The corral held only two horses at the moment, and neither of them paid any attention to Braddock as he rode up. There was a back door, but no windows on this side of the building. Braddock didn't even see any loopholes in the wall through which rifles could be fired to defend the place.
That wasn't important anymore, he reminded himself. Indians hadn't caused any trouble in this part of Texas for more than a decade. The only area where renegades were still a problem was out in the Big Bend, where Apaches sometimes raided across the border from their strongholds in the mountains of Mexico.
Like Captain Hughes had said, the Frontier Battalion had done its job too well.
Right now, however, Braddock was glad that whoever owned this place hadn't made it easy to defend. He was able to sneak up on it without being seen.
The back door had a simple string latch. Braddock drew his Colt and used his other hand to unfasten the door. It swung open on leather hinges that had dried out and hardened like iron in this hot, arid climate.
The hallway inside the door was dim and shadowy. Braddock saw some light at the far end where a beaded curtain separated the hall and the main room. A smell of stale beer and whiskey hung in the air. This was a road ranch, Braddock realized, where travelers could stop for a drink or a meal.
It wasn't on a main route, though, which made Braddock think that most of the men who stopped were probably on the dodge from the law. That wouldn't be as lucrative a trade as it once was—again, the Frontier Battalion of the Rangers had been successful at cleaning up a lot of the bandit gangs—but there would always be lawbreakers looking for somewhere to hide out and rest up.
Braddock eased the door closed behind him and started toward the rectangle of light at the far end of the hall. He paused as a raucous snore came from an open door on his right. A grim smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. If whoever was in there was lucky, he would continue sleeping through whatever was about to happen.
A whisper of sound behind him was the only warning he had. He whipped around in a crouch as a figure lunged toward him. There was just enough light in the corridor for him to see a knife coming at him. Braddock ducked and twisted, and the blade went harmlessly over his left shoulder. Thrown off balance by the miss, the knife-wielder stumbled against him.
Braddock started to bring his gun down on the attacker's head, but he stopped the motion as he realized the body pressed to his was soft and curved, not to mention considerably shorter than him. He wasn't going to pistol-whip a woman.
But he wasn't going to let her stab him, either. As she drew the knife back for another try, he grabbed her wrist and twisted. At the same time he rammed his Colt back in its holster and clamped that hand over the woman's mouth so she couldn't cry out. He was pretty rough about it, he supposed, but that was better than bashing her head in.
The knife slipped from her fingers and thudded to the floor. Braddock grimaced at the sound, but he hoped it went unheard because by now men were talking out in the main room. The woman continued to struggle, but she stopped when Braddock turned her around and got his left arm around her neck. His forearm pressed against her throat like an iron bar. He could crush her windpipe or even break her neck without much effort, and she must have realized that.
He drew his gun again, put his lips against her ear, and whispered, "Just keep quiet and you won't get hurt."
He felt her try to nod. She was agreeing with him. He wasn't going to put any faith in that agreement, though, so he didn't ease up on his hold.
The only thing he had any real faith in was the badge pinned to his shirt.
* * *
George's father slapped the little paperbound book on the table and declared, "That's the only Bible you'll ever need right there, son. The Ranger's Bible. The Book of Knaves."
"The New Testament?" George asked.
The elder Braddock roared with laughter. "Not hardly! That's a list of all the outlaws on our books. We cross 'em off as we bring 'em in...or kill 'em."
"You shouldn't call it a Bible," George said with a frown. "Ma would say that's disrespectful to the Lord's Word."
"Your ma's been gone three years," his pa replied with a snarl. "I never let her tell me what to say or do while she was alive, neither. I sure as hell ain't gonna let some damn button do that."
He started to stand up, obviously expecting George to duck. George didn't, though. Since he'd started to get some growth on him, he'd stopped cringing as much. He figured his pa could still whip him six ways from Sunday if he wanted to, but George would deal out some punishment of his own in the process.
