The Lawless (12 page)

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

Kate Kerrigan stepped out of the darkness and stood in the scarlet glare of Marco Salas's forge. Showers of sparks cascaded from the foot-long billet of iron he'd thrust into the charcoal. He stared intently at the flames that would change color when the iron began to absorb the carbon that would turn it into steel. The leather bellows huffed and puffed and the fire glowed like a pool of molten lava. Salas saw the flame he wanted, tonged the billet out of the forge, hammered it flat, and then plunged it hissing and steaming into the water. He shoved the iron back into the coals and said, “It will be a knife for Mr. Cobb.”

Kate nodded. “I know. He told me. I'd never seen a blade made before.”

“It takes time, much heating and hammering, to turn iron into steel, Mrs. Kerrigan. The flames will tell me when the miracle happens.”

Kate smiled. “It's a miracle, Marco?”

His face lit by fire, the little Mexican said, “Yes it is, and that's why I pray to holy St. Dunstan, the patron saint of blacksmiths, locksmiths, goldsmiths, and silversmiths, to deliver the miracle on time.” He nodded to the horseshoe that hung above the doorway of the forge. “Do you see that, Mrs. Kerrigan?”

Kate nodded. “A horseshoe is lucky.”

“It is more than that. One time, as St. Dunstan was working at a monastery forge in Glastonbury, the devil came to him disguised as a beautiful young girl and tried to tempt him into sin. But St. Dunstan saw the devil's cloven hooves under the girl's dress and nailed a horseshoe to one of them. This caused the devil so much pain that he begged St. Dunstan to remove it. The saint said he would but only on the condition that the devil never again enter a blacksmith's shop.” Salas stared at the flames. “To this day, as long as a horseshoe hangs above the door, the devil will not come near a forge because he is too afraid.” Salas removed the white-hot billet from the fire.

Kate took a step closer. “May I try the hammer?”

“Of course. I want the metal flatter so I can form the blade.”

He laid the billet on the anvil and gave Kate the hammer. She did what the Mexican had done and pounded the iron as hard as she could.

“No, Mrs. Kerrigan, you don't need to hit that hard. The hammer blow must be accurate, not powerful. The trick is to hit the metal where you want.” He watched for a while then said, “Ah, now you're chasing the blade all over the anvil.”

Kate stopped and grinned. “I think you'd better take over, Marco.”

The iron went back into the fire and the blacksmith said, “Your mind must be one with the metal, Mrs. Kerrigan. If a smith has worries and concerns, it is better he turns off the forge, cleans the shop, and goes home. Tomorrow will be another and better day.”

“I hope I didn't ruin Frank's knife,” Kate said.

Salas shook his head. “There are no mistakes in blacksmithing. The iron is forgiving because it can always be reused and reshaped. There are always second chances, in metal and in men.”

Kate nodded. “That's something to remember.”

“A clear mind means good work, Mrs. Kerrigan, and tonight your mind is not clear, I think.”

“Is it that obvious, Marco?”

“The iron told me, did it not?”

“The ranchers I've spoken to told me our fight with Savannah St. James is none of their concern. They say her herd won't come their way and the killings of Jason Hunt and Kyle Wright have them really shaken.”

Salas nodded. “If the owner of one of the biggest ranches in West Texas can be killed, then so can they.”

“That's how they see it,” Kate said.

“Not one?”

Kate shook her head. “I really can't say I blame the small ranchers. Savannah St. James wants the H bar H and Kerrigan range. Why would they fight for us?”

“You've been good to me, Mrs. Kerrigan. Your ranch is now my home and I will fight.”

Kate smiled. “I know you will, Marco. And I appreciate it.”

A voice came from behind them. “The night is getting cool, Kate. Maybe you should get inside.” Cobb stood half in shadow. He wore his gun, a thing he seldom did that close to the cabin.

Salas turned away from the forge. “Mrs. Kerrigan helped me with your knife.”

“I didn't do much. I . . . what was it you said, Marco? Oh yes, I chased the iron all over the anvil.”

