Seven Days to Hell

by William W. Johnstone

  The Gun Dogs’ weapons were taken and their valuables stolen.

  The pier was in sight. Kate drove the wagon to it, the others could easily follow on foot. She reined in at the pier. The first of their band that she saw there was George St. George.

  “Sorry we’re late but it couldn’t be helped. A bridge was out and we had to go the long way around,” she said.

  “Looks like you made a good job of it anyhow, Kate,” said George, glancing toward the massacre site.

  Swamper gunmen began filtering into the sight, some carrying extra rifles and belt guns looted from the dead Dogs.

  The crowd of onlookers who had taken cover when the shooting started at the pier had scattered to the four winds when the melee erupted on River Street. They were nowhere to be seen, including Sexton Clarke and Dean Valentine.

  Johnny Cross made a point of looking for those two but they were gone like all the others. “Just as well,” he said to himself, not being particularly minded at the moment to mix it up with ace pistolero Clarke.

  Bill Longley caught sight of Johnny and hurried to him. Bill’s face was lit up with unholy glee at the mass slaying he had been a part of.

  “I knew you’d come through all right, Johnny, never doubted it,” Bill said. “Sorry I missed the show.”

  He started to explain about the wagon having to detour but Johnny waved it away. “Knowing you, you’d have run here all by your lonesome if that’s what it took,” he said.

  “I would have, too!” Bill agreed.

  No way the swampers were leaving their dead behind. The Tonkawas among them bundled the body of Gator Al Hutchins in a blanket and reverently loaded him into the wagon bed.

  Wake Spindrift, seriously wounded by two bullets in the back, was carried to the wagon and made as comfortable as possible.

  “Looks bad,” George St. George said, mouth downturned.

  “How bad?” Johnny asked.

  “Real bad.”

  “Hope he makes it.”

  “We all do.”

  “He’s a good man.”

  “The best.”

  “I should have been with you, then this might not have happened,” George St. George said, making a fist and smacking it against his palm.

  “Wake was shot in the back from some skunk inside the saloon. Nothing you could do about that. Roe Brand was posted for just that sort of thing, but the shooter covered himself out of the line of fire,” said Johnny.

  “Still . . .”

  “If Sexton Clarke got in on the play at our backs, neither of us would be here.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “We know that now but there was no way of knowing it then. Trust me: We haven’t seen the last of Clarke.”

  The swampers readied to go. They dared not linger for fear of a chance encounter with a Combine patrol. The gunmen piled into the wagon and Kate gathered up the reins.

  Johnny looked around for the two armed guards Sharkey had posted on the saloon patrons’ horses, but the duo was long gone. Sharkey and company and his customers remained safely battened down inside the Dead Drunk, none having emerged since the slaughter in the street.

  Johnny and Bill cut four horses out of the line at the hitching post: two for themselves and two more for Belle Nyad and George St. George. They would ride on horseback to avoid overloading and slowing down the wagon.

  Roe Brand would make his getaway by water, by the pirogue that he’d tied up to the float. It was his boat and he would no more abandon it than Johnny would have thrown away a good gun.

  Johnny gave Roe Brand a fat fistful of greenbacks. “Tell Sharkey this is for the horses. We’ll leave them at the landing but Halftown is so full of thieves they may not be there for too long. In any case, this should cover the damages.

  “Pay the man and get out fast, no telling when the Combine will come along to stick their noses in.”

  “I’ll be gone in a flash,” Roe said, double-timing it toward the saloon.

  Johnny Cross, Bill Longley, George St. George, and Belle Nyad mounted up. Johnny and George rode west, following River Street where it became a wagon trail snaking through bosky rises and hollows en route to the landing. They would scout for danger along the path.

  Kate set the team in motion, following the moonlit ribbon of dirt road in the direction taken by Johnny and George. Bill and Belle brought up the rear.

  All reached the peninsular landing without incident. It fronted a cove where a steam-powered launch waited to ferry them to Deep Hollow.

