by A. W. Hart
“Move, there’s gonna be shooting right here,” Reno said to the two undertakers, who ran away.
The four from Paddy’s turned their horses in Reno’s direction and spurred them.
Reno stood alone in the middle of the street. He dropped his coat to his feet and held both hands poised above his guns. He saw Sara running down the street behind the four horses, shotgun unslung.
Adams pulled up in front of Reno and stopped. His revolver was already out.
“Wilton Adams, you are under arrest for murder. Throw up your hands,” Reno yelled.
He could see Adams straightening his arm to aim, and Reno drew and fired.
He hit Adams in the torso. The horse panicked and lunged toward Reno, who rolled to the side.
One of the three gunmen aimed at Reno, who was still on the ground. Reno fired two fast shots.
The man aimed at Reno again, but Sara’s shotgun blast unseated him and dumped him off his horse, or whoever’s horse he had just stolen. In response, the other two spun their horses toward Sara.
Reno was back on his feet and shot one in the side. He fell off. The last one shot at Sara and missed from his bucking horse. Sara gave him the left barrel and did not miss. Luckily, the horse was unscathed.
Reno’s man rolled in the mud, shot, and missed. Reno fired back twice, then got a click.
He drew the left revolver and fired rapidly, killing the man.
Something was wrong.
Reno realized what it was. The wounded Adams was high-tailing it down the street and was almost out of town. He would be easy to trail, wounded and riding a strange horse.
Deputy George Ringo appeared.
“George, you got everything here? We gotta get Adams.” Reno yelled.
“Got it, Reno. Go.”
They did not have time to get their horses from the stable behind the hotel, saddle up, get Apache from the room, and ride.
Both mounted the dead gunmen’s horses.
“George, tell whoever owns these horses we are not stealing them, just borrowing, okay?” Reno requested.
“They probably are standing there in front of Paddy’s and already know. Just ride.”
Reno and Sara rode off, Reno reloading his Remingtons and Sara reloading the shotgun at a trot. Once the guns were secured, they moved up to a canter. They held the horses at that pace as they pursued Adams. They knew he would stick to the trail unless he stopped in a wooded area because of his wounds. They remembered from the way in there were no houses or towns for miles.
It took them a half-hour to catch up with Adams. He kept looking back and saw them, and he picked up his pace. They did not. He was not going to get away.
All three were riding somebody else’s horses. There were no rifles, saddlebags, or canteens. That last worried Reno.
It got darker and darker, and thunder rumbled. They saw more lightning behind the clouds, and the air felt more charged than it had in the morning. It seemed like dusk but was just past noon.
Adams had slowed down again. They knew his horse must be tired, and he must be hurting.
“I got him somewhere in the chest. The thick wool coat he’s wearing slowed the ball down, but it’s still buried deep. He has to be in pain.
2
They followed until two PM. The atmosphere got worse, the thunder more pronounced.
Then, they heard rumbling behind them.
“Sounds like a herd of buffalos stampeding,” Reno yelled. “Follow me.”
He turned his horse to the left and spurred him to a full gallop. Sara followed. They looked back.
A funnel cloud was bearing down on them. They could see trees being picked up, disappearing in the cloud, then being thrown out the top.
Both saw they could not outrun it. They also knew trees would be no protection from its power.
Reno pulled up his horse and leaped from it. He smacked the horse on the flank and yelled at it. The already-terrified animal ran away at as fast as he could.
Sara did the same. Now it was down to the two of them, like always. Together, facing the next thing God threw at them.
Reno saw an indentation in the ground. He grabbed Sara and dragged her toward it.
Once there, he pushed her face down and laid on top of her, his hands covering her ears and eyes.
The tornado was upon them. They were buffeted and deafened from the roar. Seconds were like hours. The dust was choking, and what breath they had was sucked from their lungs. Tree limbs and chunks of dirt fell on them.
Then it was over. They were alive, and they were unhurt.
As they looked where the funnel was going, they saw Adams riding. The funnel was closing in on him. He disappeared.
A second later, a body was thrown from the inside of the tornado. It came out a hundred feet off the ground and flopped to the earth three hundred feet away. The horse was the next thing the tornado ejected. It emerged from the same height and was thrown the same distance. Reno and Sara hoped the poor beast was dead before it landed. Neither Adams nor the horse moved.
Brother and sister stood and checked each other for injuries. Their being alive and unhurt was miraculous, the choice of a depression to lie in fortuitous. Sara’s shotgun was gone. They could not see their horses, but they knew the tornado did not get them.
They walked the quarter-mile to where the horse and the man lay. They checked the horse first. He was dead of a broken neck.
They checked Adams. He too was dead. He did not look too beat up until they rolled him over. It felt like his insides were mush.
They heard thunder again and looked into the sky with apprehension. It appeared to portend rain, not another tornado.
Walking away from the two bodies, Reno began to pick up the biggest tree branches he could from the devastation, and Sara did the same.
Reno retrieved a lasso from the dead horse’s saddle. He lashed the branches together as a shelter and took his long, lined-canvas coat off.
