Branded

by Eric Red

  The big man draws closer as he scales the mountain, his approach a white outline in the snowstorm. The Brander knows he needs a very big gun against this very big man, a gun with stopping power. Specifically, his largest-caliber handgun with enough knockdown force to drop him. The man coming toward him has as much sheer mass as a grizzly bear. The .55 caliber Remington cavalry revolver is heavy and cumbersome but a couple of well-placed rounds from it—a head and chest shot—and the big man will fall. The fiend saves the hand cannon only for special occasions. Twenty years have passed, but now fate and destiny have brought The Brander and his first branding victim back together for a final reckoning.

  The first one branded will be the last to die.

  Time to finish him off.

  The fiend cocks his weapon and battle is joined.

  * * *

  Joe blinked and saw The Brander.

  He blinked again but he was gone.

  Noose was seeing things.

  Or was he?

  CHAPTER 31

  “I want the book.”

  Inside the cave, the lady marshal was the sheriff’s posse’s hostage. Bess sat on a rock, hands cuffed before her in her lap. Surrounding her were seven badmen with big guns calling themselves lawmen, and the worst of them stood in front of her, growing angrier and angrier each time he repeated the same question and got her same reply. Pretty soon, she thought, he was going to use that Colt Walker revolver on her.

  “We don’t have the book.”

  “Who does?”

  “The man we’re hunting they call The Brander.” Exploding in rage, Sheriff Conrad waved his arms. “There ain’t no Brander! You and your three friends done all those branding killings! You three are The Brander! You ain’t no marshals! That ain’t no real badge! I don’t know why you three are butchering my men like prize hogs or why you’re branding them like steers gone to market and don’t give a shit. I want the book.”

  “For the hundredth time, me and my friends don’t have the book. The Brander has the book. Joe Noose and Emmett Ford are out there right now tracking this man down and when they get him, you get the book. If you let me go right now. Our business here is to take down The Brander, dead or alive. I have no business with you today, Sheriff. Release me directly before I do.”

  “Who are you three working for?”

  “I work for federal judge John Wainright of Uinta County. Emmett Ford works for the federal judge in Idaho, I disremember the name. You can ask him. Joe Noose works for me as a bounty hunter.”

  “Who sent you to kill the judge and screw up our whole operation?”

  “Nobody. We are on U.S. Marshal business dispatched from headquarters in Cody with orders to track down, apprehend, and subdue by any means necessary The Brander, thereby stopping his killing spree.”

  “And that’s why you three branded Judge Bill Black over every square inch of his flesh until you killed him?”

  Whirling on Conrad, Bess lost her temper and yelled in the sheriff’s face at the top of her lungs.

  “Are you Goddamn stupid or did your horse kick you in the head too many times? Of course my friends and I aren’t The Brander! You know my badge is real! I’m a U.S. Marshal! My daddy was a U.S. Marshal!”

  Hunkering down before her, Sheriff Conrad got down to her level and stared hard into her baby blues a long moment before he spoke. “Your daddy was a marshal, you say? Okay, then. I am acquainted with most federal marshals. Tell me his name.”

  “Federal Marshal Nate Sugarland out of Hoback.”

  The crooked lawman’s eyes blinked with recognition. “I know Nate. Good man. Chased me clear to Casper and almost got me back in ’55. You his daughter?”

  “That’s right. Bess Sugarland. Marshal Bess Sugarland.”

  “And Nate taught you the family trade. I see, makes sense to me now why a woman comes to be wearing a marshal badge. Bet you were your daddy’s deputy for lots of years, how he taught you the ropes.”

  She nodded tersely.

  “Chip off the old block. How is your daddy?”

  “Dead. Murdered by trash named Frank Butler and his pack of vulture bounty killers. My friend Joe Noose, the big man outside, he killed every last one of the Butler Gang with a little help from me in the spring of ’86. It’s how Joe and me met. And unless you let me go directly so I can get back to my business with The Brander, Noose will kill every one of you when he rescues me.” She swept her hard glance across the tense faces of the impressed deputies. “I can see you’ve heard of Joe Noose and know him by his formidable reputation. Trust me, he’s the last man on earth you want coming for you. And Noose already is coming for you because he’s coming for me. When it comes to his friends, he’s very protective.”

  Sheriff Conrad nodded, bowing his head a little. “I am sorry to hear about your father. Frank Butler was filth. Made me look wholesome.”

  “Oh, you two are just the same, Conrad—Butler and you—don’t fool yourself,” Marshal Bess spat. “You’re both unscrupulous varmint killers, robbers, and thieves who would harm or kill anyone and do anything for money. You and Butler are from the same foul litter.”

  The bad sheriff looked stung. “Now, that’s where you’re wrong about me, missy. I don’t murder people for money like Frank Butler did, killing folks for the bounty and all. Exceptions like Quaid wasn’t supposed to happen. I rob and steal but I’m more of a businessman. That judge Bill Black, he come to me with this business proposition about me arresting criminals and getting them to pay cash to me and the judge so he lets them off. It was a good opportunity. Nobody can blame a man for taking an opportunity when he sees one. Just like you can’t blame me when it became in my interest to play both sides. I organized my own gang and planned out robberies and sat in the sheriff ’s office while they did them. Got me a cut of the robberies plus the cut of the bribes when I arrested one or two of my boys and the judge cut them loose. Doubled my take. Right under that greedy old bastard judge’s nose and he was none the wiser, at least I thought he wasn’t until he told me about that book of his the night he died.”

  Bess was unmoved. “And Butler shot my father and framed Noose so he could chase him down for the bounty reward. You and Butler both think like criminals and you think you’re so damn smart but you’re both trash. At least Frank Butler did his own killing.”

