The Avenging Angels

by Michael Dukes

  The next sound Johnny heard—and it did not come quickly—was not the clicking of a well-oiled gun hammer as it was thumbed back, but a dry snort, followed by an even drier chuckle. “Would that be the same Leroy Brownwell who shot Avelino Duarte from a second-story window down in Presidio?”

  Johnny lifted his gaze. Though he’d sounded amused, Kings was not smiling. Would these be his last words? “No, sir,” he said cautiously, “you can pin that on Dick Osborn. And if I may, I don’t believe he could rightly boast about that. Everyone knows that pistolero called him out fair and square. What’s more, that he could shoot the eye out of a bird flyin’, and he didn’t see Osborn’s shot comin’.”

  “He should have,” Kings said, “but I wouldn’t mention that to Dick when you bed down next to him tonight.”

  Johnny gawped, stunned to silence. Kings stepped on the cigar he’d discarded, then turned and started back through the grass toward the cabins.

  CHAPTER 11

  The posse arrived at the location of the outlaws’ vacated camp by four in the afternoon. Last night’s fire, kept small so as not to pinpoint their position in the dark, had been snuffed out by having dirt kicked over it, and nothing but cold ashes remained. Several cigarette stubs were stuck in the sand like white grave markers, and a bottle had been smashed over a nearby rock.

  Mincey waited with Delaney while Stringer and Leduc, the more experienced trackers, spread out to assay the landscape. The townsmen congregated together, not fully at ease among the professionals who had recruited them. Under a dark Refuge sky, Stringer had administered the oath, and, while there had been no badges to distribute, each man was required to sign his name at the foot of the crinkled federal commission Stringer passed around. The last of them scarcely had time enough to dot the i in his name before the freshly formed posse was in the saddle and riding.

  It didn’t take long for Stringer and Leduc to discover where the outlaws had picketed their horses. They deliberated for a minute, then walked back to Mincey and Delaney. Only after things had been discussed amongst themselves did Stringer turn to face the civilians. “Surprise, surprise, boys,” he said. “Seems our quarry is headed south.”

  The appointed headman, a heavily bearded freighter named Job Kullander, spoke up. “That mean they’re headed for Mexico, Captain?”

  “All it means is they’re headed south. For now, anyway. They could eventually change their minds and head west for the Big Bend, but we hope to catch up with ’em ’fore they reach that no man’s land.”

  The posse pulled out, with Stringer and Leduc riding point. Even with the dying light of day, the several-hours-old trail was yet discernible. They were able to deduce, by the length between tracks, that the outlaws had galloped their horses steadily for most of those hours, slowing only to a canter before once again resuming the pace. Eventually, and unsurprisingly, the southbound trail swung—some would say corrected—hard to the west.

  Since last night, there had been no moon. It would be the same again tonight, and Stringer wouldn’t risk misreading even the clearest sign, no matter how bright the stars. It behooved the men, therefore, to make camp and wait till sunrise.

  They dined on jerky and hardtack and washed it down with sugarless coffee. A few of the deputized men, unfamiliar with the sometimes grueling demands of a lawman’s work, were heard to mutter and grumble, but, for the most part, pride kept their teeth grit.

  After the dregs had been tossed away, Leduc walked off from camp, stopping at the very edge of the firelight. The others were bedding down, but he was soon joined by the captain, who caught his signal. After a moment of contemplation, Leduc posed a question.

  “What’re you thinkin’, sir?”

  Stringer studied the tip of his cigarette, his second of the night. “They’re runnin’ them horses awful hard,” he said. “They’ll either have a plot to swap for remounts somewhere between here and the Bend, or turn and make a stand. If they decide to fight, we’ll shoot it out with ’em, take prisoners if we can, and go from there.”

  “Hope they decide to fight.”

  “We’ll see about that mañana.”

  “Who the hell are they?”

  Dave Zeller, peering through a worn brass telescope, breathed the question to Tom Seward. The two renegades were perched on a brush-grown rise in the land, Zeller on his belly and Seward kneeling by his side. Their horses were ground-reined several yards down the slope.

