Vendetta Trail (19 page)

It all happened so fast that no one had the opportunity to scream—or even call out.

“Now, Louise, I’m going to ask you again to go down there and invite your friend to join us,” Tangeleno said. “If you refuse again, I’ll kill one of the children, just the way I killed the preacher.”

“All right, all right, I’ll go,” Louise said.

“Now, do you see what you have done, Louise? If you had been more cooperative in the beginning, poor Reverend Gadbury would still be alive. It’s all your fault.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, weeping now.

“It’s not your fault, Mrs. Smalley. You didn’t kill Reverend Gadbury. He did,” Betty said, glaring bitterly at Tangeleno.

“Folks!” Tangeleno said. “Trust me, this is soon going to be all over. Then I’ll let you all go about your business. But if you do not do exactly what I tell you to do, I will kill one of the children, and then one of you, until I get my way. Is that clearly understood by all?”

Some of the adults were wearing expressions of fear, others embittered rage, while still others were so exhausted from their ordeal that it was all they could do to stay alert.

“If I go get her for you, will you let everyone go?” Louise asked.

“If you don’t do it for me, I will kill two of the children, then your husband,” Tangeleno said.

“Louise, go, please go!” Betty said.

Louise waited for a moment, then nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go.”

“I just saw them go back into the hotel,” Ely said from the front of the church.

Louise nodded, then stepped out of the door and started up the street toward the hotel.

“Don Tangeleno, you think we should leave Hawke back in the hotel by himself?” Vizzini asked.

“If we have the whore, we’ll have the advantage,” Tangeleno said. “We can force him to come down—without his gun.”

WHEN HAWKE AND RACHEL RETURNED TO THE
hotel, Hawke shook his head. “There is something going on here,” he said. “An entire town doesn’t just disappear.”

“I’m frightened,” Rachel said.

Hawke laughed. “We’ve come halfway across the country with half a dozen attempts to kill you and you take that fine. But we get to a town where there is nobody home and that frightens you.”

“You said yourself that something was going on, that an entire town doesn’t…”

The front door opened and Hawke whirled toward it, drawing as he turned so that when the woman stepped into the hotel lobby, she was staring down the barrel of Hawke’s gun.

“No!” she said, throwing her hands up.

“No, don’t shoot, Mason! It’s Louise!” Rachel shouted, though her warning wasn’t necessary, for Hawke had already lowered his pistol.

“Hello, Rachel,” Louise said.

“Mason, this is Louise. Louise, this is my friend, Mason Hawke.”

“Mr. Hawke,” Louise said with a slight nod.

“Louise, what is going on in this town? Where is everyone?” Rachel asked.

“They are all in church.”

“‘Church?’ The entire town is in church? You must have some kind of a preacher,” Hawke said with a little chuckle.

“No, it’s not like that,” Louise replied. She looked at Rachel. “Rachel, he wants you to come with me.” She looked at Hawke. “But not you. Just Rachel.”

“Who wants me to…” Rachel started, then she gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God, it’s Tangeleno, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Louise said. “He and Vizzini are holding the entire town captive in the church. He says if I don’t come back with you, he will start killing the children.”

“‘Children’? What children?” Rachel asked.

“The children of the town,” Louise said. “That’s how he managed to keep us all locked up in the church until you got here. He threatened to kill the children if anyone tried to leave. He’s already killed two people, including the preacher.”

“You go back and tell Tangeleno if he wants to see her, he can come down here,” Hawke said.

“Please, Mr. Hawke,” Louise begged. “If you have ever stared into the face of pure evil, it is this man. He will kill Eddie and as many of the children as it takes to get Rachel to come down there.”

“I’m going, Mason,” Rachel said resolutely.

“All right. But if you go, I’m going with you.”

“No, please don’t,” Louise said. “Tangeleno said to bring Rachel alone. He was very insistent about that.”

“I am not going to let her…”

“I’m going, Mason,” Rachel said again, more resolutely this time. “I’m not going to be responsible for the death of innocent children.”

Hawke looked at her for a long moment, knowing that he couldn’t talk her out of it, knowing that he wouldn’t prevent it. He sighed, then nodded.

Rachel swallowed, then nodded back at him. She looked over at Louise. “All right, let’s go,” she said.

“Thank you,” Louise replied gratefully.

As soon as Rachel and Louise stepped outside, Hawke moved to the window of the hotel. He looked down the long street toward the church, which anchored the far end of town. He saw Tangeleno and Vizzini came out into the street then. Vizzini had a young girl with him, and his right arm was in front of her, holding a shotgun, with the barrel of the gun just under her chin.

Hawke felt an intense sense of frustration. He had no intention of standing here and watching Vizzini kill Rachel in cold blood, but he had no idea what he could do to prevent it.

