Sidewinders (6 page)

Hank took a hurried step and put himself in front of Bo.

“See here, Marshal,” he began, “you can't—”

“Get out of the way, Hank!” Haltom snapped. “Nobody wants to hurt you. It's this mad dog killer brother of yours we're after!”

Bo had strapped on his Colt that morning even though he was home. Wearing the gun was purely a matter of habit. Since he could tell the members of the posse were eager for trouble, he made sure his hands were in plain sight as he stepped around Hank. He didn't want to give any of those trigger-happy hombres an excuse to start blazing away.

“Take it easy, Marshal,” he said. “And, Hank, do what the man says and move back.”

“But, Bo, it's not right—”

One of the possemen said, “Defending a killer, that's what's not right.”

Until now, Bo hadn't spotted the man in the cluster of riders, but when he looked closer he recognized the speaker as Danny Fontaine, the fox-faced youngster who'd instigated the battle on the bridge the day before.

Danny went on, “Of course, that's just about what I'd expect from one of you no-account Creels.” He smirked at Bo. “And you, I told you you'd pay for what you've done.”

“That's enough,” Marshal Haltom snapped. “Now, are you coming along peacefully, Creel, or do we have to lasso you and drag you back to town?”

“My father's gone to Bear Creek to talk to you, Marshal,” Bo said. “You must have run into him on your way out here.”

Haltom shook his head stubbornly.

“We didn't see him. Anyway, there's nothing to talk about. You're wanted for murder, and you've got to answer for it.”

“Who swore out the charge?”

“I did,” Danny said.

“I'm not sure that's legal.”

The marshal said, “We'll let the judge sort all that out once you're behind bars where you can't hurt anybody else. Now, I'm tired of messin' around with this. One way or another, you're coming with us.”

“Say the word, Bo,” Hank breathed. “I'll back your play.”

And get yourself killed
, Bo thought. Even though the charge against him was bogus, the last thing in the world he wanted was to be responsible for his little brother's death.

“Stay out of it, Hank,” Bo said. “Marshal, I'm going to take out my gun and give it to you—”

“Cover him!” Haltom snapped, and several of the men yanked out their revolvers and leveled them at Bo. “But nobody fire unless I give the order!” To Bo, he went on, “Use your left hand, Creel, and take that hogleg out nice and easy.”

Bo did as he was told, even though his every instinct rebelled against surrendering like this. He still believed in the law, still believed there had to be a way to work this out. Having the townspeople and even the marshal all riled up was one thing, but surely once a judge heard Scratch's testimony, he'd have to realize that Bo was innocent and dismiss the murder charges.

He reached across his body, took his gun out of the holster with his left hand, reversed it, and held it out to Haltom butt-first. The marshal took the weapon, unloaded it, and stuck it behind his belt.

“Where's your horse?” he demanded.

“In the barn,” Bo replied, inclining his head that direction.

“Hank, go saddle it up,” Haltom ordered.

“I'm not your damn flunkey,” Hank said, letting his anger boil over.

Bo said, “You know which horse and saddle are mine, Hank, and I can trust you to do a good job. Take care of it for me, will you?”

Hank turned to him.

“Bo, you can't really mean to do this,” he argued. “I know you didn't hurt those girls. It's loco!”

“It'll all get hashed out,” Bo said, keeping his voice calm and level despite the fact that his insides crawled at the thought of being locked up in Bear Creek's jail. He looked into his brother's eyes and nodded to let Hank know that it was all right.

“I'll get Cooper and Riley, and when Pa gets back, we'll ride to town and get you out of there,” Hank said miserably.

The marshal said, “Anybody who tries to mess with one of my prisoners will get a damn faceful of buckshot, and don't you doubt it!”

“Just get the horse,” Bo told Hank.

Looking stricken, Hank did as Bo asked. He came out of the barn a few minutes later leading the saddled mount.

“What about my hat and coat?” Bo asked Marshal Haltom.

“You won't need 'em where you're going,” the lawman snapped. “Get on that horse, and then I'll cuff you.”

“You won't need the handcuffs. I'm not going to give you any trouble.”

“If you do, you'll be sorry.”

Bo had no doubt about that. He had been studying the faces of the posse members. Many of them were unfamiliar to him, citizens of Bear Creek who had moved into the area since the last time he'd been here. They all believed he was a vicious, cold-blooded murderer, and if he made any move to escape, they wouldn't hesitate to fill him full of lead.

On the other hand, half a dozen of the men were hombres he knew, honest men who lived and worked in Bear Creek and wouldn't stand for any illegal shenanigans. They wouldn't allow Danny Fontaine or any of the others to gun Bo down without provocation . . . and he didn't intend to give them that provocation.

