Brotherhood of the Gun

by William W. Johnstone

  Bodine looked around him. A small boy with a little dog by his side stood staring up at him.

  “He kicked my dog one time, mister,” the boy told him. “For no reason other than he just wanted to hurt something. Thud still walks with a limp where Bennett broke his hip.”

  Bodine patted the boy on the shoulder. “Then that in itself justifies what I did to him.”

  Chapter 20

  Bully Jack Bennett was dragged off the street and taken to a doctor’s office for treatment. The doctor found that the man had a broken jaw, half a dozen broken ribs, and all his front teeth—top and bottom—either knocked out or broken off at the gumline. One ear was amputated and his nose reset.

  When he was able to travel, Bully Bennett left town, swearing to someday kill Matt Bodine. By that time, Bodine, Sam, and Wellman had bought what supplies they needed, rested up, and were once more on the trail.

  “What’s that country like north and east of Phoenix?” Matt asked.

  “Wild and rugged,” Wellman said. Both Matt and Sam had noticed the man had lost weight and was in some degree of pain most of the time. He had bought several bottles of laudanum in Tucson, but used the pain-killing liquid sparingly, and never while Sam or Bodine were watching. Or so he thought. “Be good to see it one more time.”

  Both Sam and Bodine wondered if the old man would live that long.

  “How’s your hands, Bodine?” Wellman asked.

  “They’re all right.” Matt’s hands had been swollen after the fight in the saloon. He had soaked them several times a day and used liniment to keep the swelling to a minimum. “Dick?”

  The old mountain man looked up, the pain in his body now clearly showing in his eyes.

  “Get on a stage and go back home, man. Spend some time with Jenny and Laurie. I give you my word we’ll track down Lake and Porter.”

  Wellman shook his head. “I’d never last the trip, boys. I’m kinda like ol’ Cochise. You know he called the hour he’d die? That’s right. And he was right on the mark with it. I’ll be dead in a week, boys. By that time we’ll be deep in the Tontos—that’s what we used to call it. Bury me high up so’s I can look out on the wilderness and hear the wind sounds. You’ll do that?”

  Both young men nodded in agreement. They were of the frontier and understood the request.

  “Then let’s ride!” Wellman said.

  * * *

  “Over yonder’s the Superstitions,” Wellman pointed out. “Somewheres in there they’s a Dutchman named Walzer. He’s been haulin’ gold out of that area for some years now. Millions. You fight shy of that man. He’s a cantankerous old coot who’s likely to shoot you on sight if he thinks you’re after his gold. Lives with an Apache woman. Her people raided his place some time back and took her. Tore her tongue out as punishment. I ’spect we’ll find some of Lake and Porter’s men hangin’ around the Superstitions. If we do, you boys just hang back and let me have my go with them.”

  “When do you want us to step in, Dick?” Sam asked.

  “When I’ve tooken enough lead to put me down.”

  They headed for the Superstition Mountains, about a day’s ride away. With Iron Mountain in sight, they came up on a small placer operation.

  “You boys been havin’ trouble with thieves?” Wellman asked one miner.

  “Shore have!” the man said. “And can’t get no law out of Phoenix to do nothin’.”

  “You know who’s robbin’ you?”

  “Hell, yes! They’re camped right over yonder in the Superstitions. But knowin’ and provin’ is two different things.”

  “They ride horses with the Triple-V brand?” Bodine asked.

  “Shore do! Some of ’em, anyways.”

  The miners gave them directions to the outlaw camp and the men pulled out.

  “How come the law doesn’t handle Lake and Porter?” Sam asked.

  Matt answered that. “Phoenix is only about eight or nine years old. The newspapers I read said that the town is woolly and full of fleas. I guess the law—what there is of it—has their hands full close to home.”

  Wellman took the point and rode right into the outlaw camp. The men around the campfire looked up in surprise but no one grabbed for a gun. The trio swung down from the saddle and spread out, listening as Wellman came right to the point.

  “You boys ride for Lake and Porter?”

  “Yeah,” a man said. They had all stood up. “If that’s any of your business, old man.”

