Journey into Violence

by William W. Johnstone

  “And I’ll kill the second.”

  It was a woman’s voice, loud enough to make men stop in their tracks and look in Kate’s direction. She stepped onto the boardwalk in front of the sheriff’s office, Frank and Trace flanking her.

  She stepped to the edge of the walk. “Hank Lowery will not be released until the real killer of Sarah Hollis and Alva Cranley is found. Who told you otherwise?”

  “Lady, there’s a lot of talk going around,” a man said.

  “Who started the talk?” Kate said. “And was he the one who told you that Hank murdered women and children in Longdale? That’s a lie and he knows it.”

  Men looked at each other until finally a puncher said, “We heard Hinkle is taking Lowery out of Dodge on the midnight train. We’re here to see that ain’t gonna happen.”

  Muttered agreement passed among the crowd and again voices were raised in anger. A larger group of onlookers had gathered to watch the lynch mob and at least a hundred people stood in the street, eager for some action.

  Kate realized she was losing them, and she placed her back against the office door. “Then you’ll have to hang me, as well.” Her robe had slipped, revealing her shoulder and the top of her right breast. With her flaming red hair tied back in a green ribbon, she did look like a Celtic princess at bay.

  “We can do that, lady,” a man yelled. “We can hang you next to Lowery.”

  Angrier than Kate had ever seen him, Frank roared, “Damn you for a bunch of lily-livered skunks to threaten a woman like that. You want Lowery? All right. That’s fine by me, but you’ll have to step over your own dead to get him.” Frank drew his Colt. “Now have at it. My pistol is ready and my talking is done.”

  No one in the street wanted to walk into Frank’s revolver, and for a moment the mob hesitated. Then a shotgun blast tore through the air above their heads, giving them further pause.

  His Greener smoking, Bat Masterson studied the crowd from the boardwalk. “I still got one barrel left. I want the bravest of you to step up, a volunteer willing to get his guts blown out as an encouragement to the others. Come now, where is there such a man?”

  Beside him, the tall, elegant Maddox Franklin, gun in hand, smiled. “Make your play, boys, and deal me a hand. I already got five aces in this here iron.”

  “Damn you, we’re ready,” Frank Cobb yelled to the crowd. “Come and take the man you want to hang.”

  Some of the men in the lynch mob were sobering fast. The prospect of rushing two shotguns, three Colts, and a Winchester in the hands of a young man who looked as though he knew how to use it was not a pleasant one. Besides, the federal authorities might not easily forgive the hanging of a beautiful woman in the streets of Dodge by a drunken hemp posse.

  Calmer voices in the crowd, mostly merchants, urged the mob to disperse, promising that they would make sure justice was done and that no guilty person would escape the rope.

  When she looked back on the incident, Kate was certain that a few of the hotter or drunker heads might have tried it, but the summer rain that had threatened all day came down in earnest, a Kansas frog-strangler that immediately spoiled the crowd’s evening. It was no fun to hang a man in the rain. The ground turns muddy and everybody gets wet. The crowd quickly melted away under the guns of Kate and the others.

  Hinkle spoke for everyone when he whispered, “My God, I hope I never have to go through that again.”

  “We were lucky,” Masterson said. “The spark to light the fuse never came. It happens that way sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t. When the fuse does get lit you end up with dead men on the street and a hanging.”

  Hinkle took Kate’s arm. “Mrs. Kerrigan, let’s get you inside out of this rain.”

  “Who started the rumor that Lowery was getting released?” Hinkle said.

  “Drugo Odell?” Kate stood at the office window staring at the downpour that looked like steel needles angling into the street.

  “Doubtful. What does he care if Lowery hangs or not?” The sheriff’s face frowned in concentration. “I think whoever spread the rumor and worked up the crowd hoped it would draw you out from the hotel.”

  A moment’s silence followed that statement.

  Then Frank Cobb yelled, “Oh my God!” He ran across the floor and dived at Kate.

  They hit the floor hard even as a bullet shattered the window and thudded into the wall opposite. Masterson immediately blew out the lamp and rushed outside. Maddox Franklin was right behind him.

  “There!” Franklin yelled and thumbed off a shot.

