Ride With the Devil (19 page)

“Right now you are in no condition to resist, are you?”

“I guess not.”

“By the way, there is also a two dollar fine for indecent exposure,” Culpepper said. “That was what got you arrested and brought here in the first place. That leaves you a total of five dollars.”

Culpepper took the money out of the bowl, put nine dollars into his own pocket and gave her the rest.

“You are free to go,” he said.

As Darci was leaving the Regulators’ office, five men were just arriving on horseback. They dismounted, but all of them saw Darci and took particular notice of her.

Culpepper stepped into the doorway as the men were tying their horses to the hitching rail.

“Hello, Slaughter,” he said. “I see you brought some men with you.”

“Yeah,” Slaughter replied. He looked at the others. “And they’re good men too.”

“Come on in,” Culpepper invited.

The five men followed Culpepper inside, where they saw seven other men standing or sitting around the small room.

“Damn, looks to me like you’re puttin’ together a small army,” Slaughter said.

“I am,” Culpepper answered. “We’re going to take over this town.”

“Yeah, well, I remember the days when me ’n’ you rode with the Missouri Raiders. We used to take over towns then too, but we was at war. What do we want to take over this town for?”

“I’ve got my own reasons,” Culpepper said. “But I reckon we can come up with a reason for you.”

“Only thing that would interest me would be money,” Slaughter said.

“I think we can accommodate that interest,” Culpepper said.

At that moment Cole and Spellman came into the office. An obviously angry Flaire was between them.

“Well now, who is this pretty little lady?” Slaughter asked.

“This is Miss Flaire Delaney,” Culpepper said. “Hello, Miss Delaney.”

“I demand to know the meaning of this!” Flaire said. “Why have I been arrested?”

“Why, for not paying your taxes, of course,” Culpepper said.

“That’s not a law anymore,” Flaire said. “I don’t have to pay them anymore.”

“Well, we’ll just see about that,” Culpepper said.

“Want me to put her in one of the cells, Colonel?” Spellman asked.

Culpepper shook his head. “No, those cells are pretty nasty. Just put her in that chair over there.”

“What if she tries to get away?”

“Handcuff her to the chair.”

“Handcuff me?” Flaire replied in anger. “You are going to put me in irons?”

“That’s what happens when people break the law,” Culpepper said.

“But I haven’t broken any law,” Flaire protested.

“You’ve broken my law,” Culpepper replied.

Still protesting verbally, though offering no physical resistance, Flaire was handcuffed to one of the chairs.

“Vox,” Culpepper said. “I have a job for you.”

DARCI HAD NOT SEEN THE TWO DEPUTIES BRINGING in Flaire, so when she stepped into the saloon a few minutes later, she knew nothing of Flaire’s plight. She stood for a moment just inside the front door, and though she showed no cuts or bruises, she looked disheveled rather than her normal, well-groomed appearance.

“Darci, where have you been?” Paddy asked. Then, seeing the way she looked, he asked, “Is something wrong? Are you all right?”

Darci didn’t answer right away. Instead she went straight to the bar, where she poured herself a large drink.

It was a well-known fact that Darci did not drink, so everyone looked on in shock as she struggled with the first swallow.

“What is it, Darci? What has happened?”

“The deputies,” Darci said.

“What about the deputies?”

“They…they…had their way with me.” She took another swallow of the whiskey, then wiped her lips with the back of her hand before she spoke again.

“They paid me,” she said. “Every one of them paid me.”
She opened up her left hand and put five wadded one dollar bills on the bar. “See?”

“Five dollars? For all of them, they gave you five dollars?” Paddy asked.

“No, they gave me fourteen,” Darci said. “But they took out taxes and a fine.”

“Where did this happen?” Doc asked.

“Across the street, in a jail cell,” Darci said. Though she had been in control of herself when she came into the saloon, she was crying now, and the tears slid down her cheeks as she continued. “They took me there, they tied me on the bed, and they…they…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Did Culpepper—” Doc started to ask, but Hawke interrupted Doc’s question.

