The Revenger

by Peter Brandvold

  Lawton turned back. Simms nodded toward the trail leading off across a barren, sage-stippled flat toward the dry course of the Alkali River. Two horseback riders were heading toward the Lawton ranch headquarters, their silhouettes growing slowly.

  “Now, what?” Lawton grumbled.

  “Sure has been a busy mornin’ so far,” Simms said. “I hope this ain’t what the rest of the day is gonna look like.”

  Lawton sighed. “I’d best get dressed.”

  Chapter 17

  Lawton started toward the house but stopped when Sadie marched out.

  She was dressed in a light blue shirtwaist, ruffled black skirt and black half boots with two-inch heels. Her hair billowed in the breeze as, pale-faced and tight-lipped, she marched across the porch, down the steps, and into the yard.

  “Sadie, honey, please don’t go. We have much to discuss.”

  She stopped halfway to the corral where her horse milled with four others, and swung around sharply, her face a mask of fury. “You go to hell, Lute Lawton. My pa and Dean Broadstreet were right about you, and now you’ve gone and killed them. I should have married up with Dean. He might have been a stiff shirt, but at least he wasn’t a liar. You just wait till I tell the sheriff what happened out here today!”

  She turned and stomped into the corral.

  Lawton glanced at Simms, who regarded him grim-faced.

  Lawton sighed and strode into the cabin. He reappeared in the doorway two seconds later, earing back the hammer of a Sharps carbine. He hadn’t bothered to put any clothes on. Naked, he raised the carbine to his right shoulder, aimed, and fired.

  Sadie had had her back to him as she’d been saddling her zebra dun. The bullet knocked her forward against her horse, who jerked with a start and sidestepped. The saddle and blanket slipped down off its side. Sadie fell face first into the dirt and lay still, the horse running away to stand with the others on the far side of the corral.

  Lawton lowered the rifle and turned down his mouth-corners. He looked at Simms, standing outside the open bunkhouse door. “That saddens me, Neville. That girl was one in a million, and I mean that truly.”

  Simms gave his head a single woeful wag. “She was indeed, Lute. She was indeed. But you’ll find another.”

  Lawton turned to the west. The riders were still coming, within a hundred yards now and trotting their horses, reins held high against their chests. Dust ribboned out behind them.

  Lawton went inside, dressed, and reloaded his Colt, which he dropped into the holster thonged to his right thigh. A second Colt was holstered for the cross-draw on his left hip, and a bowie knife was sheathed against the small of his back.

  He wore a dirty, sweat-stiff, cream chambray shirt, a red neckerchief, fringed buckskin breeches patched at the knees, and high-topped boots, the cuffs of the breeches stuffed inside. Over the shirt, he wore an elkskin vest. Pinned to it was a medallion covered in bright Indian beads, a gift from Sadie.

  As he stepped outside, resting his Sharps on his shoulder and tugging his hat brim down low over his eyes, the two newcomers were just then riding into the yard.

  They were the two known in the area as “the Flores Brothers” or “The Mescins”—a pair of Mex brothers who’d been working on one ranch or another in the area for the past several years. They dressed a tad on the gaudy side, which was the Mexican way. They wore palm-leaf sombreros, red or green neckerchiefs, and deerskin breeches trimmed with fancy stitching and hammered silver discs.

  Tio and Ignacio Flores were their names, Lawton recalled as he walked out to stand near Simms in front of the bunkhouse, staring toward the brothers approaching him.

  Tio was the older of the two, with a slightly graying mustache and chin whiskers. He was also slightly taller and leaner, whereas Ignacio was shorter and beefier. Ignacio wore a red neckerchief over a red and white checked shirt. Ignacio’s short, stocky skewbald-paint gave a greeting whinny which was answered by one of the horses in the corral, all of whom were still cautiously eyeing the dead girl still lying face down in the dirt, flies buzzing around her head.

  Tio’s black horse, bearing one white front sock, nosed the paint as the two mounts were halted ten feet away from Lawton and Simms. Both riders were glancing dubiously at the dead men sprawled around them and at the riderless horses standing here and there about the yard. Hawthorn’s stallion stood at the far edge of the yard, its saddle hanging down its side. The Appy lifted a back leg as though to kick the saddle away.

