Brutal Vengeance

by J. A. Johnstone

  Latch’s right hand came up suddenly, and one of those fancy, foreign-made pistols was in it. Duval found himself staring down the Mauser’s barrel. He knew if Latch pulled the trigger, his head would be blown away in a matter of seconds. He’d never been closer to death than he was at that instant.

  “I ought to kill you,” Latch said into the tense silence hanging over the camp. Nobody was going to come to Duval’s aid or defense. Latch went on. “I’ve sent you after this posse three times, and each time you’ve come back with fewer men. No one fails me that many times, Slim.”

  Duval’s pride made him defend himself. “I’ve done the best I could, Warren. The cards have been against me.”

  “This isn’t a game.” Latch pointed the Mauser at the sky, took a deep breath, and holstered the pistol. “But we’ve been together for too long, you and I, and I need every man I’ve got in case that posse catches up to us before we reach San Antonio.”

  Duval managed not to heave a sigh of relief that Latch had spared his life. “Maybe we ought to push on tonight. There’s enough light we shouldn’t get off the trail.”

  Latch appeared to consider the suggestion for a moment, but then he shook his head. “No, the men and the horses all need rest. We’ll make better time tomorrow if we stay here tonight.”

  Duval nodded. “Whatever you say, Warren.”

  “What I say is those men deserve to suffer for being so foolhardy as to pursue us like this,” Latch declared. “That’s what I say.”

  Duval didn’t like the sound of that. When Latch’s pride was wounded, the man was capable of doing almost anything.

  But not even Warren Latch would do something so loco as turning back and trying to hit that posse again, especially after everything that had happened so far.

  Would he?

  Chapter 26

  When The Kid and Lace got back to the camp, they went straight to the place where Asa Culhane lay on the blankets.

  His head hanging forward on his chest, Nick sat beside the wounded Ranger, dozing. He jerked awake as The Kid knelt beside him and lightly touched his shoulder.

  “Oh! Mr. Morgan ... Sorry I jumped like that.”

  “I’m sorry I startled you, Nick,” The Kid said. “How’s Culhane doing?”

  “He’s just been sleeping. I guess he’s all right.”

  The Kid looked around the camp. Some of the men from Fire Hill were sleeping, but the rest were still huddled together on the far side of the campfire, talking quietly among themselves. Abel Gustaffson was with them, too, sitting beside Vint Reilly.

  “Any other trouble?” The Kid asked.

  Nick shook his head. “No, they’ve just been sitting over there talking. I don’t know what it’s about. We all want the same thing. It looks like we ought to be able to work together.”

  “You’d think so,” Lace put in. “Why don’t you get some sleep, Nick? I’ll keep an eye on Ranger Culhane.”

  “Are you sure, ma’am?”

  “I’m certain. And while you’re at it, why don’t you stop calling me ma’am? I’m not really all that much older than you, you know. Old enough to be your big sister, maybe, but definitely not your mother.”

  “Yes’m, I know that ... I mean, Miss McCall ...”

  “Just make it Lace,” she suggested.

  “All right ... Lace,” Nick swallowed. “That sure is a pretty name.”

  “Thank you.” She pointed to the bedrolls spread near the fire. “Now go and sleep.”

  “All right.”

  Nick went and stretched out while The Kid and Lace sat beside Culhane. The youngster turned his back to them, and a few minutes later they heard the deep, regular sound of his breathing as he slept.

  “That boy’s in love with you,” The Kid said quietly to Lace.

  “What? You’re loco!”

  “Maybe, but not about that,” The Kid insisted. “And you ought to be able to see it. I’m sure Nick’s not the first young man to succumb to your charms.”

  “He’s not even the only one in this posse,” she said with a soft laugh.

  The Kid rather would have dwelled on sweet memories of what had happened earlier in the evening, but something was nagging at him.

  “I need to go talk to Reilly.” He got to his feet.

