Lonnie Gentry

by Peter Brandvold

  Lonnie climbed up out of the forking ravines, doffed his hat near the top of the bank, and stopped beneath the bank’s crest. Slowly, continuing to smell the smoke, he edged a look over the top of the bank. He pulled his head down quickly, pulse quickening. He nervously licked his lips and then edged another look over the top of the bank, and held himself steady despite his nervousness.

  He was staring out over a broad table of ground rising gradually toward a low, sandstone mesa rimmed with bulging rock from which a few hardy cedars twisted. The crest of the mesa stood maybe three hundred feet above the land below it and on which a low, gray cabin and barn and corral sat behind a windmill, whose blades lazily twisted in the warm, dry breeze blowing over the mountains.

  In the corral fashioned from peeled pine poles, five horses ate from a hay crib, lazily swishing their tails. Lonnie recognized Casey’s chestnut.

  Gray smoke curled from a stone chimney rising up the cabin’s far right end. Voices emanated from inside the cabin. Mostly men’s voices. Then Lonnie heard a girl’s voice.

  Casey’s voice. She gave a harsh retort to something one of the men said.

  There was a sharp crack! The sound of a brutal slap.

  One of the men inside the cabin laughed. Then Lonnie almost kicked out of his boots with a start when he saw a slender, denim-clad female figure in a man’s wool shirt appear in the cabin’s open doorway, the door being propped open with rock. There was a motley-looking porch on the place, crouched on low stone pilings. The figure walked out onto the porch and down the steps and into the weakening sunlight, which flashed off Casey’s gold-blonde hair.

  The girl limped around the side of the cabin, gathering wood from a low stack around the chimney, and carried the wood back into the cabin. She’d moved with her head and shoulders angled low with fear and defeat.

  Lonnie watched the black, open doorway through which Casey had disappeared.

  He watched it for a long time as he tried to calm himself down and gather his thoughts.

  Then, his lips set in a hard, straight line, Lonnie eased back down the bank, shucked his Winchester from his saddle sheath, and pumped a cartridge into the chamber.

  CHAPTER 53

  Lonnie told himself he had to wait until dark to approach the cabin.

  But that was a very difficult thing for him to do. The farther the sun dropped, and the darker the tableland got as well as the shallow wash in which Lonnie waited with General Sherman, the quieter everything got.

  At least, the quieter everything except the cabin got.

  Lonnie could hear Dupree and the other men talking loudly in there. Their voices gradually grew louder and louder. They were accompanied by the occasional violent jingle of coins being thrown down on a table, and the clinking of bottles. They were obviously playing poker.

  Lonnie could also hear the clatter of pans. The smoke from the chimney grew thicker. The men had Casey cooking for them while they played cards and drank. Lonnie had to get the girl out of there. The more the men drank, the more dangerous they would get.

  But he had to wait until dark. At least twilight. There was very little cover anywhere around the cabin, so if he tried to approach the hovel while it was still light, someone inside the cabin would probably see him, and Lonnie would acquire a two-ounce chunk of lead for his efforts. Worse, he’d let Casey down.

  There was no telling what Dupree and the others might do to her after dark, when they were good and drunk. Lonnie didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to get her out of there.

  Lonnie sat on his butt on the bottom of the wash, his back to the bank, his rifle across his thighs. He’d unbuckled the General’s latigo strap, and both ends of the strap were hanging free beneath the horse’s belly. Lonnie had also let the horse drink water from his hat, and he’d fed him a handful of grain, as well. Now the horse stood only a few feet from Lonnie, facing his rider, head up, twitching his ears, listening.

  The General knew something of great gravity was about to happen, and he was waiting with anticipation, as was Lonnie.

  When there was only a little light left—sort of a soft blue fog touched lightly with the blush of salmon—Lonnie rose and took a long drink from his canteen. He patted the General’s neck, and strode quickly along the wash. He followed the wash to the east, and when an even shallower wash intersected the main one from the north, he tramped through this lesser, feeder wash that was likely dry except during monsoons or when the snow was melting in the mountains.