“No, he didn’t. He couldn’t,” he said.

“The hell he couldn’t,” Doc said. “I know you and him go back a long ways, Hawke. But that man is pure evil.”

“That’s not the point, he couldn’t have been one of the ones who had his way with Darci.”

Darci looked at Hawke is surprise. “You…you know about him?”

“I know,” Hawke replied.

“What the Sam Hill are you two talking about?” Doc asked.

Before either of them could answer, Vox came into the saloon. This time, Vox already had his gun drawn.

“You have some nerve coming in here now,” Paddy said angrily. “Who do you think you are, taking this poor girl down there and…raping her?” he asked.

“We didn’t do nothin’ to that whore that don’t happen to her ever’ night,” Vox said.

“What are you doing in here now?” Paddy asked. “And why are you holding a gun?”

Vox held up his gun. “I have my gun out because the last
two times I was in here I got tricked. First, this fancy-pants piano player took my pistol when I wasn’t looking, then you throwed down on me with a shotgun. Well, I don’t aim to be tricked again.”

“What do you want, Vox?” Cyrus Green asked.

“It ain’t what I want, it’s what the colonel wants. He wants the town to round up two thousand dollars and deliver it to him by the end of the day.”

“You are out of your mind,” Paddy said. “After the way you’ve been bleeding this town, I doubt there is two thousand dollars among us. How are we supposed to come up with that kind of money?”

“Oh, the colonel don’t much care how you come up with it. Just as long as you come up with it,” Vox said.

“That’s impossible. You can’t get blood out of a turnip,” Doc said.

Vox chuckled. “Funny you should mention that. Blood, I mean. You’re right, you can’t get blood out of a turnip, but you can sure get it out of a pretty girl.”

“A pretty girl? What are you talking about?” Paddy asked. He glanced toward Darci.

“No, not her,” Vox said. “She ain’t the only pretty woman in town.” He looked directly at Hawke. “Just so’s you know, piano player. We’re holding your friend Flaire Delaney until all the tax money is paid.”

Hawke didn’t say a word.

“Now, what message do I take back to Colonel Culpepper?” Vox asked. “Do I tell him you’re going to pay? Or do I tell him to start cuttin’ up on the woman?”

“You can tell him to go to hell,” Paddy said angrily. “We ain’t givin’ him one red cent.”

“That’s easy enough for you to say, O’Neil,” Vox said. “The colonel’s not holding your girl.” He looked at Hawke. “It’s your girl he’s holdin’. So, maybe you’re the one I
should be askin’. What message do you want me to take back to the colonel?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hawke said.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”

“You aren’t going back,” Hawke said.

“Now just why in the hell won’t I be going back?”

“You aren’t going back, because I’m going to kill you,” Hawke said. The words were flat, cold, and expressionless.

Vox laughed. “Why, you dumb son of a bitch! I’m holding the gun on you and you say you are going to kill me? Mister, you’re—”

Suddenly, and as quick as thought, Hawke’s gun was in his hand. Shocked by the speed with which it happened, Vox stopped in mid-sentence and his thumb started to come back on the hammer.

Vox was too slow. Before he could react, Hawke’s gun was already roaring. Vox went down with a hole in his neck, his carotid artery severed and spewing blood like a waterfall.

Hawke opened the cylinder of his pistol and pushed out the empty cartridge, then replaced it with a new one.

Culpepper looked up when he heard the gunshot.

“Sounds like Vox had to do a little persuading,” Hooper said.

“Maybe,” Culpepper said.

“Maybe? What do you mean, maybe?”

“It could be that Vox is dead.”

“It can’t be,” Hooper said. “I was lookin’ through the front window when he went inside. Vox already had his pistol out.”

“This is Vox we are talking about, remember?” Culpepper said. “He has an amazing capacity to make mistakes.”

“You know what I think?” Flaire said. “I think Mason
Hawke killed Vox. And I think he’ll be coming after you now. All of you.”