  “Mornin’, fellas,” Lawton said. “What brings you to my humble abode? If you’re lookin’ for work, what work gets done in these parts is done by either Señor Simms or myself. Don’t mind the dead men. We had us a difference of opinion, you might say, and settled the matter in the way they’re often settled out here, God rest their weary souls.”

  Tio Flores chuckled uncertainly, as though while he hadn’t caught the specifics of what Lawton had said, he had a grasp of the gist. He turned to Simms, because the Flores brothers knew that Simms, who had been born and raised in Arizona, could speak and understand Spanish. Tio spoke in a tone that sounded all business-like to Lawton.

  It must have sounded business-like to Simms too since he stood taking it all in, brows beetled over his deep-set eyes.

  Occasionally, Neville slid a grave glance to Lawton. Simms was getting some serious news from Tio Flores.

  Ignacio Flores sat his saddle, the gloved hand holding his reins resting on the horn, his other hand resting on his thigh. As he followed his brother’s speech, he shook his head from time to time, clucking his apparent dismay.

  Tio Flores punctuated his speech by shaping an imaginary gun with his left hand and saying, “Bang! Bang! Bang!” and looking quite satisfied with his pantomime. He did this three times, and it made Lawton impatient to know what in the hell the bean-eater was talking about.

  Finally, when Tio Flores stopped talking and Ignacio had added a sentence or two of rapid-fire Mexican that Lawton couldn’t see how anyone on God’s green earth could understand, even the Mexicans themselves, Simms turned to Lawton.

  “Crap in a bucket, Lute.”

  “What, fer chrissakes?” Lawton said. “What the hell were these two bean-eaters crowin’ about?”

  “We got trouble.”

  “I figured that much out for myself. You wanna chew it up and spit it out for me or do I gotta reach down your throat for it?”

  “Hy Miller, Luke Grisby, Bonner, Sam Tuttle, Big Al Halsey...all pushin’ up daisies.”

  Lawton blinked in disbelief. “What?”

  “Sure enough.” Simms scratched the back of his bald head. “These chili chompers say they was all killed by that crazy Cajun son of a buck ever’body calls The Revenger.”

  Lawton slid his skeptical gaze from Simms to the two Mexicans staring down at him from their saddles. Then he smiled. “Pshaw! These two bean-eaters is funnin’ with us!”

  “I don’t think so, Lute,” Simms said. “Miller, Grisby, Haskell, and Bonner were killed in Mrs. Thompson’s place in Willoughby. These fellas was in the saloon at the time, across the street. They said Miller an’ the others went into the hotel to throw down on the bastard, and he and some woman got ‘em playin’ a dead man’s hand.”

  “Woman?” Lawton said. “What woman?”

  “Pretty gringa with big tits.”

  Lawton and Simms both jerked their heads toward Ignacio Flores, who grinned down at them, using his hands to tent his shirt out away from his chest.

  Lawton said, “I didn’t...I didn’t know you could speak Eng...”

  “She has a chip on her shoulder, amigos.” This from Tio Flores. “A big one. From what we overhead, you made her very angry when her boy was killed on a train you robbed and you took her along on a hard ride. A very hard ride, indeed, Señor Lawton...if you get my drift.”

  Tio rose in his saddle and grabbed himself.

  Lawton thought about that. He’d forgotten about the woman and her boy. What was her name? Had he ever k
nown it? She’d been a mere distraction that he’d thrown away when he’d decided she’d been slowing him down.

  Lawton ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “That trollop,” he said, remembering how he’d almost killed her but had held up at the last second. He’d been afraid the posse would have heard the shot. “So...she sicced that...”

  He let his voice trail off, looking around, trying to understand it all. He’d heard about Sartain. Most westerners had. The Revenger’s name was bandied about most watering holes. It was in all the newspapers at one time or another. The crazy Cajun and ex-Confederate soldier had become a folk hero of sorts. The bane of the lawmen and bounty hunters shadowing him...

  Had Lawton really attracted The Revenger’s attention?

  Had The Revenger really wiped out every man in Lawton’s gang except Neville Simms and Lawton himself?

