Webb's Posse (28 page)

“I do,” said Webb. He stopped and looked at Will Summers and said, “In case something happens to me, I want you to tell Ren—I mean
her
…his wife, that is—that there's a bank account in Cheyenne that belongs to her.”

“What's wrong, Deputy? Can't you say the woman's
name?” Summers asked. “As close as the two of you's been? You can't say her name? That must have really been some talk you and Edmund Daniels had….”

“Cut it out, Summers,” Webb demanded. “I can say her name. It's Renee Marie, so there.” He looked embarrassed. “Anyway, there's a sizable amount of money I'm supposed to tell her about. So in case I don't make it back, I want you to tell her.”

“But you are going to make it back, Deputy, so don't even start talking about dying. I won't have it,” said Will Summers.

“But if it happens, you tell her, all right?”

“All right,” said Summers, “but it won't happen.” He mused over the conversation for a second, then said, “And that's it? That's the promise you made him?”

“No, there was something else,” said Webb. “I promised him that no matter what, I'd never see her again or have anything more to do with her.”

He started to walk away, but Will Summers grabbed his arm. “Hold it. You promised him something like that?”

“That's right, I did,” Webb lied, seeing Edmund Daniels' eyes in the flicker of firelight from the night before, feeling the man's lifeblood warm on his chest.

“But you don't have to keep that promise,” said Summers. “I thought you was crazy about her!”

“I
was
…. I mean, I still am, Will,” said Webb, avoiding Summers' eyes. “But a promise is a promise. I've got to keep my word.” He raised his face to Will Summers, and Summers saw something deep at work, some remnant of the past night and what it had left in its wake.

“I understand,” said Summers as if reading some revelation in the deputy's caged eyes.

“Good,” said Webb. “I don't ever want to talk about it again.”

“Then we won't,” said Summers.

They both looked over to where Sherman Dahl had reached down and pulled a rolled-up blanket from around the shoulder of a dead
Federale.
Dahl unrolled the blanket, shook it out and stuck his knife blade in its center, making a ten-inch slit. “I mean it, Will,” said Abner Webb. “It's not something I ever want to be reminded of.”

“I said I understand,” Summers responded quietly, “and I meant it.”

Sherman Dahl pulled the faded wool blanket down over his head, adjusted it over his gun holster, then put his hat on his head and looked around at the others. “Let's get moving before every gunman in this hellhole shows up wanting to kill us.”

“Right you are, schoolmaster,” said Will Summers, taking a step forward and leading his horse from amid the dead.

At the sound of the Gatling gun in the distance, Goose Peltry had spun his horse toward it and let out a long string of profanities. Moses, Doc Murdock and the rest of the men also turned their horses and looked back, but they remained calm. “Looks like somebody came out ahead of us on the machine rifle,” said Doc Murdock. “I reckon we can't win every time.”

“Says you,” Goose sneered. “Give me three men, Moses! Just three men! I'll go back and get that gun and drop it on the ground at your feet. I swear an oath to it!” He raised his weathered right hand to the sky. “Turn me loose on them!”

“Turn you loose on who?” said Moses. “We don't even know for sure who has the gun. We've got Mexican
Federales
and a law posse back there on the desert floor. That's a bad mix, brother, and you know it. Doc's right; we lost this time. It's time we took this as a loss and went on about our business.”

“I can't stand knowing somebody has something that belongs to me, even if we did steal it in the first place.” Goose clenched his fists in rage. “Just imagining some sonsabitch's hands on that machine rifle sends fire through me!”

Doc Murdock gave him a bemused look. “Damn, Goose,” he chuckled aloud, “you better start sleeping with your head up off the cold ground.”

“What the hell is that suppose to mean, Murdock?” Goose Peltry hissed.

“It means you're starting to sound too strange to be trusted around firearms and livestock, you crazy-acting bastard,” Doc Murdock growled in return. He turned his horse and started to heel it away.

But Goose Peltry had sidled his horse closer to Doc Murdock as they spoke. Now, having heard all the insults he could stand, Goose let out an insane yell and hurled himself from his saddle onto Doc Murdock's back. The two hit the ground rolling, punching and gouging, raising dust. Horses and riders jockeyed back and forth, the animals stepping high-hoofed, trying to keep from stepping on the pair. Moses Peltry shouted at the other men, scalp hunters and guerilla fighters alike. “Get down there, some of you! Break these damn fools up before they kill one another!”

The men jumped down from their saddles and pulled Murdock and Goose Peltry apart. Moses Peltry stepped his horse over close to Goose, grabbed him by his hair and kicked him soundly in the back of his head. Then he turned his brother loose, and Goose sank to his knees with a dazed groan. Doc
Murdock struggled against the men holding him. “Turn me loose! I'll eat that rotten sonsabitch's heart!” He managed to free his gun hand and slapped his palm around his pistol butt.

But then Murdock froze at the sound of Moses Peltry's big Walker Colt cocking. Looking up, Murdock saw the big open pistol bore staring down at his face from three feet away. “You ain't really drawing that pistol on my brother, are you?” Moses asked in a low, steady voice.

Doc Murdock thought better of it and drew his hand away from the pistol butt. He shook himself free of the men holding him and said to Moses, “The man's a complete lunatic! You saw what he just did! Only my respect for you keeps me from killing him like the mad dog he is! You shoulda taken up my offer to put him to sleep the other day! He's nothing but trouble!”

