The Revenger

by Peter Brandvold

  “You might not have any more nights to practice that lesson,” Lazaro said. “How many other men did Carson send”—he raised his voice in frustration—“and where the hell are they?”

  Sam said, “They probably high-tailed it back to brag to Carson about ambushing Cal and the others, and somehow this dimwit got left behind.”

  Sartain only sighed in defeat.

  Lazaro stared at him. The Mexican outlaw took one step back, looked Sartain up and down slowly. Somehow, the interest appeared to be more than just a sizing up of a foe. It made the Cajun even more uncomfortable than he already was if that was possible.

  Lazaro fingered the light whiskers carpeting his chin. “Hmmm. You’re a big devil, aren’t you? Big men fall hard, you know.”

  “Don’t I know!”

  Lazaro kept his suspicious gaze on him. Sartain could see the smaller man’s eyes flickering around in the starlight, switching his attention from Sartain’s left eye to his right eye as if one eye might betray more than the other eye.

  Finally, he filled his chest with air and let it out, glancing around. “Where’s your horse?”

  “Crap, I reckon your pards here spooked him, and he run off. Damn his hide!”

  Lazaro gave a snort and turned away. “Bring him! Put him on one of the dead riders’ horses.”

  “I think we oughta just shoot the hell out of him, boss,” Sam said, glowering at Sartain.

  Lazaro took his reins back from the beefy gent he’d tossed them to and swung up into the leather. “He’s a Carson rider, all right. Before he dies, I’m going to find out where Ben and his gang are. I know they’re behind us, and madder’n than teased hornets. I’m going to find out where...as soon as we reach the next town up the trail. Tie him to a saddle and bring him.”

  He turned his horse around. “And keep a close eye on him! He’s a big, sneaky devil, that’s what he is!”

  Lazaro rammed spurs to his horse’s flanks and galloped back in the direction from which he’d come, the other riders yanking their mounts around and following him.

  Sam glared at Sartain. Light from the burning ranchstead flickered dark red in his eyes. He was caressing the hammer of his Winchester.

  Sartain said, “Sam, I believe your boss done wants me kept alive. He looks like a tough little fella. I don’t think I’d cross him if I was you...”

  “He said to get you a horse. He didn’t say what condition you had to be in. Just alive. Turn around.”

  “Huh?”

  “Turn around, or I’ll plug you and tell him you was makin’ a run for it.”

  “Ah, crap.” Sartain didn’t have to feign his reluctance to turn around and give the man his back.

  He knew what was coming.

  It came, all right.

  * * *

  Sartain felt as though he were being pounded into the ground with a sledgehammer. He opened his eyes, gritting his teeth against the misery in his head.

  No, he wasn’t being pounded into the ground.

  He was being pounded into the pole of a horse. The horse was a dun with a slightly darker mane that brushed his cheek painfully. The horse had a small, healed bite just left of its mane, directly beneath the Cajun’s open left eye staring down at it.

  The horse was running again. Now Sartain remembered waking before to find himself tied to a saddle. The horse had been walking at that point, and when it started galloping, Sartain had promptly passed out.

  He lifted his head to keep it from bouncing against the pole. He looked around, squinting. They were in open country—the treeless, rolling plains of either western Nebraska or Kansas. It appeared to be midmorning, the light still soft and buttery.

  Still, because of the throbbing goose egg at the back of his head, the light felt as harsh as sandpaper raked across his retinas.

  He shook his head to try and clear it. No doing. He still felt as though a dull railroad spiked were being hammered through his brain plate. Sam had really let him have it with something—probably a rifle stock.

  They must have ridden through the night. Sartain remembered having been semi-consciously aware of the horses stopped briefly, for short breathers, but then were off riding again—walking some but mostly running.

  He was the last rider in the pack of kill-crazy owlhoots. His horse’s bridle reins were tied to the tail of the rider ahead of him, who was Sam, whom Sartain owed a headache.

  Before he blew his head clean off, that was.

  He looked ahead across the sea of galloping riders toward Lazaro riding point. Beyond, a town was taking shape in the brown grass and sage. A town of maybe twenty crude buildings, if that. There appeared a short business section with the usual false fronts lining the trail.

