by Will Keen
‘I’m beginning to doubt your judgement,’ Flint said. ‘Rodriguez made the point when we were riding in: somebody must have seen us. And people are going to ask questions when three old citizens disappear and we put a guard both ends of town.’
‘If they do, we say it’s for their own good. We tell ’em a band of renegades is heading for La Belle Commune. We’re there to keep them out.’
‘And the three men we have taken?’ Flint said. ‘What was that for?’
‘Town leaders. Removed to a place of safety, because when those renegades ride in they’d be obvious targets and in danger.’
Rodriguez was grinning. ‘And now it is my turn to say bullshit. If I was talking through my backside, you are most assuredly talking through your hat.’
‘Yeah, well, enough of that,’ Breaker snapped.
He flicked his cigarette end into the fire and climbed to his feet, looked across at the Mexican.
‘Get up to the house, tell the others to bring ’em out. Stick around, but back off so if there’s trouble you can see it coming and act. Flint, I want you at the bottom of those steps.’
Rodriguez jogged away, up between the fluted columns and into the house. Flint moved lazily but with his six-gun already out and held against his thigh. Breaker turned away. In the gathering darkness he looked west across the lawns. He could hear the waters of Petit Creek, knew exactly where the rickety bridge crossed the deeper water, but could see no details in the fading light. He took a deep breath, paced restlessly, pulling absently at his moustache and thinking of Rodriguez and the questions he had asked.
Breaker smiled thinly in the gloom.
He wanted the three townsmen dead. That would wipe out the admittedly unlikely possibility of anyone whipping up an armed force to oppose the outlaws. Well, almost, Breaker thought grimly. Paladin would be rooming somewhere close to where he bought his drinks. A bounty hunter, no matter how long ago he’d hung up his guns, would be snapped from sleep by gunfire. He would come tumbling out of his bed, hit the street pulling up his pants and holding a cocked six-gun. And Paladin was a fighter. Up against five men, he would have gone down in a hail of lead – but he would have taken two, maybe three of Breaker’s men with him.
As for the band of renegades about to threaten the town, well, there was some truth in that. The boat carrying the elder Rodriguez brother would be met. He would have made certain that the men employed to transport his stolen gold across country would be armed and dangerous.
Breaker was feeling halfway satisfied with the way things were going when a sudden crash from inside the house snapped his head around. Flint had tensed and was looking up at the door. Breaker stayed were he was, but he was watching and listening and his hand had moved to his six-gun.
‘They’re coming.’
Brad Corrigan was whispering into almost total darkness. It was like conversing at the bottom of a deep well. To one side there was a sliver of light showing beneath the locked door. A shadow had moved across it. Now Brad and his fellow prisoners heard the jingle of keys.
‘Won’t be the five of them,’ Rik Paulson said. ‘Two, three at most, and there’s three of us.’
‘Unarmed,’ Mackie pointed out.
‘But desperate.’ Corrigan said bleakly. ‘Don’t know about you, but that gives me the strength of ten men.’
‘You’ve got your mind on the Widder Bowman-Laing,’ Paulson said.
‘Yeah, and the image of that elegant old gal heats my blood more than a few sacks of coarse flour or a bottle of bootleg whiskey.’
‘Each to his own,’ Paulson said, smacking his lips noisily, but Brad knew the talk and the joshing was merely a futile effort to settle jangling nerves.
‘Just to make it clear,’ Corrigan said in his town-marshal voice, ‘don’t anyone do anything foolish, one wrong—’
Then the door was flung open with a crash. Dazzled by lamplight that at other times would have had them cursing and winding up the wick, they made no move. Then Paulson swore, leaped past Corrigan and charged.
There were three men in the passageway, two of then holding six-guns. Paulson’s rush took the two in front by surprise. He hit the smaller man like a charging longhorn steer. His shoulder rammed into the man’s midriff, driving the breath explosively from his body. At the same time his right arm came around in a raking punch that threatened to remove the man’s head.
It didn’t connect. A craggy giant of a man had watched with amusement as his companion doubled up, gasping. Then he casually swiped Paulson across the back of the neck with the barrel of his six-gun. Paulson went down, his body flopping limply. The outlaw grinned, cocked his pistol and turned it on Corrigan and Mackie.
