Blood Bond 16: A Hundred Ways to Die

by Johnstone, William W.

  The claim jumpers’ horses had scattered to the far end of the shelf, not descending the slope. That would make it easier to round them up.

  Matt’s gray was nearby. He whistled and it came to him. The horse nudged him affectionately with its muzzle, nearly knocking him off his feet. Matt rubbed the gray’s broad forehead. The gray liked having its head rubbed.

  Sam stuck his head over a ledge, looking down. “You all right, Matt?”

  “Just fine. You?”

  “I’m good,” Sam said, climbing down the rock wall. A man’s-length from the ground, he hung by his hands and dropped down, landing lightly on his feet. He looked at the dead. “Who are they?”

  “Some of that New Mexico crowd, from Lincoln County,” Matt said. “Few if any of them actually hail from New Mexico, though. Most are guns from Texas and the Southwest. They went up to Lincoln to fight in the range wars there, between Chisum and the other big ranchers. The ones on the losing side are clearing out. A lot of them—too many—have been turning up in Tombstone. They’re responsible for most of the claim jumping that’s been going on here lately, killing prospectors and filing title to their digs.”

  “Somebody ought to clean up on them,” Sam said.

  “This is a pretty good start.”

  Hake Craney raised himself on his elbows, gun in hand. Matt fired from the hip, seemingly offhandedly, nonchalantly. Craney’s round came a split-second later.

  Matt’s round tagged Craney smack in the middle of his face, finishing him. Craney’s slug went wild, becoming a lead smear on the rocks.

  “He was playing possum,” Matt said, a bit sheepishly.

  “He’s playing dead now,” Sam said.

  Matt released the cylinder of his gun, extracting empty brass. He spilled them into his palm, pocketing them for reloading later. An avid hand loader, he constantly experimented with gunpowder mixtures, grinds, and weights. He fed fresh bullets into the chambers, leaving the one under the hammer empty as a safety precaution.

  “I reckon Mr. Bonney owes us a favor now,” he joked.

  “William Bonney? Billy the Kid? How do you figure?” Sam asked.

  “He scared Vollin and his pards out of Lincoln County. He had a big mad on them for killing one of his pards. We killed them, so . . . he kind of owes us one,” Matt said.

  “Better check your figuring. From all I’ve heard, the Kid’s trouble, pure poison, to friends and foes alike. He’s got no good sense. If he likes you, you can get dead just as fast as if he doesn’t. Faster, maybe. Devil take Billy and his favors.”

  “There’s something to what you say,” Matt conceded.

  Sam stood with hands on hips, eyeing the property. “Lot of bodies. Now we’ve got to get shut of them.”

  Matt stretched, stifling a yawn. “I’m bushed. It can wait till tomorrow.”

  “Not in this hot sun it can’t. Those bodies’ll go to rot and ruin fast,” Sam pressed.

  Matt made a face. “That’s a fact. Can’t be fouling our own nest. That’s just like crooks, putting honest folks to pains cleaning up their messes.”

  “Maybe they’re worth something to the law. Wanted—a bounty on their heads,” Sam ventured.

  “I misdoubt me that they’re wanted in Tombstone, the county or the territory. If they were, they would have been bagged long ago, what with all the hungry lawmen we’ve got around here. Particularly those ambitious Earps,” Matt said.

  “They’re money hungry, all right,” Sam agreed. “They can sniff out a bounty like nobody’s business.”

  “These varmints might be wanted for something back in Lincoln County,” Matt suggested tentatively.

  “Everybody in Lincoln County’s wanted for something. Trouble is, you’ve got to be there to collect. I’ve had enough of range wars to last me for a while,” Sam said definitely. “The horses should be worth something.”

  “And, brother, we can use every cent. Our funds have sunk mighty low since you backed those three queens with a fistful of hundred-dollar bills.”

  Sam sighed. “Well, let’s get to the chores.”

  “First things first. After all that excitement, I could use a drink,” Matt said. He went into the shack, prowling around. After a moment, he came out, red faced, agitated.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam asked.

  “They drank up all our liquor, the dirty so and sos!” Matt fumed.

