Anyway, there wasn’t really that much Sanchez could reveal about their plans. He knew they were headed for San Antonio, but hell, anybody who knew east from west could tell that much just by following the gang’s trail.
Since they all split up before they reached the city, nobody knew where more than one or two of the others could be found. That was the beauty of operating the way they did.
Latch glared at Duval for a few seconds more, then abruptly stepped forward and rested a hand on the Cajun’s shoulder. Duval had to force himself not to flinch.
“You’re right, Slim,” Latch said as the anger disappeared from his lean face and no longer burned in his deep-set eyes. “It wouldn’t have done any good for you to die, too. And it shows your loyalty that you were determined to live so you could warn us about the posse.”
Latch looked around at the members of the gang who had gathered to hear what Duval had to say. “Isn’t that right, men?”
He got mutters of agreement, and one of the men even pitched in with a half-hearted, “Good job, Slim.”
“You must be tired,” Latch went on. “You need to get some rest now.”
“What are we going to do about that posse?” Duval asked.
“You said they’re five miles behind us?”
“About that, yeah.”
“We don’t have to worry about them catching up to us tonight,” Latch declared. “It appears we’re going to have try again to discourage them from following us, though. I’ll think about it and decide what form that discouragement should take.”
Satisfied that he was still alive and Latch didn’t seem to be too upset with him, Duval figured it was better to quit while he was ahead. “That sounds good to me, boss. I’ll turn in, like you suggested.”
“Sleep well, Slim.” Latch smiled coldly. “After all, you could be sleeping permanently right now.”
The next morning, Culhane insisted they put the three dead outlaws in a shallow grave, just as The Kid expected he would.
“It may not keep the coyotes from diggin’ ’em up,” Culhane said, “but at least we made the effort, and that’s one thing that separates us from animals like them.”
“When you say animals, do you mean the coyotes. . . or the outlaws?” The Kid asked.
The Ranger grunted. “Take your pick. Personally, I reckon the coyotes are a mite more honorable than Latch’s varmints. They don’t have the excuse of bein’ what passes for human.”
When the burial was finished, Abel Gustaffson took off his hat and stepped up to the mound of dirt marking the final resting place of the three outlaws. Everybody else stepped back, giving the grief-stricken man room to do whatever it was he intended to do.
Gustaffson stood there for a long moment, holding his hat in one hand. Then he spat on the grave.
His sons started toward him, but Vint Reilly got there first. The badly burned man laid a bandaged hand on Gustaffson’s shoulder and spoke to him in gravelly tones too low for any of the other men to understand.
Gustaffson seemed to agree with whatever Reilly was saying. After a moment he nodded, and both men turned away from the grave.
“Let’s go,” Reilly said in his tortured voice. “We’ve got ... outlaws to catch.”
As the members of the posse mounted up and moved out, Culhane took the lead as usual and waved a hand for The Kid to join him. “Those fellas showin’ up the way they did means Latch is worried about us followin’ him. Since one of ’em got away, chances are he knows by now how far behind him we are.”
“You’re not telling me anything I haven’t already thought about, Ranger,” The Kid said. “The odds of us riding into an ambush just went up, didn’t they?”
Culhane nodded. “We got to be more careful than ever, especially since so many of the fellas with us are greenhorns when it comes to huntin’ owlhoots. I been keepin’ an eye on you, Morgan. I can tell by the way you carry yourself, you’ve packed a badge before, haven’t you?”
The Kid laughed. Just the opposite was true, in fact. He had been in prison—unjustly, sure, but still, he’d been there—and he had been a wanted fugitive with a bounty on his head.
“Well, maybe you ain’t ever been an official lawman, but I know this ain’t the first manhunt you’ve been part of. You’re a top-notch fightin’ man, and you’re the second-in-command of this posse now.”
“I didn’t ask for that job,” The Kid said sharply.
“I know you didn’t, but I’m givin’ it to you anyway. If anything happens to me, you’re in charge, and I’m countin’ on you gettin’ the job done.”