George's father pointed a finger at him and said, "One of these days, boy. One of these days you're gonna sass me one too many times, and then you'll be sorry."
"I didn't sass you, Pa. I just don't like the idea of calling a list of outlaws a Bible."
"You want truth?" The elder Braddock rested a blunt fingertip on the booklet. "That so-called Good Book up on the shelf is just a bunch of stories. This right here, this is truth. Bad men, evil men, who'll do anything they want. They'll steal and they'll kill and they've got to be stopped, whatever it takes. You want to pray? Pray for the guts to stand up to those owlhoots, when the time comes for you to go after them." He shook his head. "I still ain't sure you got what it takes, boy. Maybe you better forget about bein' a Ranger. Maybe you better be a preacher instead. Stick to psalm-singin' and hallelujah-shoutin' with the women while other men do the real work of bringin' law and order to Texas. Maybe that's what you're cut out for." Contempt dripped from his voice as he added, "That'd make your ma right proud of you."
* * *
In the shadowy hallway in the back of the road ranch, Braddock gave a little shake of his head. Most of the time he did his best not to think about his father at all, but the old bastard crawled out of his memories now and then, no matter how hard Braddock tried to banish him.
The old man had always damned Braddock's ma for being weak, but a couple of times after she died, Braddock had seen his father staring at an old picture of his mother, and he'd been crying. He would have denied it, of course, but his eyes had been wet with tears.
Braddock forced his thoughts back into the present. He recognized one of the voices in the front room. It belonged to Jeff Hawley. So Hawley was still alive, against all odds. That was good, because if anybody would know where to find Tull Coleman, it was the crippled outlaw.
The girl didn't struggle as he moved closer to the door and took her with him. It was a little lighter here, and he could see her better. She looked mostly Mexican, but her high cheekbones made him think she had some Indian blood, too. She was young and fairly attractive, but whoring at an owlhoot road ranch like this, those looks wouldn't last very long.
Luckily that wasn't his problem. Finding Tull Coleman and bringing him to justice was.
Even with Braddock's arm across her throat, the girl let out a little squeal of fright when shots roared in the other room. Braddock tightened his grip on her. He heard a heavy thud that was probably a body falling to the floor. Not Hawley, he hoped. He needed Hawley alive for now. He forced the girl forward, pushing through the beaded curtain while the air in the other room was still full of echoes from the gunshots.
Hawley was sitting in a wheelchair behind a table a few feet away on Braddock's right. Braddock's eyes took in the rest of the scene in a split-second's glance. He saw the corpse lying on the floor in an ungainly sprawl and recognized the man as one of the hombres who'd been playing poker in the Splendid Saloon back in Ozona. That fit right in with his theory about one of the local citizens working with Coleman's gang.
He saw Hawley trying to reload the Smith & Wesson .38 he'd just emptied. Braddock moved on out into the room and said, "Bad idea, Jeff."
Hawley gaped at him in astonishment. "You're not...you can't be..."
Braddock pulled the girl aside so Hawley could see the badge. "That's right. A Texas Ranger."
"But they kicked you out of the Rangers!"
"All the Rangers are gone except for a few..."
Hawley's voice faded as he looked down at the broken-open revolver in his right hand. He held a fresh cartridge in his left hand. Braddock could tell what Hawley was thinking just as clearly as if it had been written down in a book.
The Book of Knaves.
"You're wondering how quick you could put that bullet in the cylinder, close it, and take a shot at me, aren't you, Jeff? You'd have to be mighty fast for it to do any good. How steady are your hands? Is that tequila in your glass? You really think you could even get a shot off before I blow a few holes through you."
"You crippled me. You shot me in the back, you damn coward."
"You'd just tried to kill me, and I didn't want you to get away."
"I swore I'd kill you," Hawley said as he looked down at the gun. "Even if it costs me my life." He raised his eyes and stared at Braddock. "You think I really care if I live or die anymore?"
