THE DODGE CITY MASSACRE (A Jess Williams Novel.) (14 page)

             
One of the two men who Jess had assaulted earlier in the day was still moaning from the pain of the broken elbow and broken nose that Jess had given the both of them and he finally spoke up. “Sheriff, you ought to be arresting that man there who came in here and broke our noses and elbows earlier. It ain’t right what he did.”

             
Jess stood up and walked over to the man’s cell. “One more word out of your mouth and you’ll be speaking with a lisp because I’ll come in there and knock your teeth out with one of those shotguns the sheriff keeps behind his desk. See this badge here? It gives me all the right I need,” replied Jess, as the man crept back in his cell, deathly afraid of Jess, because he knew that Jess surely meant it.

             
“Oh, so now you like that badge pinned on your shirt,” said Bodine, sarcastically.

             
Jess looked back over at Bodine. “You keep it up and I swear I’ll kick that damn left calf of yours.”

             
Bodine quit chuckling since he knew Jess would in fact eventually make good on his threat to do it. The two of them walked out of the sheriff’s office. Bodine agreed to take the first watch and Jess went down to Mayor Smythe’s original store and took a nap while he waited for his turn at watch.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

              Doug Hammer was eating a huge steak when Charlie Diggs, the man who he had sent out to round up as many men as he could find and bring them back to the camp, rode back into camp with four other men. Charlie Diggs got off his horse and tied him up. Diggs walked over to the fire, which was embers now and placed another steak on a large flat rock that had been placed in the fire earlier and the steak started to sizzle immediately.

             
“That’s all the men you could find, only four of them?” asked Hammer, obviously disappointed.

             
“That’s all I could find on short notice. If you want, tomorrow I’ll hit a few other spots some of the other men might be, but there is no guarantee I’ll find any,” replied Diggs, as he poured himself a cup of hot coffee.

             
Hammer thought about it for a moment. “Well, with the four you brought back and the five of us who survived the attack today, that gives us nine men and I don’t think it’s enough.”

             
“Well, what do you want me to do?” asked Diggs, as he turned his steak over.

             
“Take two men with you tomorrow and send the other two in other directions. Maybe between the three of you, you can find us a few more men. I want all we can get before we go into town and kill that damn sheriff and his two deputies and burn that damn town to the ground,” replied Hammer.

             
“You’re the boss. We’ll leave at first light, but you watch yourself while we’re gone in case the camp gets attacked again,” said Diggs.

             
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got one man sitting on top of that hill where that mine was and one posted out at the entrance to our little hideout here. We’ll see anyone coming long before they get here. If anyone comes, we plan to ride out and hit them head on and take our chances,” replied Hammer. Diggs took his steak off the rock and began chewing on it. It was rare and quite tender. Then he turned in and got some sleep before he had to head out tomorrow. At first light, Diggs and two other men rode out and split up as soon as they reached the only opening to the canyon that they were camped in.

XXX

              Jess had figured correctly, there was no sign of any men coming into town throughout the night. He woke at daybreak and ate some breakfast with Mayor Smythe. After he ate, he walked down to the bank to see Mr. Jameson and inquire about his holdings. Mr. Jameson smiled as he stood up to greet Jess.

             
“Hello, Mr. Williams, it’s nice to finally see you again.”

             
“It’s nice to see you again too, Mr. Jameson. “I understand you’ve been taking pretty good care of my money for me.”

             
“Yes, I surely have and you’ve made a lot of it so far. I get deposits regularly and I’ve made a few investments here in town for you.”

             
“What kind of investments?”

             
“Well, for one, when Mayor Smythe needed a loan to buy the old Carter General Store, I loaned him some of your money. Also, we’ve had several new people move into town and build houses and I’ve loaned out some money to a few of them. They all pay their notes on time, I make sure of that and if they don’t, I would be forced to take their houses away from them. All the notes have both the bank’s name on it as well as yours. I hope you’re not upset that I took the liberty of doing so, but you had so much money sitting here in the bank, it just seemed like the smart thing to do.”

             
“I suppose you’re right and I don’t have any problems with it at all, but just how much money do I actually have?”

             
“Let me see,” said Jameson, as he got out a thick ledger from his desk. “Well, when you total up all the money I’ve loaned out to people and the interest you have earned along with the deposits that came in, I see that the total value of your account is over one hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Williams.”

             
Jess leaned back in his chair. “How the hell did I get that much money. I mean, I don’t keep track of all the bounty money, and I didn’t know about the investments you were making on my behalf, but that sure seems high to me, Mr. Jameson.”

             
“Well, you don’t just get deposits from the bounty money you collect. You get quarterly deposits from a business called ‘Carl and Murray’s Fine Liquor’s and Cigar’s’ out in New York City. You’ve been getting them for almost two years now. Additionally, you received a wire transfer from a man by the name of Dusty Slim in the amount of seven thousand dollars. Do you know what that was for?”

             
Jess laughed. “Damned old fart of a prospector. He actually tried to kill me once and his gun was in such bad shape, he would’ve killed himself with it. He only did it because he was so down on his luck that he didn’t much care about dying. He told me he had been prospecting for years and was too broke to even buy a meal or a drink. I had a blood bounty on my head at the time and he decided to see if he could get lucky and collect it. After it was over, I gave him a stake so he could keep prospecting. I never thought I would ever hear from him again. I guess the old fart must have gotten lucky and hit it big. Seven thousand dollars is a lot of money, that’s for sure.”

