Branded

by Eric Red

  Every so often in a sly look, glance, or smile, Laura reminded Joe Noose of Bonny Kate Valence.

  Bonny Kate.

  Who wasn’t all bad.

  * * *

  “You ever kill a man you didn’t want to, Joe?”

  “What sort of question is that?”

  After dinner, Noose and Emmett were sitting by the fire, playing a game of chess. Glasses of whiskey sat by the board. Bess and Laura were off in the kitchen and their laughter trickled in over the crackle and snap of the flaming logs.

  “You ever have to pull the trigger on a man or a woman you didn’t want to?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you live with yourself after?”

  “It’s easier for you to go on living after than it is for them.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Why, who you planning on killing?” Noose moved his pawn.

  “Someday as marshal I could get in that situation, you never know. Sooner or later, a marshal encounters every kind of situation during their career. He has to be able to handle any situation that comes up. That’s why I’m asking you about this one.” Emmett took Noose’s pawn with his rook.

  Noose lifted his pale eyes from the board to his companion. “How many men have you killed, Emmett?”

  The hesitation in Emmett’s gaze was just enough. None.

  Joe smiled. “That many?” He captured Emmett’s bishop left carelessly exposed when he moved his rook to take Noose’s pawn.

  “I was recollecting the tally. Only two. An Indian in Idaho. And a drunk who was waving his gun around in Pocatello. Actually I was with a group of marshals and a bunch of us shot him, so responsibility was shared because neither of us knew which of our bullets killed him. But those were strangers, not people I knew. I want to be sure if the time comes I ever get into a situation with no choice but to pull the trigger on a friend I don’t fail, and that’s why I’m asking you, how you go through with it.”

  “Why you asking me?”

  “Because you killed a lot more men than me, Joe. You’ve been in a hell of a lot more gunfights and got much more experience in dangerous situations. Ain’t no question who’s boss steer on this manhunt, Joe. You’re the toughest stud in the territory. I admire and respect you, Joe, and that’s why I’m asking for your advice about how to kill a friend.”

  “Depends on the situation, I guess.” The bounty hunter gave the marshal a look. Your move.

  “That is the situation.” Emmett was considering the board, rubbing his chin.

  “Is your friend trying to kill you in this situation? That’s plain old self-defense. Someone points a loaded gun at you, no matter who that person behind the trigger is, you shoot back because it’s animal reflex to defend yourself.”

  “Let’s say this friend, he ain’t trying to kill you, but you have to kill him anyway.”

  “That’d make you an assassin and you ain’t an assassin, Emmett. Those cold-blooded killers got no respect for human life, no moral conscience, and wouldn’t be having this conversation. So don’t worry about finding yourself in that situation.”

  “So let’s say I have to kill a friend to protect somebody I love.”

  “Then you have a hard choice to make that you better make quick and not hesitate.”

  “You’re saying because if my friend has a gun, it’s kill or be killed.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And living with it after, how do you do that?”

  “Like I said, you can live with anything if you ain’t dead.”

  The marshal chuckled. “Thanks for the advice, Joe.”

  The bounty hunter sipped his whiskey. This subject seemed to be causing his companion no shortage of inner turmoil. He still wasn’t sure of Emmett, hadn’t been from the start. Over the past weeks, Noose had formed an opinion of the marshal after riding with him long enough to know a few things about him. The first was Emmett was a liar who lied easily and often; it was difficult to know which of what came out Emmett’s mouth was the truth and what was fabrication. It puzzled Noose why Emmett told all these lies, and why he felt the need to. Men lied for many different reasons. Some men lied to make themselves look bigger than they were to other men. That wasn’t Emmett, who was quiet, reserved, and unassuming by nature. Men also lied to cover up the truth, and Noose suspected that’s what the marshal was doing. But what was he trying to cover up? It didn’t make sense, because he, Bess, and Noose shared the same common goal of bringing down a mad-dog killer. But Emmett had been dead set against killing Abraham Quaid all along, even though if there was ever a man who needed killing it was that bloodthirsty degenerate old fiend. Whatever it was Emmett was covering up had something to do with Quaid, Noose guessed, and if his suspicions proved to be correct it would explain everything and affect the outcome in unpredictable ways. Yet despite all of this Joe liked Emmett. He’d felt an unexplained connection with Marshal Ford right from the start; after spending time together, his friend consistently demonstrated kindness, decency, and good humor toward his companions. Emmett was not a dangerous man.