So he felt reasonably certain that if he went with the posse, he would make it to Bear Creek alive. More important, Hank wouldn't get hurt, and neither would anyone else on the Star C. With the posse covering him, Bo grasped the reins and the saddle horn and swung up onto his horse.

“Get word to Scratch about this,” he said quietly as he looked down at Hank. “Tell him what happened. Tell him he's going to have to take care of the chore we talked about earlier.”

“What's that?” Marshal Haltom asked sharply. “Are you conspiring, Creel?”

“No, just asking my brother to let my friend know what's going on.”

Danny Fontaine said, “If you ask me, we ought to arrest that partner of his, too. He had to know about Creel cutting up those women.”

“You let me worry about who we're gonna arrest and who we aren't,” Haltom said. He had drawn his revolver, and he gestured to Bo with it. “Come on.”

Bo heeled his horse into motion. The members of the posse closed in around him as he rode away from the ranch. He looked back over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Hank standing there forlornly. Over at the house, Idabelle Fisher had come out onto the front porch and looked upset, too, as the men rode away.

Surrounded and unarmed like this, Bo felt helpless, and he didn't like the feeling, not one bit.

His best chance now was the hope that Scratch would understand the message Hank would deliver to him and be able to find the actual murderer of those saloon girls.

It was a pretty slim chance, especially when Bo knew that his life was probably riding on it.

 

 

Not much had changed in these parts, Scratch thought as he rode across Bear Creek at one of the places where the stream was easy to ford. About half a mile downstream was the old swimming hole where he had persuaded Betsy Hanrahan to go skinny-dipping with him when they were both sixteen.

Truth to tell, he hadn't had to try very hard to convince her. She'd been just about as eager as he was. The memory put a wistful smile on his face. The last he had heard of her, Betsy was married to a fella over at Hallettsville and had six kids and twenty grandchildren. Scratch doubted if she even remembered that hot summer day so long ago . . . but he did.

On the other side of the creek, he spotted the grove of trees where he and Bo had hidden one time when they were out hunting and almost ran smack-dab into a Comanche war party, back in the days when Texas was still a republic. They had made it to the trees barely in time to crouch down out of sight and hope that the Comanches hadn't seen them.

They didn't have any horses, so there wasn't any chance they could outrun the war party. If the Indians came after them, they'd have to make a fight of it. Armed only with single-shot rifles, they had known they likely wouldn't survive a battle. There were a dozen warriors in that bunch. They would be able to overrun the two young Texicans.

But Bo and Scratch were both confident that they would give a good account of themselves and kill some of the Comanches before they went down fighting. That was scant comfort when they considered how their hair would wind up decorating some warrior's lance, but on the frontier you took what consolation you could when it came to dying.

Of course, the Comanches had ridden on without ever noticing them, and when the war party was gone, the two youngsters had lain down on the ground and laughed at their close call, both of them pretending not to see the tears of relief they were crying. They still had a lot of living to do.

And they had done it, Scratch thought now. By God if they hadn't.

He came in sight of a frame farmhouse, built in the early Texas style with the two parts of the house separated by a covered dogtrot. The thick planks were unpainted, gray with age, and slightly warped in places but still sturdy. It was the old Morton home place. Scratch rode toward it with a warm feeling inside him and the tightness of nostalgia in his throat.

A man was plowing in the fields near the house. That was his brother-in-law, Eben McCoy, Scratch thought, recognizing him. Eben saw him coming and left the plow and the mule where they were. He trotted toward the house and called, “Dorothy! Dorothy!”

Scratch's sister came out of the house, drying her hands on the apron she wore. As Scratch reined in and dismounted, she hurried forward.

“Baby brother!” she cried. She threw her arms around him and hugged him.

“You're only a year older than me,” Scratch reminded her as he returned the embrace.

“That's enough to make you the baby of the family,” Dorothy said. She stepped back and put her hands on Scratch's shoulders. “Let me take a look at you. Handsome as ever, just like all the Mortons.”

Scratch chuckled and said, “We were blessed with good looks, weren't we?”

He shook hands with Eben, who said, “It's good to see you again, B—”

Scratch held up his other hand to stop Eben before he could pronounce Scratch's real name. He had gotten the moniker he carried when he wasn't much more than a baby and his folks had found him scratching around in the yard with the chickens. That had been back in Alabama, quite a few years before the family had come to Texas. The name had stuck, and he sure preferred it to the one his parents had given him. Nobody knew his real name except a few family members, not even Bo, and that was the way Scratch planned to keep it.

As a matter of fact, he had made it plain to Bo that if he died first, he wanted
Scratch Morton
put on his tombstone. If he had a tombstone, that is. Given the life he led, it was more likely he would wind up being laid to rest in a lonely, unmarked grave that would soon fade away as if he'd never been here on this earth.

