The Reckoning

by Len Levinson

  RAW RAGE

  All lights were out on the Circle K ranch, except for one coal oil lamp burning in the bedroom of Jay Krenshaw. The son of the boss stood in front of his mirror and examined his left eye, which had turned a hideous purple. He couldn't see out of it, his nose felt broken, and his jaw was loose on its hinges. Worst of all, one front tooth had been knocked out. He forced himself to smile, and appeared an imbecile with the big black gap.

  Jay bellowed like a wounded buffalo, and banged his fist on the dresser. If Duane Braddock were standing in front of him, Jay would shoot him between the eyes.

  If Braddock is who I think he is, Jay thought, I'll hire the fastest gun in West Texas to kill him. It'll cost plenty, but that little son-of-a-bitch has got to die.

  Also by Len Levinson

  The Rat Bastards:

  Hit the Beach

  Death Squad

  River of Blood

  Meat Grinder Hill

  Down and Dirty

  Green Hell

  Too Mean to Die

  Hot Lead and Cold Steel

  Do or Die

  Kill Crazy

  Nightmare Alley

  Go For Broke

  Tough Guys Die Hard

  Suicide River

  Satan’s Cage

  Go Down Fighting

  The Pecos Kid:

  Beginner’s Luck

  Apache Moon

  Outlaw Hell

  Devil’s Creek Massacre

  Bad to the Bone

  The Apache Wars Saga:

  Desert Hawks

  War Eagles

  Savage Frontier

  White Apache

  Devil Dance

  Night of the Cougar

  THE

  PECOS KID

  Book 2

  THE RECKONING

  LEN LEVINSON

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1993 by Len Levinson. All Rights Reserved.

  Ebook © 2013 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

  Trade ISBN: 978-1-62064-859-9

  Library ISBN: 978-1-62460-200-9

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  CHAPTER 1

  BIG AL THORNTON sat at a desk in his West Texas ranch house. He studied bills, letters of credit, miscellaneous legal documents, and saw somebody was suing him over a well. Sometimes he thought that the Bar T was running him, instead of him running it.

  He was sixty, with thick graying hair, a square solid jaw, and blue eyes. He lit a cigar and looked out the window at a vast sprawl of rangeland, with weird spires and glyphs in the hazy distance. Cattle wearing his brand grazed as far as he could see, but sometimes he'd trade it all for the days when he'd been a cowboy, with no sleepless nights due to unpaid bills, sick cattle, marauding Indians, drunken ramrods, rebellious men, and that goddamned well.

  Myrtle, his wife, entered the office, wearing a gray dress with a white apron. She was twenty years younger than he, a former schoolmarm. “There's a cowboy that just showed up, looking for a job. He's got that wary look, as if the posse'll arrive at any moment, but other than that—seems a decent lad. His name's Duane Braddock.”

  Branding season had just commenced, and Big Al tended to trust his wife's intuition. “Send him in.”

  His eyes fell on her hips as they passed through the door. Some women, when they get older, spread out like mattresses on legs, but Myrtle had retained a remarkable portion of what had drawn him to her in the first place, and caused him to renounce the freedom of the bunkhouse.

  He tended to embellish bunkhouse life with a certain false glow. In fact, it had been arduous physical labor from dawn to dusk, and he'd lived with the usual odd lot of drunkards, gamblers, whore-masters, decent cowboys, and men on the dodge in filthy, broken-down bunkhouses. There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in!” Big Al said.

  A medium-height cowboy with black hair and long sideburns appeared at the entrance to the office. He wore black jeans, a purple shirt, and red bandanna, carrying a black hat with a silver concho hatband, and a gun slung low and tied down, gun-fighter style.

  “Have a seat,” Big Al said. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Thornton measured his broad shoulders, healthy arms, long legs. “Tell me about yerself.”

  “I worked at a ranch in Titus County—the Circle Y, before coming here.”

  “You from Titus County?”

  “No.”