‘Anyone else gonna try?’
Mackie was raging. Ignoring the gun pointing at his head, the storekeeper tried to force his way past Corrigan.
‘Out of the damn way,’ he snarled, using his elbow on the marshal, knocking him back against the door jamb.
Corrigan braced himself, then stopped Mackie cold with a stiff arm across the throat.
‘Shut up,’ he snapped, ‘and use your goddamn eyes.’
A tow-headed outlaw, his countenance ruined by smallpox, was watching from a little way back, his eyes revealing a hungry lust to kill. At the far end of the passageway, in the faint light near the front door, a young Mexican was grinning happily, teeth white in the gloom. He wore tight black pants, a loose red shirt, and he, too, exuded an air of menace. His six-gun was shiny, with a white ivory butt. He was spinning it on his forefinger. In the opinion of Brad Corrigan, that young man was another who would take great joy in killing.
The outlaw who had taken the blow in the solar plexus had recovered and, glaring balefully down on Paulson, now drew his own weapon. The saloon keeper was groaning and struggling to get his knees under him. The big outlaw leaned down, grabbed him by his shirt collar and effortlessly hauled him to his feet. Paulson sagged back against the wall. He was massaging the back of his neck and trying to shake the cobwebs out of his head.
‘They are most amusing games you play,’ the young Mexican called, ‘but I am of the opinion that Breaker will by now be impatient. Is possible we move now?’
‘You heard him,’ the big man said, and he waggled his six-gun. ‘It’s time for an evening stroll by the creek,’ he added, and behind him the man with the pockmarked face chuckled. It was like a coughing, rasping wheeze. It chilled Brad Corrigan to the bone.
Petit Creek. As he, Mackie and Paulson allowed themselves to be herded out of the room and into the cool fresh air of a Louisiana summer’s night, Corrigan traced the creek’s course in his mind. He recalled how it tumbled down the slope to the west and north of the big antebellum mansion, was crossed by a crude plank bridge, then flowed onwards and downwards to cross the trail out of La Belle Commune and enter the sea to the east of Salty’s Notch.
The creek lay on what had been Emma Bowman-Laing’s land. She had first become aware of it as a small child with pigtails and skinny legs and a bright smile, and it was now an essential part of her regular evening rides. But talk of an evening stroll spoken by a muscular giant of an outlaw with a six-gun in his big fist carried with it hidden menace; menace Brad Corrigan could sense but, like everything that had happened since he had been taken from the familiarity of his jail’s office, did not understand.
They clattered down the steps to be met by the raw-boned outlaw with the moustache and flat-crowned hat and unmistakable air of authority. The honcho, Corrigan thought; Breaker, the young Mex had called him. This man Breaker said nothing. The three men were ushered across the lawn. A rising moon softened by thin cloud cast faint shadows. Paulson stumbled, still weak from the cruel blow. Behind them the big outlaw chuckled. Someone was whistling through his teeth. Tuneless. Irritating.
Realization of what was happening to them hit Brad Corrigan with a suddenness that threatened to take the strength from his long legs. He thought about Emma Bowman-Laing and what might have been, and he w
as overwhelmed by sadness. By the light of the rising moon they were being herded like sheep across lawns and rough pasture. By a creek with a romantic name out of Louisiana’s French past, they would be shot. Their bodies would be dumped in the cold waters and, as far as Corrigan could tell, there wasn’t a damn thing they could do to save themselves.
Paladin and Shorty Long heard the first shot as the moon floated clear of thin cloud and lit the broken roof of Bowman-Laing’s old house. They had circled around, first taking the trail east and crossing the town bridge over Petit Creek. Then they had reined their horses around in a northerly direction and, in darkness, worked their way up the gentle grassy slopes towards the Bowman-Laing land.
The sound that reached their ears to cast a cold chill over the night and set already tense nerves tingling was the sharp crack of a handgun. As to direction, Paladin estimated that it came from somewhere close to Grandaddy Bowman-Laing’s bridge that crossed Petit Creek under a thick tangle of tall trees. Had to be there, Paladin thought bitterly, because Bushwhack Jack Breaker was nothing if not consistent in his methods.