  Sartain blinked then peered again through slit eyelids as he stared ahead of Lazaro.

  Something lay crossways in the street, at the near edge of the town. Two or three things, Sartain saw now as he drew closer. As he drew even closer, he saw that three wagons had been overturned in the street, where the trail entered the town. Men with rifles—maybe a dozen or more—were hunkered down behind the wagons, wielding rifles.

  Somehow, probably over the telegraph, the townsfolk had gotten word that Lazaro’s gang was en route. A dozen or so hardy townsmen were going to try to stop them.

  “Good luck,” the Cajun muttered.

  Suddenly, one of the rawhiders raised a loud, menacing howl above the thunder of the galloping hooves. It was Lazaro himself riding at the head of the pack and now lifting a revolver and aiming straight out ahead of him, over his horse’s ears.

  The pistol smoked then and a half-second later Sartain heard the pop.

  Then the others opened up, as well, howling like Comanches bearing down on an immigrant pack train. The shooting crackled like thunder. It was so loud that The Revenger felt as though someone was slapping his ears.

  As far as he could tell from the single smoke puff billowing up from behind one of the overturned wagons, only one of the men there—he appeared to be wearing a lawman’s badge—triggered a shot at the oncoming marauders.

  Then the other hardy townsmen scattered like mice from a tomcat, casting wide-eyed looks over their shoulders. Bullets punched through a couple of men, who fell, screaming. The lawman turned to regale his failed posse, glanced back at the gang that was within only a few yards of him now, then shouted something unintelligible beneath the din of the shooting and thundering hooves.

  He turned to run himself, heading for a boardwalk on the left side of the street. He was old, fat, and slow. He didn’t make it. Sartain saw dust puff from the back of his soiled wool vest. The bullet punched him violently forward. He flung his rifle away and fell over the edge of the boardwalk where he sprawled, dying.

  Ahead of Sartain, the gang rose like an ocean wave as the horses leaped the wagons. Then Sartain’s own horse was leaping a wagon. When the horse’s front hooves hit the ground once more, the Cajun cursed against the increased misery in his battered head.

  The rider ahead of him stopped his horse. Sartain’s horse ran up beside him, and when the reins jerked taut, it stopped, too, lowering its head and blowing.

  Sartain looked around in exasperation as the outlaws fanned out, howling and shooting at windows and the few townsmen still sprinting toward boardwalks and storefronts, trying to escape the onslaught. A couple were blown, screaming, through plate glass windows. Inside the wood frame or adobe buildings to each side of Sartain, frightened villagers bellowed as bullets hammered through windows and doors.

  To The Revenger’s right, Lazaro was bellowing orders. He was like a general on the field of battle, only none of the townsfolk were fighting back. There was no battle. This was merely unabashed pillaging.

  Sartain crouched as the outlaws’ bullets curled the air around him. The smoke grew heavy, stinging his eyes. Sam had tied his and Sartain’s horse to a hitch rack fronting a barbershop. And both horses jerked and fought the reins with each pistol blast.

  Finally, the
shooting stopped.

  The outlaws were scattered up and down the street, kicking in doors of saloons and brothels. They were still howling like coyotes. Lazaro waved several men toward the bank, which had a CLOSED sign in the window.

  Then he strode over to the YOUNG LADIES’ FINERIES shop, a little pink building with gingerbread trim sitting beside the bank. Its feminine decor was in stark contrast to the bank’s nearly barrack-like featureless fieldstone.

  A CLOSED sign shone in the little shop’s door, which Lazaro stepped up to, grinning. He swung his right foot back and forward, savagely kicking in the door and breaking the glass out of the top panel.

  A woman’s shrill, horrified scream rose, churning more bile in The Revenger’s belly.

  Chapter 12

  To his deep-burning frustration, all The Revenger could do was sit tied to his saddle, helpless, and watch Lazaro pull a blond girl of maybe seventeen out of the FINERIES shop by her wrist, jerking her roughly along behind him.

