A Dangerous Man (24 page)

More than ever, Tam Sullivan badly needed the three hundred dollar reward on Dancing Dan Privette. He didn't anticipate any trouble taking the man, but bounty hunters are born to caution. He checked with the livery stable to make sure that Privette had a horse. He didn't, but he owned a big government mule with a US brand on its shoulder and the animal looked like it would hold up on the trip to El Paso.

Sullivan returned to his hotel room, buckled on his gun rig, and replaced the cap-and-ball in the holster with the new Colt. He tried his draw a few times and it was as though the revolver leaped into his hand.

Smiling into the mirror, Sullivan said, “You're fast, Tam. Maybe you're as fast as Wild Bill Longley.”

Maybe...

He left his room and stood on the hotel porch, gauging the weather. Black sky, gloom, sleet, wind, freezing temperatures, snow-capped mountains, and a long, dangerous trail ahead through rough and broken country. He hoped Dancing Dan wouldn't mind the inconvenience.

 

 

A sleepless owl silhouetted against a full moon decorated the saloon's glass doors as Sullivan pushed them open and stepped inside. As saloons went, the Night Owl was no better and no worse than others he'd seen. The room was rectangular with an elevated stage at one end and a long mahogany bar that took up most of the far wall, along with the usual scattering of tables, chairs, and polished brass spittoons.

It was not yet noon, but the lamps were lit against the gray day. Only one bartender was on duty, serving the few customers, the sporting crowd sleeping the sleep of the unjust.

Sullivan saw what looked like a doctor appear from behind one of the red velvet curtains that flanked the stage.

His guess was confirmed when the bartender said, “How is he, doc?”

“Broken leg,” the physician answered. “He took a bad tumble.”

The bartender looked alarmed. “Hell, when can he dance again?”

The doctor shook his head. “When his leg heals. It's a pretty bad break. I'd say ten to thirteen weeks, maybe longer.”

Sullivan, felling a spike of panic, stepped to the bar as the doctor asked for a whiskey. “Doc, who broke his leg?”

“Dancing Dan,” the man answered. “He was rehearsing and fell off the stage. It will be months before he dances again, but he can still play the banjo.”

“Can he travel?” Sullivan asked.

“Travel! For weeks, he won't be able to walk from his bed to the outhouse.”

Suspicious, the bartender said, “Here, mister, are you some kind of law?”

“You could say that,” Sullivan said. “Privette is wanted in Texas for a cuttin'. I figure to take him to the Rangers in El Paso.”

The doctor snorted. “Not a hope in hell. He'd barely make it out of town without keeling over. You could take him to El Paso, all right, but he'd be a dead man long before you got there.”

Sullivan knew a brick wall when he saw one. “Damn it. Can I take a look at him?”

“I don't see why not,” the doctor said. “Go up on the stage and turn left. Dan is in a dressing room back there. You'll hear him before you see him.”

Frustrated, Sullivan stepped from the bar and crossed the floor, his spurs ringing loud in the sudden silence.

“Be careful you don't fall and break a leg,” the doctor called after him.

Somebody laughed.

Sullivan heard the dancer's groans from a ways off before he entered the dressing room.

Dancing Dan Privette lay on his back in a small iron cot, his splinted leg elevated on an empty Arbuckle coffee box. He was a small, compact man with very dark skin and large, expressive black eyes. They expressed pain, suffering, and irritability. “Who the hell are you? Get that damned quack back here.”

“Feeling unwell, Dan, are we?” Sullivan said.

“My leg's broke!” Privette yelped. “Get the doc, get my woman, get anybody. Most of all, get me out of here.”

“You're such a disappointment to me, Dan,” Sullivan said.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about a cuttin' down Nacogdoches way, Dan. Do you recollect?”

Privette stared wide-eyed at Sullivan for long moments. Then he filled his lungs and shrieked, “Heeelp!”

The doctor and the bartender came running.

“What the hell did you do to him?” the bartender demanded from Sullivan.

“Nothing. I just reminded ol' Danny boy that he's wanted in Texas for cuttin' on a Mexican whore.”

“Here, that man has friends in this town,” the bartender said. “He will not be abused.”

