Brother's Keeper (12 page)

He took out the ball of string that he had gotten from Jim at the store and he tied a piece of the string to the end of one bush and then he attached a can to the other end and placed the can gently into another bush. That left the string dangling about six inches above the ground so that if someone tried walking up the hill, he would hit the string and pull the can out of the bush and that would make enough noise to wake Jess. He only had the one empty can but he decided that he would save more cans and have enough of them to cover a larger area. Of course, he could always count on Gray to give him a heads-up, but this would give him an extra level of comfort. He leaned back on his saddle and laid the shotgun next to his left leg, just in case he would have the need for it.
He woke a few times in the night but not from someone tripping the string. He always woke several times during any night. It was just something he did. He rose at dawn and made some breakfast and coffee. He rolled the string around the can and packed it in his saddlebags. He decided that he would make more and use them anytime he camped out on the trail. He saddled up Gray and headed out south again.
He wondered who the man across the way was last night. He decided that he would get himself one of those telescopes he had seen in Jim’s hardware store. Maybe it was a traveling salesman with a wagon full of products to sell. Maybe it was a lawman on the trail of someone or maybe it was that someone the lawman was trailing. It didn’t matter though; he had something more important on his mind. Find his brother Tim Sloan and confront him. That was his mission now and he would not be diverted from that.

T WAS A THREE
-
DAY RIDE TO
Black Creek, Kansas from Holten for Tim Sloan. He didn’t mind the ride though. He liked to be out on the trail and

the truth was, he liked to be alone most of the time. Sure, he liked playing poker and stealing other men’s money and he liked the company of whores and dance hall girls, but he was a loner for sure. He had packed enough supplies for the ride before he had left Holten because he didn’t want to stop in any towns along the way. He couldn’t afford to get distracted now. He had a mission and his mind was on the big prize. Ten thousand dollars was a hell of a lot of money for killing one man. Hell, Sloan had killed men for as little as a twenty-dollar bet in a poker hand so for ten thousand dollars, he would kill a dozen men. But he only had to kill one man and even though that one man was his only brother, as far as he knew, it didn’t bother him in the slightest.

His father, Eddie Sloan, had told him about his twin brother and how he had separated them at birth. His father hadn’t told Tim the whole truth, however. He hadn’t told Tim about the whore by the name of Sally that took care of Tim until he was about four years old. He hadn’t told Tim that he beat Sally to near death and left her in a little town without a penny when he decided that he didn’t need her help anymore. Tim vaguely remembered someone holding him and taking care of him and he could remember that it was a woman with soft skin and a hint of lilac, but that was about all he could remember from his early childhood.

His father had told him about his real mother, a worthless woman by the name of Becky. He had told him how she was a filthy whore and didn’t want anything to do with Tim or his brother Jess after giving birth to them. He told Tim about how Becky had run off three days after their births and threatened to throw the two babies into the creek to drown rather than have to raise them. He told Tim about how he had found someone to raise his brother and that he had taken Tim to raise by himself along with the help of a woman by the name of Sally. He told Tim that his real mom, Becky, had died from a beating a man had given her while she was working in a whore-house in a small town somewhere in Texas. Tim hated his real mother for what she had done to him and he grew up hating pretty much everything else in life.

Of course, what Tim didn’t know was that his father lied about all of it except for the fact that his real mother’s name was Becky, but that didn’t matter. He believed what his father had told him mostly because no one had told him otherwise and also because he grew up with his father going from one whorehouse to another and from one gambling house to another. He grew up among thieves, murderers and whores, and before he had a chance to form any of his own opinions about life, he was already tainted. Tim simply ended up being a product of his environment. It was not the life he had chosen; it was simply the life he had been handed.

