The Outlaws of Salty's Notch

by Will Keen

  ‘No, town’s out if we want this feller to make it,’ Bowman-Laing said. ‘And you’re right, I did see the fire; saw it, smelt it, shed an angry tear – but it made no difference because that wasn’t where I was heading.’

  ‘Then where?’ Paladin began, but he was cut off by Bowman-Laing.

  ‘Follow me,’ she said. Without haste, one elbow clamped on Corrigan’s embracing arm to hold him more firmly in place, she got the chestnut moving and headed out of the ragged fringes of drifting smoke and straight into the trees on the east side of the house.

  ‘My grandaddy called it a hunting lodge,’ Emma Bowman-Laing said. ‘You must have heard me mention it earlier. He never did any hunting in his life, only thing he ever shot dead was a runaway slave. But he liked the sound of the name, told his highfalutin friends all about it, his words considerably embellished with imagined deeds.’

  It was a log cabin buried in the woods, reached by the little-used trail Paladin and Long had followed in the widow’s wake. Tangled undergrowth snagged their clothing and drew snorting protests from the horses. Then, after ten minutes negotiating the trail as it twisted and turned and climbed ever higher, moonlight filtering through the trees had revealed a shingle roof through which a stone chimney jutted, the pale shine of walls of peeled logs.

  They caught up with the widow as she pulled the chestnut to a halt by a sagging hitch rail, moved in to hold the unconscious marshal while she dismounted and opened the door, then carried him inside. Within minutes Emma and Paladin had him stripped naked and in bed in the single back room, his body warming under a heap of soft animal skins.

  By then Shorty Long was gone, hammering back the way they had come and then on down to a house on the outskirts of town occupied by a man called Forbes who had, once upon a time, been a good doctor.

  ‘I was going to ask you how you came to be there when Brad needed you,’ Paladin said, coming back into the bedroom with two steaming tin cups of coffee. ‘I think I know the answer. If I’m right, then you saw everything.’

  ‘Saw everything,’ Bowman-Laing said, ‘but didn’t follow you from town if that’s what you mean. I rode up the short way, snuck into the woods on the west side of my grandaddy’s bridge. Watched the moon come up. Watched them herd Brad and the others down from the house, shoot Mackie and Rik Paulson and haul them off into the woods.’ she smiled. ‘Saw you plug that outlaw, and it was all I could do not to scream with joy.’ Her smile faded, and she shook her head. ‘I watched Brad make a run for it with my pulse hammering and my heart in my mouth.’ She stopped, looked with despair at the bed, at the man who was now taking one ragged breath and pausing for far too long before the next. ‘I saw cold-blooded murder committed, Paladin,’ she said brokenly, ‘and did nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’ Paladin shook his head. ‘That’s wrong, and you know it. Brad’s alive now because of your quick thinking.’

  ‘But two men are dead.’ She looked at him pleadingly, her eyes moist. ‘What’s it all about, Paladin?’

  ‘Money. Has to be. For men like that, outlaws, killers, it’s the only motive.’

  ‘Damn it, you know that can’t be right. In La Belle Commune, there is no money.’

  ‘There must be. Somewhere.’

  Very softly, Bowman-Laing said, ‘I furnished this lodge with one or two items from the house. Nowadays I come here much more frequently, because in here with the door open wide and the sunlight slanting down through the trees I’m once again a lady of means. For a little while I can convince myself I’m not being dragged down by what confronts and offends me every day in La Belle Commune. Paladin, there is no money in La Belle Commune.’

  ‘If the money’s not there now,’ Paladin said doggedly, ‘then. . . .’ He shook his head irritably, baffled, unable to take his thoughts further.

  ‘If it’s not there now, this money,’ she said, watching him, ‘it must be coming in from outside, and pretty soon. Is that it? They know something, those outlaws? They’re here because . . . because what? Government money’s on it’s way, bullion, a wagon heading for La Belle Commune but bound for Lord knows where? That would be a first in my lifetime. Or is it something else, something we—?’

  Paladin had stopped her with a raised hand. His pulse had quickened. His scalp prickled. He was remembering the man riding at an easy pace through La Belle Commune, Bushwhack Jack Breaker with the moustache and dusty flat-crowned black hat and his quick smile and inordinate interest when he spotted the track known as Salty’s Notch.

