Blood Bond 3 (18 page)

“Git up, old man,” Pukey ordered.

“My pleasure, boy,” Vonny said. He downed his glass of hooch and pushed his chair back, standing up and stepping away from the table.

“I git word that you're Vonny Dodge,” Pukey said.

“That's right, punk. That's me. Who are you?”

“Stagg.”

“Oh, yeah,” Vonny said. “The one called Pukey. It sure fits. You look like puke.”

“You'll die for insultin' me, you old buffalo turd!”

Vonny laughed at him.

Pukey stood tensed, slightly hunched over, his hands hovering over the butts of his guns. Vonny stood tall and relaxed, a slight but hard smile visible under his handlebar mustache. This was nothing new to the old gunfighter. He'd played this scene out dozens of times before Pukey was even a gleam in his daddy's eye and had left men lying in their own blood on dirty barroom floors from the Cascades to the Mississippi River and from Calgary to Texas.

“I ain't never had to draw on no old man,” Pukey said. “'Specially one who looks like he needs a crutch to help hold him up.” He laughed confidently. “You sure you don't need a nurse to help you haul that Hog-leg out of leather?”

“You don't worry about me, Pukey,” Vonny told him. “You best be concerned about someone carin' enough about you to write your mama, tellin' her where her bad-seed boy is buried.”

“Your old bones will be dust in a rotten box long before that happens, old man,” Pukey snarled.

“Are you talkin' to build your confidence, punk?” Vonny asked. “Come on, boy, pull them guns and let's get this over with. I got supper to eat yet.”

A sudden flash of worry passed Pukey's face. This old coot wasn't at all scared. He just stood there, smilin' at him. “Draw, damn you!” Pukey yelled.

“After you, boy,” Vonny said.

“I'd be made fun of the rest of my life if I drew first agin an old geezer like you. Hell, old man, jerk iron if you got the strength to do it. I won't even start a draw 'til you're clear of leather.”

“You're a fool, Pukey,” Vonny told him, the smile gone from his lips and the words flying like chipped ice from his mouth. “You're just like every damn punk I've ever seen. Big guns, big mouth, and a yellow streak runnin' wide down the center of your back. Why don't you hang them guns on a peg and go on back home and spend the rest of your days gatherin' eggs and sloppin' hogs and milkin' cows and the like? You don't want this, punk. You really don't want it.”

“You can't call me no coward!” Pukey yelled.

“Boy, I just done it. And you took it. Now wear it and ride on out of here.”

Pukey cussed him until he was breathless. Vonny stood staring at him, unblinking.

“Yellow clear through,” Vonny finally said.

Pukey grabbed for his guns.

Vonny shot him. He pulled iron and plugged Pukey before the man's fingers closed around the butts of his guns. Smiling, the legendary old gunfighter twirled his .45 and holstered it.

The slug knocked Pukey back, his shirt front blossoming crimson. He put a hand out on a table to steady himself and pulled his left-hand gun.

Vonny let him clear leather before he drew his left-hand .45 with the same smooth, practiced motion. He put his second shot into Pukey's guts. Pukey's fancy guns clattered to the floor. The hired gun doubled over as the pain hit him and he slowly sank to his knees, a groan escaping his lips, as one hand went to his chest, the other hand to his belly.

Vonny twirled his left hand .45 and popped it back into leather.

Josiah grinned and said, “Hot damn! I always wanted to see that, and tonight I seen it.”

“Awesome,” Pen whispered.

“At least,” Sam agreed.

“Anybody else want to play my game this evenin'?” the old gunfighter threw out.

“The old goat beat me,” Pukey said. “The old coot really beat
me
.”

“By God!” Tanner said, stepping around John Lee and son. “Stagg was a friend of mine. You'll follow him into the grave, old man.”

With a motion that was almost too quick to follow, Vonny jerked both .45's and blew Tanner back on his boot heels. The gunny stumbled backward, staggering toward the bar. He hit and grabbed the edge, holding on for a moment.

“Damn you, Dodge!” he gasped, his right hand snaking his .44 from leather.

Vonny shot him again, Tanner jerking as the slug tore into his chest. But he would not fall. He managed to get off a round, the slug blowing John Lee's hat off his head. The rancher yelped and hit the floor. Tanner fired again, the slug hitting Jack Lightfoot's boot and knocking the heel off of it, sending Lightfoot slamming to the barroom floor, yelling in shock.

