“All right.”
“I’m going to answer nature’s call in the bushes. See to the prisoners.”
“Yep. Don’t step on no rattler, bub.”
The young law dog shook his head, his only response, and hurried to the brush along the side of the hill.
Bloody Zeke The Younger tried to control his breathing. So far, it was working out better than he could have hoped. The lead marshal walking off the road to relieve himself. That old drunken fool—who bragged how he had been part of the gang that had killed Bloody Zeke’s pa—moving on the other side of the wagon, past the Negro, then to the woman.
“You need to find a privy, too?” the graybeard asked. He was flirting.
The green-eyed gal turned to him.
“I suppose.”
“Well . . .” Turning, the old Army campaigner looked off the road to where the deputy had disappeared.
That was all Bloody Zeke needed. He would get no better chance.
He sprang, avoiding the slop bucket. Everyone jumped, and the driver turned, but too late. Bloody Zeke’s aim was true as the manacle he’d freed from his right wrist sliced between the bars, catching the boozing drunk right above his left eye. Before the guard could fall, Bloody Zeke reached through the bars and caught the old-timer’s collar, holding him up. Swinging his left hand up, he caught the manacle in his right hand and pulled the iron chain tight against the driver’s throat.
“Dan—” the man tried, before iron cut off his throat.
The one-eyed Reb laughed.
“What the—?” the cardsharper cried out.
The greaser mumbled, “¡Dios Mío!”
The black giant just looked on.
The guard kicked and jerked, and Bloody Zeke pulled the chain tighter.
It did not take long.
The deputy marshal came running out of the brushes, suspenders hanging at the sides, his fly unbuttoned, jerking a pistol from the holster.
“Let him go!” the law dog wailed.
“No.” Bloody Zeke laughed. “You let me go.”
“I’ll shoot you!”
Bloody Zeke said, “Go ahead.”
It would have worked . . . but God played a dirty joke on Bloody Zeke. One even worse than the one Moses Butcher had pulled after the Tucson holdup.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement along the road. He turned away from the law dog with the pistol, staring past the big black prisoner and up the road. A rider, just one man, just one mean jasper, was trotting toward them on a light-colored horse.
“Let Royal go, damn it!” the deputy said.
Bloody Zeke did not bother looking back at the law dog. He even forgot about the old drunk who was kicking and gagging.
Well, he thought, looks like I ain’t gonna catch up to Moses Butcher after all. What a damned pity. But . . . maybe now they’ll just shoot me dead. Beats melting in Yuma. Or getting sent back to Texas or Kansas to swing from a rope.
CHAPTER 12
Close enough for everything to become clear, John McMasters kicked the buckskin into a gallop, pulling the shotgun free of the scabbard as he raced to the tumbleweed wagon. He saw the revolver wavering in Daniel Kilpatrick’s right hand, saw the prisoner—Bloody Zeke The Younger—behind the limp body of Royal Andersen, who was being held up with a chain across his throat.
Hearing the hooves on the hard-packed road, Kilpatrick whirled, bringing up the revolver but quickly recognizing McMasters. He swung back, yelling at Bloody Zeke, but the thundering hooves drowned out whatever Kilpatrick shouted.
McMasters pulled hard on the reins with his left hand, and Berdan slid to a stop. Kicking free of the stirrups, McMasters leaped from the saddle and brought the Remington twelve-gauge’s stock to his shoulder. Instinctively, his thumbs reached forward to pull back the hammers only to fall against the Damascus steel. He kept forgetting.
The Remington Model 1894 had no hammers.
That would take some getting used to.
“Let him go!” McMasters shouted.
“With pleasure,” he heard the dark-eyed prisoner say.
The chain and iron cuff rattled as they scraped against the wagon. Royal Andersen dropped into a heap.
Kilpatrick clumsily dropped his pistol and ran to the wagon.
McMasters kept the shotgun aimed at Bloody Zeke inside the wagon.
