“You wanted to see me, Brunnermann?” Curtis snapped.
“If I confess to all charges, will yuh guarantee I won’t be hung?” asked the flashily garbed man in the second cell.
Curtis started toward him. He had left his guns below, his holsters gaping empty.
“I won’t guarantee a rat like you anything,” he began, and then there was a slight rasp as the door of the corner cell slid open.
The next instant the seedy little jasper they all called Ed was out and had slammed his gun’s nose into the sheriff’s big back.
Curtis wheeled around fast, though he knew what it was. Then when he saw the setup, his mouth shot open to yell the warning downstairs. But before he could get out any sound, Ed whipped up his gun and bent the barrel over Curtis’ forehead.
It wasn’t a hard enough blow to knock the sheriff unconscious. It just dazed him, and he sank down against the cell bars. Little Ed kicked him in the ribs and Curtis groaned, the pain shooting his eyes open as the other men hopped out of the cells.
It all was worked as slick as grease. They opened up Price’s cell and let him out, but gave him no weapon.
“We’ll take yuh out with us,” one of them said. “Just string along and do as yuh’re told.”
Price nodded meekly. “Sure, just so long as I git out.”
Smoke Curtis was dragged to his feet. They told him he was going to lead the way down and that if he tried to give warning again, they’d drill his deputy, Flowers. Curtis’ mouth flattened to a thin seam at that. Fearless himself, willing to risk his own life, he couldn’t condemn one of his men to the grave.
“Yuh don’t think yuh’re going to get out of this town, do yuh, Brunnermann?”
“Just watch us,” taunted the fancy-garbed lobo.
When the procession headed down the stairs, it was the bright-eyed, seedy jasper who went right behind the sheriff, holding the gun in his back. Along the first-floor corridor they went, Curtis walking heavily, discouragement in every line of his big frame. Behind him, the others tiptoed. Price was next to last in line, a Brunnermann gunhand back of him.
* * * *
The two deputies in the office, Lamb and Hanning, never had a chance to make a play. They saw Curtis stride in after unlocking the barred door. And then they were looking into the gun muzzles of the outlaws.
Pudgy Yucca Lamb bounced out of his chair, half-bald head gleaming in the lamplight as he started to draw. Then he saw the way they had his boss spitted on that Colts barrel and he dropped his arm.
The outlaws worked as swiftly as if they’d rehearsed it. The lawmen were disarmed and handcuffs from the desk were snapped on them. Flowers, however. was not handcuffed. He was to go with the pair who were going to the livery barn around the corner. They would go through the empty lot beside the jail and come out on the livery barn alley without having to move along the main drag. They’d pick up the lawmen’s ponies and the ones Black Tom had put there earlier that day.
“Tell the livery barn boss to saddle up yore ponies,” Flowers was warned. “And no tricks, or every one of yore pards here will draw a dose of lead poisoning ’tween the shoulder blades Besides, this will be covering you every moment.”
And Flowers cringed away from the little derringer the gunman slipped from a pocket in the waistband of his pants The three left.
Curtis’ heavy face worked with impotent rage as he waited. An orey-eyed waddy went down the road, caterwaul ing “Buffalo Gal.” Then the outlaws were back with the ponies, and Black Tom, who’d gone back up the knotted rope and down the tree, stuck in his head to say everything was ready. He was built like an ape, with curly black hair crowding his brows. He leered at the sheriff.
It was as easy as spitting in a creek. The four handcuffed badge-packer were herded out and shoved into the saddles. Price, the horse-thief, was kept covered too. A couple of men across the street stared. One of them let out a yell
“Holy cow! It’s Brunnermann—and he’s got the sheriff!”
Doors were yanked open along the road. Men hustled out of whisky mills, reaching for holsters. But then froze on the draw. What would happen if they triggered was only too plain. The hostages hemmed in by the lobos at gun point would get it.
“Go ahead an’ plug ’em, you fools!” Curtis yelled. But in vain. His mouth twisted.
Silent staring men lined the street as the riders turned north at the bank corner, moving at a rapid trot. The lobos smirked around.