  A frown replaced Lace’s smile. “I’m not sure you’re going to be welcome over on that side of the fire.”

  “They’ll talk to me.” His flinty tone of voice left no doubt about that.

  He walked around the fire. Reilly, Gustaffson, and the others fell silent when they saw him coming.

  “What do you want, Morgan?” Marchman asked. Since his own bid for power had failed, it looked like he intended to make himself a confidante of Reilly and Gustaffson by sucking up to them.

  “Just checking to make sure you’ve posted guards,” The Kid said.

  “My boys are out there standing watch,” Gustaffson said. “So are a couple others.”

  “Good. It’s not likely Latch will make another move against us so soon, but we can’t be sure about that.”

  “Let him,” Reilly said. “If he comes after us, that saves us the trouble ... of going after him.”

  “We don’t want to ride into any more traps,” The Kid warned. “That last one could have been the end of us.”

  And it likely would have, he thought, if not for what he and Lace had done. He wasn’t sure any of these men really understood what a close call it had been.

  “All I care about ... is killing as many of those outlaws ... as I can,” Reilly said. “I don’t care ... how we do it.”

  “I do,” The Kid snapped. “I don’t want any more of us to die unnecessarily.”

  “Dying to settle a score like all of us have might be necessary,” Gustaffson said. “We don’t need you to tell us what to do, Morgan.”

  “That’s right,” Marchman added. “If you don’t like it, you can saddle your horse and ride out.”

  Under different circumstances, The Kid might have done just that. He didn’t have a personal grudge against Warren Latch ... or at least he hadn’t until Latch’s men had tried several times to kill him. Nor was he a sworn lawman like Culhane. He didn’t have anything holding him there.

  Except for Lace, he thought as he glanced across the campfire at her. If he believed she would come with him, they could both leave.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. She wanted that bounty, and wouldn’t give it up. Even if he rode away, she would stick with the posse.

  Then there was Culhane, who had been friendly to him, and Nick Burton, who looked up to him, and the other men from the M-B Connected who were there only because they rode for the brand and their boss had sent them after Latch. The Kid didn’t want to abandon any of them, either.

  “I’ll stick,” he said.

  Reilly shrugged. “Suit ... yourself.” He took a little nip from the brown bottle.

  The Kid could have been mistaken, but he thought he caught a faint scent of putrefying flesh mixed in with the smoke from the fire. It probably came from under those bandages.

  Reilly’s untreated burns were doing more than keeping him in unending agony. There was a good chance they were rotting his flesh away, a rot that would penetrate deeper and deeper until it consumed him.

  He seemed to know he was doomed, and didn’t mind taking other men to hell with him if it meant he would get what he wanted before he died.

  That one goal was Warren Latch’s destruction. Not an unworthy ambition ...

  But how many lives was it going to cost?

  Reilly, Gustaffson, and Marchman had everyone up early the next morning. That was nothing unusual. Culhane had done the same thing, pushing the men of the posse at a pace as hard as he thought they could stand.

  Culhane was awake and able to drink a little coffee, although he refused to eat anything.

  “Y’all better just go ahead and leave me right here,” he urged The Kid and Lace. “I’ll rest up for a few days, and then I’ll be
ready to ride again.”

  “You’re in no shape to be left alone,” Lace said.

  “I’m in no shape to ride, either,” Culhane told her with a bleak smile.

  “He’s right. If he stays in the saddle all day today, that wound is probably going to break open and start bleeding again. I’m not sure he can spare any more blood.” The Kid looked at Lace, rubbing his chin as he frowned in thought. “What we need is a wagon.”

  Understanding dawned in Lace’s green eyes. “That’s right. If we had a wagon, we could make Mr. Culhane comfortable in it and get him to a settlement where there’s a doctor without risking him bleeding to death.”

  The Kid nodded. “There’s bound to be a ranch or a farm somewhere around here where we can borrow a wagon or a buckboard.”

