The Best of Penny Dread Tales (15 page)

“I didn’t want to scare ya.” The cowboy grinned like the devil himself.

Lasater sighed. “Next time … go ahead and scare me,” he suggested a bit tiredly.

“Actually, when I sent the telegraph to them from San Jose, I didn’t really know what sort of fella you were. If you’d turned out to be a Reb at heart, well I’da maybe just turned my back and let you fend for yourself. I never did get your full name.”

“Lasater. Jake Lasater, outa’ Missouri.”

“Montgomery McJunkins,” the cowboy said. “New Mexico. But my friends just call me Cole—don’t ask why.” Cole paused and stared down at Jake’s left arm. “That’s quite a left you got there, Jake.”

“Yep. I’m lucky I got it. It’s got me outa’ more fixes than I care to think about. Where you headed, Cole?”

Cole smiled at the use of the friendly moniker. “Colorado. Figuring to try my luck on the other side of the Rockies.”

“Poker?”

“Yep. Had my fill of mahjong … and San Fran.”

“First beer’s on me, Cole.”

***

Sinking to the Level of Demons

David Boop

Deputy Matthew Ragsdale considered the sheriff’s badge mocking him from the desk of his dead boss. He swore it even laughed at him, but then realized the sound came from his daughter Trina playing back by the jail cells. His wife Sarah, hovering anxiously near his side, took a tentative step closer and laid a hand on his arm.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

Water pooled at the corners of Sarah’s eyes but refused to become actual tears.

“You can wait for a new sheriff from Tucson, or marshals from Denver.”

Matt thought about that, but the longer they waited, the more likely Jimmy Kettle’s Claw Rock Gang would come back to town. They were satiated on blood, alcohol, and women for the moment. But how long would that last?

His mentor, Sheriff Levi Fossett, had laid out what it’d take to bring the outlaws down. A plan that would put Kettle in his grave with little risk to either of them.

Too bad the Claw Rock Gang had gunned down the unarmed man outside of church. Fossett’s body cooled in the freshly covered grave. Sarah, Trina, and he still wore their Sunday best, all three having just attended the funeral. As the reverend spoke his words about death and resurrection, the town folk looked to Matt, and their eyes asked unspoken questions: “Are any of us safe?” or “Are you man enough to stop the madness?”

He stood in the sheriff’s office pondering that very same question. He’d been like them, when his family first moved West on the first expansion. His father, a trader, was one of the original settlers of Drowned Horse. Matthew’s strict upbringing carried over into a love for law and order, a love Sheriff Fossett picked up on and nurtured.

Trina emerged from the back and sidled up to her daddy. She hugged his leg, her ever-present rag doll he’d made for her hanging from her tight little palm.

“Someone has to.” He picked up the badge with conviction. “No. I have to. I have to finish Fossett’s work. I know the plan.”

The plan wouldn’t work just by himself. Deputy … no …
Sheriff
Matthew Ragsdale would need help. However, he wouldn’t get it from most of the men in town. The outlaws had terrorized the locals going on two months, and more than a few had died standing up to Kettle and his gang of fiends. Leaving the town unprotected while he rode to Flagstaff didn’t bring him any comfort either.

He didn’t need many men. One more should do it.

***

Adoniram G. Craddick nearly swallowed his mouthful of square nails when the newly christened sheriff poked his head around to the back of his business.

“Ram.”

“Shaywiff.”

Matt stepped into the room. “Now don’t start that shit up. Don’t matter what title they hang on me. We’ve been on a first name basis since we married sisters. That’s what? Going on ten years now.”

Lanky, but not skeletal, Ram righted himself to his full six-foot-three frame. He examined the project he was abandoning, and then gave his guest his full attention. After setting down his hammer, Ram spit the nails into one hand. The other he offered to Matt.

“Yeah, I s’pose I’d never get used to calling you that, anyhow. Offer you some lemonade in the parlor? Sadie just made it this morning.”

Matt looked down at the item Ram had been working on. “There isn’t a rush on that, is there?”

“That?” Ram indicated the coffin. “Nah, just planning ahead. With the Claw Rock Gang around, it pays to have stock.”

The statement stung Matt visibly, and Ram quickly backtracked. “I mean, not that it’ll always stay that way. I’m sure they’ll get their comeuppance before long.”

Matt removed his Stetson and stared at the rim. “Yeah. Sorta why I needed to talk to you.”

Drowned Horse’s undertaker raised a wary eyebrow at his best friend. “Sounds like I might need to make that drink a bit harder.” He opened a clay urn and pulled out a small flask. Ram blew off what Matt hoped was only dust. “Whisky?”