  “They sure needed killing,” Sam said sadly.

  Sam went to get his horse. It was easier to climb the canyon wall and descend the far side to where he’d left the bay, than to ride one of the other horses out on the flat and through the pass to retrieve the animal.

  Matt rounded up the claim jumpers’ horses. They were all hitched to a rope line by the time Sam returned.

  Matt and Sam searched the bodies, turning out their pockets and pokes. A distasteful task but necessary.

  “It’d be a hell of a note if one of them had a pouch full of gold or a wad of greenbacks and we missed it and somebody else found it, the coroner or undertaker or whoever,” Matt reasoned aloud.

  “To the victor belongs the spoils, eh?” Sam said.

  “That’s right,” Matt said, after thinking about it. “We killed them fair and square and anything they got’s owing to us.”

  The combined total of the claim jumpers’ pickings yielded thirty-seven dollars in cash and coin, and a couple of pebble-sized silver nuggets.

  “Every little bit helps,” Matt declared.

  “I’m not arguing,” Sam said.

  “We didn’t come off so badly for a day’s work. Their guns’re worth something. So are the horses and saddles.”

  “We’re alive, too.”

  “Yes, there’s that.”

  FOUR

  Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves rode into Tombstone in late afternoon of the same day. They headed a pack train of corpses. The claim jumpers’ bodies were tied facedown across the backs of their horses. The horses were strung out in file at the end of a lead rope secured to Matt’s saddle horn.

  The blood brothers took an out of the way route into town, to minimize the sensation. Five dead at a go was a lot for one day, even in Tombstone. The route kept to the side streets and quiet corners. But it was daylight and Tombstone was a busy town so, even with all due discretion, the event was sure to be noticed.

  It attracted a lot of attention and favorable response. Nobody had any use for claim jumpers. Even the other claim jumpers were glad to be rid of the competition.

  The gunfight at Spear Blade Spur was destined to have its thunder stolen by an even more spectacular occurrence. Sam and Matt were unaware of this twist of fate when they reined to a halt in front of the sheriff’s office.

  The sheriff was the county peacekeeper. The building housed administrative offices and a jail. It had an abandoned look to it. Nobody was around the premises, not even the idlers and loafers usually found loitering around the front steps.

  “Looks closed,” Sam said.

  “Maybe the sheriff’s taking a nap,” Matt suggested.

  “I’ll see,” Sam said, stepping down from the saddle. It was a hot day but the sheriff’s office’s front door was closed. He tried the doorknob. It wouldn’t budge. “Locked.”

  He knocked on the door. No response. He knocked harder, hammering door panels with his fist. The door was built solid, to guard against jailbreaks, lynch mobs, and such. Sam could hear the banging echoing inside. If anyone was there, they’d have heard it.

  He went to a window. It was covered on the outside with a barred iron grating. The window inside was open. The shade was pulled down. Sam reached through the bars, lifting the shade and looking within.

  The front office area was dark with brown shadowy gloom. A thin line of sunlight slanted through a narrow crack in a window curtain. The ray slanted across the space, falling on a brass spittoon and making it shine like gold. Dust motes floated in the beam.

  “That’s odd—nobody’s home,” Sam said, rejoining Matt. />
  “Maybe they went to dinner,” Matt said.

  “Kind of early for that.” Sam climbed into the saddle. “Where to now?”

  “Let’s try the marshal.”

  The sheriff handled county business and the marshal handled town business. A U.S. federal marshal was assigned to the district, too, handling Arizona territorial business, but he operated out of the capital city of Prescott.

  Sam and Matt rode on, leading the string of death’s pack train through the streets to the town marshal’s office in Tombstone jail.

  Fred White was marshal. The Citizen’s Committee had gotten him appointed to the post. Deputy marshal was John Behan, a friend of Ringo’s and a favorite of the Cowboy faction.

  A gallows dominated the square fronting the jail. It was newly built, with raw yellow, unpainted fresh lumber planks and boards. A steep narrow flight of steps led to an eight-foot-high square wooden platform set on a scaffold framework. Atop it rose an upright wooden construction shaped like an upside-down L. From it would hang the condemned man. A hinged trapdoor in the middle of the platform would help drop him into eternity.

