Longarm in Hell's Half Acre (16 page)

Longarm strode onto the rough plank walkway in front of the El Paso Hotel. Like an obedient pet, Willard Allred followed. A hot, dust-laden wind blew past them and swept east along Third Street toward Calhoun. Allred stepped up to a spot alongside Longarm, then snapped a brusque nod to indicate the location of their prey.

Directly across Third, near a hitch rail on the south side of the White Elephant, Quincy Ballentine and the Caine brothers railed at those passing by. As if by some magical transference of thought, Ballentine and his cohorts turned in unison, exchanged a few quick words, then moved into the middle of the street. They faced Longarm and Allred and assumed a belligerent, unyielding stance.

A cold, prickling sensation, accompanied by a pimply patch of chicken flesh, crawled up Longarm's spine into his hairline at the base of his skull. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath. “Sharpen up, Willard. Looks to me like these sons of bitches intend on a-goin' down shootin'.”

Alert onlookers up and down the busy thoroughfare spotted the heavily armed threat and headed for the nearest available spot perceived as offering safety. Doors, alleyways, shops, and stores soon filled with anxious, finger-pointing spectators who appeared convinced a killing was about to take place.

Ballentine, a nasty abrasion still decorating his bruised jaw, spit, then kicked dust onto the gob of phlegm. “For some reason, I figured you jus' might be the son of a bitch I was a-lookin' to find.” He ran a thumb along the scab-covered scrape left by Custis Long's pistol barrel. “Ain't forgot what you done to me right in front of God, Mattie, and everybody in the White Elephant, you arrogant bastard. Hear tell you're some kinda federal fuckin' lawdog.”

“Deputy U.S. marshal, as a matter of pure fact. You boys are all under arrest.”

Doc Caine threw his head back and let out an odd, strangled, cackling laugh. “You can fold yore arrest five ways and stick it right straight up yore dumb fuckin' ass. Ya know, I ain't never kilt no
federal
lawman afore. 'Course they's a first time for everthang.” Rock-steady hands hovered over the butts of the pistols that poked from the red sash around his waist.

Brother Ezra, thumbs hooked over his cartridge belt, moved several steps away from his brother's side. “Don't think you and that broke-down old reb've got the stones to arrest boys as bad as us, Mr. Deputy U.S. Fuckin' Marshal. You ain't dealin' with a couple a ignorant, South Texas brush poppers just up from the Nueces River country chasin' a herd a them stinkin'-assed longhorns.”

With Willard in tow, Longarm moved off the boardwalk, then took several more steps toward the trio of swaying-in-the-wind drunks. The action brought him and his specially appointed deputy within fifteen or twenty feet of Ballentine and the obviously inebriated Caine brothers.

Longarm leveled the shotgun and cocked it. The loud, metallic snap from the weapon's hammers being set caused a bleary-eyed Doc Caine to rock back on his heels.

Quincy Ballentine held up a conciliatory hand, as though to slow the action a bit. “Now just a second there, lawdog. You've got property what belongs to me. Bought and paid for, if you get my drift. All I really want is to get my rightful belongin's. Gimme back them girls you took from the Drover's Inn and we'll just let this whole misunderstandin' pass. Nobody'll get hurt.”

Allred snarled, “You cain't buy and sell people no more, you stupid son of a bitch. Lotta good men died in Mr. Lincoln's war to prove that. Just cause these'uns happen to be women don't make it right for you to do it.”

Ballentine's face reddened. He shook his finger at the lawmen. “Them Poleman gals is mine. Paid for in gold coin. Bought 'em from their dear, sweet, lovin' pappy. Even hear tell you've got Mattie as well. Some surprised she ain't dead, but I want her back, too.”

Sharp-eared spectators to Third Street's unfolding events had trouble hearing Longarm when he growled, “I've heard enough of this bilge. Throw up your hands, you woman-beatin' sons of bitches. I'll not allow stupid, abusive scum like you to spend another moment a-breathin' the sweet air of God's freedom.”