  Which led arrow-straight to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

  ‘A boat,’ Paladin said softly.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Bowman-Laing murmured with mock approval, ‘the Spanish Main, pirates and their stolen hordes of silver pieces of eight. Your imagination, Paladin, is quite breathtaking.’

  And from the bed a halting voice said weakly, ‘To figure out what this Breaker’s up to . . . that’s what it takes, imagination . . . or a bullet in the back.’

  The chuckle was strained but genuine. Corrigan was white-faced and drawn but supporting himself on one elbow. He managed a grin when Bowman-Laing sprang to his bedside. ‘I’ve got the one, Paladin the other,’ he said, touching her cheek with fingers that trembled, ‘so I reckon between us we can finish them off.’

  Chapter Seven

  By an hour after sunrise the next day, Bushwhack Jack Breaker was behind the desk in Brad Corrigan’s office. Lomax and Flint had been sent to the western end of town. Flint was a man with a sharp mind and a temperament that was always ice-cold. He would control the gun-crazy Lomax, or use him as he saw fit. Their orders were to stop anyone entering the town. Breaker was certain the men meeting the elder Rodriguez would come in from that direction, from Texas. So, although he’d called their taking of La Belle Commune a lock-down, he wasn’t particularly concerned about its eastern flank.

  Meanwhile, in town, Devlin was making his menacing presence highly visible. A powerful man holding the reins of his strong bay gelding in huge fists, he rode up the street giving the blank windows in the scattering of ramshackle houses on both sides the evil eye. People seeing him, Breaker reckoned, would back off and keep their heads down. Batten down the hatches, the outlaw thought with a grin. Now, wouldn’t that be an appropriate way of putting it, in the circumstances?

  Rodriguez was with Breaker. The smoke from the young Mexican’s cigarillo was curling in the shafts of sunlight, moved by the draught from the open window. He was standing, twirling his red and yellow sombrero in his slim hands. His smile was always there, lurking.

  ‘Listen, kid,’ Breaker said, ‘I’m asking you again, have you got this right? The boat comes in tonight?’

  ‘They are annoying, these questions. I have told you six, maybe seven times.’

  ‘And I’ve been listening, but something about this deal stinks to high heaven. I mean, why the hell are you selling your brother down the river? He’s bringing in a heap of cash. You and he would be rich men. Why tell me and the others?’

  ‘There has always been bad feeling between us. I am younger. In the pueblo, he treat me badly, most days. So now I get even, take the money and run.’ His white teeth glinted. ‘Leave him dead on the beach, maybe.’

  Breaker was leaning back, smoking. His eyes were thoughtful.

  ‘You told me several men would be meeting your brother. Is that why you’re not one of them? Because of this bad blood?’

  ‘Is ridiculous, that thought. We have not spoken for several years. I learn of this amazing thing he has done, this fortune he has stolen, from a person I cannot name.’

  ‘Well,’ Breaker said, ‘if these men are coming they’re cutting it fine.’

  ‘Several men with a buckboard, or maybe one man with a spare horse, which would be sufficient.’ Rodriguez shrugged. ‘In my mind I am not certain of the facts, but it is of no consequence. They will arrive. Flint and Lomax will be there waiting. In my opinion they must shoot them very dead.’

  ‘All taken ca
re of,’ Breaker said, and he swung out of the chair and poured himself a cup of coffee. He turned to watch Rodriguez walk out into the street, and had the cup raised to his lips when the first distant shots crackled.

  The buckboard came rattling in from the direction of the Texas border. Its plume of brown dust drifted across the flat land bordering the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, discolouring the thin white mist and shimmering heat-haze. The trail was rough and little used, making the long ride uncomfortable for the three men on the buckboard’s hard seats. They were sore, hot and sweating. Travelling due west, they’d been forced to squint ahead into the dazzling glare of the early morning sun. It was little wonder, Flint thought, that there was relief on the driver’s glistening face when he pulled the wagon to a halt.

  Flint was out in the middle of the trail, his hand raised. Gun pouched. Nothing in his manner to suggest trouble. Or theirs, but that would change, and quickly. He had little doubt that these were the men meeting Alvaro Rodriguez. Lazily, he wondered what the reaction would be when he told them that they could go no further.