Turning away from the window, he kicked the chair in disgust. That’s when he saw Rachel’s suitcase, his suitcase, and the little canvas pouch the baggage handler had given him to leave with the hotel clerk. He opened the package and looked at it. It was a knife, but not just any knife. It was, according to the letter accompanying the knife: “An extraordinary throwing knife, handcrafted by the master knife maker Thomas Turner of Sheffield, England.

Hawke picked up the knife. He had never held one more perfectly balanced.

“Hawke!” It was a man’s voice, calling him from the street outside. “Hawke, come on out!”

Hawke slipped the knife into his belt, behind him, then walked outside.

Tangeleno and Vizzini were standing in the middle of the street. By now, Vizzini had let the little girl go and was hold
ing a shotgun against Rachel’s head. Tangeleno was standing beside him. The townspeople, freed now, were running to get out of the way.

“You see that horse trough there just in front of you?” Tangeleno called.

“I see it,” Hawke answered.

“I want you to take your gun out, real slow, and drop it in the water.”

Hawke hesitated for a moment.

“Do it or I’ll have Vizzini blow this whore’s brains out,” Tangeleno ordered.

Hawke started for his gun.

“Use your thumb and finger,” Tangeleno said.

Complying with the demand, Hawke used just his thumb and forefinger to extract the pistol. Then, holding it in such a fashion, he carried it over to the water trough and dropped it in.

Tangeleno laughed.

“Now you can come closer,” he said.

Hawke started up the street toward Tangeleno, Vizzini, and Rachel.

“You are a hard man to kill, piano player,” Tangeleno said.

“I try to be,” Hawke said. He continued to move toward them.

“I don’t know how many of my men I’ve sent after you. And every one of them failed. So, I guess I’ll just have to do the job myself.”

“Not all by yourself,” Hawke said. “I see you’ve got your lackey with you.” He nodded toward Vizzini.

“Oh, don’t worry about him. I’m going to let him kill the whore. I’ll take care of you.”

“It figures you’d let Vizzini kill the woman. He likes to hurt women, don’t you, Vizzini?”

Vizzini chuckled. “If you had been anything more than a whorehouse piano player, you would know that sometimes you’ve got to show a woman who is the boss.”

“Tell me, Vizzini, after I threw you in the toilet that night, how long did it take you to get the shit washed off?”

“What? Do you expect me to believe that you are the one who did that?”

“What was it I called you that night?” Hawke asked. “I believe I called you a piece of shit.”

For just a moment, Vizzini thought back to that night and he remembered the words vividly.

“What?” he sputtered. “It was you, you son of a bitch!” Vizzini shouted loudly. Angrily, he pushed Rachel away, so he could bring his shotgun to bear on Hawke, which was exactly what Hawke wanted him to do.

“Vizzini, no! What are you doing?” Tangeleno shouted, totally in the dark as to what had just made Vizzini so angry.

As Vizzini brought his gun around, Hawke pulled the knife from his belt in the back, then whipped his arm in a throwing motion. The handcrafted Sheffield blade flipped over once, then flew unerringly to Vizzini, hitting him in the middle of the forehead and burying itself deep into his brain. Vizzini fell back, dead before he even hit the ground.

“No!” Tangeleno shouted in shock and anger over what had just happened. He fired one barrel of his shotgun toward Hawke, but even as he was pulling the trigger, Hawke was diving toward Vizzini. Three of the pellets hit Hawke’s right calf muscle, the rest of them sped by.

Hawke landed on top of Vizzini, then grabbed his shotgun and rolled over once, as Tangeleno, trying to correct, swung toward him. Tangeleno didn’t manage to pull the trigger the second time, because Hawke fired both barrels at the same time. The double-charge, this close, blew half of Tangeleno’s head away.

IT WAS SAID OF THE QUEEN OF HEARTS, THAT
Rachel Brabaker ran honest games, served free liquor to the players, and maintained a gambling establishment of style and class. The latter was due in part to Hawke’s piano playing, where it was said that saloon ditties would never be heard.

The reputation of the Queen of Hearts grew so that it drew gamblers, by the train load from as faraway as St. Louis and Denver.

Hawke stayed on for almost four months, long after he had healed from the three shotgun pellets, until he was certain that Rachel was no longer in danger. He might have stayed just a little longer if Rachel had not started hinting that there was a way Hawke could make his stay permanent.

It was the quiet predawn dark of early morning when Hawke went down to the stable to saddle his horse. He had told Rachel that he would be leaving soon, though without being specific as to when.

Hawke was a brave man who would face, without fear, any
adversary. But he did not want to have to tell Rachel that the plans she was making for him were not the plans he had for himself. That’s why he went to bed the night before, with absolutely no hint that he would be leaving the next morning.

Hawke and his horse, a new mount that he had bought within the past two weeks, blew clouds of vapor that drifted away in feathery wisps in the cold morning air. A breeze came up, colder than it had been, and he knew that the long lingering days of a warm fall were about over. It would be winter soon, and snow would be covering the plains.

Hawke swung into his saddle and rode out of town, heading south. He had never cared much for the cold.