The Revenger

by Peter Brandvold

  “Looks like you’re already headed that way, Pat.”

  Garrett smiled wider. “Been out shootin’ Mescins. Cattle-rustlin’ bean eaters hazin’ our good Lincoln county beef down along the Pecos and across the border into Mexico. Shot the last one just this mornin’. I reckon you could say I’m celebratin’ before I head on home to White Rocks and the missus.”

  “I understand.” Sartain raised his shot glass. “Cheers.”

  He downed half the shot.

  Pat threw back the whiskey he’d been drinking and picked up his beer. He belched. “What brings you to this boil on the devil’s ass?”

  “I shot a friend of your Deputy Chance’s.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Old Morgan Bentley.”

  “Now what did ole Morgan Bentley do to climb the hump of a man like you, Mike?”

  “Took pot shots at me. Thought I was a mountain lion, according to Chance.”

  “How bad?”

  Sartain turned his head toward the far side of the street. “That purty sawbones is tendin’ him. I hope he makes it. I don’t like shooting old men. Even old men who were shooting at me. Old men, women, and children.”

  “If anyone can pull him through, Senorita La Corte can. She ain’t much on personality, but she learned from the best—her pa, Ramon. He was university educated in Mexico City.”

  Sartain glanced around. The barman stood on the far side of the bar, smoking leisurely and staring across the narrow room and out a front window with a philosophical air. The parlor girl was filing a nail.

  Sartain turned to Garrett. “Let’s get us a table, Pat. I’d like a private palaver.”

  “Oh, Hell,” Garrett said, feigning a gravely serious air. “Well, then, I reckon you’d best give us a bottle, Hector. How ’bout some of that pulque you’re so almighty famous for?”

  “Okay, but please, Sheriff,” Hector said, setting a clear bottle containing a milky substance onto the bar, “only one, huh? I don’t want you getting drunk on the pulque and shooting the good men of Gold Dust and stealing their women. It is unseemly for a man of your stature—and I am not talking merely height, senor!”

  Hector blew smoke out his nostrils, chuckling. He was missing two front teeth.

  Sartain knew Garrett’s reputation for having shot several men over women, though that had been some years ago before he’d become sheriff of Lincoln County. Pat was still the rowdy sort, however, and his flinty eyes still sparked with a coltish gleam that Sartain remembered from their spirited Texas days.

  “Ah, Hell, Hec,” Garrett said, now feigning injury as he wrapped a long-fingered hand around the neck of the bottle and began staggering toward a table. “You always take the fun out of things.” He glanced at the whore and stopped. “Oh, there you are, Magdalena. I was wondering where you were.”

  She smiled coquettishly. “I’ve been down here waiting for you to notice me, Juan Largo. You know I am a shy puta.”

  Garrett said, “Maggie this is a friend of mine, Mike Sartain. Mike, Maggie.”

  “My, my,” Sartain said and whistled. “You weren’t exaggeratin’, Pat!”

  Garrett clucked. “Hell, now I’m probably gonna be late gettin’ home and end up sleepin’ on the parlor floor again.”

  “Ah, but a small price to pay!” Hector said from behind the bar and chuckled again.

  Chapter 10

  “All right—what’s so powerful important, Mike?” Garrett said when they’d both slacked into chairs around a small, square table at the other end of the room from the whore and the barman. There were only six tables. The head of a large mule deer buck stared down at the men from a beam over the bar.

  Sartain splashed pulque into his shot glass and swirled it. “What can you tell me about your deputy, Chance?”

  “What can I tell you? Well, he’s got a right pretty wife.” Garrett grinned.

  “He does at that.” Sartain glanced away as he sipped his pulque.

  It tasted a little like very thin grapefruit and coconut laced with sour mash. It went instantly to his head, filing down several of the day’s edges at once, though he wasn’t sure that was such a good thing. He wasn’t in the celebratory mood Garrett was.

  “Do you think he’s a killer, Pat?” he continued. “I mean—do you think he has it in him to kill in cold blood?”

