The Revenger

by Peter Brandvold

  She’d been plucked out one of the settlement’s cabins. A boy ran out of the break between the buildings, screaming, “Mama! Mama!”

  Lazaro waved his free arm and called, “Matthews!”

  The man stopped and looked around before lifting his chin and finding the man on the balcony. He stared in silence for several seconds, the woman continuing to punch and kick him and yell, “Put me down! Put me down this instant!”

  The little boy dropped to his knees, sobbing.

  “Boss, that you?” the man called, showing the white of his teeth between his stretched back lips.

  He was tall and thin, and he wore a buckskin jacket and a black slouch hat.

  Lazaro didn’t respond.

  Sartain said, “Put her down and call all your pals onto the street.”

  Matthews just stared.

  “Tell him to do it,” Sartain said, pressing the Remy’s barrel harder against the back of Lazaro’s head. “If any of your boys takes a shot at me and my friends here, you’re a dead man. I got nothing to lose by shooting you.”

  “Except your life.”

  “I’ll lose that, anyway.”

  “Hey, what the hell’s goin’ on?” Matthews stepped forward and let the woman slide off his shoulder.

  She dropped to the street with a groan then scrambled to her feet, picked up the toddler, and ran back through the gap between buildings.

  “Tell him to round up the others. Get them in the street pronto.”

  “You’ll kill me no matter what I do!”

  The Revenger pressed the pistol even tighter against the outlaw’s head and said with steel in his quiet voice, “You ready? On the count of three, you’ll be dead. One...two...th—”

  Lazaro shouted shrilly, “Get all the amigos on the street pronto! Hurry, dammit, Matthews, or this big gringo is going to juice me!”

  Matthews walked forward, holding his hand on his holstered six-shooter.

  “Call ‘em!” Sartain yelled, pressing the pistol so hard against the outlaw leader’s head that his forehead was nearly pressed against the balcony rail.

  “Call them!” Lazaro shouted. “Damnit, call them now!”

  Matthews stopped walking. “Hey, fellas,” he shouted, “Boss wants us all out on the street!”

  Sartain glanced at young Fieldhouse, standing tensely to his left. He nodded. The young deputy raised his rifle and fired three signal shots into the air. The blasts echoed around between the false-fronted buildings. Somewhere a crow cawed indignantly, as though it had started to believe the ruckus was finally over and was disappointed that it was not.

  The rifle blasts did the trick.

  Men came running and hollering incredulously from every direction around the street. Some came from behind the main street buildings, some stumbling out of the buildings in all manner of dress or undress, holding rifles while awkwardly hitching shell belts around their waists.

  Most of them came out of the two saloons, where they’d either been stealing whiskey and playing cards or raping the doxies or any other girl or woman they’d snatched from the modest hovels on the outskirts of the town.

  As they moved over to where Matthews stood facing the balcony, Matthews pointed, indicating their naked gang leader and the big man holding the pistol taut to the back of his head.

  “You’re going to pay for this, Sartain,” Lazaro said through gritted teeth. The back of his neck was bright red with humiliation.

  “What, them boys never seen your pecker before?” Sartain chuckled caustically. “Ah, come on. You expect me to believe that?”

  Lazaro told him to do something physically impossible to himself.

  “Tell ‘em to saddle up and ride out, or I’m going to kill you,” Sartain told the man before him.

  The various groups of outlaws were loosely converging in the street around Matthews and moving toward the balcony.

  “Saddle up and ride out,” Lazaro ordered. “Or this son of a bitch is going to kill me!”

  Several of the plunderers shouted and drew weapons or raised rifles.

  Lazaro jerked his head up and screamed, “Saddle up and ride out! We’ll settle up with this son of a bitch later! There’ll be no hole big enough for him to crawl into!”

  “We ain’t goin’ nowhere, Boss!” yelled a short, long-haired man. “He shoots you, we’ll shoot him!”

  “Yes, but I’ll be dead, Tomasito, you damn fool. Now, fetch your horses and ride away!”