Moving away from the bars, Zeke picked up his hat, placed it on his head, and stepped back to his place in the wagon, chains rattling with every step. The other prisoners stared, first at Bloody Zeke, then at John McMasters. The woman and the black man turned to look at Royal Andersen as Daniel Kilpatrick rolled the old veteran over on his back. On the other side of the wagon, the gambler with the yellow vest and the Mexican stood and tried to see Andersen. The one-eyed ex-Rebel, sitting closest to Bloody Zeke, just looked up at the cold-blooded killer.
Bloody Zeke had dark hair that hung to his shoulders. The hair needed a curry comb and a sharp pair of scissors. Beard stubble covered his face. He wore high-topped stovepipe cowboy boots, but his clothes remained the striped uniform of a prisoner at Yuma. In a real hurry to find Moses Butcher, he had not bothered to find any fresh clothes, something inconspicuous.
McMasters saw that none in the jail on wheels was armed, that the back door to the wagon remained locked, and that most of the prisoners remained in chains. Even Bloody Zeke’s ankles were shackled, giving him just enough room to walk around—and catch Royal Andersen . . . somehow.
“How is—?”
McMasters stopped. One glance at the veteran of the Wisconsin Sixth Volunteer Infantry was all it took. The old man stared up at the darkening sky with eyes that saw nothing. At least . . . nothing on this earth.
“You son of a bitch.” McMasters brought the barrels of the Remington back up toward Bloody Zeke. Almost instantly he remembered why he was there, remembered what had happened at his ranch. He lowered the shotgun, breathed in, exhaled, and looked down at his old friend.
Sniffling, Deputy U.S. Marshal Daniel Kilpatrick closed the dead man’s eyes.
“What happened?” McMasters asked.
“I . . . don’t know.” Gently, Kilpatrick laid Andersen’s head on the grass, covered his face with the kepi that had fallen beneath the wagon, and folded his arms across his chest.
Andersen might have looked peaceful in death, but the chains to the iron bracelets had carved a ditch across his throat, and blood still ran in rivulets down his neck and across his shirt and old Union blouse.
Kilpatrick came to his knees, but when he tried to push himself to his feet, he fell back, catching himself with his hands to keep from falling face-first. He gagged once, twice, and then sprayed the dirt with vomit.
“Get some water,” McMasters told him. “I’ll keep an eye on these.” He looked at the Negro, then at the woman, and across the wagon at the four others.
Kilpatrick did not listen. After wiping spittle and remnants of jerky and breakfast on his sleeve, he made himself stand. He stared at McMasters.
“Thanks for . . . trying to . . . help. But”—the young man cocked his head at an angle—“what the hell are you doing here?”
McMasters put the Remington back on safety and tucked the shotgun underneath the crook of his right arm.
“I’m going to say this once. And don’t ever ask me again. Rosalee’s dead. Bea’s dead.” He steeled his voice. “They’re all dead. Murdered.”
Kilpatrick fell to his knees again.
“It . . . that . . . that can’t . . . it can’t be.”
“Murdered”—McMasters looked up as he finished, wanting to see the reaction in Bloody Zeke The Younger’s eyes—“by Moses Butcher and his gang of killers.”
He told Kilpatrick most of everything, but spared him—hell, he had spared himself—by not describing what Rosalee must have endured before death had mercifully taken her to God’s home.
“The law? Is there—” Kilpatrick might have been in shock. First seeing Royal Andersen str
angled to death. Then learning that his bride-to-be had been murdered.
“Tom Billings?” McMasters spit into the dust. “He’s a yellow bastard. I told you. I saw nine men riding south across the valley southwest of my place. Probably heading toward the Globe road.”
“Butcher. He”—Kilpatrick blinked—“wouldn’t go to Globe.”
“No. He wouldn’t.”
“Well . . .” Kilpatrick managed to stand and lean against the wagon’s front wheel, away from the reach of Bloody Zeke. Away from any of the scum chained behind the bars. “We need . . . a posse.”
“That’s what I figured. That’s why I’m here.”
Kilpatrick blinked again.
McMasters raised the barrel of the shotgun, aiming it at Bloody Zeke The Younger. “I want him. And him.” He pointed toward the black man, Alamo Carter.
“What?”
