The Revenger

by Peter Brandvold

  “Ah, shut up with your bean-eater superstitions,” Hadley snarled. “Get on inside here, Sartain. I promised Dixie I wouldn’t kill you. That’s why you ain’t dead. But you try anything, all bets are off. We’re gonna tie you and Otero up so we can all dine comfortably this evenin’.”

  He glanced at Dewey. “Kid, get that gold over to the barn. Unsaddle these horses and tend ’em. A man’s gotta tend to horses, even the horses of his enemies.”

  He smiled at that and stepped aside, wagging his rifle toward the open doorway. Sartain glanced once more at Dixie, then started forward. When he’d reached the bottom of the gallery steps, Dixie said, “Wait, Mike.”

  Sartain stopped and tensed. He knew what was coming.

  Dixie pressed the barrel of her rifle against his back. “The derringer, too.”

  Sartain sighed and shook his head. He reached into his vest pockets, pulling out the watch and then the derringer. He removed the pearl-gripped hideout pistol from its chain and handed it back to the girl.

  Hadley slapped his thigh, laughing. “You’re damn lucky you’re still alive, Sartain. The only reason you are is because of her. I promised, and I’ll be damned if this old outlaw don’t keep his promises.”

  He shook his head as though it were a severe inner weakness.

  “Go on inside, Mike,” Dixie said, giving him a shove with her rifle.

  Chapter 18

  Sartain stepped through the cabin door, where Celina was making coffee in her steady, methodical way.

  “You all right, sweetheart?” the Cajun asked her.

  She turned her face slightly toward him and feigned a reassuring smile. “I am all right, Mike. I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you.”

  “Ain’t that all just sweet?” said Hadley, moving around Dixie and shoving Sartain farther into the cabin. “Sweetheart, eh? You two musta got to know each other real well. Don’t mind ’em blind, eh, Sartain? Well, maybe later I’ll give her a try myself!”

  Sartain turned to him, bunching his lips and clenching his fists at his sides. Fury burned behind his eyeballs.

  Hadley stood by the table, staring back at him, sizing him up. “You wanna make a play for me, do you?” He leaned his rifle against the wall. “Well, go ahead.”

  Hope lightened The Revenger’s heart. Had he stumbled upon his chance to get him and the Oteros out of this mess?

  If he could hammer the big outlaw unconscious, he might be able to do just that. The man was a little bigger than he was, but he’d kicked the stuffing out of both ends of men bigger than Hadley, who also appeared at least ten years older and weighed down with extra tallow around his middle.

  “Sure,” Sartain said, curling his upper lip and spreading his feet aggressively. “Why the hell not? You wanna take it outside?”

  “Yeah,” Hadley said, nodding slowly. “Yeah, why don’t we just do that?”

  “Get the humps out of your necks, both of you!” Dixie scolded, standing by the door and holding her carbine across her belly. “There’s no point in doing anything to risk losing that gold, Rench.”

  Hadley scowled at her, deep lines cutting across his forehead. “What, you think I can’t take him?”

  Dixie glared at him in frustration. Then she let the muscles in her face relax, knowing that the way you got a man like Rench Hadley to back down was not by challenging him further.

  “Rench...honey,” she said, though “honey” came out a bit like a prune pit, “let’s not make this any more complicated than it needs to be, all right?” She faced him, smiling winningly, a tad sexily. “All we want is the gold.”

  Sartain laughed. “She doesn’t think you can take me, Hadley, and you know what? I think she’s right.”

  Hadley lurched toward him. Dixie stepped in front of the big man, holding her rifle across his chest. “Rench, no! Don’t fall for it, honey. You’re smarter than—”

  She whipped around as Sartain made his move, bulling toward her and Hadley, hoping to get his hands on her rifle. He stopped dead in his tracks as she faced him now, aiming her carbine at his belly and loudly racking a cartridge into the chamber.

  “I’ll do it, Mike. I’ll shoot you.” Dixie shook her head slowly. “I’ve been dirt-poor all my life. Rench has promised me ten thousand dollars, and more if I ride with him. That’s far from what I was hoping for, but it’s enough for me to start another life.”

  “Whorin’ yourself to him, huh?” Again, the Cajun shook his head.