  At the same time, the animal instinct that had many times saved his life in the past was telling him that something was badly wrong.

  ‘Bad news, fellers,’ he said. ‘Or maybe you should look on it as good news: this is as far as you go.’

  A big man jumped down, stretched, scratched the damp back of his neck. He had a paunch, keen eyes, a six-gun he shifted on his hip without taking his eyes from Flint.

  ‘You mind clarifying?’

  ‘Fever. Real bad, it’s killing folk indiscriminately.’ Flint smiled at that; thought of it as him and the big man battling with big words they maybe didn’t understand. ‘My job is to keep the town locked down,’ he said, ‘until the medics from New Orleans give the OK.’

  ‘And if it’s not the town we want, but the beach?’

  ‘That’s like choosing where to die,’ Flint said. ‘There’ – he jerked a thumb towards the Gulf – ‘or here.’

  ‘Here?’ The big man’s eyebrow lifted. He glanced away to his left, to where two horses were tethered alongside a patch of dense scrub thirty yards to the north of the trail. ‘We ain’t set foot in town yet. You telling me you’re infected. You and your friend over there?’

  ‘What I’m telling you,’ Flint said, ‘is to turn that goddamn buckboard around and get the hell of of here.’

  The big man sighed, puffing his cheeks out.

  ‘Christ, are you listening to this?’ he said, talking sideways to the two men in the buckboard but watching Flint with an amused smile.

  ‘You want I should run him down,’ the driver said.

  ‘I can do better than that, and faster,’ the big man said, and he went for his gun.

  He got his hand to the butt and was lifting the big Colt when the shot cracked. Smoke puffed from the patch of scrub. It was short range for a long gun. The big man took the bullet from Lomax’s rifle in the side of the jaw. Blood and bone splinters flew in a spray, glistening red in the sun. He went down in a heap, rolled face down. His legs twitched. One hand flapped feebly at his face.

  The second shot sent the driver’s hat flying. He ducked down, then grabbed a shotgun from under the seat and rolled out of the buckboard. The man sitting immediately behind him had a steely glint in his eyes. His six-gun was out and cocked. He stayed where he was, squinting into the sun; waiting, when waiting was to invite sudden death.

  He was lucky. Lomax chose that moment to lower the rifle and break cover. The man in the buckboard dropped him with a single shot; a long shot for a handgun. Before the crack of the pistol had faded, from under the wagon the shotgun blasted. It tore Lomax’s face to bloody shreds as he crumpled.

  ‘Pretty fair shooting,’ Flint said, in a conversational tone, ‘but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  He dropped to one knee and killed the man under the wagon with two fast shots. The dying man’s finger tightened on the scattergun’s second trigger. The blast hit the wheels and buckshot whined away in the hot air.

  The man in the buckboard sprang upright. He spun to face Flint. His six-gun was up and cocked. He turned fast, but, against a man like Flint his fastest turn would always have been too slow. He’d made it halfway round when a bullet took him in the throat. A second punched a black hole between his eyes. He fell across the seat. The six-gun clattered, dropped on to the dusty trail. In the sudden silence Flint could clearly hear blood from the terrible throat wound dripping on the boards.

  He looked towards Lomax. Thought about the damage a shotgun inflicts, and shook his head. Deakin downed by the house, now Lomax. Five reduced to three, and with a thin smile he thought of how the gold would be divvied. Then he turned his gaze on the three dead men. They were not what he’d expected. Outlaws live on their nerves. Most are unshaven to present a tough image, hungry most of the time. Flint couldn’t remember seeing one with a padding of fat.

  He walked towards the big man, the man with a paunch downed by Lomax, and dropped to one knee. The man was stone dead, his hand on his shattered face. With an effort Flint flopped him on to his back, and grimaced. Shattered bone, sticky with blood, caked in dust. He was wearing a cowhide vest. In the top pocket, Flint found a badge. He stood up, leaned back against the buckboard. The badge was cupped in his hand. He slipped it into his pocket, fashioned a cigarette, scraped a match and blew a stream of smoke.

