Cotton’s Inferno (29 page)

Chapter 56

A
t five-thirty, Jack emerged from the back room of the saloon with a piece of paper in one hand and a small hammer and a nail in the other. He held the paper to the siding outside the saloon and tacked it up with the nail. He stood back to allow those who might be interested take a look.

“The
official
election results are available, folks. Take your time, don't crowd around,” he said, expecting all those within earshot to come rushing up. “Oh, and the saloon is now open.”

Every cowboy on the porch, and all up and down the street, hurried toward the saloon, completely ignoring the sheet with the election results as they pushed by Jack in their haste to get to the bar. He was nearly trampled by their stampede to imbibe something stronger than coffee.

“Not sure why we even bother,” Jack muttered, as he went inside to grab a bottle and take it over to the jail. He figured Cotton would be anxious to celebrate his win. Of course, without anyone opposing him, he couldn't lose. On his way through the batwings, Jack turned to see Mayor Plume walking briskly down the street. Not far behind him was Carp Varner taking long, purposeful strides. Varner looked like a man on a mission.

* * *

As he watched the scene before him unfold, Cotton turned to Emily and said, “Go inside, Emily. Go inside and tell the two people there to come out. Tell Johnny to come here and stand by my side.”

“Isn't that Mr. Varner racing to catch up with Mayor Plume?”

“It is. Please do as I ask. We don't have much time if I'm going to pull this off without losin' our town.”

Emily disappeared into the jail office, and emerged in two minutes with Johnny and Turner Burnside trailing behind her. Johnny's eyes grew wide as he caught sight of Carp Varner. His hand went instinctively to his side for his revolver; then he suddenly remembered that the Indian had taken it away from him. Instinctively understanding the boy's intentions, Cotton grabbed him by the sleeve of his shirt and yanked him to his side before he could go back to retrieve any sort of weapon.

“You won't be needin' a gun, boy. Just keep your mouth shut and follow my lead. You can speak up when I say you can. Understand?”

Johnny nodded without ever taking his eyes off Varner. The heat of the boy's anger was palpable.

* * *

When the mayor walked up to the posted results, he reached into his coat pocket to retrieve his spectacles. Rather than putting them on, he simply held them up in order to read the only number he cared about: his own. There it was—clearly he'd achieved another victory. The townsfolk felt sufficiently comfortable with the job he'd done to bring him back for a second term. Before returning his cheaters to his pocket, he noticed that Sheriff Burke, too, had been reelected, not that there was any way he could have lost. Plume felt pretty chipper about his significant number of votes over Carp Varner. In fact, Varner appeared to have received but four votes in total. Plume turned with a smug smile, only to find himself facing a red-faced Varner, his opponent. Varner took one quick glance at the totals and began berating the mayor, backing him against the wall.

“You dirty rattler! You're the one who wrote those scandalous words on my posters. You caused the folks of Apache Springs to turn against me. Admit it, you low-down snake!” Varner had hauled back to punch the mayor when a loud voice interrupted him.

“Hold on, Varner. The mayor didn't write on those posters, I did!”

“You? Why? Where'd you come up with all them lies?”

Cotton reached back and took Johnny by the arm and pulled him to his side.

“This boy claims he knows you from a Texas town called Whiskey Crossing. Seems that when you lost an election there similar to our own, you decided to make the town pay for your lack of popularity. He says you killed every living thing thereabouts—horses, mules, dogs, and the entire citizenry. Then you did the most dastardly thing imaginable, you set the town afire, and rode off like a sniveling coward. The boy says he still hears the screams in his nightmares. Any of that sound like it has the ring of truth?”

Varner thrust his left hand out and grabbed the mayor by the back of his coat, while at the same moment pulling his revolver. He shoved Plume in front of him, hooking his arm around the mayor's throat, then using him as a shield as he backed through the batwings, firing over the mayor's shoulder as he went. Varner fired three times. His bullets thudded into the front of the jail, knocking chinks out of the siding and shattering two panes of glass.

Cotton yanked Johnny back behind him, then, spinning around, pushed Burnside and Emily ahead of him, back into the safety of the jail.

“You three stay here until you hear me tell you it's okay to come out. And Johnny, if you make one move to go after Varner, I swear I'll skin you alive myself.”

He stopped momentarily, thinking back on what he'd just said. Deciding he couldn't really trust the boy to obey him, he shoved Johnny into the first cell, locked the steel door, and tossed the keys to Emily.

“Keep him in there and you'll keep him alive.”

He grabbed a shotgun from the rack, made a quick check of his Colt, and rushed out the door. He knew Varner wouldn't still be in the saloon, or at least he hoped not. Odds were the man would head to his own arsenal at the gun shop, where he had plenty of ammunition to hold off whatever force the sheriff brought against him. If he was still holding the mayor hostage, things could get messy real fast.

