“Unless you got a warrant for my arrest,” John whistled, “I suggest you get the hell off my property. All of you! Like right now.”
“I will be seein’ you, John Lee,” Josiah said. “Bet on it. I just hope it ain’t lookin’ at you down the barrel of a gun.”
“Get off my property!” John screamed, spraying spit.
The men turned their horses and rode off, back toward Nameit.
“Has he lost his mind?” Bam asked over coffee in the marshal’s office.
“His bucket don’t go all the way down into the well water,” Josiah said, “but he’s got sense enough to know what he’s doin’ is wrong. I been in insane asylums. he ain’t got the look of them folks. You can feel sorry for them people; there ain’t no pity in my heart for John Lee, his son, nor any man who’ll ride with them.”
“What now?” Pen asked.
“We do some nightridin’ of our own. Startin’ tonight. And while my officers might frown on this—frown, hell, they’ll fire me if they get wind of it—we got to fight fire with fire. So this is what we’re gonna do . . .”
Josiah, Matt, Sam, Pen, and Bam were dressed in dark dusters, riding horses they had brought back in from the dead outlaws now residing in the crap pit back of the trading post in New Mexico. They wore bandanas around their faces and their hats were pulled down low.
“Would you believe, after all the things that’s been said about me,” Pen said, “I ain’t never wore a mask in my life, nor have I ever stole anything.” He thought for a moment. “Exceptin’ that time when I hadn’t eaten in a week and I rustled me a beeve.”
Josiah smiled under his mask. “After the war, they was thousands of cattle roamin’ the Texas countryside, belongin’ to nobody. I’ve roasted me a chunk of somebody’s beef over a fire a time or two myself.”
“Josiah!” Sam said, disbelief in his voice. “You, of all people. I’m shocked.”
“I know you are, Sam. ’Course, when you was growin’ up in the Cheyenne village with your daddy and mama, y’all never dined on no stolen beef, did you?”
“Ummm,” Sam said. “Well . . .” He trailed off with a laugh.
“We been sittin’ here for two hours,” Bam said, after consulting a pocket watch. “Maybe John Lee ain’t gonna send no nightriders out this evenin’?”
“Quiet!” Sam said, holding up a hand. He dropped down and put his ear to the ground. “Here they come. A lot of them, riding straight from Broken Lance range.”
The men mounted out and adjusted their bandanas. They put the reins in their teeth and filled their hands with .44’s and .45’s. No one had to speak. They had gone over this plan several times, and there was nothing legal about it. If they found Broken Lance gunnies riding that night, they were going to ride among them and empty some saddles, and to hell with what the law books said. It was like some folks were fond of saying: There ain’t no law west of the Pecos.
“Now!” Josiah said through clenched teeth and knee-reined Horse. Horse jumped on command and the men were riding hell-for-leather into a crowd that outnumbered them ten to one.
When they got into range, the lawmen could see raiders were wearing dark dusters and eye-slit hoods over their heads. They opened fire and the night was pocked with flashes of muzzle blasts, and the air was filled with the screaming of horses, the painful shouting of wounded men, and the churning of dust from more than two hundred steel-shod hooves.
The lawmen emptied their guns during the first charge, holstered them, and pulled out two more from belts looped on the saddle horns and wheeled around, heading back into the fray.
Matt’s horse knocked one nightrider to the ground, then mangled him under his hooves. Sam fired pointblank into a hired gun’s face and the face blossomed in crimson. Bam emptied two saddles and Pen, out of ammo, began smashing and slashing any head that came into arm’s length. Josiah screamed like a Comanche and that was the cue to get gone, and the men vanished into the dust-stormed night, leaving behind them death, horrible wounds, and mass confusion.
They headed for Nameit, changed mounts along the way, where they had put spare horses that afternoon, and were seated in the saloon having a late supper and a mug of beer when the wounded men began trickling in.
Vonny Dodge was seated alone at a table, a bottle of whiskey in front of him. He had greeted the lawmen with a curt hello, and that told them the old gunfighter wanted to be left alone. They left him alone.
John Lee stormed into the bar, followed by his son, his foreman, and a dozen gunhands.