“I hope he does, Miss Delaney,” Culpepper said. “Then you can watch him die, the way you watched your family die.”

“What?” Flaire gasped. “What do you mean by that?”

“I think you can figure it out,” Culpepper said. “I know you were only sixteen at the time, but what has amazed me is that, in all this time, you have never made the connection.”

“The man sitting on the horse, the one who just watched. That was you?”

“Yes,” Culpepper said.

Back in the Golden Calf, everyone was still in shock.

“How did you do that?” Paddy asked.

“How did I do what?” Hawke replied.

“You beat Vox in a gunfight while he was holding his gun on you! That is the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen! How did you do that?”

“It’s a matter of reaction time. While I was drawing and firing, Vox was thinking about firing back. Translating your thought into action is the longest part of any draw. That gave me the advantage. I didn’t beat him fair and square. I executed him.”

“What now?” Doc Urban asked.

“Do you want your town back?” Hawke asked.

“Yes.”

“Then you’re going to have to take it back.”

“Hawke,” Darci said. “There are more of them.”

“What do you mean, there are more of them?”

“As I was leaving the Regulators’ office, five more men arrived.”

“Damn!” Paddy said. “That gives Culpepper a small army.”

“Then we’ll put together our own army,” Hawke said. “And like any army worth its salt, we have artillery.”

“Artillery?” Cyrus said.

“You know what they say about artillery, don’t you?” Hawke asked. He smiled. “Artillery lends dignity to what would otherwise be an uncouth brawl.”

“Where are we going to get artillery?” Paddy asked.

“You let me worry about that. Paddy, get Baldwin, Poindexter, Castleberry, and anyone else you can round up, and bring them here.”

“All right,” Paddy said.

“What about us?” Cyrus asked, indicating Darci, himself, and Doc.

“Do you have a gun?” Hawke asked.

“Yes,” Cyrus said. “Uh, no. I had one, but it got burned up in the fire.”

“Here,” Paddy said, taking his shotgun from under the bar and handing it to Cyrus. “You can use this.”

“Thanks. This will be better than a pistol, anyway. I can’t hit a bull in the ass with a pistol.”

“Doc, when the shooting starts, we may need your services, so be ready.”

“Sure thing. I’ll go get my bag,” Doc Urban said.

Hawke shook his head. “No, that’s not a very good idea. Your office is right next door to the Regulators’ office.”

“How am I going to doctor without my bag?”

“You’ll just have to do the best you can,” Hawke said. “We’ll meet back here in five minutes.”

Leaving through the back door of the Golden Calf, Hawke headed east down the alley until he reached the blacksmith shop.

“Ken! Ken, are you in here?” he called.

“Yes, I’m here,” Ken said.

“We’re taking the town back.”

“Good!” Ken said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Get your bow and several sticks of dynamite, then come with me,” Hawke said.

CULPEPPER WALKED TO THE FRONT DOOR OF THE office and looked outside. The saloon was directly across the street from him, but he didn’t see anyone there. There was nobody in front of the hotel either. In fact, there was nothing moving…not one wagon, horse, or pedestrian.

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” Bates asked.

“I don’t know,” Culpepper answered. He shook his head and stroked his chin as he stared up and down the street.

“This isn’t Sunday, is it? Or some holiday?” he asked.

“No. It’s just Thursday,” Bates said. “Why, what is it? What do you see?”

“I don’t see anything.”

“Then what’s got you spooked?”

“The fact that I see nothing has got me spooked,” Culpepper said. He continued to stare through the window, then saw someone across the street, moving around on the roof of the saloon.

“What the hell?” he said.

“What is it?” Slaughter asked.

“I thought I saw something, that’s all.”

Slaughter chuckled. “You ain’t makin’ a whole hell of a
lot of sense, Culpepper. First you was spooked because you wasn’t seein’ anything, and now you’re spooked because you did see somethin’.”

Culpepper stayed at the front door for a long moment, looking outside. Then he saw someone moving again, and this time he got a very good look at him. The man on the roof was Baldwin, and he was carrying a rifle. Suddenly it all came together and Culpepper knew exactly what was going on.