He flashed a quick glance at Shorty Long. The hostler nodded.
‘Just the one,’ he said. ‘One shot on its own don’t make a gunfight, and that’s worrying. In the circumstance I’d say it signifies a killing.’
‘If it does,’ Paladin said, ‘very soon there’ll be two more.’
Emma had left Corrigan’s jail in considerable agitation after Paladin had made his gloomy prophecy. Moments later Paladin had taken a rifle from Brad Corrigan’s gun rack, a couple of boxes of shells from a cupboard, and crossed the street to his room over the empty saloon. There he slid open the drawer beneath the washstand and took out the worn gun-belt with its loops filled with brass shells, and the Colt .45 that had lain there, wrapped in oily rags, for the better part of two years.
He had strapped on the gun-belt and tied the holster’s thongs around his thigh; adjusted the way the revolver hung so that the butt could be brushed by a relaxed right hand; felt satisfied, but awkward after so long away from any weapon. Then, armed but with no clear idea of what to do, he had again clattered down the stairs and out into the baking heat of the shaded gallery.
He had been met by Shorty Long.
The hostler was a wiry man with bow legs and crinkly grey hair. Somewhere in his forties, he had sharp blue eyes and a gammy right leg. Like many wranglers, he had been left crippled by years spent breaking wild broncs, and had turned naturally to his present occupation as a safe way of working with the horses that were his life.
Long had a six-gun tucked in the waistband of his pants, and was carrying an old Henry rifle. Emma Bowman-Laing, he said, had stopped by his stables on the way to her town house, quickly apprised him of the situation, and he’d come a-running.
They’d spent the rest of the day kicking their heels, Paladin knowing instinctively that Bushwhack Jack Breaker would make no move before nightfall. He was optimistic, because at the worst of times he looked for a bright side, and the arrival of Long had boosted his hopes. Three men had been taken, all of them old-timers. Breaker was an outlaw without soul, but would he kill three men in cold blood? Paladin couldn’t see that happening. His assessment of the situation was that Breaker had taken the men to keep them away from town – for reasons unknown. If Paladin was right, locking them in the big house would do that, without bloodshed.
Now, as the crack of the gunshot fired somewhere close to Petit Creek faded from ears but remained to haunt the memory, the little hostler showed his mettle.
‘Two more shots will mean three men dead,’ he growled. ‘I ain’t got enough friends to let that happen.’
Despite his gammy leg he rode as if born in the saddle. He used his spurs and was away up the slope before Paladin could react. Paladin, after a moment’s hesitation, set off after the little man.
No more shots had been fired. But the night was almost too quiet and that, Paladin knew, meant there was a need for caution in their approach.
‘Ease back, Shorty,’ Paladin said, overtaking Long and cutting across towards the gurgling and rushing of the unseen creek. ‘The trees here will serve us well. The creek’s pretty well flanked by ’em on both sides, all along its course until it reaches town. We should be able to get close without being seen – but not on horseback.’
‘I’m not a walking man, Paladin, and for the sake of those poor fellers out there what we need most of all is speed.’
But Paladin was already out of the saddle and slipping his rifle from its boot. The horse moved away at a walk, head high, reins trailing. Paladin jogged silently over to the first line of trees and into the shadows. Twigs snapped underfoot, and he cursed softly. He could smell dead, fallen leaves, the waters of the creek. He waited there, looking up the slope with straining eyes as Shorty Long dismounted and slapped his horse’s rump. When he came towards the trees he was carrying the old Henry rifle and limping badly.
‘We’re closer than I thought,’ Paladin said softly, resting a hand on Long’s shoulder. ‘There’s a break in the trees’ – he pointed – ‘and I thought I saw movement. Higher up, on this side of the creek but up above where the bridge crosses.’
Even as he spoke the night was split by the crack of a second shot. They were now much closer to the gunman. The detonation was again from a handgun, but shocking in its intensity. In the fraction of a second before the sound reached their ears their eyes narrowed as a muzzle flash lit up the night. The dazzling light gave them the exact location of the men they were hunting. It took a second or so for their eyes to readjust. Then, cautiously, they edged closer to the break in the trees. The sight that met their eyes hit them hard, took away their breath.