“Finch!” John thundered and whistled. “Some of my men were coming into town this evening for cards and drinks and were bushwacked by a bunch of masked road agents and thugs. I’ve got ten or twelve dead and at least that many wounded. What do you intend to do about it?”
Josiah sopped up the last of his gravy with a hunk of bread, popped it into his mouth, and chewed reflectively. He swallowed and said, “Well, sir, I would suggest you take them to see Doc Winters.”
“Goddammit, Finch!” John Lee yelled and sprayed spit through the gap in his teeth, top and bottom. “Don’t you get smartmouthed with me. I demand that you and your . . . fellow Rangers there investigate this atrocity.”
“Yeah, we’ll do that, John Lee. Just as soon as we conclude our investigation of who killed Ed Carson and his wife, who shot up the Circle S ranch, who killed the Flyin’ V hand, Sonny, and who massacred that rancher and his wife and children the other day. I ’spect we’ll get around to your problem about this time next year. If you’re lucky. But now, if you don’t feel we’re actin’ quick enought to suit you, you can write Ranger HQ in Austin. I’m sure they’ll send more men in here.”
John Lee was so angry he looked like he was going to bust a gut trying to contain his rage. His face actually turned a dark shade of purple.
“Let’s do it, Papa!” Nick whistled and slurred. “Come on, let’s do it.”
“Shut up, boy!” the father warned him.
Vonny Dodge laughed at them. “What language are you two speakin’? Sounds to me like a drunken Digger Injun tryin’ to quote Shakespeare.”
Nick turned, his face flushed. “Don’t you make fun of me, you old fart!”
“You better hold the reins tight on that kid of yours, John Lee,” the old gunfighter said. “ ’Fore I take them fancy guns of his and feed ’em to him.”
“I’d like to see you try!” Nick yelled.
“Oh, I won’t try, boy,” Vonny said. “I’ll do.”
“Back off, Nick,” John Lee told his son. “Just back off.”
Pukey Stagg stepped around father and son. “This is what you’re payin’ us to do, Mr. Lee,” he whispered, his lips barely moving. “I’ll handle this one.”
“As you wish,” John Lee said.
“What do you want?” Vonny asked the gunhand.
“Git up, old man,” Pukey ordered.
“My pleasure, boy,” Vonny said. He downed his glass of hooch and pushed his chair back, standing up and stepping away from the table.
“I git word that you’re Vonny Dodge,” Pukey said.
“That’s right, punk. That’s me. Who are you?”
“Stagg.”
“Oh, yeah,” Vonny said. “The one called Pukey. It sure fits. You look like puke.”
“You’ll die for insultin’ me, you old buffalo turd!”
Vonny laughed at him.
Pukey stood tensed, slightly hunched over, his hands hovering over the butts of his guns. Vonny stood tall and relaxed, a slight but hard smile visible under his handlebar mustache. This was nothing new to the old gunfighter. He’d played this scene out dozens of times before Pukey was even a gleam in his daddy’s eye and had left men lying in their own blood on dirty barroom floors from the Cascades to the Mississippi River and from Calgary to Texas.
“I ain’t never had to draw on no old man,” Pukey said. “’Specially one who looks like he needs a crutch to help hold him up.” He laughed confidently. “You sure you don
’t need a nurse to help you haul that Hog-leg out of leather?”
“You don’t worry about me, Pukey,” Vonny told him. “You best be concerned about someone carin’ enough about you to write your mama, tellin’ her where her bad-seed boy is buried.”
“Your old bones will be dust in a rotten box long before that happens, old man,” Pukey snarled.
“Are you talkin’ to build your confidence, punk?” Vonny asked. “Come on, boy, pull them guns and let’s get this over with. I got supper to eat yet.”
A sudden flash of worry passed Pukey’s face. This old coot wasn’t at all scared. He just stood there, smilin’ at him. “Draw, damn you!” Pukey yelled.
“After you, boy,” Vonny said.
“I’d be made fun of the rest of my life if I drew first agin an old geezer like you. Hell, old man, jerk iron if you got the strength to do it. I won’t even start a draw ’til you’re clear of leather.”
