Bullets Over Bedlam

by Peter Brandvold

  Had she seen him? No. She was no doubt listening for gunfire from the direction of the hacienda.

  Hawk resisted the urge to go to her. He wanted to comfort and reassure her, but going to her now might only attract trouble to her and Carmelita. Knowing she was unharmed was enough. When Flagg and the other lawmen were either gone or dead, he’d hold her one last time and tell her good-bye.

  Obviously, he couldn’t stay in Bedlam. If Flagg had found him, others would, too. Even half-believing he could make a permanent home here with Juliana had been a foolish dream.

  She stood near the open door, staring at the mountain. Hawk watched her, his heart heavy, willing her to go back inside and close and lock the door behind her. Finally, a stocky shadow moved in the doorway, and Carmelita ordered her inside.

  Juliana jerked with a start. She turned sharply and, casting one last fleeting glance behind her, went inside and closed the door.

  Hawk stared at the door for a few seconds. Squeezing his Henry, he rose and began moving back the way he’d come, his heart feeling like a large rock in his chest. When he came to a mine pit a hundred yards up the sloping ridge, he turned left and made his way westward along the slope, paralleling the village on his left but keeping to the shadows. Flagg was no doubt waiting for him, not taking any chances, so he probably had his men posted in every nook and cranny of the canyon.

  He was moving down the hill toward the saloon when he heard a breath rattle in a throat. A soft sound, barely audible above the crickets and the breeze shuttling dry leaves along the ground.

  Hawk froze. Listening, he held his breath.

  A sigh rose from the direction of the crib ahead and to the right. Rojas’s crib. Shit, he hoped that old reprobate hadn’t returned to the village.

  Stealing up to the crib’s east wall, he stopped. Inside, someone drank from a crock jug, the liquid sloshing and bubbling. Lips smacked. Another sigh and a low, Spanish curse.

  Hawk loosed a curse of his own and stepped up to the door. “Rojas?”

  The raspy breathing stopped for a second. Then a chuckle. “I am not taking callers this evening, Senor Hawk.”

  Hawk tripped the latch and opened the door, slipped inside, and closed it behind him. Rojas hadn’t lit a candle, but Hawk’s eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. The old bandito lay upon the cot against the right wall, clutching a jug to his chest. His head was propped on a pair of greasy buckskins. His chest rose and fell shallowly. The musty room was rife with the smell of sangria.

  Hawk moved to the cot and stared down. “What the hell happened?”

  Rojas chuckled again tightly. “I did not take your advice. Instead of slipping off into the mountains for a couple of days, I decided, at my age, that I wasn’t going to run from a half dozen yanqui star toters.”

  “You went back to the saloon.”

  Rojas opened a hand. “I did not think I’d been followed.”

  “Idiot.” Hawk knelt down beside the cot. “You deserve what you got, you stupid bastard. How bad you hurt?”

  “He is bigger than me, and twenty years younger. I think he cracked a couple of ribs.”

  “Flagg?”

  Rojas nodded, then offered the jug to Hawk, who shook his head. Rojas tipped up the jug and took a long pull. Twin streams of wine trickled into his thin, gray chin whiskers. “What are you doing here, amigo?”

  “It’s Friday night. I came for the saloon dance.”

  Rojas chuckled. “You aren’t long for this world, gringo. There are seven of them and . . . I don’t think they like you.”

  “Where’s Flagg?”

  “Last I saw, he was heading for the saloon. He’d ordered the others to spread out around the town.” Rojas took another drink and sighed, spraying a fine wine vapor on his breath. “You better go back to the hacienda. Better wait for daylight if you’re going to fight. I should be on my feet by then. I will help. I’ll shoot Flagg’s pecker off for you . . . out of the goodness of my heart.”

  “Shut up and go to sleep.”

  “Wait.” Rojas grabbed Hawk’s arm. “Where are you going?”

  “I told you.”

  “Since you don’t have long to live, will you do me two simple favors? Wrap my ribs and roll me a cigarette?”