             
“Well, I’d like to invest some more of your money in town for you if it’s okay with you,” said Jameson.

             
“Yes, that’s fine with me, but only to the people here in Black Creek. Plus, if there is a real need in town, let me know and I will decide whether to donate money or not. I do want to donate one thousand dollars to the town jail for the purposes of replacing the jail cells and to reinforce the building and put a new roof on it. It’s in pretty bad shape right now.”

             
“I agree with you on that point. It hasn’t had any repairs done to it since it was first built,” replied Jameson.

             
Jess stood up and thanked Jameson again and walked over to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff and Bodine were drinking coffee and chatting. Jess poured himself a cup and took a sip, carefully.

             
“Well, this sure ain’t the mud I had yesterday, Sheriff,” said Jess. “What did you do, buy some different coffee?”

             
“Yeah, after you complained about the coffee yesterday, I went over to Mayor’s Smythe’s store and bought some good stuff,” replied the sheriff. “I have to admit, it is a damn sight better than that other coffee.”

             
“Sheriff, I have an idea I’d like to discuss with you,” said Jess.

             
“Sure, what are you thinking?”

             
“Well, I’m pretty sure that those men out there in the hills are trying to round up some extra men before they come into town. We hit them pretty hard the other day so I’m thinking they’re going to be a lot more careful about how they attack,” said Jess.

             
“Are you still certain they are planning an attack? I mean, maybe after what you two did the other day, maybe they might have just decided they should ride out and find another town to raise hell in. There are plenty of little towns that don’t have any law,” replied the sheriff.

             
“That’s possible, but I still believe they will come into town and try to kill you and your two deputies who arrested their two friends you have locked up. I don’t think it’s a matter of whether or not they attack, but rather when, and I think tomorrow will be the day.”

             
“Well, you’ve been right so far, so we’ll keep guards watching around the clock,” replied Sheriff Fowler.

             
“Good. Sheriff, I would also like to put three bundles of dynamite out at the east entrance to the town and station myself and some men at that end,” said Jess.

             
“Okay, but they always came in the west end, why would they change now?” asked the Sheriff.

             
“Because before we attacked them yesterday, they didn’t feel all that threatened. After having two of their pals locked up and losing nine men in one attack, they are going to be a whole lot more careful. My guess is that they will split up their group and come at us from both ends of town,” replies Jess.

             
“Alright then, I’ll reschedule the watch list and make sure that you and John here will always have one man with you on the east end. That means that you two will have to take turns so that one of you is at the east end at all times,” said the sheriff.

             
“No problem, Sherriff. We’ll work out our watch schedule and take care of the dynamite we’re going to bury out at the east end.

             
Jess and Bodine walked out and headed for Smythe’s General Store for another supply of dynamite. They took the dynamite out to the east end of town to bury it about fifty feet apart. Jess handed some string to John and he didn’t take it.

             
“What’s the matter? Are you afraid of a little string?” asked Jess.

             
“No, I’m afraid of that damn dynamite, especially after you told me it was old and unstable,” replied Bodine. You tie the bundles up while I dig the three holes, and make sure you do it over there far enough away from me.”

             
Jess obliged and move away from where Bodine was digging the holes. “I never thought I see the day you’d act like an old woman,” said Jess, sarcastically.

             
“Yeah, but I’ll be acting like an old woman who didn’t get blown to bits playing with old dynamite,” replied Bodine. Jess finished up with making the bundles and he buried them with John keeping his distance. Then they both walked back over to Andy’s Saloon for a drink. After a few, Bodine agreed to take the first watch out at the east end of town. Jess remained at Andy’s and had another drink.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

              Jeff Parks was a gunslinger and a pretty good one at that. He was an educated, well-spoken person, which was somewhat unusual for a gunslinger that pursued the reputation of being quick on the draw with a pistol. In truth, he was a very polite and generally a nice person, which was somewhat of a contradiction in terms for a gunslinger. Jeff Parks had heard about the ten thousand dollars in blood bounty placed on Jess Williams by a banker out in New York City. He had amassed a pretty good reputation in Texas as a gunslinger and he already killed several other gunslingers with reputations for being quick on the draw with a pistol. He had heard the stories about Jess and even read a few of the dime novels about him, but he knew you couldn’t always believe what you read in a dime novel or a newspaper. He always planned to face Jess one day simply for the challenge and he was in no particular hurry. However, now that Jess was worth ten thousand dollars, he didn’t want to wait any longer. He began searching for him and he finally found out that Williams was probably in Black Creek, Kansas. He rode into Black Creek and before he got into town, he saw the sign notifying the public to surrender all weapons at the sheriff’s office upon arrival.

             
He rode up toward town and Paul Fadden, one of Sheriff Fowler’s deputies, spotted the man slowly riding into town. He figured the man was probably not one of the men they were waiting for due to the fact that he was alone, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. He climbed down off the rooftop and was standing in the street holding a double-barreled shotgun when Jeff Parks rode up. Parks was very neatly dressed and wore a really nice holster and six-shooter. The holster was made of black leather and had a lot of decorative silver pieces that were placed around the it. It was obviously custom made. Parks reined his horse up in front of Deputy Paul Fadden.