The Kid glanced over his shoulder at the riders strung out behind them. In a low voice, he said, “You’re putting me in charge of some grieving townies, a bunch of cowpokes, a wet-behind-the-ears kid, and a man who’s burned so bad he ought to be in a hospital, not to mention he’s maybe more than a little bit loco. With that group we’re going to track down and kill or capture a small army of cold-blooded killers and gunmen. Is that about the size of it?”
Culhane grinned. “No need to thank me.”
The Kid grunted and shook his head.
The Ranger grew serious. “If something happens to me and you don’t take over, Morgan ... who will?”
“Reilly, maybe. He seems to be about as driven as anybody I’ve ever seen. He’d have to be in order to keep going, the shape he’s in. And maybe Gustaffson would be his segundo.”
“Wouldn’t work,” Culhane snapped. “Yeah, those two are bound and determined to catch Latch, but they got too much hate burnin’ ’em up inside. They can’t think straight without somebody else tellin’ ’em what to do. Leave it up to them and they’d pull some damn fool stunt like chargin’ into a trap and gettin’ themselves and everybody else killed.” The Ranger paused. “I mean it, Morgan. I need to know you’ll step in if you have to.”
The Kid could have kicked himself for doing it, but he nodded. “All right, Culhane. I’ll take over if I have to.”
“Your word on it?”
“My word on it,” The Kid said.
“All right. I’m much obliged to you, Morgan, I’ll tell you that. I’ll let the others know later, when we stop, that you’re in charge if anything happens to me.”
“There’s no guarantee they’ll all go along with the idea,” The Kid pointed out.
“They will if they know what’s good for ’em.”
That was just it, The Kid thought. Some of the posse were so blinded by hate and grief they didn’t know what was good for them. It was a situation he knew well. He’d found himself in it more than once.
As the trail they were following neared the edge of the hill country, which was marked by a green line of thicker vegetation on the horizon, The Kid spotted smoke rising to the north. It wasn’t the billowing black clouds of something on fire, but rather several thin white columns of chimney smoke.
He pointed them out to Culhane. “Looks like a little settlement over there.”
The Ranger nodded and waved a hand toward the tracks, which continued angling to the southeast.
“Yeah, but Latch and his bunch went around it. I reckon those folks who live over there don’t know how lucky they are. It’s like havin’ a tornado skip past you on a stormy night without you ever seein’ it.”
Except that a raid by Warren Latch and his gang was an unnatural disaster, not a natural one, The Kid thought, but he understood what Culhane meant and agreed with it.
He and the Ranger weren’t the only ones who had spotted the settlement. Buildings were visible in the distance, and Ed Marchman rode up and pointed at them. “We need supplies, Culhane. You know we couldn’t salvage much from what was left of Fire Hill, and we’ve been on short rations pretty much the whole way.”
“That’s true,” Culhane admitted, “but that settlement’s out of our way.”
“My God, it’s just right over there! Probably not more than half a mile. It wouldn’t take us long to see if we can pick up some provisions. Good Lord, y
ou’d think if we can take the time to bury some murderous outlaws, we can take the time to get some food.”
Culhane glanced at The Kid, who shrugged. He wasn’t in charge yet, and the decision was still the Ranger’s to make.
“I reckon you’re right, Marchman,” Culhane admitted. “We’ll ride over there and see if there’s a general store.” His voice hardened. “But if there’s a saloon in that town, it’s off-limits, understand? We ain’t gonna take the time for anybody to guzzle down any tonsil varnish.”
“That’s fine with me,” Marchman said. “I just want some supplies.”
Culhane signaled for the men to rein in. He pointed out the settlement, which all of them had already noticed anyway. “We’ll stop for a few minutes and pick up some supplies. But that’s all. When I say we hit the trail, we hit the trail. Got it?”
Several of the men nodded. Marchman said, “We understand, Ranger.”
Culhane waved them into motion again. The posse rode toward the settlement at a trot.