  Hawk snorted, set his rifle against the cot, and dug his makings sack from his shirt pocket. The old bandito had plagued the border country for years—mostly as a cattle rustler—but he was no cold-blooded killer. He hadn’t thrown a long loop for years and, like Hawk, was only looking for a little peace and quiet here in Bedlam. Hawk couldn’t help befriending the oldster. They’d spent many lonely nights in the saloon together, playing cribbage and poker.

  When he’d poked the quirley between the old man’s sun-cracked lips, and fired it, he helped him out of his bloodstained shirt. He tore the shirt in two, then wrapped it tightly around the old man’s waist, Rojas sighing and cursing and puffing cigarette smoke, a fresh sheen of sweat popping out on his forehead. When Hawk had finished tying the knot, Rojas released a long, relieved sigh.

  “Ah, amigo,” he said, lying back against the breeches and cradling his jug like an infant, “I miss you already!”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Hawk picked up his rifle, cracked the door, and peered outside.

  There was only the breeze rustling the rabbit brush and shuffling trash around the shrubs and boulders. High in the mountains, a wildcat screamed.

  Hawk turned back to Rojas. “Hasta luego.” He slipped outside and softly latched the door behind him.

  Flagg stood at the front of the saloon, angled so that he could peer westward along the main street toward the fountain and the little square. Behind him, a lantern burned low enough that the dark, dust-streaked window before him did not reflect its glow.

  Nothing out there but the dark street, however. Occasionally the breeze blew up hay and dust and skidded it a few feet before spraying it against an abandoned building or corral.

  Flagg fingered the Winchester in his right hand. What did he think he was going to see? Hawk wasn’t going to mosey up to the saloon and announce himself before he started shooting.

  He might not even come tonight. Or any night, for that matter. He might wait for Flagg and the deputies to visit him at his hacienda. Hell, while Flagg was sitting here smoking and sipping whiskey and building his house of cards while listening to the broken-nosed bartender moaning upstairs and squawking his bedsprings, Hawk was probably enjoying good carne asada and a bottle of wine from the hacendado’s cellar.

  On the other hand, he might be relying on that very train of thought. Taking advantage of it, he might be crabbing up to the saloon at this very moment, his .44 cocked and aimed.

  A faint, wooden scrape sounded to Flagg’s right. He jumped with a start and snapped his rifle up.

  Under a nearby chair, a large rat dropped the bread crust it’d been nibbling and shrieked. It turned and scuttled into the shadows at the back of the room, its toenails scratching the worn puncheons with an eerie rustling.

  Flagg glanced around the dark room, as if to make sure no one had seen him. He sucked a deep breath, cast another glance at the night-cloaked street, then lowered the rifle, strode back to his table, and sat down, careful not to nudge the table and tumble the house of cards he’d built from half a poker deck.

  He sipped whiskey from his shot glass, then set the glass on the table and picked up the deck. He studied the foot-high house, thumbed a pasteboard from the deck. He placed it on the upper right rear corner of the house and drew his hand away slowly.

  A crunching sound rose to his left. His hand jerked slightly, nudging the three of hearts.

  The house swayed for a second before the three of hearts tumbled into the six of spades, causing a chain reaction, and the entire house tumbled to the table, clicking and fluttering around Flagg’s whiskey bottle and shot glass.

  Flagg’s eyes weren’t on the scattered cards. He was staring at the window to his left. The crunch had
sounded outside, around the base of the east wall. His heart fluttered.

  Another rat? It sounded like a foot stepping on gravel.

  Flagg sat frozen, staring at the dark window, listening.

  A silhouette appeared in the window—the profile of a man’s head clad in a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat.

  Flagg jerked to his right, blew out the lamp, grabbed his rifle off the chair beside him, and threw himself to the floor. He rolled off his shoulder and hip and pressed his back to the bar. He squeezed the rifle in his hands, poked his right index finger through the trigger guard, and sat frozen, jaws hard, awaiting a shot.

  Silence.

  Flagg looked at the window. It was an opaque, inky, rectangular blotch. If the figure was still there, Flagg couldn’t see it.

  Using the rifle butt, he pushed himself to his feet. Casting his glance at the windows around the room, he moved slowly to the front, peered out the windows on both sides of the door, then pushed the left batwing door open with his left hand. The right one he nudged with his rifle barrel.