  This wash was choked with spindly sage, yucca, rocks, prickly pear, a few bleached bones of long-dead animals. As Lonnie had admonished himself to be mindful of rattlesnakes, he heard one give its high, eerie rattle. He stopped to see the diamondback, little thicker than a rope but as deadly as one twice its size, slither off amongst the rocks and shrubs, likely heading for its hole.

  Lonnie paused to steady his nerves. Then hefted his rifle in his hands, holding it up high across his chest, and continued moving north along the shallow wash. He paused twice more to peer carefully over the crest of the wash, to see where he was in relation to the cabin, and then, ten minutes later, he ran up and over the crest of the wash toward the cabin’s east wall. He ran hard, crouching low, holding his rifle in his right hand and swerving around occasional tufts of buck brush and sage.

  There was only one window in the side of the shack facing Lonnie, to the right of the large, stone chimney and near the rear of the cabin. That was likely a bedroom window. No one was probably back there yet. A least, Lonnie hoped they weren’t. There was a curtain over that small window but it was partly open.

  Lonnie dropped to a knee and pressed his shoulder against the cabin’s log wall, behind the chimney and the woodpile. He was breathing hard, sweating. It had warmed considerably when he’d dropped out of the mountains, and he’d wrapped his coat around his bedroll. His shirt was pasted to his back.

  He mopped his brow with his shirtsleeve. He could hear the voices more clearly now. Mostly, he heard the more talkative Dupree and Childress. He knew Fuego was in there, however, because he’d seen the man’s brown-and-white pinto. He wondered who the fifth horse belonged to.

  Lonnie rose, drew another deep breath—here it goes—and started moving around the chimney. He’d gotten as far as the woodpile on the chimney’s other side, when he heard someone walk out onto the stoop and come down the steps. Lonnie dropped back down to a knee with a gasp, and very slowly, quietly ratcheted back the Winchester’s hammer, lifting the stock to his shoulder.

  A figure came toward him, and he tightened his finger on the trigger.

  Then he eased the tension when Casey stopped before him, rocked back on her heels, and slapped a hand to her shirt. “Lonnie!” she exclaimed.

  She’d been too startled to whisper it. Immediately, she realized her mistake, and turned her head quickly toward the cabin.

  Dupree yelled from inside, “What’s out there, girl?”

  Casey whipped her head and stricken gaze toward Lonnie. Lonnie’s heart hammered his sternum until he almost couldn’t breath. Fresh sweat broke out on his back and inside his gloves.

  “Girl!” Dupree yelled. “What’s out there?”

  Lonnie gritted his teeth when he heard a chair scrape back across the rough wooden floor. He looked up at Casey standing over him, and very quietly whispered, “Snake.”

  Casey turned her chin toward the front of the cabin. “Just a snake. Shocked me’s all! He’s gone now!”

  Lonnie was glad to hear a chair squeak as Dupree’s weight settled back into it. “Well, hurry it up with that wood!You try to make a run for it, Fuego here’ll shoot you. Fuego can shoot the wing off a fly at a thousand yards—can’t you Fuego?”

  Childress and someone else laughed, though Lonnie didn’t think the someone else was Fuego.

  Casey turned her anxious gaze back to Lonnie, who stood and squeezed her right hand encouragingly. “Now, tell ’em you’re comin’,” Lonnie said.

  She frowned at him cur
iously, anxiously, but then she did as Lonnie had instructed.

  “Sit down, now,” Lonnie said. “Keep your head down.”

  Casey grabbed his arm, dug her fingers in. “What’re you gonna—?”

  “I’m gonna end this right here,” Lonnie said. “Sit down and keep your head down.”

  “Forget the money. Lonnie, let’s just run!”

  Lonnie gazed straight into her eyes, hardened his jaws, and said firmly, “No.”

  Casey shook her head slowly, dreadfully, then she slowly sank down against the cabin wall, behind the chimney.

  Lonnie turned his head forward. He pulled his hat down a little lower on his forehead, and then walked around the cabin’s front corner. Keeping his head down, so that anyone looking out the door couldn’t glimpse his face and see that he wasn’t Casey, he moved up the porch steps, crossed the half-rotten boards of the stoop and stepped inside.

