by Joe Slade
Without bothering to take a glass, he settled on a chair by the window where he could watch the street. He uncorked the bottle with his teeth then held it up in a toast.
‘Here’s to you, Milt. I wish you were here with me, you son-of-a-bitch. It’s going to be a long night but rest assured, my friend, come morning I’m going to teach this town a lesson it’ll never forget.’
~*~
From her hiding place in the hayloft above the abandoned livery stable, Maggie had seen Bull Braddock ride in to town, passing so close to her location that she could have shot him before he knew she was there. But she hadn’t. Frank had taught her to use the Schofield, drilled her until her hand cramped and her arm refused to lift its own weight. But caution had stayed her rock steady aim as she considered Braddock’s shadowy bulk. It was too risky in the inky darkness, the angle of the shot too severe to guarantee a lethal hit.
She had lowered the weapon and let Braddock move past unawares.
Good girl. Frank had whispered in her ear. Don’t take the shot until you’re sure of the kill.
Now, she pulled the blanket around her shoulders and carefully lowered herself down, sitting with her back against a stack of hay. Climbing the narrow ladder up to the loft had taken a lot out of her. She knew she shouldn’t have done it. The barely healed bullet wound in her shoulder burned white-hot, throbbing to the tips of her fingers. She adjusted the sling Doc had fashioned, hoping to relieve the ache, but it made no difference.
Somewhere in town, something crashed. She held her breath, afraid to breathe. It could only be Braddock up to some mischief. Maybe she should have gone with the fire fighters but the thought of being amongst so many people, men she didn’t know, forced in to conversations she didn’t want to have, had unnerved her. Being alone she could handle. Frank had often left her for weeks, sometimes months. Oftentimes, it had been a welcome respite from his unpredictable temper, a time when she could be her own master. She didn’t feel that way now, and not just because of the threat posed by Braddock.
She gripped the Schofield resting against her thigh and stared in to the distance where only the glow of the dying fire tinged the stygian landscape.
‘Where are you, Doc?’ she asked the darkness. ‘Where the hell are you?’
~*~
The smell of smoke hit Doc like a wall as the posse neared the remains of the Pratt homestead. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it over his nose and mouth to avoid breathing in the ash that floated on the air. A few steps behind him, riding Braddock’s horse, Leo wailed and hit the ground running.
‘Leo!’ Floyd shouted. ‘Leo, don’t—’
The boy stumbled towards the charred remains, deaf and blind to anything around him as the heat from the smoldering mass of destruction beat him back. He fell to his knees, sobbing and calling for his mama in a pitiful childish voice.
‘Leave him be,’ Doc advised, drawing his mount to a halt near the corral, which seemed the only thing to have escaped the flames.
Some of the men dismounted and some stayed in their saddles. There was nothing anyone could do but watch as the sod roof finally buckled the walls and the house collapsed in on itself.
The sound of voices, and wheels crunching over uneven ground, preceded the arrival of wagons minutes later. Before the laden vehicles had time to stop, men started to pour over the sides moving as one to stare at the derelict remains.
‘It looks like the whole town turned out,’ Floyd said, walking across to meet the new arrivals.
Doc followed him, peering at the passengers in the wagons. His search stalled as he helped a woman and two children climb down and join their menfolk. Rick passed him and continued down the line. He was already searching the second wagon when Doc caught up to him.
‘Do you see her?’ he asked, his gaze already scanning the area.
‘She’s not here,’ Rick told him. ‘I asked but nobody’s seen her.’
Doc accepted a couple of buckets handed down from the wagon bed by Clint Walters, owner of the town’s general store. A middle-aged man with broad shoulders and a bushy moustache that obscured his mouth and half his chin, he seemed ten years older as his gaze strayed to the carnage.
‘I don’t think those are going to be needed,’ Doc said, handing them on to a boy waiting nearby.
Walters dropped the extra buckets he had just picked up and instead grabbed a couple of shovels. ‘How about these?’
Doc grimaced and declined to answer. ‘You didn’t pass anyone on the way here, did you?’