“Better warn ’em, boss,” said the seedy gent they called Ed to Brunnermann as they sighted the creek bridge ahead.
The boss wheeled his cayuse and rose in the stirrups, sneering at the crowd.
“Don’t you jugheads get any idea about sending a posse after us,” he called. “It’ll be plumb bad if yuh do. We’ll just blow out the brains of these John Laws, one after the other, till yuh quit. Leave us alone and we’ll release these pelicans when we get dang good and ready. Adios! And—”
There was the bark of one of Ed’s hoglegs. Lead slashed into the batwing door of a barroom over on the left side of the road. A big drink wrangler, who’d been steadying a Colts over the top of the doors, staggered out and sat down heavily, pawing at a red-running shoulder. The crowd ebbed back. The outlaw boss spat into the dust, gave a sign. And the lobos with their hostages were heading for the bridge at a hard gallop.
They crossed it, rounded the elbow of ridge on the other bank, and struck out across the open range. They put about five miles behind them, then reined up on a slight rise beside a stand of timber. Dropping off, one of them put his ear to the ground.
“Riders—a pack of ’em,” he said succinctly.
Little, down-at-the-heels Ed pointed back down the trail. Under the wan moon, a line of horsemen could be seen coming over one of the prairie swells.
“Guess we have to teach ’em a lesson, boss,” Ed said.
They nodded, their eyes swinging over the prisoners. The boss pushed back his black sombrero.
“All right, Tom,” he said, indicating Hanning.
Black Tom touched Hanning’s arm and ordered him to dismount, getting out of the kak himself.
“This way, Deputy. We’re taking a little pasear,” He headed Hanning, who looked perplexed, back down the grass-fringed trail.
Then he whipped out one gun, pushed the muzzle against the back of Hanning’s skull, and pulled the trigger. Hanning pitched into the dust of the trail, spattering it with crimson as the back of his head was blasted out.
CHAPTER III
Kill Crazy
Some time later, when the outlaw bunch pulled up again, on a knoll this time, they could see the pursuing posse from Wagon Wheel back at the spot where Hanning had been left lying in the road. Several minutes passed and then the posse headed slowly back toward the town.
“Reckon that was the convincer,” said Brunnermann, grinning.
Ed guffawed. The posse was moving unhurriedly, but at a steady lope, veering over toward the broken foothills in the west. One of the possemen led the empty-saddled pony.
Smoke Curtis licked his mashed lips, tasting the salt of blood. When the outlaws had gunned Hanning, he had gone momentarily berserk, swinging at the nearest one of them with his manacled hands. He had received a savage punch in the mouth and the boss had sent a warning slug horneting past his hat.
Over on the sheriffs right, Deputy Yucca Lamb swayed brokenly in the saddle as he rode. He too had burst into a fit of rage when he had seen his fellow deputy get that window put in his skull so cold-bloodedly. And Lamb had had a gun barrel bounced off his head twice to cool him down.
“Well, looks as if we’ll be taken to the bunch’s hideout.” Price, the hombre who’d been brought in as a horsethief, had eased his pony over close to Curtis. He spoke from the corner of his mouth with no lip movemen
t.
Price was not manacled. But he still had no weapons. And Black Tom in the rear had them all covered.
Curtis stared at Price, puzzled. There had seemed to be a note of elation in the mans’ voice. The sheriff swore under his breath.
Getting captured by the outlaws was bitter medicine for Smoke Curtis, an inglorious end to a career. And it would be the end of his career, for there were men in Wagon Wheel who had never liked him, called him overbearing. Those enemies would be after his scalp now, demanding his removal from office when he got back. And those two rewards offered for the capture of Brunnermann would be lost. With that reward money he had planned to buy himself a small cow outfit when he retired at the end of his term.
But all that was washed out now. The big sheriff now didn’t give much of a hoot what happened to him. Bitterly his thoughts back-tracked along his career. For two terms he had worked hard, taken great risks, to enforce the law in the Wagon Wheel country. He had been honest, more than once refusing bribes. He had driven the gun toughs from the town’s Whisky Row and cut down the rustling out on the range. He had broken up the fence-line war between the big Beartrack Pool and the rich Twin Spur spread. But one of his proudest jobs had been running the infamous Holiday brothers, vicious gunmen and road agents, out of the country. He had killed one and wounded tough Sam Holiday himself, while taking three pieces of lead in his own hide.