“Bloody Zeke knows enough about Butcher. And Royal”—McMasters shook off any sentiment, any regret, any human emotion he might still have and refused to look down at the lifeless body of his old friend—“told me this black man was a scout, and a good one. I need a tracker.”
“John”—Kilpatrick stared at McMasters as if he thought he had become a madman—“you can’t be serious.”
“I am serious.”
“You can’t—”
“I will.”
“John, I’ve been a lawman since I was eighteen years old. The law’s my life. You’re asking me to—Come to your senses, man.”
“The law was your life. Bea and my children were mine.”
“But—” Kilpatrick’s head shook violently as if he had to wake himself from some horrible nightmare.
“Those killers butchered Rosalee. They burned Eugénia and Bea. They tossed James into a well. They blew off Nate’s face. They—” He stopped himself, remembering his promise to spare Daniel Kilpatrick, to spare himself. “I aim to find them.”
“I can’t let you do this, John. By God, I’m a deputy United States marshal. I swore an oath.”
“I made a vow.” McMasters turned the Remington toward Daniel Kilpatrick. A thumb reached up and lowered the safety switch. “I aim to see it through.”
Kilpatrick took one step back. Then his right hand reached toward the holster but stopped, not because staring down the giant bores of a twelve-gauge shotgun intimidated him. He just remembered he had dropped his revolver.
“John,” he tried again. “Think this through.”
“I have.” McMasters had thought of something else, too. “Royal Andersen always said it took an Apache to track an Apache. So I figure it would take a butcher to track down the Butchers.” Without turning the Remington away from Daniel Kilpatrick, McMasters tilted his head toward the prisoners of the tumbleweed wagon.
“Bloody Zeke . . . and the black man. That’s all I want. You take the other four to Yuma.”
“And how do I explain what happened to those two?”
“Tell them I stole them from you. I don’t care. This is how it has to be done. It’s the only way. We wait on Tom Billings or any of that yellow-livered bunch up in Payson to do anything, Butcher will be in Mexico. He gets into that country, and I’ll never find the son of a bitch.”
“I will go with you, amigo,” Bloody Zeke The Younger said.
“I wasn’t asking you to volunteer,” McMasters said.
“What deal do you make us?” the black giant asked.
“He’s making no deal!” Kilpatrick shouted. “All he’s doing is getting himself a trip to Yuma, too.” The deputy marshal took a quick step toward him, but stopped when the Remington’s barrels came closer.
“John.” Kilpatrick tried to wet his lips, but could find no moisture on his tongue. “John . . . you have to be reasonable. Think about it. You break these two men out and you’ll be sent to Yuma . . . if you’re not killed. We have to follow the law.”
“I’m following my law.”
“How many men did you say you’re after?”
It was the redhead who spoke.
McMasters shot her a glance. He had not expected her question. Oh, he’d known he would never talk Daniel Kilpatrick into releasing Alamo Carter and Bloody Zeke The Younger, but he had figured Royal Andersen would have gone along with his crazy plan, that Andersen would have assisted him, even to the point of handcuffing Kilpatrick to a wagon spoke. Maybe . . . just maybe Kilpatrick might have seen things another way . . . but that had been a long shot. He had not expected the lawman—even after learning of Rosalee’s murder—to break the law. That boy was the law. But McMasters had not expected to find Royal Andersen dead, either.
He did not look at the woman. She might have been trying to distract McMasters and let Kilpatrick get the drop on him . . . which likely would have gotten Kilpatrick’s head blown off.
McMasters did not answer her.
The Mexican did.
“Nueve.” The burly Mexican raised nine fingers in his shackled hands.
“Three against nine.” The cardsharper in the yellow vest laughed without any humor. “I wouldn’t find myself betting against those long odds.”
“Nor would I,” said the redhead.
“From what I’ve heard about Moses Butcher,” the one-eyed Reb said, “he’d make the late, great William Quantrill or even Bloody Bill Anderson look like my great-grandmammie or maybe even that there Pope I keep hearin’ ’bout.”
“Or Christ hisself,” Bloody Zeke said.
“Do not mock the Lord,” the Mexican said.
“All I want is Bloody Zeke and the black man,” McMasters told Kilpatrick again, trying to ignore the conversation in the jail on wheels.