Cotton made the best time he could, trying to make himself as small a target as possible by keeping to the shadows beneath every portico and overhang, ducking behind each water barrel, bench, and crate, even cutting through the general store to come out in the alley at the back.

Finally, he was able to situate himself in position to keep an eye on Varner's establishment. That's when he got a shock. Varner had stacked up wooden crates three high across the boardwalk in front of the shop, making it a virtual fortress. Cotton could see movement inside through the front window. Varner had apparently gone down another alley and into the rear door of his shop. At this point, Cotton had no way of tempting Varner to step outside and face him. And he sure as hell wasn't planning to bust in and come face-to-face with a fusillade from Varner's formidable cache of firearms.

He suddenly felt a shiver go up his back. He yanked his Colt and spun around to see Henry and Jack no more than three feet behind him.

“Damn! Are you two tryin' to take a couple years off my life?”

“Found the mayor out back of the saloon. Had bump on his head, but he appears to be all right. We're here to help. What do you want us to do?” Jack asked. Henry just grunted.

“I got a real bad feelin' about what Varner might conjure up in retribution for his election loss. Remember that Johnny said the thing that fueled his fury at the folks of Whiskey Crossing was his failing to get any votes for mayor. He may be thinkin' to repeat history. We better be ready for anything.”

“If he starts a fire in this town full of dry timber, Apache Springs could be nothin' but embers in minutes,” Jack said. “A man would have to be crazy to do somethin' like that.”

“I think that's
exactly
what he is. So you and Henry start alerting every shop owner and citizen to help gathering all the buckets of sand or water you can find. We'd better be prepared for a bucket brigade from the well, too. Warn everyone who'll listen to be ready.”

When Henry and Jack took off running in opposite directions, Cotton decided he'd sit tight for a while to keep an eye out for Varner's next move. He was dead certain there would be
something
happening, and soon. He also figured it to be dramatic and deadly. He had no interest in being in on the deadly part of it.

He was mulling over how he might get Varner to come out in the open and show his hand. He needed to keep the cold-blooded killer occupied while the town prepared for the eventuality of a fire spreading from business to business. He was shaken from his inner turmoil when Carp Varner burst out of the door to his shop with four glass-bowled lanterns in his hands. The glass chimneys had all been removed and each lamp was lit. Cotton ducked down to keep from being a target as Varner placed the lamps in a row along the boardwalk then spun around and returned inside, only to reappear within seconds fully armed with the same big-bore shotgun with which he'd brought down the two Callahan brothers.

He was now standing in front of the open door, shotgun aimed across the street and six-shooters shoved in holsters, gun belts, and sticking out of pockets. He was a walking army.

“Citizens of Apache Springs! You are about to learn a lesson in good manners! You should never have neglected to cast your votes for me! So now you'll feel the sting of my wrath for your own ignorance!”

Carp Varner pulled the trigger on one barrel of the shotgun, blowing the entire window out of the dress shop directly across the street.

Chapter 57

C
otton had made it as far as the general store, shotgun in hand and pointed at Varner. His intention was to at least get the gunsmith to talk to him. That's not the way it turned out, however.

“Varner! Put that blunderbuss down and let's—”

Varner didn't even flinch as he turned the shotgun in Cotton's direction. Cotton flung himself to the ground, dropping his own scattergun, just as Varner's big gun went off, showering the earth around the sheriff with geysers of dirt. He felt the bite of some of the steel pellets as they plowed into his shoulder and leg. Before Cotton could pull his Colt, Varner had picked up one of the lanterns and launched it in the air with a high arc. The blazing missile came down on the boardwalk in front of the store in the next building. The glass lamp shattered instantly, spreading coal oil and exploding in flames. The wooden walkway, parched from the dry summer, was quickly engulfed by the fast-spreading flames. Several shopkeepers, watching from the safety of indoors, looked on in horror as the posts holding up the portico began to burn. No one dared rush outside to help, for fear of being the next victim of that awful shotgun.

As Cotton rolled over to free his Colt from its holster, a shot from Varner's Smith & Wesson dug a furrow across his thigh. He scrambled to avoid the next shot, which would undoubtedly find its mark with a fatal result. Just then, a shot from inside the door of the post office shattered the door glass behind Varner. Carp ducked back inside. Jack's smoking Remington was still in the deputy's hand when Cotton heard him call out.

“You okay, Cotton?”

“A little worse for the wear, but alive. Can you keep him inside while Henry gets some folks to douse the fire with sand?”

“I'm hopin' to do just that,” Jack said, as he threw a couple more shots at where Varner was holed up.

Half-crawling, half-hopping, Cotton reached the safety of a water trough outside the town hall. He took off his neck scarf and tied it around his thigh to stop the bleeding, then stuck his head up just enough to see if he could spot Varner. He didn't have to wait long. The elusive gunman was no longer inside. He'd reappeared behind his fortress and was lighting several more lamps, just out of Jack's sight. But not Cotton's.