“He's not my friend,” Sullivan said.

“As I already told you, mister, he won't make it to El Paso,” the doctor said.

“Don't let him take me,” Privette wailed. “He'll murder me on the way.”

“Shut the hell up.” Sullivan looked at the doctor. “He'd be too much of a burden on the trail, I reckon, huh?”

“Well, you'd have to lift him off and on his horse and carry him wherever you camped, to say nothing of helping him with his body functions.”

“Don't plant that picture in my head, doc.” Sullivan noticed a wallet and watch laying on a table next to the cot. “His?”

“His,” the doctor replied.

Sullivan picked up the wallet. It was stuffed with bills. “Do all right for yourself, Dan, huh?”

“Oh my God, he's robbing me,” Privette hollered. “He's taking all my money! Oh . . . ah . . . ah . . . my leg!”

“Lie still, Dan,” the doctor ordered.

Sullivan counted out three hundred dollars and tossed the wallet back on the table. “Taking the three hundred dollar reward for your hide, Dan.”

“I will not let you remove this man from Santa Fe,” the doctor said.

“I won't. But I'll come back for him another day.”

“When?” the bartender asked.

“Maybe in the summer,” Sullivan said. “His leg ought to be healed by then.”

“That's hard, mighty hard and lowdown,” the bartender said.

Sullivan nodded. “I'm in a hard, lowdown business.” He glanced at Privette. “Feel better now, Dan. Play the banjo to keep your spirits up and I'll see you in July or thereabouts.”

“Damn you. I'll see you in hell before I'll let you take me to El Paso,” Dan said. “We'll see how big you talk when I'm on my feet, bounty hunter.”

“Well, I sure don't want to shoot a dancing man, Dan,” Sullivan said. “It just ain't decent. So you just keep calm and let the leg heal.”

In between bouts of wailing about his pain, Privette turned the air blue with curses, but Sullivan ignored him.

He touched his hat to the doctor and the bartender. “Good day, gentlemen.”

“Hey, do you put out your name, mister?” the bartender called.

“Tam Sullivan.”

“Hell, you brung in the dead Butterfield man.”

“That I did. His name was Ebenezer Posey.”

Tam Sullivan bought a bottle of brandy and a box of cigars and returned to his room. As was his habit, he carried a chair to the window where he could look out on the street. He was about to sit when a knock came to the door.

Sullivan slid his new Colt from the holster on the bed and stepped to the door. “Who is it?”

“Me. Sheriff Adams.

After unlocking the door and allowing the man inside, Sullivan said, “I guess you heard about Dan Privette?”

“Yeah. You took your reward early. In my day, no bandit, no reward, was the rule.”

“Well, I guess I bent the rule a little. Is that what you came here to talk about?”

Sleet melted on the shoulders of Adams' sheepskin and hat, and his mustache was frosted. “No, not that. I got news for you.”

“Can it wait until I pour a drink and light a cigar?”

“It'll keep.”

“Drink?”

“Of course. And a cigar. I reckon my news is worth it.” Adams smiled. “And after all, it is Christmas Day.”

“It is? Well fancy that, huh?” Sullivan pulled the chair from the window and bade the lawman sit. He gave him a cigar and whiskey in a chipped, clouded glass.

After he tasted his drink and his cigar glowed, Adams said, “Wild Bill Longley has been took.”

Sullivan was stunned speechless for a few moments. “How did it happen . . . I mean, where? Hell man, out with it.”

“You going to give me time to tell the story, Sullivan? I can't say it all at once.”

“Yeah, sorry. Go right ahead.”

“After I saw you at Dirty Sammy's store—the damned scoundrel—a feller up from Texas came into my office abut some claim he had on ten acres of bottomland over on Gallinas Creek. Seems that another feller, a cousin of his, had moved onto the property and built a cabin. Now I don't normally get involved in such—”

“Sheriff, about Longley?” Sullivan interrupted.

“Oh yeah. Well, the feller gave me a
by-the-way
then he asked did I hear that Bill Longley had been took in DeSoto Parish over Louisiana way? ‘No,' says I. ‘Well,' says he, ‘Nacogdoches County Sheriff Milton Mast and a deputy slipped across the border, grabbed Longley, and took him back to Texas.'”

