by J. Lee Butts
Beneath an arched eyebrow, Boz snarled, “You helped murder the most part of an entire family, you scum-sucking bastard. Decent, God fearin’ people, no doubt. You know where the only one of those folks left living is. Best get to coughin’ up her location and right by-God now. Or, I swear ’fore Jesus, Tanner, you’re gonna wish yourself dead a thousand times over ’fore the sun goes down today. Get started and it can take me hours to finish up a project like this.”
I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears. Tanner Atwood actually spit a raspy, blood-soaked chuckle into Tatum’s face. He said, “S-S-Screw you and the horse you rode in on, you badge-totin’ son of a b-b-bitch.” Then he hacked again and spit blood onto my friend’s bib-front shirt. Sweet merciful Jesus, but that single act proved a horrendous error in judgment.
Slower than an Arkansas hound dog in August, Boz leaned over and placed the half-full beer bucket on the floor next to one of the snooker table’s thick, wooden legs. Then, quick as blue-tinted, pitchfork lightning, he grabbed up his makeshift cue-stick club and went to whacking on Atwood’s shins.
My God, but I’ve never heard such a load of screaming from a single man in all my entire life, before or since. It sounded like Tatum was beating on a metal barrel filled with baby kittens. Made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and sent prickly, crawling chicken flesh running up and down between my sweaty, scrunched shoulder blades like waves on a storm-blasted beach.
Think Boz might’ve missed his target once or twice and cracked the murderous sack of hammered manure’s kneecaps a time or three. Looking back on that unmerciful beating, I’d guess he must’ve hit that poor, hard-headed brigand ten or fifteen stunning licks before he started slowing down. Appeared to me as how he just suddenly got tired. Decided to give that stick of his a rest.
Once the yelping and screeching died down a bit, Glo moved up next to me and said, “Mistuh Boz, you gotta stop this. Jus’ gotta stop this. Ain’t no call for such behavior. We ain’t the kind what does such things. We don’t be about torturing people. Even low-life, ass-lickin’ dogs like this ’un.”
The crazed wildness in Tatum’s eyes had grown more pronounced. Frightening thing to witness, you ask me. He leaned against the edge of the snooker table as though winded and said, “If you can’t handle what it’s necessary for us to do, Glo, go outside and wait on the boardwalk till I’m finished. This child-murderin’ slug’s gonna talk if it takes me till next week to make it happen.”
Glo gazed at the bloody mess that had, only a few minutes before, been a bold, self-assured, and confident Tanner Atwood. Great day in the morning, but that killer appeared to be floating in a growing pool of blood. That snooker table resembled the felt-covered floor of a barn where someone had slaughtered a sizable pig.
“Please, Mr. Boz. Let it go,” Glo said. “My solemn promise, I’ll track down them as took Miss Clementine. You know I can do it. No matter what it takes. I’ll start sniffin’ out their trail soon’s you want. Get on the track right now, might even have ’em in our sights ’fore night can fall. Help you kill ’em.”
Boz waved one hand at the battered, groaning, quivering glob of wickedness on the table. He stabbed a finger into Atwood’s heaving chest. Then he glared at Glo and said, “This evil bastard knows something he’s not telling us. Something that could easily get us all killed graveyard dead. Or maybe get Clementine Webb killed. Or both. Or worse, maybe she’s already dead. Top of all that, this tight-lipped weasel helped murder a man, his wife, and three kids in the most brutal fashion I’ve seen since the days when you and me used to chase them murderin’ Comanche all over Hell and Mexico. You forgot that already? Forgot what you saw in that little spot of green out on the river a few miles from the ranch.”
I could tell Glo was getting more agitated with each passing second. “Ain’t forgot nothin’, by God,” he snapped. “I ’uz there when we found them chil‘rens, and you know it, Mistuh Boz. It’s just that torturin’ this poor, damned soul ain’t proper. Just ain’t the right thing for men like us to be a-doin’.”
Think Boz could’ve bit the shoes off a draft horse when he growled, “Poor soul, my big hairy ass. Tanner Atwood’s about as far from a poor soul as a livin’ body can get. Hell, he just killed one of his own friends right in front of our faces. Blew the top of ole Murdock’s head clean off to keep the man from talking to us. Did the sorry deed with no more feeling than a body who’d just crushed a louse between his thumb and forefinger.”
Glo stared at his feet. “Seen the sorry deed my very own myself, Mistuh Boz. Damn well know as how I ’uz right here when it happened. Seen it,” he mumbled.