For more than two years, off and on, the Brunnermann bunch had been a thorn in Curtis’ side. Slip Brunnermann himself was a heartless killer, a man who would snuff out a life as calmly as another human critter would strike a match. Killing with Brunnermann was like drinking with some gents. He seemed addicted to it. And he was a slick buzzard in the bargain, shifting his activities, hopping across a State line only to hop back and strike again a few months later, swinging from one county to another, but inevitably looping back at some later date. And Brunnermann would do anything if it would bring him a quick dollar.
Time and again Smoke Curtis had led posses after the bunch. He had spent days out on the range alone, seeking to cut Brunnermann’s sign, to track him down to his lair. But the slippery killer would lead his pack back into the broken country and then seem to go up in smoke. Curtis had fine-combed those hills without ever finding a sign of a hideout or camp.
Capturing him this time had been a piece of sheer luck. A woman Brunnermann had thrown over had sent in word that the outlaw would be in a settlement down the river from Wagon Wheel on a certain night. But the Law still had not learned the whereabouts of the hideout where the rest of the bunch was.
* * * *
Off from Curtis’ stirrup, Price whistled softly while he kept flipping up a spent, shiny cartridge shell. The group left a branching side road and turned up along the bank of a feeder creek. Price seemed to miss the shell on that catch and it bounced off his saddle-horn to spin earthward. Well, the little weasel was probably happy enough, Curtis told himself. He was out of jail by a stroke of luck.
The outlaws paused for a breather, watering their ponies and lighting up quirlies. Curtis managed to fashion himself a crumpled cigarette with his manacled hands. He wondered when he’d be set free. Not that he had any hope of ever taking Brunnermann prisoner again. You didn’t get breaks like that every day.
He recalled how he had been going to greet Hellfire Sells, the marshal being sent in to get Brunnermann. He knew little about Sells save that the man had built himself a terrific reputation down along the Rio and that he was supposed to be a walking chunk of poison with guns in his hands. Some men said he was one of the deadliest man-hunters in the Southwest, an hombre who would take any kind of a risk to run a wanted gent to his hole.
At the time, Curtis had resented the fact that Sells was being sent in. It seemed like a reflection on his own ability as a law enforcer. He’d felt nobody had done more than he had to run down Brunnermann.
Curtis lifted his head quickly now as the boss lobo walked over to Price.
“Where did yuh say yuh’d cached that map of gold hideout, Price?” boss Brunnermann asked.
“Didn’t say,” came back Price in his quick, thin voice. For some inexplicable reason, he had become confident, poised. “It was off the trail coming into Wagon Wheel from the northeast. And, by the way, I feel danged undressed without hardware in my holsters.”
The boss’ eyes flickered. “All right. We’ll talk about it later. Let’s make tracks, gents.”
They neared the edge of the range country, following cow paths through big thickets of chaparral. The moon waned and the stars became smudgy spots in a graying sky as the men moved into a draw. Then they were pushing up into the foothills. With daylight, they made camp in a pine grove in a tortuous canyon.
Brunnermann and his gunhands confabbed for some minutes around a little campfire. Booneville, a town up to the north in a pass that led from the grazing country through the hills, was mentioned several times.
Curtis sat on a boulder, manacled hands fisted, talking to Yucca Lamb.
“I don’t care what they do to me,” the Sheriff ground out. “I don’t care. If only I’ll get the chance to pay ’em back for what they did to Bob Hanning. That’s all I ask!
The deputy cut his eyes over at Flowers, the other deputy, and shivered a little in the chill breeze coming down the canyon.
“They gotta let us go some time,” Yucca Lamb said. “Then—”
Brunnermann’s voice cut in at that moment.
“Curtis, yuh can make things easier for yoreself if yuh wanta do something, if yuh got some sense.”