“Son of a bitch!” he said aloud. “Get ready, boys!” he shouted. “We’re about to be attacked!”

“What are you talking about, attack?” Slaughter asked. “Who’s attacking us? Indians?” He laughed.

“No, the town is,” Culpepper said. “Hell, half the damn town is crawlin’ around out there on roofs and behind the buildings. And they’ve all got rifles.”

Slaughter walked over to the bat-wing doors to look outside. At that precise moment he saw someone with a rifle looking out one of the upstairs hotel rooms.

“Sonofabitch! He’s right!” Slaughter yelled. He drew his pistol and shot toward the hotel. His bullet punched a hole in the glass window, but other than that, it did no damage.

“What did you shoot for, you dumb bastard?” Culpepper shouted.

“What are you talking about? I seen someone in the hotel window with a rifle pointed toward us,” Slaughter answered.

“As long as they thought they had us in the dark, we had the advantage,” Culpepper explained. “Now they know that we know.”

“So what? There ain’t nobody out there but a bunch of ribbon clerks and storekeeps,” Slaughter replied. “Why don’t we just go out there and…unnh!”

Slaughter’s sentence was cut short by a bullet fired from somewhere across the street. It caught him high in the chest
and spun him around. He had a surprised expression on his face.

“A ribbon clerk,” he said. “Who would’ve thought?”

“Everybody out!” Culpepper shouted.

“What? What do you mean everybody out?” Hooper asked.

“We can’t stay here all bunched up like this!” Culpepper shouted. “Get out! Take cover somewhere else and return fire!”

Cole started toward the front door.

“Not that door, idiot!” Culpepper said. “You’ll be shot down the moment you step outside. The back door! Use the back door!”

Nodding, Cole started toward the back door, followed by the others. Within seconds no one was left in the Regulators’ office but Culpepper and Flaire.

“Aren’t you going to run too?” she asked.

Culpepper shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m staying with you.” He smiled at her. “As long as they know you’re in this building, they aren’t likely to be shooting this way.”

“You sent the others out to fight your battle for you?” Flaire asked accusingly.

“Damn right I did. If somebody’s goin’ to get killed, better them than me.”

Baldwin was shot down as soon as he ran out the front door of the saloon. Doc Urban risked his own life to drag him back inside.

“How bad is he?” Darci asked.

“If I can get the bullet out before it starts to fester, he’s got a good chance,” Doc Urban said.

“Can you do it?”

“I can try,” he said. He pointed toward the bar. “Get me a bottle of whiskey.”

Darci hurried over to get the whiskey. By the time she got back, Doc had ripped open Baldwin’s shirt and was staring at the bullet hole, red and bleeding.

“Here’s the whiskey,” she said.

“Pour it on the wound.”

Hawke and Ken came in through the back door of the saloon. Hawke was carrying a bow and arrow, and Ken was carrying a heavy looking box.

Seeing Baldwin lying on one of the tables, Hawke asked, “How is he?”

“Too early to tell,” Doc replied.

“Come on, Ken. Up here,” Hawke said.

Ken followed Hawke upstairs, then they went up a second flight of stairs and through a hatch onto the roof. There, they saw Paddy and Cyrus, down behind the false front. Cyrus rose up and fired.

“Do you have them located?”

“Some of ’em, I’m not sure how many, ran into the livery,” Cyrus said. “They’re shootin’ at us from the hay loft.”

“The others went into the apothecary and the leather-goods store,” Paddy said.

Before leaving the blacksmith shop, Ken had cut several small pieces of wire, and over the next couple of minutes he and Hawke were busy tying dynamite sticks onto arrows.

“What is that?” Cyrus asked.

“This, Mayor, is our artillery,” Hawke replied.

When they had several arrows prepared, Hawke and Ken moved to the front of the roof. A bullet whizzed by their heads as they arrived, and looking across the street toward the livery, Hawke saw a little wisp of gun smoke drifting away from the open window up in the hayloft.