Sullivan smiled. “Sheriff, it sounds like that Texas feller was pulling a sandy on you. Bill Longley wouldn't let himself get arrested by a pair of hick lawmen.”

“How it come up, the feller says, is that Mast and his deputy disguised themselves as a couple harmless old coots, false gray beards an' all, and got close to Longley in a saloon. They threw down on him with Scott ten gauge scatterguns, and he surrendered meek as a lamb.”

Sullivan considered that, then said, “That feller of yours doesn't miss a trick, does he? Even knows the make of shotguns the lawmen used.”

“Hell, Sullivan, it was in all the Texas newspapers. There's talk that Mast is going to be presented with a gold watch for the capture.”

“So where is Longley now? Writing his name on the wall of the Nacogdoches jail.?”

“Yeah, as far as the feller knows, he's still there.”

After he refilled Adams' glass, Sullivan thought for a while. Then he said, “The jail hasn't been built yet that will hold Longley. I reckon I'll head for Texas on account I don't want him to escape me again.”

“Eight hundred miles from here to there,” the sheriff said. “You must want to kill ol' Bill real bad.”

Sullivan nodded. “As badly as I ever wanted anything in my life.”

“I won't ask you why,” Adams said.

“Good, because it's long in the telling.”

“You can ride the Southern Pacific cushions at least some of the way. Unless you give Dan Privette his money back and can't pay the fare.”

“Did he ask you to get the three hundred from me?” Sullivan wanted to know.

“He sure did. He's feeling mighty low over the busted leg and his stolen money.”

“I didn't steal it, Sheriff. I just took my reward early.”

“You gonna give it back?”

“Hell, no.”

“Well, I asked you and I'll give him your answer.”

“Aren't you going to try to arrest me?”

“Hell, no. Just before I got here, Dirty Sammy stopped me in the street and made a point of telling me about how well you shoot.”

“You're a wise man, Sheriff Adams.”

It was mid-January when Tam Sullivan rode into Nacogdoches. The town still bore the scars of the War Between the States. The boom times that came with the arrival of the Houston East and West Texas Railroad and an economy shift from agriculture to trade and commerce still lay several years in the future.

The town was a backwater at the northern edge of the Deep South. Heavy winter rains had turned the streets to bogs of red-ocher mud that clung to everything.

He dropped his horse off at the livery and strode to the Sam Houston Hotel & Billiard Hall. After he signed in, he asked the desk clerk if Sheriff Milton Mast was in town.

“I reckon he is. My guess is you'll find him at the Stone House just down the street a ways.”

Sullivan nodded his thanks and walked into the muddy street made even gloomier by the overhang of a black and mustard sky.

The Stone House was not hard to find. The impressive, two-story building of sun-dried adobe brick was partitioned into a general store and saloon. The building towered over its neighboring wood stores and offices like a colossus.

Gun-toting men with careful eyes were not rara avis in Nacogdoches, but Sullivan's height and the way he carried himself made heads turn in his direction.

He stepped to the bar, ordered a rye with a beer chaser, then took time to look around him. A dozen men stood at the long bar and maybe twice that number sat at tables and played poker or just stared into their empty glasses, the latter just a few of the many the gallant Lost Cause had plunged into poverty.

The mixologist, resplendent in brocade, diamonds, hair oil, and magnificent mustachio, wafted lavender water in Sullivan's direction. He leaned over the bar and whispered, “Passing through, stranger?”

“I reckon so,” Sullivan said.

“Then just mind your Ps and Qs. Don't look now, but the man behind you in the slicker with the ostrich feather in his hat is Courtney Lister. He figures he's the cock o' the walk in this town. He's killed a dozen men, they say.”

“Is that so? Well, I'm not here to borrow trouble so I'll step carefully around him. Fact is, I'm here to see Sheriff Mast.”

For some reason the bartender looked relieved. Maybe the new French mirror behind the bar had something to do with it. “Milt! Feller here to talk with you.”

A voice answered. “Then let him come over here and talk to me. My damned feet hurt.”

“In the corner.” The bartender pointed in that direction.