  “I’m layin’ right here while you’re debatin’ my future, you know,” Culhane pointed out. “And you ain’t got time to go huntin’ up a wagon so you can haul me around. You got a bunch of no-good outlaws to catch, remember?”

  “We’re not likely to forget that,” Lace told him. “But we’re not going to leave you here to die, either.”

  Gustaffson stomped around from the other side of the fire. “You’re supposed to be getting ready to ride. What’s the holdup over here?”

  “The Ranger’s in no shape to ride,” The Kid said. “We’re going to have to get a wagon for him.”

  Gustaffson snorted. “Well, if you can snap your fingers and make one appear, Morgan, you go right ahead. But make it fast, because we’re pulling out soon.”

  Despite what The Kid had said the night before, Culhane’s condition had made him change his mind. “No. I’m going to look for a ranch where I can borrow a wagon. Lace is going to stay here and take care of Culhane while I’m gone. Once we’ve tended to that, we’ll catch up to you.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Lace said sharply. “I don’t recall telling you that you can make decisions for me, Kid.”

  “Then you go find the wagon and I’ll stay here.”

  Culhane said, “You two stop squabblin’ and listen to me. I’ll be all right here by myself for a while. Prop me up against a tree, leave me a canteen and a little food, and make sure my rifle and revolver are in reach in case any wild critters come along, and I won’t need nobody watchin’ over me.”

  Lace dropped to a knee beside him. “Are you sure about that, Mr. Culhane?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am,” he declared. “I won’t go to movin’ around and bust that bullet hole open again. You got my word on that.”

  Lace looked up at The Kid. “In that case, I’m going with the posse. You can find the wagon, Kid.”

  He frowned at her. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Just as sure as Mr. Culhane is that he’ll be all right.”

  The Kid saw that it wasn’t going to do a bit of good to argue with her. The lure of the ten-thousand-dollar reward for Warren Latch, plus the bounties on the heads of the other outlaws, was too much for Lace to resist.

  For a second he considered offering to make up the lost bounties from Conrad Browning’s riches. He could even double them and never miss the money. But if he did that, she was liable to spit in his face, and he knew it. Lace McCall’s pride was a powerful thing.

  “All right. But be careful.”

  She flashed him a grin. “Aren’t I always?”

  No, he thought, she wasn’t.

  And that was the problem. She was going to be part of a posse led by a man who had quite possibly been driven mad by grief and pain, followed by a lot of other men who were also consumed with the need for vengeance.

  Time was running out on them. That could cause even sane, level-headed men to do foolish things. In the case of Vint Reilly, Abel Gustaffson, and Ed Marchman ... well, there was just no telling what they might do. No telling at all.

  “I’ll catch up as soon as I can,” The Kid promised.

  He worried that might not be soon enough.

  Chapter 27

  Where there were cows, there were people who owned those cows was a good rule of thumb.

  So when The Kid came across cattle grazing in a small valley densely carpeted with grass, he knew he was close to a ranch.

  He had ridden northeast when he left the posse, toward a settlement called Bandera. Culhane had told him it was large enough that several doctors could probably be found there.

  If it turned out to be necessary, The Kid would ride all the way there, find one of the doctors, and take him back to Culhane, at gunpoint if he had to.

  However, he didn’t want to do that. It would take longer and delay him in rejoining the posse. His hope was to find someone willing to fetch Culhane and take him to the settlement.

  The Kid rode closer to the cattle and checked the brand burned into the hide of a rangy old steer. It was an arrowhead shape with the number seven inside it. The Arrowhead 7, he supposed the ranch was called.

  He was wondering how to go about finding the ranch headquarters when a rifle cracked somewhere not far off. The bullet didn’t come close enough for him to hear it, but he had a hunch it was a warning shot directed at him.

  The sound of hoofbeats from his right made him turn in that direction. A couple riders were coming fast toward him.

  He left his Winchester in the saddle boot and kept his hand well away from his Colt as the men approached. That was taking a chance, but they had fired only one shot. He didn’t think they wanted to kill him.

