Brutal Vengeance

by J. A. Johnstone

  “The outlaws ambushed us,” The Kid went on. “Several men were killed and some others wounded, but Culhane was too bad off to travel. I decided to get some help for him.”

  “What about the rest of the posse?”

  “They went on after Latch.”

  Tom shot a glance over at him. “Warren Latch?”

  “That’s right,” The Kid said. “You’ve heard of him?”

  “I reckon everybody in this part of Texas has heard of him. If you’ve got an unruly kid who won’t settle down at night, you tell him that if he doesn’t go to sleep, Warren Latch will come and get him. Either that or the Devil, and I think more folks are scared of Latch.”

  “Maybe with good reason,” The Kid muttered.

  “So this posse chased him all the way from out in West Texas and is still on his trail?”

  “That’s right.”

  Tom shook his head. “They must be mighty determined to catch him.”

  “He destroyed their town and killed a lot of their loved ones, They’re not going to turn back. They’re not even going to slow down.”

  That was what worried him more than anything else. With Vint Reilly in command, backed up by Abel Gustaffson and Ed Marchman, the posse might charge foolishly into another trap.

  Lace might try to talk some sense into them, but those three would never listen to a woman, even one like Lace. The Kid was convinced of that.

  When they reached what The Kid had thought was a creek but was really the Medina River, it didn’t take them long to find the spot where he had left Culhane.

  The Ranger, who was propped up against a tree as he had requested, with blankets behind his back to cushion him, lifted a hand in greeting as the two riders approached. “That didn’t take you long, Kid. Who’s that with you?”

  “His name’s Tom Lame Deer,” The Kid explained as he swung down from his saddle. “His father owns a ranch a few miles from here.”

  “Lame Deer, eh?” Culhane repeated. “Cherokee?”

  Tom nodded. “That’s right, sir. Are you really a Texas Ranger?”

  “You bet I am. Morgan there showed you my badge, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he did.” Tom had dismounted, too. He knelt next to Culhane. “You’re shot through the leg?”

  “Yeah. Reckon it wouldn’t have been too bad if it hadn’t nicked somethin’ that made me bleed like a stuck hog. This young fella and his ladyfriend saved my life.”

  The Kid started to say something about Lace not being his ladyfriend, but he stopped. He supposed most people would consider that to be the relationship between them. They wouldn’t see that what was really going on was much more complicated.

  So complicated, in fact, The Kid didn’t know what to call it ... or think about it.

  Tom looked up at The Kid. “It looks like you were telling me the truth. I’m glad I sent Chuck back for the wagon.”

  “Who’s Chuck?” Culhane asked.

  “My little brother. Also works on the ranch. We all do. There are seven of us in the family. That’s why my father called it the Arrowhead 7.” Tom gestured at the bandage wrapped around the Ranger’s leg. “You want me to take a look at that?”

  “Miss McCall changed the dressin’ on it just before she left with the posse, so I reckon it’ll be all right for a while longer.”

  Tom nodded. “We’ll have you to the doctor in Bandera in a couple hours.” He frowned. “Wait a minute. You said this woman went with the posse?”

  “She’s a bounty hunter,” The Kid said. “She’s after Warren Latch.”

  “And you just let her go? You’re supposed to care about her, and you let her go after a man like Latch?”

  Anger welled up inside The Kid. “Lace makes her own decisions. Nothing I could have told her would have changed her mind, and if I’d tried to forbid her from going or anything like that, it would have just made her more determined than ever.”

  “Maybe so, but ... why didn’t you tell her you love her and ask her not to risk her life like that?”

  The simple question hit The Kid like a punch in the gut. Why hadn’t he told Lace that he loved her?

  For one thing, he wasn’t sure he did. He cared about her, certainly. Cared deeply. But love? He had loved his wife. He didn’t know if what he felt for Lace McCall was the same thing.

  But he didn’t know that it wasn’t, either.

  He ignored Tom’s question and changed the subject. “You’ll stay here until your brother gets back with the wagon?”

  “Sure,” Tom Lame Deer replied with a nod. “You’re going after the posse?”

