Blood Storm

by Bill Brooks

  Kip directed Cole into the kitchen, had him sit on a chair, and lit the lamp in the center of the table. There were several silk scarves lying next to the lamp.

  “See, while you was gone and I was doing my thinking about all that money you promised but never showed me, I figured out how I was going to do this. I went into the ladies’ rooms and found them silk scarves. You ever been tied up with silk scarves, John Henry? I hear it’s getting to be all the rage in the Denver whorehouses.”

  When he had finished tying Cole’s hands behind his back and his legs to the chair rungs, he straightened and admired his handiwork. “There, you’re all set for the ball,” he said. “That ought to keep you until I get back from my negotiations.”

  “What if Leo decides to put a bullet in your brain instead of money in your pocket?”

  Some of the grin fell away. “Why would he do that? It’s you he wants. Most men are willing to pay for what they want.”

  “If you think Leo’s the sort of man that would hand over two thousand dollars easily, you don’t know Leo.”

  “He might with a little convincing,” Caine said, spinning the cylinder of his Navy.

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “Well, if he don’t, he don’t. Then I guess I’ll find that sweet woman you’re so fond of, the one who owns this fancy house, and get her to pay for you. How’s that sound . . . like a plan, or what?” He slid the pistol into his waistband. “I’ll go over there soon’s it gets daylight. As he spoke, he sat down opposite the table from Cole. “No sense waking Leo up and having him in a bad mood. I’ll catch him at breakfast. A man don’t mind talking when he’s having his breakfast.”

  “All that money.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s going to buy you misery.”

  He grunted again. “You think so?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “I’ve got to give it to you, John Henry, even trussed up like a hog waiting for the butcher, you’ve got cojones. Tell me how it was, shooting King Fisher like you done. Did it feel good to kill that son-of-a-bitch, or what? I bet when he felt that bullet going through his vitals he just about shit his pants.”

  “You know what I think it felt like?”

  “What?”

  “About the same way it’s going to feel when I put a round through you, Kip. Only maybe a little better.”

  “Well, how do you think you’re going to manage, all tied up like a hog the way you are?” He grunted in that strange way he had of laughing, half the sound coming through his nose.

  The two didn’t talk for a while after that, waiting for the sky to break dawn. A couple of times, Kip rose and walked to the window and looked out, rubbing the frost off the panes with the heel of his hand.

  “Snowing like a son-of-a-bitch,” he said every time he looked out. “Never seen so much god-damn’ snow. Soon’s I get my hands on that money, I’m heading south, far as I can get south. Maybe Mexico, some place like that.”

  Then he would sit back down across from Cole and smoke himself a cigarette and blow the smoke in Cole’s direction. And sometimes he would take out the Whitney and rotate its cylinder between his thumb and forefinger, enjoying the clicking sounds it made. “Killed lots of men with this piece,” he bragged at one point. “Killed Little Ray Barger over near Fargo on the Red River with it. You remember Little Ray?”

  When Cole didn’t answer, he continued as though Cole had asked him to tell all about it. “Little Ray was standing on the back porch, brushing his teeth. He was wanted for cattle rustling, stealing off the big bosses up that way. They put out a five-hundred-dollar reward on him.” Kip aimed his pistol at some imaginary figure, squinted his eye, sighting down the barrel. “They say Little Ray had the best teeth of any outlaw that was ever killed in the territory. I imagine it was because he brushed ’em so regular, wouldn’t you think?” He lowered the Whitney and looked at Cole, the side of his mouth turned up in a half grin. “Anyway, Little Ray wasn’t the only man I ever shot with this. There’s been others, and there’ll be more, I reckon. Maybe even you, John Henry.” He showed Cole the piece again by aiming it at him.

  Then there was more silence, more trips to look out the window at the falling snow, searching the sky for the first sign of daybreak.

  “What time you figure a man like Leo gets up in the morning?” Kip asked.

  Cole didn’t know and didn’t care, so he let Kip draw his own conclusions.

  “It’s interesting how time can go so damn’ slow when you got nothing to do, ain’t it? But when you’re having fun, like if you’re with a good-looking woman or winning at cards, time goes by just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I don’t suppose you ever thought about things like time, have you, John Henry?” When Cole didn’t answer, he said: “Well, did you ever think about things like why time does what it does?”