Tim Sloan had killed his first man when he was only twelve years old. Sloan hadn’t started the fight, the other man had spotted Tim sitting outside a gambling establishment where Tim’s father was deadlocked in a high stakes poker game and he decided that the pistol and holster was too nice for a twelve-year-old kid to have and he wanted it for himself. He demanded that Tim take the gun off and give it to him and when Tim told him to kiss his ass, the man challenged him. Tim obliged and shot the man straight through the heart before the man got his gun out of his holster. From that day on, no one considered him a twelve-year-old kid anymore; they considered him a killer who had a lightning fast left hand.

And now, he was a young man just a few months shy of seventeen. A young man who had already killed several men and now on the trail of his twin brother and when he found him, he would kill him for the ten thousand dollars of blood money that Dick Carter had promised him. He would not hesitate or feel bad about it; he would just do it for the money. He didn’t think about the morality or the fairness of it. He hadn’t learned those lessons from his father. He had only learned to cheat, lie, steal and how to kill men. Yes, he was a product of his environment and quite a bad one at that.

Tim made camp the first night by a small creek. He ate a simple meal consisting of bread and coffee. He was just about to turn in after putting a few more pieces of wood on the fire when he caught a slight glare from a distant fire. The fire looked like a campfire but it was up higher like it was on the top of a hill. For a moment he thought about checking it out. Maybe it was someone he could rob; but then again, it might be a lawman on the trail and that might put a dent in Tim’s plan. He decided not to tempt fate. He had more important things to do and one that would pay him a lot more money than whoever was at the other campfire had, and all he had to do was find and kill one man.

In the morning, he made coffee, ate some cornbread with some fried bacon and broke camp. He always traveled light and he never really ate much, only what he needed to sustain himself. As he rode north, his thoughts turned to the campfire he had spotted last night. He wondered about who it was but not because he cared. He was simply occupying his time. The trail was always lonely and you had a lot of time to think of all sorts of things. But then his mind turned to the idea of ten thousand dollars. He began to think of all the things that ten thousand dollars would buy him. He thought about the fine whiskey. He thought about the best whores, the really good-looking ones that weren’t scarred up or ugly as an old mule’s ass. He thought about a new set of clothes and a new hat and even a new stake in a high dollar poker game. Then he thought about how he was going to get all these things and that led him to think about his brother again. If anyone could have been there to see it, you could see an evil grin begin to form on Tim’s face.

Jess hadn’t been riding very long since breaking camp. He was following a creek, which ran almost straight south. He stopped and filled both of his canteens with water. It was starting to warm up a little with the sun out and it felt good on his face. He loved the open range. It was lonely but at the same time, so peaceful. It always helped him to gather his thoughts. He thought about what he had done back in Black Creek. He thought about the man sitting in the street that he had simply shot and sent on to meet his maker, wherever that was. He wondered if he should have given him his gun and gave him a chance to face off with him but he couldn’t think of a good reason to have done so. The man was a murderer and hired gun. He had come to town to kill Jess and who knows how many others. Jess was not afraid of a fair fight but seven against one simply wasn’t fair. Sure, Jess had help from some of the townspeople but the seven men riding up to him while he stood his ground in the middle of the street didn’t know that. They intended to shoot him down like a dog and that would have been the end of it. Of course, he did have to wonder to himself about the sanity of standing down seven men in the middle of the street. That might have been just slightly on the edge of crazy. And, of course, he really did feel bad about killing the horse. He thought about how lucky he was to have survived the showdown with Carter and his men. Then again, he wondered if it was fate playing a role in his life again. He mounted Gray and continued along the creek.

The creek suddenly made a sharp turn to the west and Jess decided to cross at a shallow part. He allowed Gray a moment to get a drink. He could hear Gray drinking the water and he took his hat off, stroked his hair back, and looked around. He looked down the creek and way off in the distance; he could barely make out what looked like a man stooped down at the creek next to a horse. He wondered who it might be. For a moment, he wondered if it could be his brother but after he entertained the thought, he figured the odds of that were almost nonexistent. Gray finished his drink and Jess crossed the creek and continued south.

