Authors: William W. Johnstone
A Good Day to Die (5 page)
“Duly noted,” Johnny said cheerfully
Damon Bolt cleared his throat. “I'm free to go?”
“Free as air,” Barton said. “If you're smart you'll keep going, a long way off from here.”
“That's not my style, Sheriff.”
“No, it wouldn't be. You'd rather stay and get killed.”
“I'd rather stay,” Damon conceded.
“We won't argue,” the sheriff said.
“You know where to find me for the inquest.”
“If you're still alive. Vince Stafford knows where to find you, too.”
“I'll be waiting.”
“He won't come alone.”
“The undertaker can use the business. Things have been slow around here lately.”
“Laugh while you can, Damon. It won't be so funny when the lid blows off this town.”
“We'll see. We through here, Sheriff?”
“For now.”
“I'll be on my way, then. I've got a date with the barber for a shave and a haircut,” Damon said.
“Tell him to make the corpse presentable,” Barton said sourly.
Damon nodded to Johnny and Luke. “Stop by the Spur later. I'll buy you a drink.”
“It's a go,” Johnny said. Luke nodded assent.
Damon went up the street to the barbershop and went inside.
“Decent fellow at that,” Wade Hutto said, musing.
“Too bad he's got to die,” Barton said.
Spectators gathered around the body of Bliss Stafford, gawking, buzzing. Deputy Smalls plucked at Barton's sleeve. “Somebody's got to tell Vince.”
“You want to be the one to tell him his pup is dead?” Barton asked.
“No, thanks!”
“He'll find out soon enough,” Wade Hutto said. “No doubt somebody's already on the way to the ranch to give him the word.”
“Good news always travels fast,” Barton said sarcastically.
“Careful, somebody might hear you,” Hutto cautioned.
“At this point, who gives a damn?”
“I do,” Hutto said. Gripping Barton's upper arm, he led him off to one side for a private chat.
“Somebody was bound to burn down Bliss Stafford sooner or later. He was a troublemaker and a damned nuisance,” Barton said.
“Good riddance!” Hutto said heartily.
“Too bad it was the gambler. Some lone hand done it, some drifter, we could step back and wash our hands of it. But it ain't some nobody, it's Damon Bolt. He'll fight.”
“He's got friends, too. Gun hawks. He'll make a mouthful for Vince at that. Hard to swallow.”
“I hope he chokes on it,” Barton said feelingly.
“Those Staffords have been getting too big for their britches. Trouble is, the town's in the way. Hangtown could get pretty badly torn up.”
“No way to stop it. Blood will have blood. Vince won't rest till he's taken Damon's head.”
“It's a damned shame, Mack. Say what you will about Bolt, he's a gentleman in his way. Vince makes a show of setting himself up as a rancher, but he's little better than an outlaw.”
“He's a dog, a mangy cur. One with the taste of blood in his mouth,” Barton said.
“Why not bring him to heel?” Johnny Cross asked.
Hutto and Barton started. Soft-footed Johnny had come up behind them without their knowing it.
“You shouldn't go around sneaking up on people. It's a bad habit,” Barton said, with a show of reasonableness he was far from feeling.
“How much did you hear?” Hutto asked.
“Enoughâand that's plenty. But I don't go telling tales out of school.” Johnny got to the point. “Stafford's crowding you? Cut him down to size.”
Hutto looked around to make sure nobody else was within earshot. Luke Pettigrew stood nearby, leaning on his crutch, grinning. But Luke was Johnny's sideman and knew how to keep his mouth shut, too.
“The Ramrod outfit is a rough bunch,” Hutto said.
“No shortage of gunmen in Hangtown,” Johnny said.
“But they've got no quarrel with Stafford.”
“Pay 'em. They'll fight readily enough. There's enough hardcases in the Dog Star Saloon alone for a decent-sized war, and you can buy most of 'em for a couple bottles of redeye.”
Hutto sniffed. “What's Damon Bolt to me, that I should start a range war with the Ramrod to save his neck?”
“Stafford's spread is on the south fork of the Liberty River. You're the biggest landowner on South Fork,” Johnny said. “How long before he makes a move on you?”
“He wouldn't dare!”
“Why not?”
Hutto had no ready answer to that one.
