Journey into Violence (21 page)

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-TWO

By dawn the storm had blown itself out. Somewhere under a mound of sand lay Tilly Madison's body. Neither Kate nor Frank had the time or inclination to look for it.

They rode out just after daybreak. Kate was on Brewster's horse and the Ranger, drifting in and out of consciousness, sat behind Frank and somehow hung on until they reached Eagle Pass, a sprawling, lawless settlement of two thousand people on the Rio Grande.

The doctor in town was a young woman, unusual at that time in the West, unusual at that time anywhere. According to a man Frank spoke to in the street, her name was Ada Jordan and her shingle hung outside the end house on Main Street, right after the Last Chance Saloon & Billiard Room.

Frank, conscious of the presence in town of Jesse Dobbs and his cohorts, felt vulnerable with a wounded man clinging to him. A horseback revolver fighter needs freedom to maneuver, but Brewster denied him that. It was therefore with considerable relief that he and Kate reached the doctor's house without incident, though many curious and possibly hostile eyes had stared in their direction. Or so Frank thought until he realized it could have been something far less sinister—merely men struck by Kate's maturing beauty and the fact that she sat her horse like a warrior queen.

Dr. Jordan's nurse was a middle-aged woman with fine hazel eyes and gray hair scraped back in a bun. She took one look at Brewster and led the way past living quarters to a surgery at the rear of the house. Once the Ranger had been laid out on a steel table with a leather top she said, “The doctor will be right with you.”

Ada Jordan MD was a tall, beautifully shaped woman with a thick mane of glossy chestnut hair and expressive brown eyes. She was pretty, but lacked Kate's spectacular beauty. Men looked at her, but not in the same tongue-hanging-out way they looked at Kate.

After brief introductions were made, Dr. Jordan examined the patient. Her manner was brusque and businesslike, perhaps to compensate for her gender. She told Brewster that she would operate to remove the bullet and that she'd give him ether so that he felt no pain.

“Doc, so long as you stay close to me and give me a musket ball to bite on, I'll be fine,” Brewster said.

The doctor smiled and allowed herself to unbend a little. “Spoken like a true Texas Ranger, Mr. Brewster, but I believe ether will make it easier for all concerned.” She turned to Frank. “Mr. Cobb, perhaps you'd care to wait in my study. Nurse Boxford will show you the way.”

After Frank was ushered out by the nurse, Dr. Jordan said, “Mrs. Kerrigan, I believe I have the only bathtub in Eagle Pass. At least it seems that way sometimes. You're welcome to use it and I think we can find something in my closet to fit you.”

Kate looked down at her torn, trail-stained dress and smiled. “I look a mess, don't I?”

“I don't think you could ever look a mess, Mrs. Kerrigan.”

“But still . . .”

“Yes,” the doctor said. “But still.”

“Yes, I'd appreciate a bath,” Kate said.

Nurse Boxford returned and after the doctor told her about the bath she said, “I'll have Marius, our manservant, heat water and then set up the tub in the parlor by the fire. You'll have privacy there. And now if you'll excuse me, Mrs. Kerrigan, I have to prepare for surgery.” Dr. Jordan was all business again.

* * *

All Frank Cobb sought that noon hour as he stepped into the Last Chance Saloon was a beer and a quiet corner. As fate would have it, he got the former but not the latter.

Gunmen of all stripes were not rare in Eagle Pass. Usually they were in transit across the Rio Grande, either leaving or heading toward Old Mexico, and bothered no one. Unfortunately, one of those gunmen, a bully and braggart by the name of Clip Hornage, was in the saloon talking with Jesse Dobbs.

As Frank ordered his beer at the bar, Hornage was in earnest conversation with Dobbs.

“I feel that I'm destined for great things, Mr. Dobbs. That's why I want to throw in with you.”

“As what?”

“Anything you want me to be.” Hornage puffed up a little. “I've killed men before.”

“You don't say?”

“Sure. You ever hear of Lou Hope up Potter County way? No? Well, he had a rep as a fast gun, told folks he'd killed fifteen men. Then he drew down on me and his career ended right there and then. One shot right through the bowels and he died three days later screaming like a woman.”

