Slaughter of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  I knew the joker, all right. I’d put his renegade boy in my jail a few months earlier, and the punk was peering at the blue skies through iron bars. This feller on a shiny red horse waving nickel-plated Smith and Wesson at me was none other than Admiral Bragg. The boy I was boardin’ in my lockup, he was King Bragg, and his sister, she was Queen Bragg. Mighty strange names bloomed in that family, but who was I to howl? I sure didn’t ask to have Cotton hung on me, and Pickens neither, but that’s how I got stuck, and there wasn’t nothing I could do about it except maybe move to Argentina or Bulgaria.

  Them names weren’t titles, neither. Bragg’s ma and pa, they stuck him with the name of Admiral. If he’d have been in the navy he might have ended up Admiral Admiral Bragg. But the family stuck to its notions, and old Bragg, he named one child King and the other child Queen. It was King Bragg that got himself into big trouble, perforating a few fellers with his six-gun, so I caught him and he would soon pay for his killin’ spree. I think the family was all cheaters. Name a boy King, and the boy’s got a head start, even if he ain’t even close to being an admiral. Name a girl Queen, and she’s got the world bowin’ and scrapin’ even if she ain’t one.

  I was a little nervous, standing there in front of his pa with a bunch of Bragg cowboys pointing their artillery at my chest. Makes a man cautious, I’d say.

  “Drop the pea-shooter, Sheriff,” Admiral Bragg ordered.

  I thought maybe to lift it up and blow him away, which would have been my last earthy deed. It sure was temptin’ and my old pa, he might’ve approved even as he lowered the coffin. Nothing like goin’ out in style.

  But there was about a thousand grains of lead pointing straight at me, and I chickened out. I set her down real slow, itching to pull a trick or two on those rannies. I sure was mad at myself for not spitting a few lead pills before I got turned into Swiss cheese. It just put me out of sorts, but I figured at least I was alive to get my revenge another day. So I set her down slow.

  “Now you get into the buckboard, Sheriff,” said Admiral Bragg. “We’re taking you for a little ride.”

  I got in, sat next to the old fart who held the reins. I knew the feller, old and daft, with a left-crick in his neck that some said was from a botched hanging. He spat, which I took for a welcome, so I settled in beside him. There was still about a thousand grains of lead aimed at me, so I sat there and smiled at those gents.

  The old feller slapped rein over the croup of the dray horse, and we clopped away from there, heading down the two-rut road out of Doubtful in the general direction of the Bragg ranch. I sort of had a hunch what it was about and wasn’t too comfortable thinkin’ about it.

  Bragg was one of the biggest stockmen around Doubtful. He had a spread up in the hills north of town that just didn’t quit, and took a week with a couple of spare Sundays to ride across. He called it the Anchor Ranch, and it sure did anchor a lot of turf. He controlled as much public land as anyone in the West, and had an army of gunslicks to pin it all down, given that it wasn’t his turf but belonged to Uncle Sam.

  I guess that wasn’t so bad; he raised a lot of beef and his men kept the saloons going in Doubtful. Admiral was a tough bird, all right, but I didn’t have no occasion to throw him into the iron-barred cage in the sheriff’s office, so I pretty much ignored him and he ignored me.

  I didn’t like the way that buckboard was surrounded by his gunslicks and we was headin’ out of town, me a little bit against my will. But the bores of all them pieces aimed my way kept me from doing much complainin’ about all that.

  Old Admiral, perched on that shiny red horse, he ignored me, so I didn’t have a notion what this was all about or how it would end. Or maybe I did. All this here stuff had to do with that scummy son of his, King Bragg, who grew up twisted and bad, and got himself into big trouble. From the moment King was big enough to wave a Colt six-gun around, he was doing it, shooting songbirds and bumblebees and gophers and snakes. It must have been a trial for old Admiral to keep that boy in cartridges, because that’s about all that King did. He got mighty fine at it, too, and could shoot better and faster than anyone, myself included. He could put a bullet through the edge of the ace of spades and cut that card in two.

  Well, that kid, soon as he was big enough to ride into town on his own, without his ma or pa, was bent on showing the good citizens of Doubtful who was who. It wasn’t lost on that boy that his pa was the biggest rancher in those parts, and maybe the biggest cattleman in the Territory, if not the whole bloomin’ West.