  The Yankee had caught sight of the dust cloud yesterday. He thought nothing of it at first, but when it reappeared this morning, a wavering dot on the horizon, sweat broke out on his forehead. With the strong prairie wind blowing the way it was, there was no question. Those boys were riding straight up their backsides. Not gaining ground, but not losing any, either.

  For the moment, he and Seward held a good enough lead—something like three or four miles. They zigzagged across the land, switching directions every hour or so, testing the path of the distant riders. The pursuers seemed to mirror the outlaws’ movements, never once breaking formation.

  Now, as he watched them lope ever closer, Zeller squinted through his glass . . . as if squinting harder would define their features any more. It was no use, and he was not about to risk letting them get close enough to see if he could identify any of them. He couldn’t make out much—next to nothing, actually, except animal color. Sunlight glinted off what was probably a concho-studded saddle, and, once, he thought he saw a flash of sunlight on one of the men’s shirts.

  “Damn . . .”

  “What is it?” Seward demanded. “What do you see?”

  Zeller lowered the telescope an inch. “Looks like one of ’em’s wearin’ a badge. If one of ’em is, the rest prob’ly is, too.”

  “Who’s got any call to be following us?” Seward said angrily. “We kept our noses clean in Refuge, didn’t we? You didn’t even get the chance to even the score with that saloon man.”

  Zeller couldn’t say for sure, but his backbone tingled with a haunting suspicion. The same suspicion had torn at his gut two nights ago in Refuge and forced him to postpone his plan to waylay Spivey outside his joint.

  Seward now seemed to suspect the same thing. “Dave? Can you tell if any of ’em is packin’ a pearl-handled gun?”

  “No, but I’m startin’ to get a bad feelin’ about that very jasper.”

  “Hell, it’s no wonder he was so interested in us. Damn that I can’t resist the offer of a free drink.”

  “We best get movin’.”

  Zeller lingered a moment longer, spat an oath, then withdrew.

  Alone on the bluff, Seward shook his head. “Satan’s fire . . . who the hell are they?”

  Stringer and Leduc were on their stomachs at the edge of a drop overlooking a watering hole. The gradual slope to their right led down thirty or forty yards, down to where the water lay with a thick growth of mesquite and cactus all around. The desert was quiet with the coming of night, save for the calling of an unseen dove.

  As the rangers examined the scene below, the others kept watch on the perimeter. All was absolutely still, but the tracks leading down the grade were clear as day. So, too, were the imprints of the hooves and boot-soles down by the water’s edge.

  Stringer broke the silence. “Looks dead as a Christmas goose down there.”

  “Reckon they’re onto us?”

  “Men like these don’t last long without some kind of sixth sense. ’Course, with a posse this size, you’d be hard-put not to notice our dust.”

  “One thing’s for sure—somebody’s been down there, and there was only two of ’em. Question’s whether they still are.”

  “Yep.”

  “Wouldn’t bet they stuck around, though,” Leduc reasoned. “We got ’em outnumbered, and, nine times outta ten, this kind would rather run than fight.”

  “You never know.”

  They waited a few minutes more, searching for any other signs, any movement in the thicket beyond. Finding none, the rangers ret
reated.

  “We’re on the right track,” Stringer informed the team. He turned and made a halfhearted gesture in the direction of the seemingly peaceful watering hole. “No sign of life down there, but they could be layin’ low, waitin’ for us to get comfortable and ride into a bushwhack.” He shot a line of spittle into the dirt. “Then again, they could still be kickin’ it for their hideout. No way to know for certain.”

  Before mounting up, the lawmen selected three self-professed crack shots to accompany them down there, and the rest would remain atop the bluff until they received the signal to come ahead. These crack shots were Kullander the freighter, Jensen the liveryman, and Thompson the shopkeeper. Sitting lightly in his saddle, Stringer led the way down the slope, followed by Leduc, then the Pinkertons, and, finally, the townsmen. Every man in the company was exhausted, but even as Stringer steered toward the watering hole they held themselves alert, conscious of the fact that they could, just as the captain said, be riding into an ambush.