  The shallow-draught flatboat steamer had formerly belonged to the Gun Dogs. When the Dogs moved out of Halftown in force, a crew of swampers had overpowered the undermanned skeleton guard left behind at the boat slip, fired up the steam pressure, and piloted the boat to the prearranged rendezvous at the landing site.

  While the swampers boarded the steam launch, Johnny and George hung back with a few others, guarding the site until departure.

  “Here’s something for you, Johnny. You know what this landing’s full name is?” George asked.

  “Nope, can’t say as I do,” said Johnny.

  “Hangman’s Knot Landing—What d’you think of that?”

  “Could be a sign or omen . . .”

  “Maybe, but what kind, good or bad?”

  “Remains to be seen,” Johnny Cross said. “But I’ll tell you this, George: We set out tonight to give Barbaroux a bloody nose and we sure enough did!”

  “But we got bloodied, too,” said George.

  “We’ll just have to hit him harder the next time,” Johnny said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Once the shooters were long-gone, those who had earlier made up the crowd of onlookers began to emerge from their places of cover.

  Staffers and patrons of the Dead Drunk came out to examine the devastation with stunned eyes.

  Revelers from points east on the more brightly lit good-time sections of River Street came out to see the scene of slaughter for themselves.

  Among the first to come into the open and dust themselves off were Risha, Marie, and a few other sporting girls in their immediate circle.

  “Pretty yourselves up, ladies,” Marie said, fussing with her hair, patting her curls back into place. “We could do some serious business tonight. There’s nothing like a killing to make men’s blood run hot.”

  “If that’s true than tonight’s work should put the brutes into a state of monstrous excitement,” said Tally, a dark-eyed blonde with thin straight hair. “I never seen such killing!”

  “Could be, so keep your eyes open for serious prospects, girls,” Marie said.

  “Hey! Wasn’t that Bill Longley there at the end?” asked Jonelle, a plump brunette.

  “Naw, he got run out of the county a long time ago,” scoffed green-eyed Dawn.

  “It was him sure enough,” Marie declared flatly.

  “It surely was!” Risha seconded. “Before him and Cullen Baker had their troubles I used to see Bill on the street here all the time . . . I know him when I see him.”

  “Never you mind about the likes of Bill Longley, dearie,” advised Suze, short haired, hard faced, wiry. “He’s right there at the top of the list in Barbaroux’s bad book—he ain’t long for this world.”

  “’Pears to me he’s done all right so far,” Risha said.

  “He can’t last. He’ll hang like his friend Cullen Baker is gone do next week.”

  “I don’t know about that, Suze. I’m gone keep on rooting for Bill anyway.”

  “Careful where you say that, Risha. You can trust us, but let something like that slip where some Combine spy can hear you and he’ll go telling tales on you and then you won’t be so happy.”

  “Think I care a fig about that?” Risha said saucily.

  “You’d better,” Marie chimed in. “Suze is telling you true. High or low, it ain’t healthy to say you side with an enemy of the Commander.”

  Nearby was a mound of cast-off broken paving stones behind which Sexton
Clarke and Dean Valentine had taken cover when the action got hot. They were now on their feet, brushing the dust from their clothes.

  “This evening’s entertainment turned out to be more amusing than I anticipated,” Sexton Clarke said.

  “Quite a show,” Valentine agreed dryly. “I’m surprised you didn’t mix in, Clarke.”

  “Why should I?”

  “You’re Barbaroux’s top gun, I should think you’d want to protect his interests.”

  “Let me set you straight on that score, my artistic friend, so there’ll be no misunderstandings between us,” Sexton Clarke said, holding up a single admonitory finger. “I’m no ordinary brawler or gunman, I’m a specialist—a duelist. Barbaroux has an army of men to fight his battles . . . though if these so-called Gun Dogs are a sample of the caliber of fighting men in his employ, he had better look to hiring on a more professional grade of recruits.

  “I was brought in to take care of Cullen Baker. By sheer bad luck—his and mine—Baker was taken by what they laughingly call ‘the Law’ in these parts. Baker’s bad luck because he’s doomed to hang, my bad luck because I missed the chance to match my gun against his and kill him. Cullen Baker is a name not without a certain repute and it would have added fresh luster to my laurels to mark him among my list of conquests.”

