by Tony Roberts
“She looked a bit shaken up,” Casey said, reaching for a whiskey glass.
Pete took the hint and poured him a slug. “Well, I’ll go talk to her and see if she’s alright.”
Left alone at the bar, Casey looked around idly. A few guys playing cards in the corner, a couple of single guys staring into their glasses moodily, two more looking at him warily from one side. There were even four around another table looking furtively for some reason. At the end of the bar was a slim, blonde-haired woman with too much makeup and her hair piled high. She was looking at him in admiration. Casey raised his glass to her and smiled.
She sidled up to him, her brief top showing off a huge amount of cleavage. “Well, darling,” she said in a husky voice, “you sure are the strong one.” She tapped an empty glass. Casey grinned and leaned over the bar and picked up the whiskey bottle.
“The boss know you’re drinking on duty, Miss, ah...?”
“Charlie,” she said, nodding when the glass was one-third full. She downed it in one, smacked her lips and smiled again.
“You’ve done that a few times, Charlie.”’
“Oh, aren’t you the observant one? You new about these parts?”
Pete came back and tutted to the girl. “C’mon Charlie, you’re supposed to be enticing the patrons to a night they won’t forget.”
“I am, Pete, its just they’re not paying tonight. I’ve had one quickie with that young man from ‘Frisco on is way east and that’s it.”
“Just go to the end of the bar and leave your fellow employee alone. They ain’t gonna hire you if you’re talking to this guy here.” He jerked a thumb at the pouting Charlie. “My sweet Charlie, don’t be fooled by her attitude; she’s got a heart of gold. Gets the patrons eating out of her hand in minutes with that voice of hers.”
“Yeah, I can understand that,” Casey admitted. “Beautiful big blue eyes too,” he raised his glass to the courtesan. She mouthed a kiss in reply and beamed widely at him.
“Oh, a smooth talker, too? You stay off the girls, Long. You just make sure no-one causes no shit here and you’ll find this place the best in town to stay in. You’ve got a room of your own out the back. No girls, no shooting, no loud stuff, got it?”
“Got it.” He wondered if he could sneak a quickie with Charlie; she looked interesting enough. “So how’s Betty?”
“Wants to thank you. Go speak to her, but be quick. I want her working in ten minutes.”
Casey downed his drink and went back up to speak to the girl. She was dressed in her working clothes once more, sat in a wooden chair by her dressing table, peering into the semi-circular mirror on top of it. She was putting make-up on, but looked at him through the mirror as she talked.
“I wanted to say thanks for getting rid of Clint.”
“Clint?”
“Yeah, the man you threw out. Thinks I’m going to wed him. He’s a brute. Won’t leave me be. Poor Pete was at his wit’s end until you turned up. Turns out Clint gunned down the last man who told him to leave here.”
“Did he now?” Casey was interested in that. Clint hadn’t been carrying a gun, just a knife, which, he noted, was no longer where he’d thrown it. “Pete sort of neglected to tell me that!”
Betty shrugged. “Guess he didn’t want to scare you off, Case. Is it okay to call you that?”
“Sure, I’ve been called worse in my time.” He thought of the Brotherhood of the Lamb’s description of him as the Spawn of Satan. Then there were the more basic descriptions from all round the world in eighteen centuries or more. One tended to collect a wide range of insults in that time.
Betty chuckled. “I bet. You seem to handle yourself alright though. Need someone like you to look after us girls. Poor Pete ain’t up to it.”
“Yes, I met Charlie downstairs. Seems a nice girl.”
“We’re all nice girls, Case. Once you get to know us, of course.”
He wasn’t sure whether that was a come-on or not. Pete’s warning to lay off her was still fresh in his mind. He contented himself with a grin and a promise to do that, then left. He was concerned about Clint, if the man had gunned down the last one in his job, then he’d best get a gun and be on the lookout. He asked Pete about it and the barkeep looked sorry.
“Yeah, I should’ve told you, but, hell, if I had, would you have taken the job?”
“Yes. But I’ll need a gun.”