“Hush up, Murdock, before you and me go to shooting chunks off one another,” Moses warned. His left hand gripped his beard at chest level. His right hand extended the cocked Walker Colt out at arm's length.

Murdock saw Moses' knuckles turn white and bloodless on the trigger. He took a step back. “Easy, Moses. There's no trouble between you and me.”

Moses relaxed his gun hand a little, letting the Walker barrel slump. “We're all tired and getting edgy,” said Moses. “We need to get over to Punta Del Sol and rest some before we start splattering one another.”

“You're right, Moses.” Doc Murdock eased back and took a deep breath. He ran a hand across his upper lip, wiping away a trickle of blood. “No harm done. I reckon I mighta brought some of that on myself.”

Moses uncocked his Walker Colt and backed his horse a step. As Doc Murdock turned and took his horse's reins from one of the men, Moses backed his horse over, holstered his pistol and bent down in his saddle. Goose had struggled halfway to his feet. Moses grabbed his shoulder and helped him up the rest of the way. “What was he talking about, Moses,” Goose asked in a dazed voice, “saying you shoulda took him up on his offer to put me to sleep?”

“Nothing, Goose. It was just loose talk. Forget you even heard it,” said Moses.

“Nothing? He's talking about putting me to sleep like I'm a sick dog or something. You say forget it?”

“Yeah, Goose, that's exactly what I'm saying,” Moses spit in exasperation. “You're my brother. Nobody is going to do you harm so long as I can help it. Don't you have enough sense to know that? Now shut up and put it out of your mind. We've got more pressing things to concern us.”

“All right then. It's forgotten.” Goose rubbed the back of his head and watched his brother turn his horse and ride away a few feet.

“The fight's over, men,” said Moses. “Get mounted and get moving. To hell with the Gatling gun and the
Federales.
It's time we ride on to Punta Del Sol, take a few days of drinking and whoring.”

“It's a three-day ride from here to Punta Del Sol,” said a voice among the men.

“So what? It's a three-day ride from here to
anywhere
,” Moses laughed. “We can hole up under a hot rock out here if everybody prefers.” He looked around at the sunburnt, haggard faces. “But if it's drinking and whoring you want, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

The men hooted and cheered. As they turned away from Doc Murdock and Goose Peltry, Brayton “Comanche
Killer” Cane picked up Murdock's hat from the ground, slapped it against his leg and handed it to him. “Don't worry, Doc,” he said between the two of them. “When you get ready to kill that wild-eyed rat's ass, I've got you covered.”

“Keep it in mind, Comanche Killer,” said Murdock. “It's coming most any time. Nobody jumps me from behind that way. First chance I get, I'll kill him quicker than a fly can lick its snout.”

“That sounds good to me, Doc.” Cane looked over at Goose Peltry with a strange smile and tipped his ragged hat as he continued speaking to Murdock. “You kill him, and I'll lift his scalp for you before his dead ass hits the ground.”

Before riding into Punta Del Sol, Moses Peltry had sent two men upward into the high rocky cliffs lining either side of the trail. When the men waved their rifles back and forth slowly, Moses Peltry looked at Doc Murdock and said, “Now that we've made it through that little stretch of adventure, how do you feel about our partnership so far?”

Doc Murdock returned Moses' flat smile. “All's well that ends well, I suppose. But to tell the truth, I can't see where me or my men made a dime traipsing across those flats and badlands.”

“Don't worry about the money, Doc,” said Moses. “We'll soon be making it hand over fist. I've got plans that will cross your eyes once you hear them.”

“I'm all ears,” said Murdock.

“In good time, Doc,” said Moses, heeling his horse forward.

“I'd kind of like to know now,” Doc said, raising his voice a bit as Goose and Moses Peltry rode forward side by side, leaving him sitting.

“You'll know when we're damn good and ready to tell you,” Goose said, turning slightly in his saddle and giving Murdock a hard stare.

Beside Doc Murdock, Brayton “Comanche Killer” Cane said under his breath, “God almighty, I want to kill him so bad it's making my teeth ache.”

“Settle down, Comanche Killer,” Doc Murdock whispered, heeling his horse forward. “Let's try to enjoy ourselves while we're here. If you see any scalps that could pass for Apache, don't forget we've still got a good market for them.”

“Let them say what they will about scalp hunting becoming a dying profession,” said Comanche Killer Cane. “I miss it something fierce every day of my life.”

“We all miss it, Comanche Killer,” said Murdock.

They rode on, coming to a point where a large, crumbling sandstone wall crossed the trail. Two wide wooden gates stood open before them, revealing a community of ancient adobe structures, sun-bleached chozas and skeletal lean-tos wrapped in weathered canvas and skins of animals both domestic and wild. “Everybody watch each other's backs,” said Moses Peltry, stepping his horse through the open gates. The men looked all around cautiously, their hands poised on rifles and pistols across their laps.

Once inside the gates, the riders watched two women shy away from the large well where they had stood drawing water in the early-morning light. A thin old man came limping forward with a cane as the two women hurried their steps, their water crocks resting atop their bare shoulders. Beyond the well lay the empty, criss-crossing dirt streets of Punta Del Sol. Somewhere a rooster crowed as if raising the town from its slumber.

“You gals needn't rush off on our account,” one of the riders called out to the women. But the two women ignored them in their haste, one offering a trace of a playful giggle as they scurried away. From his saddle, Moses Peltry gazed down at many fresh hoofprints in the dust. But he only looked down for
a second before raising his eyes as if not having noticed the prints.