  Or was he?

  All this talk tonight about shooting a friend raised doubts; as the bounty hunter took another slug of whiskey, watching the other man gazing glassily into the fire, Noose wondered if his companion was more dangerous than he looked. Sooner rather than later, Joe Noose was going to have to share his concerns with Marshal Bess Sugarland about Marshal Emmett Ford.

  If that was his real name.

  * * *

  It was only the second time that month that Joe Noose had slept in a bed, but he had never slept in one as comfortable as he was stretched out in one of the many bedrooms on the ranch. Alone in the room, his naked body was covered with heavy layers of blankets and quilts soft as a baby’s ass, wrapping him in warmth as he sank into the embrace of the mattress. A man could get used to this, he thought not for the first time that night. As he enjoyed the comfortable bed, knowing it was the last one he would sleep in for a while, Noose thought back on the good time he had at dinner with Bess and Emmett, the fellowship he was feeling with both of them after these weeks on the trail, the pleasure of their friendship. Suddenly, he wasn’t in such a hurry to catch The Brander. Friends were hard to come by, and good to ride with, and he didn’t want this ride to end.

  His eyelids were growing heavy.

  Deep tiredness descended on Joe Noose like a drug, a complete physical exhaustion taking over his whole body. Reaching over, he blew out the coal oil lamp and the room went dark, just the bright light from the crescent moon outside the bedroom window glinting off the .45 revolver and shells in his gun belt slung over the chair.

  His eyes shut.

  And that was when he knew he was being watched.

  Felt someone’s gaze on him.

  Whose he didn’t know.

  Keeping his eyes half-closed, pretending to be asleep, he checked the room and it was empty, shadows and stillness.

  He was still being watched.

  His guns were on his right, in the chair beside the bed, and he’d reach it with a quick lunge and snatch, take him two seconds.

  Slowly, he rolled over with his eyes half-closed, like he was turning over in his sleep, and there he saw the window and the silhouette of a head and face pressed against it, backlit by stark moonlight.

  Noose moved lightning fast.

  His right arm shot out and snatched the Colt Peacemaker from his holster as he jackknifed out of bed and in two steps reached the window but the face was gone.

  With the gun in one hand, Noose threw up the window with the other, and a blast of frigid arctic air hit him in his face and bare chest as he stuck his gun, then his head and shoulders, out the window and looked.

  The figure was gone.

  Footprints in the snow outside the window led off across the open field and as the bounty hunter’s eyes followed the trail he saw, far off, someone running away in a sheepskin coat, chaps, and Stetson hat. It was too dark to tell who it was.


  His thumb eased down the hammer of his pistol from a cocked position.

  It wasn’t The Brander.

  Somebody else instead.

  Closing the window, Noose slid back into bed and under the covers, keeping the loaded revolver in his hand. He lay awake with his eyes open but the stalker, whoever he was, did not return. Still, the bounty hunter didn’t sleep a wink that night.

  CHAPTER 24

  Later, The Brander remembers how good his red-hot brand felt burning into the corrupt flesh of Judge William “Bill” Black. Of all the guilty ones the vigilante is out to serve harsh justice on, of all the guilty ones he must punish, the judge is the worst of the worst. Savoring the jurist’s hideous screams, the fiend flays the crooked old man all night. When dawn breaks, Bill Black is no more. In his final bloody gurgles, the judge gives The Brander what he requires. In the morning, the fiend rides out with it safely stowed in his coat.