  “Where?” Bat said.

  “In the alley. I caught a glimpse of a man with a rifle.”

  Bat was already running, the rain falling around him, mud kicking up from his pounding feet. He fired and fired again then vanished into the alley’s gloom.

  A few tense moments passed without a sound from the alley, then the roar of two revolver shots sounded . . . evenly spaced apart. Then silence again.

  Bat reappeared, his Colt hanging loosely by his side, a disappointed scowl on his face.

  “Did you get him?” Franklin said. The shoulders of his blue frockcoat were black with rain.

  “I fired at shadows. I hit nobody.” Masterson slid his Colt back into the shoulder holster. “Whoever he was, he’s long gone.”

  Franklin starred into the darkness. “I reckon so. But I sure don’t want to grope my way down a dark alley to put it to the test.”

  “Me neither,” Masterson said. “Damn, I’m soaking wet.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  * * *

  “Did you get him?” Sheriff Hinkle asked as the former lawman entered the office.

  “Scared an alley cat or two,” Masterson said. “No, I didn’t get him. I didn’t want to walk any farther into the alley, that’s for damn sure.”

  Kate studied a bruise on her left arm. “You saved my life, Frank. And not for the first time.”

  “Kate, somebody wants you dead real bad,” Frank said. “Apart from Drugo Odell, is there anyone you can think of in Dodge who hates you bad enough to kill you?”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Kate shook her head. “No. There’s no one.”

  “You shot the tin man, ma,” Trace said, smiling. “Maybe it was him.”

  “It wasn’t a tin man I saw run into in the alley,” Bat said. “You can take that to the bank.”

  Frank said, “Kate, we’d better get you to the hotel. You took a bad tumble.”

  “Is that what you call it, Frank? A tumble?” Kate said.

  Frank looked flustered.

  She smiled. “I call it saving my life.”

  “I reckon we’re all agreed on that.” Masterson slapped Frank on the shoulder. “Well done, old fellow.”

  Frank said nothing but proved to all present that he could still blush.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Drugo Odell sat in his hotel room and seethed. He’d had a clear shot and that damn meddler Frank Cobb had robbed him of the kill. Because of Cobb, Kate Kerrigan was alive and well instead of lying on an undertaker’s table with embalming fluid feeding into her body.

  Odell poured himself a whiskey from the bottle on the dresser and stepped to the window, where rain still tapped on the glass. Outside, Front Street was deserted, everyone having taken refuge from the downpour, but the saloon crowds were raucous and pianos, banjos, and the few trumpets played unceasingly. The sheriff’s office was in darkness. Shuttered, its door was closed and padlocked tight as an orphanage matron’s mouth.

  Odell turned as someone thumped on his door. He laid down his glass and picked up a Colt from the nightstand. “Who’s there?”

  “Me.”

  It was the voice of the big man, no doubt there to find out why his thousand-dollar investment had been so uselessly spent. Odell turned the key in the lock and stepped back, his revolver up and ready.

  The big man barged inside and got right to the point. “You missed.”

  “Frank Cobb meddled.
” Odell studied his client and wondered how many shots it would take to drop a man that size. More than a few, probably.

  The big man looked around and sat on the corner of the brass bed that shrieked under his weight.

  “I won’t miss the next time,” Odell said.

  “Shut the hell up and give me some of that whiskey.” The big man grimaced, grabbed the front of his shirt, and wadded it into a wrinkled ball. He watched Odell pour bourbon into a glass and said, “Fill it, damn you.”

  The big man’s bearded face was ashen and his bloodshot eyes revealed his pain. He reached into his shirt pocket, took out a small tin box, and removed a white pill that he shoved into his mouth with a trembling hand. Odell handed him the whiskey and the man emptied the glass in a gulp.

  After a while some color returned to his face and his breathing became easier. He tapped his chest. “Bad ticker.”

  “You should see a doctor,” Odell said.

  “I have a doctor. Every time he comes to the ranch my houseplants die.” The big man’s eyes got mean. “I’ll feel a sight better when Kate Kerrigan is dead.”

  “I won’t miss the next time,” Odell said again. “Why do you hate her so much?”