“You're fast, huh?” Dobbs said, enjoying this.

“Maybe the fastest there is,” Hornage said.

“Well, that's fast. How did you know about me, Clip?”

The use of his first name by a known gunman and outlaw flattered Hornage and his face glowed. “Everybody's heard of you, Mr. Dobbs. There's talk that you robbed an army payroll and you're on the scout from the Rangers. You need a man like me at your side.”

“A fast gun?”

“That's right, Mr. Dobbs.”

“Well, you seem eager enough, young feller.” Dobbs moved his whiskey bottle to one side and leaned across the table. “Look around the saloon and tell me what you see.”

Hornage's pale blue eyes moved around the room. His smile was disdainful. “Nothing much. Looks like a bunch of sodbusters and drummers in here.”

“What about the man in the corner nursing a beer?”

Hornage's contemptuous gaze skimmed over Frank. “Cowboy. I never met a puncher who could shoot worth a damn.”

“Brace him,” Dobbs said.

“Him? Why?”

“You said you're fast, Clip. Show me how fast you are. Gun the cowboy.”

“And when I do?”

Dobbs smiled. “Well then, welcome to my gang.”

Hornage rose to his feet. “This is gonna be too easy,” he said, grinning. “It ain't much of a test.” He adjusted the hang of his flashy Smith & Wesson and stepped toward Frank's table, his spurs ringing.

Frank knew trouble when he saw it . . . and he was seeing it.

The young man striding toward him affected the frockcoat and string-tie garb of a frontier gambler and his blond, shoulder-length hair pegged him as a wannabe Hickok. But unlike, Wild Bill he wore his revolver in a low-slung holster. His beard and mustache—meticulously trimmed in the imperial style of the top-rated shootist—was the finishing touch, and Frank wanted no part of him.

The man stopped at Frank's table and said louder than was necessary, “On your feet!”

“Go away,” Frank said. “I'm drinking a beer.”

The puncher didn't seemed scared and that rattled Hornage a little. He'd killed a cowboy or two before and they didn't show the relaxed self-confidence of this one.

Again loud, he said, “Mister, you've been pretty free with your talk about me around town, saying that I was too much of a coward to meet you. Well, here I am.”

The cowboy's eyes were cold as frosted steel. He didn't scare worth a damn and Hornage didn't like it—but he was in too deep to back out now.

“Go away,” Frank said again.

Hornage couldn't see the man's gun hand. A glance in the mirror behind the bar revealed a smiling Dobbs. A few other men were grinning, enjoying the show.

The wannabe gunman tried once more. “I said get on your feet.”

“Can I buy you a beer?” Frank said.

“I'm a whiskey man. I don't want your damn beer.”

“Too bad. It's even pretty cold.”

“I told you to get on your feet,” Hornage said. “I don't draw on a sitting man, but for you I'm willing to make an exception.”

Frank shook his head. “Feller, I never saw you before in my life, but you're determined to kill a man for breakfast. Isn't that a natural fact?”

Somebody laughed and Hornage knew he was beginning to lose it and look bad. “Stand and front me like a man.” To save face, he added, “And admit that you're a damn liar and a yellow belly.”

Frank sighed deeply, then rose to his feet. “All right, youngster, let's have it over with. Shuck the iron and get your work in.”

Hornage felt that he was back in command of the situation. He had confidence in his draw and put it on display for all to see. His hand flashed for his gun.

A gun roared, but it was a Colt, not a Smith.

It took Hornage a few moments to realize what had happened to him. And then the pain of his shattered right wrist hit him like a pile driver. In that instant, as his revolver dropped from his numb hand, the young man knew he was done, that his gun fighting days were over. His wrist was a bloody mass of torn tissue and splintered bone and would heal twisted, stiff, and deformed. He looked at Frank, standing tall and straight, his smoking Colt in his hand.

Then he heard the man say, “I could have killed you just as easily. But there's good news. Now no one else will kill you. You're not fast, boy, not even close to fast.”