  He was also fast. Throw a bottle or a can or a silver dollar into the skies, and King would perforate it. He could pretty near sign his name with bullet holes in a tomato can. I had to chase the kid out of a few saloons because he was only fifteen or so, and he didn’t take kindly to it, but that was all the trouble I had, until the day he turned eighteen.

  He come into Doubtful that day, few months ago, on his shiny black stallion, wearing a brace of double-action Colts, a birthday gift from his old man. I didn’t pay no attention, but maybe I should have. I was busy with all that paperwork the Territory wants all the time, full of words I never heard tell of. I don’t lay any claim to being more than fifth-grade schooled, so sometimes I got to get someone who’s got more smarts to tell me what’s what. But I make up for it by being friendly and enforcing the law pretty good.

  Anyway, King Bragg tied his horse up on saloon row—five drinkin’ parlors side by side on the east end of town, catering to the cowboys, ranchers, and wanderers coming in on the pike heading toward Laramie—and wandered into the Last Chance wearing his new artillery. I wasn’t aware of it, or I’d have kicked his ass out. He’s too young to hoist a few shots of redeye, and I’d have turned the brat over my knee and paddled his butt for pretendin’ to be all growed up.

  Well, next I knew, there was a ruckus, a bunch of shots to be exact, and I popped out of my office and hustled over to saloon row. There’s a mess of shouting from the Last Chance, so I hurry over there and it was plain awful. There were three dead cowboys sprawled on the sawdust, leakin’ blood. A few fellers were trying to stanch the flow some, but it was hopeless. That threesome finished up their dying while I watched, and then people were just staring at one another. King Bragg was sitting in the sawdust, his emptied revolver in his hand. The barkeep, he was starin’ over the bar, and them cowboys in there, they were staring at the dead ones, and there’s me, law and order, staring at the whole lot, wondering who did what to who, and why. It wasn’t a very fine moment.

  Well, I asked them cowboys a few questions and then pinched the kid, took him in and locked him up. Got him tried by Judge Nippers, who told the jury the kid was guilty as hell, and sentenced him to hang by the neck until dead. Doubtful, Wyoming, was going to see a hanging in just two weeks. In fact, I’d just hired Lemuel Clegg and his boys to build me a gallows and charge it to Puma County. Meanwhile, the Bragg family lawyer was screechin’ and hollerin’, but it didn’t do no good. That punk killer, King Bragg, was going to swing in a few days and there was nothing I could do about it. Me, I’m all for justice, and with all them dead cowboys lying around, I’m thinkin’ it ought to be sooner, but all that was up to Judge Nippers.

  I sorta thought maybe the ride with Admiral Bragg was connected to that, but I don’t take no credit for smart thinking. Whatever the case, I was being transported by a rattling old buckboard out of town by some pretty mean-lookin’ fellers with a lot of .45 caliber barrels poking straight at me, so I didn’t feel none too comfortable.

  “What’s this here all about, Admiral?” I asked.

  But that wax-haired, comb-bearded blue-eyed snake wasn’t talking. He was just leading that there procession out of Doubtful, with me in the middle. I sure was getting curious. But I didn’t have to wait too long. About two miles out of Doubtful, right where a bunch of cottonwoods crowded the creek, they were steering toward a big old tree, with a mighty thick limb pokin’ straight out. Hanging from that limb was a noose.

  Chapte
r Two

  I sure didn’t like the looks of that noose. That thing was just danglin’ there, swaying in the breeze. That rope, it was thick as a hawser, and coiled around the way them hangmen do it. Like someone done it that had done it a few times and knew what to do.

  Them cowboys and gunslicks was uncommon quiet as we rode toward that big cottonwood, which was in spring leaf and real pretty for May. But I wasn’t paying attention to that. All I was seein’ was that damned noose waiting there for some neck. I was starting to have a notion of whose neck it was waiting for, and that didn’t sit well with my belly. I sure wasn’t a happy sheriff, I’ll tell you.

