The Revenger

by Peter Brandvold

  Sartain looked at Cable Dundee staring out at him from behind the false façade of Hallam’s Feed Store. The man gave his head a sharp, fateful wag, then pulled back behind the sign so that Sartain could only see the end of his rifle barrel and the end of his scarf being tossed around in the wind.

  Sartain eased his weight back against the church roof. He gazed south, blinking against the snow dusting his lashes. He slid his gaze all along the tree line, and occasionally he turned to look behind him as well, for they could come from any direction.

  After an hour, he decided that they were going to make him wait. He rolled a cigarette and settled in for another hour, maybe two more hours. He had to admit that doubt that he’d been right about the gang’s return started to nibble at the edges of his consciousness when three more hours had passed.

  It was mid-morning, and there was still no sign of Lazaro’s bunch.

  Odd, what he was feeling.

  What was that, anyway? Disappointment?

  Maybe his enervation had concealed the fact that he’d very much wanted the gang to attack, despite the fact that he and his small group of partners had little chance against them, and that they would kill not only him, Mercy, Fieldhouse, and the Dundees, but everyone in the town. They’d likely do as they’d promised.

  They’d raped all the women and hang their naked carcasses from trees.

  Then they’d burn the town to the ground.

  Now with the possibility that Lazaro might actually be good for his word, The Revenger was feeling the bleakness of disappointment.

  Odd, he thought, exhaling smoke from one of his countless cigarettes.

  He should maybe look at that aspect of himself sometime.

  Had his vengeance zeal driven him mad?

  On the other hand, maybe he shouldn’t.

  Scrubbing such troubling abstractions from his mind, he turned to glance into the street, around the church steeple. Over the past several hours, several townsfolk had appeared, heading for the shops, but Sartain or one of his other fellow sentinels had waved them off. Word must have spread that the main street was off limits because it had been over an hour now that no one else had appeared.

  The weather hadn’t changed. It was still cold, gray, and snowy, the breeze moaning under roof eaves. That and the occasional squawk of a shingle chain were the only sounds.

  Sartain checked his old Waterbury. Almost noon.

  He snapped the timepiece closed and cursed.

  There it was again—the bleakness of disappointment. Not only for himself, but for Mercy and young Abner, as well. Their lives would not be complete without revenge, even if they had only a few minutes or seconds to savor the feeling.

  One second of properly exacted revenge was a feeling unto itself, like no other.

  If only it could bring back a loved one from the dead. In a perfect universe, of course, it could.

  A soft whistle sounded to his left. He turned to see Cable staring at him from the building across the street. The man gave a slight wave of his hand and jerked his head to the south before pulling it back behind the façade. Sartain turned in the direction indicated.

  His heart thudded against the shingles beneath him.

  He pulled his head down, doffed his hat.

  A shadowy formation of riders was moving out of the trees, gradually taking shape against the dinginess of the day. It was a jouncing, gray smudge from this distance, but the group was growing larger as it pulled out away from the woods.

  “Yes,” Sartain heard himself say almost gleefully as he pressed his chin against the shingles, peering over the very edge of the peak. “Yeah.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. Abner was in the same position he’d maintained all morning, snugged down as Sartain was now, his eyes just visible above the peak of the tonsorial parlor roof.

  His eyes were dark coals in the unnatural paleness of his face. He didn’t move. Sartain was beginning to think the young deputy might have expired. Then, as though reading the Cajun’s mind, Abner raised his rifle slightly, signaling that he was not only alive but that he’d seen the riders.

  That was all he moved, just the rifle.

  Sartain turned back to the south. The gang had stopped about a hundred and fifty yards from the town.

  Sartain frowned, curious. Why had they stopped? They milled around for a short time. Then the single group separated into two groups.

  The second group went galloping off to the north, to Sartain’s right, while the first group held its position the same distance from town, the riders facing in the town’s direction, waiting. The second group galloped hell for leather, the riders crouching low and batting their heels against the horses’ flanks.