By nature Frank loved women, little children, and animals, but he was not noted for his compassion toward a defeated enemy, the result of many harsh lessons. He stepped around the table, grabbed the groaning Hornage by the scruff of his neck, and marched him to Jesse Dobbs's table. The young man left a trail of red splotches on the pine floor behind him.

Frank threw Hornage into a chair and said to Dobbs, “You could have stopped this.”

The man shrugged. “Young feller wants to test himself, it's no concern of mine.”

“There's a doctor in town. Make that your concern.”

“The hell I will.” Dobbs reached for the bottle on the table but never made it. Frank grabbed it and threw it against a wall, where it shattered, spraying shards of glass and a shower of amber whiskey.

Dobbs, his face like stone, ignored Frank and called out, “Bartender, another bottle here.”

Clip Hornage, sobbing in an agony of shame, chose that moment to make a desperation play. He rose from his chair and staggered across the floor. He bent over and, with a triumphant shriek, grabbed for his dropped gun with his left hand.

In one smooth fast motion, Frank drew and fired. He fired again and sent the big Schofield .45 skittering across the saloon's floor, under a table, and thudded against a wall.

Hornage straightened and saw Frank, Colt in hand, eyeing him. He threw himself out of the saloon door and staggered into the street, holding the forearm of his ruined gun hand. The young man's screams announced to everyone within earshot that his days as a feared draw fighter were gone forever.

Frank punched out the empties from his Colt and reloaded from his cartridge belt. Jesse Dobbs, a sure-thing killer, made no move to challenge him.

Frank holstered his Colt and said, “I'm going to take a guess and say that your name is Jesse Dobbs.”

“Is that right?”

“You tell me.”

“Maybe it's Dobbs. Maybe it isn't.”

“Either way, you're coming with me,” Frank said. “There's a lady called Kate Kerrigan wants to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“About how your boys kidnapped her and planned to sell her in Mexico. Where we come from, that's a hanging offense.”

“I didn't kidnap her,” Dobbs said. “I've never even met the lady.”

“Explain that to Kate.” Frank's hand dropped to his gun, but a voice from his left stopped him.

“I wouldn't, mister.” The bartender held a scattergun and when he eared back the hammers it sounded like the wrath of God. “You've shot up my saloon and one of my customers pretty good and that's where it ends. I'm a fair hand with this here Greener and it's no friend of draw fighters.”

“And neither are we.” This came from one of two men who'd walked into the saloon. The man, big and bearded, said, “We'll back your play, bartender.”

“There will be no gunplay if the gentlemen will go to another saloon,” the bartender said. “The Oriental serves a real nice free lunch. Tell them Miles Dolan sent you.”

Dobbs smiled, staring at Frank. “Mister, I got no quarrel with you. Those two hardcases are my boys, and right now they're a couple fingers looking for triggers. If I was you, I'd ease on out of here.”

“I'm up against a stacked deck, Dobbs, and I knew when to fold,” Frank said. “But this isn't over.”

“As far as I'm concerned it is.” Dobbs turned to Corcoran and Lucas. “Come have a drink, boys.”

The moment had passed and Frank knew it. And so did the bartender. He lowered the scattergun's hammers, laid the Greener behind the bar, and greeted a customer who'd just entered.

Frank walked across the saloon to the door. Behind him someone laughed but he ignored it. He stepped through the door . . . into a bullet.

The .44-40 slug fired from a Winchester hit Frank Cobb on his left side, an inch above the cartridge belt. Clip Hornage stood in the middle of the street, the rifle cradled in his damaged right arm and he worked the lever with his left . . . slowly . . . awkwardly. Missing his first shot was a death sentence and he knew it.

People stopped in the street to watch as Frank drew and fired. There would be no wounding this time. He shot to kill. His bullet slammed into the Winchester's side plate, caromed upward and hit Hornage under the chin. The man dropped the rifle and staggered back, shocked, wearing his blood like a scarlet bib. Frank fired again, a hit center chest. Hornage went to his knees and then pitched forward into the dirt.

Years later, when the legends were written, people swore that after Frank Cobb watched Hornage fall, he said, “I've had enough of you for one day.”

And that was probably the truth.