  “Ride far,” Sartain told them from over the head of their crouched leader. “I see any of you men within five miles of the town in the next twenty-four hours, Lazaro’s a dead man.”

  “You’re gonna kill him, anyway!” shouted another gang member.

  Tightly, Sartain said, “I’m gonna kill him now if you don’t ride out.”

  He studied their angry bearded, or mustached faces. They were murmuring, turning their heads to consult in incredulous tones. Sartain’s heart beat a nervous rhythm against his ribs.

  He knew he was on a powder keg. Whether or not the fuse attached to that keg got lit depended on how much the gang valued and respected Lazaro. If they didn’t really care if he lived or died, then he, too...as well as Mercy and Deputy Fieldhouse...would also be dead. The gang could cut loose on them, shred them as well as Lazaro, and go back to pillaging the town.

  Chapter 13

  Sartain waited, continuing to press his pistol taut against the back of the outlaw leader’s head.

  He could tell by the tense way the gang leader was studying his men, he was pondering the same questions Sartain was.

  How much did the gang value its leader’s life?

  How loyal did they feel to him?

  How much did they need him?

  Finally, one by one, muttering angrily under their breaths, they began turning and drifting off to fetch their horses. As they did, Sartain kept the gun pressed against Lazaro’s head.

  He glanced at Mercy. She was pale, her features rigid, eyes tense. Fieldhouse looked much the same way though of course, it was hard to tell which was causing it—the tension of the moment or his physical infirmities.

  Probably both.

  It took what seemed to Sartain a couple of slow hours for the riders to fetch their still-saddled horses from various places around the town, though it was probably more like fifteen or twenty minutes. Before leaving, they each cast one last angry, frustrated glance toward the saloon’s balcony then galloped off, cursing.

  They all headed in the same direction—east. Far off in the distance stretched a fringe of autumn brown trees tracing a creek’s course. They wouldn’t ride far, of course. And of course, they’d be back. But by then Sartain hoped to have another plan in motion.

  He’d considered trying to disarm them before they’d left, but that would probably have been pushing them too far. By ordering them to toss their pistols and rifles into the street, he’d have probably been touching a lucifer to the fuse on that powder keg.

  Sartain glanced at the sky. Low, dirty gray clouds had rolled in over the town, and a very fine snow was falling. He hadn’t noticed because of the heat of his own tension, but the breeze had gained a sharp, cold edge.

  When the last man had galloped off and the group was a muddy brown shape dwindling across the eastern prairie, The Revenger pulled the pistol back from Lazaro’s head.

  “They’ll be back,” Lazaro threatened, snarling like a wounded bobcat. His lips quivered from the cold air enfolding his pale, pink, naked body.

  “I know.”

  Mercy gave the Cajun a worried look. “So, you’ve bought some time. What’re you going to do with it?”

  “Call in the cavalry, I reckon.”

  All three—Lazaro, Mercy, and Fieldhouse—looked at him skeptically.

  “The telegraph is down,” Lazaro said through a self-satisfied smile.

  “Is it?” Sartain said. “Oh, well, then, I reckon we’d best form one of our own.”

  A man stepped out of the little
, pink fineries shop. He glanced toward the east then ran forward, yelling, “Becky?”

  “She’s up here, she’s all right.” Mercy told the man.

  “Poppa!” the girl yelled. Holding the blanket tight around her shoulders, she scrambled to her feet, sobbing, and ran out of the room and into the hall.

  “Oh, thank God!” The girl’s father came running toward the saloon.

  Sartain told Mercy to head downstairs and keep an eye on the street, making sure the gang wasn’t heading back toward town. He ordered young Fieldhouse to scout around outside, to make sure they’d all actually left. He also told him to fetch every able-bodied man and woman he could find.

  “Tell them to arm themselves with whatever weapon or weapons they have, and to head to the saloon pronto.”

  “You got it, Mike,” said young Fieldhouse, turning toward the door.

  “You okay, Deputy?”

  Fieldhouse turned back around. He looked sallow, but his eyes were sharp. “Fit as a fiddle, Mike.” He offered a dim smile, then followed Mercy into the hall.