“My name is Alamo Carter,” the black prisoner said. “And if you want me to do something, you ask me, mister. I ain’t nobody’s slave. Not no more I ain’t.”
CHAPTER 13
“He’s not asking anyone for anything,” Kilpatrick said, almost pleading. “He’s just asking for a long, long, damned long prison sentence for himself. Or a bullet in the back of his head.”
“Nine against three?” the redhead said. “Or nine against seven?”
“Now I’d place a large stack of chips on the latter,” the prisoner in the yellow vest said.
McMasters found himself listening. He wet his lips.
Kilpatrick opened his mouth as if to argue more, to try, somehow, to persuade McMasters that his plan was nothing but the thinking of a man overcome by grief.
The redhead cut him off before he could utter one syllable.
“You said it takes a butcher to track down the Butchers. Well, hell, mister, you’ve got six of the worst killers in the territory right here.”
The big black man rattled his chains. “I’m still waitin’, mistah, for you to ask me. And ask me . . . real . . . polite.”
“Ya don’t asks the likes of you to do nothin’,” the one-eyed man said with a malicious grin. “Ya tells ’im. An’ ya whips ’im iffen he gets uppity.”
The black giant and the rail-thin old Confederate glared at one another. Silence fell with the darkness, and McMasters considered the redhead’s suggestion. The Reb, however, had just made a good argument to forget that idea. Those killers would likely kill each other . . . over the woman, over the Remington shotgun, over nothing . . . after they slit McMasters’s throat. And yet . . . it made sense. Somehow—maybe he was loco—it made a lot of sense.
“You turn them loose, they’ll kill you the first chance they get,” Kilpatrick said, “and the law will be after you.”
“I can live with that.”
“Not for long. Not with that scum.”
“We’ll see.”
Kilpatrick swore. “What you’ll see is eternal damnation. Those men—even that woman—will kill you. You’ll see—”
“What I saw was Rosalee,” McMasters snapped. “And all of my family. You didn’t see that. Thank God for that.”
The deputy’s mouth quivered, but he steeled himself. “You’re using my murdered fiancé to get
to me. That’s not fair, John. I loved her.”
“I did, too. All my children. My wife. I’m not using Rosalee for anything. But I am going to use them. All of them.” He gestured at the prisoners. “To get Moses Butcher and every one of those bastards.”
“Hot damn!” the gambler said as his chains rattled.
“I’m still waitin’,” the black man said.
The air had turned cool, and the sun had slipped behind the mountains off to the west. Noticing the lamps on the front of the wagon to make traveling at night a bit safer, McMasters pointed the Remington at the nearest one. “Get those lit.”
As Daniel Kilpatrick struck a match and lighted the wick of the left-side lamp, McMasters did the same for the lantern hanging over the rear door. He stepped back, watching Kilpatrick walk around the six mules that pulled the heavy tumbleweed wagon, stop by the right-side lamp, and light it.
Yellow light bathed the killers inside, the mules, and the corpse of Royal Andersen. Dan Kilpatrick walked to the rear of the wagon.
“Unlock the door.” McMasters aimed the shotgun at Kilpatrick, and the deputy cursed bitterly underneath his breath, but stepped closer to the door.
McMasters never lowered the shotgun but moved in the other direction, stopping next to the black man. “Your name’s Carter, right?”
“That’s what I’m called. Alamo Carter.”
“All right, Mister Carter. I need a scout. You track down Moses Butcher for me, I’ll pay you.”
“Pay me what?”
“A hundred dollars.” McMasters had no idea where he would come up with the money, but even if he had to sell the property, or round up mustangs and break them and sell them to the Indians at Fort McDowell, he would do it.
“That ain’t much,” Carter said.
“It’s better than Yuma.”
“We do this for you,” the Mex said, “you let us go?”
McMasters had read about the Mexican in the Payson Enterprise. The man had murdered some homesteaders along the Verde River near old Fort Verde. He had drifted into Payson, where Tony Jessop had arrested him for drunkenness, only to discover that the drunk he held was an escaped murderer named Emilio Vasquez, wanted on both sides of the border.
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