  It got worse. That old goat driving the buckboard headed straight to that noose, and when it was plain dangling in my face, he whoaed the nag and there it was, that big hemp noose right there in front of me. None of them slicks was saying a word, and none of them had put away their artillery, neither. I knew a few of them. There was Big Nose George, and Alvin Ream, and Smiley Thistlethwaite, and Spitting Sam. They didn’t think twice about putting a little lead into anything alive. You had to wonder why Bragg kept those bozos around. Times were peaceful enough.

  “Admiral, this ain’t a good idea,” I said.

  He laughed softly. You ever hear a man laugh like that, like he was enjoying your fate? Well, it’s not something a person forgets, a laugh like that.

  “I’m the law, Admiral, and you’d better think twice.”

  I was thinkin’ maybe I’d go down fighting, but before I could think longer, that old boy beside me wrapped his knobby old arm around me, and one of them slicks grabbed my hands, yanked them behind me, and wrapped them in thong until my arms were trussed up tighter than a fat lady’s corset. Me, I’m not even thirty and had a lot of juice in me still. I wrestled with them fellers but it was like kicking a cast-iron stove. They knew what they was up to, and had me cold.

  I began thinking them spring leaves coming out on the cottonwood would be about the last pretty thing I’d ever see. I don’t rightly know why I kept that sheriff job but I had. I sorta liked the fun of it, and I was never one to dodge a little trouble. I kinda thought one of my deputies might be hunting for me, but I was just being foolish. Them fellers slept late and played cribbage or euchre half the night in the jailhouse.

  I didn’t need any explanations. Admiral Bragg, he was getting even with me. Hang that boy, hang me. There wasn’t no point in asking a bunch of questions, and no point in trying to talk him out of it. The hard, belly-grabbing truth was that this thing was gonna happen and there wasn’t no way I could jabber and slobber my way out of it.

  But I wasn’t dwelling on it. I was eying the bright blue sky, and hearing some red-winged blackbirds making a racket down on the creek, feeling good mountain air filling my lungs, thinkin’ of my ma and pa, and how they brought me into the world and raised me up.

  I writhed some, but there was a passel of them around me in the buckboard. Strong hands pinned me while one of them slicks pulled off my Five-X gray beaver hat and dropped that big, scratchy noose right over my neck. It was the first time I ever felt a noose and it wasn’t a very good feeling. It was just a big, cold, scratchy twisted rope, and it rested on my shoulders. One of them slicks tugged it pretty tight, and tipped it off to the side a little so as to break my neck.

  I was standin’ there in that buckboard with a noose drawn tight on my young neck, and all trussed up. They backed off and left me standing there, my knees knockin’ and waiting for the final, entire, no-return end. I wondered if Admiral Bragg was gonna preach at me some, tell me it was his brand of justice, or whatnot, but he didn’t. He just nodded.

  That old knobby-armed geezer, he settled down in the wooden seat of the buckboard, me standing in the bed, and then he let loose with his whip. He smacked the dray right across the croup, and away it went, jerking me plumb off my pins as the wagon got yanked out from under me. I tumbled past the wagon and started down, feelin’ that hemp yank hard at my neck and jerk my head back. Then I felt myself topple to the ground, and couldn’t figure what happened. I wasn’t dead yet. Maybe it was just the last gasp. I banged myself up some, hitting that dirt so hard, landing on a cottonwood root. I was really hurtin’ and that noose was as tight as a necktie at a funeral. Pretty quick I was starin’ up at the sky, seein’ lots of blue and the pale green of them cottonwood leaves.

  “Now you know what a hanging is,” Admiral said.

  That was the dumbest thing ever got said to me.

  They rolled me over and cut that thong that had me tied up like some beef basting on a spit. I felt some blood return to my wrists and hands, and I flexed my fingers, discovering they was alive, all ten, or eleven, or whatever I got. They loosened that scratchy hemp and pulled that thing loose and tossed it aside. One of them slicks even slapped my Five-X gray beaver Stetson down on my head. Then they let me stand up, even if my legs was trembling like a virgin in a cathouse.

  I couldn’t think of nothing to do, so I slugged Admiral—one gut-punch and a roundhouse to his jaw. He staggered back as my boot landed on his shin.

  That might not have been too smart, but it sure was satisfying. He let out a yelp and in about two seconds half of them slicks was pulling me off and holding me down. I figured they’d just string me up for certain, and make no mistakes, but Admiral, he got up, dusted off his hat, wiped some blood off his lip, and smiled.