Braddock saw the resolve in the outlaw's eyes and knew he was going to have to shoot Hawley. He figured he would put a bullet through the man's shoulder—both shoulders if he had to—so that Hawley could still talk.
That was when a big, sloppy figure burst through the beaded curtain behind him, shouted something in a language Braddock didn't understand, pointed a shotgun at him, and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 9
Braddock's swift reaction was the only thing that saved both him and the girl. The fat man obviously didn't care if the shotgun blast shredded her, too.
But Braddock dived to the floor before the load of buckshot had time to spread out much. The girl was underneath him with his body shielding hers. The blast went over both of them and blew a jagged hole in one of the whiskey barrels supporting the bar planks. Rotgut spewed out.
The fat man had fired only one barrel, which meant he was still dangerous. He wore a nightshirt, the bottom of which flapped around pale calves as big around as the trunks of small trees. The man's head was shaped like a barrel cactus and was bald except for some wildly askew strands of white hair. He kept yelling in that foreign language as he started to lower the shotgun's twin barrels toward Braddock.
Braddock angled his Colt up and fired first. The bullet ripped through the fat man's double chin and plowed on up into his brain. He flopped backward as he triggered the shotgun's second barrel. The charge went harmlessly into the ceiling.
Braddock caught movement from the corner of his eye and turned his head to see Hawley turning over the table and shoving it at him. The chess board and pieces went flying. The table hit Braddock and didn't do any real damage, but it did jolt the gun out of his hand.
With the chair's wheels squealing, Hawley rolled toward Braddock and then dived out of the chair. He landed on top of Braddock and clawed at his throat. Hawley's fingers closed like talons on Braddock's windpipe.
Braddock tried to throw Hawley off, but the outlaw clung to him like a leech. As they rolled through the lake of spilled whiskey, they tangled with the girl, who started to scream now that Braddock didn't have hold of her anymore. She raked her fingernails across Braddock's face as she tried to help Hawley overpower him.
Anger surged up inside Braddock. He backhanded the girl and knocked her away from him. Then he hammered a punch into the side of Hawley's head. He had to hit the outlaw twice more before Hawley's grip loosened. Braddock put his hands against Hawley's chest and shoved him away.
Hawley lay there panting. "You...you son of a bitch," he said as Braddock climbed onto his knees and then got to his feet. "You stand there...whole...such a big man." He clenched a fist and pounded it against the floor in frustration as furious tears rolled down his sallow cheeks. "Why don't you come over here and kick me?" he shouted. "Come on! Stomp the helpless cripple!"
"I don't want to stomp you, Hawley," Braddock said. He bent and picked up the gun he had dropped. A glance toward the fat man told him he didn't have to worry about any more threats from that direction. The man lay on his back with a large pool of blood spreading around his head.
The girl was huddled against one of the whiskey barrels, evidently stunned. Braddock didn't trust her, so he kept a watch on her from the corner of his eye as he pointed the Colt at Hawley.
"What I want is for you to tell me where to find Tull Coleman. And don't try to lie and claim you don't know. Neither of us are foolish enough to believe that."
"You really think I'd tell you?" Hawley asked. "I'd die first, and you know that."
"Up to you," Braddock said as he thumbed back the Colt's hammers. Now that the echoes of the earlier shots had died away, the sound was loud in the close confines of the room.
Hawley glared at him for a few seconds, then started to laugh. He propped himself up on one hand and used the other to beckon to Braddock. "Go ahead and shoot," he urged. "Come on, get closer! You don't want to miss, Ranger. Now you be sure to go ahead and kill me this time. Don't foul it up again." He leaned forward. "Come on, you can do it! Just pull that damn trigger, if you've got the guts! Or maybe you're too much of a coward to shoot a man who's lookin' you right in the eye."
