Gallows Express

by Peter Brandvold

Hawk felt a worm flip in his belly. He looked from Tarwater to Pennybacker, Pike, and Learner, all three of whom looked desperate but vaguely chagrined.

  “Dead set against what?” Hawk growled, though he knew what it was.

  “Sheriff,” Pennybacker said, removing his spectacles to clean them on a crisp linen handkerchief with his initials monogrammed in a corner, “the town council and several select citizens met informally in the schoolhouse at the crack of dawn.”

  Hawk glanced at Regan, who continued to stare across the street at him with that queer, sullen, vaguely defiant expression.

  “And . . . ?” Hawk knew what the man was going to say, but he wanted him to say it.

  “And . . .” Pennybacker glanced at Pike and Learner, then at Tarwater before sliding his gaze up again at the county sheriff standing on the second porch step. “And we feel it’s in the best interest of this town and this county to free Brazos Tierney, One-Eye McGee, and J. T. Hostetler. Our county prosecutor, Mr. Devlin, reopened the case against them and decided that the way you handled the situation . . . assaulting these men without provocation . . . is grounds for their dismissal.”

  Hawk ran his wry gaze from face to face and curled one corner of his mouth.

  “Without provocation?” Tarwater exclaimed, scowling with exasperation. “You men are cowards—it’s as simple as that!”

  “This is a law matter, Mr. Tarwater,” Learner reprimanded his fellow councilman. “I suggest you restrain your high-strung Confederate emotions.”

  Tarwater laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned. That’s the first time any of you have ever brought up the fact that I wore Confederate gray during the War of Northern Aggression. Here, I thought we good citizens of Trinity were all integrated!”

  Learner flushed, as did Pike, who looked down.

  “This isn’t about us, gentlemen,” Pennybacker interjected. “Let’s all just settle down. This is about the future of Trinity.” He looked at Hawk. “Sheriff . . . ?”

  “Anyone over there at the school vote against this decision?” Hawk asked, glancing at Regan, though it was clear by her faltering gaze now which side she was on.

  Pennybacker glanced over at the young schoolteacher, as well. Regan turned and, head down, began walking back along Wyoming Street.

  Pennybacker looked at Hawk. “It didn’t come to a vote. On the move to acquit placed before the Trinity Town Council by Prosecutor William G. Devlin. . . .”

  The mayor glanced at one of the better-dressed dudes standing in the street behind him and the other councilmen, at a man with trimmed muttonchops and a black derby, who was holding a beer schooner in one fist and a cigar in his other hand.

  Pennybacker puffed up his little chest and continued, “. . . I gave the order on the authority that Judge Lewiston P. Tecumseh Price has vested in me in his absence. If and when the judge decides to reinstate the charges, he may do so, and, if so, at that time Mr. Tierney, Mr. McGee, and Mr. Hostetler will be rearrested and given a new trial.”

  Pennybacker had let his voice fade during that last officious sentence, because, having had enough of the rancid bullshit being spewed by these dapper cowards, Hawk had turned and walked on up the porch and into the jailhouse.

  Pennybacker and the other councilmen stared after him, listening to the jingle of the key ring and then to the ratchety scrape of the key in the lock of the cell block door. They continued to listen, hearing Hawk’s boot thuds diminishing inside the cell block.

  Carson Tarwater let a devious smile tug at his mouth.

  Pennybacker, Learner, and Pike shared apprehensive glances, worry suddenly sharpening their eyes. All three men gave a simultaneous, startled jerk as a scream peeled out of the cell block, and Pennybacker lurched forward.

  “Oh, god, no!”

  22.

  QUIET SUNDAY

  MAYOR Pennybacker stopped short of the front porch steps when the scream he’d heard from the cell block transformed abruptly into a victorious howl that grew even louder, echoing around the cell block and leeching into the street.

  The howl was followed by two more as all three prisoners rejoiced. Several sets of boots thudded amidst the mocking laughter, and as the three men moved out of the cell block and into the main office, Brazos Tierney said with a definite, halting lisp, “The wheels of justice do grind slow, but I was just certain the good folks of Trinity would see it my pa’s way!”

  More laughter.