  Culhane said, “Durned right he is. And he ain’t gonna waste any time about it, either. Are you, Kid?”

  “No,” The Kid said. “If you’ll take care of my pack horse, too, I’ll come back to your ranch and get it later. If I don’t come back, he’s yours.” He dug around in the pack and came out with extra ammo, then reached for the buckskin’s reins. “The trail led southeast?”

  “Yeah, toward San Antonio, just like it has for the past few days,” Culhane said. “I heard Reilly and them others talkin’ about it.” The Ranger shook his head. “Never thought I’d see Reilly takin’ over like that. I wasn’t even sure he’d live this long.”

  “If he runs into Latch, he may not live much longer.” The Kid put his foot in the stirrup and stepped up into the saddle. “So long, Ranger. Tom, I’m much obliged for your help.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tom said. “This gang of outlaws, they’re headed for San Antonio?”

  “That’s what we think.”

  “I can cut some some time and distance off your trail, if you’ll trust me.”

  “You haven’t given me any reason not to so far. Which way should I go?”

  “Cross the river and follow it for a couple miles. You’ll see what looks like a blind canyon. Follow it and you’ll find that it’s really not. There’s a trail at the far end that leads over a ridge. It’s pretty rough, but a man on horseback can make it. On the other side of the ridge, turn east again on the trail you’ll find there. That’ll save you a good five miles of twists and turns that’ll slow down a big group. You might even get ahead of Latch’s bunch, although I can’t promise that.”

  That sounded like a good plan. The Kid nodded. “I’m obliged to you again, Tom.”

  As The Kid turned the buckskin, Culhane called, “Good luck, Morgan!”

  The Kid lifted a hand in farewell. He was going to need that luck.

  A worrisome premonition had started to stir ever since Tom Lame Deer had asked that question about Lace. Even with luck and a shortcut, he wasn’t sure he was going to make it in time.

  Chapter 28

  Tom Lame Deer’s directions turned out to be good ones. The Kid found the blind canyon without any trouble, and at the far end of it, just as Tom had told him, was a narrow trail that led up a steep, rocky bluff.

  The sure-footed buckskin climbed the trail without The Kid having to dismount. They descended the ridge on the other side and came to the well-defined trail Tom had mentioned. It ran almost due east and west. The Kid turned east.

  He hadn’t ridden along it very far when he heard gunfire in the distance. The Kid stiffened in the saddle, his heart pounding hard in his chest.

  A lot of possible explanations for somebody shooting flashed through his mind, but his gut told him none of them applied except one. The members of the posse were battling for their lives against Warren Latch’s gang of ruthless killers.

  Already moving at a pretty good pace, The Kid heeled the buckskin into a run and leaned forward in the saddle to urge more speed out of the horse.

  The buckskin responded with its usual gallantry, stretching its legs and eating up the ground. Even over the drumming hoofbeats, The Kid heard the gunfire getting louder. Riding around some rocks, he saw that the trail merged with a smaller trail from the northwest. That was the route the others had been following, he realized.

  Tom Lame Deer had been wrong about get
ting ahead of Latch’s gang or the posse. Obviously, they were still ahead of The Kid.

  Not for long, though. He followed the trail through a couple more bends and spotted puffs of powdersmoke coming from behind small boulders and brush along the base of a bluff to his right. He reined in for a quick assessment of the layout.

  To the left was a much thicker stand of trees, and shots were coming from that direction, too. The sight of several men and horses lying motionless on the ground told The Kid what had happened.

  Latch’s men had hidden in the trees, and the posse had ridden right in front of them like targets in a shooting gallery. Those who were still alive were pinned down in sparse cover against the bluff, and it was only a matter of time until the outlaws picked them all off.

  The Kid pulled back behind some rocks, hoping none of Latch’s men had spotted him. He might be able to work around behind them and catch them in a crossfire. Another possibility was circling to the top of the bluff. It would give him the high ground and a better angle for firing at the men hidden in the trees.

  Either way, the odds were against him and the posse. As many as half a dozen men had been cut down in the ambush.