Cocking his Colt, Cotton crawled to the end of the trough. He stuck the barrel around the corner and fired. Varner quickly ducked back. The shot had given Varner an idea of where the sheriff was, but it had also showed Jack where Varner was. It was shaping up to be two against one, and Varner didn't like those odds. He grabbed up two more lamps and tossed them high in the air as he ran. One hit a freight wagon that had pulled up in front of the general store and parked, filled with raw lumber and bales of straw. The lamp shattered into a thousand pieces, showering the wagon and its contents with licking flames. The four-mule team that had been hitched to the wagon was instantly thrown into a wild-eyed panic. Straining at their traces and without their driver, they charged ahead down the street, out of control, weaving from one side to the other, tossing hunks of burning, newly split logs from the back, rolling every which way, and threatening to spread the fire even farther.

One of the lamps landed on a tin-roofed overhang, smashing and allowing the blazing oil to drip onto the boardwalk below. With each drop of flaming liquid, the fire walked along the dry wood like a snake seeking its prey. More of the lamps were launched. One lamp busted through the window of the dress shop, bursting into flames. The dressmaker ran from the shop trailing a burning skirt. Out of nowhere, a man came running with a bucket of water and doused her before she was badly hurt, although her hands and legs would take a while to heal from the blisters. The man helped her to a group of other women standing under the protection of a nearby portico. All around Varner's establishment, townsfolk were racing to stop the flames from eating the town like a ravenous mountain lion, as screams of terror and panic filled the air, burning embers were flung about by the rising columns of blistering heat, and white ash fluttered down like snowflakes. The town had never seen an inferno like this. It was every town's worst nightmare.

Varner raced for cover, staying low to keep from getting hit by gunfire aimed in his direction. He made his way to the back of his shop. He dove for the door and barely made it as hunks of wood were torn from the frame by Jack's .44. Jack had wisely thought to run down the alley once he saw that Varner was headed inside, returning to the safety of his shop to resupply his firepower. He'd missed his quarry, but that didn't keep him from throwing more lead through the open door and blasting the small window nearly out of its frame. He could hear cursing coming from inside.

Jack's actions had given Cotton just the break he needed to get himself situated in a better spot to confront the murderous man from Texas when he once again came through the front door. He didn't have to wait long. The flimsy door was nearly busted from its hinges when Varner crashed through, shotgun in hand, swiveling left and right to identify his target as quickly as possible. He stopped suddenly when he saw Cotton Burke standing not twenty feet away, his Colt .45 drawn and aimed in his direction.

Varner started to jerk the shotgun around to handle this threat to his freedom, in fact his very life. But whatever was going through Varner's head at that moment, it would make no difference to him or to anyone. No longer willing to give the madman an opportunity to take one more shot at him or even allow him to surrender after the devastation he'd wrought on Apache Springs, Cotton pulled the trigger. Twice in quick succession. The first bullet caught the killer in the throat, the second in the forehead, nearly taking off the back of his head. Varner stiffened, dropped his shotgun, and toppled backward like a just-felled ponderosa pine. His dead body crashed through the front window, bent backward over the frame, and remained there as life drained quickly from him.

Jack came running from around from the back as shop owners hurriedly brought out bucket after bucket of sand or water to douse the several fires caused by pieces of lumber and straw dropping from the burning wagon. At the end of the street, the liveryman had heard the commotion and, upon seeing the mule team charging toward him, raced out and grabbed their dangling reins and brought them to a halt. He quickly unhitched them from the wagon and led them inside. The fire in the wagon was brought under control by other quick-thinking citizens, and it now sat in the middle of the street, smoldering harmlessly.

As townsfolk stared in disbelief at the loss to businesses, a low murmur of voices spread angrily through the citizenry. Heads shook and tongues clucked at the potential cost of rebuilding and repairs. But while the losses were substantial, they were not insurmountable. And there had been no loss of life, save that of the villain, Carp Varner. The town would come back stronger than ever, and everybody knew it.

Emily ran to Cotton, whose shirt and pants were splotched with blood. He swept her into his arms to let her know he would be okay, even though the pain in his leg suggested that might not be the case. As Jack leaned over the body of Carp Varner, Cotton said, “Jack, get the undertaker and then let Johnny and Turner out of their cells. I'm goin' to let Emily help me to the doc's.”

Jack nodded with a look that suggested he was surprised the sheriff had been hit, then he trotted off. Henry, carrying an empty sand bucket with which he had helped put out the fire in front of the general store, swept up Cotton's shotgun from the street as well as the one Carp Varner had been wielding to do a lot of damage. As they passed the jail, Turner Burnside stood clucking his tongue at the chaos Varner had caused. Johnny had run past them to see for himself that the villain who'd murdered his friends was really dead. Cotton looked back to see the boy gazing solemnly at the corpse of the man who had brought so much misery to his life. The sheriff thought he detected a nod of relief.