After being on the trail for several days, the men were anxious for the sight of a town again.
It would probably just remind them of everything they had lost, The Kid mused. As they approached the settlement, he saw that it didn’t amount to much. There were two lines of buildings, a mixture of houses and businesses, facing each other for a distance of a couple hundred yards. A public well stood at one end of the street, a small church at the other. That was it.
But there was a store—BRENNAMAN’S TRADING POST AND EMPORIUM, according to the sign on the front of the building—and that was all that mattered.
The Kid noticed a blacksmith shop as well and wondered if any of the horses had shoes that needed tending to. That would take more time, but it might mean less trouble later.
Another building bore the sign HAMPTON’S SALOON—LIQUOR AND CIGARS. Culhane wanted the men to avoid the saloon, but that might be difficult to manage. Some of the cowboys from the M-B Connected were already looking mighty thirsty.
The Ranger headed for the store and said over his shoulder, “All right, everybody follow me now. We ain’t got much time—”
He stopped short as the trading post’s front door opened and a woman hurried out onto the building’s high porch. The sun flashed on red hair under her hat. Two men emerged from the building right behind her, moving fast. One of them reached out and grabbed her arm.
“Hold on there, lady!” he said in a loud, raucous voice. “Hell, Rudy and me are just tryin’ to be friendly.”
The woman tried to pull away. “Let go of me!”
The two men laughed, and the second one reached for her as well.
They weren’t laughing a second later when the metallic sound of The Kid’s revolver being cocked cut through the air. They looked around in surprise as he leveled the Colt at them and said coldly, “You heard the lady. Let her go.”
Chapter 16
He was being showy, and he knew it. The Colt was a double-action model. He didn’t have to cock it in order to fire it. All he had to do was pull the trigger.
But at the same time, it was an effective tactic. The sound of a gun being cocked was enough to freeze the blood of many men.
It was in this case. As the two men stared at The Kid, their hands fell away from the woman.
She stepped away from them, straightened her clothes, and sniffed disdainfully. Her auburn hair was cut short under the bottle-green hat she wore. A traveling dress of the same shade hugged the supple curves of her body. She wasn’t classically beautiful, but had an undeniable attractiveness about her that instantly drew a man’s eye and held it.
Beside The Kid, Culhane said, “Morgan, what are you doin’? This is none of our business.”
“I can’t stand by and do nothing while a woman’s being mistreated, Ranger. Can you?”
“Well, now that you mention it ... no. But we don’t need to be gettin’ in any gunfights with these folks, either.”
“There’s not going to be any gunfight.” The Kid’s lips curved in an icy smile as he looked at the two men on the store’s porch. “Is there?”
The men were typical small-town roughnecks, the sort who worked at odd jobs part of the time and stayed drunk the rest. But they wore guns, and they could be dangerous.
One of them said belligerently, “You got no call to mix in this, mister. We weren’t gonna hurt the lady. We just thought she might be willin’ to give us a kiss. We don’t see many like her here in Stubbtown.”
“I’ll give you something.” The redhead stepped closer to the men and brought her hand up in a pair of stinging slaps that cracked across the men’s faces. “That’s what I’ll give you!”
They fell back a step, probably more shocked by the blows than they were hurt. The woman glared at them for a second before turning away as if they were beneath contempt.
She nodded to The Kid. “Thank you, sir. It’s not often one encounters such gallantry out here on this rude frontier.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am.” He lowered the hammer on his gun and pouched the iron. Moving the buckskin closer to the porch, he went on, “Can I see you safely to your destination?”
Culhane said, “Morgan, blast it—”
“Why, thank you,” the redhead told The Kid with a smile. “That would be very nice.”
That wasn’t how it worked out, though. With a roar of anger, one of the humiliated roughnecks let his wounded pride get the best of him now that The Kid’s gun was holstered. The man got a running start by taking a couple steps and launched himself off the high porch in a diving tackle aimed at The Kid. The impact of the crash drove The Kid right out of the saddle and off the buckskin’s back.