  The man worked his left arm, bending and straightening it and then he flexed his fingers. “She made me look small in front of my hired hands. Cut me down to size, you might say. She forced me to eat her dust all along the trail from Texas and then got a better price for her cattle than I did. Sure I hate her, but I want something from her. I want her land, and I can claim it real easy when she’s under the ground.”

  Odell refilled the rancher’s glass. “What’s your name, mister? I like to know who I’m working for.”

  “Name’s Ezra Raven out of the West Texas Pecos River country. And I ain’t going home until the Kerrigan witch is dead.” Raven grimaced and rubbed his arm, his face black with anger. “Even if I have to kill her myself.”

  Odell shook his head. “Mr. Raven, you’re a sick man. I suggest you catch a train and ride the cushions back to Texas. I’ll let you know when the job is done.”

  “I’m staying right where I am,” Raven said. “I’ll head back to my ranch after I see Kate Kerrigan’s dead face in the dirt. You do what I paid you to do Odell. If you fail me again . . . well, I hired one killer and I can hire another.”

  “Are you threatening me, Mr. Raven? I don’t like to be threatened.”

  “Damn right I’m threatening you, Odell. When I pay a man for a job, I expect that job to get done.”

  “It will get done,” Odell said, his face stiff.

  Raven got wearily to his feet. “See that you don’t miss again.”

  The rank smell of Raven’s sweat lingered after he left and Odell opened the window wide. He brought up a chair, sat down, and stared into the relentless rain.

  During the next hour, he left his place by the window only once . . . to refill his whiskey glass. For the rest of the time he sat deep in thought. Finally, as the grandfather clock in the lobby struck midnight, he rose to his feet, grinning, and raised his hands above his head in triumph.

  It was all too simple . . . a foolproof plan that would make him a hero and end the black cloud of suspicion that hung over his head. Damn it all, he was a genius. One more killing, that’s all it would take. Just one more useless life to end with a bang. Drugo Odell smiled.

  End with a bang... “Damn, that was funny.”

  * * *

  Kate Kerrigan lay in bed on her back and let the pain of her bruises melt into the down mattress. She was sleepless, her open eyes staring at the shadowed ceiling and its dark corners where the spiders lived. Frank had asked her if she knew anyone who hated her enough to kill her, but try as she might, she could think of no one. All Kate’s enemies were dead, some of them buried on the rise behind her cabin. She tried harder, remembering angry faces, shouted threats, vile curses . . . but still came up with no living enemy.

  She closed her eyes, inviting sleep. She’d think on this again tomorrow.

  * * *

  Frank’s only suspect was Drugo Odell. There could be no other. But why did he want to kill her so badly? All he needed to do was saddle—

  “My God!” Frank sat upright in bed. What about Ezra Raven? Was he still in Dodge? Did he hate Kate for the humiliation she’d forced on him back in Texas? Was Raven a vindictive man? He wanted the KK grazing land. Was that reason enough to kill? It had been for others of his breed. That’s why range wars were fought. Greedy and power-hungry men going to the gun over land or water rights.

  Frank made a decision. Tomorrow he’d find out if Raven had not yet left Dodge and talk to him if he hadn’t. And if Raven were the one, he’d kill him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Golden Garter cathouse was located in a dim area between two warehouses in a narrow rectangular space that had forced the brothel to build upward. It had two stories plus an attic for the three housemaids and the same number of maintenance workers. The place was high-priced, discreet, and stocked only the best champagne, booze, and cigars. The girls were prettier than the norm, and they lasted about two years before their looks began to fade and they were shown the door.

  The proprietress was a large-bosomed woman with white, store-bought teeth who called herself Dolly Mop, the current slang for a lady of loose morals. She ruled the Golden Garter with an iron hand and the girls were terrified of her, but toward her customers Dolly was as solicitous as a fond mama and listened to every problem with the undivided attention of a priest in a confessional . . . as long as they had money, of course.

  “Poor Mr. Raven. She needs cut down to size, that strumpet,” Dolly said.

  “She shamed me,” Ezra Raven said, his head on the woman’s plump shoulder. “And in front of my men. I can’t forgive her for that.”