  “No.” Cole thought Kip had the mind of a lunatic.

  “Opium,” Kip said. “Makes me think about things, like the way times passes. It’s a whole different world, that opium world is. Damn’ if it ain’t. Could use me a smoke of it now. I ain’t forgot you pulled me out of that Chinaman’s last night and put my head in the water and messed with me. That’s why it feels good, me going over to see Leo, sell you off like some butcher hog to the highest bidder. Leo don’t buy you, I reckon maybe that pretty lady will.”

  “What if they don’t, Kip, what then?”

  “Oh, hell, let’s worry about that when the time comes, all right?”

  He paced over to the window again, looked out. The sky was growing lighter. Maybe an hour more before it was morning. He paced and he sat and drummed his fingers on the edge of the table, and he talked about some of the men he had killed with his Navy revolver. Finally the morning came.

  “You got a watch?” Kip asked.

  “In my pocket.”

  He retrieved it, snapped open the face, and said: “It’s almost eight o’clock. I reckon it’s time to go see Mister Leo. You think he likes bacon with his eggs for breakfast?” He snorted, then he jammed the Navy in his waistband, buttoned his coat, and pulled his hat down to the tops of his ears before walking to the door. “Now, don’t go anywhere,” he said. “You’re like my new bank account. I wouldn’t want to see you get lost.” Then he closed the door behind him, and Cole sat there, wondering if he could have stepped in it any deeper.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  John Henry Cole wondered if maybe Kip Caine had done some rope work in his time, because the knots he’d tied in the scarves were very good ones and he couldn’t work his way loose. He felt like the biggest damned fool in the territory to have trusted a man like Kip Caine, then to have got caught by him with his guard down. Of all the glorious ways Cole had figured on dying, being tied to a chair and having a fat man like Leo Loop walk in and stick the barrel of his pocket pistol into his mouth and pull the trigger wasn’t one of them. But that was the way it was going to end for him unless he could find a way out of the mess he’d fallen into.

  He worked his wrists against the scarves until his flesh burned from trying. It was no use. He finally gave up the effort.

  Funny, Cole reflected, what a man thinks of when he knows he’s about to die. He was thinking about how good a smoke would taste, and a glass of good mash whiskey, and the company of a woman—Zee. He would have liked to take the opportunity to say some things to her that he had never got around to saying when he had had the chance. Then it dawned on him. Liddy wasn’t the first woman to come to mind as someone with whom he would have liked to spend his last few minutes on earth. He figured it told him something he probably needed to know about himself, about Liddy. But in truth, none of it would matter in a few more minutes.

  It felt like a long time had passed since Kip walked out into the cold snowy morning and bid him adiós, but he had left Cole’s Ingersol lying face-up on the table, and, when he checked the time, not more than a minute or two had passed. Suddenly the front door banged open, letting
in a blast of cold snowy air. Something else entered the room besides the weather: Kip Caine and two Mexican vaqueros. The vaqueros wore big sombreros and heavy serapes and they were escorting Kip at the end of their pistols. One kicked the door closed behind him, and the other forced Kip to get down on his knees.

  “Jaysus!” Kip shrieked. “Jaysus!”

  “You be quiet, eh, meester?” ordered the Mexican who was holding his pistol to Kip’s skull. “You be quiet or I’ll have to shoot you. What do you theenk about that?”

  Then the other Mexican came and stood in front of Cole, his pistol pointed at Cole’s face. “You know who I am, Meester John Heenry Col’?”

  “Yeah, I can guess. I never thought you’d ride this far north, though. You people must hold a real strong grudge.”

  “I am Julio Guzman, Francisco Guzman’s cosin,” the Mexican said. “You remember who Francisco Guzman was, don’ you? You remember you shoot heem?”

  “That’s a hard thing to forget.”

  “We almost keeled you in the alley the other night, but then one of you frien’s come by and shot Luis. You a very looky man, señor. Luis was not so looky.”

  “It’s a long way to ride just to take a bullet,” Cole said.

