Return to Red River

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Railroaders! He didn’t care much for those men. Tom and Lightning had shucked their guns, to make this a fair fight. The workers on the S.P. had no such convictions.

  The club came after him again, and Tom ducked, punched, and came away, ducking out of the railroader’s grasp. His vision blurred. Just breathing ached, but Tom didn’t think the nightstick had busted or even cracked any ribs. He tasted blood and realized his lips were bleeding. Didn’t remember how that had happened, though.

  He saw the club come up, start down. He stepped inside, taking most of the blow on his left shoulder. Tom tried to punch, couldn’t, so he grabbed the railroader’s ear, and twisted.

  “That . . . ain’t . . . right . . . you damned brush-pop—”

  Pulling and twisting, Tom heard the nightstick fall to the floor. The railroader fell in the opposite direction as Tom released the ear. The man bounced across the floor, spit out venomous curses and froth like some rabid dog. As the railroader tried to climb back to his feet, Tom kicked him in the jaw with his boot.

  The jaw, Tom knew, was broken. The man went down, spitting out blood and teeth, and crawling in a blind rage.

  The door opened. Tom glanced up, saw the one with the burned hands, crying as he tumbled out into the snow to cool off his hands. Breathing hard, Tom picked up the nightstick and tapped the back of the head of the man with the broken jaw, who dropped onto the calendar and just slept, and bled.

  Tom had to blink several times before he could see clearly, but as he walked around the floor, carefully stepping over busted furniture and broken railroaders, he saw Lightning lifting himself off the floor. His brother weaved to the bar and leaned against it for support.

  Tom joined him there.

  Lightning grinned. Tom just bled.

  Then the gunshot deafened both brothers.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tom Garth reached for his double-action Colt, still holstered and lying atop the neatly folded mackinaw on the bar top. Lightning grabbed a shot glass in his right hand and started to turn to throw it at the open door. That’s where the shot had come from. But both men froze, staring at John Smith, alias Sean Dublin, who was standing next to the shattered mirror of the back bar, holding a bleeding left arm. A sawed-off shotgun bounced off his shoes.

  The two brothers glanced at the man standing in the doorway, and their eyes hardened as they looked back at the bleeding beer-jerker. Lightning threw the shot glass at Dublin, who ducked as the glass bounced off his shoulder and crashed against a bottle of wine.

  “You’d shoot us in the back?” Lightning said. He pointed at the ten-gauge. “With that scattergun?”

  “I . . . uh . . .”

  Lightning moved around the bar and started to jerk his Smith & Wesson from the holster, but cut the palm of his right hand on shattered whiskey bottles. He cursed, bringing his hand to his mouth to suck the blood and cool the pain, and shook his hand before reaching, slower this time, for the .44.

  “Leave it,” Tom told his brother. To his amazement, Lightning listened, though he took his gun rig, shaking the shards of glass as he stepped around the bar.

  “Back away, Sean,” Tom said. The barkeep also did as he was told.

  Lightning fished a handkerchief from a trousers pocket. Tom studied the man holding the smoking Winchester rifle.

  “Boys,” the man said in a friendly greeting. Lowering the barrel, he stepped over the still-unconscious brakeman and weaved through the wreckage of bodies now beginning to stir and furniture that had been reduced to kindling.

  “Reckon we owe you our thanks, Mr. . . . ?” Tom waited. You didn’t ask a man his name out in these parts unless you were a gossip or just plain rude. Tom was, well, merely . . . curious.

  “Teveler,” the man said. He laid the Winchester on the bar, the barrel pointed in the general direction of Sean Dublin. “Barkeep,” he said in a Texas drawl, “three whiskeys.” It wasn’t a request, but a demand.

  That got a smile from the Garth boys, watching the bartender, arm profusely leaking blood, fumble with glasses and a bottle. His shoes crunched the glass on the floor as he stumbled, wiped the mess off the bar top with a wet rag, and set three tumblers in front of the men.

  “I’ll take mine neat,” Teveler said. “No blood.”

  “Likewise,” Lightning said.

  Dublin managed to pour bourbon—about the only bottle remaining intact—into the glasses.

  “And one for yourself, mister,” Teveler said as he raised his glass. “To show no hard feelin’s.”

  Dublin drank straight from the bottle.