Tanner lurched forward, pulling his left-hand Colt from leather and cocking it. His eyes were glazed over and everything was blurry. He fired, the slug knocking a hole in the ceiling.

“Jesus H. Christ!” a muffled yell came from overhead.

Tanner fired his right-hand Colt, the slug striking Pukey in the head and Pukey had no more worries on this earth.

“Somebody shoot that crazy fool!” John Lee whistled from his belly-down position on the floor.

His brave son obliged his daddy's wishes. Nick jerked out a pistol and shot Tanner through the heart.

“That's it!” Al said from behind the bar, coming up with a sawed-off shotgun, the hammers eared back. “the next man pulls iron and I fire this blunderbuss smack into the crowd of you Broken Lance boys. Now settle down and get the hell out of my saloon.”

“Your saloon!” John Lee hollered. “I put up the money to build this damn place. Where it used to be,” he added.

Al fired one barrel into the ceiling.

“Holy Crap!” the resident upstairs yelled as the buckshot tore a hole in the ceiling.

“Get out of here!” Al yelled.

“I'm goin', I'm goin',” the man on the second floor yelled. “Just let me get my damn pants on!”

After the shootout at the saloon, it was all out that the foreman of the Circle S was the legendary gunfighter Vonny Dodge, several of John Lee's hired guns pulled out. The old gunfighter still had his stuff and knew how to use it. And with Matt Bodine, Sam Two Wolves, and Josiah Finch looking like they were in this to the end, it just added up to more than the hired guns cared to face.

John Lee stood on his front porch and cussed the men as they rode out, his ignoramus son by his side, sneering at the riders.

Cindy spent most of her time in her room in the mansion, alternately cussing her husband and her condition. She ate constantly and had picked up about fifty pounds. Cindy was now about as wide as she was tall, and no joy to be around.

The ambush of the nightriders and the deaths of a dozen of the men had taken more of the steam out of the hired guns of John Lee. John Lee still had a small army at his command, but the men who made up the army were now very wary about riding at night. One Broken Lance rider had ridden up to a small rancher's house to ask permission to let his horse have a drink. Before he could open his mouth, the rancher blew him out of the saddle with a shotgun. The rancher let the horse drink anyway.

The men of Broken Lance could still ride into Nameit for whiskey and tobacco, but they did so cautiously. Now when they appeared, the townspeople also appeared, with shotguns and rifles and pistols in their hands. They spoke when spoken to, be it a nod of the head or a word, but let it be known they were more than willing and certainly ready to empty a lot of saddles in a very short time.

John Lee did a lot of cussing and stomping around his house. But for the time being, that was all he did. But all that was about to change.

A week after the ambush in the night and the shootout in the saloon, John Lee stepped out on his porch for an after-supper cigar and a brandy. John Lee turned his head just as the rifle boomed, the slug tearing the cigar out of his mouth. The second shot tore a good-sized chunk of wood out of a support porch, and the third shot thudded into the house.

By that time the men of the Broken Lance had the rifleman spotted, circled around him, and managed to take him alive. The missing Jimmy had surfaced.

The men roped him and dragged him to the house.

“I almost got you, you murderin' son of a bitch!” Jimmy yelled at John Lee.

“But now I got you,” John Lee said, a wicked grin on his face. “What do you think I ought to do with you?”

Jimmy stood and stared at the man.

“Now, the reasonable thing to do would be to turn you over to the law, wouldn't it, Jimmy?”

“Probably. But you've never done a reasonable thing in your life, Lee.”

John Lee stepped off the porch and slapped the young man. “You mind your manners when talking to me, punk.”

Jimmy spat in his face.

John Lee hit him twice in the face, a hard left and right that bloodied Jimmy's mouth. Jimmy took the blows as stoically as possible; he knew the worst was yet to come.

John Lee stepped back. “But if I was to turn you over to the law, you'd get off. I know how much the other people in this area are envious and jealous of me.”

Jimmy had to laugh at that. “Envious and jealous? Of you? No one is envious and jealous; they just hate your guts, is all.”

That got him more blows to the face.

John Lee stepped back and caught his breath. “I'm gonna see how well you die, boy. Personally, I think you're just like your old man: a yellow-bellied coward. But we'll see.” He turned to his foreman. “Strip him buck-assed naked and tie him to a post down by the barn. Then get me a bullwhip.”

 

 

Pen Masters pounded on Matt and Sam's hotel-room door. “Open up, Matt! Hurry up. It's me, Pen.”