  Lazaro had turned to face the Cajun. He looked like a trapped animal, both enraged and afraid. He glanced down at the pistol in The Revenger’s hand.

  The question on his face was plain: What now?

  Sartain grabbed the killer by the back of his neck and threw him violently into the room. The man tripped and fell, cursing.

  “Get downstairs,” Sartain ordered.

  “Let me get dressed! Show a little mercy to an unarmed man!”

  “No mercy, amigo. Only sweet justice. Grab a blanket and move!”

  As Sartain strode into the room, Lazaro glared at him. Seeing the menace in the big Cajun’s eyes, the outlaw grabbed a blanket off the bed, wrapped it around his shoulders, and headed out the door, Sartain close on his heels. Lazaro padded down the stairs, shivering against the chill wind blowing through the broken windows and open doors.

  Becky’s father was holding his sobbing daughter in his arms.

  “Thank God you’re all right,” the man muttered, rocking her gently from side to side. “Thank God...”

  He let his voice trail off when he saw Lazaro step down off the staircase. The shop owner’s eyes sharpened, and his ruddy cheeks darkened above his handlebar mustache. “You devil!” he snarled.

  “You got that right,” Sartain said, shoving Lazaro into a chair in the middle of the room.

  The outlaw crouched down in the blanket, shivering.

  Becky’s father turned to Sartain and pointed at Lazaro. “Kill him! He’s nothing more than vermin! He killed the marshal and half the men in the town, and you see what he did to my daughter!”

  “If we kill him, we might as well kill ourselves, and every other townsman with a heartbeat.”

  “Why?”

  Mercy turned from the broken window on the left side of the front door, where she was keeping watch to the east. “He’s the only reason they left, the only reason they haven’t come back to finish what they started.”

  “He’s the only reason they haven’t come back yet,” Sartain said. “They’ll be back. You can bet the seed bull on—”

  Something moved to his left. It was a trapdoor opening in the floor. It swung up, back, and down with a thundering roar. Sartain had wheeled, cocking his pistol and aiming.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” beseeched the old, gray-haired, gray-mustached geezer rising out of the floor. He wore a dirty foulard tie and black wool vest. Cobwebs clung to him.

  He threw his arms up. “Christ almighty, I thought all the killers had gone!”

  Sartain depressed his Remington’s hammer. “Two left. One’s been defanged. Don’t worry, the other one’s on your side.”

  The old man climbed out of the hole in the floor, huffing and puffing. Two more men roughly his age followed him, one in a three-piece suit also covered with cobwebs, and a stocky gent in a preacher’s collar and glasses. They gazed cautiously at Sartain and frowned curiously at the blanket-wrapped Lazaro shivering in the chair.

  “What the hell were you three doing down there?” the Cajun asked, holstering the hogleg.

  The first man crouched to slam the door back down on the hole. Bam! Dust and cobwebs wafted. He brushed his pants off. “I had that hole dug when the Arapahos were still on the warpath.”

  Sartain gave a crooked smile. “Right convenient, ain’t it?”

  “It sure is!” said the preacher.

  The first man shoved a pudgy hand out to Sartain. “I’m Bill Donleavy. This is my place.” He glanced around, scowling at the bullet holes and broken out windows. “What’s left of it.” He glanced at the stocky man in the three-piece suit to his left. “This is Doc Winter, and that’s Preacher Bradshaw.”

  “Who might you be?” asked the stocky sawbones.

  “He’s the man who bought you a little time,” Mercy remarked in a disgusted tone, from the broken window.

  “Name’s Sartain,” The Revenger said. “That’s Mercy, though she’s short on it, as can be expected, seein’ as how Lazaro and his bunch killed her pa and burned her place. You men might let that be a lesson to you.”

  “Let what be a lesson?” asked the preacher, indignant.

  “No mercy. Instead of cowering down there in the dark, you three should have been outside with the others, confronting the gang head on, though your fellow townsmen didn’t last for crap. I see you all have your trigger fingers.”