‘Jesus bloody H Christ,’ Shorty Long whispered.
The moon had climbed higher so that its wan light now shone down on a natural clearing in the woods. The shadows of the high branches of trees forming a semi-circle around the clearing painted skeletal patterns of light and shade on the grass. The clearing was the site the long-dead Bowman-Laing had chosen for his bridge over the creek.
Bushwhack Jack Breaker had chosen it as a place of execution.
Two men were struggling under the dead weight of a man’s body. Hats pushed back from foreheads glistening with sweat they were making for the trees higher up the slope, stumbling and cursing. There a big man waited, hands on hips.
In the centre of the clearing, a young Mexican with the build of a dancer had a shiny pistol thrust up under Brad Corrigan’s rib cage. His greased black hair was glossy in the moonlight. He was grinning, his eyes on the two men and their burden.
Breaker was a few yards away from the Mexican and Corrigan. The flat-crowned black hat was firm on his head and placed his face in shadow out of which his eyes glittered. A cigar jutted from under his drooping moustache, the end glowing as he breathed. In the weak light he was as lean as a peeled pole. His six-gun was pouched. He stood with folded arms.
Brad Corrigan’s tarnished badge of office was pinned to Breaker’s vest.
‘Dammit, we gotta do something, Paladin,’ Long mumbled, dropping to one knee, fumbling with the Henry repeater. ‘That feller there’s the one doin’ the shootin’, the killing—’
‘Wait.’ Paladin grabbed his arm, felt the little man’s muscles taut with tension, held him still with an effort. ‘The man they’re carrying into the trees is dead. I think it’s Mackie. If it is, the first shot we heard did for Paulson. They’re both finished, there’s nothing we can do to help those two—’
‘So we move damn fast to help Brad, and now’s the time—’
‘No.’
‘Yes, for Christ’s sake, two of ’em have their hands full carrying Mac, the Mex’ is holdin’ Brad and that other bastard of a killer is too busy watchin’ the fun.’
‘And if we open up we have to make damn sure one of us kills that Mexican kid with the first shot, or he just pulls the trigger and blows Brad’s head off his shoulders.’ Paladin tighten
ed his grip. ‘We wait, Shorty. When it’s time for Breaker—’
‘Who?’
‘Bushwhack Jack Breaker. A killer who thought he’d done for me. I’m here out of his past as living proof he can be beaten. What I’m saying is when it’s time for Breaker to plug Brad, that Mex’ has to get out of the way, stand well clear. When he does. . . .’
‘Yeah,’ Long breathed, reluctantly nodding agreement, seeing the sense in what Paladin was saying. He relaxed a little. Rested the Henry with its butt on the grass. Then he leaned on the rifle. But he hadn’t planted it firmly, and the grass was already damp with dew. The butt slid under the hostler’s weight. He fell sideways. Knowing the need for silence, he kept his mouth clamped shut. But he was close to the trees. He fell heavily into dry undergrowth. The noise was like the fierce crackling of a raging scrub fire.
The Mex’s head shot around.
‘Somebody is there watching, Breaker,’ he called and, stepping away from Brad Corrigan, he snapped his pistol down and began shooting. As fast as he acted, he was still no match for Breaker. Before the warning shout had faded Breaker was turning and crouching, firing at the break in the trees, fanning the hammer of his six-gun with the heel of his hand so that shots came fast and furious.
The two men who had been carrying Paulson’s body were running out of the trees, drawing their guns. They were followed by the big man.
‘All five of them,’ Paladin cursed.
He took a step backwards out of the light of the moon and began shooting. Shorty Long was still down and swearing furiously, but he had rolled on to his belly and was triggering the big old Henry.
It was a game the outlaws were used to playing. Accustomed to dealing with armed posses intent on stringing them up, they were unfazed by gunfire from a ring-rusty bounty hunter and a crippled wrangler. They scattered. Each man made good use of deceptive shadows, all the while moving without haste towards them.