Walters jumped down, landing in a crouch. ‘Not that I noticed,’ he said, groaning as he straightened up. ‘You don’t think that killer would go back to town, do you?’
Doc shrugged.
‘Willa and the boys are there alone,’ Walters exclaimed, pushing past Doc. ‘Floyd. Floyd! Where the hell are you?’
For a minute, Doc stood and watched as fresh panic rippled through the gathering. Even across a distance of twenty feet Doc caught Floyd’s angry glare directed at him as the town’s founder fended off a barrage of questions and tried to calm the crowd. Silently, Doc cursed himself for having a big mouth. Sometimes, his uncanny knack of saying what everyone else was thinking was a real curse.
‘It’s a four or five hour ride back to town,’ Rick said, coming up beside him. ‘The bastard’s probably already there.’
The constant knot in Doc’s stomach tightened. He had been a fool to think a posse of ordinary townsfolk could hunt Braddock. On their best day they were no match for a man with a grudge and a powerful need for revenge. Doc should have let them go without him, put Maggie on a horse and gone with her to—to wherever the hell she wanted to go.
He kicked his toe in the dirt. ‘Then we best get a move on. Maggie’s a tough gal but she’s no match for a brute like him.’
As one, they ran for the corral.
‘The horses are tired,’ Rick pointed out as they each stepped in to their saddles.
‘Tired ain’t dead,’ Doc said, tightening his grip on the reins.
From out of nowhere, Leo Pratt grabbed Doc’s boot before he could set the bay in motion.
‘Is it true?’ he asked, his adolescent voice breaking in to a croak. ‘You think he’s gone back to town?’
‘We don’t know for sure,’ Rick told him.
Doc cast his partner a dubious look.
‘But you think he might have?’ Leo persisted. ‘I’m coming with you.’
He ran to Braddock’s big black gelding and climbed aboard.
‘Now wait a minute, Leo,’ Doc urged. ‘Braddock—’
‘Killed my ma,’ Leo finished for him, kicking his heels in to the animals sides. ‘And I’m going to kill him!’
The black reared and took off running, the kid riding high in the saddle as he let out a war cry that would have chilled the blood of many a general.
‘Oh, hell!’ Doc exclaimed.
Eighteen
After chasing down Leo for a quarter of a mile, the three riders kept the tired animals at a pace somewhere between a walk and a trot. The two men had tried talking the youngster out of going on but with grit unusual in a kid of his tender years he had forged ahead anyway leading the two men in his wake.
Doc had to admit, to himself at least, that he was glad to have the youngster along. The kid was a natural in the saddle, able to negotiate the unseen landscape by some sixth sense that Doc couldn’t begin to comprehend. At best, Doc was adequate on a horse, certainly not skilled at riding rough terrain and especially not at night.
As he dozed in the saddle, allowing the bay to follow the big black without guidance, he shifted frequently to ease the aches and cramps from his tired body. Why a man would want to spend his days in the saddle baffled him.
‘Hey, kid,’ Rick called out, dragging Doc back from the brink of deep slumber. ‘Why are we stopping?’
Standing up in the stirrups, the boy pointed straight ahead. The hard ride seemed to have had no effect on him phy
sically.
‘We’re here,’ he said.
In the distance a faint grey light was starting to spread along the eastern horizon. About three hundred yards ahead of them, Doc could just make out the shadowy silhouette of a few scattered buildings.
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he declared, wiping the sleep from his eyes. ‘We are here, right at the ass end of town. There’s nothing out this way except the old stage station and an abandoned warehouse. I don’t know how you managed to get us here but well done, kid,’ he said, with genuine appreciation.
Leo started forward but Rick kneed his horse in close and grabbed the boy’s arm. ‘Hold on, Leo,’ he cautioned. ‘It was a smart move coming in this way but Braddock might just have figured out that’s what we’d do. He could have us in his sights right now.’
The kid tried to shrug him off. ‘I came to kill him for what he did to my ma. I can’t do that from here.’