True to Longarm's prediction, Ezra Caine opened the ball by going for the pistol on his hip. His first shot zipped past Longarm's ear like a Mexican hornet, his second sawed across the stolid lawman's upper arm and left a smoking trench in his snuff-colored suit jacket. Doc Caine managed to get both pistols working and ripped off four quick, thunderous blasts, but the evening's whiskey consumption appeared to have spoiled his aim. Blue whistlers bored through the air all around Longarm and Allred, but did no damage.

From the corner of his eye, Longarm spotted Willard Allred as, with great deliberation, the old soldier dropped to one knee, took aim, and calmly drilled Quincy Ballentine dead center. The shot crushed the belligerent pimp's breastbone, augered its way through his body, then burst out his back in a melon-sized spray of blood, bone, and gore.

In the midst of the hot but harmless barrage coming his way from the Caine boys, Longarm dropped the hammer on both barrels of the Greener he held at waist level. A deafening roar from the weapon produced a massive, devastating curtain of lead that splattered the brothers with hundreds of heavy-gauge buckshot pellets. Both men disappeared from sight behind a gray-black cloud of spent gunpowder that rolled across the span of dusty street between the two parties and virtually obscured anyone's ability to see his adversaries.

Longarm pitched the shotgun aside, slipped the Frontier model Colt from its cross-draw holster, and advanced on the three fallen gunnies. He marched through the drifting, acrid haze he'd put in the air and stopped a few feet from the twitching body of Doc Caine. Smoking buckshot holes that oozed blood adorned the man's clothing from his knees to his chin. He groaned and sat up, a pistol in each hand.

“Drop 'em, Doc,” Longarm warned.

Caine's eyes swam in his head. A number of black-ringed holes peppered his face and neck. “Gonna send you to hell, you badge-wearin' son of a bitch. Ain't nobody done ever shot me and lived to tell of it.”

With what appeared every bit of strength he had left, Caine partially raised one arm and fired a shot that knocked a heel off Longarm's boot and sent the surprised marshal to his knee. On his way to ground, the astonished lawman snapped off a single round that hit Caine over the right eye, knocked the Boss of the Plains hat off his head, and snatched him backward into the dirt like he'd been roped for branding.

Longarm hopped back to his feet like a man trying to disguise the fact that he'd fallen in public, then quickly drew a death-dealing bead on brother Ezra. The younger of the brothers appeared to have got the worst of the initial blast from the Greener. He shuffled up to Ezra and toed the man in the side. The wounded gunman groaned, but only once. Willard Allred stepped up beside Longarm and, without even taking aim, fired a single shot into the downed man's chest.

Longarm holstered his pistol as Willard levered a fresh load into the Winchester's smoking breech. “Know you probably don't approve of what I just done, Marshal, but the way I've got it figured, ain't no point lettin' any of 'em take up space in a jail. Besides, gutless juries 'round here 'bouts have a bad habit of lettin' his type loose on the public with little or no punishment for their nefarious deeds,” Allred said.

Longarm stared down at Ezra Caine's lifeless body. Dung flies had already begun to buzz around the man's corpse. “Good thing he, at the very least, had a weapon in hand. Mighta looked kinda bad otherwise.”

Allred ambled over to the corpse of Quincy Ballentine. He toed the body onto its back, bent over, and rifled through the dead man's pockets. After several seconds, he stood, held out a bulging leather pouch, and said, “Look. Must be a couple a thousand dollars in here, Marshal Long.”

Longarm gazed at his own feet, then turned away as though trying not to hear what Allred was saying. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then made a waving motion behind his back. “Put it in your pocket, Willard. Quincy don't have any use for the money, and if we leave the pouch on 'im, one of Fort Worth's policemen'll probably end up with it.”

Willard shoved the bag of paper money and coins into his coat pocket, then followed Longarm to the wooden walkway next to the White Elephant. They sat down next to one another and watched as scores of cowboys, tradesmen, store owners, bartenders, cattle buyers, gamblers, drunks, women of questionable background, and others gathered around, pointed, whispered, and gawked at the blood-soaked, bullet-riddled corpses that bedecked the dusty street.

Allred propped the rifle agaist his knee. A faint twinge of regret colored his voice when he said, “Been a right gory couple a days, Marshal. Ain't kilt this many men since the war.”

Longarm glanced over at the grizzled old reb, then patted him on the shoulder. “You can take some degree of comfort in the knowledge we did what had to be done at the time, Tater. No shame in any of our actions. No shame at all.”