“Why let him pick the time and place? Hit him now before he hits you,” Johnny said, speaking the siren song of the Tempter.
Hutto was not easily swayed. “Your concern for my welfare is touching. What's in it for you?”
“I like Damon. He'll fight. Round up enough guns to hit Stafford where he's not expecting it and you can muss him up pretty good. The way to stop 'em is to bust him up before he gets started.”
“We'd be taking a long chance,” Hutto said, torn, fretful.
“It's your town,” Johnny said, “but it won't be for long if you let someody hoorah it whenever he likes.”
“I need time to think things out.”
“Think fast. Move faster.”
“Just itching for a fight, ain't you?” Barton said.
“Uh-huh,” Johnny said. “That's what I do.”
T
HREE
HREE
Hangtown was thick with killers, robbers, rustlers, horse thieves, card cheats, drunks, wife beaters, whores, swindlers, pickpockets, and a host of petty crooks and mean-minded individuals. Yet in all this collection of flawed humanity, the consensus ranked Sam Heller pretty much at the bottom of the heap.
Sam Heller was a Yankee.
In Hangtree, Texas, June 1866, a Northerner was in a potentially hazardous position. The landscape teemed with well-armed, unreconstructed Rebels. The Civil War, as the government in Washington, D.C., insisted on labeling the late secessionist conflict, was officially at an endâeverywhere but in Texas. A year and more after General Lee had surrendered at Appomatox, all the states of what had been the Confederacy were at peace (however uneasy) with the Union. All but Texas.
The last battle of the war was fought in the Lone Star State at Palmito Hill in May 1865, a month after Lee surrendered at Appomatox. A year later, the powers in Washington were holding that Texas was still in a state of active hostility. The Federal troops garrisoned in Fort Pardee in northwest Hangtree County were as much an occupation force to overawe the local inhabitants as they were a fighting force charged with suppressing hostile Comanches, Kiowas, and Lipan Apaches. The real pains of occupation had not yet even begun.
A Yankee stranger in Hangtown, Sam Heller was little better than an outcast, a pariah. A dead shot and relentless foeman who kept coming until an opponent was beaten or dead, Sam had won grudging respect from sullen and resentful neighbors. A respect borne largely of fear, but no less real for that. He was known as a man not to be trifled with, best left alone.
Sam was on good terms with Captain Ted Harrison, commanding officer at Fort Pardee. On several occasions, he had interceded with Army brass to mitigate some of the rigors of Hangtree's status as occupied territory. It had won him few friends.
On this fine Saturday morning in late June, he'd saddled his sure-footed steel-dust stallion at first light and rode out, following the long slanting slope into the highlands. Riding the hill country alone, he climbed to the summit of the Upland Plateau, topping the rim of the elevated landform covering much of north central Texas. Part of it cut diagonally southwest across Hangtree County, dividing it in two. North of the line was highlands, well-wooded hilly country. South lay vast, grassy plains.
Most of the population of the county lived on the flat, the ranch lands of Long Valley, watered by the North and South Forks of the Liberty River. The twin forks joined east of Hangtown, flowing southeast across the state.
The uplands were more sparsely settled. Someânot manyâranches and farms could be found there, most sited within ten miles or less of the plateau's south rim. It was wild country, well-wooded timber broken up by hills and ravines.
At midday, Sam trailed south, a fine, fresh-killed buck deer slung across the back of his horse. He'd had good hunting that morning.
In his full adult prime, Sam was a rugged, raw-boned Titan, six feet two inches tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and long-limbed. He looked like a Viking on horseback, with a lion's mane of shaggy yellow hair and dark blue gunsight eyes. He wore a battered slouch hat, a green and brown checked shirt, brown denims, and boots.
An unusual sidearm hung in a custom-made holster at his right hip, a sawed-off Winchester Model 1866 rifle called a mule's-leg. Even cut down at the barrel and stock, it was still as long as his thighbone.
A pair of bandoliers loaded with spare cartridges was worn across his chest in an X. A Navy Colt .36 revolver was stuck in the top of his belt on his left side, worn butt out for a cross-belly draw. A Green River Bowieâtype knife hung in a sheath at his left hip. Tied to the left-hand side of the saddle by rawhide thongs lashed to metal rings piercing the leather was a long, flat wooden box with a suitcase grip at one end. Its contents were a welcome equalizer to a man alone.