  Turning to the Mexicans, the gang leader said, “What about Rivas and Hays? Them and Big Al Tuttle and Sam Hulsey and some others got ‘em a camp down at—”

  “We warned them, señor,” said Ignacio Flores. “We rode out and told them what happened to Miller and the others. They rode out to find this Vengador, this Revenger, and pay him back with some revenge of their own.” He shook his head. “It did not go well for them. My brother and myself...we found them all dead along the river.”

  He canted his head to indicate the prairie behind him. He shook his head again. “I do not think they took them seriously, this Vengador and the woman. Sartain does not care if he lives or dies. He is haunted by his past. It makes him a most reckless killer.”

  Lawton scowled up at the Flores brothers. “How do you two know so damn much about The Revenger? How do you know so damn much about everything?”

  Simms smiled knowingly up at the brothers. “Amazing what you can learn if no one thinks you understand what they’re sayin’. Am I right, amigos?”

  Tio chuckled devilishly. He’d removed a leather makings sack from his vest pocket and was building a smoke. Ignacio grinned, showing a missing front tooth. Neither brother said anything.

  “What’s your cut of this pie?” Lawton asked them suspiciously. “Why are you here? Why did you bother to warn Tuttle and Halsey out at their Injun camp? What’s in it for you two sneaky greasers?”

  Lawton and Simms shared a conspiratorial look.

  Then Lawton turned back to the brothers again, the tips of his ears warming with a building paranoia. “How do we know you ain’t workin’ for that crazy Cajun? How do we know you didn’t lead him to the Injun camp?”

  Simms stepped back, looking around suddenly, sliding his six-shooter from the holster tied to his long-handle-clad right thigh. “How do we know you didn’t bring him here?”

  Tio Flores raised his hands, the freshly built wheat-paper cigarette drooping from between two fingers. “Easy, now, señors. Do not jump to any conclusions.”

  “Si,” said Ignacio, also raising his hands while sitting straighter in his saddle. “All we want is the favor of your consideration.”

  “Consideration for what?” Lawton had taken his rifle in both hands, and now he pumped a cartridge into the chamber, swiveling his head around, and pivoting at the hips.

  “Obviously, you will need to put another gang together,” said Ignacio. “A certain matter of a chica embarazada, a pregnant girl, has caused us to be cut loose, as you say, from our last place of employment. So, you see, my brother and I are—”

  One of the horses in the corral whinnied loudly.

  “Crap!” exclaimed Simms, cocking his Remington and looking around wildly, eyes glazed with fear. “He’s here, Lute. The horses know it. They brought him right to our doorstep!”

  Lawton snapped his rifle to his shoulder, taking aim at Ignacio Flores. “Think you got us in a whipsaw, eh, you mangy double-crossin’ greaser coyotes?”

  Tio Flores dropped his quirley and reached for one of his revolvers. He didn’t even get the keeper thong unsnapped from over the hammer before Lawton blew him out of his saddle.

  “No!” bellowed Ignacio, throwing his hands in the air.

  His horse pitched with a start. That caused Lawton’s next shot to sail wide of its screaming target. The next one punched through the back of Ignacio’s right shoulder a split second after the horse had leap-turned in mid-air. Ignacio was hurled forward out of his saddle.

  His horse kicked him when he was down. He rolled in a billowing dust cloud.

  As the dust began to clear, the Mexican bounded to his heels, screaming, “Por favor, señor, on my dear madre’s grave, we are not ly—!”

  Bam! Bam!

  Both slugs hammered through the Mexican’s chest, driving him back to the ground, where he groaned as he ground his heels and large-roweled spurs into the dirt before giving a liquid sigh and lying still.

  Lawton continued to step backward, swiveling his head and his hips, tracking the smoking barrel of his Sharps around the yard, inspecting every nook and cranny in which a man might hide. Meanwhile, the Mexicans’ frightened mounts galloped away, hoof thuds dwindling.

  Silence descended over the yard.

  Not even a bird piped.

  There was only the soft crunching of dirt and ground horsecrap beneath Lawton’s boots as he continued to cat-foot slowly back toward the house.

  “What’re we gonna do, Lute?” Simms asked, extending his right hand out from his shoulder, desperately aiming his cocked pistol around the yard. “You think he’s here? You really think he’s here?”