  Between the gallows and the corpse-carrying horses, the setting had taken on a eerie, offbeat air.

  Matt got down this time, Sam staying with the horses. Matt entered the jail. Behind a beat-up wooden desk sat Assistant Deputy Hubert Osgood, hunched over some paperwork. Osgood was the third man from the top on the marshal’s office totem pole. He was tall, reedy, and storklike. His hat was pushed back on his head. He was chewing on the end of a pencil. He frowned fiercely, as if engaged in heavy thought.

  He wasn’t much of a lawman, but he had a lot of relatives in town who voted.

  Matt cleared his throat. Osgood started, looking up. “Oh. It’s you,” he said without enthusiasm. He knew well of Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves. Gunmen of their stature were not necessarily beloved by the law in Tombstone. Or the law anywhere else, for that matter.

  “What do you want?” Osgood asked dismissively. A thought struck him and he changed gears, showing genuine interest. “Wait a minute, wait a minute! Is this about the holdup?”

  “What holdup?” Matt asked.

  “Don’t tell me you ain’t heard about the holdup? Where you been? Everybody’s heard about the holdup!”

  “I just got into town.”

  Osgood rose, holding on to the edge of his desk with both hands. The cords on his neck stood out like big bunches of telegraph wires. He quivered with excitement. “They done robbed the Wells Fargo wagon today!”

  “You don’t say,” Matt said, impressed.

  “Hit the wagon on the San Pedro Valley Road! Killed Myles Cooper riding shotgun and wounded driver Walt Simms. Got away with twenty-seven thousand dollars in silver bullion—twenty-seven thousand dollars!”

  “Who did it?”

  “Who knows? It’s a mystery. They were masked, all three of them. They’re killers, whoever they are, killers! Gunned Cooper down like a dog and shot Simms without giving him a chance to surrender.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Murdering bastards,” Osgood groused. “They were laying for the wagon at the top of the grade. Horses just naturally run slow by the time they reach the summit. Going a few miles an hour, no more. Outlaws came out from behind the trees and lit into the guards. Poor devils never had a chance.

  “Lem Tolliver rode by around noon and came across the driver, Simms. He was still alive somehow. Bled white—be a miracle if he pulls through. Lem run Simms into town. Bullion was long gone, of course. All twenty-seven thousand!”

  “The bandits couldn’t have gotten far, not with twenty-seven thousand dollars in silver bars,” Matt said thoughtfully. “That’s a heavy load. It’s sure to have slowed them down.”

  “They knew what they were doing, the cunning devils!” Osgood cried, shaking a bony fist in the air. “They stole the wagon, too! Did you ever hear of such brass-bound gall?

  “Marshal White and the sheriff whipped up a big posse and set after ’em. Johnny Behan went along, the Earps, and Doc Holliday, too,” he went on.

  Matt whistled. “Whew! That’s a lot of firepower.”

  “For all the good it’ll do ’em. Robbery was an hour after sunup and Lem didn’t bring Simms into town until two, two-thirty this afternoon. Got themselves a good half-day’s head start. Time a-plenty to divvy up the loot and run it into the hills on horseback—twenty-seven thousand dollars!”

  Osgood fell back in his chair, spent, exhausted by his storm of emotion. He mopped sweat off his brow with a bandana folded into a sodden fabric square. He looked feverish, haunted.

  After a moment, he seemed to recover somewhat. His eyes came into focus. He took notice of his surroundings. He stared at Matt as if he’d never seen him before.

  “Something you want, mister?” he asked dully.

  “Well, yes, now that you mention it,” Matt began.

  Osgood wasn’t listening, his attention was elsewhere. The front door was open. Excited-seeming citizens could be seen passing back and forth in front of it, collecting into a crowd. The sightlines prevented Osgood from seeing the pack train of death standing out in the street.

  Osgood, irked, got up from behind his desk. “What’s all that commotion?”

  He started across the room.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Matt said, following the assistant deputy marshal.

  Osgood went outside, squinting against bright, hot, late-day sunshine. He glanced at the string of horses, then caught sight of the corpses.