  They appeared to be following the curve of the autumn-naked copse to the northeast. Sartain turned his head slowly, following the second group as it raced off over his right shoulder, circling the town from a hundred yards away, heading straight east now. When they were exactly east of the town and converging on the main trail that led into it, they began hooting and howling like Apaches on the warpath.

  They were closing on Cottonwood.

  Sartain whipped his head back to the west.

  The first group was galloping toward the town now, as well, crouched low and raising a cacophony of yips and yowls designed to terrorize.

  Pistols were raised. Smoke puffed from barrels. A half-second later, the clacketing reports reached the Cajun’s ears.

  The Revenger’s heart raced. His hands were sweating inside his gloves. Not from fear but eager anticipation.

  They were coming. Oh, yeah, they were coming, after all.

  Lazaro’s word was no better than Confederate certificates during the last year of the war when Sartain and his fellow Rebels had used them for rolling cigarettes—the rare times they found tobacco, that was.

  Sartain pulled his head and rifle down below the peak of the roof. He glanced behind him. Abner had disappeared, as well. He could almost hear the young man’s heart shrieking in Summerfield’s chest...or was that his own heart screaming in his own chest?

  The thunder continued building until Sartain could feel the reverberation in the roof to which he was pressing his cheek against hard, pressing his entire body against hard in hopes of not being seen.

  He glanced to his left.

  The second group was in town now, triggering wildly, blasting out any remaining window glass, and whooping and yipping madly as they raced toward a meeting with the first group, which was also entering town, their yowls and yips and hoots and pistol and rifle blasts echoing loudly and merging with those of the first group.

  Now, just as planned, Sartain saw Mercy run out from a break behind the church and into the street. As planned, she was carrying an armload of wood from the town’s joint supply, as though restocking the supply inside the saloon. The girl stopped and looked around, as if aghast at the two gangs converging on her.

  As if she were genuinely surprised that Lazaro hadn’t kept his word...

  “There’s that girl!” one of the men cried as they galloped toward her.

  “Hot damn! I want some o’ that!” called another. He was riding beside Lazaro himself.

  Mercy screamed shrilly, dropped the wood, whipped around, and ran to the other side of the street.

  She took the saloon’s porch steps three at a time, bullets tearing into the front of the saloon to either side of her. As she dashed through the saloon’s ruined door, Lazaro reined his horse to a skidding halt and leaped out of his saddle, laughing. He sheathed his rifle and pulled both his silver-chased pistols, clicking the hammers back.

  “Gentlemen,” he shouted at the others checking their own horses down around him, “come join me in taming a polecat!”

  The others whooped and hollered as they dismounted, the entire group now having merged into one before the saloon.

  Lazaro lowered his six-shooters and strode calmly up the porch steps. Only a few of the others were firing their weapons now. All attention
was on the saloon.

  The Revenger curled his lip in grim satisfaction.

  He set his rifle down, dragged the plunger box over to him, and pulled out the handle.

  “Work, you bastard.” He grunted. “Please, work. If you’ve never worked before and never work again, work this time!”

  Lazaro calmly entered the saloon. The others remained on the street for a time, shooting and hollering. Sartain gritted his teeth. That wasn’t supposed to happen. When they saw Mercy, they were all supposed to storm into the saloon after her.

  Together!

  Lazaro was the only one inside.

  The Revenger’s heart hammered nervously.

  “Come on, come on,” he said, feeling as though he were about to tumble off the edge of a very steep cliff.

  Suddenly, one of the men whipped around to the saloon, and yelled, “Come on, boys. There ain’t nothin’ happening out here!”

  He holstered his six-shooter and ran up the porch steps. He crossed the porch in two strides and ran inside. The others were close on his heels, sprinting into the saloon by ones and twos. As they disappeared through the door, Sartain counted ten...twelve...fifteen...then seventeen...eighteen...twenty-two...”

  He gave the group another few seconds. He hoped like hell Mercy was clear as she was supposed to be seven seconds after she passed through the front door.