  Lace hadn’t been among the victims. He would have spotted her red hair if she had been hit. Hoping she was still all right, he figured it was just a question of keeping her that way.

  Trying to reach a quick decision on his best course of action, time unexpectedly ran out on him. With a burst of fresh shooting, men on horseback suddenly emerged from the rocks and charged straight toward the trees where the outlaws were hidden.

  The unmistakable figure of the heavily bandaged Vint Reilly was in the lead.

  The Kid bit back a groan of dismay. The posse men never had a chance. Guns roared and cracked, and a wave of lead scythed through the suicidal charge. Men and horses fell, spouting blood from their wounds. It wasn’t a fight anymore.

  It was murder.

  And exactly the sort of foolhardy, revenge-driven stunt The Kid had expected Reilly to pull. The man was too crazed by his need for vengeance to think straight. He was willing to charge right into the guns of Latch’s men for a chance to kill some of them, and somehow he had convinced the other men in the posse to go along with him.

  Or some of them, anyway. The Kid didn’t think all the men had followed Reilly. He still hadn’t seen Lace or Nick Burton. Maybe they were taking cover in the rocks and brush along the base of the bluff.

  If that was true, they were in a bad spot. The outlaws would probably try to wipe them out.

  All the men who had charged the gang were down. A few were only wounded and tried to scramble back to cover, but their bodies jerked grotesquely as more slugs thudded into them. They slumped back to the ground, either dead or dying. A few futile shots came from the members of the posse who hadn’t joined the charge, but they weren’t enough to provide any cover for their wounded companions.

  No bullets had come The Kid’s way, so he thought there was a good chance he hadn’t been spotted. He wheeled the buckskin and raced back the way he had come, searching for a way to get to the top of the bluff.

  He found a path a moment later and sent the buckskin plunging up it. Quickly, the slope became too steep for the horse. The Kid leaped out of the saddle, dragging the Winchester with him, and started up the rest of the way on foot.

  Reaching the top of the bluff, he hurried along it, staying low so he wouldn’t be skylighted. He stopped at a spot above where the remaining members of the posse were huddled behind the skimpy cover. The Kid went to his belly and thrust the rifle over the edge of the bluff.

  He couldn’t see the outlaws in the trees, but an occasional glimpse of movement was enough to give him their general locations. Sighting on one, he pumped three rounds from the Winchester, working the rifle’s lever with eye-blurring speed between shots.

  Without waiting to see the results of his burst, he shifted his sights and fired three times at another spot where something moved. He did that twice more, leaving him with three rounds in the Winchester. He had fired twelve shots in about as many seconds.

  Heavy return fire angled up at the top of the bluff. The Kid pulled in the rifle and scooted back a couple feet. Rocks, dirt, and dust flew in the air where bullets chewed up the rim. Latch’s men could shoot like that all day without touching him.

  While waiting for the outlaws to get tired of wasting ammunition, The Kid took fresh cartridges from his pocket and thumbed them through the Winchester’s loading gate. When the Winchester was fully loaded again, he slid forward, came up on a knee, and swung the rifle from left to right, spraying eight rounds into the trees before he threw himself back out of the line of fire again.

  That was enough for the outlaws. A few moments later, The Kid heard a swift rataplan of many hoofbeats across the way. He risked a look and saw dust boiling up on the far side of the trees as the gang fled.

  He wondered for a second if it might be a trick, then decided it wasn’t. There were too many horses for that. Latch had hit the posse with all the men he had left, and they were all lighting a shuck out of there.

  Sliding and bounding, The Kid hurried back down the path to the spot where he had left the buckskin. He swung up into the saddle and headed for the trail that led in front of the bluff. The Winchester was out and ready to fire if he needed it.

  As he trotted the buckskin toward the rocks at the base of the bluff, two men ran out from behind them. The Kid swung the rifle toward them for a second before he recognized them as Thad and Bill Gustaffson.

  “Mr. Morgan!” Thad exclaimed as The Kid reined in. “Are you the one who ran those varmints off?”