Set at the edge of the no-man's-land that was the Staked Plains, Hangtree County was a thoroughfare for outlaw gangs, renegades, hostile Indians, and even north-ranging Mexican bandidos.
Sam was an outlander, but he had business in that part of Texas. Important businessâgovernment business. And he meant to see the job through.
The hostility leveled at him by the townfolk was a bit wearing at times, and on such a day it was pure pleasure to ride off by himself into the hills and do some hunting. Deer, an animal more savory and less dangerous than Man.
When the hunt was crowned with success well, that was a goodness. Gutted and wrapped in a canvas sheet, the carcass of a fat buck was slung head down behind the back of the saddle and tied in place by some lengths of rope.
Dusty, the horse, didn't mind. He was used to Sam's ways and the scent of blood and death, animal or human, bothered him not at all. He was a warhorse.
Sam headed Dusty south toward the rim of the plateau, some miles distant. He had breakfasted at dawn before riding out. Since then, he'd refreshed himself on the trail solely with beef jerky and canteen water. His empty belly rumbled its displeasure.
Back in town, he'd sell the fresh kill to the butcher, after first having cut out some prime venison steaks. The cook at the Cattleman Hotel would grill those cuts of meat over a charcoal fire, serving them up the way Sam liked, charred at the edges and red and juicy on the inside. With fried potatoes and some cut up fresh tomatoesâ
man!
Sam's mouth watered at the thought. He could all but taste it.
man!
Sam's mouth watered at the thought. He could all but taste it.
A game trail wound south through low hills shaped like sombrero crowns, overgrown with green woods. Sam followed the twisty path. Strong sunlight shone through leafy tree boughs. A bushy-tailed red squirrel darted along a branch, startling a bird into flight.
The hills shrank into mounds, low and squat, as he rode along the trail opening into a stretch of rolling fields. The sun was hotter without the shade to buffer it, but not too hot. Sam basked in its welcome warmth.
Reaching into his left breast pocket, he took out a corncob pipe and a leather tobacco pouch. Tamping the pipe bowl full of rough-cut, shredded tobacco, he struck a self-igniting lucifer on the side of his pant leg and lit up, puffing away. Smoke clouds wreathed his head as the mixture in the pipe glowed orange-red, and he enjoyed the sharp, tangy bite of the acrid smoke, venting clouds contentedly.
The ground sloped upward, rising toward a ridge running east-west. The trail entered the wooded incline, putting Sam once more in the shade. He crested the hill, pausing at the top.
Beyond lay a shallow valley, another ridge, and another. The series of ridges and valleys stretched some miles to the southern edge of the plateau.
Behind the nearest ridge a line of smoke rose into the sky, a thin black streak climbing into the heights. Sam drew slowly on his pipe, frowning.
Where there's smoke, there's fire. And where there's fire, there's usually peopleâwhich in these parts means caution.
Where there's smoke, there's fire. And where there's fire, there's usually peopleâwhich in these parts means caution.
He hadn't ridden that way before, having topped the plateau early that morning, several miles farther east. Sighting his prey, he'd tracked the buck northwest into conical hills. Returning, he'd taken a different trail, one that went directly south, instead of retracing his original route along the southeast.
He'd chosen those hunting grounds to take him away from human habitation, to where the wild game was. In the upland, a small homestead could easily be nestled out of sight in a pocket draw or under the lee of a hill.
Sam's frown deepened. He'd forgotten to draw on his pipe and it had gone out. He exhaled softly across the lip into the bowl, blowing it clear of cool gray ashes. He stuck in his thumb, wedging the remains of the coarse-cut tobacco deep into the bowl, hardpacking it in place for later. A thrifty man, he was. Waste not, want not. He put the pipe back in his breast pocket, buttoning it shut.
The touch of his heels against Dusty's flanks started the animal forward, down the far side of the hill. He crossed a valley, uncomfortably aware of its openness. He started up the opposite slope, dotted with stands of timber, and zigzagged uphill, angling from one clump of trees to the next, using them for cover.
Nearing the crest, he reined Dusty to a halt and got down from the saddle. Taking the reins in one hand, his leftâhis right was his gun handâhe led the horse toward the summit. “You're an old woman, Sam Heller,” he said to himself, “but ...”