Motioning for Sara to get in, he followed. They huddled close together, and he covered them with the coat just as the rain began. It poured. The shelter provided a little relief, but it was far from waterproof. They stayed relatively warm and dry under the coat, however.
“You saved me,” Sara said.
“It’s my job,” Reno replied.
“What would I do without my baby brother?” she asked, always mindful of having been born two minutes before him.
“Be miserable.”
“Yep.”
There being nothing else to do, they went to sleep. Reno awoke in the middle of the night. He heard coyotes and knew what they were after.
He whispered to Sara why he was getting up and eased toward Adam’s body. He saw furtive shadows moving around it and fired several shots, hitting a coyote each time. They left, but he suspected they would be back.
Reno crawled into the shelter and reloaded the .44, then climbed under his coat. Sara was asleep again. He brushed the hair out of her eyes and kissed her on the forehead like a mother does a baby. He saw her smile in the darkness, though sound asleep. She had saved him too, running up and blasting with the scattergun. They were the only two people in the world both could always depend on. Back to back, guns blazing.
Both Avenging Angels went to sleep—the Beautiful Angel of Death and the other one.
The morning was much as the previous one, gray and foreboding. It might or might not rain again. They were miles into rough country and afoot, with a body they had to transport back to Hays City to claim their reward. Worse, they had no water. They could do without food, but water was a different matter. Poor Apache was locked in their room. At least he would be smart enough to drink the water Reno had put in the bowl to soak the latigo sling for the departed shotgun.
They both scanned the horizon. Sara squealed with delight and pointed. Both horses were grazing on grass, perhaps as far from them as they had camped from Adam’s body.
They hiked over, and neither horse spooked. They both moun
ted and rode back to Adams. It took both of them to lift his dead weight onto the larger of the two mounts. Taking the rest of the lariat Reno’d used to tie their shelter together, he lashed Adam’s hands and feet under the horse’s belly. The horse clearly did not like the smell of death on his back, but could be controlled. Reno mounted and took his boot out of the stirrup. Sara put hers in and climbed aboard. She held onto Reno, and he held the extended reins he had contrived to lead the horse with the body.
They started back to Hays City and arrived by noon. Deputy Ringo sent a wire to the jurisdiction, funding the reward on Adams and testifying he had been turned in dead. The response advised the new bank in Hays City would have the money in four days by stagecoach.
The two horses were returned to their owners. Reno paid the stableman behind the hotel for four more days of care for Jack and Grace, and Apache got a beefsteak as a reward for protecting everything.
Sara asked George if he had any more Wants they could work, but he said he did not.
It looked like they had time to rest and renew after some long, hard trails.
“We might enjoy laying back and resting,” Reno began.
“Especially if we were staying somewhere where we didn’t have to sleep in coats and under our trail bedrolls. We’d save money camping outside of towns and taking our chances with robbers and Indians.”
“We are doing okay for money. We arrived with a bag of gold coins and added one hundred for Shook, and we have another four hundred coming in for Adams. We have more money than anyone in our family ever saw,” told her.
“It should be invested somewhere a bank robber can’t snatch it. I vote for railroads or telegraph bonds. I picked up a paper a few weeks ago and read about them,” Sara said.
“Or we could use part to buy a small ranch to live on and use as a base of our work,” he said.
“You know, Reno, Pa was dying. He was not in his right mind. Who in hell would ask his teenage children to spend the rest of their lives killing people? What he left out was a stopping point. When is that? When one of us is killed by someone we went after? We are all each other has left of a fairly big and very happy family.
“You know I don’t mind killing folks who deserve it, brother mine, but maybe we should find a place we both like—a place without this damn wind. And settle down. I could run the ranch, and you could either pin on a badge or take up preaching, God forgive,” she suggested.
“Quite a speech from my sister, who can ride a hundred miles without saying a word. Sometimes, like now, you make a lot of sense. We can’t do this forever. We have a pretty good grubstake now. Let’s keep thinking and talking about it.”
Not having any way to store or prepare food required them to take meals out. They ate at the nearby café most of the time.
Bundled up, glad spring would be coming one day, they took a walk after eating breakfast.
They heard yelling, and two drunks, even though it was well before noon, tumbled out of the Number One saloon and rolled into the street. They were punching, gouging, and cursing.
Reno stepped in front of Sara and opened his coat. From behind, he heard his sister clear leather.
“Not yet, Sara,” he said.
A crowd gathered and cheered the drunk combatants on. One fighter produced a huge Bowie and sank it to the quillon in the other man’s chest. The crowd applauded, giving yells and catcalls.
He pulled the big knife out, wiped it on the dead man’s coat, and made a drunken bow. Then he staggered back in for a drink. The crowd followed, leaving the dead man leaking life fluids he no longer needed onto the mud of the street.
They hurried to the marshal’s office and reported to a stressed and tired George Ringo.
“The constant murders and knifings and beatings are more than I can handle. I am going to the council for help. The marshal wrote and said it would be two more weeks ‘til he got back. He’s not real good, quite frankly, but he has the primary responsibility, and two beats one any time,” Ringo said. It was almost as if he were thinking out loud.