  Garrett frowned. “Now, Mike—you’re gonna have to chew that up a little finer for me and spit it out slow. The man’s a deputy sheriff of mine. Why would I pin a badge on a killer’s vest?” He paused. “Come on, Mike. If you’ve met the man, you know him. That’s the way Chance is. What you see is who he is, and you see it all in your first five minutes with the man. Now, look; I’ve heard the rumors goin’ around about his wife thinkin’ he maybe killed his boys. But, Mike, you gotta understand. The woman’s—well, her boys are all dead. One after another in terrible accidents. She’s come unhinged, poor woman.”

  Garrett glowered and sat back in his chair. His heavy, dark-brown brows were beetled over his steely gaze. “Ah, Hell. Is that why you’re here? Did Maggie Chance call for you?”

  “All right—enough about Chance,” Sartain said, wanting to change the subject and taking another sip of the Taos Lightning. “You know a rat-faced harelip named Scrum Wallace?”

  Garrett’s eyes brightened. “Yeah.”

  Sartain waited, staring flatly, expectantly at his old friend. It was obvious that Pat had something on his mind about Scrum Wallace.

  “He’s over at the Occidental,” Garrett said, jerking his head toward the saloon of topic. “Holed up with a bullet wound. Or did Lyle say wounds...?”

  Sartain arched a skeptical brow. “Lyle?”

  “The town marshal here in Gold Dust. Lyle Leach. Scrum’s an old friend of Lyle’s, see, and when Scrum rode into town bleeding like a side of fresh beef, Lyle tucked him into the back room of the Occidental. That’s a little outlaw hole in the wall here in Gold Dust.”

  Garrett was grinning, and he kept grinning across the table at Sartain as he took a drag from his quirley and blew it over the Revenger’s head. “I got that secondhand from a liveryman, you understand, so I can’t personally vouch for its veracity, but the liveryman’s been a good pair of eyes and ears for me in this neck of the county, and I trust him a whole lot more than I do Lyle.”

  “Hell.”

  “It’s your lead rattling around in Scrum, I assume?”

  “Pat, you’re taking far too much delight in my travails.”

  “An old habit. Hearin’ about other folks’ burdens makes mine seem lighter somehow.”

  “What burdens are currently bowin’ those wide shoulders of yours, Big Casino?”

  “Lincoln’s a big damn county, and I’m currently on the trail of three different groups of owl hoots, one lead by Little Casino himself, and I am way under-manned as well as pressured both ways by the rich cattleman who are done tired of havin’ their cattle sold across the border in Mexico, and the Mexicans in these here parts who think that bucktoothed tyke is the second comin’ of Jesucristo his own self. Don’t let’s even start with ole Governor Wallace.”

  “So Billy Bonney’s nippin’ at your short hairs?”

  “Yup. Keeps me on my toes, I’ll give the Kid that. When he ain’t screwin’ senoritas, he’s rustling cattle and shootin’ folks. Busted out of jail up in Sumner couple weeks back, and I’m tryin’ to break his trail and run a ranch over at White Rocks at the same time.”

  “When you’re not sparkin’ the ladies here in Gold Dust.” It was Sartain’s turn to grin. He glanced at the whore, who was leaning forward to pick at a toenail, her comely wares threatening to spill out of their scant confines.

  “Relieves stress.” Frowning, Garrett looked at Sartain askance. “What’s Scrum Wallace done to climb the notorious Revenger’s hump?”

  “He was one o’ them soldiers that killed Jewel and her grandpap. Somehow, I didn’t kill him. Thought I did, but when I ran across his likeness on a “Wanted” dodg
er in Mesilla, it got clear as April rain he was still kickin’. Shot him again up in Sumner day before last. Wouldn’t you know the bastard got away again?”

  “The truly bad are hard to kill. Take Billy Bonney, for instance.” Garrett gave Sartain a devilish look. “What’re you gonna do about Scrum?”

  Sartain hiked a shoulder, as though it were a foolish question. “Finish him.”

  “Well, good luck,” the Lincoln County sheriff said, skidding his chair away from the table and tossing back the last of the pulque. “He’s got Lyle Leach sidin’ him.”

  Sartain was incredulous. “The town marshal’s sidin’ Scrum Wallace?”