  Then, when more than half the pack was inside the saloon—he’d hoped more would be inside, but he couldn’t wait for them—he wrapped his slightly quivering hand around the plunger handle and pushed it down.

  He stared in horror at the handle pushed all the way into the box.

  Nothing.

  “Ah, shit!” he cried and pulled the plunger out again.

  He pushed it back in.

  Again, nothing.

  Then…

  Kaahhh-BOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!

  Chapter 19

  Mercy dropped the logs in the street and gave a shrill scream.

  It wasn’t entirely fake. Seeing that many killers riding toward you all at once, even when it was all planned out and you had Mike Sartain watching over you, was the stuff of nightmares.

  Especially when one of those killers was Ramon Lazaro, riding crouched low over his horse’s bobbing head at the front of the pack galloping in from the south. The brim of Lazaro’s hat was blown back against the crown. The killer stretched his thin lips back from his teeth and leered at Mercy as he bore down on her, his weird blue eyes slanted like a devil’s eyes.

  His men were shooting in all directions, whooping and hollering like attacking Indians. She thought some looked disappointed that they were being met with no resistance from the town.

  Mercy ran across the street, leaped up the porch steps and dashed into the saloon. Behind her, she could hear the thunder of Lazaro’s men converging on the street fronting the place. She paused to swing a look back through the open door.

  Lazaro was leaping off his horse, laughing, gazing toward her with animal lust in his eyes.

  Mercy was counting the seconds in her head. One...two...

  She swung around and ran down the saloon hall, snatching her carbine off a table and racking a round into the chamber. Outside, she heard Lazaro shout, “Gentleman, come join me in taming a polecat!”

  She ran down the main drinking hall toward the rear door, counting, “Three…four…”

  She glanced behind her. Lazaro had just strode into the saloon. He was taking his good ole time, grinning, holding his smoking six-shooters barrel-up near his shoulders. He was looking around, as though wary of an ambush. Then, seeing no one else in the place, he snapped one of his big poppers down and fired.

  Mercy had just gained the back door, which she’d propped open with a rock to make sure she’d have no trouble getting it open, since, under the circumstances, one or two seconds could mean the difference between her getting safely out of the saloon or getting blown to smithereens.

  She’d just counted “Five...six...” when Lazaro’s bullet slammed into her left leg, spinning her around through the door and outside, where she fell on her back, groaning.

  “Oh, no!” a voice screamed inside her head, on the heels of her inner clock just announcing, “Seven...”

  She cast a quick glance back inside the saloon. Lazaro was striding toward her now, eyes grim and determined beneath the broad brim of his hat.

  “Oh, shit!”

  Mercy looked around for her rifle. She’d tossed it several feet away when the bullet had driven her down. Vaguely wondering why the hotel wasn’t exploding now on the count of seven but also vaguely grateful that it wasn’t, she sucked back the pain in her leg and heaved herself to her feet.

  “What are you running for, señorita?” Lazaro queried, his voice echoing from inside the saloon. “You can’t outrun me, not with a wounded leg. Besides, you are only delaying the joy that will be yours soon when I am hammering away between your legs!”

  Mercy ran with surprising speed, dragging her right boot, trying to get as far away from the saloon as possible. She stepped around a log icehouse and moved into thick brush. A branch reached up and grabbed her right ankle. She screamed as she fell then lifted her head to see Lazaro closing on her.

  He was about fifty feet from the saloon and another fifty feet from her. The shadows of the rest of his gang jostled beyond the open rear door behind him. The echoes of the other men’s stomping boots, ringing spurs, and whoops and yells echoed loudly, woodenly, from inside the saloon.

  Mercy could hear Lazaro’s footsteps growing louder, the chings of his spurs growing until they were church bells clanging inside her ears.

  Oh, no, Mercy thought, propped on her elbows, feeling like a fly caught in a spider web. The saloon didn’t blow. I don’t have my rifle, and...

