Damnation Valley

by William W. Johnstone

  Ophelia heard the finality in his voice and knew what he meant by that. She tried to fight him, kicking at him and hammering punches against his head, but Carnahan just laughed off her efforts. She figured he was going to choke her to death, but instead he crashed her head into the adobe . . . again and again ...

  When he finally let go of her, she slid down the wall and wound up in a limp, huddled heap on the filthy, hard-packed dirt of the alley. Carnahan turned and walked away, bound on his errand of vengeance.

  He never saw the slender figure that darted out of the shadows and knelt next to Ophelia.

  Chapter 32

  The big, cavernous stable was constructed of rough planks sawed from logs brought down from the wooded slopes of the Sangre de Cristos, unlike so many of the adobe buildings in Santa Fe. There was a hostler on duty when Breckinridge, Audie, and Nighthawk got there, a friendly young man named Fernando, whose father owned the business. He was more than happy to rent space not only for Breck’s horses but also for Breck himself to sleep.

  “A good lad, Fernando,” Audie commented as they made themselves comfortable in the hayloft. “Smart and ambitious, as well. He’ll be one of the town’s leading businessmen someday, I expect.”

  Breckinridge didn’t know about that. He was tired enough by now to be a little groggy. He stretched out in the piles of hay, hoped there weren’t too many little critters lurking in it to bite him, and fell sound asleep.

  It seemed like only minutes had passed when a light touch on his shoulder woke him. Instinct took over, and his earlier weariness vanished in an instant. In less than the blink of an eye, he was wide awake, sitting up, and ready to fight.

  “Easy, my young friend,” Audie said quietly in the hayloft’s gloom. “Someone is down below talking to Fernando. I thought I heard your name mentioned.”

  “Who in blazes—”

  “It sounded like a woman.”

  Breckinridge’s heart leaped. Ophelia! he thought. Somehow, she had found out he was in town, had escaped from Carnahan, and had come to him hoping he would keep her safe and take her back to her sisters.

  That was exactly what Breckinridge intended to do . . . but only after he killed Jud Carnahan. If he failed in that, he thought he could count on Audie and Nighthawk to help Ophelia. Even though he had just met the oddly matched pair of mountain men, he could tell they were decent, valiant individuals.

  Getting up on his hands and knees, he crawled quickly to the edge of the loft and peered over. He was ready to call down to Ophelia and tell her that he was up here.

  Instead, he saw a woman he had never seen before talking to Fernando, who stood holding a lantern in an upraised hand.

  She was young, but already well curved and lovely in a low-cut blouse and long skirt. From this angle, Breckinridge had an even better view than Fernando did of the intriguing cleavage between the girl’s breasts. Her hair was black as midnight and hung straight down her back to the curve of her hips.

  She and Fernando were both speaking Spanish, too fast for Breckinridge to keep up with it. But after a moment he gestured toward the loft with his free hand, and the girl turned her head to gaze upward. Her dark eyes were wide with what Breck suddenly realized was fear.

  Something was wrong, and this girl seemed to be looking for him.

  That spelled trouble—and trouble was just another name for Jud Carnahan.

  “What is it?” Audie asked from behind Breckinridge.

  “I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.”

  He would have climbed down, but before he could do so, the girl ran over to the ladder leading to the loft and ascended it with lithe, swift motions. Breckinridge stood up, having to stoop a little, otherwise his great height would have had his head bumping against the roof, and held out a hand to help her as she reached the top of the ladder.

  “Señor Wallace?” she asked breathlessly, then didn’t let him answer as she went on, “Sí, you must be. No one else could be as big as the señorita said you are.”

  “What señorita?” Breckinridge asked as a feeling of foreboding began to well up inside him.

  “Señorita Ophelia. My, how do you say, boss. My friend.”

  Despite her age, she was probably a whore at the Black Bull, Breckinridge realized. That was why she’d referred to Ophelia as her boss. Without thinking about what he was doing, he reached out and closed his big hands around her bare upper arms.

  “Is she all right?” he asked in a voice made hoarse by emotion. “What’s happened? Why are you here?”