“Good luck with a boss like him.” Sara offered.
“I think they’ll approve a two-week temporary deputy okay. I have a fellow in mind. I’ll let you know what happens,” Ringo told them.
“You do what you need to. We’re on your side, friend,” Reno responded as they left, their civic duty having been performed.
“Poor George is in the water ‘way over his head,” Reno mused.
“He sure is. He needs a fast-shooting butt-kicker to help. Seems like there are a lot of thugs around he could use. Even if they weren’t shootists, there are some tough fighters in the bars. If he could just grab one and keep him sober…” Sara’s voice trailed off as she thought.
They finished walking around town and went back to the hotel. Reno picked up his new book of poetry and began to read.
“So, Reno. When are you going to read the poem you found but decided not to read to me?” Sara asked tauntingly.
“I never said I found such a poem, did I?” he asked.
“You don’t lie, so sometimes you don’t tell the whole of everything. But I can read and understand you better than you can Pa’s Bible. I might add, you make up a lot of stuff, and it’s not really a lie. It’s just a bunch of manure.”
“On behalf of our blessed Ma and Pa, I’m tempted to wash your mouth out with lye soap. The way you talk!” he exclaimed.
“Try it, and you will see who really is the toughest. And you won’t like it.”
“Oh, yeah?” He walked toward her, where she was lying across the bed.
Sara rolled off onto the floor and grabbed both his ankles. She snapped her head up into his groin, and as he doubled over, she pulled his ankles and butted him in the gut. He rolled over on his back, in pain and gasping for air.
“I told you, Mr. Tough Boy.”
He rocked back and forth, holding himself, and she got back on the bed for what she considered to be a well-deserved nap.
Reno thought of the old poker expression about sometimes you hold ‘em, sometimes you fold ‘em. He decided to lay on the floor and hold ‘em, at least until he stopped aching
A little while later, he heard footsteps on the stairs. Someone knocked lightly on their door as Apache growled.
“Reno, it’s Bob from the front desk. There’s some folks downstairs to see you.”
“Should I bring my rifle?” Reno asked.
“Naw, it’s good. Deputy Ringo and another fella. They are smiling,” Bob explained.
“Okay, I will be right down,” Reno said.
Sara was leaning on one elbow on the bed, listening.
“Assuming I can walk upright,” Reno said in her direction. She blew him a kiss and rolled over, back to him, as he went out the door.
Downstairs, he saw George, as expected, and a man who looked like a shopkeeper.
“Reno, this is Henry Eaves. He’s head of the town council. He has a proposal for you,” George said.
Reno stuck out his hand, and they shook.
“Mr. Bass, George more than has his hands full, keeping the peace alone here. The marshal won’t be back for another two weeks. We on the city council, to a man, saw how you handled those ruffians out of Paddy’s, as well as the blacksmith. He’s been a one-man scourge on this town since day one.
“We’d like you to be a temporary deputy marshal until the marshal returns. We will pay you two dollars a day, meal expenses, and ten percent of any taxes you collect for George. How’s it sound to you?” Henry Eaves asked.
“Well, I’d be doing it to help George more than for the money. I need to get my sister’s opinion before I say yes, though. We are partners in the bounty hunting business, so she has a say in my absences.”
“Your call, baby brother,” Sara said. No one had seen her come halfway down the stairway and sit on a step. “We don’t seem to have any pressing folks to go and ki—arrest—right now.”
“All right, I’ll do it. I have a little
familiarity with the law. We have to know a bit so as not to break it while bringing folks in,” Reno said.
“If you all will walk over to the town office, the circuit-riding judge is in town. He’ll swear you in, and your sister can pin your badge on,” Eaves said.
The pinning part will probably be painful, Reno thought.
They went over to the town office, one room of which served as the courtroom when the judge was in town. The judge made Reno hold up his right hand, the left on Pa’s Bible, which was held by his sister. He pledged after the judge.
“I, George Washington Bass, swear I will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and enforce the laws of the State of Kansas and the ordinances of Ellis County and Hays City, so help me God.”
“I declare you a sworn deputy marshal of Hays City, Kansas,” the judge pronounced.
He handed brass star with Deputy Marshal on it to Sara, who set the Bible down and pinned it on her brother’s chest without spilling any blood. He looked at her, and there was one tear in her eye. Who could figure this woman? he wondered.
“Deputy, I have signed your first warrant to serve,” the judge said, handing him a folded sheet of paper. It was for Ebenezer Tasker. He was the man the Basses had watched plunge a Bowie knife into the chest of another man earlier in the day.
“He’s probably still drinking in the Number One Saloon,” George observed.
“You got the nippers?” Reno asked.
“I’ll get them on the way.
“I will cover from the door,” Sara said.
They walked down the muddy street to the saloon.
The two deputy marshals went in. Their backup waited just outside the door.
Reno saw the Bowie-knife-wielding murderer leaning against the bar. The bar was merely two 2x10s laid across several beer barrels on a riser. Reno assumed the barrels were filled with something, or the weight of the big man would bring the whole shooting match toppling down.
He walked up to within fifteen feet of Tasker and called his name.