The two men fell heavily to the ground, causing the horses closest to them to dance around skittishly. The Kid knew he was in danger of being stepped on. Despite the fact that the fall had knocked the breath out of him, he brought the base of his right hand up sharply under the roughneck’s chin, driving the man’s head back.
The Kid rolled away, heaved himself up on his hands and knees, and dragged several deep breaths of air into his lungs.
His opponent, finding himself in just another brawl, recovered quickly. He threw himself at The Kid again, knocking him backward almost underneath the hooves of the nervous horses again.
“Give ’em room!” Culhane bellowed at the men with him. “Move those horses back!”
As the posse men reined their mounts back, the roughneck began slugging at The Kid, who was able to block only some of the blows. A couple times, a knobby fist slammed into his jaw as the man knelt on top of him.
The Kid shrugged off the punishment and shot his hands up, grabbing the front of the man’s shirt. A powerful heave sent the roughneck flying over his head to go rolling in the dusty street.
The Kid rolled over and scrambled up, barely making it to his feet first. Quickly looking around, he had a fraction of a minute to see Culhane holding a gun on the second roughneck before the first man charged him again, arms windmilling as he threw wild punch after wild punch.
Ducking low, The Kid let the savage blows go over his head. He lunged forward, planting his head in the man’s belly as he wrapped his arms around the man’s thighs and heaved again. With a startled yell, the roughneck crashed down on his back with bone-jarring, tooth-rattling force.
The Kid levered himself up and drove a knee into the man’s belly. Their positions were reversed, and he didn’t intend to waste his advantage. Moving his fists almost too fast to see, he smashed punch after punch into the man’s face.
It didn’t take long to knock all the fight out of him. The man’s eyes swelled shut, and blood gushed from his flattened nose. He pawed feebly at The Kid and whimpered, “No more! No more!”
“Morgan!” Culhane’s voice lashed out at The Kid. “That’s enough, blast it! You’re gonna kill him!”
“Better than letting him ... kill me,” The Kid said a little breathlessly as he stopped pounding his fists into the roughneck�
��s face.
He heaved himself to his feet and left the man bleeding in the dirt as he looked around for his hat. The black Stetson lay a few feet away. It was dusty, but at least it hadn’t been stepped on by any of the horses. He picked it up, slapped it against his leg to get some of the dust off, and settled it on his head.
His jaw ached where he’d been punched. He figured he would have a bruise there by the time the day was over.
The fight had drawn some of the citizens of Stubbtown out of the buildings. They stood around watching with avid interest. Just the arrival of the posse would have been enough to break the monotony of life in that wide place in the trail. A brawl on top of it was a bonus.
None of the townspeople seemed upset that The Kid had handed a beating to the roughneck. There was a good chance he and his friend had a history of bullying folks.
Culhane told the man still on the porch, “Take your pard and get out of here, mister. In case you didn’t notice this badge on my shirt, I’m a Texas Ranger, and this is a legally appointed posse. Interferin’ with a peace officer is against the law, and the two of you are lucky I don’t arrest you. Now skedaddle!”
The man was only too happy to get out of it without a beating ... or worse. He hurried down from the porch and went to his friend, grunting with effort as he lifted the groggy roughneck to his feet. Together, they stumbled toward the saloon.
Culhane holstered his gun. He motioned toward the store and told the other members of the posse, “All right, get in there and get what supplies you want. We ain’t got all day.”
The Kid got his buckskin and pack horse and tied their reins to the hitch rack in front of the store. He glanced up at the redheaded woman, who’d moved to the edge of the porch.
She said to Culhane, “Excuse me, sir. Did I hear you say that you’re a Texas Ranger?”
Culhane raised a finger to the brim of his hat and nodded politely. “Yes, ma’am, that’s right. Asa Culhane, by name.”
“I’m Lucille Morrison,” she said. “I want to thank you and your man there for stepping in to help me.”
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