  “I certainly didn’t mean to minimize your professional abilities, Clarke. No offense meant, I’m sure you understand.”

  “None taken. Yes, Baker’s bad luck is mine, too. Being shot dead by me in a fair duel would have been a far better and more honorable way to die than hanging by the neck from a rope until dead. Pity.”

  “Cullen Baker is fast—very. I know, I’ve seen him in action.”

  “Have you? You interest me, Valentine. Do go on.”

  “It was on the south Arkansas border when they were having a militia war about a year ago. Baker burned down a couple of gunmen in a saloon brawl. He’s trigger quick and a dead shot drunk or sober—when he was sober, which wasn’t too often.”

  “Tsk-tsk. Another gunfighter who needs to bolster his courage with the bottle. I don’t think much of such men,” Clarke sniffed.

  Valentine thought it was more complicated than that but kept his opinion to himself.

  “Friend Barbaroux now keeps me on retainer to handle the next high-ranking triggerman that comes along and dares to defy him,” Clarke went on. “And there will be such a one, and more than one, in such a contentious place as this. I welcome that day and long for a challenge to my abilities . . . Perhaps we saw such a one tonight,” he added.

  “Oh? Who?” Valentine asked, mindful to display a merely casual interest. He had to play this angle carefully to avoid raising Clarke’s suspicions. Valentine knew Johnny Cross right off but preferred to keep his knowledge to himself.

  “Surely you must have noticed: the young man with the left-hand draw who took Viper Teed and several others. Not that the Viper was anything much and the others were worse, but the stranger displayed a smooth technique,” Sexton Clarke said.

  “Do you know him?” Clarke asked, turning his gimlet eyes on Valentine to look him square in the face.

  “No,” Valentine denied blandly.

  “Odd . . . from the look on your face I thought you recognized him.”

  “He looked like someone I thought I knew, but when he moved into the light I saw it wasn’t him.”

  “So?” Clarke shrugged. “In any case his identity cannot remain a mystery for too long. Not after this, tonight. So much killing will raise a big stink.”

  “No doubt about it.”

  “I’ll tell you this, Valentine: That youth with the left-hand draw is a professional gun. His technique, way he handled himself and his weapon . . . the signs are unmistakable. To me, at any rate.

  “I wonder if he has come to the Blacksnake to kill me? That would be truly amusing. I’d welcome the chance to exercise my talents. Despite the Commander’s lavish hospitality on his Big White Boat, and the unexpected novelty of such amusing diversions as tonight, I long to be back in action, doing what I do best.”

  “You like to live dangerously, Clarke.”

  “Not really. False modesty aside, for one of my skills, the risks are minimal. But exhilarating! When and if the time comes for me to try out that youth with the left-hand draw, the encounter will be exciting for me but not very dangerous at all.”

  Valentine took a light tone. “Speaking as a devout coward, I prefer to dodge the gunfights and enjoy living the good life on Barbaroux’s floating pleasure palace.”

  “Far from me to dispute your candid self-assessment, Valentine,” Clarke said, smiling thinly. “We might as well be on our way, there’s nothing more here of interest.”

  He set off toward River Street, Valentine walking alongside him.

  Did Clarke believe his denial about knowing the identity of the slayer of Viper Teed? Valentine wondered. Hard to tell. Clarke was a cool one, iron nerved, under control, giving away little or nothing. In any case he hadn’t pressed the point, which Valentine counted as a win, if only for now.

  Because of course he did know Johnny Cross, knew him personally and knew much of his back history. But for reasons known only to himself, Dean Valentine had decided to give away nothing about the Texas gun to Sexton Clarke.

  He hoped he could make it stick.

  * * *

  “Hello, handsome men!” Came a cooing female voice. Risha, Marie, Jonelle, Dawn, Tally, and Suze crossed paths with Valentine and Sexton Clarke, intercepting them.

  “Hel-lo!” Valentine said, beaming.

  “Ladies,” Clarke acknowledged, politely touching the brim of his hat and smiling one of his thin milk-and-water smiles.

