Man From Boot Hill (4 page)

Joseph often said he knew his land well enough to walk it with his eyes closed. In the darkness that fell upon the ranch that night, he put that boast to the test by snapping his reins and coaxing his horse to go faster to meet the approaching horsemen. Every so often, he would veer one way or slow down somewhere else to avoid obstacles he knew were there. But he did such things without thinking. His mind was busy contemplating why his innards had twisted into a knot.

Once the sound of the horses was loud enough, Joseph pulled back on his reins and came to a stop. He stared into the shadows and was soon able to make out the shapes of the oncoming riders. He couldn’t be certain, but it looked like there were at least a half dozen of them. The rancher could only guess how many more were hidden in the darkness.

Taking hold of his shotgun, Joseph felt his heart quicken in his chest as he watched them draw closer. He figured the men had spotted him by
now, but not one of them was slowing down.

As they drew closer, Joseph raised his shotgun and sent a loud blast over the riders’ heads. The flash from the muzzle lit up Joseph’s face like a photographer’s powder and a roar rolled through the air like a clap of thunder. He then brought his gun down and replaced the spent shell.

“Hold up,” one of the riders shouted.

Joseph had lowered his barrel, but found himself bringing it up as he moved in a bit closer.

The rider who’d spoken raised one hand and waved it until all of the other men had slowed to match his pace. From there, they moved in a single wave toward Joseph.

Despite the uneven numbers, Joseph sat tall in the saddle and rode forward with a challenging glare in his eyes. “You men are on my property,” he said while squinting to get a better look at the rider’s face.

“Sorry about that. Did we wake you?”

Joseph held his ground. “Who are you?”

The man who rode forward quickly straightened up. His close-set eyes were narrowed at first, but widened as if to soak up every last detail of Joseph’s face. His own face was dark and appeared sunken in the moonlight, though it wouldn’t have looked any friendlier in better light.

“You’re Van Meter,” the man said.

“That’s right. This is my land.”

“You take a shot at everyone who happens to ride across your property line? I feel awfully sorry
for your neighbors if’n they have dogs or little ones running about.”

That elicited a chuckle from the men behind the rider, but not so much as a smirk from Joseph.

“I just wanted to get your attention,” Joseph said. “Now that I got it, I can show you the quickest way onto the trail headed south or point you toward Ocean. There’s plenty to do in town, if that’s what you’re after.”

“We were in town. We didn’t see no ocean.”

“If it’s the Pacific you’re after, you’ll need to ride west.”

Cocking his head a bit, the rider looked to a skinny, pale-skinned man behind him and asked, “Why do you think they call that town Ocean, Bertram? Maybe our host, Mister Van Meter, knows.”

The other man didn’t answer. All he did was shrug and lean forward with both hands piled over his saddle horn. At the moment, Joseph realized he was the only one brandishing a weapon. The riders simply looked back at him.

“From what I hear, the town didn’t have a proper name when it sprung up,” Joseph said. “Then someone came along complaining about not being able to see the water and an old man wrote the word Ocean on a sign. He pointed to it and said, ‘There’s yer damn ocean.’”

The riders broke into laughter. A few of them even had to swipe at their eyes after a time. No one laughed more than the riders’ leader, who nodded
and tried to speak a few times, but couldn’t get anything out.

Finally, Dutch pulled in a breath and steadied himself. “And that’s how the town was named?”

“That’s the story,” Joseph replied.

“That’s funny as hell.”

As many times as he’d heard the story, Joseph still found it amusing. Hearing all the other men laugh so hard at it made it seem even funnier this time around. “So where are you men headed?” he asked.

“We’re headed to your ranch,” Dutch said. “From what I hear, you keep all the money and valuables in that nice, big house over yonder.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

All of the humor had drained from Dutch’s voice and the men around him were now staring at Joseph the way hungry dogs stare at a bit of raw meat. Joseph brought his shotgun to bear on them, which still didn’t throw any of the riders off their game.

Of the seven men now gathered in front of Joseph, six of them had skinned their weapons and were taking aim. The seventh kept his head down and his hands folded in front of him.

“Get the hell off my property,” Joseph snarled. “Right now!”

Dutch shook his head slowly. “That ain’t no way to talk. We were just getting along so well.”

“I swear to Christ, I’ll shoot.”

“You got two shots and you’re too far to make good use of either of ’em. The best thing for you to do is just take us back to the house and hand over what you got.”

