by J. Lee Butts
Chapped lips peeled away from tobacco-stained teeth. He fiddled with the hammers on that massive smoke pole. “Nope. Marshal Cobb ain’t here right at this exact moment. Name’s Rufus Cosner. Deputy City Marshal Rufus Cosner. What can I do for you boys?”
Boz chucked our thick sheaf of bona fides onto the deputy’s desk. “Well, ugly sucker wearin’ three pistols and leanin’ against the doorframe yonder’s none other than famed Texas Ranger Lucius ‘By God’ Dodge. I’m just the poor son of a bitch who has to put up with his unending verbal abuse—Senior Corporal Randall Bozworth Tatum.”
“That a fact?” the impudent deputy snapped.
“Is indeed,” Boz went on. “Based on a telegraph message from your Marshal Cobb, we’ve been sent down here from Company B, up in Fort Worth, to relieve the good citizens of Rio Seco of a murderous brigand named Boston Teal. Figure on taking his more’n worthless ass back north and stretching his neck.”
Cosner’s truculent attitude changed quicker than a minnow can swim the inside of a tin water cup. He hopped out of his squeaking seat. Dropped that double-barreled blaster onto the battered desk’s scarred top. Grabbed up our wad of papers. Slapped them back into one of Boz’s hands and then grabbed the other and shook it like he was the happiest man in south Texas.
A toothy grin now plastered on his face, the deputy said, “Sweet Lord Almighty, but I’m serious glad to see you rangers, and that’s the God’s truth. Teal’s just about to rub my last nerve as raw as a slab of fresh butchered beef.”
From the corner cell I heard, “You bastards won’t get me past the town limits of this one-dog, jerkwater hellhole. Probably won’t get me off the boardwalk outside. So much as try to leave this stink hole of a jail with me in tow and you’ll all end up deader’n a trio of rotten cottonwoods.”
I turned to see a scruffy, bearded joker leaned against his cage’s chained and padlocked door. A set of nasty moustaches hung down past the prisoner’s chin and swept the upper part of a thick chest. Smart-mouthed jackass had one foot wrapped in a wad of blood-encrusted bandages. Big ole dressing made the end of his leg look about the size of a sixty-pound, yellow-meat watermelon.
“Brother Irby’ll kill the hell out of both you ranger sons a bitches ’fore he lets you take me anywheres, much less Fort Worth for a hangin’,” the foot-shot idget growled. “Ain’t neither one a you bastards got grit ’nuff to string up any us Teal boys.”
Cosner rolled his eyes and looked like he wanted to puke his socks up. “He might be right. This jackass’s brothers and several other gunnies are holed up over yonder at the Saratoga Saloon. They’ve been hanging around ever since the day after Marshal Cobb had to leave town.”
“When was that?” I said.
Cosner scratched a tobacco-stained chin. “Well, he struck out four days ago. This walking pile of dung’s friends and family showed up next morning ’bout ten o’clock. Done kept me holed up in here the entire time. Haven’t even been able to visit the outhouse. Got four chamber pots and they’re all overflowing. Wasn’t for a Messican friend of mine guess I’d’ve already starved.”
“They threaten you?” Boz said.
“Hell, yes, they threatened me. Threatened everybody in town. ’S why ain’t nobody out in the streets. I ’uz about to give up and let ’em have this no-account, low-life stack of skunk shit.”
“His friends been pressin’ you?” Boz said.
“Damn right. Several of them boys stood outside the door earlier this mornin’. Said if’n I didn’t give the smelly bastard up, they’d set fire to the jail. Wait in the street and kill me when I come out. Don’t ’specially wanna die over a shit heel like this ’un, tell you for certain sure, fellers.”
Boston Teal’s unshaven face went scarlet. “Come on. Lemme outta this here cage. I’ll kick the dog crap outta yer smart-mouthed ass, star toter. Callin’ any of us Teal boys skunk shit and such is an act that can sure ’nuff get yer narrow ass put in a coffin.”
Cosner didn’t bother to so much as glance his prisoner’s direction when he shot back, “Aw, shut up, you stupid son of a bitch. One more syllable from you’s gonna be just about all I can stand. Might just send you to Jesus myself. Save these fellers the hellish task of havin’ to escort you all the way back to Fort Worth. A fate I personally consider worse than gettin’ my family jewels caught in the clothes wringer on my wife’s new washtub.”