  “You know who we are?” Wellman asked.

  “No, and don’t care. Git outta here.”

  “My name’s Wellman.” They all tensed at that. “And you’re part of the bunch that grabbed my little Jenny. Now fill your hands with guns, scum!”

  The camp erupted in gunfire. Wellman put two outlaws on the ground before a bullet turned him around and another slug hit him in the back. On his knees, Wellman’s longbarreled Colt spat fire and death until it was empty. Then he grabbed for another Colt behind his belt and took another outlaw out.

  Bodine and Sam were standing and firing, with a six-shooter in each hand. It had all happened so fast, as it usually does—the outlaws were caught totally unprepared for the violence.

  Bodine’s hat had been knocked from his head by a .45 round and he had a burn on the outer part of his right thigh. Sam had taken a graze on his left arm. This bunch of Lake and Porter’s hoot-owl riders were on the ground, dead or dying.

  And so was Dick Wellman, one of the last breed called mountain man.

  “Straighten me out easy, boys,” he whispered. “ ’Cause I shore hurt.”

  Bodine made Wellman as comfortable as possible while Sam stirred up the fire and heated up the coffee, knowing that Dick would want a cup, gut-shot or not.

  “You boys take my personals,” Dick said. “So’s no thieves will disturb my restin’ place a-grave-robbin’.”

  “We’ll see that Jenny and Laurie get them,” Bodine assured him.

  “Kind of you.” He took the tin cup of coffee and sipped it. “Good. Don’t mark my grave. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Do you believe in God, Dick?” Bodine asked.

  “Heaven?” Wellman whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “You know what ol’ Cochise said when asked that on his death bed?”

  “No.” Bodine’s voice was thick with emotion.

  “He said that he believed good friends will meet somewhere.”

  Dick Wellman closed his eyes and died.

  * * *

  They wrapped Dick’s body in a blanket and buried the old mountain man deep in the Superstitions, on the crest of a high windy peak that overlooked the desert. Bodine said a quiet prayer in English while Sam chanted a death song in Cheyenne. They buried his saddle and his guns with him, then turned his horse loose to run wild and free. They would ship Dick’s personal belongings to his ranch when they got to Phoenix.

  Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves mounted up and rode away from the lonely gravesite. They did not look back.

  * * *

  They rode into Phoenix and put their horses up at a livery just off Jefferson Street. The main drag was a wide, muddy, and rutted street, filled with teamsters driving wagons pulled by mule teams, carrying freight out to the miners. Few of the stores had boardwalks; some didn’t even have wooden floors inside, only hard-packed and swept dirt floors. They found a room at the hotel and stowed their gear, then went looking for a hot bath and clean clothes. Then they would sit down to a meal they didn’t have to fix.

  On the way to a cafe, clean-shaven and with the trail dust and fleas off them, the young men walked up and down both sides of the wide street, checking brands. They saw no Triple-V brands.

  They didn’t talk much, for the death of Dick Wellman had left a temporary void in their lives. Both had liked and respected the ornery old coot, and they missed him very much.

  They ate slowly, enjoying the hot food and the apple pie. Over a cup of coffee, Sam finally broke the silence.
“Dick would not have wanted us to feel this way.”

  “I know. I just didn’t think I had become this fond of the old goat.”

  Sam chuckled. “He was ornery, wasn’t he?”

  Before Matt could reply to that, his eyes picked up three men walking across the street, all of them wearing badges. “I think the law is looking for us, brother.” “Let them come on.”

  They came on, pushing open the cafe door and walking across the room and sitting down at a table. The sheriff waved away the counterman’s offer of coffee and looked at Bodine. “You boys just ride in?”

  Bodine met his eyes. “Yeah.”

  “From the Superstitions?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Half a dozen men found dead up near a minin’ camp. My deputy said it looked like a hell of a gunfight.”

  “About time one of your deputies got up there.”

  “What do you mean by that?” The sheriff ’s voice took on a hard edge.

  “The miners told us they’ve been robbed for some time and the law wouldn’t do anything about it.”