  “Like I said,” Dixie insisted. “I’ve been dirt poor all my life.” She glanced at Hadley. “See what he’s doing? He’s trying to distract us both from our purpose here, Rench.”

  Hadley stretched his lips back from his broad yellow teeth. “Shoot him, sugar. Just go ahead and shoot him. Then we won’t have to worry about him or listen to him no more.”

  Dixie spoke to Hadley while keeping her gaze and her rifle on Sartain. “No, Rench. You promised. No killing. And you leave Celina alone.”

  Hadley glanced at her, lust causing his eyelids to grow heavy. “I will—as long as I got me another option.”

  “You do. That’s what I promised. If you follow through with your promise, I’ll follow through with mine.”

  “All right,” Hadley said. “Let’s stop all this palaver. You tie him and the bean-eater up good and tight.”

  Otero stood beside Sartain. He and Celina had both frozen in fear to watch as the Cajun and the big outlaw had faced off. Now Sartain thought he could hear them both give a collective albeit silent sigh of relief that the storm had blown over.

  As Hadley sat down at the table and told Celina to get back to work, Dixie ordered Sartain and Otero to sit on the floor with their backs to separate ceiling support posts. She didn’t have her rifle now. She’d wisely leaned it against the wall by the door.

  Sartain looked at Hadley. The outlaw sat in a chair at the table, smiling at The Revenger. Reading his mind. The outlaw held his own Henry barrel-up on his knee, flicking his thumb against the hammer.

  His eyes told Sartain that he wanted him to try something. Anything. So he could justify shooting him to Dixie.

  Sartain returned the outlaw’s grin as Dixie ordered him to snake his hands back around the post. Boots thumped on the gallery, and Dewey Dade came in. He started to doff his hat when Hadley growled, “Get out there!”

  “What for?” the kid asked indignantly. “I done took care of the hosses and mule.”

  “Don’t you challenge me, bucko! I said, get out there! Never know who else might be after my...uh, our gold.” Hadley chuckled. “You’ll spend the night on the porch keepin’ watch.”

  Dewey Dade chuffed his consternation and glanced at Dixie, then turned and stepped back out, closing the door behind him.

  * * *

  Silently, Celina made a stew from the elk hanging in the keeper shed. She also made a couple of loaves of bread and set them and a bowl of butter on the table.

  She also made coffee. Hadley added a goodly portion of the busthead he hauled out of his saddlebags to the coffee and stirred it with a spoon.

  Dixie brought a plate out to Dewey Dade. When she came back in, she looked down at Sartain and Otero. “Can I feed them?” she asked Hadley.

  “You’d have to untie ’em.”

  “How ’bout if I untie ’em and hold a rifle on ’em while they eat?”

  Hadley was shoveling the stew into his mouth, mindless of the mess he was leaving in his beard. He eyed her, grinning with half his full mouth. “How bad you want ’em to eat?”

  “Rench, they have to eat.”

  Hadley’s lusty grin broadened. “How bad?”

  Dixie only shook her head in disgust and filled two bowls with Celina’s stew. Hadley chuckled again lustily. Dixie set a slice of the steaming bread on the bowls as well, and she and Celina untied Otero and Sartain. Dixie sat in the rocking chair six feet away from the Cajun’s extended legs, holding her carbine across her thighs as she watched him and Otero down their stew.

 
Sartain ate in frustration despite the succulence of the stew. He had no idea how he was going to get himself and the Oteros out of this whipsaw. At least, he didn’t know yet. He wasn’t going to give up, though. They still had a long night ahead.

  Something told him that was about all the time he and the Oteros had. He had a feeling Rench Hadley was a man accustomed to getting his way. After he’d satisfied his itch with Dixie upstairs tonight, he might not be so amenable to keeping Sartain alive.

  If he killed Sartain, he’d likely go ahead and kill Celina and her father as well to keep them quiet about his presence here, if for no other reason. He might also kill Dixie and Dewey Dade. There were other nights ahead. Other women. He likely wasn’t a man fond of sharing his plunder when he didn’t have to.

  Rench Hadley wasn’t a man who needed many reasons to kill.

  When Sartain and Otero had finished eating, Dixie retied them while Hadley held his rifle on Sartain with the same challenging grin as before. Then Dixie sat at the table across from the silent Celina and ate a bowl of stew.