Sure all he wanted was to diffuse the tension a bit when Boz offered, “Why’d Marshal Cobb leave town in the first place, Deputy?”
Cosner resumed his seat behind the desk. He appeared to soften a bit. “Man’s wife passed away. ’Fore she went and sprouted wings, he’d promised that good lady he’d take her back to Columbus, Mississippi, for proper burial. ’S where her family’s all planted.”
“Got any idea how long he figured on being gone?” I said.
Cosner scratched an ear, then slapped at the side of his head like a dog that might’ve come across a flea. “As much as three weeks, I ’magine,” he mumbled, then gazed at his fingers, as though he’d squished something on one of them. “Maybe longer. Didn’t leave me with any definite date of return, tell the God’s truth.”
Boston Teal let out a derisive snort. “Gutless pile of runny dung heard brother Irby was on the way. Just used his ole lady’s passin’ as a coward’s excuse to blow out of town. Man’s yeller as mustard, by God. Got henhouse ways and smells of feathers.”
Cosner grabbed a half-filled tin cup from the top of his desk then threw it across the room at Teal’s cell door. The battered utensil bounced off the rough-textured iron straps right in front of the mouthy prisoner’s face. Coffee flew all over the grinning, foot-shot bank robber. The unexpected bath really set him off and the water-headed jackass jumped up on the cell door and hung there like some kind of bug-eyed tree squirrel. Gritted his teeth and went to growling and slobbering in the manner of a hydrophobic dog.
Cosner whacked the desktop with an open palm. Flat-handed lick sounded like an angry kid whacked an empty barrel with a long stick. He eyeballed the jailbird and yelped, “Stop that goddamned racket, you gallin’ son of a bitch. Fine woman’s gone to her heavenly re-ward, and you got nothing to offer on the matter.”
Red-faced, purple-necked, and crazy-looking as hell, Teal screwed his head sidewise. Eyes a bulging, he glared through one of the openings between the iron straps in front of his face. “Well, I can sure as hell say this. You boys don’t let me outta this here animal cage, and damned quick, bet none of you’ll live much longer. Figure the only reason brother Irby ain’t stormed this sorry excuse for a hoosegow and freed me already’s a ’cause he thought an idiot like you might well go and shoot me for sure ’fore he could get in here and get me out.”
The deputy jumped to his feet again and shook an angry finger Teal’s direction. “Well, if that’s what your brother thinks, he’s right. If’n he’d a put one booted foot over my threshold, I’d a blasted the bejabberous hell out you first, then him, by God. Same fate applies for any fires he might attempt to set.”
Teal spit a glob of snotty phlegm onto the dirty floor just outside his cramped enclosure. Shook the door of the cell by rocking back and forth from his hanging position. Yelled, “You ain’t gonna live long enough to shoot anybody, you stump-jumpin’ hick. Bet all three a you badge-wearin’ bastards’ll be deader’n a trio of them boys what fell at the Alamo ’fore it gets good dark.”
Boz turned and, very politely, I thought, said, “Shut the hell up, Teal. I’m already tired of the sound of your voice. Every time you open your mouth, it sounds like a crosscut saw going through petrified oak knots. And, hell’s bells, I just walked in the door.”
Teal dropped to the floor with a heavy, one-footed thump. Twisted around on his good kicker like a crippled terpsichorean at a hoedown. Took aim and spit again. “Well, screw you and the horse you rode in on, you law-bringin’ son of a bitch.”
On a personal level, I thought Teal’s jail-cell bravado grossly misplaced.
Man just didn’t seem to realize the gravity of his arrogant mistake. Not even when Boz strode over to the cell’s chained-and-padlocked door. My amigo’s spurs clinked and jingled when he came to a grinning stop and motioned for the prisoner to come closer.
All I can say on the matter, now, is that Boston Teal had to have possessed just about as much intelligence as a south Louisiana cantaloupe, when he dragged his damaged foot back over to the tiny cubicle’s door and leaned forward. I couldn’t help but grin as I had no doubt as to what was about to happen. Tell the honest to God truth, I felt a sense of real joy at the prospect of the entertainment in the works.
Teal turned his scruffy noggin sidewise. Sneered when he got right up against some of those iron straps. “Yeah, you badge-wearin’, ass-ugly bastard. Whaddaya want?”