  “I think they’re cousins. Scrum’s got quite a few kin around here, not to mention owlhoot friends. Lyle’s as rotten as the rest, lookin’ the other way when sundry nefarious deeds are done around Gold Dust. Go ahead. Kill him for me. He’s been a thorn in my side ever since I was elected sheriff. Every time I come to town I feel like the loco bastard’s drawin’ a bead between my shoulder blades.”

  “In that case, I look forward to doing your dirty work for you, Pat.”

  “Tread lightly, Mike. Scrum’s got more than just Lyle sidin’ him. I wouldn’t doubt it if, knowin’ you’re in town, he doesn’t have half a dozen or more cold-steel artists over there right now, filin’ down their firing pins.”

  Sartain studied Garrett dubiously. “I’ll be hanged, Pat, if you’re not just thrilled over this.”

  “It’s always fun to see you shoot, Mike. I’ve seen it once or twice, and it’s a picture. You got killin’ down to a fine art. I’d just as soon you did it here as anywhere. Cull the bad herd that’s been grazin’ in my fair county. I got enough on my plate with Billy Bonney and friends.”

  Garrett set his hat carefully on his head and ran the first two fingers of both hands around the brim, adjusting the angle. “I hope we meet up again in more peaceful times for a night of buckin’ the tiger. But if it’s your grave adorning our humble Boot Hill, I’ll lay some wild daisies on ya.”

  “Why, thank you, Sheriff.”

  “What are friends for, Mike?” Garrett winked, then strode over to the doxie. He tipped her chin up and kissed her on the lips. He slid his hand up her naked thigh, waggled his fingers. “I’ll see ya again, Maggie.”

  “You don’t want to make love this afternoon, Pat?”

  “What I want and what I got time for is two different things, darlin’.”

  He kissed her once more, straightened, and regarded Sartain again, this time skeptically. “You can shoot Lyle and Scrum Wallace and their friends all you want, Mike. But you leave my deputy alone, hear?” His eyes twinkled as he quirked a grin. “He’s the best tax collector on my payroll.”

  Garrett waved, ducked out through the batwings, mounted his horse, and galloped away.

  A minute later, the beautiful sawbones, Senorita La Corte, strode into the saloon, looking dark.

  Chapter 11

  Sartain said the words before she had a chance to.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Yes,” the pretty medico said tonelessly as she stood by his table. “He’d lost a lot of blood. Several organs were irreparably damaged. There was nothing I could do.”

  She was pressing the tips of three fingers onto the table as she stood scowling at him like a disapproving schoolmistress.

  Sartain looked at his empty glass, refilled it from the bottle. He didn’t say anything. His throat was dry. He felt heavy inside. He felt the vague, nibbling anger that comes when you’re not sure who you’re angry at.

  He threw back half the shot and looked up at Clara La Corte. She still scowled at him, her ivory cheeks mottled red, her dark-brown eyes hard and angry. But now they were narrowing slightly at the corners as she studied him.

  Sartain held her gaze until she backed off a step and folded her arms on her chest. She jerked her chin to indicate behind him, east along the main street. “I’m tending more of your handiwork over at the Occidental.”

  “There’s no point tending a dead man,” Sartain said. “The old man was a mistake. That one over at the Occidental was not.”

  “What’d he do to you?”

  “Enough.” The Revenger felt his eyes burn from that deep, well-tended rage smoldering inside him, fueled by sorrow. He felt, in a way, that every bad man he killed tempered it a little. Just a little. Scrum Wallace would temper it a lot, maybe, though the Revenger knew he could never stop doing what he did. He would die killing for others those who needed killing.

  He leaned back in his chair to dig some coins out of his jeans pocket. He tossed five silver dollars on the table. “That should bury him.”

  “Burial is only three dollars.”

  “Death is cheap in these parts.”

  “Cheap and easy, yes.” She pocketed the coins. “We have two undertakers competing for business, so they keep their prices down.”

  “Consider the rest for his tending.”

  She pocketed the other two coins and started to turn away.

  Sartain, who was getting pleasantly drunk, said, “Drink?” He was intrigued by the regal Spanish beauty, who seemed tightly ensconced in an air of prideful independence. To distract himself from the pain of having killed the old man, he wondered what she would look like without her clothes on.