  “Y’all looking for some female companionship?” Marie demanded.

  “Not any more,” Valentine purred.

  “Yes, that would top off a most amusing evening,” Sexton Clarke agreed.

  TWENTY-SIX

  One day until Cullen Baker was set to hang—One Day to Hell!

  Clinchfield Gaol sat on the same promontory as Clinchfield town but was a mile west of it. It had been built on Pirates’ Point by Spaniards, the original Old World colonists in the region. The Gaol was a castle-style fort of reddish-brown sandstone formed up into walls, towers, battlements.

  Since Rufus Barbaroux controlled the county, you could say that Clinchfield Gaol belonged to him. Though a prison for over a hundred years, it was stuffed to overflowing with Barbaroux’s foes. Clinchfield Gaol was a hellhole.

  Now came a bloody sundown, the sun sagging into the west with a scarlet blaze. The tall black gallows in the prison yard stood outlined against the red sky.

  Cullen Baker eyed it through the small square barred window in his cell on Hangman’s Row, the place where condemned men were kept.

  Baker often kept his face pressed against the bars for hours at a time day and night, not least because it afforded a taste of fresh air in this foul-smelling prison.

  He watched the sunset, almost certainly the last he would ever see. In the prison yard the executioner’s assistant headed a work detail testing the gallows drop in anticipation of the Big Day tomorrow.

  Warden Munday was one of Barbaroux’s creatures. The Commander had put him in charge of Clinchfield Gaol and given him a free hand to run it as he liked. That is, just as long as he kept it to Barbaroux’s liking. That meant overcrowding in filthy inhumane conditions, starvation diets, and a regular regimen of torture and brutality for the inmates.

  Cullen Baker suspected, hell, knew the real reason for the needless test was to satisfy Warden Munday’s inexhaustible lust for tormenting Baker in a relentless attempt to break him.

  Munday stood outside Baker’s cell watching the condemned man as avidly as Baker was watching the sunset.

  Under ordinary circumstances Munday wouldn’t have stood so close to the cage wall on the aisle, but since Baker was at the window on the far side of the cell the warden counted on his abilities to evade any
sudden lunging attack by Baker reaching through the grids. Munday had a healthy respect for Cullen Baker’s violent abilities, diminished though they were by weeks of harsh confinement.

  Warden Munday was a compact-sized man of below average height with a well-conditioned athletic physique. Thinning hair was combed back from the forehead and parted in the middle, a close-cropped beard the color of dried dung covered the lower half of his face.

  His eyes were narrow horizontal slits dotted by brown dots, his nose a fleshy lump, his thin-lipped mouth another horizontal line with an upper lip so thin as to be virtually nonexistent.

  Cullen Baker was a big man standing a few inches over six feet and built like a hardworking farm hand with powerful upper body development. He’d lost some twenty-five to thirty pounds on the prison diet but he was still big, if hollow cheeked and raw boned.

  He stood with his back to Munday, so the warden couldn’t see his face. Munday would have liked to study it closely, searching for any signs the condemned was breaking under what must be the tremendous strain of knowing he was doomed to die by hanging on the morrow.

  Cullen Baker was a hard nut to crack, Munday had to give him that.

  Not even learning of the death of his young wife seemed to put a dent in his iron self-control, despite Munday’s sneering and mocking revelation of the same, an elaborate presentation into which he’d put great thought and work and of which he’d had high hopes of cracking Cullen Baker.

  Baker showed as much outward emotion as if he’d been told it was raining outside. In the end it was Munday who feared he himself was breaking.

  Life in Clinchfield Gaol was hard to start with, but there were countless ways of making it far worse for even the toughest inmates.

  There were limits on Munday, unfortunately: no maiming, broken bones, or mutilation. Commander Barbaroux had been very clear about that. Cullen Baker had to be whole and intact when Execution Day arrived. Barbaroux intended to put on a show for himself and his cronies when Baker was hanged.

  Cullen Baker must go to the gallows knowing, knowing, that it was Barbaroux who put him there and was present there at the hanging to gloat over his death throes. Only then would the triumph of Barbaroux be complete.