  “Leave the bottle, Smithy,” Lightning said. “And go bleed somewhere else.”

  After a sip of the bourbon, Teveler turned around, hooking a heel on the rail and scanning the saloon—or, rather, the remnants of a saloon.

  “Must’ve been some fight,” Teveler said. “Wish I could have joined in earlier.”

  “You came at the right time,” Tom said.

  The brothers shot a glance and studied the stranger.

  He appeared an old man, somewhere between fifty and sixty, with more miles than years. His boots were scuffed and worn, and the spurs he wore seemed to be old military issue, maybe from the Confederacy. The chaps had more scars than his pockmarked face, his patched coat seemed real thin for this winter, and his hat had been battered into a wreck. The steel gray mustache drooped, and the stubble on his tired face appeared uneven because of the scars. A thin man, he likely needed the gun belt to keep his duck trousers from falling down, but his eyes, a cold pale blue, held a deadly spark.

  “Well, Mr. Teveler . . .” Tom began.

  “Call me Jess,” he said. “Had a ranch over Duval way.”

  Duval lay west of Corpus Christi, not far from one of the few ranches—the great King Ranch—that would have made Mathew Garth’s holdings look like a sorry homesteader’s claim.

  “Thanks, Jess,” Lightning said as he buckled on his rig.

  Jess Teveler turned. “So this is Dunson City.”

  “That’s right.” Tom sipped his bourbon.

  “Iron Tom Dunson would be sorely disappointed.”

  The railroaders began dragging themselves and their unconscious pards out the front door. Sean Dublin sat on one of the few upright chairs, plugging the bullet hole in his arm.

  “You knew Dunson?” Tom Garth stared. This old saddle tramp, this Jess Teveler, seemed old enough to have known his grandfather.

  “Nah.” Teveler killed the bourbon, turned around, and leaned against the bar. “Nobody knew Dunson. Nobody ever knew that hard rock.”

  Lightning stepped around, suddenly suspicious. Panhandlers came to Dunson City fairly often, some on the rails, some riding the grub line from ranch to ranch. This Jess Teveler certainly looked like a tramp, but few of those sorry souls ever claimed to have known Thomas Dunson.

  “How are things in Duval?” Lightning asked.

  The saddle tramp snorted. “Son, I ain’t been in Duval since right after the war.”

  “You said you have a ranch—”

  Tom interrupted his brother. “He said he had a ranch . . .”

  A mirthless laugh rolled out of Jess Teveler’s mouth as the last of the railroaders dragged the passed-out brakeman into the night. “Carpetbaggers,” he said. “You boys are too young to recollect them hard times.”

  “Reckon we are,” Tom said.

  “What brings you this far to Dunson City?” Lightning asked, still suspicious.

  “Lookin’ for a place somethin’ cooler than the one I just left.”

  Tom chuckled. Lightning kept his hand on his holstered pistol. “If it’s topped twenty degrees outside,” Tom said, “I’d be surprised.”

  “Well, it was hot when I left San Angelo a few days back. Mighty hot. For me. How far to the border?”

  “You can spit across it,” Lightning said.

  “Good enough. Thanks for the whiskey, and the excitement. Glad I could do you boys a service. But I ain’t sure even
this cold spell will stop a Texas Ranger. I’d best ride.”

  He held out his calloused hand, still cold because the saddle tramp likely owned no gloves. And he had ridden all the way from San Angelo . . . in this weather?

  Tom shook it. The man’s grip felt like a vise. “Pleasure to meet you, Jess. I’m Tom. Tom Garth.” He tilted his head toward Lightning. “This is my—”

  “Garth?” Jess Teveler said in astonishment.

  “That’s right.” Tom backed up toward Lightning, who spread out a few steps. Now Tom’s hand found the butt of his revolver.

  “Kin to Mathew Garth?” Teveler’s eyes narrowed.

  “He’s my father.”

  Those deadly blue eyes seemed to bore through Tom’s very soul. After the longest while, Teveler’s head bobbed. “Yeah,” he said. “Reckon I see the resemblance. Then your mama would be . . . ?”

  “Therissa,” Tom said warily.

  The stranger chuckled. “Yeah. Makes sense. Tess of the River. You got her eyes.”

  “I’m Lightning Garth,” Lightning shot out, tired of being left out of the conversation, being ignored. “Tom’s older brother.”