  Duane didn't offer more information, and Big Al could understand why Myrtle thought the cow-boy was wanted in another jurisdiction. He looked ready to jump on his horse and ride away, but Big Al had been on the dodge himself a few times, and could understand the feeling. Besides, it was bad manners to ask too many questions about a man's past. “I need another cowboy, so you showed up at the right time. Give me a day's work fer a day's pay, and we'll git along fine. The bunkhouse is behind the barn, and the foreman's name's McGrath. Tell him yer hired.”

  Big Al returned to the papers on his desk as the interview came to an end. The newly hired cowboy arose from the chair and walked softly out of the office. In the parlor, he noted the Apache blanket hanging above the fireplace mantel. It reminded him of the monastery in the Guadalupe Mountains, where he'd been raised. Duane Braddock had been brought there at the age of one year, after his parents died under mysterious circumstances. He'd grown up studying, praying, and singing Gregorian Chants. Two months ago he'd been expelled, after fighting with another acolyte. Now he was a regular cowboy, planning to get married next Sunday.

  Sometimes he thought that events were moving too quickly. His bride-to-be lived in nearby Shelby, where she was looking for work, too. They'd met in Titusville, where she'd been singing at the Round-Up Saloon, and he was drifting through, just out of the monastery. Now he was hopelessly in love with her, and it appeared that she felt the same way about him. It was a love match made in heaven, he believed, and he was anxious to see her again.

  Duane walked toward Thunderbolt, his black stallion tied to the hitching rail in front of the main house. “Looks like we've got jobs,” Duane said, as he climbed into the saddle. He rode toward the corral, thinking of his bride-to-be, and how happy she'd be when she found out that he had a job. She worried constantly about money, and there were certain other problems: she was thirty-one years old, and the difference in their ages, which had seemed insignificant at first, was becoming a widening gap. She could go from joy to despair within moments, and had a habit of throwing objects, often at him. But he considered her amazingly beautiful, and that was the glue that held them together.

  As he neared the barn, he noticed a cowboy in a white hat riding toward him. There was something odd about him, and then, as he drew closer, Duane realized that the cowboy was a young woman in man's clothes. Duane wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him; he'd never seen a woman dressed like a cowboy before, sitting tall in her saddle. She smiled as she passed, and he wasn't sure of how to respond. He turned around for another look, and noticed her rump bouncing up and down in the saddle. Suddenly she glanced backward at him, their eyes met, and both turned quickly toward their original directions.

  Do they have female cowboys at the Bar T? Duane wondered. How come she dresses like that?

  Inside the barn, sixteen-year-old Phyllis Thornton brushed Suzie down carefully, looking for sores, insect bites, and burrs. The barn was cool, its timbers creaking
in the wind, and Big Al's daughter wondered who the stranger was, for she seldom saw men her own age at the ranch. There'd been something haunted in his eyes.

  Phyllis frequently found herself thinking about males. She was becoming old, while most of her friends were married, some with children of their own. But the only men she saw were her father's cowboys, either too ancient, not particularly appealing, or afraid of the boss's daughter. She'd probably have to settle for one of the supposedly “nice” sons of another rancher, or become an old maid.

  She strolled toward the main house like a cowboy in her high-heeled boots with pointy toes. She had a pert nose, robust breasts, and straight black hair cut just beneath her ears. She entered the house, and made her way down the hall to her father's office.

  He was bent over his desk, working at ranch business, and she felt sorry for him, knowing he'd rather be on a horse than sweating over columns of numbers. She stood in the doorway, cheeks bronzed with the sun, hat and gloves in her hand. “The ramrod says he'll need at least two more weeks,” she said. “The herd has scattered farther than he'd thought.”

  Big Al frowned. “Every time I ask him, it's another two weeks. Did he say anythin’ about injuns?”

  “They've seen Comanches, but no trouble so far. By the way, I just noticed a stranger on the way to the corral. Have you hired him, or is he a horse thief?”