  Pennybacker and the other men stepped back as Brazos moved out the front door, his hat cocked at a rakish angle, strapping his gun and shell belt around his waist, just below a wide leather belt studded with leather conchos. The whang strings on his deerhide breeches fluttered as he sauntered onto the porch, clicking his boot heels across the puncheons and ringing his spur rowels.

  His jeering grin showed the stubs of his broken teeth and torn gums. Dried blood smeared about his mouth gave him a heightened look of psychopathic savagery.

  Laughing and shooting their pistols, the three went running down the porch steps and up the street in the direction of the livery barn. The clusters of onlookers gathered on either side of the street lurched back in fear. Hawk came out to stand atop the porch, staring bemusedly after his three freed prisoners and biting the end off a black Mexican cigar.

  “Mr. Hawk,” Pennybacker said, looking a little constipated. “I hope . . . I hope there are no hard feelings.”

  “You did what you figured you had to do.” Hawk plucked the sheriff’s badge off his vest and flipped it over the porch rail and into the dust at the councilmen’s polished boots.

  “You’re leaving?” Pennybacker asked.

  “Nah, I’m just quittin’.” Lighting his cigar with a stove match, Hawk started down the porch steps. “I believe I’ll hang around town awhile, in an unofficial capacity. Just for the hell of it.”

  As he moved past the councilmen, he glanced at Carson Tarwater, who stared at Hawk with a fateful expression, and shook his head slowly, darkly from side to side. Hawk continued into the street, angling past the gallows and Reb Winter and his silent Indian friend, Alvin Gault. Reb looked at Hawk, the younker’s eyes sharp with exasperation as he twisted his cloth watch cap in his big hands nervously.

  “Where you gonna go, Gid?” Reb slid his eyes toward the livery barn from which the laughter of the three freed prisoners could still be heard. “What’re you gonna do?”

  “I’m gonna have a beer. Then I’m gonna go up and catch me some beauty sleep.” Hawk scratched his two-day growth of beard stubble and continued walking between the clusters of tense-looking onlookers, toward the Four Aces.

  An especially large crowd was gathered in front of the saloon, including the county prosecutor, who averted his eyes from those of the former Trinity sheriff as Hawk passed him and abruptly threw back the last of the beer in his heavy schooner.

  The street gradually cleared. Most folks went back about their Sunday business, whatever that entailed since there were no church services in Trinity these days. Hawk ordered a beer and sat down at a table facing the front window, polishing off half the beer in a single draught, then sitting back in his chair and sipping the rest as he took long, thoughtful pulls on his cigar.

  Whoops and hollers sounded from the west. Horse hooves pounded. Hawk tipped his schooner to his lips and watched over the rim as Tierney, Hostetler, and One-Eye McGee galloped past, popping their pistols into the air above their heads and yammering like crazed coyotes.

  Quickly, the din died. Smoke from the gun blasts faded, and the dust of the trio sifted over the sun-bathed street. Sunday quiet prevailed once more over Trinity.

  Hawk took another sip from his beer, then set the glass back down on the table, near the butt of the Henry he’d set on the scarred tabletop, as well, within easy reach. Nearly every muscle in his lean frame was drawn taught as freshly stretched Glidden wire. A fist-sized knot burned in his belly.

  There weren’t too many people in the saloon. Most of the saddle tramps and punchers wh
o’d been stranded in town by Tierney’s threat had pulled out. Now Hawk watched the stage pull out away from the Poudre River House, as well, the driver whipping the reins over the backs of his fresh team and the shotgun messenger holding his double-barreled Greener up high across his chest. The carriage rocked back on its thoroughbraces and wheeled to Hawk’s left and out of view from the dusty windows, heading west to the little mining towns of Calumet and Manhattan roughly forty miles away, at the foot of Cameron Pass.

  Carson Tarwater had been walking into the Four Aces as the stage was pulling out, and he stood between the batwings now, watching the stage as it dwindled away. Turning forward, holding a newspaper in one hand and a briar pipe in the other, he moved into the saloon. He wore a wool jacket against the chill, and a bowler hat.