  “You know it had to be him, Thad,” Bill said. “Who else could it have been?”

  The Kid dismounted and let the buckskin’s reins dangle. “We’d better check these men. Some of them might still be alive.” He started toward the members of the posse who had fallen during the ill-fated charge.

  That wasn’t the case with the first half dozen he came to. When The Kid rolled Abel Gustaffson onto his back, both of the man’s sons groaned at the sight of their father’s blood-soaked shirt and sightless eyes. He had been shot at least three times in the chest.

  “We told him not to ... not to go out there,” Thad said in a choked voice. “But Reilly said it was the only way, the last chance to settle the score for everything we’d all lost.”

  “Pa said he didn’t care anymore,” Bill added. “He just wanted to kill some outlaws. Now he ... he’s ...”

  The Kid left them to their grief and moved on to some of the other men. They were dead, too, some of them from Fire Hill, others cowpunchers from the M-B Connected.

  But he still didn’t see Lace or Nick.

  He swung around and sharply asked the Gustaffson brothers, “Where’s Nick and Miss McCall?”

  Bill dragged the back of his hand across his eyes to wipe away some of the tears he couldn’t hold back. “Latch has got ’em, I reckon.”

  The Kid drew in a shocked breath. “Latch?”

  Thad nodded. “The posse got scattered when the shooting started. I saw Nick’s horse go down, and so did Miss McCall’s. I don’t think they were hit, though, just thrown clear. Some of Latch’s men came out of the trees and got them while the rest of the bunch laid down covering fire. They dragged them back into the trees.”

  The Kid didn’t need any more explanation than that. Latch had seen the opportunity to grab a couple hostages. and had seized it. He might not have even realized at the time that Lace was a woman, and he certainly hadn’t been aware that Nick was the grandson of a wealthy rancher.

  All the luck seemed to have swung back around to Latch’s side.

  “How many men do we have left?” The Kid asked grimly.

  Thad turned and waved toward the rocks. “Come on out, fellas!”

  Three men emerged from cover. Two of them were M-B Connected hands. The third man was Ed Marchman, which came as a surprise to The Kid. He’d expected to fi
nd Marchman among the dead men. He had already seen Clyde Fenner and Jack Hogan, both of them shot to ribbons.

  The Kid started to say something, then decided to let it go. Marchman might not be much good, but at least he was a warm body and another gun.

  “Let’s round up some of the horses that weren’t hurt in the shooting,” The Kid ordered. “We don’t want Latch to get too far ahead of us.”

  “My God!” Marchman exclaimed. “You’re still going after him? There are only six of us! He probably has three times that many men!”

  “I don’t care,” The Kid said in a hard, flat voice. “He’s got Lace and Nick, and I’m not going to let anything happen to them if I can stop it.”

  “You’re crazy,” Marchman insisted. “Let’s just go to San Antonio and tell the law there what’s happened. Let them handle it. That’s their job.” The storekeeper looked gaunt and haggard. “We’ve ridden more than a hundred miles, and what’s it gotten us? Just a bunch of dead men!”

  “It was your decision to come along,” The Kid snapped, “ just like it was your decision to throw in with Reilly after Culhane was wounded.”

  “Well, what was I supposed to do?” Marchman blustered. “What would you have done differently?”

  “I wouldn’t have paraded right in front of Latch’s guns without doing some scouting first, for one thing.” Disgust welled up inside The Kid as he shook his head and turned away. “Forget it. It’s too late to change anything now. All we can do is go after Latch and try to rescue those prisoners.”

  “I won’t do it, I tell you! I’m going ... home ...” Marchman’s voice trailed off as he realized he didn’t have a home or a business to go back to. Warren Latch had seen to that.

  The Kid wasn’t going to waste time arguing with Marchman. “Do whatever you damn well please. I’m going after those outlaws, and any of you who want to can come with me.”

  “We’re with you, Mr. Morgan,” Thad said.

  “Damned right,” Bill added.

  “So are we, Morgan,” one of the cowboys said. “The old man would have our hides if we didn’t bring Nick back to him safe and sound.”