Journey into Violence

by William W. Johnstone

  “I do,” the ranger said. “It’s because you’re such a fine human being, Frank, a Southern gentleman to your fingertips.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Frank said. “You roll the next one yourself.”

  Kate said, “Frank, be kind. JC is wounded.”

  An obvious retort was on the tip of Frank’s tongue, but he didn’t make it. He strolled to the window and stared into a street lit only by the oil lamps that hung outside the stores and other commercial buildings. The result was a strange orange-tinted twilight that never reached the alleys where the black shadows crouched.

  Brewster said, “Now, do you want to tell me what the hell is happening and why you took a woman with you to trail some mighty dangerous characters?”

  “It was my idea,” Kate said. “I thought the Pinkertons would make arrests and I’d force them to surrender Ben Lucas and Bob Corcoran into my custody, but it wasn’t that simple.”

  “Tell me what happened out there,” Brewster said.

  Kate described the Pinkertons’ slow chase in pursuit of Jesse Dobbs and his boys and the subsequent gunfire. “I’ve no idea what took place next. We thought it prudent to leave.”

  Brewster absorbed that and then said, “Those Pinkertons aren’t detectives. They’re strikebreakers and strong-arm men, sap and billy club bullies paid by rich men to threaten and terrify the starvation-wage slaves that toil for them. I’ve met those kinds of Pinkertons before. They come down from the big cities up north and reckon they can do in Texas what they’ve done in Detroit or Chicago and a dozen other towns. But you can bet your bottom dollar they learned a lesson today . . . that Western men like Jesse Dobbs don’t terrify worth a damn.”

  “Rider just came in,” Frank said. “He stopped in the middle of the street and he’s drawing a crowd.”

  “Is he a Pinkerton or Jesse Dobbs?” Brewster said.

  “Hard to tell, but I think he’s wearing a bowler hat.”

  “Frank, help me up. I got to go down there and find out what happened.”

  Kate said, “You will stay right where you are, Ranger Brewster. You’re too weak to stand. I will not allow you out of bed.”

  “Frank, give me my hat.”

  “Don’t you dare, Frank Cobb,” Kate said.

  “Here’s your hat, JC,” Frank said. “Now you’re properly dressed.”

  “Help me,” Brewster said.

  Frank steadied the Ranger as he crossed the floor, passed the fuming Kate, and grabbed his boots. He sat on the bed and pulled them. “Get me the slicker over there in the corner with my saddle and bedroll.”

  “I will not be held responsible for your well-being if you go out into the street in your underwear, Ranger Brewster,” Kate said. “I am adamant on that.”

  Frank helped Brewster into the slicker. “I guess he’s going, Kate.”

  “I guess I am.” Brewster buckled his gun belt over his long johns and stepped to the door.

  “Then we’ll go with you,” Kate said. “You’re a stubborn, headstrong man, JC. I’ve never known the like.”

  * * *

  The hour was late, the night dark, and Eagle Pass was not Dodge City. Few people were on the street, and the crowd gathered around the man on the horse numbered only a dozen.

  “Texas Ranger, make way there,” JC Brewster said. “Has this man identified himself?”

  “Only in hell, Ranger. He’s dead,” said a portly man with a red face.

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, Brewster saw that the rider was indeed dead, as dead as a bullet through the center of his forehead could make him. The corpse sat stiff and upright in the saddle, hands on the reins, shadows gathered in the hollows of his eyes and cheeks. He had a placid, almost peaceful expression on his face as though he’d died instantly without ever realizing it had happened.

  “You men, get him down from there,” Brewster said. “And somebody take the horse away.”

  The dead man was laid out on the street and his coat fell open, revealing his Pinkerton badge.

  “Where are the other two?” Kate said.

  “I guess we’ll find out come morning,” Brewster said. “I’ll ride out to where you and Frank heard the gunfight.”

  A woman who’d arrived on the scene said, “Does that poor man need a doctor?”

  “No, he needs an undertaker. Who does such work in Eagle Pass?”

  “That would be Charlie Gill,” the portly man said. “I’ll go get him.”

  Frank saw Kate suddenly stare into space, her face troubled. He took her arm and said, “Kate, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Yes . . . maybe I have. Frank, I think I know where the army payroll is buried.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  “I sure hope the nag can see in the dark,” JC Brewster said.