Terrence Hanley finished filling his canteen and started northward again back to Black Creek. He wondered if he still had a job when he got back to Carter’s ranch. Not because he thought Carter might fire him, but because he wondered if Carter was still alive. He kept a slow pace, not wanting to run into Sloan on the trail. He wondered more than once on his trip back to Black Creek if he shouldn’t just take the five hundred he had in his pocket and head out farther west and find himself another ranch to work at, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had started a job and he needed to finish it. That was his way. He wondered who the man was he had seen on in a distance at the creek. He knew it wasn’t Sloan since the man was heading south and Hanley had been following Sloan’s trail all the way back to Black Creek.
Probably just another drifter
, Hanley thought to himself.

Tim Sloan could see the town of Black Creek, Kansas from the road. It was still a mile or so away but he could see most of the buildings from the road. He had passed a few farms along the way and now he was coming up to a house on the outskirts of town. He saw a man who was working on replacing some old weather-beaten fence posts. He decided to stop and talk to the man. The man working on the posts noticed Sloan and he stopped his work and stood up. He took a rag from his back pocket and wiped his hands off and looked up at Sloan as Sloan reined up by the man.

“Howdy
,
Mister,” the man said, putting the rag back in his pocket. “Can I help you with something?”
Sloan looked the man over for a moment. “Actually, you might be able to. Do you know where I can find a man by the name of Cal Hardin?” Sloan asked.
“Well, I sure can. The Hardin ranch is down the road the same way you’re heading. It’s about four miles past the town and on your right side as you go. You can hardly miss it. The Hardin ranch is one of the largest in the area. He’s got a big gate area and a big sign atop the gate rails that says ‘HARDIN’ on it. He’s not a bad fellow for a rich man. I do some work for him now and again and he always pays well and he’s never treated me bad either. You tell him Charlie says howdy.”
“Thanks, Mister. I appreciate it,” Sloan replied, trying to be friendly, which wasn’t easy for him.
Sloan continued down the road and passed the turn into the town. He wanted to get to the Hardin ranch and speak to Cal Hardin and get as much information as he could about the job he was being paid to do. He finally came up to the gate to the Hardin ranch and he turned down the road. He could see the house, which was about five hundred feet back from the road. He noticed several men sitting on horseback in front of the house. They seemed to be in some discussion about something, probably about who was going to do what for the next day or something like that. Sloan thought about the everyday drudgery of being a ranch hand and the thought repulsed him. They spotted Sloan and two of them broke from the group and rode over to meet Sloan. They reined their horses up in front of Sloan, putting themselves between Sloan and the Hardin house. Sloan did not excite easily. He simply stopped and waited for the men to do exactly what he figured they would do. Art Wheye and Newton Cash were the two men who had rode over to Sloan.
Art was the first to speak. “Can we help you with something, Mister?”
Tim, always cold and deliberate with his actions, took a moment to look the two men over. They both wore pistols and they looked tough enough but they were not gunslingers and Tim knew it with one look. Sloan looked over at the other men who were now all facing in his direction and watching to see what would happen next. Sloan figured he could take these two in front of him but that was not what he was here for, at least, not at the moment. “I’m looking to speak with a man by the name of Cal Hardin. I was told to look him up by a man named Dick Carter.” Wheye and Cash both knew that Carter was dead, which is why they both looked at one another with a look of we know something that you don’t.
Cal Hardin had just finished his supper and he was looking out the window to see what was going on. His wife, Ruth was peeking over his shoulder. “Is that Jess Williams? What do you suppose he wants with you? I thought this whole damn mess was over with,” she said with more than a hint of worry in her voice.