  A middle-aged man with black pomaded hair and a waxed mustache ran out the shop’s door, shouting, “That’s my daughter! Unhand her, you brigand!”

  Lazaro stopped, turned, and swept up his silver-chased pistol.

  The man pulled his head back inside the shop just in time to avoid being blasted into the next world by the four shots Lazaro triggered straight out from his right shoulder.

  “Daddy!” the girl screamed as the bullets whipped through the open door or tore gouts from the frame.

  The girl wore a low-cut powder blue taffeta gown. Her pert bosom bounced, and the ribbons in her hair billowed out behind her as Lazaro continued jerking her along the street and then across it to the WOLF’S HOWL SALOON & HOTEL on the far corner of the next block.

  As the girl pleaded and tried to pry her wrist free of his hand, the outlaw leader threw his head back, laughing.

  Sartain said under his breath, scowling after the killer, “You bastard. One way or another, you’re gonna die, Lazaro.”

  The outlaw dragged the screaming girl onto the saloon’s high front porch then, tired of the screaming, swung around and slapped her hard across the right cheek. She sagged backward. Lazaro laughed again as he grabbed her around the waist and swung her over his left shoulder.

  She groaned.

  “Nice trophy, you got there, boss!” shouted a gang member trotting past the saloon on his high-stepping, wild-eyed claybank.

  “Make sure that bank vault is clean as a whistle, Cortez,” Lazaro said. “Then you men are free to find trophies of your own. I like it here. I think we’ll stay the night!”

  The outlaw carried his half-conscious trophy through the batwing doors. The place was empty but the half-filled bottles and glasses and strewn playing cards on several tables. A cigar smoldering in an ashtray told him it had been recently vacated. He chuckled, crossed the saloon with the bar to his right, mounted the broad stairs to the second story, and stopped at a door on the right side of the hall.

  He tipped his head to the door. Inside, someone gasped.

  Lazaro stepped back, then kicked the door open. As it slammed back against the wall to his left, he stepped inside and tossed the blonde onto the room’s single, brass-framed bed. A figure moved behind him. He swung around to see a sobbing girl in a corset, pantaloons, and housecoat, dash out of the room and run down the hall.

  “Yes, get out of here, puta bitch!” the outlaw yelled. “There is a respectable girl here!”

  Lazaro turned to his prize. She moaned and swung her head from side to side atop the pillow. Her chest rose and fell heavily.

  “Ah, such a sweet thing,” the outlaw leader said, fingering his chin whiskers.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over the girl.

  “If you please me, I will let you live, señorita.” Lazaro closed his hand over her chin and shook her head. “Huh? You understand? You please me, and I let you live. You don’t please me, and you die. Okay? You understand?”

  The girl opened her eyes and stared at the man in terror.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” she sobbed. “Please don’t hurt me!”

  “Oh, I’m not going to hurt you. Me?” Lazaro chuckled. “No, never!”

  Then he proceeded to rip her gown off. When that was gone, he ripped off every stitch of the girl’s underwear until she lay before him naked, crying, and trying in vain to cover herself.

  Lazaro rose from the bed. Staring down at the girl writhing around on the bed and bawling, he took his time removing his gear and undressing. He doffed his hat last and hung it on a peg by the door. He swung around naked to the girl, who looked at him, and screamed. She tried to crawl off the bed, but the outlaw grabbed her left ankle and pulled her back into the middle of it.

  He slapped her again to quiet her down, then spread her legs and mounted her.

  Lazaro stopped. He looked up, frowning.

  Something very hard and cold was pressed against the back of his head.

  “Roll off of her,” said Sartain, clicking the hammer of his pistol back.

  It was the pistol that Mercy had given him when she’s slipped out of the break between a harness shop and grocery store. While the other outlaws on the street were more distracted by pillaging and plundering the shops and foraging around for women in hiding, she’d cut the Cajun free of his saddle.

  Deputy Abner Fieldhouse had covered them both with his rifle.

  The two had followed the gang as well as Sartain from the ridge where they’d captured him.

