Nate Coffin's Revenge

Table of Contents

 

 

TASTE OF BLOOD

I took a few more steps in the thief’s direction. Was about to unload on him from both smoke wagons when a third brigand jumped through the bank’s open doors. Ripped off a shot that knocked my hat into the air. Hot lead burned a deep crease just above my ear.

Of a sudden, most of the color went out of the world. Felt like I’d been hit in the head with a long-handled shovel. Grabbed at the bloody crease, went to my knees, and rolled onto my back. Both shooters had me in their sights by then. Hot slugs pounded the ground all around me while I rolled in the dirt. Remember thinking as how they’d have the range soon enough.

My eyes didn’t want to work right. Everything I could still see turned a murky mix of red, gray, and black. Held my blood-covered hand up in front of my face, but couldn’t count the fingers. Could hear people yelling, but the words didn’t make no sense. Got this taste in my mouth like I’d been sucking on a copper penny freshly dug up after years in the ground.

Then, as God is my witness, just before much-desired unconsciousness reached up and jerked me into a sticky, red pit, a black-haired angel, dressed in white, appeared by my side.

“A writer who can tell a great adventure story with authority and wit.” —John S. McCord, author of the Baynes Clan novels

“
Lawdog
has it all. I couldn’t put it down.” —Jack Ballas

“J. Lee Butts keeps his readers on the edge of their seats.”

NATE COFFIN’S REVENGE
AMBUSHED
BAD BLOOD
A BAD DAY TO DIE
BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD
HELL IN THE NATIONS
LAWDOG

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

NATE COFFIN’S REVENGE

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley edition / October 2007

Copyright © 2007 by J. Lee Butts.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-1-4406-2007-2

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If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to my friend and agent, Kimberly Lionetti, for her limitless patience and understanding of a rapidly aging old grump. My gratitude to Berkley Editor, Samantha Mandor, for her amazing ability to respond to my every request. And finally a tip of the Stetson to my good buddy, Red Shuttleworth, a great poet of the West, who always manages to pick my sagging spirits up with a simple phone call.

“Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”

—Plutarch,
How a Young Man Ought to Hear Poems

“I have found power in the mysteries of thought, exaltation in the chanting of the Muses; I have been versed in the reasonings of men; but Fate is stronger than anything I have known.”

—Euripides,
Alcetis
, 1.962

PROLOGUE

Got right chilly last night. Bit unusual for Texas this time of year. Put me in mind of a frost-covered outhouse seat in Montana. Lord have mercy, but I do hate the cold.

Horse killer of a Blue Norther swept in so fast three days ago, some animals died in mid-stride, front half frothy and the back half frozen. Icy winds hit my ancient, decrepit body like a sledgehammer. Forced me to give up agreeable evenings on the screened-in back porch where I like to sit and contemplate the tumultuous events of my past.

Leaves shriveled up and fell off the trees more than a month ago. Starkly naked limbs click and clack against each other in the wind like bones dancing in a graveyard. Grass withered, turned into an ugly brown carpet that crunches when I hobble out to the barn to check on my animals. Sun done went and hid its face behind thick, dark clouds—most days anyway. Everything in nature just kind of drew up into itself—like me.

Been forced to hibernate here in the house next to my stoked-up tin stove. Damned thing actually glows when encouraged in just the right fashion. Going through firewood like popped corn. As is the case with most old men who live alone, got nothing to do during such times ’cept ruminate and remember.

Don’t know about nobody else, but I’ve always liked hot weather. Full-bore summertime’s exactly my cup of tea. Hotter than hell under a frying pan’s the way my old friend Hayden Tilden used to describe my preference for sizzling days and blazing sunshine.

Think about ole Tilden often lately. He once told me as how—sometimes at night—a particularly vivid nightmare could snatch him out of a sound sleep like a magician he once saw what jerked a white rabbit from the bottom of a stovepipe hat. Often as not, said he’d snap awake and see Death slouched at the foot of his hospital bed tapping flesh-less, bony fingers against a sharpened, ebony-handled scythe. Said the gruesome vision’s silver blade glistened in the moonlight with the bloody remnants of countless unsuspecting souls snatched to the other side by the grinning bastard. Sends shivers through my ancient leather-tough heart just thinking about that ghostly phantom and his single-minded mission to relieve me of my earthly spirit.

Have come to believe that perhaps such fantastic images are just typical of creeping old age and the inevitable rendezvous we all have with God’s grim servant. Must confess I’ve not seen the skeletal apparition inside my bedroom— leastways not yet. But you know, must admit that a time or two of late, I have spotted that sneaky thief of spirits as he darted amongst the trees between my house and the river, or hid in my stand of huckleberry bushes and spied on me.

Seems to me as how ole Bony Fingers was always around somewhere back when me and Boz Tatum chased badmen all over Hell and Texas during my stint as a Ranger. Know for damned sure I saw him the day we caught up with Dolphus Twiggens out on the Wichita, not far from the Indian Nations, back in ’80, or maybe ’82. Being as how I’ve never told anyone this particular tale before, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t repeat what you’re about to hear.

Day it happened, Boz sat a fine sorrel horse named Sunset and pointed to grayish-white wafts of smoke that drifted from a rough cabin’s chimney. Sagging live oaks, sad in their silence, hid most of a board-and-batten shack sheltered in a cup of grassy earth. Front porch looked rotted, and a pair of run-out broomtails drooped from fatigue in the ramshackle corral, a few paces from one end of the broken-down hovel.

My friend glanced at me, smiled, and said, “Bet you a frosty beer at the White Elephant Saloon we’ve done went and found the crazy bastard’s hidey-hole.”

Pulled my belly gun, flipped the loading gate open, and rolled the cylinder past each chamber. Everything looked in order. Said, “Ain’t bettin’ with you this time, Boz. When last we went out, I ended up owin’ you for more beer than I could drink up in a month of Sundays. Hell, you got a week’s worth of free liquor off me with that rainbow of a rifle shot when you killed Albert Scruggs.”

He stifled a low chuckle and checked over his own weapons. “Well, damn, Lucius, you just ain’t no fun a-tall. Noticed as how you been grumpier’n a sixty-year-old bachelor the closer we’ve got to cornerin’ Dolphus.”

“Could be,” I said. “Been thinkin’ on how we’ve never run too many others to ground as deadly as this man-killin’ son of a bitch.”

My blue roan, Grizz, shifted and stamped a white-socked foot. Shook his head, then grunted. Always believed that animal had the power of second sight. Most folks gave that notion little credit, but Grizz somehow seemed to know when trouble loomed ahead. Had got to a point where I trusted his equine judgment, but must admit it bothered me some the way he acted. Just never knew what to expect when he got jumpy as a bit-up bull in fly time.