That’s them.”

  “I know them,” said Balum. “I expected I’d run into them in one of these towns sooner or later.”

  “Actually,” said Cynthia, “there were six.”

  “Six?”

  “That’s why we’re taking you to our room, silly. Like we said, you’ll be safer there.”

  “Safer?” Balum felt as though only half his brain was working. The smell of the women’s perfume intoxicated him. He was worse than drunk.

  “They were talking to another man about killing you. He said he’d do it but that he wanted to kill some indian man first.”

  Cynthia put the key into the lock and turned it. She pushed the door open and Charlise tugged at Balum’s hand to pull him inside, but the fog had lifted from his head.

  “What did the sixth man look like?” he said.

  “Disgusting,” said Charlise. “It looked like he’d been scalped. The whole top of his head was one big scab.”

  The memory of that rainy night in the woods leapt back into his head. He saw Joe’s blade glinting in the firelight, heard the panicked shrieks rise through the trees.

  Balum dropped Charlise’s hand. “Long Fingers!” he shouted, and turned and raced down the hallway and out through the hotel’s double doors.

  16

  Without looking, Balum jumped into the street. A buckboard wagon nearly plowed him over. The driver swerved, tipping the wagon on two wheels for a moment before it slammed back down.

  “Watch where you’re going!” shouted the driver.

  Balum ignored him. He ran aimlessly down the street, looking all about for Joe or Caleb. When he spied the legless veteran begging for alms, he asked where the livery was situated.

  “Couple blocks thataway,” the veteran pointed. Balum ran where the finger dictated. Behind him the man called out, “Hey, ain’t that worth something?”

  Balum heard the words. He knew the man would have his arm extended, palm turned up, but he had no time to turn and drop a coin into it. He raced down the street, hurdling the schoolchildren’s game of jacks, crashing through the goats bleating in front of the shepherd’s staff.

  At the far edge of town where the grass was thin stood a giant barn with a corral beside it. Outside was parked the stagecoach. Balum reached it in a dead run and grabbed the young liveryboy by the arm.

  “Where’s the man who dropped off that stage?”

  “The indian?”

  “Is he here? Where’d he go?”

  “He took off, mister. I didn’t think to ask him where he was headed.”

  Balum let the boy’s arm go. An hour had not passed. There was no reason why Joe would be sitting at the jail when all around were things to gawk at. Yet there was nowhere else Balum could think to go. He took off in a run again, looking for Joe, Caleb, any of the five Bell brothers, or Long Fingers himself, all at the same time.

  By the time he reached the jailhouse a stabbing pain was knifing his gut and his lungs felt like they’d been cut to shreds. As he figured, Joe was not outside. He burst through the door but neither was his partner inside, only the two deputies jawing at one another and the motley ensemble of deadbeats behind bars.

  He turned back through the door without a word of explanation and staggered back into the street where a few of the passerby had turned to look.

  “Has anybody seen an indian?” he shouted into the street. “Half-Apache, long black hair. My height.”

  “I seen him,” answered a man hauling a sack of beans over his shoulder. “He was walking around with a big black feller. I thought I was seeing things.”

  “Where?”

  “Claire’s Creamery, just up the street. They’s standing outside eating ice cream. I said to myself, ‘now what in all tarnation is an injun and a big black…”

  Balum took off in a run again. The bean hauler’s words trailed off behind him. He pushed through a crowd of gamblers exiting a saloon and ran through a cross street without looking either way. Along the boardwalk stood women with parasols gazing through store windows. A boy was struggling along with a barrel of chicken eggs, and tied in front of each store were horses of all sizes and colors, some with their m
uzzles in water troughs, and others standing like stone statues, their swishing tails the only sign of life.

  Beyond all this Balum spied Caleb’s head sticking up a foot taller than the multitude of people wandering past him. Joe’s black hair shimmered beside him. He kept running, sidestepping around the pedestrians, craning his neck back in an attempt to spot Long Fingers. His eyes flashed over the hats and bonnets, over horse ears and carriage tops, and finally over a scabbed dome, wrinkled and burnt by the sun.

  The scalped assassin came to a stop on the boardwalk directly opposite the creamery. He wrapped his long bony fingers around his gun butt and as he drew, Balum screamed Joe’s name in a hoarse and violent burst.

  Long Fingers’ gun blasted and people dropped and scattered. Balum drew the Dragoon but all around Long Fingers were women and children. They ran every which way in a flurry of confused shouts, made more frantic as Long Fingers slapped back the hammer with his palm and flung more lead into the creamery. Bullets shattered the glass windows, smacked into the storefront. Joe had dropped and rolled, and he continued to roll, pulling his gun even as bullets clipped the ground beside him.

  The shots from Long Fingers’ gun smacked in quick, deafening succession, and stopped suddenly. People’s initial screams had played out. They’d run for cover and now they held their breath in silent crouches. The street turned so quiet so suddenly that the sound of Long Fingers’ pin firing on empty cylinders clicked out across the street like a telegraph machine transmitting some cryptic message.

  Joe rose from where he’d fallen. He moved without any apparent injury, and Balum could see no blood stains on his clothing. Glass from shattered windows crunched underfoot. It mixed into spilled ice cream and splintered wood. He raised the gun in an easy motion and Long Fingers flung his own revolver into the street and flared his hands out and yelped.

  “I ain’t got no bullets!” he shouted. “I’m unarmed. You can’t shoot no unarmed man!”

  Joe considered this a moment. He lowered his gun. He dropped it in his holster and said something to Caleb, who stood not far away. Caleb drew out a mean looking knife with a blade slightly curved at the tip, and passed it to Joe.