  Now The Revenger gritted his teeth and pressed the Remington’s barrel harder against the back of Lazaro’s head. “I said, you depraved son of a bitch, roll off of her or I’ll blow your ugly head off.”

  The girl stared at him from over Lazaro’s left shoulder.

  The outlaw himself glanced over his right shoulder at Sartain.

  He smiled crookedly. “Señor Sonnet?”

  The Cajun’s voice was razor-edged. “Sartain. Mike Sartain. And if you don’t roll off her in the next second, you’re gonna know why some folks call me The Revenger.”

  Lazaro’s lower jaw sagged. He rolled off the girl and raised his hands above his head. “Ah, The Revenger...sí.” He stared up at the Cajun, a pensive expression on his face. “I guess I should have killed you when I had the chance, eh?”

  “Yep.”

  The blonde scrambled off the far side of the bed and dropped to the floor, her back against the far wall. She raised her bare knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Mercy grabbed an afghan from over the back of a chair, knelt beside the horrified girl, and wrapped the afghan around her, covering her completely.

  She sat with the girl, holding her as she sobbed and quivered in Mercy’s arms.

  “Now what are you going to do?” Lazaro queried, wrinkling his nose in challenge. “Kill me? You know that nearly fifty men are out there.”

  He glanced toward the partly open balcony door beside the bed and through which came the din of thudding hooves, victoriously whooping outlaws, and sporadic pistol fire. An occasional woman’s scream cut through it all.

  Lazaro said, “They’ll blast you to hell if you kill me. You won’t have a chance.”

  “We’ll see.” Sartain rose and waved the pistol. “Get up.”

  Lazaro dropped his bare feet to the floor. “Do you mind if I get dressed? I feel a little exposed.”

  “So, did she,” Sartain said, glancing at the girl sitting on the floor beside Mercy.

  Abner Fieldhouse stepped into the room behind Sartain. He held his Colt’s revolving rifle in both hands. Abner’s face was drawn and pale, his features set in hard, cold lines. He stared down at the outlaw sitting on the bed.

  He turned the rifle toward Lazaro and clicked the hammer back.

  “I’m gonna kill you slow for what you done to Ellen.”

  Lazaro looked at Sartain, scowling. “Who is this madman?”

  “He’s the deputy town marshal of Shallow Ford, and he’s gonna kill you slow...if y
ou don’t get off the bed and walk onto the balcony.”

  “Let me kill him, Mr. Sartain,” Abner urged, keeping his voice taut and low. “I got a powerful need to kill him.”

  “Not before I get my shot at him,” Mercy snarled from the floor. “He murdered my father, burned my home....”

  Lazaro looked at her, frowning curiously. “Have we met, señorita? I swear, you look vaguely familiar.”

  Mercy started to lunge to her feet but sank back down to her butt when Sartain said, “Hold on, hold on, you two! I told you how this was gonna play out. Now, let’s let it play out. You’ll both get your turns at him. I promise you that. Believe me, I know how much you need it. But in due time.”

  Mercy just stared at Lazaro.

  Abner swallowed as he gazed coldly down at the gang leader. Then he glanced at Sartain and nodded.

  Sartain stepped back, aiming the Remington at the outlaw leader’s head. “Move!”

  Lazaro rose and turned toward the door. “Where am I going? Out there? I’m naked!”

  Sartain gave the man a shove. Lazaro glared back at him, then turned to the door. Reluctantly, he opened it. Sartain shoved him out onto the narrow balcony, ramming his belly up taut to the wrought iron rail, and pressed the pistol to the back of his neck.

  Abner Fieldhouse came out to stand to Sartain’s left. Mercy came out to stand to his right, both wielding Winchesters.

  “Get someone’s attention,” The Revenger snarled at the back of Lazaro’s head.

  Holding one hand over his privates, Lazaro turned his head from right to left. The street was almost entirely deserted now, except for several dead townsmen including the town marshal.

  A whoop rose, echoing. Then a gang member walked out from between the bank and the YOUNG LADIES’ FINERIES shop, carrying a woman clad in a gingham housedress over his shoulder. She was kicking and punching him, her brown hair falling out of its bun.