  She stopped and looked at him over her shoulder, catching his eyes raking the generous mounds of her bosoms. She stared at him as though flabbergasted by the question, as well as repelled by his gaze.

  “No,” she said on the heels of a caustic chuckle and strode out of the saloon and across the street to her office.

  He’d also wanted to probe her about Scrum Wallace—his condition, how many men were guarding him at the Occidental. It didn’t look like he’d get any information about anything from the beautiful medico.

  He waved a fly away from his shot glass and turned his attention to a near, street-facing window. Two horses stood tied before the Occidental—a shabby, two-story wood and adobe watering hole with a brush-roofed front gallery. No one stood on the gallery. In fact, there didn’t appear to be anyone on the main street of this bedraggled little town.

  Word had probably spread quickly that Scrum Wallace was here, wounded. That the man who’d wounded him was here, as well. The townsfolk of Gold Dust, likely accustomed to trouble, probably didn’t want to risk catching a stray bullet or a ricochet.

  Sartain hoped they kept their heads down. He didn’t want more innocents getting beefed.

  Just Scrum and anyone foolish enough to stand between the Revenger and his prey.

  Movement across the street caught Sartain’s eye. A lean man wearing a red shirt and black leather chaps stepped out of the shade of an alley mouth and onto the raised boardwalk fronting Parnham’s Drug Store. He turned toward Sartain and leaned against an awning support post, flanked by a CLOSED sign hanging in a window.

  He used the barrel of the carbine he was holding to nudge his hat brim up off his forehead. He was too far away for Sartain to see him clearly, but the man appeared to smile.

  The batwings behind Sartain creaked.

  The whore screamed.

  The Revenger bolted from his chair, crouching, twisting, and clawing the LeMat from its holster. Flames lapped from the barrel of the gun poking between the batwings.

  The bullet shattered Sartain’s shot glass. The shooter screamed and lurched into the saloon, aiming again at Sartain, who squeezed the trigger of the big LeMat. The shooter fired his pistol wide, screaming and stumbling hastily back against the batwings.

  The Cajun fired again.

  The man standing suspended between the batwings lurched backward once more, the doors swinging into place before him. The Cajun fired a final shot, drilling a round through the right door and into the hip of the man who’d just then turned full around and was staggering, screaming, out into the street. He triggered his pistol into the ground near his right foot and then dropped to his knees.

  “Bastard!” he bellowe
d before pitching forward and sliding his knees up beneath his belly, quivering.

  On the far side of the street, a rifle cracked.

  Having expected it, Sartain was already on the floor, rolling toward the window. The rifle spoke again. Another one thundered, as well, both slugs ripping into the table at which the Cajun and Garrett had sat.

  “No!” the whore screamed. “Stop shooting!”

  “Stay down, darlin’!” Sartain shouted, having glanced over to see that she was cowering beneath her table, poking her fingers in her ears.

  Two more bullets came hurtling through the window over his head. As they slammed into the table, he ran to the window on his right, snaked his LeMat over the sill, drew a quick bead on the gent firing from one knee in front of the drug store, and sent him triggering his carbine into the air before flying backwards, limbs windmilling, through the window bearing the CLOSED sign in a screech of shattering glass.

  The man shooting farther to Sartain’s left sent a bullet slamming into the window frame, just left of the Revenger’s cheek. Sartain aimed at the second man, who was firing from over a rain barrel in an alley mouth between the furniture store and the barbershop. As Sartain planted a bead on him and started to take up the slack in his trigger finger, the man lurched back into the alley, out of sight.

  “Coward,” the Revenger raked out through gritted teeth.

  Chapter 12

  The Revenger looked around. There appeared to be no more shooters.

  He kept searching anyway, with one eye on the batwings. A man stepped out of the Occidental Saloon across the street a block and a half away on Sartain’s right. The Revenger aimed his LeMat, knowing it wouldn’t do him much good from this distance. But he didn’t have his Henry, so he aimed it, anyway.

  The man standing there spread his arms away from his sides, as though to show his guns were still in their holsters. A silver badge glinted on his striped shirt.

  Leach.