  Finished with his own meal, Hadley poured more whiskey into his coffee cup, got up from the table, and sat in the rocking chair parked by the fire. He rocked, holding his rifle across his thighs, and gave Sartain the stink eye.

  He did that for a long time, then took a sip of the whiskey, swallowed, and said, “Big man, ain’t ya, Sartain? Big, tough fellow. ‘The Revenger,’ they call you. Yeah, I’ve heard of you.”

  “You have me at a disadvantage then, Rench. I wouldn’t know you from Adam’s off ox. But, then, you never hear too much about the little men workin’ the wrong side of the law. Little men who swipe old schoolmarm’s beaded reticules an’ such.”

  Dixie shot Rench a warning look. “Don’t listen to him, Rench. He’s at it again.” She turned to Sartain. “Shut up, Mike!”

  “Don’t worry, don’t worry, sugar,” Rench said. “He ain’t gonna crawl my hump. He knows who stole that gold out there in the barn.” He chuckled. “Sure as hell wasn’t no hind-tit calf of no penny-ante outlaw. Hah!”

  “It couldn’t have been all that hard,” said Sartain. “I mean, you had enough men. Until you got ’em all killed, that is. Even with all them boys backin’ your play, you sure have had a damned hard time keeping your hands on the loot.”

  Hadley’s cheeks colored above his beard. “Yeah, well, I was double-crossed.”

  “By Chick Beacham? Pshaw! I left him dead just over the next pass. He wasn’t nothin’ to take down. And anyone—”

  “Don’t listen to him, Rench!”

  “And anyone with half the sense God gave him could see the man wasn’t to be trusted.” Sartain chuckled. “You must be new to the business, Hadley. Hell, I think young Dewey Dade out there could have pulled that job off without getting hornswoggled and whipsawed by the likes of Chick Beacham!”

  Dixie got up and strode over to Sartain, glaring down at him. She held her rifle across her thighs. “Mike, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to let him shoot you.”

  Sartain looked up at her, smiling. “He’s not man enough for you, sugar. Can’t you see that? He’s old and stove up. Why, he’s a fool, to boot. He’ll get himself...and you...killed!”

  “Old and stove up, am I?” Hadley said, gaining his feet. “How ’bout if I come over there and kick you to a bloody pulp? Then you’ll see how old and stove up I am.”

  “Please do not do this!” Celina shrieked, covering her ears with her hands. She was standing near the range. Sartain hated scaring her like this, but he saw few other options to try to save her life.

  Miguel Otero sucked air through his teeth and shook his head in consternation.

  Sartain kept prodding the big outlaw, who now stood glaring down at The Revenger, big fists balled at his sides. “You’d kick a man when he’s down and tied? Now, you see there, sugar? You really wanna throw in with a yellow mutt like that? Coward is what he is.”

  “Mike, consarnit!” Dixie swung toward Hadley. “Rench, stop listening to him.”

  “I tell you what, Hadley,” Sartain said. “If you can beat me straight up at arm wrestling—no fisticuffs or any of that nonsense, just a good, harmless arm-wrestling match—I’ll shut up.”

  “Arm-wrestlin’?” Hadley asked with a skeptical cast to his gaze.

  “Yeah. Arm-wrestling. But let’s put a little bet on it.”

  “What kind of bet?”

  “Rench, he’s up to somethin’.”

  “I am up to somethin’. I’ll admit it,” Sartain said. “I’m jealous, Dixie. You and I had us a fine time together back in Hard Winter. I just hate to see you throw in with this stove-up old outlaw for a little gold. I say if I can beat him at arm wrestling, he don’t take you upstairs tonight.”

  “And if you can’t?” Hadley said, while Dixie just stared down at Sartain as though trying to figure his angle.

  “If I can’t, well, then, she’s yours. May the stronger man win her body if not her heart.”

  “If you win, you take her upstairs?” Hadley said.

  “You got it. I don’t care nothin’ about no gold. This is just about you an’ me an’ Dixie. I don’t wanna have to sit down here tonight and hear you two goin’ at it like a coupla horny polecats. Not if there’s somethin’ I can do to stop it.”

  “Rench!”

