The Revenger

by Peter Brandvold

  “Ma’am, could we discuss this later?”

  She glanced, puzzled, behind her, then returned her gaze to his. “I don’t have much time, Mr. Sartain. I have to get back to my ranch. First, before we discuss my problem, I’d like to know how much you charge for your... services. I need you to know that I am not a wealthy woman, so—”

  “That’s all right, Miss, uh...”

  “Mrs. Chance. Maggie Chance.”

  Keeping his tone mild, his voice low, Sartain said in his slow Cajun drawl, “Missus Chance, would you mind goin’ on upstairs for a bit? I’m in room five. Middle of the hall on the left. We’ll discuss payment shortly.”

  Maggie Chance stared at him, her eyes widening a little with surprise. “Oh.” She looked down at the table. “So... so that’s how it is.”

  “Yes,” Sartain said, smiling, keeping his gaze mostly on the men behind her still staring at him like wax statues. “That’s how it is.”

  “I had no idea.”

  Her tone becoming angry, she leaned toward him, frowning. “So, then, Mr. Sartain—how does this work? If you require... uh... payment before you take on an assignment, how can I be sure you’ll actually fulfill your obligation?”

  “I always fulfill my obligations, Miss Chance. Now, then, as I was saying...”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, staring down at the table, troubled. She nervously brushed her hand across the table’s grainy surface and said quickly, indignantly, “I didn’t realize that would be the sort of payment required. I had no idea, Mr. Sartain. I’m afraid I came quite unprepared for such an arrangement. While I do require your help, quite desperately, in fact, I am not... well, I am not that kind of—”

  “Maggie?” Sartain said.

  She snapped her startled gaze to his.

  “Go on upstairs.” Sartain hardened his eyes and added even more firmly, with a single bob of his head. “Now.”

  She scowled at him, incredulous. “Well, you certainly are commanding, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Now, please, go.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll need a bath first. I’ve ridden a long ways, and...” She let her voice trail off as she glanced around as though looking for the cantina’s proprietor. Her gaze held on the men behind her, staring at her and Sartain. She turned back to the Revenger, leaned far forward, and whispered, “Who are those men, and why are they staring?”

  She’d been so wrapped up in her own worries that she hadn’t sensed the obvious threat.

  The clock ticked on the wall near Sartain.

  The two checker players had stopped sliding the painted bone checkers around on the board. They slid their uneasy glances between Sartain and the pretty blond woman and the five men pressing their backs against the counter.

  Sartain’s heart rarely raced, but it was picking up speed now. He did not want this bold beauty caught in the line of fire. On the other hand, he didn’t want to make any sudden moves or raise his voice overloud and possibly hasten the imminent ruckus.

  “We’re old friends,” said the man to the far left of the group. He was tall, dark, rat-faced, and harelipped, with long, stringy dark hair hanging down past his ears. His long nose was startlingly crooked. “Ain’t we, Sartain?”

  Sartain merely stared at him. The fires of hell couldn’t have burned any hotter than the flames of fury burning behind his heart, threatening to turn that organ to ashes and melt his ribs.

  Earlier, after the five riders had first walked into the cantina, he’d tried to pick Scrum Wallace, the one he was after, out of the pack. Now, he knew. Wallace had looked different back when Sartain had first known him—he’d aged a little and wore his hair longer and he’d grown a thin beard—but this man was Wallace, all right. He wore a gold spike in his right earlobe.

  He was one of the men who’d been part of the pack of rabid, drunken cavalry soldiers who’d raped and murdered Sartain’s woman and unborn child three years ago in the Arizona Territory. They’d killed young Jewel’s grandfather, as well.

  Sartain’s eyes met the dung-brown gaze of Scrum Wallace. “Hello, Scrum.”

  Wallace curled the right side of his upper lip. “Been a while.”

  “Too long.”

  “I been wonderin’ when you’d get around to it,” Wallace said.

  “Hey—wait a minute,” said the man on the far-right side of the bar. “Who’s this Scrum person?”

  Wallace curled his lip again. “I am.”

  The woman was looking around as though stricken. She turned back to Sartain, her eyes wide with fear. Slowly, she rose from her chair. “Mr. Sartain, I seem to have caught you at a bad time.”

