"Don't try to be a hero, friend, or I'll shoot you sooner rather than later," said Rafters.
Griff continued into the barn and entered Charger's stall. Rafters stayed in the center of the barn with his gun trained on his captive.
The bounty hunter's saddlebags were draped over the side of the stall, and he moved toward them. He opened the one closest to him and reached in, his hand closing around the butt of one of his Peacemakers. Griff badly wanted to just yank it out and go to work on Rafters, but he didn't want to alarm the outlaws in the house. Instead, he slowly turned the cylinder by hand, hoping that the clicking would convince Rafters that he was fiddling with the safe.
Another scream came from the cabin, and Griff fought the urge to throw down. Instead, he said, "Damn, the combination's not working."
"It had better. That safe is the only reason you're still drawing breath," said Rafters. The outlaw moved closer, to where he could see what his captive was doing.
Finally, thought Griff. He made a loud clucking noise with his tongue and pressed himself against the side of the stall. Charger lashed out with both rear legs. The horse's hooves caught Rafters in the chest. Griff heard bones snap as they made contact, and the outlaw was knocked across the barn, his scattergun flying off into another stall.
To Griff's surprise, the outlaw immediately began to get to his feet. The bounty hunter scooped a pitchfork off the ground and charged him. The tines of the makeshift weapon caught Rafters in the neck. Griff's rage-fueled strength drove the weapon through his opponent's body and into a post beyond, pinning the outlaw there.
Rafters gave a gurgling chuckle and smiled. The outlaw took a deep breath and blew it out in Griff's direction. A fetid cloud of noxious vapors engulfed the bounty hunter. He began to retch and the stinging gas made his eyes water. He staggered back, away from the impaled outlaw.
Rafters reached up and yanked the pitchfork clear of his neck. He jabbed it at the nearly blind bounty hunter, who made a half-hearted attempt to dodge it. One of the tines ripped through Griff's shirt and dug a shallow groove in his left arm.
Griff kicked out blindly at the blurry form before him. His boot connected with Rafter's shin. The outlaw fell to the ground and Griff landed on top of him. The pair began wrestling in the hay.
The outlaw came out on top with both hands locked around Griff's throat. The bounty hunter tried desperately to break Rafters' grip, but the desperado seemed inhumanly strong. The edges of Griff's vision began to turn red and he could feel his strength ebbing. He released his hold on Rafters' hands and worked his right hand up under the outlaw's chin. With one last frantic surge, he shoved upwards and clucked with his tongue. A hoof flashed by only inches from his face. It connected with the bridge of Rafters' nose, which collapsed with a sickening pop. The outlaw's body went limp.
Griff pushed the body off, rolled over, and vomited messily into the hay. His breath came in great, ragged gasps.
Another scream came from the house. This one sounded fainter than before. Griff forced himself to his feet and staggered into Charger's stall. He strapped on his gunbelt, took a few deep breaths to clear his head, and stalked out of the barn.
Griff heard noise coming from one of the cabin's bedrooms and he crouched quietly beneath the room's small window. He slowly eased himself up to where he could see. In the dim lamp light he could make out Clevis on the bed, his pants around his ankles. Maggie, her face bruised and bloody, lay beneath him. Clevis' buddy with the rifle watched with interest from the doorway.
Griff drew a pistol and rapped on the glass. When Clevis' looked up, the bounty hunter shot him between the eyes. Pivoting slightly, Griff fanned two shots into the rifleman, who crumpled to the ground.
His pistol still smoking, Griff moved toward the front of the house. He drew the second Colt as he ran.
Once at the front porch, Griff ran at the door in a low, sideways crouch. As his shoulder hit the door, he twisted and allowed himself to fall backwards so that he skidded into the room on his backside. He heard the boom of a pistol, felt a bullet rip the air just above him, and saw a pick flash through the space where his chest would have been had he come in standing.
The outlaw with the pick was standing just inside the door. He dropped the tool and went for his gun. Griff fired both pistols before the man could clear leather. The rounds caught him high in the chest. He staggered through the door and collapsed in a heap on the porch.