“It damn sure looks like him, but it ain’t,” Cal replied, after taking another look at the young man who had been stopped on the ranch road.
Cal went to step back and go to the front door and when he did, he stepped on his wife’s left foot. She let out a howl that sounded somewhat unnatural and Cal, stumbling to get his footing back, yelled at her. “God damn it woman! How many times have I told you not to stand behind me like that! Finish up cleaning the dishes instead of worrying about things that don’t concern you!” Ruth let out a breath of disgust and went back to cleaning up. Cal walked outside onto the porch and waved at the two men in front of Sloan.
“Let him come on in,” Cal said. The two men backed up their horses just enough to allow Sloan to pass. Sloan, not one to be friendly, didn’t even nod at the men as he moved past them. He acted as if they no longer existed. He kept his gaze on the man on the porch waiting for him.
“Sure enough not the friendliest guy I’ve met,” said Cash.
“You ain’t wrong ‘bout that,” replied Wheye.
“You know what else I noticed?” added Cash. “What?”
“He looks a lot like that Jess Williams kid.”
“Damn if you ain’t right about that too, Cash,” replied Wheye, “but I wouldn’t call Jess Williams a kid anymore.”
“Why not? Hell, I’m more than twice his age.”
“Yeah, but he’s already killed more men than any other one man I know. And after what he did to Deke Moore the other day, well…he ain’t no kid anymore.”
“Yeah, that was pretty hard, even though Deke most likely had it coming’. He sure enough killed his share of men up to then.” They both started their horses over to the house. They knew that their boss would want some company close.
“You know what?” asked Wheye. Cash looked at him but didn’t answer.
“I’m thinking maybe you might be more like three times his age,” laughed Wheye.
“Damn that’s cold, Wheye. I thought we were friends and all.”
“Hell, I never did like your sorry ass.” They both laughed as they dismounted their horses and wrapped the reins around the rail on the front porch. Sloan had already tied his horse. He walked up the steps and stood in front of Cal Hardin and took a moment to size him up.
Cal spoke first. “I’m Cal Hardin and my guess is you’re Tim Sloan.”
“You guessed right. I would like a minute to speak with you, in private, Sloan said, as he looked over at Cash and Wheye, who were not about to let Sloan out of their sight just yet.
Hardin nodded at the two men. “You boys wait out here on the porch. Mr. Sloan and I have something to discuss inside.” Both Cash and Wheye nodded and took a seat on the porch. Hardin went inside and Sloan followed. Hardin offered Sloan a seat at the table.
“Can I offer you some coffee or a drink?”
“Coffee would be just fine,” Sloan answered.
“Ruth, pour the man a cup and I’ll have one too.”
Ruth did as she was told. She thought about limping on her foot a little just to get a dig in at her husband. She always liked to get in a dig whenever and however she could. Sometimes it was simply a breath exhaled too loudly and sometimes it was stomping her feet and slamming doors. Her favorite was when she would slam his plate or coffee cup down hard on the table. Cal Hardin ruled the roost and he ran roughshod over his wife most of the time. Ruth wasn’t thinking about any of those things right now though. She was a little too distracted by the striking resemblance that Sloan had to Jess Williams. When she finished serving the coffee, one look from Cal was all she needed to know that she was to leave the room. When she did, that left Cal Hardin and Tim Sloan in the room alone. Hardin knew that his men were right outside on the porch and yet, he still felt uncomfortable. He knew that Jess Williams had killed a lot of men already including Dick Carter and most of his hired guns and yet, if Jess Williams were here sitting where his brother Tim Sloan was, he would not feel uncomfortable. The truth was that Hardin still liked Jess and felt sorry for what had happened to him and especially for what had happened to his family. But he did not like this young man sitting here before him but mostly, he did not like what he was here for. They both looked each other over. Tim took a sip of his coffee and sat his cup down ever so slowly as he kept his stare on Cal.
“Well, Mr. Hardin, I understand that you are holding the sum of ten thousand dollars for me, is that right?”