“All it takes is practice,” Salas said.

“And dedication.” Kate stared at Cobb for a moment, then turned back to Salas. “Thank you for letting me try the hammer, Marco. I'll leave it to you from now on.”

She took Cobb's arm and they walked together toward the cabin. “What has happened, Frank?”

“The H bar H punchers have pulled out, all but Henry Brown.”

Kate was shocked into silence and Cobb took up the slack. “Brown says with their boss dead, the hands reckon they got no brand left to fight for. Sanchez, Monk Boone, and Loop Davis and the others talked among themselves and figured they'd be up against a stacked deck taking on a bunch of hired guns.”

She found her voice. “But I thought they wanted revenge for the murder of Mr. Hunt. Frank, you know how angry they were.”

“Kate, anger can carry a man only so far before common sense takes over. Four of St. James's men were killed in the stampede, and they shot to pieces the man who killed Jason Hunt. I reckon they figure they done enough.”

“Did Jason Hunt have an heir, someone who could take over his ranch and get the punchers back?” Kate asked.

“I once heard Hunt say he had a sister back east somewhere, but that she was ailing with a cancer.”

“Do we know how to reach her?”

Cobb frowned. “Maybe her address is in Hunt's correspondence. We'd have to look. But if she was as poorly as he made out I reckon she's dead by now.”

After a few moments, Kate lifted her chin. “Then there's only us.”

“Seems like.”

She stared at her segundo. “I'm afraid, Frank.”

“No shame in that, Kate. I'm afraid, too.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-ONE

Rube St. James drew rein and studied the ranch house that lay a mile or so to the east of Table Top Mountain. The limestone mesa itself, rising two hundred feet above the flat, was covered in a thick growth of juniper, oak, chaparral, and cactus, but the surrounding area was rolling grassland where a scattered herd of about two hundred longhorns grazed. To his envious eyes, it seemed like an excellent place for part of his own herd to fatten over the rest of the summer and into next spring. Savannah might disagree, preferring to drive the entire herd farther west, but the ranch was still worth acquiring.

Rube took a brass ship's telescope from his saddlebags and scanned the ranch house more closely. It was a modest affair, small and cramped with a sod roof. A few shabby outbuildings, a pole corral, and a well with an iron pump were nearby. A woman who looked to be pregnant stepped out of the door, tossed away a pan of dirty water, and went back inside.

Then Rube saw what he needed to see. A man came round the side of the cabin leading a yearling colt. He wore no belt gun and looked exactly like what he was, a one-loop rancher living a hardscrabble existence at the ragged edge of nowhere.

Rube St. James smiled, put the glass a way, and kneed his horse forward. He anticipated no trouble. He'd tell the man to go and he'd go.

In an age corset-bound by the Victorian code of ethics, a visitor was expected to hail the dwelling and then sit his horse until given permission to light and set. That is what Rube St. James would have done for people he considered members of his own class, but a cocklebur rancher, like the poor, blacks, Mexicans, and Indians, merited no such consideration.

Rube swung out of the saddle and fisted the rickety door so hard it rattled on its hinges. The door was opened almost immediately by a brown-eyed, brown-haired man of medium height and build, a striking contrast to the tall, blond, blue-eyed St. James.

The rancher was angry. “Why the hell do you hammer on a man's door like that?”

Rube smiled. “Howdy. I'll sum things up for you in two words.
Get out!
”

The man was taken aback. “Mister, are you crazy? I want you off my property now.”

“I told you to get out,” Rube said. “Take what you can carry and light a shuck.”

The rancher turned his head. “Jane, I got a crazy man here. Bring me my rifle.”

“No rifle!” Rube yelled. He drew and fired.

Hit dead center in his chest, the men staggered a few steps backward and then fell on his back. The impact of his body hitting the timber floor made the cabin shake. The woman screamed. She ran to her husband's side and threw herself on his body, sobbing uncontrollably.