  As they rode up to him, the men split up so they could cover him better. They were relatively young, but didn’t look like greenhorns.

  Taking note of their coppery skin and high-cheekboned faces, The Kid realized with a certain amount of surprise that they were Indians. They wore typical range clothes any white or black cowboy might wear.

  “Mister, if you’re thinkin’ about rustlin’ that stock, you can just forget about it,” one of the men said as they reined in. He had a rifle out, and The Kid figured he was the one who had fired the shot. The other man had a rifle with him, but it was still restling snugly in the saddle boot.

  “Rustling was the farthest thing from my mind,” The Kid said. “I’m not looking for trouble. I need help. A friend of mine is wounded a few miles from here. I’m looking for a wagon and somebody to take him to a doctor.”

  “That’s an interestin’ story, but how do we know it’s true?”

  “I can’t prove it,” The Kid admitted. “But my friend’s a Texas Ranger. He gave me this to show to anybody I came across if they needed convincing.” He reached into his shirt pocket, aware the two men were watching him closely, and took out Culhane’s badge. He extended his hand with the silver star in a silver circle lying on his palm.

  “That’s a Ranger badge, all right, Tom,” said the man who hadn’t pulled his rifle.

  “Yeah, and where’d he get it?” Tom snapped. “He could’ve killed the Ranger and taken it off his body.”

  The Kid shook his head. “I give you my word I’m telling the truth.”

  Tom regarded The Kid suspiciously. After a moment, he said, “Chuck, you ride back and tell Pa what’s going on. I’ll go with this man and see about this so-called friend of his.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea—”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not the ramrod of this outfit, are you?” Tom snapped. “Do what I told you.”

  “Bring a wagon back with you,” The Kid suggested. “You’ll need it for Ranger Culhane.”

  “Tom?” Chuck asked.

  After a moment, Tom nodded. “Yeah, bring the wagon, just in case he’s tellin’ the truth. Where exactly is it we’re headed?”

  The Kid had been keeping track of landmarks as he rode. He turned in the saddle and pointed. “Past a hogback ridge, between a couple flat-topped hills, through a valley, and along a creek for about half a mile or so,” he explained.

  “That’s not a creek,” Tom said. “That’s the Medina River.”

  “All right, then. Right there on the Medina
River where it makes a bend between a pair of bluffs.”

  “I can find the place,” Chuck said confidently. “You’re sure you want me to go, Tom?”

  “Get a move on,” Tom ordered.

  Chuck wheeled his horse and rode away rapidly.

  Tom nodded in the direction The Kid had indicated. “Let’s go.”

  He kept his rifle out, balancing it across the saddle in front of him as they rode.

  “My name’s Morgan,” The Kid offered.

  “Tom Lame Deer. I’m the foreman on the Arrowhead 7. My father owns the spread. In case you’re wondering about a bunch of redskins dressing like white men and running a ranch, we’re Cherokee. Pa came over here from East Texas about twenty years ago.”

  “I wasn’t wondering.” The Kid had run into some renegade Apaches in the recent past, but he’d never had any dealings with the Cherokee. He recalled hearing that the tribe was peaceful and had a large reservation up in what was now called Oklahoma.

  “My people have always been farmers and ranchers,” Tom went on. “That is, the ones who weren’t doctors and lawyers and businessmen and teachers.”

  “Your father wouldn’t happen to be a doctor as well as a rancher, would he?”

  “No, but if you’re telling the truth we can take your Ranger friend to Bandera. There are several good doctors there.”

  “That’s good to hear,” The Kid said.

  “What happened to your friend, anyway?”

  The Kid told the truth. “He was shot in the leg. We were with a posse chasing a gang of outlaws that destroyed a town a good ways west of here. A place called Fire Hill.”

  Tom Lame Deer shook his head. “Never heard of it. But that doesn’t mean anything, I reckon. I never got out that way much.”