“Go to Summerhill’s across the street. He sells plenty. Knows me quite well so he might give you a discount.” Pete gave him his earnings so he could buy a gun.
Summerhill was a slim, middle-aged man with a ready smile and large ears. He showed Casey plenty of ordnance and eventually the Eternal Mercenary settled on a colt .45, mainly because he’d used that type before and was happy with it, plus a box of bullets. Now armed and feeling more like it, Casey crossed the street. He saw Clint leaning against a post further up the street, talking to another man, and both turned to watch him. Casey pointed at him and made a sign of shooting him, then continued on his way.
He guessed there would be an end to the problem before long.
CHAPTER SIX
Winter was full upon them and nothing much had happened in the couple of months since he’d been at Pete’s. A few fisticuffs and one threat with a gun which was sorted quickly with a solid thump to the head. People got the idea not to mess about at Pete’s anymore and the girls got better clients as a result. Money came in and everyone was happy, that was until Clint struck.
It was well past midnight. Apart from two girls who were entertaining clients, there was no much going on.
The first inkling of any problem was the smell of smoke. Casey got up out of bed fast enough and opened his door. A bullet nearly took his head off and he dived back into the room with an exclamation. He grabbed his clothes, his belt and his boots, all the while the smell of the fire grew. More shouts, screams and a few shots.
He pulled open his door and leaned back. No shot this time, but there were plenty of flames. The bar area was ablaze, and he staggered to the back of the saloon. Pete’s charring corpse was there, pinned to the back of the bar. Poor bastard had been tied up by the looks of things. Why nobody had come for him he didn’t know. In time the ropes would burn through and Pete’s body would be found in the ashes by the bar with no trace of ever being bound.
Upstairs. Casey swung round the bottom of the carved bannister and looked up. The smoke was making things difficult and he put a hand to his mouth. Memories of another fire like this in Philadelphia came to his mind, not that long ago either. He went up like the devil was behind him and he glanced along the passageways. A man was there, Stetson on head, boots, gun. He fired and narrowly missed Casey. Casey snapped into combat mode and squeezed off two shots. He was satisfied to see the man pitch backwards with a scream, the gun spinning up and away.
A door was gaping open, Betty’s. He peered in but nobody was there. The window was wide open, and he leaned out. A group of men were in the side street below with horses. Betty was being picked up and placed on one, her hands bound before her and a gag across her mouth. Clint!
“You sonofabitch!” Casey roared.
Two men with him turned and aimed at him. With a curse Casey flew back as two shots shattered the window frame. He heard the horses gallop off, and took one last look at them before returning to the passageway. Smoke was getting bad now and he bumped into a coughing group of people, whores and clients. “C’mon, out of the window,” he encouraged them to go into Betty’s room.
A bedsheet acted as a makeshift rope, and by the time he slipped out the flames were licking at the doorframe. Half the town was in the street below, passing buckets of water, trying to put out the blaze, but it was no good.
Standing in the street, smelling of smoke and his face blackened, he cursed Clint to the end of time. Charlie stood there, her arms round herself, shaking. He went up to her. “You got a place to go to?”
“Me? Yeah – yeah. What happened?”
<
br /> “Betty’s favorite client happened. Killed Pete, poor soul. I got one of his gang but they got away with Betty. Any idea where this man Clint hides out?”
“No – oh poor Pete! He was such a lovely man!” she cried. Casey held her, one arm round her shoulders, staring at the blazing beacon that had once been a saloon.
The sheriff came up and asked a few questions. “I’m gonna go after this Clint and bring him to justice. Want to be a deputy?”
“No thanks – you’re bound by law. He’s outside that and I’ll deal with him my way, not the law’s way.”
“Hey, mister, you ain’t gonna go takin’ the law into your own hands, or I’ll have to arrest you.”
“What, and let the real felon get away? Where’s your sense of justice?”
The sheriff spread his hands wide. “Look, mister, I ain’t got much of a choice, have I? I work for the law, and I gotta stick to it no matter what I think. So don’t go makin’ my job any harder than what it is already.”