  “She . . . she sent me to help you if I can. With her dying breath, she asked me—”

  She stopped short and cried out as Breckinridge’s hands clamped harder on her arms. He realized what he was doing and eased up on his grip as he whispered, “She’s dead?”

  “Sí, señor. I am so sorry. She was a good friend, a good person despite everything that man did to her. She told me some of it. She never wanted to talk much about what had happened, but sometimes it helped.”

  “Carnahan.”

  “Sí. He is outside now, with some other bad men. One of them saw you, trailed you here, and now he has come to kill you. While they hesitated to make their plans, I slipped in ahead of them to warn you.”

  Breckinridge stood there, his chest heaving. His hands dropped from the girl’s arms and clenched into hamlike fists as they hung at his side. For a moment he couldn’t speak, but then he was able to ask, “Did Carnahan kill Ophelia?”

  “Sí. I saw.” She shuddered in the faint glow of lantern light that came from below. “He hit her head many times against the wall of the Black Bull. There was nothing I could do to stop him. She was still alive when I reached her, but she spoke only for a moment before life departed.”

  “Of course there was nothing you could do to save her, my dear,” Audie said in a calm, soothing voice. “If you had tried to intervene, no doubt Carnahan would have killed you, too, and you wouldn’t have been able to carry out the lady’s last wish and warn Breckinridge. You did the right thing.”

  “I hope so, señor. But now, they will be here soon. You must hide—”

  That was never going to happen. Breckinridge wasn’t the sort to hide from trouble. Anyway, there wasn’t any time left. Breck heard Fernando shout, and then a pistol cracked down in the main area of the stable, followed instantly by a crash of glass. Breck thought he knew what that meant, and a second later his hunch was confirmed by a burst of garish, flickering light. Horses screamed in their stalls as smoke billowed up. That glass breaking had been Fernando’s lantern shattering.

  The stable was on fire.

  Breckinridge leaped to the edge of the loft and in the nightmarish glare from the already-strong flames, he caught a glimpse of Jud Carnahan, a pistol in each hand, standing near Fernando’s crumpled body. Behind Carnahan were a dozen more men, including the one Breck had had the run-in with earlier in the day.

  That man shouted, “Up there!” causing Carnahan to jerk his head back and look up at the loft. The unfired pistol in his left hand streaked up and belched flame and smoke. Breckinridge threw himself backward as the ball whipped in front of his face and smacked through the boards of the roof.

  A roar of laughter from Carnahan followed the shot. He bellowed, “Keep them pinned up there until the fire’s too big for them to get out! Hey, Wallace! You’re gonna burn, you son of a bitch!”

  “An old building like this, filled with straw, is going to burn very quickly,” Audie said. “It’ll be an inferno in a matter of moments, Breckinridge. We need to get out.”

  Breckinridge had grabbed his rifle and pistols from the floor. He glanced at the girl, who was sobbing in terror.

  “Maybe we can fight our way past ’em,” he said.

  Guns were going off down below as Carnahan and his men backed toward the stable’s entrance while the blaze spread. Rifle and pistol balls chewed splinters from the edge of the loft and hummed through the air in the close quarters under the roof.
>
  “We’d have no chance that way!” Audie said.

  “Ummm!”

  Nighthawk’s urgent interjection made Breckinridge and Audie look around. The big Crow warrior was pointing to the door in the wall where hay was lifted and loaded into the loft. It opened onto the alley at the side of the building. Flames were already climbing up the wall on that side and were visible along the edge of the floor.

  They had no time to waste on debate. Breckinridge yelled, “Let’s go!” and looped his left arm around the startled and frightened girl, lifting her off her feet.

  Nighthawk grabbed Audie the same way and threw the door back. He went out first, diving through the opening with a yelling Audie tucked under his arm. Breckinridge followed, not really thinking about what he was doing but trusting to his own strength and agility to make the jump and survive.

  One second he was still in the flame-lit loft, the next plummeting through dark, empty air with the girl cradled against his broad chest, both arms around her, rifle clutched tightly in his right hand. The fall seemed to take longer than it really did.