  In the hours before the killing, The Brander stakes out Judge Bill Black’s fancy house built right next to the district courthouse, watching the place from the shadows under the hanging tree. It is just after midnight. The Brander has hidden in the bushes since sunset and now it is full dark; he has a good vantage point where through the windows of the house he can see the jurist eating dinner alone, but the judge can’t see him.

  The Brander is spitting distance from the porch when Sheriff Bull Conrad rides up alone and Judge Bill Black comes out with his pipe to converse with him. The men believe they are in private because no one else is in sight, but The Brander is close enough to hear every word they say above the crickets.

  The chummy jurist and lawman have a terse exchange in conspiratorial tones. Black stands on the porch, eye level with Conrad sitting in the saddle of his horse on the street, as they collude.

  “Bad news,” Sheriff Conrad mutters. “Another one of the Jensen gang got murdered and The Brander left his mark.”

  “Hell you say. Who?”

  “Lonny Seed.”

  “But Seed was holed up over in Idaho. How did The Brander find him?”

  “When he killed Buck Dodge a week ago, my bet is The Brander tortured the shit out of Dodge to give up Seed’s whereabouts. It’s what I’d do.”

  “Brander, my ass! Call him by his Goddamn Christian name! We know it’s that insane old coot Abraham Quaid killing Ray Jensen’s gang, for God’s Sake! Quaid’s getting revenge for those boys shooting him, rustling his cattle, and burning down his ranch! Make no mistake. This is one dangerous old man.”

  “Ray said he killed that old man.”

  “And Quaid up and rose from the dead?”

  “Ray shot him with a Marlin rifle. Gun’ll drop a grizzly bear. You don’t get up from getting hit by that.”

  “This was all a mistake.” On the porch, the old jurist shakes his head, his expression pinched. “It was too big a risk letting the Jensen gang slip the noose regardless of how much they paid to get acquitted. They were animals. Tried to murder that old man and took everything he had when they stole his cattle and burned his farm. After you arrested the gang, we should have strung ’em up. The long drop for each of them. We should have taken the payoff and hanged ’em anyway.”

  “Folks around here is still plenty angry you let those boys off.”

  “Suppose I better postpone my election campaign until next year, when all this brouhaha dies down.” Sighing, Judge Black throws a dark glance out at the hanging tree The Brander huddles beneath, but doesn’t spot the shadowy figure in the darkness. The fiend sees the glasses in the old jurist’s vest pocket by the gold watch on a fob, realizing the judge has poor eyesight; The Brander resolves to do his work close because he wants the bad old man to see every part of himself that gets burned off.

  “Don’t grow a conscience on me, Bill.” The sheriff sputters, “This thing of ours was your idea.”

  “We got greedy.”

  “Nobody can prove nothing.”

  “We have made a lot of money.”

  “It’s been a good racket, Judge. I arrest ’em, you cut ’em loose. They pay us, you hit that gavel, they walk. Ain’t nobody arrests more bad guys than me and given the choice between hanging and payin’, they always pay. It’s all legal, a not-guilty verdict nobody can argue with. Best justice money can buy. This territory is the promised land for scoundrels.”

  “It’s only a matter of time before everything points The Brander to us. What do we do then?”

  “You worry too much.”

  “In case you get any ideas of going to the real law, just remember this: I go down, you go down, and all your men go down.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Your Honor. All that power you got can’t stop a bullet, and one round will stop any conversations you’d ever have with anybody.”

  “I’m not scared of a bullet. I have a book.” Sheriff Conrad squints at Judge Black, considers this new threat. The jurist continues, “You’re in my book. It’s in my safe. If anything happens to me, my lawyer will open the safe and turn my book over to the U.S. Marshals headquarters. And that’s the absolute end for all of us, Bull.”

  “What book are you talking about?”