Griff twisted, trying to spot Boyd, but his view of the room was blocked by the kitchen table. He reached back with his left hand to push himself up, but connected only with air. His arm slipped into a hole the outlaws had begun digging near the fireplace and he fell backward. His head struck the edge of the fireplace and he was momentarily stunned.
A pistol boomed again and a bullet plowed a furrow in the top of the table. A shower of wood splinters rained down on Griff.
"Griff, help!" screamed Lizzie.
Still dazed, Griff struggled to sit up. As he did, he saw Boyd slip out the back door with a struggling Lizzie in his grasp. The gang leader spotted the bounty hunter and fired a parting shot that ricocheted from the fireplace only inches from his head.
Griff took a few seconds to reload his pistols. From his position on the floor, he could see the Bradmans huddled against the far wall. They began to get up, and Griff yelled. "Stay down! He's probably watching the windows." Then he reached up, grabbed the lamp off the table, and blew it out.
He quietly made his way to the door and took a quick glance outside. There was a small cleared area behind the house. Griff could make out a few rectangular objects in the growing darkness which he assumed were tombstones. The land beyond the graves sloped up sharply and was covered with large pine trees.
Griff thumbed back the hammers on his Peacemakers, took a deep breath, and got ready to dash for the nearest grave marker.
***
Boyd was winded from his sprint up the hill, but he tried hard to control his breathing so as not to reveal his position. A pistol was in his right hand, his left was clamped over Lizzie's mouth, pinning her to his side.
Boyd continued to watch the cabin, and he saw the lamp go out inside. He didn't know who that cowboy was, but the outlaw was sure as Hell that he wasn't any Smith & Robards delivery boy. That joker had killed Rafters, something Boyd hadn't believed possible, and then blown through the rest of his gang like they were a bunch of greenhorns. Regardless of who he was, Boyd was sure of one thing: the cowboy was going to be dead before Boyd left this place.
There was a flash of movement in the doorway and Boyd fired. There was a loud, metallic plink, and a shattered frying pan landed on the ground outside the door. The gang leader cursed, lowered his pistol, and started to drag the struggling child to a new position.
Before Boyd reached the cover of the tree he had picked, Griff left the cabin, hunched over in a low crouch. Boyd raised his gun and thumbed back the hammer. Just as he fired, a small set of teeth clamped down on his other hand, and he jerked the trigger hard, throwing his aim off. Despite the pain, he fired a second shot. His target went to ground and disappeared behind the tombstones.
***
Damn, thought Griff, not fast enough. Boyd's first shot had missed, but the second one caught the bounty hunter in the right thigh. The bullet had missed the bone and exited his leg, but he was bleeding heavily through both of the holes it had made.
Working quickly, Griff pulled the knife off his gun belt and cut three strips of cloth from his shirt. He wadded two strips into small balls and pushed them into the wounds with a groan. He tied the third strip around his leg to hold the others in place. Then he wiped as much blood as he could off on his jeans and picked up his guns.
***
Boyd stared down at the tombstones, watching for any signs of movement. When there wasn't any, he spared a glance down at Lizzie. He holstered his gun and grabbed the girl with both hands.
"You do that again and I'll kill you," he hissed as he shook t
he girl. Boyd looked back toward the cabin to make sure Griff hadn't stirred "You already did," replied Lizzie in a mockingly sweet tone.
"What?" said Boyd as he looked back toward the girl. He recoiled in horror from what he saw.
Gone was the girl he had dragged from the cabin. She had been replaced by a blackened figure that was barely recognizable as human. Her skin was charred and broken, exposing the flesh beneath. All that remained of her hair and eyebrows were a few pieces of singed stubble. There was a large, puckered, circular wound on her left cheek and her eye on that side sagged because the bones which supported it had been shattered. The girl was dressed in the burned remnants of a green dress.
"Don't you remember me?" she asked.
Boyd did remember. The family which had lived here five years ago had also had two daughters. The youngest one had been about nine years old. Boyd could see her now; her brown hair in pigtails, wearing a green dress. She was crying over the body of her father. Suddenly, she had grabbed a knife off the table and charged Boyd. After years of living by his reflexes, he had shot her without a second thought. He and his men had killed her mother and older sister after having their fun with them, and then torched the cabin.