  As he angled over to the bar, his eyes found Hawk in the shadows, leaning back in his chair with his empty beer schooner before him. Tarwater sidled up to the bar and ordered a beer from the Sunday waiter, a thin, bald, somber-looking gent in a bow tie. While the apron pulled a beer, Tarwater hiked an elbow on the counter and arched his brows at Hawk.

  “Maybe it was for the best, after all.”

  Hawk continued to stare into the near-vacant street where a few crusts of snow lined the walks. The snow glistened in the sunlight that was slowly melting it. Smoke from stoves hung in thin, blue clouds over the street.

  “Maybe.”

  “Buy you a beer?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Tarwater slid a couple of coins across the bar top, then lifted his beer and sipped. He smacked his lips, and in a dark tone, he said, “You don’t think they’ll leave us alone, now, do you?”

  Hawk hadn’t even started to respond when the thunder of a distant shotgun blast sounded in the far distance. He held still in his chair, staring out the dusty windows at the sunny street.

  Tarwater swung his head toward the batwings. “What the. . . ?”

  He let his voice trail off as distant gunfire crackled. It stopped as suddenly as it had started. Tarwater turned to Hawk, who continued sitting his chair, still as a statue, staring out the windows. The other men in the Four Aces had fallen silent, and they too were staring darkly toward the street.

  A man’s shout sounded from the same direction as the gunfire—west. He shouted again, and Hawk reached forward to wrap his right hand around the neck of his Henry. At the same time, hooves drummed. The thuds grew louder and were soon joined by the clatter of iron-shod wheels.

  Hawk lifted the Henry off the table, the knot in his belly doubling in size, and kicked his chair back as he stood and donned his hat. A worried murmur rose around him as did the men themselves.

  Hawk strode toward the batwings, followed closely by the limping, shuffling Tarwater. Behind him, chairs raked the scarred floorboards as the other drinkers gained their feet and headed toward the batwings, as well.

  Hawk pushed through the doors and, swinging his head toward the west, stepped out into the street. He stopped, his auburn brows furling. The stage was heading back toward him, the pullers shaking their heads and twitching their ears, their eyes white-ringed with anxiety.

  Only the burly driver sat in the driver’s boot. The messenger was nowhere to be seen. The driver himself had lost his hat, and he rode slumped forward, wincing and fumbling with the ribbons as though he was barely able to maintain a grip on them.

  When the stage had drawn to within a block or so of the saloon, the jehu lifted his head suddenly, throwing himself against the seatback, and gave a loud groan as he raised the ribbons high and pulled them back hard against his chest.

  Hawk started taking long strides toward the coach that kept coming toward him until the driver finally had the team stopped, and the horses jumping around nervously in the traces. The man threw the brake and dropped the line to the floor of the driver’s box. Then he slumped forward, crossing his arms on his belly, which, Hawk saw as he closed the distance between him and the coach, was bright with blood.

  The seat beside the driver, where the messenger had been sitting, was also splashed with blood.

  Several men ran up from the cross streets on both sides of the coach but stopped when they saw the driver’s condition. Other men moved out from alley gaps. Most of the stores were closed, but a few men and women working overtime stepped out of their shop doors or peered through windows. The driver continued to slump forward until he turned a somersault over the dashboard and hit the ground behind the wheelers, causing the horses to pitch and whinny.

  Hawk snapped his rifle up.

  He snugged the butt against his hip as he swung wide of the skitter-stepping team where he could get a good look at the side of the coach. The deerskin shades were drawn, but he could hear no one moving around inside. He moved toward the door, keeping his ears pricked for sounds of the passengers. When he was two feet away from the door, he stopped, set his boots, and reached for the door handle.

  Faintly, he heard a sound from inside. A muffled click.

  Suddenly, he pulled his hand back from the door. Wrapping his left hand around the Henry’s barrel, he seated a round quickly in the rifle’s breech and fired. The slug tore a ragged hole in the door.

  From inside, a man screamed.

  Hawk fired and continued firing until he’d punched six holes through the door and the dusty, umber-painted sides of the carriage housing, in the old “smokehouse” pattern. There was a thud. The coach rocked. The horses were kicking up a cacophony now, but the brake and their training was holding them.