  He figured there was no point searching the other men. The instinct that had warned him something was wrong left him in no doubt: all three men who had arrived to meet the boat carrying Alvaro Rodriguez and his stolen gold were badged US marshals.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘There were three of them, in a buckboard,’ Paladin said. ‘Two of the outlaws were waiting. Some talk went back and forth I wasn’t close enough to hear. Whatever was said it led to a gunfight. When the dust settled the only man left standing was that lean, black-clad outlaw.’

  ‘Flint,’ Shorty Long said. ‘That’s his name.’

  ‘How’d you know that?’

  ‘The widow rode down with me. I did some chores in the stables. Next thing I know I’m out in the sun and she’s standing outside the jail talking to that Mexican kid and Bushwhack Jack Breaker.’

  ‘The devil you say.’

  Long grinned. ‘Had that crazy yellow parasol. I could hear her tinkling laugh. She was disarming them with an old lady’s charm, playing innocent but missing nothing.’

  Paladin had been a keen observer of the gunfight from a low rise some fifty yards back from the thick patch of scrub. When he’d seen enough he’d ridden away fast and hard, making damn sure the remaining outlaw knew he’d been watched. But knowing Breaker and the Mexican were in Brad’s jail, he had circled high above the town and come into Long’s stables by the back way.

  ‘I think the three men in the buckboard,’ Paladin said now, ‘were lawmen.’

  The hostler’s eyes narrowed. ‘But you’re not sure?’

  ‘Flint searched one of them. Stood up with something glittering in his hand. Seemed a mite put out. Stood smoking, glancing down every now and then at what he’d found.’

  ‘You reckon these lawmen were after Breaker?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Paladin shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The widow’s gone back to the lodge. She called here briefly when she’d done with her work as a spy. My guess is she learned a whole lot more than she told me in that time.’

  ‘Then let’s go find out,’ Paladin said.

  From observing the little hostler Paladin knew that weariness must be writ naked across his own countenance when they walked into the lodge.

  It had been well past midnight when Long returned with the town’s drunken doctor, Nathan Forbes. Though bleary eyed and stinking of strong drink, the mumbling old man had dressed Corrigan’s bullet wound with skill and tenderness. When he rode back to town on a horse that looked half blind he carried with him a silver
dollar from Bowman-Laing, and the memory of her kiss on his flushed, lined cheek.

  Corrigan slept. Emma dozed in her chair by the bed. Paladin had lowered the lamp and taken Long and a couple of rusty spades and together they had traipsed across the slope to the woods. There they had stripped to their undershirts, and with the sounds of night birds and the nearby creek in their ears had dug shallow graves in ground criss-crossed with roots. After an hour’s back-breaking work, they had buried the bodies of their two friends.

  The skies had been lightening with approaching dawn when they smoothed the last of the red soil and laid a covering of dead leaves. They had tried to grab an hour’s sleep in the lodge’s living room. Long snored for a while, but Paladin’s active mind kept him awake. For the first time since he’d last walked out of Paulson’s place, he felt the craving for hard liquor.

  ‘I was wrong, last night,’ Brad Corrigan said.

  His voice was much stronger. The marshal was lying back in a comfortable chair close to the living-room’s window, stripped to the waist, bandages a pure white in the slanting sunlight and his feet up on a wooden stool. ‘I said imagination and a bullet in the back would see us through,’ he went on. ‘What I neglected to mention was the intelligence and fearlessness of this fine woman.’

  ‘Actually it was all down to luck, and playing on the preconceived notions of stupid men,’ Bowman-Laing said. ‘It’s surprising how the need for caution is forgotten when an old dear like me’s dismissed as senile. Breaker had a good idea who I was, of course, from my riding past the house that time. He still didn’t see the danger. They plopped me down in a chair with a cup of strong coffee to revive me after the strain of my walk, then left me to doze’ – she smiled – ‘or die. They went outside, lit cigarettes, stood in the hot sun. And they talked; they kept their voices low – they had some sense – but the door was open and I have sharp ears. That Mexican boy’s full of himself. He spilled most of the beans – in his case I suppose that should be frijoles – and when after a while I walked away with deliberate unsteadiness and a vague look in my eyes, I had most of the story.’