  “So you see, Meester Col’, now you responsible for the deaths of two of our cosins . . . Francisco, and Luis.” Julio shook his head as if he was greatly saddened. “Me and Hijo discussed thees for a long time, what we going to do wit’ you. You know, like a vote. Oh, we going to keel you, sure. Hijo, he’d like to keel you right now. But then I tell heem what I theenk, and he agrees with me. You want to know what I theenk, Señor Col’?”

  Cole really didn’t want to know, so he didn’t ask.

  “What? You hav’ not’ing to say? It don’ matter. I told Hijo, I theenk we should take you back across the Río Grande and keel you there, in our village, where everyon’ can see. You know, like a beeg fiesta. Maybe put ropes around you and drag you behind our caballos. What you theenk of eet?”

  “What the hell are they talking about, John Henry?” Kip cried. “I mean, Jaysus Christ, does everybody in the friggin’ territories want to see you dead?”

  “Shut up, meester!” Hijo ordered as he shoved the barrel of his pistol hard against Caine’s bony skull.

  “Hey, that hurts, god damn it!”

  “Ees going to hurt more, you don’ shut up,” Julio warned him.

  “You should have kept your end of the bargain, Kip,” Cole said. “Now it’s too late. You won’t collect a damned cent. These two vaqueros are the cousins of Francisco Guzman, a Mexican bandit I shot and killed down in Del Río. Francisco was highly thought of by his people, as you can see. Not many Mexicans would ride this far north to avenge a death. They don’t like the winters any better than you do.”

  Julio Guzman pulled a knife from under his serape and cut the silk scarves loose.

  “What we do wit’ heem?” Hijo asked, keeping his pistol pressed to the back of Kip’s skull.

  “Hee’s your frien’?” Julio asked Cole.

  Cole looked at Kip. “No, he’s not my friend.”

  “Tha’s verry bad,” Julio pronounced. “Now we don’ take no pleasure in keeling heem.”

  “Kill me?” Kip cried. “What the hell you going to kill me for? I didn’t do anything! Fact is, I tied him up, made it easy for you to grab hold of him. Don’t that count for nothing?”

  “Face it, Kip, you’ve come down to bargaining with Mexicans, and you know how you always hated Mexicans.”

  Kip’s mouth dropped open by several inches as the one behind him thumbed back the hammer of his pistol.

  “I never said I hated Mexicans!” Kip squalled.

  Hijo pulled the trigger, only the pistol didn’t fire. The hammer fell on a dud. Kip screamed, lashed out, and struck the Mexican just below the belt, causing the vaquero to cry out in agony. This sudden act caused Julio to take his attention from Cole for just as long as it was needed, maybe two seconds, and Cole pulled his self-cocker and shot him. The round caved him in and he fell face forward with a groan.

  Kip Caine was scrambling to his feet, trying to make the back door when Hijo pulled the trigger a second time, and this time the round went off, catching Caine in the middle of his spine and crashing him against the doorjamb. Maybe if Hijo hadn’t been so upset with Kip for hitting him where a man least likes it, he might have thought things out and tried to shoot Cole first. It was a fatal mistake on Hijo’s part. When Cole shot him, he toppled over and did not move.

  For a few long seconds, there was a silence in the room that was greater than any other silence. Both of the Mexicans lay dead or dying. Kip was lying on his side, near the door, a moan escaping his lips as his hand still sought to reach up for the doorknob, trying to escape the house. Cole stepped over the body of Hijo, looked down into his youthful brown face. He was too young to die, but Cole opined he hadn’t thought of that away back when he crossed the Río Grande with Julio and the other cousin, Luis. They were young hot bloods that had made a pact to avenge the death of Francisco Guzman. It was a matter of honor to them, and now they were dead. Francisco was still killing from his grave. Maybe now, this would be the end of it, maybe no more cousins would ride across the border when these three didn’t return. Maybe Cole could finally put it to rest, the death of Francisco Guzman. He knelt beside Kip, looked into his troubled eyes.

  “That Mexican got me good, di’nt he?” Cole looked at the spreading stain of blood on the back of his coat. “Can’t god damn believe I ended up this way.”

  “How did you think it would end, Kip?”