  “Go on upstairs,” Sartain said gently, smiling, though his heart wasn’t in it, trying to keep her as calm as possible. “I’ll be up in a bit.”

  “No, no,” Scrum said, his lusty gaze returning to Maggie Chance. “We’ll be up in a minute. Me an’ the boys.” He smiled and spat a long wad of chaw onto a table before him. It landed with a wet plop.

  As though making her way through a field of coiled diamondbacks, Maggie Chance walked carefully across the room to the rear stairs. She glanced several times behind her and then slowly climbed the stairs, moving almost soundlessly, as though the slightest noise would detonate a bomb.

  At the first landing, she paused, glanced behind her once more, then hurried over the landing and up the next flight to the second story.

  Sartain kicked his chair back from the table and rose, flicking the keeper thong free from over the hammer of the big, silver-plated, pearl-gripped LeMat revolver housed in a soaped holster thonged low on his right thigh. The LeMat was outfitted with a twelve-shotgun barrel beneath the main, .44-caliber maw.

  That was enough for the two checker players. They, too, kicked their chairs back. One of them held his hands out in supplication, and said, “Wait, senores—por favor!”

  The Mexican closed up the checkerboard, quickly scooped the checkers into a leather pouch. He and his friend hurried past Sartain, tripping over chairs and table legs, and then ran out the front door and into the yard, scattering chickens.

  “I don’t get it,” said the man standing to Scrum’s right, looking at him. “I thought you was Chet. Chet Starr.”

  Sartain snorted. “Chet Starr. Yeah, that’s what he changed his name to after he healed from the lead I filled him with... when I ran down him and the others in his pack of cowardly coyotes. He was Sergeant Scrum Wallace at the time him and four others—all federal cavalry—attacked an innocent young girl down in Arizona Territory. Attacked her and her prospector grandfather in their mining camp.”

  The Cajun paused, clenching his fists at his sides, feeling veins bulge in his forehead. “They raped the girl, who was with child. My child. Cut her throat. Shot the old man, shot their mule, and stole their gold.”

  The rider who had not yet spoken looked at Scrum and chuckled. “Well, sounds like you was havin’ yourself a real good time, wasn’t ya, Scrum?”

  “Scrum’s about to die,” Sartain said with firm, quiet menace. “You boys want in or out, now that you know the lowly coward you’ve been ridin’ with? You wanna die with a lowly scoundrel like this, so be it.”

  He raised his voice to a thunder pitch. “Don’t just stand there—draw them hoglegs!”

  Chapter 2

  “Ho, now!” said the second man from the door. He was the shortest of the group, with buckteeth.

  He looked a little like William Bonney, or Billy the Kid, a young outlaw who was known to hole up with the senoritas in Fort Sumner from time to time. This young man even wore a squashed, ragged, black hat like the Kid’s. “Just hold on, there, Mr. Revenger, sir!” He looked at Scrum. “You say Chet Starr here... or... Scrum Wallace mistreated a woman? A girl? One in the family way?”

  His questions had all been directed at Scrum himself.

  Scrum glared at Sartain.

  “Tell him, Scrum,” bit out the Revenger. “Tell your friends what you did.”

  Scrum sh
outed, “I reckon you done told ’em.” He cut his eyes toward his pards. “That’s what happened, boys. But I was egged on by the others. We’d all been drinkin’ in Benson, see, and we was on our way back to the fort. We heard them tell in Benson that our old pal, Sartain, was seen holed up with some old desert rat and his granddaughter.”

  He stepped forward and pointed an accusing finger at Sartain, narrowing one eye. “We thought Sartain was dead along with the rest of his patrol that was ambushed by Apaches. No one found his body, but plenty of them boys in the patrol had been cut up beyond recognition by the squaws. We figured that’s what happened to the Johnny Reb here. Well, since we was just drunk enough, we thought we’d ride out and check if it really was him livin’ out there. We thought we’d give him a hand back to Bowie if he needed it.” He added that last with sarcasm.

  “Ain’t that sweet?” Sartain said, giving an acid grin beneath his sand-colored Stetson’s broad brim.