“You’re a fool, Pukey,” Vonny told him, the smile gone from his lips and the words flying like chipped ice from his mouth. “You’re just like every damn punk I’ve ever seen. Big guns, big mouth, and a yellow streak runnin’ wide down the center of your back. Why don’t you hang them guns on a peg and go on back home and spend the rest of your days gatherin’ eggs and sloppin’ hogs and milkin’ cows and the like? You don’t want this, punk. You really don’t want it.”
“You can’t call me no coward!” Pukey yelled.
“Boy, I just done it. And you took it. Now wear it and ride on out of here.”
Pukey cussed him until he was breathless. Vonny stood staring at him, unblinking.
“Yellow clear through,” Vonny finally said.
Pukey grabbed for his guns.
Vonny shot him. He pulled iron and plugged Pukey before the man’s fingers closed around the butts of his guns. Smiling, the legendary old gunfighter twirled his .45 and holstered it.
The slug knocked Pukey back, his shirt front blossoming crimson. He put a hand out on a table to steady himself and pulled his left-hand gun.
Vonny let him clear leather before he drew his left-hand .45 with the same smooth, practiced motion. He put his second shot into Pukey’s guts. Pukey’s fancy guns clattered to the floor. The hired gun doubled over as the pain hit him and he slowly sank to his knees, a groan escaping his lips, as one hand went to his chest, the other hand to his belly.
Vonny twirled his left hand .45 and popped it back into leather.
Josiah grinned and said, “Hot damn! I always wanted to see that, and tonight I seen it.”
“Awesome,” Pen whispered.
“At least,” Sam agreed.
“Anybody else want to play my game this evenin’?” the old gunfighter threw out.
“The old goat beat me,” Pukey said. “The old coot really beat me.”
“By God!” Tanner said, stepping around John Lee and son. “Stagg was a friend of mine. You’ll follow him into the grave, old man.”
With a motion that was almost too quick to follow, Vonny jerked both .45’s and blew Tanner back on his boot heels. The gunny stumbled backward, staggering toward the bar. He hit and grabbed the edge, holding on for a moment.
“Damn you, Dodge!” he gasped, his right hand snaking his .44 from leather.
Vonny shot him again, Tanner jerking as the slug tore into his chest. But he would not fall. He managed to get off a round, the slug blowing John Lee’s hat off his head. The rancher yelped and hit the floor. Tanner fired again, the slug hitting Jack Lightfoot’s boot and knocking the heel off of it, sending Lightfoot slamming to the barroom floor, yelling in shock.
Tanner lurched forward, pulling his left-hand Colt from leather and cocking it. His eyes were glazed over and everything was blurry. He fired, the slug knocking a hole in the ceiling.
“Jesus H. Christ!” a muffled yell came from overhead.
Tanner fired his right-hand Colt, the slug striking Pukey in the head and Pukey had no more worries on this earth.
“Somebody shoot that crazy fool!” John Lee whistled from his belly-down position on the floor.
His brave son obliged his daddy’s wishes. Nick jerked out a pistol and shot Tanner through the heart.
“That’s it!” Al said from behind the bar, coming up with a sawed-off shotgun, the hammers eared back. “the next man pulls iron and I fire this blunderbuss smack into the crowd of you Broken Lance boys. Now settle down and get the hell out of my saloon.”
“Your saloon!” John Lee hollered. “I put up the money to build this damn place. Where it used to be,” he added.
Al fired one barrel into the ceiling.
“Holy Crap!” the resident upstairs yelled as the buckshot tore a hole in the ceiling.
“Get out of here!” Al yelled.
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” the man on the second floor yelled. “Just let me get my damn pants on!”
Chapter 18
After the shootout at the saloon, it was all out that the foreman of the Circle S was the legendary gunfighter Vonny Dodge, several of John Lee’s hired guns pulled out. The old gunfighter still had his stuff and knew how to use it. And with Matt Bodine, Sam Two Wolves, and Josiah Finch looking like they were in this to the end, it just added up to more than the hired guns cared to face.
John Lee stood on his front porch and cussed the men as they rode out, his ignoramus son by his side, sneering at the riders.