  “Wha . . . ?” His eyes searched Cole, trying to understand the question.

  “I was just curious.”

  “I can’t move my legs . . . Jaysus Christ!”

  “You want a drink?” Cole asked.

  “My hands are cold. . . .”

  Cole went to search the cupboards until he found the decanter of cognac. He grabbed a couple of drinking glasses and returned to where Kip was lying. “I’ll help you sit up,” he said, reaching under Kip’s arms and pulling him up so his back rested against the doorjamb.

  “I don’t feel nothing,” Kip said. “Maybe it ain’t so bad, after all.”

  Cole poured each of them a glass of the cognac. “Try this.”

  Kip drank it and said: “What is this?”

  “Cognac.”

  Kip blew out air through his cheeks. “You were right,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “About how that money was going to bring me misery.”

  “It usually does.”

  “Well, least you was wrong about them damn’ rules.”

  “How so?”

  “You said, if I broke the rules, it’d be you that killed me. Didn’t prove out that way, did it?”

  “No, Kip, it didn’t.”

  His hand reached up and took hold of the front of Cole’s coat; his knuckles turned white gripping it. Sweat was a sheen on his face. His eyes were beginning to lose their light. “Jaysus, but I’m afraid of what’s on the other side, John Henry. . . .”

  “Maybe it’s not so bad.”

  “I always thought I’d live a long time. Most of the men in my family lived a long time. But then . . . they di’nt do the same kinda work as me.” He coughed. The blood was spreading out on the floor below him. His hand, the one holding onto the front of Cole’s coat, shook hard. “Jaysus! I’m afraid I’m going . . .” He gasped. “I’m so god damn’ afraid . . . of dying.”

  “We all are, when it comes down to it, Kip. You’re no different that way. I’ve got a feeling it’s really a lot easier than it seems.”

  He stared at Cole in a strange way. “You mean maybe it’s like . . . going . . . to sleep . . . somethin’ like that?”

  “Maybe like that.”

  “Oh, no!” he cried suddenly, then took a deep breath and let it out. “Oh, hell no!” His eyes moved upward until they showed white and his mouth opened and closed, and h
is hand yanked at Cole’s coat. “No! No!” Then his lips moved like he was saying something to someone, only no words came out. He eyes were back with a look in them like they were seeing something only he could see. That went on for maybe a minute, then his face relaxed, and his hand fell away from the front of Cole’s coat.

  Cole eased him back down again. Kip Caine no longer had to worry about leaving Deadwood with empty pockets. He no longer had to worry about how cold the winters would get. Just like King Fisher and Johnny Logan and Bill Hickok and the three vaqueros, Kip Caine would be spending eternity in the shadows of the Black Hills.

  The door opened slowly and Cole brought the self-cocker around.

  “You can put that away,” Miguel Torres said, looking around the room. “It looks like you’ve been busy.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Miguel Torres stepped around the bodies and helped himself to the cognac, then rolled a cigarette and claimed a chair to sit in.

  “I lost count,” he said.

  “Of what?” Cole asked.

  “The number of men you’ve killed since the trip up.”

  “What are you doing here, Miguel? I thought you were looking for Shag Hargrove.”

  “I found him.”

  Cole wanted to make a cigarette, but his tobacco pouch was empty. “Can you let me have the makings?”

  Miguel pulled them his from his coat pocket and handed them to Cole. “Say, this is damn’ interesting liquor, what is it?”

  “Cognac.”

  The cigarette tasted good and it improved Cole’s mood. “OK, Miguel, what did you find out from Shag Hargrove?”

  “I found out he’s dead, buried down near Lead.”

  “That’s it?”

  He looked suddenly old. “Didn’t find Robertito.” He scratched behind his ear, tipping his battered hat forward on his head. “That woman, Alice Fournier, the one I went to see over at that boarding house your lady told me about, she told me where I could find Shag. She said she knew Robertito because he and Shag were partners. She said she didn’t know Robertito too well. She said Shag left for Lead after some trouble they had here. I asked her what kind of trouble and she said he and Robertito had found a small strike up north of here, but it was supposedly on some other man’s claim and there had been a dispute. That’s what she called it, a dispute.”