  “She’s doing all right,” Kate said. “The moonlight helps.”

  The Ranger, in pain and irritated, scowled at the equally pained and irritated Frank. “Do you need all that room for your legs?”

  “It’s a small wagon,” Frank said. “I got to put them someplace.”

  “Why didn’t you bring your hoss?” Brewster said.

  “Because he’s all used up, like me.”

  “Damn it all, Frank. You could have taken mine,” Brewster said, stretching his legs.

  “No I couldn’t,” Frank said. “I never took to riding twenty-dollar mustangs.”

  “That’s because you ain’t a Ranger. A Ranger can ride anything with hair on it.”

  “Damn it, JC. You kicked me,” Frank said.

  “It was an accident. There’s no room in the back of this wagon.”

  “It’s all I could get at the livery,” Kate said. “You boys stop squabbling like children. We’ll soon be there.”

  “Why does that mare keep stumbling?” Brewster said. “Pains my shoulder every time.”

  “Because she’s old,” Kate said. “But she’s got eyes like a hawk in the dark.”

  Moonlight lay on the surrounding terrain like a frosting of snow and the coolness of early fall was in the air. There were no animal or night bird sounds, only the steady clop-clop of the horse and the iron-shod rumble of the wagon wheels. The sound of metal on rock made Frank think about the Tin Man back in Dodge, and he wondered idly if he’d ever completely recovered from the bullet Kate had put into his vitals. Probably not. His boiler must have burst.

  “Frank, I think we’re getting close,” Kate said.

  “Good. Stop the rig and I’ll walk ahead with the lamp.” He clambered out of the wagon, ignored Brewster’s agonized protests, and retrieved the lamp from Kate, who had stored it under the driver’s seat. It was only then that he realized how much the wound in his side had weakened him. His head reeled and pain gnawed at him like a living thing.

  “Frank, are you all right?” Kate said, alarm lifting her voice.

  “I’m fine. Real good.” He held the lantern high in his left hand, pulled his Colt, and stepped in front of the mare. “Never better.”

  “Can you see anything?” Kate said.

  “Not much,” Frank said. “I’ll walk ahead for a spell and then you come after me.”

  Brewster said, “Hell, it’s getting darker, Frank. You be careful.”

  “Could be fixing to rain,” Frank said. “I’ll be fine with the lamp.” The sound of his feet crunching on sand and rock grew dimmer and then was gone, but the bobbing orange orb of the lamp glowed in the distance.

  “Follow him, Kate,” Brewster said. “I got my Winchester handy.”

  “You think Jesse Dobbs could still be around?” Kate said.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what could be around here, and that includes boogermen.”

  Kate’s laugh made music in the quiet. “I didn’t know Texas Rangers were scared of boogermen.”

  “You’d be surprised how many things scare us,” Brewster said. “But most times we get un-scared pretty damn fast.”

  From ahead came a cry from the darkn
ess.

  “Kate! Come quick!”

  “All right. Now I’m scared again,” Brewster said.

  * * *

  The lamp above his head, Frank stood in a shifting cone of amber light, an open grave at his feet and a dead man on the ground behind him.

  Kate stopped the wagon, but the mare, disturbed by the smell of the corpse, whinnied and reared in the traces. Arcs of white shone in her eyes. Kate jumped from the seat, grabbed the horse’s browband and reins, and spoke soothing words to the scared animal. As soon as the mare settled a little, Kate led her away from the grave and the smell of death.

  Brewster limped out the rear and indignantly said, “Did you forget about me?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t have time to rescue you,” Kate said. “Are you all right?”

  “Apart from being shot through and through I’m just fine, I guess.”

  “You were right, Kate. They buried the money under a dead man,” Frank saidt. “And now they’ve reclaimed it.”

  Brewster peered at the corpse that had been torn from the grave. After a while, he said, “I know him. That’s Zeb Magan, ran with Jesse Dobbs and them. Looks like they shot him and then tossed him on top of the money sacks, figuring no one would disturb a grave.”

  “Except resurrectionists like us,” Kate said. “But we were too late.”

  “Jesse must be in Eagle Pass by now,” Brewster said. “Or he’s already crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico.”