  He stopped suddenly, raised his rifle to his shoulder. He aimed at Dupree, sitting at the left end of a small, rectangular table on which dirty tin plates and cups and several bottles were cluttered. Two lamps burned where they hung from nails on square-hewn ceiling support posts. The fireplace was to Lonnie’s far right, but he didn’t look at the small fire whose heat he could feel pushing against him.

  He blinked once as he kept his gaze on Dupree, who sat back in his chair, his left boot hiked up onto his right knee. His hat was off but his longish, blond hair showed the marks of it. His left hand was wrapped with a bloody bandage. He had another bloody bandage around his ribs. He clutched his wounded hand against his belly, and he was glowering demonically at Lonnie.

  The boy could tell by the deep lines carved around Dupree’s eyes, and by the sweat beading his cheeks, that his wounds were grieving him.

  “Hey, Squirrel!” he said. “Been waitin’ on you. What took you so long?”

  Fuego sat facing Lonnie on the other side of the table, leaning forward, a cigarette smoldering in his right hand. He was absently fingering his wolf-tooth necklace with his left hand. The half-breed wasn’t wearing his hat, either. Neither was Childress, who sat with his back to Lonnie, half smiling over his right shoulder at the boy, his close-set, pale-blue eyes glistening mockingly in the flickering lamplight.

  They’d all settled in for the night.

  Lonnie swallowed, tried to keep his voice from quavering as he said, “Toss your guns onto the table there. One fast move, and I’ll drill ya.”

  “Balderdash!” intoned Dupree, laughing, showing all his large, white teeth. “Put the Winchester down, kid, before you get hurt.” He held up his bandaged hand, which shook like a leaf in the wind. “I wanna talk to you about this hand”—he dropped his gaze to the bloody bandage around his ribs—“and about this here.”

  Too late, Lonnie heard a boot thud on the floor behind him. The stench of sweat filled Lonnie’s nostrils. A man grunted loudly as he wrapped his big, bare, hairy arms around Lonnie’s waist from behind, and, laughing, lifted the boy two feet off the floor.

  Lonnie gave a loud groaning chuff! as the bear hug squeezed the air out of his lungs. He inadvertently triggered the Winchester into a ceiling beam. The three outlaws at the table started laughing as they watched wood sliver and dirt sift down from the ceiling.

  Lonnie have a loud, enraged yell, and swung his right boot forward before thrusting it straight back, hard, ramming his spurred heel into the kneecap of the man who was holding him above the floor.

  The man bellowed loudly. The thick arms dropped away from Lonnie’s waist. Lonnie dropped nearly straight down to the floor, and pivoted on his hips.

  He saw the man who’d lifted him—a big, barrel-waisted hombre with a long, tangled, cinnamon beard and a thick, food-stained mustache. The man’s hands appeared large as plowshares. He glared through narrowed eyes at Lonnie as he cupped one hand over his bloody left knee. He bulled forward, swinging his thick, right fist toward Lonnie, who flipped the Winchester around, and smashed the stock against the underside of the man’s chin.

  The man flew back out the open door, bellowing raucously. When he got his boots under him, Lonnie rammed the stock of his Winchester into the man’s bulging gut. The man groaned and dropped to his knees, and Lonnie slammed the rifle butt down hard on the back of his head, laying him out cold.

  Guns roared behind Lonnie, who turned, cocking the Winchester as slugs sizzled through the air on either side of his head. Both Dupree and Fuego were standing and extending pistols at Lonnie, trying to aim around Childress. Childress was falling drunkenly back against the table.

  Lonnie looked past Childress at Dupree, who was leveling his pistol on Lonnie once more, and Lonnie triggered the Winchester.

  As Dupree crumpled, firing his revolver into the table, shattering a whiskey bottle, Lonnie stepped hard to his left in time to avoid a bullet triggered by Fuego, whom Lonnie shot next. Fuego groaned and clapped a hand to his left temple as he twisted around, tripped over his chair, and hit the floor with a loud boom!

  Childress was still trying to get his revolver out of his holster. He stopped when he saw the Winchester aimed at his throat. He looked at the round maw only six inches away from him, and took his hand away from his gun, swallowed, and raised both hands in the air.

  CHAPTER 54

  Lonnie waved the barrel of his Winchester around in the air before him, expecting one of the other men to take another shot at him. But Dupree was lying beyond the end of the table, unmoving, his lips stretched painfully back from his teeth. Blood welled from the bullet hole in the center of the man’s chest. The outlaw’s cold, gray eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling.