  It sure was getting strange.

  All them slicks let go of me. I was of a mind to arrest the bunch for manhandling a lawman, but the odds weren’t good. I never got a handle on arithmetic, and took long division over a few times, but I know bad odds when I see them.

  Admiral Bragg, he spat a little more blood, and nodded.

  That old knobby-armed geezer, he fetched that hemp rope and brought her over to me, but he wasn’t showing me the noose end. I was more familiar with that end than I even wanted to be. No, he showed me the other end, which had been razored across, clean as can be, save for one little strand that sort of wobbled in the morning breeze. I hated that strand; it pretty near did me in.

  They’d cut that rope, and I sure wondered why. The whole deal was to scare the bejabbers out of me, and it sure as hell did.

  “King won’t be so lucky,” Admiral Bragg said.

  “No, but neither was them three he killed.”

  “He didn’t kill them.”

  “I saw them three lying in the sawdust. Every last one a cowboy with the T-Bar Ranch.”

  “You jumped to conclusions.”

  “There was the barkeep and two others, saying King Bragg done it. They testified in court to it.”

  “You’ve got two weeks to prove that he didn’t do it. Next time, the rope won’t be cut.”

  “You tellin’ me to undo justice?”

  “I’m telling you, my boy didn’t do it, and you’re going to spring him.”

  “That boy’s guilty as hell, and he’s gonna pay for it.”

  Admiral Bragg, he scowled. “I’m not going to argue with you. If you’re too dumb to see it, then you’ll hang.”

  Me, I just stared at the man. There was no talkin’ to him.

  “Get in the wagon, or walk,” Bragg said. “I’m done talking.”

  I favored the ride. I still was a little weak on my pins. I climbed aboard next to the geezer, and the buckboard rattled back to town, surrounded by Bragg and his gunslicks and cowboys. They took me straight to Belle’s rooming house. I got out and they rode off.

  The morning was still young. I’d already been hanged and told I’d be hanged again. It sure was a tough start on a nice spring day.

  I looked at them cottonwoods around town and saw that they were budding out. The town of Doubtful was about as quiet as little towns get. I didn’t feel like doing nothing except go lie down, but instead, I made myself hike to Courthouse Square, where the sheriff’s office was, along with the local lockup.

  Bragg made me mad, tellin’ me I was too dumb to see what was what.

  Doubtful w
as doing its usual trade. There was a few ranch wagons parked at George Waller’s emporium, and a few saddle horses tied to hitch rails. A playful little spring breeze, with an edge of cold on it, seemed to coil through town. It sure was nicer than the hot summers that sometimes roasted northern Wyoming. I was uncommonly glad to be alive, even if my knees wobbled a little. I smiled at folks and they smiled at me.

  At the courthouse, which baked in the sun, I made my way into the sheriff’s office. Sure enough, my undersheriff, Dusty, was parked there, his boots up on a desk.

  “Where you been?” he asked.

  “Getting myself hanged,” I said.

  Dusty, he smiled crookedly. “That’s rich.”

  I didn’t argue. Dusty wouldn’t believe it even if I swore to it on a stack of King James bibles.

  “You fed the prisoner?”

  “Yeah, I picked up some flapjacks at Ma Ginger’s. He complained some, but I suppose someone with two weeks on his string got a right to.”

  “What did he complain about?”

  “The flapjacks wasn’t cooked through, all dough.”

  “He’s probably right,” I said. “Ma Ginger gets it wrong most of the time.”

  “Serves him right,” Dusty said.

  “You empty his bucket?”

  “You sure stick it to me, don’t ya?”

  “Somebody’s got to do it. I’ll do it.”

  Dusty smiled. “Knew you would if you got pushed into it.”

  I grabbed the big iron key off the peg and hung my gunbelt on the same peg. It wasn’t bright to go back there armed. King Bragg was the only prisoner we had at the moment, but I wasn’t one to take chances. I opened up on the gloomy jail, lit only by a small barred window at the end of the front corridor. Three cells opened onto the corridor. King was kept in the farthest one.

  He was lyin’ on his bunk, which was a metal shelf with a blanket on it. The Puma County lockup wasn’t no comfort palace. King’s bucket stank.

  “You want to push that through the food gate there?” I asked.