Cindy spent most of her time in her room in the mansion, alternately cussing her husband and her condition. She ate constantly and had picked up about fifty pounds. Cindy was now about as wide as she was tall, and no joy to be around.
The ambush of the nightriders and the deaths of a dozen of the men had taken more of the steam out of the hired guns of John Lee. John Lee still had a small army at his command, but the men who made up the army were now very wary about riding at night. One Broken Lance rider had ridden up to a small rancher’s house to ask permission to let his horse have a drink. Before he could open his mouth, the rancher blew him out of the saddle with a shotgun. The rancher let the horse drink anyway.
The men of Broken Lance could still ride into Nameit for whiskey and tobacco, but they did so cautiously. Now when they appeared, the townspeople also appeared, with shotguns and rifles and pistols in their hands. They spoke when spoken to, be it a nod of the head or a word, but let it be known they were more than willing and certainly ready to empty a lot of saddles in a very short time.
John Lee did a lot of cussing and stomping around his house. But for the time being, that was all he did. But all that was about to change.
A week after the ambush in the night and the shootout in the saloon, John Lee stepped out on his porch for an after-supper cigar and a brandy. John Lee turned his head just as the rifle boomed, the slug tearing the cigar out of his mouth. The second shot tore a good-sized chunk of wood out of a support porch, and the third shot thudded into the house.
By that time the men of the Broken Lance had the rifleman spotted, circled around him, and managed to take him alive. The missing Jimmy had surfaced.
The men roped him and dragged him to the house.
“I almost got you, you murderin’ son of a bitch!” Jimmy yelled at John Lee.
“But now I got you,” John Lee said, a wicked grin on his face. “What do you think I ought to do with you?”
Jimmy stood and stared at the man.
“Now, the reasonable thing to do would be to turn you over to the law, wouldn’t it, Jimmy?”
“Probably. But you’ve never done a reasonable thing in your life, Lee.”
John Lee stepped off the porch and slapped the young man. “You mind your manners when talking to me, punk.”
Jimmy spat in his face.
John Lee hit him twice in the face, a hard left and right that bloodied Jimmy’s mouth. Jimmy took the blows as stoically as possible; he knew the worst was yet to come.
John Lee stepped back. “But if I was to turn you over to the law, you’d get off. I kno
w how much the other people in this area are envious and jealous of me.”
Jimmy had to laugh at that. “Envious and jealous? Of you? No one is envious and jealous; they just hate your guts, is all.”
That got him more blows to the face.
John Lee stepped back and caught his breath. “I’m gonna see how well you die, boy. Personally, I think you’re just like your old man: a yellow-bellied coward. But we’ll see.” He turned to his foreman. “Strip him buck-assed naked and tie him to a post down by the barn. Then get me a bullwhip.”
Pen Masters pounded on Matt and Sam’s hotel-room door. “Open up, Matt! Hurry up. It’s me, Pen.”
Matt lit the lamp and clicked open his pocket watch. One o’clock in the morning. “Okay, Pen,” he called. “Let me get my britches on.” He almost fell down getting into his jeans and Sam tripped over his boots trying to pull on his britches. Matt flung open the door. By this time, Josiah had left his room and joined Pen in the dark hall.
“What’s up, Pen?” Matt asked.
“Jimmy. He’s alive, but just barely. Somebody dumped him at the edge of town. Buck neeked. John Lee horsewhipped him. He ain’t got long, boys. Come on.”
It was hard to recognize the bloody form as anything human. John Lee had spent hours beating him, stopping only to rest his arm and finally handing the whip over to others. Dr. Winters looked up at the men and shook his head.
“It’s a miracle he’s still alive, much less able to speak. I don’t give him long, and I told him so.”
Matt knelt down beside the cot, swallowing back the bile building in his throat.
“John Lee done it,” Jimmy whispered. “He . . . enjoyed doin’ it. When he’d . . . get tired . . . some other would take . . .” He closed his eyes and Matt thought he was gone. But somewhere deep inside the young man he found the inner strength to continue. “I had three good shots at him and . . . missed . . . all three. They took turns . . . whippin’ me. Cindy watched ’em ’till . . . she got hot and went on back in . . . inside the house. She’s as crazy as all the others.”
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