  Then his feet hit the ground and he let his momentum carry him into a forward roll, twisting his body as he went down so his shoulder would hit the ground first and buffer the impact for the girl he held. Despite that, she let out a loud “Oooff !” when they hit.

  Breckinridge didn’t figure Carnahan and his men would have heard that over the continuing gunfire. He let go of the girl, pushed himself to his feet, and then reached down to help her up. The light from the fire was spreading into the alley, and in its glare he saw Audie and Nighthawk getting up as well. Both of them appeared to be all right. The drop from the loft had been bone jarring and tooth rattling, but they’d been lucky and hadn’t broken anything.

  “Run back somewhere safe,” Breckinridge told the girl as he rested a hand on one of her bare shoulders. “After tonight, I don’t know if you’ll have a job at the Black Bull, but you can find something better.”

  “You are going to kill Señor Carnahan?”

  “I derned sure am,” Breckinridge said. “Now, get outta here!”

  He pushed her toward the back of the alley and sent her fleeing.

  Then he, Audie, and Nighthawk headed for the street, where Carnahan and his men had retreated to keep pouring rifle and pistol shots into the burning building. Carnahan was still laughing like he was having the time of his life, Breckinridge saw as he edged a look around the corner. The heat was getting bad here in the alley. Breck and his two newfound friends couldn’t stay here much longer.

  “Audie, you and Nighthawk don’t have to do this,” he told them above the crackle of the flames. “I just swore to myself earlier today that I was gonna tackle Carnahan by myself from now on. You two can skedaddle outta here, and I won’t take no offense.”

  “Your argument is no more compelling now than it was earlier,” Audie replied. “Jud Carnahan is the sort of monster Nighthawk and I would feel compelled to exterminate, regardless of whether we had taken a liking to you right away, which we did.”

  “Umm,” Nighthawk agreed emphatically.

  “All right, then,” Breckinridge said. “Let’s go stomp us some snakes.”

  Chapter 33

  The three men checked their weapons and gave one another grim nods. Breckinridge recalled the promise he had made to Wolf Tooth, that Carnahan would die knowing he was being sent to hell for the murder of the chief’s son as well as all his other crimes. Breck wasn’t sure he would be able to keep that promise, because he intended to put a rifle ball through Carnahan’s diseased brain as soon as he stepped around that corner.

  It wouldn’t be as satisfying as killing Carnahan with his bare hands, but it was time to end this.

  Breckinridge took the lead, charging around the corner and lifting his rifle to his shoulder. Audie was to his right, Nighthawk on his left. Breck saw Carnahan standing just in front of the other men, the firelight washing over his face and making him look more demonic than ever.

  Breckinridge pressed the trigger.

  At just that moment, one of the other men stepped forward, pumped the rifle in his hand over his head, and let out a gleeful whoop at the destruction of the stable. The ball from Breckinridge’s rifle struck him just above the left ear and lifted his hat off his head, along with a sizable chunk of skull and brain. Blood splattered across Carnahan’s face.

  The two mountain men fired a split second after Breckinridge, and two more of Carnahan’s men went down. Somebody screamed a curse as the whole bunch wheeled to their left to face this new and unexpected threat.

  Breckinridge dropped his empty rifle while the smoke from its discharge was still spreading through the air. He yanked both pistols from behind his belt and charged toward the men with a full-throated war cry echoing from him. The double-shotted, heavily charged pistols boomed like the crash of thunder, scything three more men off their feet. Breck, Audie, and Nighthawk had cut the odds almost in half in little more than the blink of an eye.

  Then Breckinridge’s long, swift running strides had carried him among his enemies. He dropped the empty pistols and grabbed his knife and tomahawk to go to work with them. Guns continued to go off as Audie and Nighthawk fired their pistols and some of Carnahan’s men returned the shots.

  Breckinridge wreaked bloody havoc as he whirled through the men, hacking and slashing. He was looking for Carnahan but in the chaos couldn’t seem to find him. A pistol went off almost right in his face, blinding and deafening him for a moment, but he kept striking out at the vaguely seen shapes anyway. The small, still-coherent part of his brain hoped that Audie and Nighthawk were staying out of his way, because he was so caught up in the lust of battle that he couldn’t really tell friend from foe.