Hawke lit a cigar, then nodded at Ken. Ken drew back the bow, Hawke held the cigar to the fuse, and when it started sputtering, Ken released the arrow.

It fell short, landing in the water trough in front of the livery. After a second it went up with a window jarring blast, throwing out splinters and sending up a shower of water.

“Damn, can’t you do better than that?” Hawke asked.

“I didn’t take into account the extra weight on the arrow,” Ken said. “Give me another chance.”

Ken fit another arrow into the bow and Hawke lit it. This time the arrow sailed across the street in a high arc, sputtering and streaming behind a little trail of sparks and smoke. It went inside the great, black maw that was the opening to the hayloft of the livery barn. A second later there was a tremendous explosion. The front half of the roof blew off, while boards and splinters flew out from both sides and from the front of the building. It rained straw for the next several seconds.

“You got ’em,” Paddy said. “It’s Spellman and Cole, I can see ’em, lyin’ there.”

Ken fired another arrow into the livery, this time into the bottom, and again there was a roaring explosion, followed by a rain of pieces of shattered timber and straw.

From the smoke and dust at the bottom of the livery, two of Slaughter’s men ran outside, firing as they emerged. They were cut down in a hail of gunfire from the armed citizens of the town.

Poindexter tried to improve his position by running across the street from the hotel to the leather-goods shop. He was shot down in the middle of the street.

Bullets whizzed and whistled through the town. In the civilian houses on both sides of the street, as the battle raged on around them, terrified citizens huddled under beds or hid behind iron stoves, awaiting the outcome of the fight.

Jarvis, who had taken a position on the roof of the hardware store, was hit and fell over the building’s false front, landing on his back in the street below. Hawke took out
Hooper, while a blast from Paddy’s shotgun opened up the belly of the last of Slaughter’s men, spilling his guts as he died in the dirt.

For the first five minutes the shooting was so brisk that the shots were piled on top of each other, then the shooting eased until they came in twos and threes, then single shots, increasingly separated from each other like the last kernels of corn, popping in a pan.

Finally, all the shooting stilled.

There was a long moment of silence before Paddy called out.

“Looks like we got ’em all!” he said happily.

“Anybody see Culpepper?” Hawke asked.

“Maybe he’s still in the Regulators’ office,” Cyrus suggested.

“I don’t know, we weren’t getting shot at from there,” Paddy said. “I’ll bet he was in the livery.”

“I’m going to look for Flaire,” Hawke said.

“Poindexter’s still moving,” Cyrus said. “We better get down there to look out for him.”

The men hurried downstairs. Doc had just taken the bullet out of Baldwin when they reached the bottom floor.

“Poindexter’s outside, hurt,” Cyrus said.

Doc Urban followed them outside. He was just leaning over Poindexter when Bates stepped out of the apothecary with a pistol in his hand, which gave him an advantage over everyone else. Doc was unarmed, and Cyrus and Paddy had left their rifle and shotgun behind. Only Hawke was armed, and his pistol was in his holster.

“Well, now,” Bates said. “You fellas had yourselves a grand old time, didn’t you?”

“Where is Culpepper?” Hawke asked.

“Culpepper? I don’t know,” Bates said. “As far as I know, that cowardly son of a bitch is still in the office.”

“I’m going after him,” Hawke said, starting toward the Regulators’ office.

“Uh-uh. No, you ain’t,” Bates said, brandishing his pistol. “Ain’t none of you goin’ nowhere.” He looked up and down the street, now dotted with bodies.

“Damn if this don’t look like a battlefield,” he said. He shook his head. “None of this had to happen, you know. If you had just paid your taxes like you was supposed to, we’d all still be happy. Instead of dead. Now, who shall I kill first? I know. How about the mayor?”

Bates pulled the hammer back on his pistol and aimed carefully at Cyrus. Cyrus closed his eyes and grimaced but said nothing.