In a conversational tone, Rube said, “Ma'am, I'll saddle the horse in the corral for you so you can be on your way. I thought it might rain earlier, but all I see now is blue sky. Real nice weather for riding.”

The woman's tearstained face turned to Rube and she shrieked, “You fiend! You . . . murderer!” She scrambled to her feet and dashed into the cabin. A moment later, Rube heard the
click-clack
of a lever rifle and then the thud of heels on the floor. He shot the woman as she appeared at the door. The Henry dropped from her lifeless hands and she collapsed on top of her husband.

Rube lowered his head in thought. As Savannah often told him, the lower classes had no idea how to act in a civilized society and could always be depended on to do the wrong thing. “All you had to do was walk away,” he said to the dead. “You fools, was that so damned difficult?”

His first thought was to burn down the cabin, but the summer grass was tinder dry and now that he'd acquired new graze, he didn't want it to burn away under his feet. He contented himself with kicking legs aside and closing the cabin door.

A few minutes later, he rode away with the Henry rifle, the paint cow pony from the corral, and the mustang colt. Those were the only items of worth the dead couple had possessed.

Marmaduke Tweng was indignant. “That, my dear sir, is the
Emperor Maximilian
, a triumph of modern steam engineering. Put wings on it and I could drive it to the moon.”

“Damn thing looks like a railroad car cut in half,” Jack Hickam said.

“The
Emperor
does not need rails,” Tweng said. “It will go anywhere there is a road and it can ford rivers and climb hills if need be.”

The land liner had six great drive wheels, each as tall as a man. The cabin was up front, the boiler, smoke box, and coal tender behind the driver and then the passenger compartment. The steel of the great coiled wheel springs were polished to a silver sheen and the tangle of brass steel pipes glowed like solid gold. The liner was painted dark green and boasted four windows to a side and an engraved brass plaque a yard long read, E
MPEROR
M
AXIMILIAN,
each letter picked out in red.

“The steam liner was a gift to Miss St. James from the Emperor Maximilian himself,” Tweng said. “He brought engineers over from Germany to build the machine and they later declared it their masterpiece.”

“You must be the men my brother is expecting.” Savannah St. James stood in one of the
Emperor
's three side doorways. Her black hair was undone and hung over the shoulders of a bright scarlet robe that revealed a great deal of her milk-white breasts and thighs.

His eyes popping out of his head, Hickam said, “We sure are, ma'am. Jack Hickam at your service as ever was and my associate Pete Slicer.”

Slicer bowed from the saddle. “Your servant, Miss St. James.”

Hickam was a rough-hewn man with a broad, savage face and experienced eyes that slowly removed Savannah's robe. Pete Slicer was thin, almost frail, a small-boned man who was fast beyond belief, as the sixteen men he'd killed could attest. He was being eaten away by a stomach cancer, and it pained him.

“We were just admiring your . . . ah . . . wagon, Miss St. James.” Hickam's eyes never left Savannah's body.

“Mr. Tweng,” Savannah said, enjoying Hickam's heat, “fire up the
Emperor
. I'm sure Mr. Hickam will enjoy a ride.”

“Perhaps some other time, Miss St. James,” Hickam said quickly. He didn't trust the infernal thing not to blow up and take half of Texas with it.

“Very well,” Savannah said. “Yes, then some other time.” It pleased her that she'd put the crawl on the most feared gunman in the West. The barbarian would have to be kept in his place. “Put up your horses and come inside for a drink, gentlemen. My home on wheels is a humble one, therefore I trust Martell cognac is to your taste.”

 

 

Tweng unbuckled his hooded leather coat and removed his goggles from around his neck and replaced them on his hat. He was relieved he had not needed to fire up the
Emperor Maximilian
. Raising sufficient steam was a long and labor-intensive process.

A movement in the distance attracted his attention and then a rider emerged through the heat haze leading two horses. The little man finally recognized the rider as Rube St. James. Tweng would not ask where the man got the horses. It was pretty obvious.

Mr. St. James was forever killing some poor soul.