  “Maybe not,” Kate said. Frank and Brewster stared at her in the hazy orange lamplight.

  “When Corcoran and Lucas helped Dobbs recover the money, they didn’t know I’d escaped from Tilly Madison. As far as they’re concerned, I’m still at the cabin. Those animals wouldn’t pass up the chance to sell Kate Kerrigan in Mexico, so I’m certain they left here and headed for the Madison place.”

  “When they saw you were gone, they probably headed south with Dobbs,” Brewster said.

  “But there’s a chance they decided to spend the night at the cabin,” Kate said. “I want to go there.”

  “You sure got it in for those boys, Kate,” Brewster said.

  “If they were outlaws who happened to steal an army payroll, I could forgive them, but they talked about selling me in Mexico and discussed raping me. That I cannot forgive.” Kate stepped to the wagon, removed a shovel, and returned to the grave. “I can’t let this man lie unburied. I’ll say proper prayers for the dead later.” Frank extended his hand for the shovel, but Kate shook her head. “No, you and JC are too stove up. I’ll do it.”

  She dragged Magan’s body into the grave and then began to shovel dirt. Her lips moved in a silent prayer.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  In the moonlit mist, the Madison cabin looked like an abandoned ark adrift on a gray sea. There were no horses in sight, no smoke from the chimney, and no sound but the gibbering of ghostly night birds and the rustle of crawling things among sand and rock.

  The stillness of the night made Frank whisper. “I guess they didn’t come this way, Kate. The place is deserted.”

  Above the wagon, the moon was as white as a skull.

  JC Brewster looked around him, his eyes big. “Seems like.”

  “We’ll go on ahead on foot.” Kate jumped from the wagon. “Frank, pass me my Winchester.”

  “Kate, if Jesse Dobbs and his boys survived the fight with the Pinkertons, we might find ourselves overmatched,” Frank said. “Me and JC are in no shape for gun fighting.”

  Kate levered a round into the chamber. “We’re not overmatched, Frank. Even stove-up, you and JC are more than able to shade motherless scum like Jesse Dobbs and his thugs. We faced bigger odds in Dodge, remember?”

  Frank smiled. “It would be nice to have Bat Masterson with us, though.”

  “You don’t need Bat Masterson when you’ve got me.” She looked at Frank. “But you’re right. I wish Bat was here.”

  Frank and JC took up positions on either side of Kate as they stepped warily toward the cabin. The windows stared at them blankly, like black, dead eyes.

  Kate stopped. “Frank, to the left by the well. What is that? A sleeping hog?”

  Frank’s eyes searched into the darkness. His hand opened and closed on his Colt. “Can’t see from here. It could be a hog.”

  “Or a dead man,” Brewster said.

  “Or somebody laying for us.” Kate said. “Let’s take a look.”

  “No.” Brewster said. “I’m the Texas Ranger here and it’s my job. Kate, you and Frank cover me. If I shriek like my maiden aunt when she saw the mouse, come a-shooting.”

  “Be careful, JC,” Kate said.

  “That’s the only way I know,” Brewster said.

  Gun in hand, he advanced slowly toward the lump on the ground and the gloom closed around him, falling like a murky curtain. Beside her, Kate heard Frank swallow hard. He was a man who feared nothing, but the strain of his wound and the mysteries of the malevolent night were getting to him. She lightly touched his big hand with the tips of her fingers.

  He nodded. “I’m all right, Kate.”

  “I know you are. Now what’s JC doing?”

  The Ranger stepped away from the dark bulk on the ground and walked to the cabin. He raised his boot and kicked the door in, a violent move that pained his shoulder. A few moments later, a lamp was lit within and the cabin’s windows glazed with tawny light.

  “I suppose that means there’s no danger,” Kate said.

  “And no Jesse Dobbs,” Frank said.

  “Unless he’s dead.”

  “Then let’s go find out.”

  * * *

  Bob Corcoran’s body lay beside the well. He’d been shot several times in the belly and chest. Judging by the way his convulsing feet had plowed up the ground, he’d lasted a few minutes after he hit the ground.