  “So you boys took the law into your own hands?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, damnit, somebody shot those men!”

  “That’s right. Somebody sure did. A man by the name of Dick Wellman.”

  “The old mountain man?”

  “That’s right.”

  The sheriff waited and watched with exasperation on his face as Bodine finished his pie and called for another cup of coffee.

  “Well?” the sheriff demanded.

  “Well, what?” Sam took it up.

  “I don’t need no lip from a breed, boy.”

  Sam stood up, his hand by the butt of his .44. Bodine stood up with him, and the three lawmen noted the twin Colts, tied down low. There was something about this young man—hell, about both of them—that triggered a silent scream of warning in the sheriff ’s brain.

  “I don’t fight my brother’s battles for him, Sheriff. But I do stand beside him. Your remark was uncalled for. Now apologize.”

  “I’ll be damned if I’ll apologize to any goddamn Injun!

  “You’ll be dead if you don’t,” Bodine spoke the words softly.

  “Do you know who that is, Sheriff?” the counterman called from the kitchen.

  “No. And I don’t much give a damn!”

  “That’s Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves.”

  It was like letting the air out of a balloon: the sheriff and his two deputies seemed to deflate. The sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona Territory, was no coward. He’d faced men across the barrel of a gun and brought in his share of hardcases, both alive and tied across a saddle. But he was no match for Matt Bodine and he knew it. To make matters worse, now he had two of the most famous gunslingers in the west in town. Smoke Jensen and Matt Bodine; and he knew from reports he’d read that Sam Two Wolves wasn’t far behind his blood-brother in speed and accuracy.

  “If you took any umbrage in my remarks, Sam,” the sheriff chose his words carefully, “they won’t be repeated again from me.”

  It wasn’t much of an apology, but Sam accepted it. Both young men sat back down.

  “Would you tell me what happened up yonder in the Superstitions?” the sheriff asked. “Either of you.”

  Bodine laid it out for the sheriff, taking it from the beginning.

  The sheriff listened and finally nodded his head. “That’s fair enough, I reckon. I’ll write it up that way. You boys gonna be in town long?”

  “We’ll be in and out,” Bodine told him.

  “I won’t stand for no trouble. I’m no fancy gunhandler, boys. But I will arm me and my men with express guns and handle you that way. And that ain’t a threat; it’s a warnin’.”

  “I’m no trouble-hunter,” Matt told him. “But I won’t back away from it if it comes at me.”

  “That’s fair enough. You got anything agin Smoke Jensen?”

  “Never met the man in my life and I don’t notch my guns.”

  “Didn’t figure you did. You ain’t got the reputation of a tinhorn.” He cut his eyes to Sam. “Neither one of you.”

  When Matt or Sam did not reply, the sheriff asked, “You boys goin’ to hunt them others who was in cahoots with Chappo?”

  “Yes,” Sam answered for both of them.

  The sheriff sighed and fiddled with the salt shaker on the table. “Keep it out of town.”

  “We’ll do our best.”

  “I can’t ask for no more than that, I reckon. Not and get it granted,” he added drily.

  Bodine and Sam cut their eyes to a man riding a mean-looking stallion with the outline of a knife on the animal’s left rump. The man tied up in front of a bank and slowly looked all around him. He was a big man, with massive shoulders and lean hips. He wore two guns, one of them butt-forward.

  “Who is that?” Sam asked.

  “That, boys,” the sheriff said, “is Smoke Jensen.”

  Chapter 21

  That was the only glimpse Matt and Sam saw of Smoke that day. They retired early and were in the saddle and riding out to look for Lake and Porter at first light. Jensen, they were told, was not much of a drinker and seldom visited the saloons in town, preferring to stay in his hotel room reading whenever he was away from home . . . unless somebody pushed him. So far, none of the hardcases in town had tried to brace the man.

  “Where do we start?” Sam asked, as Phoenix faded behind them.

  “We’ll head north first. All the way up to Camp Verde. Then work our way back down through the Mazatzals. I got a hunch that Lake and Porter left this part of the country after they got wind of the shooting.”