  He reeled as if thunderstruck, prominent Adam’s apple bobbing in a long, scrawny neck as he gulped, swallowing hard. “Lord awlmighty! Slaughter at wholesale!”

  The lawman’s narrow-eyed gaze darted from the dead men to Matt and Sam, and back again. Recollecting his professional duties, he demanded, “Who done it?”

  “We did,” Matt said, indicating himself and Sam. “It was self-defense,” Matt added quickly. “They’re claim jumpers. They tried to kill us. It was them or us. We did what we had to do.”

  The dead were an unlovely sight, blank eyes bulging, mouths gaping, limbs already stiffening and contorting. Osgood tried not to stare.

  “Who are—er, who were they?” he asked.

  “Justin Vollin’s bunch. Some of that Lincoln County crowd,” Sam volunteered.

  “Is that so?” Osgood said, interested in spite of himself. He forced himself to take a closer look. “Huh! Yeah, that’s Vollin hisself. Shot in the back of the head. Hmmm.”

  He eyed Matt and Sam, suspicion smoldering behind those glassy orbs. “That don’t look right!”

  “We hit them from both sides, got them in a crossfire. It was five against two. We had to even up the odds,” Matt said.

  “No law says we have to take a gang of murdering thieves straight on, face to face,” Sam chimed in.

  Osgood weighed the point. “Huh. I suppose that’s all right, then. Them New Mexico boys are all no-goods, troublemakers. Vollin was one of the worst. Used to sass me when I was making my rounds on duty, give me a lot of smart back talk to make me out a fool in front of folks.... Tried to jump your claim, you say?”

  “That’s right,” Sam said.

  “Could be they’re the ones been shooting up the prospectors in the hills lately. Killed seven, eight of them this month.”

  “Could be,” Sam allowed.

  Osgood shook his head. “What a day! So much killing—too much killing. Whole danged territory’s going to hell in a handbasket!” Having reached the end of his energy and interest in the matter, he turned and started to go back inside.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Sam called after him. Osgood halted, fidgeting.

  “What about them?” Sam asked. “We brought them in. We want to get them off our hands.”

  “I don’t blame you. I would, too,” Osgood said.

  “What’re we supposed to do with them?”

  “You got me there.”

  “You’re the
law in town,” Sam pointed out.

  Osgood shook his head. “Nope. I’m the town law, Tombstone town. Your claim’s at Spear Blade Spur, you say? That’s outside city limits. Marshal’s got no jurisdiction there. It ain’t none of our affair. Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.

  “That’s county business,” Osgood went on. “A matter for the sheriff. Run them over to him—and quick. I’m getting kind of sick at my stomach looking at them. Move ’em out pronto.”

  He went back inside. Sam stared in disbelief.

  “I’ll work on him some more,” Matt said quickly. He entered the jail, relieved to find that the door had not been locked against him.

  Osgood stood at a filing cabinet in the corner, rummaging through an open drawer. He took out a brown bottle and glass and sat down behind the desk. He set bottle and glass down on the desktop, looking up at Matt Bodine with no love.

  “You again? We’re done, son,” Osgood said.

  The glass was dirty, giving him no pause. Osgood uncorked the bottle, filling the glass to the brim with amber liquid. The fumes stung the inside of Matt’s nose and made his eyes burn, and he was standing on the opposite side of the desk. He leaned back. It helped a little, not much.

  Osgood did not offer to share. That was fine with Matt. Osgood drank half the contents of the glass, draining it as if it were colored water. He shuddered once. He closed his eyes, orbs bulging like walnuts against quivering eyelids.

  Matt looked around. The office took up the front of the building. The cells were in back—iron cages with a grid framework. No partition separated office and cells. Matt could see into them.

  In the nearest cell, a man lay on his back on a wooden pallet with a razor-thin mattress. He was dark-haired, swarthy, about thirty years old. Mexican, most likely, Matt guessed.

  The prisoner lay with one leg on the bunk, bent at the knee. The other stretched off the side of the bunk, foot on the floor. His head was pillowed on an arm folded under it. He scrutinized Matt, dark eyes alive with curiousity in a masklike face.