“There’s not enough to warrant all of this,” Joseph told him. “I don’t even have enough to keep a steady group of hands on my payroll.”

But Dutch just kept shaking his head. “You got enough to pay almost a dozen men and you pay them real well. You also keep a stash under yer house to save for the futures of them precious little children.” Leveling his gaze and narrowing his eyes, Dutch added, “If I don’t get enough to make this worth the effort, I know some Mexicans who’d be more than happy to buy them pretty women of yours.”

Joseph put the shotgun against his shoulder and pointed the barrel directly at Dutch’s face. “You men turn around and leave right now, or I’ll pull this trigger. My guess is that you don’t have what it takes to see if you’re right about me being out of my range.”

Dutch kept his eyes fixed upon Joseph as he said, “You hear that, Bertram? The rancher thinks he’s a killer.”

Joseph didn’t see Dutch move a muscle. All he saw was a flicker of movement followed by the crack of a single pistol shot. The bullet hit him like a sledgehammer, twisting his torso around and knocking him off the back end of his horse. Joseph pulled his trigger somewhere along the way, but
knew he would have been lucky to hit anything with a pulse. When he heard the men laughing at him, Joseph knew his luck had run out.

“Nice shot, Dutch,” Bertram said. “Someone go get that shotgun from him before he hurts himself.”

Every inch of Joseph’s body hurt from the landing he’d taken. His knees flared up when he tried to move. His ribs practically exploded when he sucked in a breath, and even his teeth seemed to have been cracked during the fall.

As the sound of footsteps drew closer, Joseph tried to reach for his shotgun, but could barely move his arm. He could feel the familiar iron against his fingertips, but couldn’t get his hand to close around the grip. Before he could try again, one of the riders stepped right up to him and took the shotgun away.

When Joseph felt the cool touch of a gun barrel against the top of his head, he closed his eyes and drew in what little strength he had.

“Mind if I kill him now, Dutch?” the rider asked.

Gritting his teeth, Joseph rolled over and swung his arm out with one burst of desperate strength to knock the gun from the hand that had been holding it. The weapon landed with a heavy thump not far from Joseph’s other arm and he somehow got his fingers around it.

Rather than pick out a target, Joseph pointed at the first solid thing he could see and pulled the
trigger. The pistol bucked against his palm and let out a satisfyingly loud roar. Hot lead flew from the barrel, drilling a messy hole through the rider’s knee and speeding out the other side amid a spray of blood and slivers of bone.

“God DAMN!” the rider howled as he dropped to the ground in an awkward heap. He fired a wild shot, which came closer to hitting Joseph’s horse than the man himself.

Joseph gritted his teeth and turned to fire at the remaining horsemen. Pulling his trigger quickly, he fired a round at one of the closest men, but was quickly stopped by return fire from Dutch. At first, Joseph thought the nearby horse had clipped him. The impact felt more like a punch or wild kick. When the burning set in, Joseph felt dizzy and wavered. Even so, he still fought to keep his arm steady so he could pull his trigger one more time.

Another shot cracked through the air, followed by a sharp clang and a burst of sparks as the bullet ricocheted off the gun in Joseph’s hand. When the pistol fell from Joseph’s grasp, it might as well have dropped to the bottom of a ravine.

“Will you look at that?” Dutch said. “This rancher’s got some real fight in him. He’s putting on a hell of a show.”

“I’ll show you his fucking brains in a second,” the horseman with the wounded knee snarled.

“Not so fast.”

It took a moment for those words to register, since the fallen horseman was still lightheaded
from the shot he’d taken in his knee. As he prepared to pull his trigger, he suddenly felt himself being hauled up by his hair and shaken like a rag doll.

“You heard what Dutch said,” Bertram grunted, as he lifted the horseman up like he was carrying a dog by the scruff of its neck. “Not…so…fast.”

The horseman hadn’t seen or heard Bertram climb down from his saddle. After being shaken enough for his knee to be rattled, it was all he could do to keep from passing out. “Fine,” he wheezed. “Fine.”

Bertram looked over to Dutch.

Twisting in his saddle to focus on the horseman who hadn’t drawn his pistol, Dutch asked, “You know exactly where to find what we’re lookin’ for, George?”

The silent man at the back of the row shook his head reluctantly.

“Then the rancher’s coming with us. Carry him back to the house.”