  The riders halted at the edge of the watering hole but fanned out so as not to cluster and offer better targets for whomever might be hiding in the mesquite. Guns at the ready, the possemen watched as Stringer got down, Winchester in hand, to more closely inspect the marks left behind in the hard-packed earth. He squatted, looking down and sideways at the hoof-prints, with the barrel of his rifle trained on the grove.

  “Cap!”

  He heard Leduc’s shout a split second after he caught the glint of gunmetal from the thicket. Two heavy reports echoed, one on the heels of the other, and Stringer felt the air pop as an outlaw bullet snatched his hat from his head. The second shot, snapped in haste from his side of the firing, gave the captain enough time to plunge face-first, rifle and all, into the muddy-beige water to his left. Holding in a shallow breath, Stringer kicked blindly for the other side.

  The others dismounted quickly and scrambled for cover. Leduc threw down behind a shoulder of rock, and the Pinkertons managed to find room behind a snarl of rotted timber and scrub. The townsmen hung back, hugging the ground as the firing intensified from within the grove. Though caught in the open, the lawmen made it through the first barrage in one piece and were soon returning fire.

  Leduc kept his eye on the water, concern for his captain outweighing his instinct to join the fight. The only movement came from the near side, the ripples and roiling mud showing where Stringer dove in. Leduc wondered if he might have hit his head on a stone below the surface, but then, like some aquatic monster, the hatless shape of Caleb Stringer breached, flopping onto the far embankment with rifle still in hand. He might have been a sitting duck if the outlaws had the luxury of ignoring the larger force directly before them, but Stringer was instantly on his feet, falling into some brush at the far edge of the thicket. Then he was up again, like a jack-in-the-box, levering three rounds from his Winchester on the diagonal. The outlaws were as good as surrounded.

  The fight wore on, the possemen now firing steadily into the trees from two angles. After a few more minutes of gunplay, the area fell silent as both factions paused to reload. There was the strangely calming sound of rotating cylinders and fresh cartridges clinking into place. Somewhere in the background, one of the scattered animals whinnied in fear and was echoed by another.

  Leduc took advantage of the brief ceasefire to call across the water. “You all right?”

  “I’m good!” Stringer shouted back and then hushed up. Wouldn’t do to mark his position too neatly . . .

  Darkness was encroaching, visibility worsening, and with it, the accuracy of every combatant. From experience Leduc knew a stalemate could last hours. Just as easily, and perhaps more likely, those rascals could abandon their plinking and slink off before he and the others had a chance to rally. Inching toward the edge of the rock face, he decided to risk a peek and was almost immediately blinded by the muzzle flash of a man who stepped out to the side of a Y-shaped tree trunk.

  From his side of the firing, Leduc heard the unmistakable, meaty sound of a bullet striking flesh, followed by a scream. Leduc didn’t have time to look and see who had been hit—he had an opening and had to take it.

  He swung like a gate, sighted down the barrel, cranked off two quick shots. The renegade forty yards away jerked left and right from the impact. A third bullet, fired by Stringer at a forty-five-degree angle, blew him clean off his feet.

  As suddenly as it had commenced, the fighting was over. First it was quiet, then the possemen heard the pounding of outlaw hooves, one horse and one rider, fading into the closing night.

  As it turned out, it was Jensen who caught the bullet. A shoulder wound was no laughing matter, but the way he carried on, he may as well have been gut-shot. When the time came to dig out the lead and cauterize the injury, his friends got him good and drunk. The liveryman promptly passed out anyway, and it was a relief to everyone involved.

  Water was warmed for coffee and a fire lit. Crowding close with a blanket about his shoulders, Stringer joked that, in view of the state of his hat, things would be getting drafty for his old scalp. Kullander and Thompson were treated as heroes by their fellows, and, despite the fact that one of the renegades had made off, there was a feeling of accomplishment in camp.

  They had shown two members of the Kings gang that, as opponents in the game of death, they could not be taken lightly, and by the glare of a match the dead man in the thicket was positively identified as Tom Seward.