  Gore smeared his hands and sleeves up to the elbows and dripped from knife and tomahawk by the time a strong hand caught his arm and someone shouted in a deep, powerful voice, “Breckinridge, stop! They’re all dead! Stop fighting!”

  Breckinridge stood there, muscles still trembling from the urge to strike out. It was Nighthawk who had hold of him, he realized as the Crow said, “Umm,” and Audie who had shouted at him to break through his blind rage. Breck could see and hear again, and as he drew in a deep breath, he smelled powder smoke and the coppery tang of freshly spilled blood—a lot of it.

  He looked around, blinking eyes that stung from the smoke, and saw the corpses heaped around him in the street. The man he had tussled with earlier in the day was there, his head still attached to his body only by a stringy clump of neck gristle. Breckinridge vaguely recalled taking a swing at the man with his tomahawk. Obviously, that near-decapitation was the result.

  The one thing he didn’t see was Jud Carnahan’s body.

  “Where—” he began, but he was too hoarse to go on. He had to try again. “Where’s Carnahan?”

  “I caught a glimpse of him fleeing, but I was unable to stop him,” Audie said. The little mountain man’s face was grimy from burned powder, and the tomahawk in his hand was bloody, too. Nighthawk looked much the same. Hard to tell if they were wounded, but Breckinridge hoped none of the blood splattered on them was theirs.

  “The Black Bull,” Breckinridge rasped. “That’s where he has to be headed.” He glanced around at the carnage again. The streets in this part of town were empty at the moment because everybody had scurried for cover when the shooting started. But they wouldn’t stay that way. Folks would hurry out to see what had happened and also to make sure the fire didn’t spread. An adobe building stood on one side of the stable, an empty lot on the other, so the odds of that were small, but no one on the frontier wanted to take any chances with fire.

  Some of the soldiers from the garrison would be coming to investigate the ruckus, too, maybe even Captain Consalvo himself.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Breckinridge said. “You two lay low. I’m headed for the Black Bull.”

  “We can come with you—” Audie began.

  Breckinridge shoo
k his head and said, “Nope, this is down to just Carnahan and me. Reckon that was the way it always had to be.”

  He found his rifle and pistols where he had dropped them but didn’t take the time to reload as he loped off into the darkness. Audie and Nighthawk went the other way. Breckinridge figured there was a chance they would circle around and follow him to the Black Bull anyway, but he’d done what he could to stop them.

  He had a showdown calling him now.

  It was easy for a fella to get turned around in Santa Fe, especially when he had been in town less than a day and had to stick to the shadows so he wouldn’t be noticed. The crowds he had expected to see rushing toward the burning stable showed up, all right, forcing him to take to the back alleys. The town was full of hullabaloo tonight, a situation which he’d added to considerably.

  Eventually he found his way back to the plaza, though, and from there it was easy to find the Black Bull. Every lamp in the place was lit, from the looks of it. Breckinridge paused for a moment, across from the entrance, and loaded his pistols. He stuck them behind his belt and left his rifle leaning against the wall of another building. He could retrieve it later, if he was still alive.

  While he was doing that, he watched the Black Bull. Nobody was going in and out right now. He wondered if all the customers had gone to see what the commotion was. It didn’t matter, he decided. Anybody who was inside, he would just run them out at gunpoint before he confronted Carnahan.

  Gripping his pistols, Breckinridge strode across to the door and kicked it open. He went in fast, the pistols tracking back and forth as he searched for enemies.

  “You won’t need those,” a familiar voice said. “It’s just you and me, Wallace. I sent everyone else away. I knew you’d be coming. It’s time we finish this, you and me.”

  Jud Carnahan stood in front of the bar. He had a glass in his hand, half-full of nearly colorless liquid. Probably some of that tequila, Breckinridge thought. Carnahan threw back the drink and thumped the empty glass on the bar. A pistol lay on the hardwood within easy reach, but he didn’t make a move for it.