Despite the paltry moonlight, Joseph could make out a set of familiar features as he inspected the previously quiet man. “George?” Joseph wheezed. “What…what are you doing with these men?”

“Go on, George,” Dutch taunted. “Go over there and tell him all about what you’ve been doing.”

Since he knew there was no other alternative, George lowered himself from his saddle and walked
over to Joseph. He could feel Dutch’s eyes boring through him, waiting for him to take one misstep.

George went to Joseph’s side, bent down and started taking hold of Joseph’s good arm. “You need to come with us.”

“You’ve worked for me for the better part of a year,” Joseph said. “I took good care of you. My wife cooked meals for you. You…you played with my children!”

George only shook his head as he lifted Joseph to his feet. About halfway up, Joseph started to struggle and fight against the younger man’s grasp.

“Put me down!” Joseph said. “Let me go, you son of a bitch!”

Leaning in closer, George whispered, “It’s too late to do anything about this now. If you stay here, they’ll kill you.”

“And what if I go with them?”

George started to answer, but cut himself short and lowered his head. Pulling Joseph toward his horse became easier as Joseph lost more blood. By the time the horsemen started toward the house again, the rancher lay across the back of George’s saddle, barely conscious enough to put up a fight.

Sheriff Stilson knocked on the front door of a small house two streets away from his office. After a few seconds of listening to the rustling inside, he knocked again. Finally, the door opened and a squat man with an unkempt beard stuck his head outside.

“What?” the short man asked.

“Come on, Miguel. Time to earn what I pay you.”

Miguel glanced over his shoulder and leaned a bit farther outside. “Not now. I’ve got important business in here.”

“Tell her to come back some other time,” Stilson said. “We’re riding out to the Van Meter place.”

“All the way out there? Why?”

“Because someone said there was trouble, now throw on your boots and let’s go.”

“This is a bullshit reason to pull me out of my home at—”

“Come along now or you’re fired.”

Miguel froze with his mouth half open. “I’ll get my boots.”

A minute or so later, Stilson and Miguel were riding toward the edge of town. Miguel had the stout shape of a man who seemed very uncomfortable on top of a horse. His short legs barely reached the stirrups, and spent more time flailing to keep his balance than anything else. His face was twisted into an expression of utter concentration and was so pale, it looked as if he’d forgotten what the sun looked like.

“You always treat me worse than the other deputies,” Miguel grunted.

Laughing to himself, Stilson asked, “And why’s that?”

“Simple. You don’t like Mexicans.”

The sheriff scowled. He took a slow gander at the deputy and scowled some more. “You’re Mexican?”

“Miguel ain’t no white man’s name.”

“All right. I just changed my first name to Ping. Guess that makes me Chinese.”

“Real funny. What sort of trouble is supposed to be at that ranch?”

“Some gang of robbers or something. The undertaker saw them coming through town.”

“That undertaker’s trouble, if you ask me.” Suddenly, Miguel grimaced and looked to one side of the street. “Are you talking about the Van Meter place?”

Exasperated, Stilson said, “Yes.”

“A bunch of hands from there were headed into town not too long ago.”

“Really?”

Miguel nodded. “I saw ’em over on Eighth Street.”

Stilson grinned and nodded. “You mean on the corner by Stormy’s cathouse?”

Miguel rolled his eyes. “You see? That’s the sort of disrespect I was talking about.”

“Was it by Stormy’s?”

“…Yes.”

“That’d be the Wheelbarrow. We can swing by there to see if those men saw anything suspicious. Good work, Miguel.”

The deputy straightened up and smiled. He also knew a real good shortcut to Stormy’s.

The sheriff stepped up to the front door of the Wheelbarrow Saloon. Right next to that door was the very device from which the place took its name. As always, a drunk was passed out within the wheelbarrow with his arm and leg hanging out over the side. Stilson walked inside without sparing a glance at the drunk to immediately pick out a group of young men standing at the bar.

“You boys from the Van Meter spread?” Stilson asked as he walked up to them.

One of the taller men turned around and nodded. “We are.”

“Howdy, Raymond,” Miguel said. “Still losing at poker?”

The ranch hand tipped his hat good-naturedly and said, “Only man in town who’s worse than you.”

“Looks like almost all the hired hands from Van Meter’s ranch are at this bar,” Stilson said.

“Damn near,” Raymond replied. “Celebrating what looks to be a mighty nice salary raise. We’re just waiting for a few more before everything gets started.”