  “Ben Lucas is inside,” Brewster said. “Way I piece it together, it looks like he was wounded in the fight with the Pinkertons and laid out in the bed. Dobbs summed things up for him by putting a bullet between his eyes then stepped outside as Corcoran came running and done for him. Dobbs was always quick on the trigger.”

  “Any sign of the payroll?” Kate said.

  “Nah. Dobbs packed it out of here.” Brewster looked into Kate’s beautiful eyes. “Kate, I guess that does it for you. You’ll want to go home now.”

  “Why?”

  “Corcoran and Lucas are dead. Your fight is not with Jesse Dobbs. Leave him to me.”

  “You’re going after him?” Kate said.

  Brewster nodded. “It’s my job.”

  “Kate, it’s time to head back and find out what’s happening with the plague wagons and with Hank Lowery,” Frank said. “Besides all that, what is Barrie Delaney doing with your new house? You can’t trust that old pirate.”

  “And then there are my daughters and my sons,” Kate said.

  “Yeah, the kids, too,” Frank said. “You must be worried about them.”

  “I’m not. They’re Kerrigans and they can fend for themselves. That’s how I raised them.”

  The segundo frowned. “Kate, I’m trying hard here, but I’m not catching your drift. Like JC says, what happens or does not happen to Jesse Dobbs is no concern of ours.”

  Kate looked at Brewster. “When you reach Eagle Pass, will you wire the Rangers for help?”

  “No. My superiors expect me to handle whatever comes up,” Brewster said. “If I scream for help when the going gets tough, I will never again hold up my head in the company of booted and belted men.”

  “I thought so.” Kate said. “I will never desert a friend in need, and that is why Frank and I are coming with you, Ranger Brewster. To ignore a vicious criminal like Jesse Dobbs is to throw out the rule of law and plunge into anarchy. I will not allow that to happen.”

  Brewster shook his head. “You’re tough, Kate. Tough as any man.”

  “Perhaps. But I’m also a woman.” Kate lifted the hem of her dress and revealed the lacy garter aroun
d her shapely thigh. “I wear this always . . . to remind myself of that fact. Do not mistake my determination for my being harsh and inflexibile, Ranger Brewster, because I am neither.”

  Frank said, “I guess we should grab whatever sleep we can and head for Eagle Pass at first light.”

  Brewster looked surprised and paid great attention to the other man’s face. “You give up easy.”

  “I don’t mistake Kate’s determination for anything else. Well, she’s determined to bring Jesse Dobbs to justice and when she feels that strongly about a thing, there’s no arguing with her.”

  Brewster stared at the ground and kicked sand with his toe. “Frank, I guess when we meet up with Dobbs, I’d feel better if your gun was backing my play.”

  “Of course you’ll feel better with Frank at your side, JC,” Kate said. “Now, I wonder if there’s coffee in the cabin. We could all use a cup.”

  Frank smiled. “I’ll back your play, Ranger. Now let’s go hunt up that coffee.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  “Hell, I didn’t expect this,” Dobbs said. “Now I’m stuck on this side of the border until it blows itself out.”

  The bartender nodded and looked wise. “June to November is when you can expect storms coming up from the Gulf. If you stand at the door and take a sniff you can smell fish shoaling, or so I’m told. I never could smell them myself but Hug Cluggan the timber merchant says he gets a whiff every time.”

  “I didn’t. This damn town always has the same stink.” Dobbs pushed his whiskey glass across the bar. “Fill it.”

  The bartender, a fat, jolly kind of man with a network of broken red veins on both cheeks, poured his best bourbon from a dusty bottle. “Rain is getting heavier, and listen to the wind. Sounds like the wail of a damned soul.”

  “Yeah, getting his first glimpse of Eagle Pass.”

  The bartender grinned. “You’re a rum one, mister.” He put the bottle under the bar and left to serve another customer, leaving Dobbs to sit in silence, morose, armed, and dangerous.

  He picked up his glass and stepped to the door that rattled in its frame, making a racket like chattering castanets. He peered out of the rain-lashed glass panel into the empty street. Muddy puddles rippled in the wind, and a couple of tarpaper shacks to the rear of the stores had already lost their roofs. Across the street, a brave matron battled the weather to do some emergency shopping, but when her umbrella turned inside out into a V she gave up the struggle and turned into an alley out of the wind.