Casey eyed him for a moment then nodded heavily. “Yeah, I get you, Sheriff. Sorry. You go get that bastard with my compliments. I just don’t think a deputy’s badge suits me.”
The sheriff shook his head and passed onto the next witness.
Casey went back to Charlie and talked her into showing him where she could go. The cold was seeping into their thin clothing as they moved away from the funeral pyre of Pete and the girls’ living, but Casey reckoned the girls would find employment elsewhere. The law would pursue Clint and his accomplices but how far they could go was open to conjecture; there were plenty of places a man could hide out there in the hills, and besides, if they moved out of state then it would become more complicated.
No, he needed to do this his own way and in his own time. Betty would need rescuing and Clint brought to his own kind of justice for what he’d done. What Casey needed was to find out why Clint hadn’t been arrested for killing Casey’s predecessor. Why was that? As they reached another tavern and went into the warmer interior, Casey allowed Charlie to approach a sleepy owner who had been sat with his head down on the bar.
Quickly appraised of the situation and the reason why Charlie was now here and offering her services to the surprised and delighted owner, they were both shown rooms to stay for the night. Casey returned to the bar and sat down, buying a bottle of whiskey and offering the owner a share of the contents.
So they spent the next few hours talking and getting pleasantly warmed by the drink. As the new day began to show its face, Casey slapped the owner on the shoulder and retired to his room, with plenty to think about.
It seemed Clint was one of a family called the Duggans, who were something big in cattle, taking their herds across states through the year to slaughter. Plenty of money to be made there. It hadn’t been that long ago that some guy called Nelson Story had brought the longhorns up from Texas along what people were calling the Bozeman Trail to a place called Virginia City in Montana Territory to the north. The Duggans had jumped on the bandwagon and had gotten into the same business the previous couple of years, breeding and driving longhorns up through Nebraska, Wyoming Territory and Montana Territory. They had been trying their luck along the Oregon Trail the last year or two as well. Clint was the owner-cum-supervisor of one of the ranches the family owned along the route, and employed a lot of cowboys and other guns-for-hire to keep their land and estates free of natives. They had the backing of a number of influential people around the region and were as a result very much untouchable.
No wonder Clint had been left alone after killing Casey’s predecessor. The so-called manhunt by the sheriff would of course, never succeed, for someone up high would have a quiet word with the Idaho Territory authorities and the sheriff would be told to drop it or else. Casey would talk to a few more people around before deciding what to do and where to go, but it seemed the most likely place to start would be the Longhorn Ranch about twenty miles outside town. Clint Duggan was often there.
A few more days and Casey reckoned he was almost ready. He got what meager funds he had and got himself a horse, not one he would have chosen but he had little choice in the matter. It was either the nag or a walk and he was in no way prepared to foot slog it all over eastern Oregon. Screw that. He had a thin blanket, a worn saddle, a threadbare coat, a frayed Stetson, a faded and stained brown and white checkered shirt, ripped leather pants and Christ knows what else that had seen better days. He looked so like a down-and-out bum. Who would take him seriously?
Saying his farewells to Charlie – and he got a nice kiss from her which made him smile – he rode out of town on the east road and settled into an easy pace. The skies were a dull white and it could rain, or snow, or just stay depressingly flat like at the present.
With a single water canteen and just a few items to eat, he was travelling very lightly. Money was virtually non-existent, but hell, he’d been in this situation many times before and it was no hardship to him. He could hunt, trap and track. Not as good as those born to it and who lived off it as a regular thing, but he knew enough to survive. His body knew how to absorb every morsel of nutrition from each bite he took, so he really didn’t need to eat as much as someone his size may appear to require.
The cold wind blew across his face and he shivered. He’d known cold places so this was no surprise to him, and he wondered how cold he could go before shutting down. He’d slept for decades in that cave in the Alps all those centuries ago before Ireina had found him, way back in the time of Justinian. At the memory of the girl he smiled sadly. Such an innocent girl, a shame the Brotherhood had taken her from him. The Brotherhood – he wondered where those mad bastards were now. Watching him perhaps? He looked around just in case, but nobody and nothing reared its head.