“Suppose so,” Allred mused. “Still and all, though, it's been a bloody couple a days.”

In pretty short order a tall, cadaverous-looking gent lugged a heavy box camera up and efficiently went about taking as many pictures as possible. He'd set off his flash bar at least twice when Marshal Sam Farmer and one of his men appeared on the scene.

Longarm and Allred stood when Farmer strode up. Fort Worth's marshal pulled a chewed toothpick from between his teeth, then said, “Well, see you went an' beat us to 'em, Marshal Long.”

“Not really,” Longarm said. “They came lookin' for a fight. Appears someone told 'em 'bout me a-rescuin' the Poleman girls. Quincy didn't take the news well. Tried to get 'em to throw up their hands and let me take 'em in. Had every intention to turn 'em all over to you, Sam. You can see how the whole dance all turned out.”

Farmer shook his head. Over his shoulder, as he stepped into the street for a better viewing of the shot-riddled bodies, he said, “Yeah, I can see how it turned out alright.”

Willard touched Longarm's elbow, then tapped the leather bag in his pocket. “How 'bout we step inside the Elephant, and you let me buy a round of drinks.”

Longarm passed a rather pleasant week in Fort Worth after the fiery dustup with Quincy Ballentine and the Caine brothers. Surprised everyone when the weather turned a bit cooler and a welcome rain settled the ever-present, drifting dust. Mornings he lounged in the El Paso Hotel's sumptuous lobby, sipped coffee, and studied the local newspapers. Around about noon every day, he and Willard Allred strolled over to the White Elephant and had lunch. Nights, Allred watched as Longarm played poker with Luke Short and a pair of former Kansas lawdogs named Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, who traveled in the company of a pale, sickly dentist named Holliday.

He visited with Mattie Wayland as often as possible. Her recovery proved depressingly slow and painful. Young fellow claiming kinship to the Poleman girls showed up early that second week. Said he'd fallen out with his pap over the whole sordid affair as concerned his sisters, and wanted to take the girls to a place where none of them were known. He quietly spirited the girls away late one night without giving anyone a chance to say good-bye.

Marshal Sam Farmer escorted Longarm to Fort Worth's Union Depot the morning he left town. The Denver, Texas, and Fort Worth Railroad's Baldwin engine chuffed and snorted ominous clouds of billowing steam onto the loading platform as they walked up.

Farmer shook Longarm's hand, then said, “Well, glad you got to spend at least some of your time off relaxing, Marshal. Woulda been a shame for the entire trip to have been as tangled as that first week.”

Longarm flashed his pearly whites. “Enjoyed every minute of it, Sam. Hope to get back this way soon. Maybe have two whole weeks as pleasant as the one that just passed.”

Longarm glanced over Farmer's shoulder and noticed Willard Allred pull up to the depot's passenger platform driving a shiny new cabriolet. Inside sat Mattie Wayland. “Excuse me, Sam. There's a lady here to see me off.”

Scrubbed, shaved, and dressed in a new outfit from head to foot, a grinning Willard Allred hopped off the driver's deck, doffed his hat, and gallantly swung the cab's polished door open. “Damned nice rig, Tater.”

“Seems as how I recently came into some unexpected money. Thought I'd provide my better customers with a real special ride.” Allred's smile broadened. “Had the doc give them poor gals from Springtown enough to start on a different trail, as well. Felt mighty good, too.”

Longarm patted the old soldier on the arm, then removed his hat and leaned beneath the sheltering hood. “Doc Wheeler know you're out runnin' the streets, Mattie?”

Still showing the effects of her terrible beating, Mattie Wayland forced a split-lipped grin, then said, “No, and you won't tell him, will you?”

“'Course not. But I'm sure he'd be worried if he knew what you were doing.”

“I know. Had to say good-bye, though. Couldn't let you leave town without making sure you knew how much I appreciate all you done for me.”

“Totally unnecessary. Any man worth his salt would've done the same.”

She grimaced, but leaned forward, caressed his face, then planted a tender, chaste kiss on Longarm's cheek. “No. No they wouldn't have,” she whispered. “There aren't many men like you around these days, Custis.”