Scratch shook that thought out of his head, slapped his brother-in-law on the back, and said, “Dang, it's good to be home!”

The next hour was mighty pleasurable for Scratch, as he sat in the shade of the dogtrot with his sister and brother-in-law and caught up on things in their lives, including how all his nieces and nephews were doing.

Dorothy and Eben's kids were grown, married, moved out, and making their own way in the world. Scratch asked about his brother Gideon, too, along with Gid's wife, Helen, and
their
kids. He took it all in, glad to know that the family was doing so well. He knew he had missed out on a lot by not being part of it for most of his life, but he wouldn't trade the existence he'd led for anything.

Inevitably, the subject of Bo came up. Dorothy asked hesitantly, “I suppose you've still been riding with . . . with Bo Creel.”

“Yeah, and I don't mind tellin' you, everythin' that folks around here are sayin' about him is as plumb loco as anythin' can be. When those two gals were killed, Bo and I were all the way up in Indian Territory, helpin' a deputy federal marshal deliver some prisoners. Anybody who don't believe that can get in touch with Marshal Brubaker and ask him. And if that ain't good enough, Judge Parker in Fort Smith will back up our story, too.”

“The famous Hanging Judge?” Eben asked.

“One and the same,” Scratch declared. Even as he said it, he realized that was the key to putting a stop to all the wild rumors about Bo being a killer. Even if folks didn't believe him, they'd have to take the word of Judge Parker and Forty-Two Brubaker.

The problem there was that he'd have to send a wire to the judge, and the closest telegraph office was at Hallettsville. And there was no telling where Brubaker was by now. Judge Parker might have sent him back out chasing outlaws, so he could be anywhere in Indian Territory, unable to get a message for days or even weeks.

But the judge's statement ought to be enough, Scratch thought. He and Bo would ride to Hallettsville and send that wire as soon as they got the chance, he told himself. If Parker could get word to Brubaker, then so much the better.

Scratch felt more relaxed about things now. He was confident that within a few days, a week at the most, he and Bo would have everything cleared up and they could just enjoy their visit.

“You're going to see Gid while you're here, aren't you?” Dorothy asked.

“Sure. I'll ride over to his place this afternoon, or maybe tomorrow,” Scratch said.

“Make it tomorrow,” Eben suggested. “Spend tonight here with us.” He laughed. “To tell you the truth, there's a stump I could use some help with.”

Dorothy slapped him lightly on the arm.

“Eben McCoy!” she said. “When my baby brother comes to visit, you can't put him to work.”

Scratch chuckled and said, “That's all right, Dorothy. I don't mind. If a fella's gonna get fed, he's got to expect to help out a mite.”

Eben stood up from the stool where he was perched.

“Come on, Scratch,” he said. “I think maybe we can get that stump pulled up before lunch if we try.”

“Let me unsaddle my horse and put him in the shed, and I'll be right with you,” Scratch said.

A few minutes later Scratch walked out to the field where Eben waited for him. Eben had unhitched the mule from the plow he'd been using earlier and led the animal over to the stump, which was about two feet in diameter and stuck up three feet from the ground. Eben brought out a length of chain, which he wrapped around the stump, then attached the other end to the mule's harness.

“You can see where I've been digging up around the roots,” Eben said to Scratch as he gestured at the base of the stump. “It's stubborn as all get-out, though.”

“We'll get it,” Scratch said. “You lead the mule, and I'll push.”

“Once I get him going, we'll both push.”

Eben grabbed the mule's harness and tugged. True to its nature, the mule was balky at first, but finally it leaned forward and the chain tightened around the stump.

“Come on!” Eben urged the mule.

Scratch lowered his shoulder and placed it against the stump. He braced his feet on the ground and heaved. The stump didn't budge. Long seconds ticked by. Scratch couldn't be sure—he might have imagined it—but he thought the stump moved slightly. Just a fraction of an inch, but that was a start.

He grunted with effort as he continued to push. He said, “We've got . . . a little play . . . in it now.”

The mule kept straining against the chain. Eben let go of the harness and hurried to join Scratch. He put his shoulder into the task, too, and side by side they struggled against the stump.

It definitely moved, but then it sagged back as the mule stopped pulling. Scratch and Eben rested against the stump.

“Dang,” Eben said. “I thought for a second there we had it.”

“We made some progress,” Scratch said. “We'll get it next time.”

“You handle the mule this time. I'll push.”

Scratch nodded. He was too out of breath to talk anymore. When he had gotten some of his wind back and his pulse wasn't hammering quite as hard in his head, he went around the stump and took up his position beside the mule's head.