  He stepped slowly through the doors, sidled left, pressed his back against the wall, and looked around.

  Nothing but the wind nudging chain-mounted shingles up and down the street, and the two rows of dilapidated shops shouldering against the stars. A tumbleweed rolled down the middle of the street and hung up against a feed trough. Somewhere, a lamb bleated, and farther back in the mountains, coyotes yammered.

  The tinny clatter of a kicked can rose on his left. Flagg tightened his hand on the rifle’s trigger. His heart thudding, he leapt off the end of the boardwalk and aimed his Winchester toward the building’s rear.

  The gap between the saloon and an abandoned adobe was murky with shadows and the faint lines of both buildings’ outside walls. Spying no movement, Flagg resisted the urge to snap off a couple shots. The figure he’d seen in the window might have belonged to one of the deputies.

  He doubted it, but he couldn’t take the chance. He could call out, but only at the risk of giving away his position . . . and looking like a fool if it turned out he was only seeing phantoms.

  He was going to be damn glad to get Hawk’s head on a chopping block.

  He released a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d held.

  Damn glad . . .

  Slowly, Flagg rose, feeling sweat trickle into his beard despite the chill wind blowing from the west. Holding the rifle straight out from his left hip, he took a breath, swallowed, and began moving into the darkness between the buildings.

  14.

  GUNSMOKE AND STARLIGHT

  FLAGG’S boots crunched gravel as he moved into the fog of darkness toward the saloon’s rear. It was the same sound he’d heard inside a few minutes ago.

  A man had been out here, walking around. If it had been one of the deputies, the man would have shown himself by now.

  It could have been the barman, Baskin.

  Flagg blinked sweat from the corner of his right eye, felt the dampness inside his gloves as he squeezed the rifle’s forestock with his right hand. Turning around the saloon’s east corner, he moved into the even heavier darkness of the back alley. Directly behind the saloon stood a single brick privy at the base of boulders that had tumbled down from the northern ridge and been sheathed in rabbit brush and gnarled piñons and junipers.

  Flagg smelled a trap. It was time to call the deputies. He couldn’t take Hawk down alone. He liked the sound of it, liked how it would look in the papers, but only a fool would try.

  He tried to speak, but words wouldn’t rise from his dry, tight throat. Fear held them tight in his chest. One sound from his lips would make him an instant target.

  Stiffly, sucking shallow breaths through his mouth, he walked between the privy and a pile of stacked pine and mesquite to the far corner of the building, then stopped, staring up along the far side toward the street. He ran his gaze back to the building’s rear, where a narrow, crumbling awning slanted toward the alley.

  A timbered door stood half-open. In a second-story room on the building’s far side, a lamp burned in a window. The smell of mesquite smoke tinged the breeze.

  Relief began to loosen the muscles in Flagg’s neck. Baskin had come downstairs for wood from the stack flanking the door. It had been the barman’s hatted profile in the window.

  Vague disappointment followed close on the heels of Flagg’s relief. He lowered the rifle slightly, continued walking slowly toward the street.

  He hadn’t taken two steps before a Spanish-accented voice rose behind him. “Taking some air, Senor Flagg?”

  Flagg whipped around, bringing the Winchester to his shoulder. In the shadows to the right of the privy, a match flared, flickered as a hand closed around it. Smoke puffed in the darkness.

  “Rojas?”

  “Sí.” The Mexican’s voice was pinched slightly with pain. “I, too, decided to take some air. It is a lovely evening, and fresh air—she is good for an old man’s battered body, uh?”

  As Flagg moved toward him, Rojas’s figure took shape, sitting on a boulder next to the privy, an old-model pistol wedged behind the waistband of his breeches. The bandito leaned back against another, taller rock, one boot hiked on a knee.

  He had a pinched look on his wizened face as he stuck the brown-paper quirley to his lips. The coal glowed bright in the darkness.

  Flagg kept his rifle aimed at him. “How long you been out here?”

  Rojas smiled knowingly. “Not so long, senor.”

  “You seen anyone—?”

  A cold-steel voice rose behind Flagg, cutting off his question: “Only me.”