Hawley's voice wasn't the only one Braddock seemed to hear at that moment. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn his father was right there behind him, goading him to shoot the outlaw. Braddock Sr.'s voice was weaker now, slurred as it had been in those last days when the sickness was killing him and whiskey was the only thing that would dull the pain. But even on his last legs he'd been as filled with hate and rage as ever, hatred for outlaws and rage toward the son he thought would never be the man he was.
Braddock listened to both of them, then lowered his gun and slid it back in its holster. He stalked over to Hawley, bent down, and took hold of the outlaw's shirt. He lifted Hawley, who cursed and struck feebly at him. Braddock turned and shoved Hawley into the wheelchair, which rolled backward a little from the impact.
"You're not going anywhere," Braddock said.
Hawley cursed some more, grabbed hold of the chair's arms and tried to shake it in sheer, futile frustration. Then he slumped back and sobbed.
Braddock felt a little sick. There was something repulsive about Hawley. Not his disability so much as it was his reaction to it. The outlaw was like a broken-backed snake, writhing in the dust and biting at things that weren't there.
The girl moaned. Braddock put his hands under her arms and lifted her to her feet. She stood there unsteadily, shaking her head. Finally she lifted it, looked at Braddock, and said, "You hit me."
"I reckon you had it coming. You were trying to help Hawley kill me."
"You are the one who has it coming! He was a strong man, and you made him weak."
"He was never strong," Braddock said. "He was a damn outlaw. All he ever did was take advantage of people and hurt them."
Her chin lifted defiantly. "He never hurt me."
"He just hadn't gotten around to it yet." Braddock changed the subject by asking, "Tull Coleman comes here to see him, doesn't he?"
With a surly glare, she said, "I don't know any Tull Coleman."
Braddock let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't know why everybody feels compelled to lie to help that murdering bastard. What direction does Coleman come from? Just tell me that and I'll go away and leave the two of you alone."
"To do what?" the girl wanted to know. "You killed the Dutchman. This was his place. Now it's nothing."
"Maybe you could run it. You and Hawley."
A shrewd, calculating look replaced the angry expression on her face. "You really think so?"
"Unless that Dutchman, as you call him, has some relatives who can come in and take over everything."
She shook her head slowly and said, "He never said anything about any family."
"Well, there you go," Braddock told her. "What happens here is none of my business. All I care about is finding Coleman."
"If I tell you what I know...you'll drag out th
at lard-gutted carcass and bury it?"
From the sound of it, she hadn't liked the Dutchman very much. Braddock supposed that he'd treated her pretty roughly.
"Sure," Braddock said. He didn't know if he would keep the promise, but he was willing to make it.
The girl hesitated a moment longer, then said, "All right. It's not much, but I'll tell you."
Before she could say anything else, Braddock heard wheels creaking. He turned to see Hawley rolling toward them. The outlaw had a grimly determined look on his face, but he was unarmed as far as Braddock could see.
Then he realized Hawley held something in his hand. He lifted it, and Braddock saw it was a match. With a flick of his thumbnail, Hawley set the thing alight.
Then he dropped it on the floor in front of him, right into the big pool of whiskey that had leaked out of the buckshot-shattered barrel.
The liquor went up in a huge whoosh! of flame that made the girl jump back and scream. Hawley howled with laughter as he rolled forward and the fire engulfed him. His clothes and hair, soaked with whiskey from rolling around in it on the floor, started burning, but he kept laughing.
Braddock grabbed the girl as the flames shot across the floor, following the spilled whiskey, and reached the broken barrel. The liquor that was still in the barrel ignited. It was like a bomb going off, setting the bar on fire and spreading the flames to the other barrels.
Braddock jerked the girl off her feet and dashed toward the door. He slammed through the opening just as more of the barrels exploded behind them.
The force of the blast pushed Braddock forward like a giant hand in his back. He lost his hold on the girl just before he slammed into the ground. As he rolled over he heard what sounded like thunder, but the sky was clear. The rumble came from inside the building, where thick clouds of black smoke were now gushing out of every opening.
Outlaw Ranger Page 5