The varmint lived up to its kind's reputation for stubbornness. Scratch had to work hard just to get the beast to pull. When it was finally pulling, Scratch ran to the other side of the stump and threw his weight against it alongside Eben. The stump was looser now, leaning over as the mule continued pulling and the two men kept pushing.

When the roots tore loose, it happened suddenly, just as Scratch expected. The stump rolled out onto the ground and left a gaping hole behind it. Big chunks of dirt clung to the broken roots. The abrupt lack of resistance threw both Scratch and Eben off balance. They fell to the ground as the mule dragged the stump a few feet before coming to a halt.

Eben pulled himself up to a sitting position and let out an exultant whoop.

“We got it!” he said triumphantly. “I knew we would.”

“Yeah, but the dang thing put up a good fight,” Scratch said as he sat up, too. He turned his head as the sound of hoofbeats reached his ears.

Eben heard the running horse, too. He said, “Somebody's in a hurry. Who's that coming this way?”

Scratch's gaze followed his brother-in-law's pointing finger. He spotted the rider galloping toward the old Morton place. Something about him struck Scratch as familiar, but he didn't recognize the man right off.

The two of them climbed to their feet. Somebody moving that fast usually meant trouble, and Scratch was glad he hadn't taken off his gun belt and hung up the Remingtons. He watched tensely as the rider veered away from the house and came toward him and Eben. The man must have spotted them in the field.

Scratch relaxed a little as he realized why the rider looked familiar. He wasn't sure, but he thought the man was Hank Creel, Bo's youngest brother. When he came closer, Scratch was sure of it. He lifted a hand in greeting.

“That's Bo's brother Hank,” he told Eben.

“Yeah, I recognize him now, too. But he looks mighty upset about something.”

Scratch agreed with that. And considering all the crazy things that had taken place since he and Bo returned to Bear Creek, he wasn't even too surprised that something else must have happened.

He just hoped it wasn't too bad.

“Howdy, Hank,” he called as the younger man hauled back on the reins and brought the horse to a skidding stop. Hank was red-faced and out of breath. He had never been a good rider, and Scratch thought that the way he'd been bouncing up and down in the saddle should have been a dead giveaway as to his identity.

Hank dismounted awkwardly and stumbled toward them. He said, “Scratch, Bo needs your help. The marshal arrested him a little while ago.”

“What!”

Hank nodded and swallowed hard.

“Marshal Haltom brought a posse out from Bear Creek,” he said. “Bo wouldn't put up a fight against the law, and he wouldn't let me, either.”

“No, he wouldn't,” Scratch said. “Bo's always been the law-abidin' sort, except when there wasn't any other way to make sure the right thing got done. He didn't do anythin'?”

Hank shook his head and said, “No, he just handed over his gun and went with them peacefully.”

Scratch knew how difficult it must have been for his old friend to do that.

“I thought your pa was goin' to town to talk to the marshal,” he said to Hank.

“Yeah, he did. He left the ranch not long after you did. But he and the posse must have missed each other somehow. Marshal Haltom had to have been on his way to the Star C by the time Pa left for Bear Creek.”

There were three or four different trails a man could use to get to the settlement from the Creel ranch, Scratch thought, so the idea wasn't too far-fetched. But it was bad luck for Bo, even though John Creel might not have been able to talk the lawman out of making an arrest if he'd been there.

“Who swore out the charges against Bo?” Scratch asked as his eyes narrowed in anger.

“Danny Fontaine.”

Eben made a disgusted noise and said, “Those damn carpetbagging Fontaines are nothing but trouble.”

Scratch turned to his brother-in-law.

“I've got to head for town and see if I can talk some sense into the marshal,” he said.

“It won't be easy,” Eben warned. He put a hand on the mule's shoulder. “Jonas Haltom is honest, as far as I know, but he's also stubborn as the day is long. If he's convinced he's done the right thing by arresting Bo, you won't be able to talk him out of it.”

“We'll see about that.” Scratch was still thinking about Judge Parker and Deputy Marshal Brubaker. They were the key to this . . . but only if he had time to get in touch with them and get a reply back.

With the way everybody in the settlement was so up in arms against Bo, Scratch worried about his old friend being locked up in jail. The situation was ripe for a lynch mob to form. That was another good reason to get to town as fast as he could.

“Tell Dorothy I'm sorry I couldn't stay and visit any longer than I did,” he said to Eben as he started walking toward the house.

Eben and Hank hurried along with him, Hank leading the horse he had ridden so hard to get there.

“Don't worry about that,” Eben told Scratch. “She'll understand. I'll explain everything to her. Is there anything we can do to help?”

Scratch shook his head, then said, “Maybe say a prayer or two. With the way everybody's got Bo tried and convicted and all but strung up from a hangin' tree, he's liable to need all the help he can get.”