  Teveler studied Lightning, but not as long, not as hard, not as serious as he had examined Tom. “Lightnin’, huh?” He picked up the tumbler, found it still empty, and reached across the shards of glass for the bottle of bourbon Sean Dublin had left behind. He filled the glass with only two fingers of liquor and sipped it rather than gulping it. “Lightnin’,” he said, as if trying to resurrect some dormant memory. “Lightnin’.”

  As he drank, he examined Lightning a little longer, wetting his chapped lips with his tongue and with the bourbon. “Yeah,” he said after awhile. He took another sip of whiskey. “Lightnin’. Yeah. Yeah. I recollect now. Yes, sir, you would be Lightnin’.”

  “I would be,” Lightning said, “because I am. Lightning. Lightning Garth.”

  “They kept that handle on you, eh?”

  “It’s my name. Ma even wrote it down in the Bible.”

  “Your . . . ma?”

  “We’re brothers.” Lightning hooked his thumb at Tom. “I’m the oldest. Fastest.” He grinned. “Meanest. And best-looking.”

  Jess Teveler killed the whiskey and tossed the empty tumbler aside. He grabbed his Winchester, jacked a fresh round into the chamber. That caused the brothers to grip their pistols a little tighter. They held their breaths until the saddle tramp lowered the hammer and dropped the barrel toward the floor.

  “Been an interestin’ evenin’, boys. Glad to’ve met you. But like I said, Mexico’s waitin’.” He shifted the rifle to his left hand and held out his right.

  Tom shook first. Lightning next.

  “You did know our grandfather, didn’t you, Jess?” Tom said.

  “Water under the bridge, son. Water under the bridge. And like I said. Nobody ever knowed Dunson. That was a long, long time ago. You can tell your pa you saw me, that I say howdy. Your ma won’t likely recollect me much.” He looked at Lightning. “And your . . . well . . . don’t mind me. Gettin’ to be a dotterin’ ol’ fool.”

  “You need a job?” Tom asked.

  Lightning shot his brother a look of pure fury. “No, Tom. ’Preciate the offer, but right now, what I need is Mexican dirt under my ol’ hoss’s hooves.” He pulled his hat down, his collar up, and strode across the floor to the poker table, still overturned, where the railroaders had been playing. They had left a few coins and greenbacks on the floor, which Teveler picked up and stuffed inside his trousers. That caused Lightning to grin at Tom. Afterward, the saddle tramp nodded again at the brothers, even Sean Dublin, and went through the open door. Darkness swallowed him.

  “You boys gotta pay damages,” Sean Dublin said after the stranger had gone.

  “Not after you tried to back-shoot us, Smithy,” Lightning said. He took the bottle from his brother’s hand and pushed his way onto the boardwalk.

  * * *

  When they got into their room in the hotel, shed their gun belts, hats, and coats, Lightning took a slug from the bottle and sat on the edge of the bed.

  On the settee, Tom struggled to pull off his boots. His muscles had begun to stiffen, and he realized how scratched his knuckles were. His shoulder ached.

  “You ever heard Ma or Pa mention Jess Teveler?” Lightning asked.

  “They don’t mention hardly anyone.” The right boot came off. Tom tossed it toward the door.

  “That man’s a gunhand,” Lightning said.

  “Be glad of that.”

  Lightning shrugged. “Oh, Smithy wasn’t gonna shoot us in the back. You know that as well as I do. Ain’t got the guts. Just tried to scare us. I was just keeping that beer-jerker in his place.”

  “Pa will make us pay for the damages, though. No matter what you told Dublin.” The second boot didn’t want to come off, and, fancy as the hotel was by Dunson City standards, the guest rooms came without bootjacks. Inside the boot, his foot screamed in agony.

  “Well, it was an interesting night, for certain.” He crossed the room and offered the bottle to Tom.

  Tom’s head shook. That hurt, too.

  He let go of the boot still stuck on his foot. Lightning made no offer to help.

  “Why did you go into the Knuckle Coupler anyway?”

  “To start a fight,” Lightning said. “What the hell is a Knuckle Coupler? I never understood why stupid railroaders would give that stupid bucket of blood a stupid name like that stupid Knuckle Coupler.”

  “It has something to do with railroads,” Tom said. He pulled at the boot.

  “No fooling.”