***

Claw Rock hadn’t been named because it looked like a claw, or a hand, or anything remotely claw-like. It got its title from the gouges outside the red sandstone cave. Word had it the Apache dragged prisoners into the cave and slaughtered them; a brutal tradition dating back before a single settler set foot in the area.

Kettle and his men chose to hole up near the
Wiipukepaya
, the tribe that moved in when the Apache left. The gang traded food and money to the Indians for the right to claim the cave as their own. Starved and desperate as the
Yavapai
Nation had become, they didn’t care if one group of white men killed another. While the natives still considered the area sacred, Matt had a sneaky suspicion that the Wiipukepaya knew what everyone else suspected; the U.S. Military hovered just on the other side of the horizon, planning to drive them from their homes just as they had the Apache.

James “Jimmy” Kettle was a former military man. Despite the informal nature of the outlaw life, Kettle ran patrols that walked a perimeter around the Claw Rock at night. They patrolled in pairs, each watching the other’s back. So, Matt and Ram moved as a team, with the notion of taking out both guards lest one get off a shout. There was enough of a moon out that a posse would’ve been seen moving through the brush, but two men crawling stealthily could be missed. The odds were still in their favor.

“I’m not so sure ’bout this, Matt,” Ram said in a whisper, “I’m more used to buryin’ dead men, not makin’ them.”

“We need to take out four, maybe six men to get to the place we need to be,” Matt returned the hushed tones. “If this works, then the town’s safe.”

“If? You didn’t say nothing ’bout no ‘if’!”

Matt pushed his brother-in-law’s face into the sand because Ram’s voice crept up more than the sheriff thought advisable. Directly into Ram’s ear he whispered, “Shush! They’ll hear.” He let the man’s head back up and Ram spit sand from his lips. “There is always … how do those generals say it? Oh, yeah … a margin of error.”

The undertaker shot daggers at Matt.

The sound of approaching footsteps signaled the men to roll in separate directions, positioning themselves on either side of a small mound. While Jimmy Kettle might be smart, his men were not so much. They followed a well-worn path around the rocks which made it easy for Matt and Ram to lay a trap.

As soon as the outlaws stepped into the snares, the lawmen pulled them tight, tripping the guards. Matt and Ram were on them before they could call out. Bringing the butt of their six-guns down decisively on the patrol’s heads, the lawmen knocked them out quietly.

“See?” Matt badgered, “That’s two we didn’t have to kill, Deputy Craddick.”

Ram huffed. “Don’t call me that.”

The next set of guards’ pattern would take them too close to the cave’s entrance to risk any sort of protracted attack. Fortune had it that they’d stopped by a large rock to roll a smoke. Matt and Ram slipped rags over their mouths and slit their throats. They fell without a sound.

Ram stared unblinking as their blood stained sand and rock.

Matt whispered, “These men raped two of the Sagebrush’s whores, beat them bloody and left them for dead. That’s no way to treat a lady, even one who sells her body. Every man in Kettle’s gang has blood on his hand. If we end their reign tonight, the blood on ours might just be justified. Ain’t this worth it to not have to fear Sadie’s gonna end up raped or worse?”

Ram shot back, “Yeah, yeah. That’s how you got me out here in the first place, damn snake oil salesman that you are. I just never had to take another man’s life before. Give me a moment.”

Matt gave him all the time they had to spare. Ram must have come to terms with his problem, because he helped drag the bodies behind the rock.

The late Sheriff Fossett covered everything in his plan, including spots to get an unobstructed view of the entrance of the Claw Rock cave. The height of the opening was easily thirty feet tall and curved out like a shell in the sand. The rock itself had a plateau above it where two more guards watched the grounds. In front of the cave an area had been cleared of rock and debris becoming a communal meeting spot. Nearly a dozen men milled around a cook fire, acting bored.

That bothered Matt, as they’d most likely be riding back into Drowned Horse soon.

Kettle’s gang held a gallery of wanted men, each more mean than the next. One in particular stood out; a black man the likes of which Matt hadn’t seen around those parts. Stocky and wearing a stove pipe hat, his ears were pierced with bone. The man stared into the fire like it contained a whore dancing on a stage. Seeing something he apparently didn’t like, he spat into the fire pit, got up and entered the cave. He didn’t reemerge, which gave Matt the willies.

Ram exhaled long and hard. “I think that’s a black magic man. Like the witch doctors you read about in adventure magazines.”

Matt asked, “How do you know?”

“I’m an undertaker. We know the people in our trade. Voodoo men from Louisiana, like him, specialize in death; creating it, worshiping it, fighting it.”

“Fighting it?”

Ram shivered. “It’s said they know death’s face, and when he comes for you, a Voodoo priest can scare him away.”

“Why would Kettle have one in his gang?”