  “It’s all in my book, Bull. Every arrest you and your deputies ever made with the name of each man who paid us for a not-guilty verdict. Names and known whereabouts of the thirty-seven killers, robbers, and rapist who bought their freedom from us with hard cash. All the names. Yours is there. Enough to hang you and your men. And the book is a ledger. Receipts. Dollar entries next to the names. It lists the precise disbursement of funds and the two-way split of our take down to the last nickel.”

  Backing up on his horse, the crooked sheriff gets into a better position with his hand near his holster, ready to unload some bullets. “You miserable rotten snake son of a bitch.”

  “The pot calling the kettle.” The diminutive figure of the corrupt district judge looks blasé. “You’ll never find the safe, or the book. But if I die, the U.S. Marshal will. So I will sleep peaceably tonight, Sheriff Conrad, knowing you and your men will in short order apprehend the heinous villain Abraham Quaid who goes by the sobriquet The Brander. Because it’s your neck if you don’t. Good evening, Bull.”

  Entering his house, Judge Black closes the door behind him and locks it. Spurring his horse, Sheriff Conrad gallops furiously off down the dirt street and disappears into the darkness, the sound of pounding hooves subsumed by the ubiquitous drone of crickets.

  Beneath the hanging tree, The Brander bides his time, observing the house, clenching his Q brand.

  Through the window, Judge Black sits alone by the fire, reading, smoking his pipe, drinking his whiskey. The Brander watches as at last he blows out the kerosene lamp, the room goes dark, and the old man climbs the stairs to bed.

  It’s time.

  Hours ago The Brander broke the lock of the back door before Judge Black got home from court. So the fiend simply walks in.

  Now he sits in the living room by the log fireplace in the empty chair Bill Black has recently vacated, his pipe left cooling in the ashtray. The Brander stokes the fire sufficiently to place the cold black metal Q brand on the flaming logs. A few minutes later the steel coil glows red-hot, haloed in steam.

  He waits. He doesn’t have to wait long.

  The crooked old judge comes down the steps half-asleep.

  “Who’s there?”

  He has a gun, a hefty Colt Dragoon held in both hands, loaded and cocked.

  The living room is empty. His chair unoccupied.

  Doddering confusion crosses Bill Black’s pathetic aged face.

  He feels the sudden heat at his back.

  The judge doesn’t see The Brander step out behind him and when he turns, before he can get a shot off, the red-hot branding iron is jammed against his groin in sizzling clouds of steam.

  CHAPTER 25

  The town of Consequence was ten miles as the crow flies.

  Noose, Bess, and Emmett kept their horses at a good clip on the cold, br
ight Wyoming day. They crossed wintery hills and valleys with nothing but blinding snow as far as the eye could see. Three hours later, the trio reached the township.

  Consequence was little more than a drinkwater outpost servicing travelers passing through and supplying the several ranches spread out around the area. Noose looked it over. It was one place he had never been. Hadn’t missed much. Wasn’t much to see. A sheriff ’s office. A feed store. A small saloon attached to a stable and a dry goods store. Squinting against the sun, which reflected sharply off the clean white snow cover on the land, he spotted a few scattered houses down roads leading out of town. His best guess was the judge lived in one of those.

  Pulling her Appaloosa alongside him, Bess nodded toward the sheriff ’s office, the first building on the road to town. “Sheriff looks like he’s in. Let’s ask him where we can find Judge Black.”

  Emmett brought his horse beside them and the three rode up to the brick-and-wood one-story structure that housed the sheriff ’s office and jail behind heavily barred windows.

  A big heavyset man with a huge gut in a red shirt and weathered duster sat outside the steel front door on a chair. Stetson tipped over his face, he blew on a hot cup of coffee in a scalding metal cup held in his glove, billowing steam around his head in the frigid air. The heat fogged up the silver sheriff star on pinned to his shirt. A pair of Colt Navy revolvers hung in the holsters of his gun belt. A Henry rifle leaned against the bricks within easy reach. His head raised and his unblinking pig eyes regarded the three riders as they stopped before him.