Boz snatched the pail of beer up and took another long, sloppy swig. He wiped his lips, pulled at the corner of his droopy moustache, and said, “Whatever it takes to save Clementine Webb is as right as rain, far as I’m concerned. Comes a time when good men have to step up and do whatever they have to do in an all out effort to save innocent lives. Right now we have it in our power to save the only remaining member of the entire Webb family. I won’t let that chance escape me without finding out exactly what we need to know, Glo.”
Glo said, “Be the first to admit as how we done terrible things when we ’uz killin’ Comanches back in the bad times, Mistuh Boz. But that were then, this is now, and this is different.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned. This is a bad time, too,” Boz said and shook a finger in Atwood’s direction. “And if I have to drag this son of a bitch down the street by the heels to the nearest butcher’s shop and feed him through a hand-crank meat grinder one bloody chunk at a time, then that’s what I’m gonna do.” He paused, pointed at the batwings and added, “I’ll turn his sorry ass into chili meat without a second thought. You can’t deal with it, or don’t want to deal with it, you need to wait outside ’cause this dance is about to get a helluva lot worse.”
A look of pained, muted panic rushed over Glo’s face. “What you gonna do now?” he said.
Boz snatched the pointed end of the stick from beneath the pool table’s cushioned railing. He held the jagged piece of polished wood up in Atwood’s face. Bent over next to the gunny’s ear, he hissed, “I’m gonna shove this into the bullet hole Lucius put in his chest, then I’m gonna lean on it till I push it all the way through him and the tip hits the slate under his back.”
Atwood sucked in a ragged, terrified gasp. He twisted back and forth like a snake trying to get out of a hot frying pan. Took in a number of terrified, bloody, gurgling, wheezy breaths. “All right,” he spat. “All right, for the love of God, I’ll tell you whatever you want. Just don’t go stab-bin’ me with the broke end of that stick.”
Boz suddenly looked tired to the bone. He tossed the broken piece of hickory onto the floor at his feet. The two-and-a-half-foot-long splinter of wood bounced and made a loud clacking sound, then rolled to a spot against the wall.
My friend snatched his hat off. He wiped thumb-sized beads of salty sweat away from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, then tiredly said, “Question’s still the same, Atwood. Hasn’t changed since first asked. Where’s the girl?”
I had to move closer to Atwood’s blood-soaked resting place to hear him. In truth, the man appeared but a step or two from his own demise and could barely speak. He said, “God’s truth, Tatum, I-I-I don’t k-k-know—exactly. Swear I don’t. Just know Webb gave her to Eagle Cutner. Told Eagle he could do with her as he pleased.”
Atwood’s surprising remark shot right past me and Boz. But Glo heard him well enough. He strode to the table like he just might pick Tatum’s stick up off the floor and go back to whacking on Atwood’s shins himself. He glared at the outlaw and growled, “You said, ‘Webb gave her to Eagle Cutner.’ Ain’t that right, mister? Didn’t I just hear you say, ‘Webb gave her to Eagle Cutner’?”
“Damned if he didn’t,” Boz mumbled and scratched a stubble-covered chin. “Heard it myself.”
Frothy, pink slobbers dribbled from the corners of Atwood’s grinning mout
h. He coughed. A gobbet of blood the size of a hen egg squirted out onto his chest. A wet, bloody, almost unearthly chuckle rattled out from somewhere deep inside the dying outlaw. “That’s right. ’S exactly what I said. Got you boys doin’ a-right smart a-thinkin’ now, d-d-don’t I?”
20
“WHERE WOULD CUTNER TAKE THE GIRL?”
“PROP ME UP,” Tanner Atwood wheezed. “Gotta get me off my back, boys. Can’t seem to suck down enough air a-layin’ here like this.”
Glo grabbed several of the cushions off some of the cane-backed chairs provided for the Broke Mill’s snooker lovers. We helped the groaning, back-shooting lowlife into a sitting position and jammed the well-worn pads under his head, neck, and shoulders.
Once we’d got him somewhat comfortable, Boz offered the battered man another run at his tin bucket of beer. Atwood refused. Said, “Could sure ’nuff use some water though, Tatum. Mighty dry right now. Feels like I ain’t had a good, long, refreshin’ drink of water in years.”