Ah, the last he’d heard of them was during the Civil War. Since then he’d been in places they’d never heard of and had returned in a completely random place away from their evil gaze. They’d be looking for him, he knew, but he could be anywhere in the world, and there was only so much they could cover. He’d stay clear of their tentacles if he could.
The Longhorn Ranch was off the track, the entrance marked with a fence and a grandiose entrance with two skulls of longhorn cows on either side. How apt and how predictable. Casey rode under the entry way and along the dirt trail, passing fields of cropped grass, all with a dusting of frost on it now.
The ranch was a large set of buildings, a house, stables, barns, outhouses, sheds. He rode to the front and stopped, eyeing the all-wooden construction. Soon enough someone came out, wondering who the hell he was, staring at the building.
“What d’you want?” the man asked aggressively.
Casey ignored him for a moment, continuing to examine the building, then his gaze dropped to the increasingly irritated man. “The owner.”
“He ain’t seeing you.”
“How do you know? You have no idea who I am nor whether I’ve arranged to see the owner or not.”
“Well, a wise-ass, eh? I ain’t been told of any visitor being expected, so turn around and get the hell out of here, stranger, before I get angry.”
“Long past that, isn’t it? The name’s Long. Where is Mr. Duggan?”
The man reached for his pistol, his hand taking hold of the pistol grip. He had the gun halfway out before he realized he was staring down the puzzle of a colt .45.
“Uh-huh, pal,” Casey smiled in a manner to go with the chill of the air. “Now drop the cannon.”
The man threw his gun down, his face red with fury. “You ain’t gonna get away with this, whoever you are, Long. Soon as Mr. Duggan gets to hear of this he’ll send a posse to take care of you.”
“Indeed he may well do, unless of course he and I are the best of friends. Now, where is the mighty Mr. Duggan?”
“It’s not my place to tell you, or anyone, come to that. We’ve got high connections, so if I were you I’d get out of the state. Your life isn’t going to be worth much by the time Mr. Duggan has finished
with you.”
Casey climbed down and walked up to the man, his pistol pointing at his face. “Now I’m going to ask you once more before I get violent. Where is this piece of shit?”
A window slid up just over the man’s shoulder and Casey’s eyes flicked across to it. Another man had a rifle in his hands and was now aiming it at the Eternal Mercenary. In a flash Casey grabbed the man next to him and pulled him across to protect his body. The report of the shot came as did the sound of the bullet narrowly passing by. Clubbing the man around the head to stun him and make him unable to interfere, Casey lined up on the man by the window, squeezing off a couple of rapid shots. One shot shattered the window while the second struck the wall, splintering the neat white painted panel. The gunman ducked out of sight.
Grabbing the stunned man, Casey thrust the muzzle of his gun under his chin. “Alright, bud, start talking or I’ll blow a hole through you.”
The rifleman reappeared but couldn’t get a clear shot on Casey. He vanished once more. The man with Casey shook his head. Whether it was to clear his head or to buy time wasn’t clear but he wasn’t talking. Shouts had gone up around the ranch and Casey was aware other workmen were converging and he had perhaps a minute before it got too crowded around for him to get away.
The door opened and the man with the rifle reappeared. Casey blasted off a shot at him. The colt was all very well with it’s heavy slugs and widespread use, but it wasn’t much use past ten or fifteen feet. A rifle, well it was accurate up to a couple of hundred yards. The rifleman winced, ducked, then drew a bead on Casey.
At that moment the other man dug his elbow into Casey’s ribs and aimed a punch at his head. Casey stepped back, bent slightly, and the shot meant for him spat past. He caught sight of other men making their way towards him and Casey made a decision. He shot twice more, one bullet catching the man close to him, spinning him round, the second missing the rifleman by a fraction. It made the man dive to one side, and Casey got up into the saddle in one smooth movement and urged his mount to get out of there.