Smoke Curtis jerked up his head as the duded-up hombre came over. “What the devil do yuh want, Brunnermann?”
“That town marshal in Booneville. Wyatt Redding.”
Curtis stared hard over at the campfire without replying. Redding had been passing through the settlement near Wagon Wheel the night they had grabbed Brunnermann and his three gunhands. The Booneville marshal had thrown in with Curtis and helped him make the capture, mortally wounding a gun-slick named Channing. Afterward, Curtis had learned Channing was Slip Brunnermann’s cousin.
“Got a little score to settle with Wyatt Redding,” the boss continued imperturbably. “I want you to bring him outa Booneville for me.”
The sheriff swung to his feet belligerently.
“Go to the devil, Brunnermann!” he said hoarsely.
“I think yuh’ll do it,” the other said softly, smiling. “I think yuh’ll go in to Redding while we wait outside. You can tell him yuh tracked a couple other members of my outfit to a cabin in the hills. You can tell him anything. Only you bring him out. Sabe? I think yuh’ll do it. I—”
Once again Smoke Curtis lost his head and tried to bring up his handcuffed arms for a blow. It was Price who jumped in behind him and grabbed him from the rear. The boss blew quirly smoke in the helpless Curtis’ face.
“I think yuh’ll do it ’cause if yuh don’t, both yore deputies’ll get a window in the back of their skulls this time! An’ that ain’t just talk. Remember what happened to Hanning, eh, Curtis?”
* * * *
Curtis was speechless. The boss flipped away his quirly stub and moved off, swaggering slightly. Ed stepped into his spot.
“Better agree to do it, Sheriff,” he said. “Brunnermann can git tough.” He spat in the dirt before walking away.
Smoke Curtis tried to move after him, but Price still gripped him from behind. Curtis called him everything in the book.
“Use yore head, use yore head, Curtis,” Price said softly. “String along with ’em and wait—wait. They’ll get Redding anyway, one way or another.”
“You cheap, dirty horsethief,” Curtis mouthed. “Who the devil are you that I—”
“Sure, I know what they’ll do to that Wyatt Redding,” Price went on easily. “But he’s one man. Do yu
h want to see yore two deputies get their chips cashed? Yuh’re supposed to be a tough John Law, Curtis. Be tough now—and save what yuh can.”
Yucca Lamb shoved in his leather-hued face. “Tell Brunnermann to go spit in his hat, Smoke! You can’t sell out a man like Wyatt Redding. For every one of us Brunnermann kills, them Federal marshals will hound him down that much harder.”
Curtis shook his head heavily. “Them marshals are a heap of wind. It took me two years to give Brunnermann a catching. They won’t get him. They think just because they wear a government badge they can do anything.”
George Flowers, the new deputy, put in his say, wiping cold sweat from his upper lip, sharp eyes darting around.
“This Brunnermann is kill crazy! You can’t condemn us to die like—like yuh’d send cattle to the slaughter pen, Curtis!”
“He wouldn’t dare murder all of us!” Yucca came back, a fighter to the last ditch. “Why he’d bring the whole country down on his neck. He knows that.”
“Play for time,” put in Price quietly, gripping the sheriff’s arm. “He hasn’t killed this Redding yet.”
“What’re yuh putting in yore two bits for?” Yucca Lamb snapped at him.
“I’m no killer,” came back Price calmly, masking his eyes, “even if they say I got a weakness for horses. I don’t want to see you gents die for nothing, that’s all. Sheriff, tell ’em yuh’ll go bring out this Wyatt Redding. It’ll give all of you time. And with enough time, anything can happen. Mebbe they’re gathering a big posse down to hem Brunnermann in.”
Smoke Curtis kicked earth savagely shaking his head. “Danged if I’ll be dirty Judas! I won’t do it!”
But at midday, when they hit the saddles again after a few hours of shuteye. Smoke Curtis had taken Price’s advice. He had knuckled down to Brunnermann agreeing to go into Booneville and bring out the local town marshal. But he felt like a cur dog in agreeing to do it, and rode with his once proud head slumped on his chest.
The Third Western Megapack Page 43