While we waited, Glo rummaged around behind the bar and came up with a heavy-bottomed mug filled to the lip with cold, clear water. He helped get some down Atwood’s gullet, then, under his breath, I heard him say, “Best get to talkin’, Mistuh Atwood. Not sure we can stop Mistuh Boz again, if’n he takes it into his head to go a beatin’ on you some more.”
“I’ll try,” Atwood said, then gasped for air. “Gar-n-tee I’ll sure ’nuff try.”
Glo nodded, then added, “Well, I’ll gar-n-tee, if you don’t have somethin’ important to offer him, little girl’s screamin’ voice you’re gonna hear beggin’ for mercy is gonna be yours.”
Atwood gulped down near half that mug of liquid before he stopped. ’Course that set the thumb-sized hole in his chest to pumping blood out at a considerably faster pace. He set to clutching at the wound and let out a series of pitiful, near heartrending moans.
All that yelping and moaning got me to thinking as to how the evil skunk might be right on the edge of passing on over to the other side. But to everyone’s surprise he perked back up a bit. Appeared the man was holding on with his last fingernail. Guess he didn’t want Satan to get a grip on his immortal soul for at least a few more minutes.
Surprised the bejabbers out of me, when, out of nowhere, Boz’s hand snaked out. He delivered a rattling, openhanded, five-fingered rap across Atwood’s unprotected cheek. Then he grabbed the man by the chin and said, “Don’t you dare go and die on us. Swear if you die now, I’ll drag you out into the middle of Del Rio’s central thoroughfare and set your sorry ass ablaze.”
Bubbling, foamy slobber dribbled down Atwood’s chin. A look of panicked despair creaked across the outlaw’s face when he said, “You wouldn’t do that. Tell me you wouldn’t do that, Tatum.” Then he cast a horrified glance my direction and yelped, “You wouldn’t let him do that, would you, Dodge? Would you?”
Appeared to me a serious case of loco was camped behind Boz’s eyes when he said, “Don’t matter what Dodge thinks. ’Cause I’ll damn sure light you up if you don’t get to talkin’. You don’t give me something substantial, you’re gonna burn like a cord of last winter’s firewood. Get you flamin’ up good while you’re still here so the Devil won’t have to waste so much effort when you land on his front porch.”
In a halfhearted attempt to reassure him, I patted the terrified man on the shoulder and said, “Get on with it. Sure ’nuff wouldn’t want to watch you burn.”
“Who’s this Webb feller? One you said gave Miss Clementine to Mad Dog Cutner,” Glo said.
Atwood groaned. Talon-like fingers squeezed the seeping chest wound. Sounded as though he was being strangled when he said, “He’s the girl’s uncle. There, you happy now?”
“Uncle?” The word popped out of all three of our mouths at the same time.
A self-satisfied, mischievous, almost childlike grin danced across the wounded brigand’s quivering, blood-encrusted lips. “Yeah. Crazy, ain’t it. The Honorable Nathan Hawthorn Webb’s baby brother. Charles Axel Webb. All us ole boys from Huntsville who’ve been travelin’ with the man of recent call ’im Ax.”
As if he’d been slapped, Boz recoiled and took half a step backward. “God save us. Ax Webb. Webb for cryin’ out loud. We shoulda known. Shit. I just didn’t make the connection. Did you, Lucius?”
“No,” I said. “Don’t figure I ever would’ve, either. Just so far beyond the pale as to be nigh on impossible to fathom.”
“Why?” Glo said. “Why this man behind killin’ his own kin? Turns my stomach just thinkin’ on such a heinous crime.”
Though racked by waves of easily observable pain, Atwood let out a croupy, staccato laugh. Then he wiped another frothy pile of spittle from his twitching lips. He welded me to the floor with a cold-eyed stare and said, “Might remember as how ole Ax got sent to p-p-prison ’bout five years back for a number of daytime bank robberies he staged all over south Tejas. P-P-Prosecutors tried to nail him with a couple a killing’s that took place durin’ them particular raids as well. Didn’t work. S-S-Still and all, jury sent him up the river for a hundred and f-f-fifty years.”
I nodded.
Atwood sucked in a wet, ragged breath, then wheezed, “Whilst rottin’ in jail, Ax’s younger brother managed to git his smart-alecky self elected to the Texas state senate. Ax felt as how Nathan shoulda done everything he c-c-could to get his elder siblin’ outta that hellhole. Didn’t happen. Hell, Nathan wouldn’t even come for a visit. So, Ax got hisself out.”
“He escaped,” Boz near whispered.