  “When we got there, that old man and the girl clammed up when we asked about Sartain. We got the impression he’d been there, after all, but he maybe didn’t want no one knowin’ about it. Like maybe he’d fallen for that purty little blond-headed belle who filled out that tight blouse of hers right well and decided to desert.”

  In truth, Sartain had intended to rejoin his regiment at Fort Bowie, but only after he’d repaid the old man and the girl for nursing him back to health. He’d been gone from the fort for three months. He hadn’t thought an extra week or two would make any difference.

  He’d had only eight months of service left before he’d have been a free man. He’d asked Jewel to marry him once he mustered out. He figured they could wait that long. Neither one had known she was pregnant.

  Until then, he’d visit Jewel every furlough he was granted. Sartain had intended to help the old man out in his mine, once he and Jewel were married. A veteran of the War Between the States, he’d grown fond of the peace he’d found down there amongst those desert rocks and cactus, the shy, beautiful Jewel, and her strange but accommodating grandfather.

  “Hell,” Scrum said. “I’d have deserted for her, too. She sure could wear a shirt and a pair of jeans...”

  Sartain said, “You and the rest of your blue-coated pards raped her, shot the old man in the belly, and ransacked their camp.” He hadn’t known that Jewel had been pregnant until he’d found her body lying with the child she’d miscarried when the brutes had so viciously savaged her.

  She must have known, but she hadn’t told Sartain. She’d probably been reluctant, wondering how he’d react to the news.

  His head was fairly exploding as he stood here facing Jewel’s last living rapist and killer.

  “In or out, boys?” he bellowed. “You got two seconds to make up your minds before I draw and fire. I’ll even tell you who I’m starting with.” His eyes were boring holes into the rat-faced Scrum, who suddenly didn’t look nearly as confident as he had only a few minutes ago. “I’m starting with your friend Chet Starr. And then it’s you, you, you, and you, ’cause I’d bet the seed bull you’re the slowest.”

  The four stared at him wide-eyed. They cut quick looks at each other.

  Scrum glared back at him, saying, “We’re all in this together, boys! Now, don’t go gettin’ nervy on me. This man put the word out he was huntin’ me. We’re just turnin’ the tables is all.”

  “Goddammit,” said the kid, waving his hands dismissively before him. “I want no part of defendin’ a killer of women and old men. Uh-uh. No, sir.”

  He swung around and headed for the door. “You fellas with me? Let that pervert shoot it out with the Revenger by himself.”

  “Goddammit, Kenny—get your ass back here!”

  “No, sir!”

  Kenny moved out onto the stoop.

  The other three shared bolstering glances and then headed in the same direction as Kenny. “Forget it, Chet... er... Scrum!”

  “You chicken-livered cowards!”

  Scrum was crouched, hands dangling above his pistols. His eyes were so wide they appeared ready to pop out of his head. To Sartain, he said, “How in the hell did you find out I was alive, anyways?”

  “I saw a ‘Wanted’ circular on you, Scrum. I’d recognize your ugly face anywhere. Of course, the dodger only named your alias. Wanted for train and stagecoach robbery as well as cattle rustling and selling whiskey to the Apaches at San Carlos. My, you’ve been busy. Not sure how you managed to survive all the lead I pumped into you, but obviously you did. You must be part cat.”

  “Bisbee had a damn good doctor. A young fella from back east who enjoyed a challenge. He dug all the lead out of me and was pretty surprised that none of it had hit no parts I couldn’t live without. I was laid up close to a year, but I’m just fine now. And you know what else, Sartain?”

  “What’s that, Scrum?”

  “I had me a feelin’ you’d come huntin’ me again someday. So I got sharp with these here pistols. Hell, I practice my speed draw every chance I get.” Scrum grinned shrewdly, shook his head slowly. “I don’t need them yellow-livered pards of mine. I can take you myself!”

  With that last word, he dropped both hands to his Colts.

  He hadn’t been whistling Dixie. He had become faster than Sartain remembered. Still, a rare hatred compelled Sartain to pull his big LeMat a tenth of a second faster.

  Just as Scrum had gotten both his Colts out and up, Sartain’s big popper roared.