  “Time we work our way back to the Mazatzals, they’ll be snow in the high up.”

  “One extreme to the other,” Matt summed up as much of the territory as he’d seen.

  This was still Apache country, so the pair rode alert at all times. They made camp along the northern tip of the McDowell Mountains and the next morning headed out for Bloody Basin. From there on up to Camp Verde, some seventy-five miles as the crow flies, was pure virgin wilderness. There was one trading post on the East Verde River, just east of Turret Peak, so they’d been told in town, and the men intended to stop there for information. If they reached it at all.

  The farther north they went, the more mountainous it became, with thick stands of timber. They passed through a transition zone; from cedars, junipers, and piñons, into chaparral brushlands. They did not see one living soul for four days, until riding into Camp Verde.

  Neither one of them knew exactly what month it was, so they asked at the cafe over a hot meal.

  “November, boys. Thanksgivin’ ain’t too far around the corner.”

  “Going to have turkey?” Bodine asked.

  “Naw. Beans and beef and taters. Gonna be around?”

  “I doubt it. You got any hardcases working this area? Some of them would be riding the brand Triple-V.”

  “I ain’t seen no one ridin’ that brand. They’d probably fight shy of Camp Verde; the Army bein’ here an’ all.”

  He wandered off when another customer hollered for some more coffee.

  “We’ll find them wherever there is gold,” Sam said.

  “And we don’t really know that they went north. There’s been gold strikes all over the state. Eat up and then let’s go talk to the commanding officer at the Camp.”

  * * *

  The colonel was not unfriendly, but neither was he bubbling over with excitement at seeing Matt Bodine. But he did give them a few minutes of his time.

  “Make it fast, Bodine,” he told him.

  His overbearing attitude irritated Matt, but he held his temper in check. “We’re looking for some outlaws. The group is headed by two men, Lake and Porter.”

  “I know who you’re looking for, Bodine. I received a dispatch from Fort Bowie. And I don’t approve of what you’re doing.”

  “You disapprove of us killing Chappo?”

  “Tha
t was a commendable act, of course. It’s this vigilante business that I personally find abhorrent.”

  “They sold young kids into slavery, Colonel. They armed Chappo and his band in return for young girls. My God, man, I . . .”

  “That will be quite enough, Bodine!” the colonel said sharply. “Those allegations were never proven.”

  “The Mexican government down in Sonora thought they were.”

  The colonel waved that aside.

  “And the Mexican Army was a hell of a lot more cordial to us than you’re being,” Sam pointed out, reaching for his hat, for he knew with that remark, they were on their way out.

  Standing outside the post, Bodine said, “You know what I think, brother?”

  “I am afraid to ask. You might want to ride to Texas or some other Godforsaken land.”

  Bodine laughed at him. “No! I just now figured out why the Army is mad at us.”

  “Oh? Are you going to enlighten me?”

  “We did what they couldn’t do.”

  “And not just rescuing the kids, either.”

  “That’s right. We killed Chappo. Found his hideout and killed him. Not just him, but a lot of his followers. That’s why they’re behaving like a bunch of spoiled children.”

  “Just some of the officers, me boys,” a sergeant said, walking up to them. The Irish was thick in his speech. “Not the enlisted men, or really, most of the officers.”

  They introduced themselves and shook hands all around and the sergeant motioned them away from the HQ building.

  “The men you’re looking for moved west,” he told them. “They’re plannin’ on robbin the miners who come into Ehrenberg for supplies. I got that from a U.S. Marshal.”

  “Where is Ehrenberg?”

  “Right on the California line. The Colorado River is the dividin’ point.”

  “Desert?”

  “Like the fringes of hell, boys.”

  * * *

  They headed out the next morning, crossing the Verde Valley and aiming for Horsethief Basin. They would cross Turkey Creek, cut south, and head for the mining camps around Snyder’s Station, later to be renamed Bumble Bee. The sergeant said pickings for outlaws were real good around that area—big strike in there—and it might behoove them to try there.