Boz’s hand darted forward like a fanged diamondback’s poison-filled head. Somehow, and don’t ask me how he managed it, my friend got his fingers laced into that surprised outlaw’s scraggly moustaches and beard. He latched on and jerked the man’s face up against that metal cage with a resounding clunk and held on like a Mississippi snapping turtle. Bounced Teal’s empty-sounding noggin off that cell door three or four times before he finally spoke.
I barely heard him when Boz leaned up next to Teal’s bloody ear and hissed, “Sit down on your cot, and shut your irritating mouth.”
Got to give Teal the credit where it’s due, he didn’t back off much. With blood-oozing lips pressed against the cell’s door, man could barely speak when he muttered, “An’ if’n I doan, whachu figger on doin’, you goober-headed turd knocker?”
A twisted, nigh gleeful smile crept across Boz’s face. “I’ll have Deputy Cosner open this door for me. Then, I’ll come in there and kick your lardy backside till your nose bleeds.”
Teal matched Boz’s sneer with a mocking grin of his own and said, “The hell you say.”
Boz broke into a pleased smile. “The hell I do say, Boston ole friend. Get started and I just might keep on bootin’ your blubbery rump till you’ll have to unbutton your shirt when you’re once again able to hobble your way to an outhouse. Then I could just go on and stomp on that damaged foot of yours till it thunders. Hell, have to admit I’m right on the irritated edge of believing as how I might be willing to work like a Georgia field hand kicking the crap out of you.”
Then, damned if he didn’t jerk one whole lip’s worth of Boston Teal’s whiskers right out of the man’s face. Toeless outlaw grabbed his mouth and went to bellering like a red-eyed cow. Hooted and hopped around the tiny enclosure on his only usable foot. Squirrelly bastard cussed everyone ever born from Adam to the most recent president. Ranted, raved, and acted like a mistreated lunatic.
’Course Boz thought that was the funniest thing he’d seen in about ten years. Man laughed like something crazed as he strolled back toward the marshal’s rickety desk. Still in mid-chuckle when he flicked a wad of Teal’s lip hair onto the floor. Stuff hadn’t come to rest when several loud thumps and breaking glass against the jail’s front façade jerked our attention to the shuttered windows and barred door.
I already had a pistol in each hand when I heard someone out in the street yell, “You mother-humpin’ lawmen get your sorry selves on out here, and right by-God now. Come on out, Deppidy Cosner. Bring your idiot friends with you. Gonna cut you boys down pocket high.”
4
“MEANER’N A BUCKET OF TEASED RATTLERS.”
WITH ONE BULGED eye pressed against the hoosegow’s partially opened peep slot, Boz crooked a finger my direction. “Take a gander at this, Lucius,” he said, then stepped out of the way as I strode up to the viewing port.
I took my friend’s place and peeked outside. Four men swayed in Rio Seco’s central thoroughfare like a stand of drunken cottonwood saplings in a light, blistering hot breeze. The quartet couldn’t have been more than twenty feet from the boardwalk that ran along the calaboose’s front entrance.
Unshaven, red-faced, and grubby as hell, all those boys bristled with pistols and knives. One feller carried an amputated shotgun that appeared to have been sawed down from both the barrel and stock ends. A tall, disheveled joker, who bore a striking resemblance to Deputy Cosner’s prisoner, occupied a spot about a step ahead of the other three. While I watched, he threw his scruffy head back and tried to suck the bottom out of a whiskey bottle.
“Feller pullin’ at the jug’s Irby Teal. Young Master Boston’s eldest brother,” Boz hissed into my ear.
Idiot locked in Rio Seco’s juzgado just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “Yeah, by God. And ole Irby’s meaner’n ten acres of south Texas tarantullers. He’s gonna jerk a knot in you boys’ asses and that’s fer damned sure. The three of you’d best get yourselves ready to shake hands with Jesus.” Loony son of a bitch went to slapping his good leg and laughing like a thing insane.
Didn’t see him when he did it, but Boz must’ve turned toward the racket. Still up close to my ear, though, when he snarled, “You ain’t outta here yet, Teal. Best keep your stupid mouth shut, or I’ll come in there and rip out the rest of that scraggly mess hangin’ off your butt-ugly face. Swear ’fore Jesus I will. Get finished, you’ll have a mug what looks like the badly shaved ass of a broke-legged dog.”
I backed away from the door about the time another whiskey bottle slammed against the wall and exploded in a shower of splintered glass and misted spray of cheap hooch. Marshal Jacob Cobb’s jail house began to reek of backwater panther piss like a Dodge City saloon’s outhouse after a trail herd’s arrival.