  Ejecting the sixth spent cartridge, Hawk wrapped his hand around the handle and jerked the door wide, lurching forward and poking his rifle through the opening.

  He released the tension in his trigger finger.

  Inside, two men were on the floor between the seats—both dressed in deerskin leggings and leather vests, with holsters thronged on their thighs. One was on his back, a bloody hole in his chest. The other man, a black man with a feathered hat, lay over the first, chest down over the first man’s face. The second man wore a sheepskin coat that had a hole in it, over the man’s left shoulder blade, and the hole was gushing thick red blood with every beat of the man’s fluttering heart.

  The man lifted his shaggy head and turned his face toward Hawk, gritting his teeth and trying to bring up the cocked Schofield in his left fist. Hawk raised the Henry to his shoulder, sighted down the barrel, and fired, snapping the man’s head back against the far-side door.

  Hawk had just started turning around when something hot and heavy slammed into his upper left arm. The thundering rifle boom reached his ears a half-second later.

  As his knees buckled and he starting going down, he glimpsed the shooter, J. T. Hostetler, aiming a smoking rifle at him from the side of a high-jutting roof facade.

  Hostetler grinned as he levered his Winchester, ejecting his spent cartridge casing and seating a live round in the chamber.

  23.

  GALLOWS EXPRESS

  BLOOD welling from the hole in his arm, Hawk dropped to his knees beside the coach as Hostetler fired again from atop the roof. The slug screeched so close to Hawk’s head that he could feel the curl of the wind against his right ear before the .44-40 round hammered the side of the carriage.

  As the horses squealed and pitched and jerked the coach forward, Hawk raised his rifle from his knees, drew a bead on the figure standing beside the tall false facade, and fired. Hostetler had been raking a fresh round into his Winchester’s breech.

  Hawk’s slug took the bushwhacker through his chest, causing the man’s head to bob and his arms to be thrown out to his sides. As he sagged backward, he looked down at the hole in his denim jacket, and his eyes grew wide. He staggered, momentarily regained his footing, then, dropping his rifle, pitched forward over the lip of the store’s roof. He turned a complete somersault, screaming, before he slammed through the brush ramada below and landed on the boardwalk in a rain of wood and dirt.

  Hawk gritted his teeth against the pain in
his shoulder as he ejected the spent cartridge from the Henry’s breech. The stage team had torn the stage free of its brake and was lurching eastward along Wyoming Street, dust rising with the clatter of the churning wheels. Behind Hawk, a familiar whoop sounded, echoing around the street from which the stunned crowd that had gathered around the stagecoach was now fleeing, an anxious din rising.

  From the direction of the hotel, Reb Winter was running, bounding out of the path of the runaway team.

  Hawk waved him back. “No, Reb!” he shouted. “Stay there!”

  A rifle barked. Grit blew up at Hawk’s boots.

  Through the coach’s sifting dust, he saw another gunman—Brazos Tierney—peeking out from behind the red false facade jutting above the hotel. Hawk bore down on the man, firing two quick rounds from his shoulder. His slugs merely hammered the side of the facade as Brazos gave a mocking whoop and bolted back behind it and out of the path of Hawk’s bullets.

  Thunder rose as Hawk squeezed off another futile round, and he jerked his head to his right, dread filling his belly like bile when he saw the riders galloping toward him. More hoof thuds rose to his left, and swinging his head in that direction, he saw more riders hammering toward him from the west.

  Cursing, Hawk lowered his Henry’s butt to his right hip and began firing and levering, scattering the western riders, causing them to turn their pitching mounts toward the boardwalks or to carom into alley mouths. Hawk’s fusillade slowed them, but they continued to come, smoke and flames stabbing from the rifles and pistols they triggered over their horses’ bobbing heads.

  Bullets screeched around and over the Rogue Lawman.

  Hawk spun around and sent a spray of .44 rounds to the east, scattering those riders as one man jerked back in his saddle, screaming, and another showed his teeth as he clamped a gloved hand over his left shoulder.

  The Henry’s hammer gave an eerie ping, and Hawk threw the empty rifle aside. He crossed his arms over his belly and clamped his hands over the handles of his Russian and his Colt .44, but he had the pistols only half raised before another shot barked from atop the feed store.