Cal shifted in his seat and leaned forward slightly. “Do you have a letter that you would like to show me?” asked Cal. Tim dug into the front pocket of his shirt and pulled out the letter. He handed it to Cal. Cal read it and looked at Dick Carter’s signature. It was his handwriting and Cal was sure of that.
“Goddamn you Carter,” Cal Hardin growled. He wasn’t speaking to anyone. He was speaking to an unseen entity that may or may not have been able to hear him. “The dirt on your grave hasn’t even begun to settle yet and you’re still causing people grief.” Cal hung his head for a moment before he looked back up at Sloan. He did not like what he was doing but he would do it because he had said he would. A man’s word was one of the most important things in life and once it was given, it was given. “That’s Carter’s signature on the letter but you don’t get the ten thousand until you…” Cal’s voice broke off for a second “…finish the job.”
“Oh, I’ll finish it, you can count on that.”
“You’d really kill your own flesh and blood, your own brother, for money?”
“Mr. Hardin, I’ve killed men over a poker bet for a twenty dollar gold piece and I’ve killed men just for calling me a cheat. I ain’t got no brother as far as I’m concerned and the only flesh and blood I have is my father, and I’d even kill him for that kind of money.
“Jess Williams is your brother, I can assure you of that.”
“I don’t need your assurance, Mr. Hardin. All I need right now is for you to tell me that if I bring his dead body strapped over his horse to you for identification that you will pay me the ten thousand that Carter promised.”
“Just so we understand one another, I don’t like you or what you are here to do. But I did agree to do what Carter asked, so yes, I’ll pay you the money if you are able to do what Carter is paying you to do.” Sloan took another swallow of his coffee and slowly stood up. Hardin looked at Sloan’s pistol and holster.
“You know, your brother has a pretty fancy pistol and holster himself. He’s damn fast with it too. You might want to think this thing over.”
An evil grin formed on Sloan’s lips. “I’ve already thought about it. Just be ready to hand me my money when I deliver his corpse to you.”
Sloan turned around and walked back outside. Cash and Wheye were still sitting on the porch. Tim walked past them as if they still didn’t exist and walked down the steps of the porch. He grabbed the reins of his horse and mounted himself into the saddle with an easy fluid movement. Cal came out onto the porch and both men stood up. All three of them were facing Sloan.
“I don’t suppose you know where I could start looking for this Jess Williams?” Sloan asked.
Hardin lowered his head for a second. He was thinking about what he had promised Dick Carter and one of them wasn’t helping this Tim Sloan find Jess Williams. He slowly looked back up at Sloan. “Matter-of-fact, no, I wouldn’t have any idea.”
Sloan smiled that evil grin again. “That’s what I thought,” replied Sloan, as he slowly turned his horse toward the main road heading into town.
“Not a very friendly feller, huh boss?” Wheye asked.
“Nope. That young man is a lot of things, but friendly sure ain’t one of ‘em.”
“I know one thing he is,” Cash piped in. Hardin and Wheye both looked at him with interest.
“He’s a damn sight better looking than Wheye here,” Cash snickered, getting his dig back at Wheye.
“Guess I had that one coming for sure,” laughed Wheye.
“That and a damn sight more, too,” replied Cash.
“Now who’s being cold,” replied Wheye as he and Cash headed back to the other men who were now standing around together over to the side of the house.
Cal Hardin watched Tim Sloan until he was out of sight. The feeling in his gut that started out with an uneasy feeling had now turned to something more like someone slamming you in the gut with a ten-pound hammer. He didn’t like what he was being a part of. He wondered about his loyalty to a dead man but then again, loyalty was loyalty, even in death. He had made a promise and no matter how much he disliked the matter, he would keep it. He hung his head again as he recalled his conversation that day that Carter had come to visit him with the envelope with ten thousand dollars in it. Then, he remembered another thing that he hadn’t promised Carter as he slowly raised his head back up. As he looked out at the road where he had finally lost sight of Tim Sloan, you could see a slight smile come to his lips.