“You recognize any of those others out there, Boz?” I said. “Might be helpful if I had some idea of what we’ve got confronting us.”
“Repulsive bugger on Teal’s right, one with the gigantic bone-handled bowie shoved behind his pistol belt, is Pogue Keller. Man’s always been partial to a cutter the size of a meat cleaver. Hear tell he’s right skillful in the use of ’em, too. Don’t let that fool you, though. He’s a fair hand with a pistol from all I’ve ever heard as well.”
“How ’bout the other two?”
My friend snuck another quick peek outside, stepped back, and shook his head. “Think that ’un on Teal’s left is Hector Manion. Hard to tell given the layer of trail dirt on ’im. Dangerous son of a bitch if it is ole Hector. Man’ll kill you faster’n spit can sizzle to nothin’ on a Montana train depot’s stove lid.”
“And the weaselly-lookin’ squirt toting the sawed-off shotgun? One weighed down with the brace of Schofield pistols.”
Boz toed the dirt floor, squinted at me, as though deep in thought. “Not absolutely certain, Lucius, but that ’un just might be China Bob Tyler. Been strong rumors flyin’ around of late as how he’d taken up with Teal. Heard tell more’n once that man’s deadlier than chained lightning. Meaner’n a bucket of teased rattlers.”
Shoved my cross-draw gun into its holster and set to checking the loads in my hip pistol. Flipped the loading gate open. Rolled the cylinder across my arm. Inspected the primer of each cartridge as it passed. Snapped the gate shut, then gazed over at my friend. “Well, what we gonna do, Boz?”
He flashed a toothy grin my way. “Sure as hell ain’t gonna stand around in here and wait for them knee-walkin’ drunks to set this place on fire, that’s for damned certain. One thing I ain’t got no use for is goin’ to my Maker like a piece of flamebroiled beefsteak. Rather go down shooting. How ’bout you, Dodge?”
Swapped pistols as I said, “They’re not gonna torch this place, Boz. Hell, they’d burn ole Boston up with us.”
Boz shook his head. “Do you think those whiskey-weary sons of bitches are sober enough to have any idea what the hell they’re doin’, ole friend? When they’re stone-cold sober the four of ’em together ain’t got any more brains than a gunnysack full of tumblebugs.”
“Well, you’re probably right about that, amigo. Looks like they sure as hell ain’t seen sober in a month of Sundays.”
“Nope. They’re all drunker’n Cooter Brown, cotton-mouth
mean, and barnyard stupid. Even sober, ain’t a single one of them idiots got sense enough to pour piss out of a boot. Surprises me some that they haven’t set fire to this place ’fore now.”
From behind Marshal Cobb’s desk, Rufus Cosner said, “Whatever you come up with by way of a plan, if it involves going outside and facing off with Irby Teal and his bunch of cutthroats in a stand-up gunfight, have to count me out. From the time this dance started, figured I’d just hold on long as I could, then give Boston over to his brother when I got the best deal he was willin’ to offer.”
Boz stared at his feet and shook his head like an aged, tired dog. “You really think for a Kansas City second Irby Teal’s gonna let you live, Rufus? Hell, you were dead the minute after him and his friends rode into town and he found out you, for damned sure, had his little brother locked up in here.”
A look swept over Cosner’s face like he’d been slapped across his open mouth with a colicky baby’s loaded diaper. He tried to speak, then went to stammering. “You boys c-can’t believe that,” he mumbled.
“Ranger Tatum’s telling you the God’s truth,” I offered. “Teal’s kind of man has a real problem with anyone with grit ’nuff to trespass against family. You and Marshal Cobb were as good as worm meat the day you dragged this wounded piece of trash in here and slammed a cell door on him—far as that loudmouthed madcap out in the street was concerned anyhow.”
Boz moved to the marshal’s desk, leaned over, and snatched up Cosner’s shotgun. “Locking yourself in here has already kept you breathing several days longer than you should’ve lived, Rufus. Hell, you’re one lucky man. You could step outside with us, and I’d be willing to bet them boys couldn’t kill you if we tied you to the door and gave them each a free shot.”
Cosner’s neck went red. Man stared at the toes of his boots. I barely heard him, when he squeaked, “Got a wife and child. Just cain’t chance it, fellers. Sorry.”