“Yeah, I see him.” Sullivan crossed the floor, carrying his drinks, keenly aware that Lister watched his every step. “Mind if I set?”

Mast nodded. “Sure. What can I do for you?”

Sullivan pulled up a chair. “Where are you keeping Bill Longley?”

Mast didn't hesitate. “Nowhere. The Rangers took him to Giddings. They're going to hang him fer sure.” The lawman's left eyebrow raised. “You a friend of his?”

“No. I plan to kill him when the law lets him go.”

“Not this time,” Mast said, smiling. “The Rangers have witnesses who swear they saw him kill Wilson Anderson in Bastrop County back in the spring of seventy-five. Anderson was walking behind a plow at the time.”

“Yeah. I heard the story,” Sullivan said, scowling as he swallowed Mast's bitter pill. The Rangers just might make the murder charge stick this time.

“Not so fast, my buck. Did I hear you right?” Courtney Lister stood near the table, his slicker pulled back from the Colt on his hip.

“What did you hear?” Mast asked.

“I heard this ranny say he aimed to kill Bill Longley.” Lister raised his voice so everybody in the saloon would hear him. “Good ol' Bill happens to be a friend of mine.”

Sullivan looked hard at the gunman. He felt very tired. “You should choose your friends more carefully, youngster.”

Lister didn't like
youngster
one bit.

He needed to prove to everyone on the saloon and to the town of Nacogdoches that he was a man. A man with bark on him, a man to be reckoned with . . . a lean, dangerous draw fighter of the first rank.

Not a kid.

“Look at me. What do you see?” Sullivan said.

Lister's top lip curled in a sneer. “Not much.”

“You let things be, Court,” Mast said.

“You shut your trap,” the young man said. “Your time is coming, Mast.”

“What do you see, kid?” Sullivan said again. Quieter this time.

“Hell, I don't know.” Lister giggled. “Maybe an hombre so scared he's about to pass out.”

“No, that's not it. See, a couple months ago, I killed a kid like you, only a sight meaner, and it got me into a heap of trouble. I don't want to do it again.”

Lister seemed uncertain. The big man wasn't scared and that troubled him. “I'm better with a gun than Longley.” The boast was as hollow as it sounded.

Somewhere a man laughed.

Lister's uncertainty turned to anger. The situation was slipping away from him and he needed to reassert himself . . . establish that he was a man to be feared. “Get to your damned feet. You threatened my friend and I will not let it stand.”

All at once, Sullivan was tired of it—this, and what had gone before. He got to his feet and cleared his gun.

Lister grinned. And drew.

He never cleared leather.

Sullivan's threw a straight right from the shoulder that crashed into the youngster's chin. It was a powerful, on-the-button punch that hit like an axe hitting a sapling pine, and Lister dropped.

Mad clean through, Sullivan kicked away the young gunman's Colt then stripped him of his gun belt. He slid the holster off the belt and threw it away. A big strong man, Sullivan grabbed the kid, threw him over his knee, and paddled his butt with the heavy cartridge belt.

Lister, aware of what was happing to him, kicked and shrieked, trying to swing at Sullivan.

But the big bounty hunter, his teeth bared in anger, was relentless.
Thwack . . . thwack . . . thwack . . .

The belt rose and fell, each blow that hit Lister's butt a punishing reminder to the youngster not to play with grownups, especially strangers. You never know what you might get.

Courtney Lister finally knew. He'd braced a man he didn't know, a man who'd never done him any harm, and he was paying the price.

As Lister's cries grew into screams for mercy, Sullivan stood up and the young gunman rolled off his knee, thudding to the ground. His blood up, Sullivan lifted Lister, threw him into the street, and tossed his hat after him.

Sullivan picked up the kid's Colt and tossed it onto the table in front of Sheriff Mast.

Ringed by wondering, horrified faces, Sullivan picked up his rye, drained the glass, and set it back on the table. “One thing I cannot stand is an uncivil bully.”

Mast shook his head. “Hell, mister. What happens when you get really mad at a feller?”

“You don't want to know.”

Ten minutes later, Courtney Lister spurred his horse out of town.

As far as the records show, he was never heard from again.