  Dupree had robbed his last bank. Absently, Lonnie wondered what his mother would think about that, if she were still living.

  Fuego lay on his side, writhing and groaning as he cupped both his hands to his bloody left temple. Childress stood with his hands raised, scowling at Lonnie.

  “What’re you gonna do now, kid?” Childress asked. “You think you know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Lonnie said, glaring back at the man. “I know exactly what I’m gonna do.”

  A floorboard squawked behind Lonnie.

  He swung around, but it was Casey this time. She stepped slowly over the unmoving figure of the man who’d grabbed Lonnie from behind, and into the cabin. Lonnie stepped back away from Childress, giving himself plenty of room, keeping his rifle aimed at Childress’s head.

  Casey looked around as though in a daze.

  “Get their guns, Casey,” Lonnie said. “Get every gun and knife you can find, and haul ’em all outside. Then we’re gonna need some rope. Lots of rope.”

  When Casey had relieved the outlaws of all their weapons, and had tied Childress and the painfully grunting Fuego to ceiling support posts, Lonnie wagged his rifle at the big, unconscious man on the porch.

  “Who’s that?” he asked Casey.

  “Fellow who runs this little outlaw camp,” Casey said. She had a coil of rope on her shoulder. “They called him Hansen. An old partner of Dupree’s.”

  “Best tie him, too,” Lonnie said, stepping outside and keeping his Winchester aimed at the big, unconscious gent with the thick, bare arms. When Casey had hog-tied the man in much the same way that she’d hog-tied the others, making certain there was no way they could work lose, Lonnie walked back inside, found the saddlebags lying near the dead Dupree, and drew them over his shoulder. He swept the money from the table into one of the pouches. Now the bags felt as heavy as before.

  “Best get these out of there,” Lonnie said as he stepped out, resting his Winchester on his shoulder. “I’ll stow ’em in the stable until morning.”

  Casey stood at the bottom of the porch steps. The big gent was waking up now and groaning as he lay belly-down against the porch floor, hands tied to his ankles behind his broad back.

  “Oh, my head,” he bellowed. “Oh, Lord o’ mercy—my head!”

  “That’s the least of your troubles, partner,” Lonnie said as he stepped ov
er the man and descended the porch steps.

  Casey smiled crookedly at the boy, and arched a brow. “You clean up right well. Ever think of becoming a lawman?”

  Lonnie shrugged. “You all right?”

  “I’ve seen better days,” Casey said. “And I’ll see more, I reckon.” She paused and looked brightly up at Lonnie. “Your mother’s alive, Lonnie. I heard Dupree talking to the others. I reckon even he couldn’t hurt a woman with child.”

  Lonnie sighed and leaned back against a porch post in relief.

  Casey moved closer to him, crossed her arms on her chest, and cocked her hip. She looked at the saddlebags draped over Lonnie’s shoulder. “What’re we gonna do with those, come mornin’?”

  “Same thing we were always gonna do with ’em. Take ’em to the same place we’re gonna take them two inside and that Hansen fella. To Marshal Barrows in Camp Collins.”

  “My pa’d be right proud of you.”

  Lonnie ran a hand across the saddlebags, considering. “Casey, I …”

  “You don’t have to say anything, Lonnie. I know who you are. You may have lost track for a little while. Heck, I lost track of myself. I reckon we all do from time to time. But I know who I am now. And I know exactly who you are, too.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Lonnie said, a little sheepish. “Who’s that?”

  Casey wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “You’re the man I love.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Peter Brandvold has penned over seventy fast-action westerns under his own name and his pen name, Frank Leslie. He is the author of the ever-popular .45-Caliber books featuring Cuno Massey as well as the Lou Prophet and Yakima Henry novels. Recently, Berkley published his horror-western novel, Dust of the Damned, featuring ghoul-hunter Uriah Zane. Head honcho at “Mean Pete Publishing,” publisher of lightning-fast western e-books, he lives in Colorado with his dogs. Visit his Web site at www.peterbrandvold.com. Follow his blog at www.peterbrandvold.blogspot.com.