  Scrum triggered both his own guns wild and went howling back against the bar. Sartain fired again and meant to continue firing, but the woman screamed from the stairs, “Sartain—the door!”

  He turned to see one of Scrum’s partners standing on the stoop, aiming a pistol at him. Sartain wheeled just as the bushwhacker fired his Remington, the bullet burning a thin line across the Revenger’s left cheek and thumping into the wall by the stairs.

  Sartain fired twice and glimpsed the second shooter flying backward off the stoop and into the yard.

  Sensing trouble from behind, Sartain hurled himself over a table to his left. As he hit the floor, two more guns roared, and the kid, Kenny, shouted, “Whoopeee—burn him down, Ed. Burn him down! There’s a bounty on his head!”

  The guns roared several more times as Sartain rolled, avoiding the bullets by inches before pulling a table down and using it for a shield. Another bullet plunked into it. It didn’t go through, but the rounded tip of the bullet smiled through the splintered wood at Sartain.

  The Cajun raised his head above the table. The kid and one of the others were thrusting their six-shooters through the open window to Sartain’s left. Another was aiming through the window to his right. Sartain pulled his head down as the three guns flashed and roared once more. Two bullets hammered into the table without going through, the third one clipping an edge.

  With an enraged roar, Sartain threw the table aside and rose, flinging a shot toward the man on the right, who gave a yowl and ducked down beneath the window. Sartain flicked the lever to engage the LeMat’s shotgun barrel and hurled a fist-sized round of double-aught buck toward the window on his left.

  The lead pellets peppered both faces; the kid’s several inches lower than Ed’s. The kid’s right eye turned to jelly.

  Both men stumbled backward, the kid screaming shrilly and falling. Ed dropped his gun and slapped his hands to his face as though he’d been attacked by angry hornets.

  All three men had dropped out of sight, though Sartain could hear them stumbling around outside, cursing and howling.

  The Revenger ran to the window on his left. Just beyond it, the kid was down on both knees, screaming, blood dripping from his ruined eye. Ed was stumbling around farther away from the window than Kenny. He was cussing, blood oozing from the many little holes in his face. He pulled the Schofield .44 he wore in a holster over his belly.

  Sartain shot him with the last .44 round in his LeMat, and then, holstering the LeMat and pulling the pearl-gripped, over-and-under derringer he wore in a sma
ll pocket inside his pinto vest, he ducked through the window and into the yard.

  Kenny screamed. “You ruined my eye! You ruined my eye!”

  Sartain kicked the kid onto his back. “Why you backshootin’ little devil,” Sartain said. “I’m gonna ruin more than that!”

  He shot the kid through the middle of his forehead, instantly silencing the kid’s infernal caterwauling.

  Glancing to his right, he saw the third bushwhacker who’d been firing through the other window. He lay flat on his back, legs straight out, hands raised to his throat from which a small fountain of blood issued.

  The fast-dying man quivered and jerked as though he’d been struck by lightning.

  Sartain ran his right shirtsleeve across his forehead and looked into the saloon from the window the kid and Ed had been shooting through. He frowned, stepped closer, cast his gaze carefully around the room. He was looking for Scrum. The man’s body was not lying where it should have been—in front of the bar.

  Sartain stepped back through the window and strode toward the bar, continuing to swing his head from right to left and back again, looking around. A small pool of blood lay on the floor at the base of the bar. Part of it was smeared. The smear stretched, thinning at its far end, toward the door.

  Sartain’s belly soured when he saw a horse and rider galloping away from the cantina, framed by the empty doorframe. The rider rode low in the saddle as his dun horse with a white-tipped tail galloped off into the distance, a tan dust cloud rising behind them.

  “Hell!”

  Sartain ran through the door, across the stoop, and out into the yard. He squeezed the butt of his empty LeMat in its holster.

  He needed his long gun!

  He ran back into the cantina and swept his Henry repeater off the table he’d been sitting at. As he started to swing back around, something at the back of the room caught his eye.

  The woman sat on the first step above the landing, leaning far back and sort of writhing, clamping her left hand to her side, just above her waist. She didn’t say anything, but as she leaned forward over her knees, she squeezed her eyes closed as though in pain.