Suddenly, a little plume of smoke zipped down from the roof across the street, and an arrow buried itself deep into Bate’s chest. Looking down, Bates saw not only the arrow in his chest, but the sputtering fuse of a stick of dynamite.

“Oh shit,” he said.

“Get down!” Hawke shouted, and he, Doc, Cyrus, and Paddy dove for the ground just as the dynamite went off.

The explosion was so close that it caused Hawke’s ears to ring and he felt the stinging blast of sand thrown up from the street. Looking up, he saw the grizzly sight of red chunks of what had been Bates.

“Anybody hurt down there?” Ken called from the roof of the saloon.

“I don’t know. I’m all right,” Doc said.

“Me too,” Paddy added.

“Yeah,” Cyrus said with a sense of relief. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

Hawke got up, then looked up at Ken, who threw a little wave at him. Hawke waved back, then pulling his pistol, started toward the Regulators’ office.

“Titus!” Hawke called. “Titus, come on outside. It’s all over now, there’s nothing left for you.”

After a moment the front door opened and Culpepper came outside, holding a gun to Flair’s head. Hawke pointed his pistol at Culpepper.

“No, no, no,” Culpepper said in a singsong voice. “You don’t want to do that, Hawke. Not unless you want the girl killed.”

Hawke made no further aggressive action, but neither did he lower his pistol. For a long moment the two men were frozen in position, forming a dangerous tableau.

“Tell the man on the roof to throw his bow down onto the street,” Culpepper said.

When his request wasn’t complied with, Culpepper cocked his pistol. “Tell him,” he said. “Throw down the bow now, or I will kill the girl.”

Ken had been listening from up on the roof of the saloon.

“You don’t need to do that,” Ken called down to him. “Here’s my bow.” He tossed it over and it sailed down, then bounced a couple of times in the dirt of the street.

“Well, I’m glad to see that one of you, at least, is making sense,” Culpepper said.

“It’s over with, Titus,” Hawke said. “Throw down your gun and surrender.”

“Surrender?” Culpepper chuckled, a low, growling, evil-sounding chuckle. “Thanks to the town council, there is no longer any law in this town. So just who am I supposed to surrender to? You? The saloon keeper? The newspaperman?”

“All of us,” Hawke said.

Culpepper shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t think so. You won the battle, Hawke, but not the war. I don’t intend to surrender.”

“It doesn’t look to me like you have any choice,” Hawke said.

“As long as I have Miss Delaney, here, I have a choice. You folks can have your town back. I just want to get out of here alive. That’s all I’m asking.” Culpepper’s voice became less belligerent and more pleading. “What do you say, Hawke? For old times’ sake, just let me go.”

“It’s too late for that,” Hawke said.

“Let me go, Hawke, and I’ll let the girl go as soon as I’m out of here.”

Hawke shook his head no, then aimed at Titus. “Looks to me like you’ve got yourself in a bind, Titus.”

Culpepper laughed nervously. “Are you blind? I’ve got my gun pointed right at the lady’s head.”

“And I’ve got my gun pointed at you,” Hawke said. Now, for the first time, he cocked his own pistol.

“I’m not bluffing, Hawke. I’m going to kill her.”

“And I’m going to kill you.”

This wasn’t going the way Culpepper planned, and he licked his lips nervously. “I mean it, Hawke,” he said. “I’m going to kill her!”

“And I’m going to kill you,” Hawke said again. “And there is nothing you can do about it, because my gun is pointed at you…yours isn’t pointed at me.”

“You’re…you’re crazy!”

“Whatever you are going to do, Titus, do it,” Hawke said calmly. “Kill her if you are going to, but I don’t plan to stand out here in the hot sun all day.”

Like a rat caught in a trap, Culpepper’s eyes darted around the street, going from person to person. “Are you people just going to stand by and watch this?” he asked.

Nobody responded to Culpepper’s cry.

Then, with a shout of defiance and resignation, he pushed Flaire away and turned his pistol toward Hawke. Hawke
waited until Culpepper brought his gun to bear, waited until the fear left Culpepper’s face, waited until Culpepper started to smile.