  Stringer and Mincey agreed that, although the remaining outlaw, who could only have been Dave Zeller, had a good head start on them, he couldn’t get far, mounted as he was on a winded horse.

  The trail would be fresh as dew come the morning.

  With the watering hole miles behind him in what was now full dark, Zeller dismounted under a lone tree to let his lathered mare blow. He wasn’t faring much better, but would have happily traded what he got for a pair of flaming lungs. Midway through the exchange of lead he’d taken a bullet in the right thigh. Luckily, it had missed the artery, penetrating mostly fat. As it was, the bandana he’d used as a temporary tourniquet was soaked through. He was glad for the coolish night—the colder it got, the harder it was for him to feel anything at all, but the blood that continued to stream down his leg and into his boot was an uncomfortable reminder.

  Turning up the collar of his sheepskin, he sat down to think. He didn’t figure those lawdogs would pursue him now, with no moon to light the way. He was willing to bet they would camp till the morning, cocksure of themselves in light of their victory.

  Hell of a victory. Seven on two. Zeller spat with disgust and hit his own boot.

  Seward was dead, and he was going to miss that sophisticated little cuss. Kings would take the news hard, no doubt.

  As he washed the blood from his leg with canteen water, he muttered aloud, perhaps to his mare, perhaps to himself, “I don’t plan on gettin’ stretched.”

  Another fight was out of the question. Taking a detour would be the best thing. Come first light, he would mount up and lead these boys on a wild goose chase for as long as he could. Take them far away from Kings and the others, and, if possible, give them the slip.

  Zeller drew a hip flask from his pocket and muttered, “I know this country, dammit.” He threw a little whiskey on the wound, inhaled sharply, and cursed the posse to the hottest hell. When he caught his breath, he drank deeply, wincing from the pain as another wave surged through him.

  Zeller thought back to the minute before the shooting started, as he and Seward watched the lawmen ride into their hastily planned and poorly executed ambush. Tom had turned his face, drawn and burnt by sun and wind, toward Zeller and, for the first time in twelve years, abandoned his book-learned grammar.

  “These ain’t exactly the best odds, Dave. Gotta hope for some kind of damn miracle.”

  Ten minutes later, he was dead in the dirt, never again to see the green lawns and apple orchards of Roanoke.

  Yankee Dave stared into the darkness. Any man could hav
e the wool pulled over his eyes. He just needed to work a little miracle, like Tom said, and those boys would be chasing dust devils to God knows where.

  CHAPTER 12

  The waning crescent moon hung like an empty, silvery rocking chair above the rolling scrubland that encompassed the town of Agave Seco. Spawned and supported by cattle and sheep ranchers, the settlement lay smack in an area once thought inhabitable only by scorpions, coyotes, and the Comanche. Tonight it lay quiet, dimly lit with streets sparsely populated.

  As the small hours of this balmy Sunday evening crept toward Monday, two riders walked their horses east through the scrub. An observer might have thought they’d swapped horses somewhere back along the trail, as the rider on the left seemed almost a child in the saddle of a large roan gelding that dwarfed his partner’s lean-hipped grullo.

  Three others had already entered town limits from the north—three riders, four horses—and were presently passing a carpenter’s on their way down Main Street. The trio consisted of Brownwell, Yeager, and Woods, who led John Reb by the reins. Brownwell, riding between the other two, let his eyes roam, seeking out movement but finding none. All was quiet, all was well. Now, if Kings had gotten where he needed to be, ascertained what he needed to ascertain, then the job was halfway done.

  Finally, the three reached the depository. Brownwell swung down first but paused a moment to look around and ensure that they had gone unnoticed. It wasn’t common, after all, for three men to be stopping by the bank so long before opening.

  Down the street a ways, Brownwell saw that Osborn and Johnny Blake had taken their positions on opposite sides. Dick was on the left, huddling with his horse between a shoe shop and an apothecary, and the kid was on the right, between a wheelwright’s and a smaller, boarded-up building. One thing Brownwell couldn’t quite discern was the cast of Blake’s features. It was just as well—he didn’t want to contemplate what-all might happen if the kid let his nerves get the better of him.