“Scare people. Keep his men in line. Who knows? It gives me the creeps, though.”

“Me, too. Let’s get this over with.”

They made their way around the back of Claw Rock and scaled up the side thanks to a series of stacked rocks. The guards stood there, looking out at nothing, paying no attention to the lawmen approaching their backs, their complacency a result of Kettle’s dark shadow. Who’d have the cojones to attack such an evil son of a bitch?

Keeping their hats tilted low, Matt and Ram spoke in turn.

“We’re here to relieve you.”

“Yeah. Boss wants a word.”

The guards turned without a concern in the world.

“You’re earl—” one started to say, but the sheriff shoved a knife through the bottom of the outlaw’s jaw, pinching his mouth shut and driving the tip into his brain.

The second guard, however, was quicker and caught the undertaker’s hand before it could plunge in. They grappled and it became quickly evident Ram was outmatched.

Matt moved up fast to wrap an arm around the man’s throat, silencing him.

The guard was strong and, despite being outnumbered two-to-one, he held his own. He pushed backwards, dangling Matt over the rim. The sheriff looked down briefly at the campfire below him, but God’s mercy kept anyone from looking up. Ram pulled them back from the edge. Matt tightened his chokehold, but the burly bad guy showed no signs of surrender.

The outlaw let go of Ram, twisting the undertaker’s knife out of his hand in the process. He swung it wildly at Ram, driving him back toward the opposite edge. Suddenly, he turned the knife around and stabbed Matt’s arm. The lawman let go with a holler and dropped to the rock. Changing targets, the outlaw looked to send the blade right through Matt’s heart when a gun went off and a red geyser spurted from the guard’s forehead. The sheriff rolled out of the way as the dead man fell forward.

Moving fast as lightning, Matt grabbed a bundle of dynamite from the satchel they’d brought along. Ram did the same with a second bundle. They placed them where Fossett had predicted an explosion would bring the whole cave down.

After lighting the fuses, they hopped down the backside like mountain goats. Kettle’s men made it around the bend in time to see the duo reach the trail. Bullets bounced against stone. Matt and Ram retreated, doing their best to keep cover between them and their pursuers. They returned fire as often as they could.

The explosion, when it came, took the top off of Claw Rock like a volcano. The lawmen didn’t get as far enough away from the blast as they wanted, and they hit the ground hard. Dirt and gravel sprayed over them. Matt came up first, spitting sand from his mouth. Ram rolled on the ground, laughing.

The round-up didn’t take long. Most of the Claw Rock Gang had gone inside seeking cover, not expecting the whole entrance would come down around them. According to the surviving crew, Jimmy Kettle, including his Voodoo man, had been inside when the explosion sealed the cave. No one was coming out of that alive.

Matt’s satisfaction in seeing Fossett’s plan through to the end kept a smug grin on his face as they escorted the remaining criminals off to jail.

***

Drowned Horse gave Matt and Ram a hero’s welcome. Music wafted from the Sagebrush Inn for the first time in weeks. The owner, known only as Owner, made the first round of drinks on him, and both men felt duty bound to imbibe.

Sarah and her sister Sadie, upon hearing of their men’s return, came rushing over and lavished both lawmen with a public display of affection. Embarrassed, Matt blushed, but Ram jokingly asked Owner if he and his wife could use one of the rooms upstairs.

“You takin’ to this deputy stuff, after all?” Matt ribbed.

Ram gave his new boss a mischievous grin. “If it’s all free beer and taking down men like Kettle, then hell yeah, I’ll be your partner.” He held up his hand as a warning. “Part time, at least. Still got a business to run and all.”

Matt handed over a tin star he’d grabbed while at the jail. “Let’s make it official, then.” He settled the crowd and spoke loudly. “Today we saw the last day of the Claw Rock Gang and the first day of Deputy Adoniram G. Craddick, my brother-in-law.”

The Sheriff pinned the badge on Ram’s pocket, and the crowd whooped and hollered. Sadie gave her man a big kiss. Sarah lifted a sleepy Trina onto her daddy’s shoulder.

“Now, take good care of our town while I’m escorting these ne’er-do-wells off to trial, ’kay, Deputy?”

“Sure thing, Sheriff.”

They slapped each other on the back, and all was right with the world.

***

Sherriff Matthew Ragsdale returned from Flagstaff two days later to find what was left of Ram dead in the middle of the street.

Blood splattered the area surrounding the body like the pattern on a Navajo blanket. Matt scanned the street to find pieces of Ram scattered to and fro; a rib over by the water trough, a foot near the porch to Mrs. Harris’s clothing store. As close as Matt could guess, a pack of coyotes had ripped his deputy apart. He couldn’t understand why the body rotted in the center of town.