“Yeah. Brought a bunch of us ole boys with him when he got loose. Hell, we was just sittin’ ’round waitin’ on the Devil to come take us to perdition. Ax Webb saved us. S-S-Said he had plans for his brother Nathan.” Atwood paused. Appeared to give considerable thought to what he was about to say next. “S-S-Sure as hell didn’t think the man’s plans would involve me b-b-bitin’ the last bullet in this stinkin’ Del Rio saloon.”
Atwood’s eyes snapped closed. He gritted his yellow-stained, blood-covered teeth so hard it sounded like squirrels chewing into black walnuts. Grasping fingers clawed at the hole in his chest and twisted a tight knot into the front of his gore-soaked shirt.
“Don’t you go and die on us yet,” Boz yelped, then grabbed the man by the shoulders and shook him like a rag doll. “Die on me now, by God, and I’ll add ten more holes to the one Lucius put in your sorry hide. Then I’ll set you on fire.”
A big, stupid grin spread over Atwood’s pain-racked face as his eyes gradually crept open again. “Thought I ’uz a goner there for a second, T-T-Tatum,” he said. “ ’Pears as how you did, too.”
Boz pushed away. He backed off a step and pointed an accusatory finger in Atwood’s face. He said, “Get on with your story, you belly-slinkin’ snake. Go passin’ out on us again and, by Godfrey, I’ll have another go at you with my stick.”
A strange, creepy, mocking chuckle emanated from Atwood’s hollow-sounding chest. “Huh-a huh-a huh-huhhuh. Time you get through doing ever-thang to me you’ve threatened, T-T-Tatum, you’ll be so wore out you won’t even be able to walk. H-H-Have to crawl on your hands and knees all the w-w-way back to your horse.”
“Don’t worry ’bout me, dry-gulcher. Just keep on talkin’,” Boz snapped.
“Well, like I ’uz a s-s-sayin’ ’fore tryin’ to d-d-die on you, we got shed of Huntsville. Managed to kill a guard or two in the process, though. Course ’at got every lawdog in south Texas a-chasin’ us. Had to sneak, hide, and lay low for n-n-nigh on a m-m-month. Finally got ourselves armed up by b-b-breakin’ into a hardware emporium up in Kerrville. Then we all headed for Uvalde. Figured we’d help Ax k-k-kill his sorry-assed brother there.”
“But somehow the brother figured out you boys were coming,” I said. “Man loaded up his family and skipped town.”
“Yeah. Did the jackrabbit thang on us. Went to runnin’,” Atwood said, then groaned and wiped big beads of sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. �
�So, we set to c-chasin’ ’im. Was easy, really. Man warn’t much at hidin’ his trail.”
Boz slapped the grip of his belly gun. “And you bastards caught up with him out on the Devils River not far from land we’ve been leasing, didn’t you?”
Atwood let out a pitiful, raspy, blood-soaked whimper, then offered up a halfhearted nod. “Yeah. G-God help us. We shot that wagon, and them folks standing outside it, all to pieces.”
“What ’bout them chil’ren?” Glo said and toed at a spot on the rough board floor. “You know you’d gone and kilt all them chil’ren?”
The words had barely fallen from Glo’s lips when the Broke Mill’s batwing doors creaked open. A badge-wearing, red-faced, fat-gutted slug carrying a long-barreled shotgun eased to a point where he stood half in and half out of the doorway.
The saloon’s wide-eyed drink wrangler, who’d earlier threatened us with a man-killing town marshal, peeked over one side of the saloon’s battered, scroll-topped café doors and made wild pointing motions our direction. He said something to the lawman, who from all appearances might’ve eaten his own brother, that none of us could plainly hear.
Mr. Fat Gut cocked his head to one side. He listened intently to the yammering bartender for a second or so like an overfed cat mystified by the intricacies of higher mathematics. Finally, he turned away from the near hysteric bartender and said, “What the hell’s a-goin’ on here? What kinda mischief are you men about?”
Appearing irritated right down to the leather-poor soles of his run-down, well-worn boots, Boz cast a quick, squint-eyed, sneering glare toward the door. He yelled, “We’re rangers, you squirrel-brained idiot. This is official ranger business. Best head on back to your office, Marshal. We don’t need any of your help. Leave this matter to us. We’ll take care of it.”
The noisy discussion at the door picked up again and got louder. Appeared Marshal Fat Gut wasn’t having any luck dissuading the Broke Mill’s angry drink pusher when it came to the slick-pated barkeep’s heated complaining.