‘That’s your right and true enough,’ Rick agreed, tightening his grip, ‘but it ain’t going to happen if he kills you first. Do you even have a gun?’
Leo lowered his head sulkily.
‘Well then, just stop for a minute and let’s work out what we’re going to do now we’re here.’
‘I’m listening, mister.’
‘The sun’s coming up fast,’ Doc pointed out. ‘Whatever it is, we need to do it soon or lose any advantage we’ve got. We probably should have figured out a plan before we got here,’ he said, unable to stop himself from stating the obvious.
Rick gave him a pointed look. ‘The first thing we need to do is find Maggie.’
Doc shook his head. ‘There’s only one place we can start that search and you can be sure Braddock’s already been there. If she was there, she won’t be now.’ He didn’t elaborate on the consequences. ‘If she wasn’t, he’ll be watching the place waiting for me to go back.’
‘Who’s Maggie?’ Leo asked.
‘A good friend of ours,’ Rick said. ‘We need to find her before Braddock does, otherwise …’
He shook his head morosely. There was no need to spell it out and the boy’s eyes widened as his mind filled in the blanks.
‘I’ll find her,’ he blurted out. ‘I know all the best hiding places.’
Doc didn’t doubt it. On the few occasions Leo and Martha Pratt had come to town, the local kids had picked on him mercilessly for his flame red hair. More than once from his front window, Doc had seen them chasing him, hurling sticks and stones. That he never ended up in Doc’s office with broken bones had always been a mystery – until now.
Leo lowered his gaze and tangled his fingers in the gelding’s mane. ‘Truth be told, I don’t know if I could kill him … even after what he did to my ma.’
Doc felt for the boy. It was obviously a painful admission.
‘It’s all right, kid. We understand.’ Rick squeezed his shoulder. ‘Killing a man … it ain’t something a youngster should have to do.’
Doc eyed the sky, which was getting brighter with every minute. ‘That’s settled then. You find our friend, keep her safe, and we’ll take care of Braddock. I promise you, Leo, he’ll pay for what he did to your ma.’
With the rudiments of a plan in place, they started on, eager now to reach the relative security of the buildings. Once there, they left the horses out of sight in the old warehouse and prepared to split up.
‘When you find her, bring her here,’ Rick told Leo. ‘Then take one of the horses and both of you ride. Do you understand?’
Pale and sweaty after struggling to close the warehouse’s sagging door, Leo nodded. ‘Just one thing, mister. How will I know her?’
Doc smiled. ‘Did you ever see a picture of an angel, Leo?’
The boy’s gaze wandered as he considered the question, then he nodded.
‘Well, you imagine that angel wearing boots and carrying a big Schofield .45 and you’ll recognize Maggie O’Bannen when you see her.’
~*~
Braddock finished pissing on the shingle that advertised John T Simpkins – MD and reached under his belly to tuck himself in. His stomach rumbled and he rubbed it vigorously, wondering where he might get some grub. The sky was starting to get light but along the street nothing stirred. He looked off into the distance wondering how long it would be before the chicken shit doctor finally showed up.
‘Oh, what the hell,’ he said at last, tramping through piss as he headed for the kitchen.
An unnecessarily clumsy search soon located a few slices of bacon and a couple of eggs. Excessive banging and clattering got the stove lit, coffee on to boil and a skillet heating despite the handicap of keeping a gun in his hand and one eye on the door. After he ate and drank his fill, he left everything where it was and headed back on to the street, only pausing to pick up the kerosene lamp on his way out.
Outside the saloon a fat woman was pointing out the damaged doors to two old men dressed in rough work clothes. When he started walking towards them, all three scurried off in the opposite direction. Braddock laughed loud and hearty and changed direction, instead heading across the street and disappearing into an alleyway.
He had chosen the location earlier. It was as good a place as any to wait and it gave him a direct line of sight to the sticks of dynamite he had already placed. Setting the lamp down, he reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a couple of matches and set them down beside it. Feeling sated and confident, he settled in to a comfortable stance against the wall and prepared to wait.