The ridgeline was rocky, with gaps in it. Approaching on foot, Sam neared the top without skylining, avoiding silhouetting himself against the blue backdrop where he could be seen by somebody on the other side of the ridge. Covering himself and the horse behind a rocky outcropping, he crouched and looked around.
The valley below was wide and deep. A dirt road ran along its middle, stretching east-west. A real road, not a game trail, making it Rimrock Road, the main thoroughfare running east-west across the south end of the plateau.
The line of smoke streaking the sky took its origin in the valley below. It pointed down, an elongated gray-black finger whose tip touched a wrecked, half-burned covered wagon. The bodies sprawled around it and the ground in the immediate area showed white, powdered white, as if touched by frost.
But it couldn't be frost, not in that heat.
The air was still, with barely the breath of a breeze to ruffle the thin feather of smoke rising from the smoldering wagon. Sam studied the scene, scanning it. Some minutes passed. The valley seemed empty, peopled only by the dead. More time passed, with no change in the surroundings.
“Well,” Sam said to himself, sighing, “can't stay here all day.” The ground looked safe, harboring no skulking bushwhackers, as far as he could tell.
How safe was it, though, with corpses strewn about?
He glanced at the deer slung across the horse's back. He should cut it loose, to lighten Dusty's burden if he had to run. But he had a powerful hankering for venison steaks. He was frontiersman enough to not throw away anything of value unless he damned well had to. He could always cut it loose later.
Sam mounted up. He undid the leather strap at the top of the long, custom-built holster and hauled out the mule's-leg. He rode through the gap, down the other side of the hill. No shots greeted him, no charging horsemen.
Dusty descended at a steady pace. Nearing the valley floor, Sam smelled wood smoke from the burned wagon. and other less pleasant odors, including burning flesh. Human flesh.
The big, bulky Conestoga wagon, the kind generally favored by emigrants wending their way westward to new lands, stood about a dozen paces to one side of the dirt road. Its passengers had suffered an interrupted journey. He closed in on it.
The horses were gone. They had been cut loose from the traces binding them to the wagon tongue, most likely stolen. Its canvas-topped covering had been consumed by fire. Scraps and shreds of the charred canvas littered the ground nearby. Part of the right-hand side of the wagon was scorched and burned, but the rest was intact.
The white powder dusting the ground around the wagon was flour. It had been poured out of a slashed-open sack. Much of it had been poured over the dead.
The wagon had been vandalized. Baggage was thrown out of the wagon, suitcases and trunks breaking open upon impact. Ransacked contents, pawed over, were strewn about the ground. Various items of household bric-a-brac were broken upâchairs, a table, a cabinet, and sacks of bean, grain, and seed.
A wagon train had arrived at Hangtown the night before, laying over in the campgrounds southwest of town. The victims must have been on their way to join them when they'd been attacked by marauders. The bodies strewn about appeared to be a family of sevenâtwo oldsters, a gray-bearded man and an old woman; a middle-aged couple, probably man and wife; a beardless youth in his mid-teens; a twelve-year-old girl; and a boy of ten. Most of the bodies were naked, their nudity white and pale as grubs that swarm in the rotten wood of fallen trees.
Robbery and murder were frequent occurrences on the frontier, but this outrage was marked by an emphasis on torture and murder. It was ghoulish bloodletting, executed, no doubt, with lipsmacking relish.
The middle-aged man, squat and stocky, was tied upside down to the right rear wheel of the wagon, braided buffalo-hide ropes binding him in place. Underneath him was a slow-burning fire. His face and head were burned beyond recognition.
The gray-bearded oldster had been shot several times, none of them fatal. He'd been cut up pretty badly, his naked torso scored with multiple stab and slash wounds. His crotch was worked on with a hatchet, but that wasn't what killed him. He'd been scalpedâaliveâand then his skull was bashed in by stone-headed war clubs.
Nearby lay the corpse of a young girl, thin, scrawny, and long-limbed, about eleven or twelve years old. She'd been shot once through the side of the head. A mercy killing.
Sam guessed the old man had shot her before she could be taken alive by the raiders. Cheated of their fun, they'd taken their wrath out on him, killing him by slow degrees.
A teenage boy lay facedown in the grass, pierced with arrows.
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