“A few more what?”

“George is supposed to be bringing Mister Van Meter over here so we can buy him a round of drinks. Considering how much of a raise we’re getting, it’s the least we can do.”

“Everyone’s supposed to meet here? Ain’t that a long way to go for a celebration?”

Raymond shrugged. “George said we should do more than pass a bottle of whiskey around, especially considering how much Mister Van Meter’s done for us. Since we don’t get into town that often, I wasn’t inclined to disagree.”

“Makes sense to me,” Miguel said.

“Was there any trouble at the ranch before you left?” Stilson asked.

The confused look on Raymond’s face told more than any words could. “Trouble? What sort of trouble?”

“I got word that a bunch of armed men were headed toward that place.”

Raymond shook his head. “I’ve been here for an
hour or so, along with most of the others. What about you, Eddie? You just got here a minute ago. You see anything on your way in?”

Eddie was a tall man with a dark beard and a narrow face. At first, he looked around as if he didn’t know Raymond was talking to him. Then, he shook his head. “Nope.”

“And how long ago did you make that ride?” Stilson asked.

“Like Raymond said, I just got here.”

The sheriff mulled that over for a few seconds and then turned toward the door. “Thanks for your help, boys.”

“Is Mister Van Meter in trouble with someone?” Raymond asked. “If he is, I wouldn’t mind helping take care of it. Plenty of us wouldn’t.”

“Great!” Miguel chimed in. “With all that help, I can get back to—”

“We don’t need any help,” Stilson quickly said, “but thanks for the offer.”

“So it ain’t anything too serious?”

“Doesn’t look like it. Looks more like someone got spooked and jumped to some conclusions. You all enjoy your party and give my best to your boss.”

“Will do.”

Stilson walked to the front door and Miguel was more than happy to follow. Once outside, the sheriff stopped and took a dented cigarette case from his shirt pocket.

“What a load of shit, huh?” Miguel said.

Stilson didn’t respond to that. He was too busy putting a cigarette in his mouth and striking a match to light it.

Miguel nodded as if he was listening to a voice from somewhere else and looked up and down the street. “I guess you don’t need backup after all.”

“So long as Raymond got his story right.”

“I hate that guy.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s an asshole.”

Stilson chuckled and breathed out twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. “That undertaker’s wife saw something. I believe that much. Maybe we should go out to that graveyard and have a look.”

“Now? It’s the middle of the night! We won’t be able to see anything.”

“We’ll be able to see a campfire burning or a group of armed men between here and there. If there’s a gang like that near my town, I don’t want them riding loose and unaccounted for. I don’t give a damn where they’re headed.”

“It doesn’t sound like a job for two,” Miguel grunted.

“All right, then,” Stilson said as he took the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “You check that graveyard on your own.”

Miguel froze and muttered under his breath. Still shaking his head, he climbed onto his horse. “With the both of us working on it, we shouldn’t
be gone for more than half an hour. If anyone’s out there, we’ll know. If they’re camping out between here and that ranch, it’ll take all night and day to search that much ground.”

“You got anything better to do?” Stilson asked in a tone that made it clear he wasn’t kidding around.

Miguel slowly shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it.”

Stilson reached out to slap his deputy on the back. “There’s no need to search between here and the ranch. If there was a gang of bandits riding to the Van Meter place, one of those hands would have seen them. They ride back and forth so many times, they’d probably know if a tree was missing a few of its branches.

“And if you’re worried about that lady getting bored while you’re gone, just tell her the next time you see her how you got wrapped up chasing down a desperate band of killers. She might even throw you one for free.”

It wasn’t long before Miguel smirked and nodded. “Good idea!”

They rode to the graveyard at a quick pace and arrived in good time. The trickle of moonlight was just enough for the headstones to stand out like giant nails in an old piece of wood.

Both lawmen did a quick circle of the graveyard and stopped once they reached their starting point. Eventually, Stilson looked over to his deputy and asked, “Are you Mexican?”

“My father is. No, wait. My father’s half-brother was. I’m named after him.”

Stilson nodded and fished for another cigarette. As he struck it, he saw Miguel’s eyes widen and his jaw drop open.

“What is it?” Stilson asked.

Raising a trembling finger, Miguel pointed to a figure crawling out from the surrounding trees and moaning softly. “Wh—what the hell is THAT?”