  “Hey, now!” objected the sawbones. “We’re old men. When the marshal learned the gang was on its way, he told us to take cover in the cellar. He knew we wouldn’t have been any good against a gang like that. Why they’re all merciless killers. Everyone within two hundred miles knows that!”

  He, like the other two, was glassy-eyed. They had red, alcoholic noses. They’d likely been drinking here in the saloon until they’d gotten word the gang was in sight. Then they’d hightailed it into their hole like rabbits with a coyote on its heels.

  “Do you each have a gun?”

  The three glanced at each other skeptically.

  “Well, hell...I have a scattergun behind the counter, but...”

  “You’d best keep it close. What about you two?”

  “I have a small rifle for shooting the stray cats around my house and barn,” said the preacher.

  The doctor said, “Of course I have a pistol, but I haven’t shot it in—”

  “Fetch ‘em,” Sartain said, shoving the sawbones toward the front door. “Fetch whatever you can find off the dead men in the street. Look for good working rifles. And while you’re out there, you might see to your profession by tending anyone in need. There’s bound to be a few wounded folks still alive if they haven’t bled out by now.”

  “What in God’s name do you have in mind?” asked the preacher in exasperation.

  “Not in God’s mind, Reverend. Opposite direction.”

  Sartain turned to Mercy and grinned.

  When the doctor and the preacher had left the saloon, Bill Donleavy walked around behind the bar and poured himself a stiff drink. He threw it back, smacked his lips, and set the glass back down on the bar, staring in disgust at Lazaro.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Lazaro,” Sartain said.

  “That’s him?”

  “That him, all right.”

  “He don’t look like so much!”

  “He’s nothing,” Sartain said, glancing at the defeated looking killer cowing under his blanket.

  Sartain turned to Becky’s father, who’d gone over to the bar for a drink. Shivering from the cold, Becky had gone home to get dressed.

  “What’s your handle?”

  Becky father said, “Randolph. George Randolph. I own the...”

  “I know you own the little pink store. What I don’t understand is why you did nothing to protect it...or your daughter.”

  Randolph glared at him as he swallowed a sip of his whiskey. “Now, don’t you get started on me. I don’t know my way around a—”
>
  “It looks like you got both triggers fingers, too. Just like the others. And you’re younger than they are. What you must be missing is a spine.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Get over here.”

  “What?”

  “Get over here!”

  Randolph glanced at Donleavy, who shrugged and shook his head.

  The shop owner set his shot glass down and walked warily over to the big Cajun. Sartain had taken two pistols and a rifle off the dead town marshal. One of the killers had his LeMat. He’d get it and his other weapons back from them soon. Compared to the weight and feel of the LeMat, the Remington felt like a toy.

  He thrust one of the Remingtons at Randolph.

  “Oh, so I get one now, too, huh? I see.”

  “No, you don’t see.” Sartain kicked a chair. “Sit down here next to our chilly friend.”

  “I don’t want to be anywhere near that man!”

  “Sit down!”

  Randolph glanced at the barman once more then slacked into the chair.

  Sartain turned to Donleavy. “You got any rope?”

  The barman fished around on the shelves of the back bar, muttering. He tossed a length of rope across the bar. Sartain caught it then crouched to tie Lazaro’s ankles together.

  “You sit right here with that pistol,” he told Randolph. “If any of his gang walks through that door, you shoot him in the head. Do you understand?”

  “Shoot him in the head?”

  “You got it.”

  “I’ve never shot a man in my life!”

  “If you can’t shoot this man, who savaged your daughter and killed a half-dozen men in your town, you might as well shoot yourself, your daughter, and the rest of your family. The whole rest of the town, for that matter. Because by letting this man live, that’s what’d you’d as good as be doing.”

  Randolph winced.

  He looked at Lazaro and then at the gun in his hands.

  Chapter 14

  Abner Fieldhouse crawled slowly through the tall grass along the creek, dragging his hat in his left hand. In his right hand, he held his Bisley revolver.

  He stopped and lifted his head, staring through the bending blond weed tips in which the snow ticked softly. Tendrils of windblown wood smoke touched his nostrils.