"I'm sorry," said Boyd, as he slowly backed away. The girl's only response was a giggle.
The girl took a step toward Boyd. He drew his pistol and fired. Two rounds slammed into her chest, causing small clouds of charred flesh to puff out from the impacts. The girl took another step forward and Boyd yanked the trigger again.
The hammer fell on an empty cylinder. Boyd turned and ran.
***
Griff heard two shots on the hill and then the sound of someone crashing through the trees. He pushed himself to his feet in time to see Boyd break the tree line, running as if the hounds of Hell were after him. He saw no sign of Lizzie.
Griff feared what those shots on the hill might mean, and he could feel his anger building again. He raised both pistols and pulled the triggers. Boyd staggered under the impact of the bullets but he continued to run. The bounty hunter's pistols thundered again and the outlaw fell, but he didn't stop moving. Boyd's hands clawed at the earth, desperately pulling him toward the corner of the cabin and cover. Griff fired a third time, and the gang leader lay still.
Griff staggered over to the body and rolled it over. He kicked it a few times to make sure Boyd wasn't playing possum and then holstered his guns. He felt a trickle of warm liquid run down his leg into his boot, and he suddenly felt as weak as a canary in a coal mine. Griff slowly sank to the ground and passed out.
***
When Griff came to, the first rays of the sun were just beginning to stain the sky pink. He called out for the Bradmans, but got no answer.
Griff levered himself up on his elbows and looked around. It took a few long minutes before he could reconcile what he saw with what he had experienced the night before. The tombstones he had sheltered behind were still there, as was Boyd's body, but the cabin was little more than a charred shell.
As the blues and purples of night gave way to the muted grays of early morning, Griff could see that the damage to the cabin was not recent. There was a bird's nest built among a tangle of fallen beams, and large spider webs, still sparkling with morning dew, were stretched between many of the blackened timbers. The cabin's floor had a carpet of tall grass.
The weary bounty hunter struggled to his feet. As he did, he noticed that the wounds on his arm and leg had both been cleaned and bandaged with strips of green cloth.
Griff staggered into the ruins of the cabin. "Lizzie," he called, but again there was no response. A fluttering noise drew his attention to an object on the wreckage of the kitchen table. It was a small leather pouch on top of a piece of paper. The corners of the paper were flapping in the morning breeze.
Griff lifted the pouch and looked at the paper. It was an old wanted poster. Beneath a bad sketch of Boyd the poster read: "Wanted, dead or alive, for the murder of the Bradman family: Boyd Shank, Clevis Harmon, and "Rafters" Harris." The total reward for the gang came to nearly $500. Griff opened the pouch and found it was filled with gold coins that exactly equaled the listed bounty.
Griff hobbled past the bodies of Boyd's gang to the barn. The thought of burying them briefly crossed his mind. Nope, he decided, the buzzards've got to eat too. He found Charger contentedly munching some wild apples. He quickly saddled the horse, and then led him back behind the cabin.
Griff stood before the tombstones and read the names: Enoch Bradman, Carol Bradman, Margaret Bradman, and Elizabeth Bradman. They had all died on the same day five years ago.
The bounty hunter tipped his hat toward the stones.
"Goodbye Lizzie, I'm going home."
Griff slowly hoisted himself into the saddle. He spurred Charger forward and rode off into the rising sun.
THE HEX FILES
Don DeBrandt
He rode up to her campfire just after dark. She regarded him coolly, her hand resting lightly on her Gatling pistol.
"Evening, ma'am," the stranger said. He sat astride a coal-black mustang that looked like it had been ridden hard. "Mind sharin' your fire with a trail-weary Ranger?"
"Kind of far north for a Ranger, isn't it?" she asked.
He climbed down from his horse. He was tall, rangy, dressed in- more black than Rangers usually wore; must have been hot in the sun. His face was clean-shaven, his hair short and dark.
"Well, that's funny," he said. "I was just thinkin' it's kind of far south for an Agent."