  Lightning hopped onto the bed, boots and spurs still on. With a heavy sigh, Tom shook his head. One bed. He would have to share with his brother, and if Lightning didn’t kick off his boots soon, they would be paying extra for the ripped blanket and sheets.

  Finally, his boot came off.

  Tom realized his big toe was bleeding. Some railroader must have stomped his foot during the scuffle. The sock was already stained, the blood dried, and it would hurt like hell when he pulled off the sock.

  CHAPTER SIX

  In the old days, Groot Nadine had worn his hair long. Now his head resembled a cue ball, but his gray mustache drooped long and unkempt—to make up for what he had lost atop his skull.

  Beard stubble dotted the rest of his face, and he rubbed his hands on the apron stained with bacon grease and filth as he limped around the stove. “Don’t tell me you want breakfast, too,” he snapped.

  Mathew Garth stood in the doorway to the bunkhouse, letting two of the hired men escape before he stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

  “Coffee’s all,” Mathew said. “I ate breakfast back at the house.”

  “Yeah.” Groot went to the coffeepot. “What did that Prussian puta fix for you this morn?”

  “Polish,” Mathew said as he shed his coat and hung it on a rack on the wall. “Not Prussian. And she’s no puta.” His tone let the stoved-up cook know that any other reference, in jest or otherwise, would not be tolerated.

  “Damned foreigner,” Groot muttered, spilling coffee as he filled a tin cup.

  “We’re all foreigners,” Mathew said.

  “Well.” Groot limped over and handed the cup to Mathew, who had wisely kept his gloves on. “What did you et for breakfast? Taters? That’s about all she knows how to cook.”

  Off on the top bunk in a corner, a Texas drawl sang out: “Them was good taters you fried me and the boys this morn, Groot. Mighty tasty.”

  Groot spit against the stove. It sizzled. “Shut up, Laredo. You gonna lay in bed all morn?”

  Laredo rose. He was fully dressed, even in boots and spurs. “Ain’t much to do, is there? They don’t pay me to shovel snow.”

  Old Laredo, who had ridden with Dunson, had been among the hired men at the ranch to refuse to string up any drift fence. He had not quit, though, not like some of the cowhands. Laredo Downs was loyal, but some things he would not do. Matt r
espected him for it. Hell, now Laredo had been proved right. Men like Laredo Downs were hard to find these days. He would give you more than an honest day’s work. Rode for the brand. Well, maybe he rode for Mathew Garth. After all, during that cattle drive to Abilene all those years ago, Mathew had pulled Laredo out of a flooding stream. Mathew never spoke of it. Neither did Laredo. But Laredo certainly remembered it.

  Mathew sipped the coffee and hooked a thumb toward the window. “Sun’s out.”

  “The sun!” Laredo dropped out of the bunk, almost tumbled to the floor, then hurried—the jingle bobs on his spurs singing a tune—to the door. Even limping, Groot made it first. The door jerked open. The cold wind blasted them, but both men stepped out into the frosty morning.

  “Glory!” Groot said.

  “Son of a gun,” Laredo echoed.

  “Man, that’s hot.” Laredo stepped into the snow, swept off his hat that rarely left his head, and leaned back to soak in the rays of warmth. Warmth being relative. It wasn’t thirty degrees outside.

  Groot and Laredo quickly turned. “You rode out yesterday,” Groot said. Both men asked the question at the same time. The words were different, but not the query.

  “Dead cattle everywhere,” Matt said grimly.

  Groot cursed. Laredo returned the battered black hat back over his white hair. “Drift fence?” he asked.

  Matt tossed the coffee onto the pile of snow. “Like you figured, Laredo.”

  Both men cursed again. Groot kicked the wooden column. Laredo spat. Mathew walked back inside the bunkhouse, and the two men followed. They filled their cups with Groot’s coffee and sat at the table where the hired men took their meals. Matt picked up a biscuit, broke off a piece, stuck it in his mouth—not that he was hungry. It just gave him something to do.

  “Well . . .” Groot started, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. So he just shook his head.

  After Mathew washed down the biscuit with some of Groot’s bitter brew, he asked: “Ever heard of the J Lazy J brand?”

  Groot shot a glance across the table at Laredo, who rubbed the beard stubble on his chin momentarily. Laredo Downs shook his head. So did Groot.