Matt lit the lamp and clicked open his pocket watch. One o'clock in the morning. “Okay, Pen,” he called. “Let me get my britches on.” He almost fell down getting into his jeans and Sam tripped over his boots trying to pull on his britches. Matt flung open the door. By this time, Josiah had left his room and joined Pen in the dark hall.

“What's up, Pen?” Matt asked.

“Jimmy. He's alive, but just barely. Somebody dumped him at the edge of town. Buck neeked. John Lee horsewhipped him. He ain't got long, boys. Come on.”

It was hard to recognize the bloody form as anything human. John Lee had spent hours beating him, stopping only to rest his arm and finally handing the whip over to others. Dr. Winters looked up at the men and shook his head.

“It's a miracle he's still alive, much less able to speak. I don't give him long, and I told him so.”

Matt knelt down beside the cot, swallowing back the bile building in his throat.

“John Lee done it,” Jimmy whispered. “He . . . enjoyed doin' it. When he'd . . . get tired . . . some other would take . . .” He closed his eyes and Matt thought he was gone. But somewhere deep inside the young man he found the inner strength to continue. “I had three good shots at him and . . . missed . . . all three. They took turns . . . whippin' me. Cindy watched 'em 'till . . . she got hot and went on back in . . . inside the house. She's as crazy as all the others.”

Jimmy turned his head as the doctor tried to give him a sip of laudanum. “I . . . I'm past pain,” Jimmy said. “Leo Grand's got my rifle. I seen him . . . admirin' it. I . . .”

Jimmy died in mid-sentence. Doc Winters leaned over and closed the young cowboy's eyes with gentle fingertips. He looked up at Josiah. “Surely, surely now you can arrest the man?”

Josiah shrugged. “You heard Jimmy say he tried to bushwack John Lee. Life's hard out here, Doc. You gotta understand that. This ain't Philadelphia where you can call a uniformed police officer if you get in a jam. I ain't sayin' it's right what John Lee done to the boy, but a jury probably would once a slick lawyer got done with them.”

“This is a strange and barbaric land,” Doc Winters muttered, laying a white cloth over Jimmy's face.

“Not really,” Matt told him, standing up from his squat. “There's a saying out here, Doc: A man stomps on his own snakes and saddles his own horses.”

“I don't understand that.”

“A man settles his own troubles, Doctor,” Sam said. “Out here, the sheriff might have a county to patrol that's as big as some Eastern states. The law might be five or six day's ride away from a trouble spot. You just settle matters yourself out here, and usually frontier justice is administered to the right party. We're trying to bring law and order here, Doctor. We're really trying. But it's still years away. Any way you look at it, Doctor, frontier justice is damned effective.”

“That would never be tolerated back in New York City,” the doctor said.

“Yeah?” Josiah looked at him. “Them New York folk will be sorry for that decision someday, too, I betcha.”

Matt looked at Sam, and his brother nodded his head. They both took off their Texas Ranger badges and handed them to Josiah. He smiled and handed them a piece of paper. “Got that when the stagecoach run this noon. Read it.”

Sam took it and read it. He grinned. “Your request for a leave of absence has been approved.”

“I don't understand,” Doctor Winters said. “Of all the times to ask for a leave of absence! Good God, man. We need your authority figure here, now!”

“You need my guns, Doc. Sometimes the law just don't work the way it ought to.” Josiah took off his badge and put it in an inside pocket of his vest. “And when that happens, it's time to step outside the law to beat the lawless at their own game. That's the way it is, Doc.”

He nodded his head. None of the three men felt the doctor really understood, but he was trying.

“Let's go, boys,” Josiah said.

Outside, Matt asked, “You got a plan, Josiah?”

Josiah nodded his head. “We crowd them. We push them. We make them pull iron agin us. We knock their numbers down ever' time we come up on a bunch of them. We hit them first and we hit them hard. Don't think about the law. 'Cause we ain't much better than them from now on out. Let's go on back and get some sleep. Tomorrow is gonna be the start of a busy time, I'm thinkin'.”

 

 

It started early. Jeff Sparks had just ridden in with a wagon to fetch the body of Jimmy back to his place for burying in the family plot. He was at Doc's office. And he was mad clear through. Killing mad.

Three of the Broken Lance riders came riding into town as if nothing eventful had happened. It made Matt mad just looking at them. One of them, Blackie, was an arrogant son.