  “What do you say, Rench? Gonna be a long night. Long, borin’ night. Let’s make it interesting, shall we?”

  Hadley’s cheeks and nose were bright red. The Cajun hadn’t accomplished his first task of getting the man’s blood up. Now, he just had to hope he could beat him at arm-wrestling.

  Hadley turned to Dixie. “Untie him.”

  “Rench, you’re walking right into his trap!”

  “Hell, it ain’t no trap. I’ll beat him fair and square and make him sit down here, tied up, listening to me make you groan like a mare in season!” Hadley laughed and slapped his thigh. “By damn, I think it’s a fine idea.”

  He grabbed his Henry off the table, cocked it, and aimed it at Dixie. “Untie him. Now! Do as I say, or you won’t get a lick of that gold!”

  “Rench, honey,” Dixie said with that ingratiating smile again, “let’s leave him tied up, and you an’ me go upstairs right now. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  Hadley grinned, then slid his hard-eyed gaze to Sartain. “I’d love it a whole lot better after I’ve whipped this tough-talkin’ son of a buck at arm wrestlin’ so he can sit down here and chew his arm off. Hah!”

  He scowled at her, hard-jawed. “Untie him!”

  Chapter 19

  Dixie untied Sartain, telling him, “You try anything, I’m going to shoot you. I promise I will.”

  “Don’t doubt it a bit,” said the Cajun.

  He was beginning to think she would.

  He glanced at Otero. The Mexican was looking up at him through his customary slit eyelids. Celina had rolled and lit a cigarette for him and he puffed it now, smoke billowing around his head where he sat with his back to the ceiling support post.

  Sartain offered him a reassuring smile. Then he turned to Celina, who sat in the rocking chair near the popping fire gazing at Sartain, head canted slightly to one side, frowning as though she were trying to understand all that was going on around her.

  “Get over here,” Hadley said, pounding the oilcloth-covered table. He sat with his back to the range, facing the front of the cabin. “By God, I’m gonna teach you to mind your manners, Sartain, and then I’m gonna take her upstairs and give her the time of her life!”

  “Talk’s cheap,” Dixie muttered.

  Hadley looked at her sharply, then he looked at Sartain and laughed. “By God, I like her. She’s got pluck. I like that in a girl when they’re fun to look at. I think I’m gonna keep her. We’ll have a good ole time of it, her an’ me.”

  Dixie didn’t say anything. She just sank into a chair at the end of the table and held her rifle on Sartain, who slacked into a chair across from Hadley, his back to the door.
r />   The door opened and Dewey Dade poked his head into the cabin, frowning curiously. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Get back out there and keep an eye on that gold!” Hadley roared at him.

  Dewey cussed as he pulled his head back outside and closed the door.

  Hadley rolled up his right shirtsleeve. “For Dixie.”

  “For Dixie,” The Revenger said, rolling up his own sleeve.

  “How flattering you fellas are,” Dixie said dryly.

  Hadley leaned forward, placing his elbow in the middle of the table. Sartain did the same. They locked hands.

  Hadley glanced at Dixie. “Say go.”

  “Just go for chrissakes!”

  Hadley’s hand tightened around Sartain’s, and he began thrusting The Revenger’s paw toward the table. Sartain tensed his arm and grunted, forcing Hadley’s hand back up.

  The man was strong. Sartain could tell that right away. And he had a powerful grip. He didn’t think he was any stronger than Sartain, but he could tell it was going to be a battle. Sartain’s arm had been angled behind his back for the past hour, wrists tightly tied, impeding his blood flow. He hadn’t yet gotten all the feeling back in his hands.

  Nor the strength.

  As he and Hadley bunched their lips and grunted and shifted around in their creaking chairs, Sartain was vaguely aware of Celina standing and moving slowly, tensely, about the kitchen, tending to her post-supper chores. The girl was frightened, and she was trying to busy herself to keep her mind off the chaos and violence around her.

  Otero smoked on the floor, staring dubiously toward the two arm-wrestlers.

  Sartain was hoping to somehow get his hands on a rifle. He couldn’t have done that with both hands tied, but now he had a chance. Somehow, he either had to take advantage of Hadley’s absorption in the match and pull one of the man’s two pistols from the holsters strapped to his waist or lunge for Dixie’s rifle.