  Lawton opened his mouth to respond, but it was another man’s voice that said with chilling calm, “He’s here.”

  Chapter 18

  Sartain stood on the cluttered front porch of the Lawton shack, aiming his Henry repeater’s barrel at the back of Lute Lawton’s neck.

  Lawton had his back to the house. The other man, Neville Simms, stood about ten feet from Lawton, near the corral in which the dead girl lay belly down in the dust.

  Lawton stiffened, but Simms jerked around toward Sartain, bringing his cocked Remington to bear. Sartain dropped the barrel of his Henry and drilled a .44 pill through Simms’s left kneecap. Simms triggered his revolver into the dirt, screaming as he fell to his other knee, clutching the bleeding knee with his free hand.

  He glowered at Sartain, forked veins bulging in his forehead. “You son of a mother-lovin’ bast—!”

  “Everybody keeps commenting on my bloodline,” Sartain mused aloud, pumping a fresh cartridge into his Henry’s action. The spent casing clattered on the porch floor. “That’s odd for a man who never knew his mother.”

  “Bastard, then,” Lawton said, turning his head to the right, glancing at Sartain over that shoulder. “How’s that?”

  “Probably a hell of a lot truer to the mark. Drop that rifle and both hoglegs, Lute. The Bowie, as well. Any tricks and I’ll cripple you too.”

  Simms lifted his head and bellowed incoherently, spittle flecking his chin. He’d dropped his revolver and was holding his bloody knee with both hands. His face was as red as the door of a fully stoked sheet-iron stove. He gave another raking cry and a pitiful sob.

  Lawton turned full around to face Sartain. He tossed down his rifle and both his pistols and then the knife. He canted his head toward the dead Flores brothers. “They led you here, didn’t they?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I knew it!”

  “Well, they didn’t. My trail has grown right popular of late. Been several on it. Drop to your knees, Lute.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Cause I’m tellin’ you to. Follow Neville’s example there and consider yourself lucky you still got your health.”

  Simms bunched up his face and bellowed an angry, agonized cry at the sky.

  “Christ, that must really hurt,” Sartain said.

  “Go to hell, Sartain!” Simms yelled.

  “Now, now, Neville,” The Revenger said. “There’s a lady present.”

  Lawton looked around, his nostrils swelling with
rage. “Where is she? Where is that trollop?”

  “Right here.” Olivia Rosen walked out from between the barn’s half-open doors.

  Lawton jerked his head toward her. “You slattern.”

  Olivia stepped forward.

  Sartain stopped her with, “Hold on, Olivia. Stay right there till I declaw this wildcat.”

  He walked down off the porch and into the yard. He stood a few feet in front of Lawton, who was a good six inches shorter than the Cajun.

  “What do you have in mind?” Lawton asked, holding his hands up again. “If you’re gonna shoot me, then shoot me. What’s all this pissin’ around?” He turned to Olivia again and jerked an accusing finger at her. “That ugly little coulee snipe of yours deserved just what he got. You shoulda taught him better than to sass his elders!”

  Sartain rammed the butt of his Henry rifle into Lawton’s gut. Lute jackknifed with a deep, guttural grunt. Sartain rammed the end of the Henry’s stock against the back of Lawton’s hanging head.

  Lawton said, “Oh,” as his head bobbed violently.

  He dropped to his knees and sagged onto his left side.

  Sartain stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled. He leaned his rifle against a porch post and then pulled a pair of handcuffs out of the back pocket of his denim trousers.

  He kicked Lawton onto his belly and cuffed the man’s hands behind his back.

  By the time he’d clicked the second cuff into place, Boss galloped around from behind the back of the house and stopped in the yard near Sartain, twitching his ears apprehensively as the buckskin raked his gaze around the yard littered with dead men.

  Sartain walked over and pulled a pair of leg irons out of a saddlebag pouch. He knelt beside Lawton again, who was writhing on his side, shaking his head as though to clear it.

  Sartain closed the manacles around the outlaw’s ankles. There was about a foot-length of chain between his feet. Lawton could move around a little, but not much. He couldn’t use his hands or his feet.

  Sartain glanced over at Olivia, waiting impatiently in front of the barn. “All right,” he said. “They’re all yours. Whatever you want to do.”