Blackie and the two others reined up in front of the saloon, and that was where Matt was standing, leaning up against a support post at the edge of the boardwalk.

Blackie's eyes flicked to Matt's shirt front as he dismounted. He narrowed his eyes at the absence of a badge. “What's the matter, Bodine, you git tarred of lawin' or turn yeller?”

“You want to find out right now, Blackie?”

That stopped Blackie where he stood in the dirt. He smiled. “You callin' me out, Bodine?”

“In a word, yes.”

Blackie stepped away from his horse, moving into a position more directly in line with Bodine. As most men who depend on their guns to keep them alive, Blackie had slipped the hammer thongs from his .45's the instant his boots touched the ground. He waved at the two who had ridden in with him.

“Stay out of this. This is a personal matter,” Blackie said.

Bodine stood on the boardwalk, putting him about a foot and a half higher than Blackie.

Pen and Bam stood in front of the marshal's office window, watching the scene. Josiah was across the street, leaning against a post, watching. Sam was at the other end of the short block from Josiah, waiting and watching.

“I can't believe you'd actually call me out, Bodine,” Blackie said with a smile. “You bein' such a high-minded sort of law-and-order feller. A principled sort, I guess you'd say.”

“All that's changed since scum like you hired on with John Lee,” Bodine told him.

Blackie tensed, a flush creeping up from his neck to cover his face. “Scum, Bodine?” he asked, his words softly offered.

“Just like what you'd find on a stinking pool of bad water, Blackie.”

“What's goin' on here, Bodine?” the hired gun asked. “How come you sudden on the prod?”

Blackie's two riding buddies were standing silent and listening, sensing that the rules of the range war had suddenly changed, and not to their advantage.

“The law is oftentimes inadequate, Blackie,” Bodine replied. “Especially when decent people have to deal with the filth of the earth—like you.”

The hired gun thought about that for a few seconds and got mad. “Why, damn your eyes, Bodine. I'm gonna kill you.”

Bodine shot him. His draw was lightning quick and his aim right on the mark. The .44 slug struck Blackie just to the right of center chest, turning him around in the dirt and numbing his right arm. Blackie had not even had time to drag iron.

“Jesus,” one of his fellow guns-for-hire whispered. It was the first time he'd ever seen Matt Bodine in action, and he hoped he would never have to face the Wyoming gunfighter. He wasn't in Bodine's class and knew it.

Blackie pulled his second gun from behind his gunbelt, and Matt drilled him again, putting the slug a couple of inches above Blackie's ornate silver belt buckle. That slug sat Blackie on the ground, on his butt. The gun fell to the earth with a small plopping sound and lay in the dust by his leg.

The newly arrived undertaker and his assistant came rushing out of their half-completed building to stand on the edge of the boardwalk. The undertaker carefully measured Blackie with a practiced eye and concluded they had a pine box that was just right for him. It might be a little snug around the shoulders, but Blackie wouldn't mind the tight fit.

With blood staining his lips, Blackie gave a macabre grin. “You're good, Bodine. But they's a surprise in store for you. He'll be gettin' here any day now. Wish I could hang round and see it.” He fell over on his side and turned his head in the dirt to stare at Matt. His left hand was close to the .45 he'd pulled from behind his belt.

“I like surprises, Blackie,” Matt told him. “Makes everyday seem like Christmas.”

Blackie moved his hand closer to the butt of the pistol. “You won't like this one, Bodine. Monty Brill stands to earn big money by killin' you.” He closed his eyes against the pain that suddenly hit him, rolling over him in hot waves. He sighed and opened his eyes. His world was getting all fuzzy and blurry. The .45 only inches in front of him had turned into three pistols. He didn't know which one to grab.

He didn't have to worry about it. He died in the dirt.

Matt turned to face Blackie's buddies. “You boys rode in with him. That makes you both just as crap-sorry as he was.”

“We can ride out,” one of them said, a thin sheen of sweat making his tanned face shiny. “You just tell us which direction you want us to head, and we'll do 'er.”

His buddy looked around him and silently cussed. Bodine faced them. To their right was Josiah Finch. Sam Two Wolves stood watching to their left. Right behind them was Pen Masters and Bam Ford. All in all, it made for a lousy situation.

“And I'm supposed to take your word that you'll keep riding and not return to Broken Lance range?” Bodine asked.

“You'll not see either of us again, Bodine,” the third man spoke. “In two days we'll be in Fort Stockton, and we won't even look back.”