Outlaw Pass (9781101544785) (11 page)

 

Lon Bridges held a small mirror up before his face and stared at the reddish blue bruises around his swollen nose. “That son of a bitch!” he exclaimed when he gingerly touched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “He's a dead man if I ever see him again.”

“Big feller, totin' a Henry rifle?” Jesse Doyle asked. “I'm bettin' he's the same son of a bitch ridin' shotgun on the stage—killed Hawkins and Highsmith and that tall feller they brought with 'em. And Sykes is lyin' in the cabin with a hole in his leg. The son of a bitch shot a hole in my new hat.” He scowled at the memory. “Damn it, I just bought that hat.”

“Plummer's gonna be mad as hell when he finds out you boys didn't get that four thousand dollars,” Lon said. “He ain't gonna be too happy about losing four men while you was at it. He's the same jasper that killed Ned and Curly last night after he broke my nose. That's six men he's caused to go under since he came to town, countin' Billy Crabtree, I reckon you could say, even if it was really that bitch that did poor Billy in.”

“You reckon he might be a marshal they sent in here to try to clean up the town?” Doyle wondered aloud, then answered his own question. “Nah, Plummer's a deputy marshal. They'da told him if they was sendin' in another marshal.”

“I'm thinkin' he's a hired gun the damn miners brought in,” Lon said, “and the sooner we shoot him down and hang his body up for ever'body to see, the sooner the proper citizens of Bannack are gonna see who runs this town.” He placed his fingertips tenderly on his bruised face again, and commented, “And I'd purely enjoy doin' the job.” He was about to say more when one of the men outside the cabin called out that a rider was approaching.

Lon and Jesse walked out to stand on the small stoop to see who had found his way through the narrow mountain pass to their hideout in the valley. “Oh, hell,” Jesse muttered when he recognized the figure sitting tall in the saddle. “It's that new gunslinger, Briscoe, Plummer hired, come to collect Plummer's share of that four thousand.”

“He's gonna be hotter'n a hornet with a toothache,” Lon said, at once thankful that he had not been in on the botched stagecoach holdup.

“I can't help that,” Jesse replied. “He wasn't there when that whole job blew up in our faces. We wasn't ready for no hired gun ridin' shotgun.” He spoke with a show of bravado, but every member of Plummer's gang held a healthy respect for Briscoe. Plummer's special agent, Briscoe acted as a lieutenant for the crooked deputy marshal to the outlaws that worked for him. Plummer had a reputation for adeptness in handling a gun, but most of his men agreed that Briscoe was better. There had been some resentment at first because Briscoe did not ride routinely with the gangs that did the actual work of robbery and, in many cases, murder. They soon learned, however, that he wasn't hired to be a road agent, and several men who had thought to hold out on Plummer were unfortunate to find out his real purpose. No one knew much about Briscoe's background. There was some speculation that he had at one time been a lawman down Kansas way. Some said Plummer sent for him after Briscoe had participated in the massacre at Lawrence, Kansas, when riding with Quantrill's Raiders. Those old enough to have any knowledge of that time knew there was an assassin named Briscoe who rode with Quantrill. But he was an older man, and had seemingly disappeared right after the Lawrence raid. Some thought him dead, but his body had never been found. “This feller's too young to be that Briscoe,” Lon said.

“Maybe this one's old Briscoe's ghost,” Jesse joked.

“Maybe so,” Lon replied. “He's sure as hell a loner—don't hang around with anybody—just stays to hisself till Plummer sends for him.” All anyone knew for sure about Briscoe was that he was as lethal as a rattlesnake.

“How do, Briscoe?” Lon called out when the tall rider sitting rigidly in the saddle approached close enough to hear his greeting.

Briscoe nodded in reply, saying nothing until he rode up to the door and dismounted. Glancing about him, his gaze darting from the faces of the two men leaning on their saddles in front of the cabin, and back to focus on Jesse Doyle, he spoke. “Plummer says he'll split the gold with you, and you can keep anything you took from the passengers.”