  Flagg froze. Blood surged in his ears, and the arteries in his neck throbbed. He stared straight before him. Rojas stared back at him, the old man’s thin, chapped lips stretching a grin, his single eye flashing.

  Behind Flagg, a boot crunched gravel.

  Flagg wheeled, swinging the rifle around and crouching, pulling his index finger back against the trigger as he saw the tall, broad-shouldered figure before him.

  Flagg’s rifle cracked, flashing and roaring. An eye wink later, the steel-plated Russian in Hawk’s right hand spoke, stabbing flames.

  The bullet seared through Flagg’s right arm, plowing through bone—a burning, tearing pain. Jerking sideways with a grunt, Flagg dropped the rifle and fell to his right knee. He clapped a hand over the bloody hole just above his elbow and turned his head back toward Hawk.

  The Colt in Hawk’s left hand flashed. The bullet tore through Flagg’s left arm, in nearly the same place as on the other.

  “Uh-ahhh!”

  Gritting his teeth, Flagg stumbled back, fell, and hit the ground on his butt. Blood flowed from both arms, the misery setting his entire body on fire and dropping a veil of exploding fireworks over his eyes.

  Holding both pistols straight out before him, Gideon Hawk stared down at the wounded marshal. Flagg writhed before him, cursing and crossing his bloody arms on his chest, clamping the wounds in his hands, the blood oozing between his fingers.

  “You crazy son of a bitch!”

  Rojas shuffled toward Hawk, grinning down at Flagg. Hawk jerked his head at the old bandito. “I told you to stay put!”

  “It’s not every day I get to witness such sweet justice, amigo.”

  “You’ve witnessed enough. Go back to your crib before I pump one into you.”

  Rojas had lifted his chin and turned his head to one side, listening as shouts rose in the night. Running footsteps grew louder. “You better, too, before more powder smoke obscures the stars.”

  Rojas turned and limped off into the shadows behind the privy.

  Hawk sneered at the marshal. “Go home, Flagg. Take your men with you. You’ll only get them killed.” He turned, grabbed his rifle from the rock he’d set it against, and strode off into the alley’s western shadows. “I won’t give you another chance.”

  Movement caught his eye, and he looked toward the saloon’s rear stoop, A man ran around the corner, vagrant
light flashing off the rifle in his hands. “Hold it!”

  “It’s him!” Flagg raged, kicking his legs while holding both arms. “Kill the son of a bitch!”

  The deputy raised his rifle. It flashed and barked, lighting the alley briefly, the report glittering in Flagg’s gray, pain-etched eyes. Hawk ducked as the slug spanged off the boulder six inches to his left, spraying rock shards and whistling in his ears.

  Bolting behind the boulder, he ran up the gradually rising ridge, weaving around scarps, mesquite and cedar snags, an old chicken coop, and the collection of ancient, abandoned adobes that seemed to be as much a part of the ridge as the rocks and shrubs.

  Behind him he could hear the deputies yelling, Flagg shouting curses and orders.

  Hawk ducked down behind a heap of old mine tailings a hundred yards above the saloon, and held the Henry across his chest, waiting.

  Flagg was raging.

  Hound-Dog, crouched beside him, held him down with a firm hand on his shoulders, so the man didn’t thrash out every ounce of blood from his body.

  “After him, goddamnit! What the hell are you waiting for? After him! He ran up the ridge, probably heading for his fucking lair!”

  “Hold still,” urged Tuttle. “For Chrissakes, you’re gonna—”

  As he kicked his legs like an enraged child, Flagg’s eyes blazed up at Press Miller. “That’s an order! Kill that son of a bitch!”

  Miller, crouched around Flagg with the others, his face showing exasperation and revulsion at the blood leaking out both of the marshal’s arms, glanced at Hound-Dog. “Get him inside. The rest of us’ll try and overtake Hawk.”

  “I want every man on his trail!” Flagg bellowed.

  “Marshal, you’re in shock,” Miller said reasonably, fingering his rifle’s receiver. Having seniority over the other deputies, he was the second-in-command. “If we leave you here untended, you’re gonna bleed out. Hound-Dog’s had some medical experience. I’m gonna leave him here with you.”