  “Nor should you.” Dolly was feeling poorly. Just three weeks before a disgruntled customer had put three .22 short rounds into her back from a Remington Elliot Pepperbox revolver. A doctor had dug out the bullets from Dolly’s fat like buckshot, but for a woman who’d spent most of her working life lying flat on her back, sleeping on her side was proving to be a chore. “What you need is a nice girl and a bottle of champagne to make you feel better, Ezra.”

  Raven had a catch in his voice as he said, “I have a weak ticker, Dolly. Kate Kerrigan brought it on me.”

  “Then Caddy Moods is who you need,” Dolly said with an air of great finality. “She’s a quiet girl, not given to strenuous exertions in bed. She’s a perfect match. And don’t forget the champagne. It can be had from the bartender at just ten dollars a bottle. It’s genuine French, you know.”

  Raven rose to his feet, looking enormous in Dolly’s small parlor. “I plan to kill her,” Raven said. “Kate Kerrigan, I mean.”

  In the lamplight, a stuffed bobcat watched with beady eyes from its glass dome and a woman’s ribald laugh rang from a room upstairs.

  “And no wonder, after what you’ve suffered at her hands,” Dolly said. “Now stop by the bar and buy the champagne and then go upstairs to room eight, the Presidential Suite. I’ll send Caddy up by and by. At the moment she’s helping an elderly gentleman”—Dolly smiled sweetly—“with a little problem.”

  * * *

  The desk clerk at the Alamo Hotel looked up and shook his head as Drugo Odell stepped through the door. “We’re full. Not a room to be had for love nor money.”

  Odell smiled, playing it nice. “I don’t need a room. I’m here to visit Mr. Ezra Raven.”

  “I saw Mr. Raven go out. I don’t think he’s returned yet.”

  “Then I’ll wait for him. I’m one of his friends up from Texas and he told me he’d keep his door unlocked.”

  “Room twenty at the top of the stairs,” the clerk said.

  “Every room occupied, huh?” Odell said as though making small talk. He really didn’t have much interest.

  “They sure are. And apart from Mr. Raven, I think all our guests are in bed. Seems l
ike the rain drove everybody inside.” The man smiled. “Good for the farmers though.”

  “Get many farmers in Dodge?” Odell asked. As he knew it would, that opened up a conversation about farms and farming.

  The clerk had obviously been raised on a farm, and he talked at length about seed and plowing and other stuff that didn’t interest Odell in the least. When the clock in the hallway struck three he called a halt. “Well, I’d better get upstairs and wait for ol’ Ezra. Do you have a spare key? He’s a crackerjack fellow, but he can be forgetful by times—cattleman, you know.”

  The clerk smiled, already pleased that the little man in the bowler hat was obviously sympathetic to the plight of the Kansas farmer. “Yes, I have a spare. Do you want me to tell Mr. Raven that you’re waiting?”

  “No, I’d like to surprise him.”

  The clerk smiled again. “I thought that might be the case. Don’t you just love it when old friends drop in out of the blue?”

  Odell smiled back. “Oh yes, I do. I surely do.”

  * * *

  Drugo Odell sat in darkness but rose to his feet when he heard the heavy fall of boots on the stairs. He pulled his Colt and stood to the side of the door. It had to be Ezra Raven. It was after four in the morning and the big rancher was finally seeking his bed with the rest of the sporting crowd.

  Rain ticked on the window as a key rattled in the lock and the huge bulk of Ezra Raven stepped inside. Odell waited until the man closed the door behind him before he shoved the muzzle of his revolver into Raven’s temple. “Do as I say, Ezra, or I’ll scatter your brains.”

  “What is this?” Raven said, his voice edged with anger, but he stood stock still, ground-hitched to the floor.

  “Throw your gun on the bed,” Odell said.

  “I’m not carrying a pistol.”

  Odell reached out and felt around the man’s waist. “You’ve been lying with a woman. I can smell her on you.”

  “Is that you, Odell? Mind your own damn business.”

  “That’s hardly the way to greet a friend, Ezra.”

  “Why do you have a gun pointed at my head?”

  “Because we need to talk.”