They regarded each other for a moment. She was dressed plainly, in a blue cotton dress and scuffed leather boots. Finally, she nodded. "All right. Guess I can trust a Ranger at least as far as I can throw him. Name's Starling."
"Howdy, Starling. I'm Jake Kolchak." He tied up his horse and started unbuckling his saddle.
She went back to the rabbit she was cooking over the fire. By the time he'd bedded down his horse and laid out his bedroll her meal was ready. She didn't offer him any.
He dug out a can of beans and a pot from a saddlebag and started fixing his own supper. "So, Starling," Kolchak said. "All Agents as trusting as you?"
"How's that?" she asked calmly.
"Nothin' wrong in lettin' a Ranger share your campsite, of course—but how do you know I am what I claim to be?"
"You're carrying a Ranger's bible, aren't you?"
"How'd you know-" Kolchak stopped himself, then grinned. "Let's say I am. Coulda took it from a dead man, or bought it in a pawnshop."
She regarded him, took another bite, chewed and swallowed before answering. "Rangers are overconfident, stubborn, highhanded and unreasonable. Some say they're also damn near impossible to kill and every one of them would rather shoot his own mother than part with his bible."
Kolchak considered that while she poured herself a cup of coffee.
"True enough," he admitted. "Seeing as how you have such faith in me, why don't you let me take the first watch?" He held out his own tin cup. "Unless you were countin' on your sparklin' personality to keep the beasties away while you slept?"
She gazed at him levelly for a second, then filled his cup with coffee. "I'm a light sleeper and a fast draw; that's usually enough to take care of any 'beasties'. But I guess standing guard isn't such a bad idea."
He took a sip of coffee and winced, then smiled. "Well, this'll keep me awake, anyway."
"Just remember," she said. "Light sleeper. Fast draw."
"Right."
He waited until midnight to make his move. She was sleeping with her head on her saddlebags, but Kolchak knew a few tricks to get around that. He used a hex he called pryin' eyes to peek inside her luggage without disturbing her.
Most of what he saw he expected: jerky, ammo, clothes, a pack of cards...and a crude wooden stake. It nestled up against a mallet, a vial of clear liquid with a cross painted on it and a few bulbs of garlic.
Well, Kolchak thought. I guess that answers that question.
; He nudged her awake with his boot a few hours later. Sure enough, she had her Gatling pistol stuck in his face before he could twitch.
"Your watch," he said.
"Any trouble?" she asked, climbing out of her bedroll. She'd slept in her dress.
"Couple Mexican dragons came sniffin' around, but I whacked 'em on the nose and they ran off. Oh, and a prairie tick tried to nibble on you, but it took one bite and froze solid. Sensitive type, I guess."
"Uh-huh." She threw another log onto the fire, unimpressed.
He pretended he was asleep for at least an hour, but she seemed more interested in playing solitaire than doing any snooping of her own. He finally gave up and let himself drift off.
She waited another hour after that, then threw a hex of her own to see what the Ranger was carrying. Traveling supplies, a few dime novels, his Ranger's bible, assorted knives and guns—and a bandoleer full of silver bullets.
"Hmm," she said. "Interesting."
***
He woke at dawn. She was already packed and saddled, but waited for him to ready his gear.
"No breakfast?" he asked.
"Don't eat it," she said. "Slows me down."
"Don't wait on my account," Kolchak said. "You're in that big a hurry, you better hit the trail."
"Where you headed?" she asked him.
"East."
"So'm I. Safer to travel in pairs in these parts."
"True enough," he said. "Long as you don't intend to skip lunch, too."
They traveled without talking, the Ranger occasionally breaking into an aimless whistle. He wasn't much of a whistler, but he wanted to see if it bothered her. If it did, she didn't let it show They stopped for a meal of hardtack and beans around noon, under a tree with a frayed rope dangling from an upper branch.
"Looks like some poor bastard's last stop," Kolchak said, looking up from his beans. The rope swayed gently in the breeze.
"Maybe not," Starling said. "Rope looks like it broke. If it was a successful hanging, they'd have cut the body down."
A Fist Full O' Dead Guys Page 6