  Big Al's memory wasn't clear, but then he remembered. “Yes—Braddock. He's not a horse thief, far as I know.”

  “I'd say that he just got out of jail.”

  “I don't care where he came from—long as he does his job. Now run along and see if your mother needs any help.”

  He heard her boots recede down the hallway, then returned to his documents and ledgers. If any lowdown son of a bitch ever lays a hand on her, he'd better be ready to die.

  Stale tobacco smoke permeated the bunkhouse, discarded animal bones littered the floor, and drawings of semiclad females in provocative poses were nailed to the walls. Duane found an empty bunk against the back wall, and heard a faint gnawing sound, as if tiny teeth were chewing the timbers of the building.

  He unrolled his blanket, and inside were another pair of jeans, a few shirts, and extra cartridges for his Colt. He rolled a cigarette, sat on the edge of his bunk, and continued to hear tiny creatures sharpening their teeth on the dirty old shack.

  Duane felt dispirited by its rundown ambiance, and fondly recalled the monastery in the clouds. The monks, priests, and orphan boys had cleaned it constantly, and the air had smelled of incense mixed with ponderosa pines. But Duane had become increasingly curious about the outside world, and then one of the other boys had insulted him in an especially painful way. Duane punched him, leading to the all-out fight that had got him expelled by the old abbot. That catastrophe occurred about two months ago, and since then he'd been in numerous fistfights and shootouts. He didn't like to be pushed around, and was unable to turn the other cheek to the bullies and outlaws of the world.

  He heard the scurry of feet, then an enormous rat crawled out from underneath a bunk. The monster twitched his tail nervously as he chewed a lump of something on the floor, and failed to see the shadow of death above him. Duane drew his Colt, thumbed back the hammer, and pulled the trigger. The bunkhouse echoed with the shot, his hand kicked in the air, and smoke billowed around him. The rat lay dead, the top of his head blown off, blood splattered along the splintered floorboard.

  “What the hell's goin’ on in thar!” A spindly old man with a white beard appeared, carrying a double-barreled shotgun.

  “Just killed the biggest rat I ever saw,” Duane replied.

  The old man drew closer, and his ragged brown cowboy hat had the front brim pinned to the crown. “We got more rats than we know what to do with. Next time we go to town, we got to find us a cat.” The old man focused his rheumy eyes on Duane. “Don't reckon I ever seed you afore. Who the hell are you?”

  “Duane Braddock. I just got hired.”

  “I'm Seamus McSweeny, the cook. Welcome to the Bar T. Hungry?”

  Duane grinned. “I could use a meal around now.”

  “Well, come on to the kitchen. I'll give you some stew, and I've got biscuits left over from dinner.”

  “I saw a woman dressed like a man a few minutes ago. Does she work here too?”

  McSweeny looked askance at Duane. “Hell no—that's Miss Phyllis, the boss's daughter.”

  “Why does she wear men's clothes?”

  “You ever try to ride a horse in a dress?”

  The kitchen was a stove, some cupboards, and a washbasin in a small offshoot of the main bunkhouse. Duane knew that the new man would be the butt of everybody's jokes, but was prepared for the worst. “What's the ramrod like?” he asked.

  “Not a bad feller when he's sober. We work hard, but it's a good spread, and we're proud of her.”

  “Is Phyllis married?”

  McSweeny winked. “You a-gittin’ ideas?”

  “She's awfully pretty.”

  “You better forget about her, ‘cause her daddy don't want her to marry the likes of us. He was a cowboy onc't hisself, and knows what he's perfecting her from.”

  “He doesn't have to worry about me,” Duane said. “I've got my own woman back in Shelby, and we're getting married as soon as we find a preacher.”

  “I've been married a few times,” Seamus McSweeny allowed. “Never was so unhappy in all my days. Nag, nag, nag all the damn time, and if'n it ain't one thing, it's another. I don't know whar they larn it from, but I'd druther fight a Comanche than a woman, because a Comanche might kill you, but at least it's quick and clean.”