‘What are you doing, mister?’
His hand went for his gun but he stopped short of pulling it on the child standing in front of him. A skinny little thing, wearing a dress that was little more than a modified feed sack, she stared back at him with large oval eyes that reminded him of muddy puddles. He judged her age to be about thirteen but her simple-minded expression was that of a younger child. Unlike most people who met him for the first time, she didn’t seem to be daunted by him.
None of that disturbed him. It was her likeness to his sister Sylvia that stayed his hand and softened his tone.
‘What’s it to you?’ he asked, hardly recognizing his own voice.
She shoved back a lock of filthy brown hair and tilted her head to one side. ‘Are you playing hide and seek too?’
‘What did you say?’ he asked, his gaze sweeping the street and its buildings before wandering off to the horizon.
‘I said, are you playing hide and seek? Like the doc?’
Reluctantly his gaze returned to her face.
‘The doc’s here in town?’ he asked, forcing himself not to grab her scrawny little neck and wring the information out of her.
She nodded, giving him a wide smile as she realized she had his undivided attention.
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘Out back of the old stage station,’ she said, pointing along the street. ‘It seemed like a funny place to leave their horses but they was coming this way on foot. I asked Doc what he was doing and he said playing a game of hide and seek.’
‘They?’ he prompted.
‘Him and another man.’
‘You’re sure it was a man and not a woman?’
Her brows drew together in a look of consternation. ‘I ain’t simple mister. I know the difference between a man and a woman.’
Braddock couldn’t stop himself from grinning. ‘Well, have you seen anyone else playing hide and seek? A woman?’
She nodded.
‘Where?’ he asked.
Her eyes narrowed, as she seemed to sense his impatience. ‘I think you’d have to pay me ten cents for me to tell you that,’ she said, cannily.
His hands balled in to fists at his sides but again he checked the urge to strangle her. Strange as she was, she might still prove useful to his plans if he could keep her interested. He reached into his pocket and fished out a few coins. The girl’s freckled face lit up, her tongue flicking over her lips as her eyes fixed on the small treasure.
‘How would you like to
earn yourself a dollar, little girl?’ he asked.
‘What do I got to do for it?’
He smiled. ‘Play a game with me.’
Her mud colored eyes glistened with excitement. ‘Sure, mister,’ she said. ‘I love games.’
Nineteen
Maggie stood up and stretched as she moved stiffly towards the loading door and looked out. It had been a long night and her eyes stung with tiredness, watering as she focused on the far distance. Not to mention that the strain of a night watch and the threat of discovery had frayed her nerves and drained her mentally. Despite all of that and her forebodings about what the day would bring, she was glad to finally see the sun rising and to be able to make out colors and shapes.
Not that it made any difference. For as far as the eye could see, the flat, open landscape yielded nothing that would give her cause to hope. She blinked slowly, trying to ease the tiredness that burned behind her lids, at the same time hoping that she would see riders coming, or a dust cloud far off in the distance. Sadly, nothing changed.
Despondent, she started to pace, kicking up hay with each step. Back and forth. Back and forth. For a while, the simple movement seemed to help soothe her unease until suddenly, she faltered, stopping dead at some unexpected sound. She held her breath, hoping she was wrong, but there was no mistaking it. Living in relative isolation had heightened her sense of hearing and although it was faint, there was no mistaking the creak of a dry hinge or the rasp of a rain-swollen door being shoved over uneven ground.
Grabbing the Schofield, she pulled back the hammer as she skittered on tiptoes across the loft. Tentatively, she peered over the edge at the empty stalls below. Slowly, a shaft of light lengthened across the dusty floor as the door opened wider, then disappeared in shadow as someone moved inside and closed it. Directly below her, she heard the soft tread of boots.
She forced her hand to be steady and tightened her finger on the trigger.
‘Maggie?’ someone called. ‘Are you in here?’
She didn’t recognize the husky voice. It could have been anyone but she felt sure it was Braddock.