  Someone clapped large, invisible, savage hands to Mercy’s ears. The saloon looming behind Lazaro became a red fireball that spat boards, beams, window frames, and shingles. Flames blossomed from the blown-out parts of the saloon like giant roses.

  Mercy stared in awe as Lazaro was lofted screaming into the air as though by a fierce wind behind him. The gang leader was turned end over end, arms and legs flung wide, and hurled wickedly straight over and beyond her.

  The hot wind slammed Mercy flat against the ground, blowing her hair wildly. The wind was like the hot, fetid breath of a dragon. Lying flat against the ground, spread-eagle, she looked up and saw burning debris flying past—debris that included the flaming limbs of men.

  She saw a man’s arm and gloved hand still clutching a pistol as it whipped over her and thudded to the ground, flames nipping at its denim sleeve, beyond her. The heat from the fire sucked the air from the girl’s lungs. She fought to get it back but then the world grew dark for a time, and she realized she’d been on the verge of unconsciousness for maybe a minute.

  The saloon before her was a mass of burning lumber, black smoke, and glowing cinders roiling toward the gray sky above.

  Mercy’s addled brain was slow to comprehend what had just happened. She choked on the smoke, tears dribbling down her cheeks from her stinging eyes.

  Lazaro...

  She turned and gasped. The killer stood over her. He was a smoking, charred mess of a man. His hat was gone, and his smoking light-red hair stood out in spokes around his head.

  Still, he held one of his silver-plated pistols straight up in the air near his right shoulder. He stared down at her, his lips mashed together, his eyes filled with demonic fury. Blood was dribbling out both his ears.

  He slanted the weapon down, aiming at Mercy, and clicked the hammer back.

  “Goddamn you!” the girl cried, jutting her chin defiantly, horrified that the plan had not worked. None of the other killers mattered now. Only Lazaro. The head of the snake.

  If Lazaro survived, Mercy’s father, her mother, and the ranch would not be avenged.

  A killer would live.

  “Goodbye, señorita,” Lazaro said, narrowing one eye as he stared down t
he barrel of his .44. “I think that under the circumstances, I will get more pleasure from killing you than fu—”

  Something cut him off. He jerked backward slightly. A puzzled look came into his face. The .44 fell heavily at his side, as though it had suddenly turned to lead.

  He fired the pistol into the ground and looked down toward where a hole over his right ribcage was issuing dark-red blood.

  * * *

  Sartain dispatched the last outlaw to survive the blast and watched the man tumble into a stock trough, triggering his pistol into the air. Water sloshed over him. Burning ashes from the exploded saloon dropped into the water.

  Sartain looked down from his perch on the church roof, beside the large cross jutting skyward to his right. Heat waves danced from the massive pile of burning rubble that had been Donleavy’s saloon. Men and horses lay dead and twisted on the street fronting the place.

  After the explosion, the men who hadn’t been inside to get blown to their Rewards were fairly easy pickings. Most had been thrown from their horses in the blast. Others had been so shocked by the sudden explosion that they’d been slow to react when lead had started being hurled at them from four points above the street.

  Sartain glanced across the street at Cable Dundee, who stood with his chin dipped, one arm on the façade beside him, surveying the damage. When Dundee glanced up, Sartain threw an arm out in a wave that said, “That should take care of it.”

  But then a scream sliced through the ragged bellowing and popping and snapping of the fire.

  Sartain jerked his gaze beyond the smoke and flames dancing high around the burning saloon. In the shimmering heat waves, about a hundred or so feet beyond the conflagration, someone lay on the ground. Sartain couldn’t tell from this distance, because of all the smoke, cinders, and shimmering air, but that person looked like Mercy.

  The Revenger’s heart thudded.

  He swung around from the edge of the roof, ran up and over the peak and down the other side. There was a low, narrow strip of roof here covering the rear entry. The Cajun leaped onto it then leaped to the ground, bending his knees to take the bulk of the impact in his heels.