  Duane Braddock's bride-to-be, tall, blond Vanessa Fontaine, studied her face in the mirror. In a few moments she'd meet the citizens of Shelby, who were considering her for the position of school-marm, and she wanted to look perfect. The town had never had a schoolmarm before, as mothers alternated in the position, but none had sufficient time, and teaching had been erratic. Now Vanessa had to convince them to hire her, provide room and board, and pay a small salary.

  She marveled at the current twist of her chaotic life. Somehow, against common sense, she'd fallen in love with a man thirteen years younger than she, who had no money, and she'd actually run away with him into the nether reaches of Texas!

  What have I done? she sometimes asked herself. Somehow, Duane Braddock made her feel alive for the first time since her former fiancé was killed at Gettysburg. She'd vowed to be faithful to Beauregard's memory forever, but now, eight years later, she was marrying Duane Braddock.

  She couldn't explain it to herself, and had given up trying. She'd come to crave him desperately, as he appeared to crave her. Sometimes she thought she'd gone mad. They spent most of their time in bed, but she couldn't resist him, and he couldn't resist her. God only knows how it'll turn out, she mused.

  Their plan was for both to work, and save money for a ranch. But he'd earn practically nothing as a cowboy, and she'd be paid even less as schoolmarm, provided the local townspeople hired her, and she wasn't sure that she could manage a roomful of unruly children, never mind impart knowledge to them.

  Vanessa had led a pampered life until the final year of the war. A former Charleston belle, all her wealth and most members of her family had been wiped out by Sherman's march to the sea, and Reconstruction was too harsh a pill for her to swallow. She had no money and no friends among the carpetbaggers and scalawags who'd taken over the government, so she'd drifted West, and earned her living singing old Confederate Army songs in saloons where war veterans congregated. A large number had fled to Texas, and she'd followed them all the way to Duane Braddock at the Round-Up Saloon in Titusville. And now she was marrying him, although they barely knew each other.

  There was a knock on the door. “Come in.”

  Mrs. Gertrude Gibson, wife of the man who owned the general store and house where Vanessa was residing, stood in the doorway. A jolly woman with fluffy white hair, wearing glasses and
a long navy blue dress, she said: “We're ready to see you, dear. Follow me, please.”

  Vanessa felt as if she were going before a firing squad, as she followed Mrs. Gibson through the small unpainted house, a far cry from the opulent old family plantation. They passed a series of small rooms and narrow corridors, finally arriving in the main room of the general store, where eight people had gathered among canned goods, bolts of cloth, bridles, ranch hardware, and bags of beans. Mrs. Gibson introduced Vanessa to Mrs. Phipps, the blacksmith's wife; Mrs. Longwell, the blacksmith's assistant's wife; Mrs. Boylan, wife of a jack-of-all-trades, and finally, last but not least: the baldhead-ed, sleepy-eyed Parson J. Whittaker Jones.

  “Shelby's got eight children,” declared Mr. Gibson, the stout, florid-faced only merchant in town. “We've often talked ‘bout advertisin’ fer a schoolmarm, but we din't ‘spect someone to come here at her own expense, and then maybe git turned down. We want the best fer our children, not a schoolmarm who can barely read and write herself. Would you mind telling us your qualifications, Miss Fontaine?”

  Vanessa stood in the best available lighting, her back to the window, sunlight surrounding her head with a halo of gold. She'd expected the question, and rehearsed her lines in advance.

  “I may not be the best candidate,” she began modestly, “but I know much more than merely how to read and write. I was educated at Miss Dalton's School in Charleston, and have read many of the world's great classics. I've also performed research on a variety of subjects, and wrote essays reporting my findings. My professors were among the best available in the South, and my piano instructor had been a friend of Franz Liszt.”

  Mrs. Phipps wrinkled her long skinny nose. “Who?”

  Parson Jones replied nasally, “Didn't he run off with somebody's wife?”