“Well, now . . .” Jesse hesitated, reluctant to admit the failure of their mission. “Them things don't always come off like we plan.” Seeing the immediate frown on Briscoe's face, he hurried to explain. “We ambushed the stage just like we was supposed to, but we didn't get no gold. It was a trap. That's what it was. They was hopin' we'd hold 'em up.” He continued to embellish as he related the incident. “Them miners hired themselves a gun hand from somewhere, and we was took by surprise—even had a whore with a pistol. She kilt Billy Crabtree, and that hired gun shot Rob Hawkins and Jim Highsmith, and that feller they brought with'em, before we knew what was what. Me and Sykes was lucky to get away. Hell, that feller shot the hat off my head and Sykes took a bullet in the leg.”

“That ain't all.” Lon stepped in. “He started up a row with me and the boys in the saloon last night.” He pointed to his face. “Caught me when I wasn't lookin'. There wasn't nothin' I could do about it with a Henry rifle lookin' me in the face. Then he snuck around the buildin' and bushwhacked us. He got Ned Waits and Curly. Me and Junior was lucky to get away.” Briscoe made no remark, but leveled his critical gaze at Lon. “There ain't no doubt but what them miners sent for the son of a bitch,” Lon went on. Then, hoping to escape Briscoe's wrath, he boasted, “But you ain't gonna have to worry about him much longer, 'cause I'm fixin' to settle with him for bustin' my nose.”

There was no show of anger in Briscoe's face as he listened patiently without interrupting either report, but then there was never any emotion in the stone-cold face of Plummer's man. When he spoke, it was without passion. “You two are about the sorriest pieces of shit I've ever seen. I've got to go back and tell Plummer his men in Bannack got their asses whipped by one man with a rifle.” That, he decided, was the sum total of the explanations he had just heard. “Maybe your bunch ain't the men to handle these jobs if you can't take care of one man you claim is a hired gun.”

“There ain't no doubt about it,” Jesse protested. “What else could he be? The way he handled that rifle, it damn sure looked like he knew what he was doin'.”

Not particularly impressed, Briscoe remarked, “Sounds like he mighta been bulletproof, too. Plummer probably figured you boys could handle a situation like that if it came along. Maybe he was wrong.”

“Now, hold on a minute, Briscoe,” Jesse quickly responded, not wishing to risk Plummer's displeasure and possibly losing out on notices of future gold shipments from Virginia City. “Plummer ain't had no cause to complain about our work before. Hell, give us a chance to kill this bastard before he decides to cut us off. Anybody can get caught by surprise once in a while. We'll get him. Won't we, Lon?” He turned to Lon for confirmation.

“That's a fact, Briscoe,” Lon replied. “He's as good as dead, and them miners will know better'n to try somethin' like that again.”

Briscoe studied the faces of both men for a long moment while he considered their boasts. The report he took back to Plummer would no doubt decide their fate as far as members of this gang of road agents was concerned—and as in most cases of this nature, could mean their extermination. If they eliminated this gunman quickly, and without loss of any more of Plummer's men, Plummer might forgive them this one botched robbery. “All right,” he finally decided, “I'll give Plummer your side of it, and he'll be waitin' to hear that you took care of this gunman, whoever the hell he is, so business can get back to normal.”

“'Preciate it, Briscoe,” Jesse said, obviously relieved. He looked at Lon and smiled, then glanced at the other two, who were listening to the conversation with more than a little interest, since it affected their immediate future. “We was just gettin' ready to cook up some grub. You can unsaddle your horse and join us—start back in the mornin'.”

“I'll be startin' back right now,” Briscoe announced unemotionally. “It's a day and a half's ride to Virginia City, and I don't need to waste any time.”

It was a typical response from the mysterious gunman. Briscoe never showed any signs of mixing with the other outlaws on a social basis. He was a loner, and it seemed to Jesse and some of the others that Briscoe thought himself too good to mingle with the rowdy bunch. “Ain't you even gonna stay long enough to let your horse rest up a little?” Lon asked.

“No,” Briscoe replied. “He ain't that tired. I'll rest him after while when I'm ready to eat.” He turned and stepped up in the saddle again, taking a moment to fix Jesse with his cold gaze. “You make damn sure you take care of that hired gun,” he said before abruptly heading back out of the valley.

“Tell Plummer he can count on it,” Jesse called out after him. Then, mumbling to himself when Briscoe made no indication of acknowledging his promise, “I oughta shoot your ass, you son of a bitch.” The thing that stopped him was the suspicion that Briscoe had eyes in the back of his head.

Holding the blue roan to an easy lope until he cleared the mountain pass, the grim rider turned the horse's nose to the north. Contrary to what he had told them at the cabin, he was in no particular hurry to get back to Virginia City. He just preferred solitude over camping with the likes of Lon Bridges and the others. Common thieves, they didn't have two cents' worth of brains in the four of them. Good only for holdups and murders, they hadn't even been capable of that on this last job. He wouldn't be surprised if Plummer got rid of all of them.

As he kept an eye out for a suitable place to camp, his thoughts turned to the matter of the purported hired gun the miners brought in. It could be true. Although many of the citizens of Virginia City suspected Plummer of being the mastermind behind the robberies between that town and Bannack, none dared to state it publicly. Plummer's public persona was as a fighter of crime, even to the extent that he was a member of the Virginia City vigilantes. But recently some of the merchants and miners of the Bannack community had made a separate move to rid the territory of outlaws, forming a vigilance committee of their own. They had Plummer worried to the point where he had tried to get a list of members of the vigilante posse that had hanged six road agents last month, but the masked men could not be identified, even to the deputy marshal. An additional cause for worry, Plummer's sheriff in Bannack, Albert Ainsworth, had no notion as to who or how many the vigilantes were. And if they had in fact hired a gunman to come in and start cleaning house, then Briscoe figured he was going to be given the job of stopping him.
We'll see how those two idiots back there do with the job
, he thought, indifferent to the assignment.

Lacey Brewer left her room over the Miner's Friend and made her way slowly down the stairs. Stopping halfway down, she paused to look over the crowded barroom until her gaze lit upon Bonnie Wells, sitting at a table with two rough-looking miners. Bonnie had decided to rent a room upstairs, next to Lacey's, and it appeared that she was working hard to pay for it. As Lacey stood watching, however, the two miners got to their feet and departed, leaving Bonnie to sit alone. Lacey couldn't help feeling empathy for the weary prostitute and it caused her to worry about her own future, for she was surely destined to end up as Bonnie had, too old and too worn to attract any but the most desperate of customers, and then only after they were properly intoxicated. Those troubling thoughts caused her to think of Jake and wonder what had happened to him. He had been her one hope for changing the path she was walking, and now he had failed her, just as her husband had failed her.

Her mother had warned her that she was making a mistake to marry at the tender age of fourteen, and tried to convince her that although Thad Brewer was young and handsome, he was far too immature to take on the responsibilities of a married man. It wasn't long into the marriage before her mother's predictions became reality with Thad's determination to finish sewing his wild oats. Their daily life soon deteriorated to constant arguing whenever Thad was home, which in turn caused him to spend less time there, and eventually led him to drink. What money he earned working on his uncle's Kansas ranch disappeared in the saloons and bawdy houses almost as soon as he got it. Finally his uncle had enough of his absences and unreliability and told him not to come back.

Promising Lacey that he was going to change his ways and become a dependable husband and provider, he set out for Salt Lake City with his wife and their meager belongings. Taking a room in a cheap hotel, Thad began a search for gainful employment. They had been in Salt Lake for less than a week when Lacey awoke one morning to find Thad gone, leaving her with the bill for their room and no means with which to pay it. Threatened by the hotel manager to be put out on the street if the bill was not paid immediately, Lacey was faced with the first desperate decision of her life. The manager, an unscrupulous father of two children, suggested a means for payment of her debt. After a couple of days of relentless pressure from him, she finally succumbed to the degrading and shameful act that was to be the first step in what she reluctantly accepted as her profession.

Realizing that she had allowed her thoughts to drag her back through the sorrows that made up her life, she tried to force the painful memories back into the recesses of her mind where she endeavored to store them. She told herself she was a fool to think Jake Blaine was any more than another drifter looking for a good time.