  Rising to his feet, Sheriff Conrad rubbed his mustache and brooded, taking a few steps to the edge of the cave to look out at the wintery wasteland. “Well, talking to you now convinced me of one thing at least: that you are not this Brander and your friends ain’t, neither. That killer out there he’s somebody else, somebody real bad, somebody butchering my operatives and because he’s got that book is how he come out here. He cut off one head of the snake with the judge, now he’s here to cut off the other head. Me.”

  Inside the chilly cave, Marshal Bess Sugarland adjusted her sore seat on the icy rocks. Her handcuffed wrists were in her lap. An escape plan was formulating in her mind, but it would be risky.

  Pacing back and forth, Sheriff Bull Conrad kept shooting a flinty glance out the opening at the wall of chilly whiteness of the outside world. With each metronome step, his spurs beat time to the ratchet of the cylinder of his revolver he kept turning in his finger like the ticking of clock.

  “Who is that branding-iron bastard son of a bitch?” He masticated.

  Bess, preoccupied, said the name under her breath.

  The crooked lawman rounded on her. “What did you say?”

  She raised her blue eyes to meet his. “Abraham Quaid.”

  “No, it ain’t.”

  “That’s his name.”

  “It can’t be.”

  Her eyes questioned why.

  “Because he’s dead. He got shot.”

  “How do you know? Were you there?”

  The cunning lawman grinned at her slick attempt to entrap him. “No, I was not.” He spat tobacco juice on the rocks. “My men was.”

  “Your men shot the ol
d man, stole Quaid’s cattle, and burned his ranch?” She glared at him in disgust. “Rustling and arson.”

  “And murder, don’t forget. That old-timer got in the way and was got out of the way with a shotgun blast in the chest, way it was reported to me.”

  “Your men missed. Abraham Quaid is alive and he’s coming, out for the blood of every man in that raid. He’s already killed most of them.”

  Stopping his pacing, Bull Conrad’s brow furrowed. “Somebody buried him on the ranch.”

  “The grave is empty.”

  “Swell. Explains everything.” Conrad chuckled and shook his head. “And now he’s coming after me. That’s why he’s out here. It all makes sense now. It’s my ass Abe Quaid really wants.” Sheriff Conrad shook off his paranoid inertia, sick of standing around. Jumping into action, his blood pumping and adrenaline surging from getting ready for a fight, the bad lawman holstered his pistol, grabbed his Henry rifle, and jacked a fistful of .45 rounds in the breech, stuffed more cartridges in his pocket. “Okay, Quaid. Let’s do it. Let’s you and I finish it.”

  “You’re not going out there?” Bess was aghast.

  “Abe Quaid is out there right now hunting me.” The sheriff pointed a heavy dustered arm out at the foreboding snowy mountain range beyond the cave opening. “I’m going to kill Abe Quaid before he kills me. He wants his fit and proper revenge, who am I to deny him? I can’t wait to see the look on that old bastard’s face when he looks up my barrel and knows his whole revenge was for nothing right before I pull the trigger. You want a job done right you gotta do it yourself, missy.”

  “Joe Noose, the best tracker in the territory, has been chasing Quaid for months, hasn’t found him, and if he can’t, neither can you. You’ll never find him.”

  “I don’t have to find him. He’ll find me.”

  “You bet he will.”

  “I’m ready for him but Abe Quaid ain’t ready for me. This time I’m going to dead that old man so he stays dead.”

  “The Brander ain’t all that’s outside this cave, Conrad. So is Noose hunting for Quaid, and I’m guessing you’ll run into each other. Joe Noose is the one who you better be worried about, not that crazy old man.”

  “I’ll steer clear of him.”

  “If Joe Noose can’t find Quaid, what makes you think you can?”

  “Noose don’t know where to look for Quaid. I do. I know exactly where he’s going.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “My cabin. Built me a little place up here to get away from it all a few years back. Hide out to hole up if I ever got boxed in. Can hold off an army of marshals in that cabin if I had to. The place is a secret, only Bill Black knew, and nobody comes out here this far into the wilderness. Not until Abe Quaid. He is going to the cabin for sure.”

  “I thought the location was a secret. How does he know where your cabin is?”

  “The book. His Honor must’ve had the location of the cabin written down in that book of his, an insurance policy so he could turn me in if he had to, tell the law where to find me. Quaid got his hands on the book and came straight here. Guaranteed, he learned the whereabouts of the cabin from the book, which is why he come all the way out here to the end of God’s creation, and that’s exactly where he’s going, to find me. And he’s right, I will be there. I’m going to meet him directly.”

  “Wish I could tag along.”

  “To escape?”

  “To watch you die.”

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  Striding to the opening of the cave, Conrad turned up his collar against the driving snow, pulling down the brim of his Stetson.

  Deputy Rickey’s voice stopped him. “What the hell do we do with her, boss?”

  “Whatever you want,” was his reply, a lewd tinge to his tone. “She’s all yours, boys.”

  Bundled against the elements, the imposing figure of the big man with the big rifle left the cave and five feet outside he was obscured by the blizzard and disappeared from view.

  Handcuffed, seated against the rock, Marshal Bess drew her gaze from the cave entrance across to the inside of the small cavern itself, and felt the six sets of eyes boring into her. The deputies were looking her up and down, undressing her with their eyeballs. Her nose was always good and she could smell the men thinking about her naked—an aggressive rutting scent of animals in heat. Looking across the faces, Bess met each of the men’s gazes in turn, holding their predatory stares, trying not to blink or show fear. The men exchanged questioning, sly glances.

  “The boss said it was okay.”

  “Sounded that way to me.”

  “We all heard him.”

  “He ain’t here anyhow.”

  “Never pass up a good thing.”

  All eyes were on the young woman.

  “You’re pretty.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She knew what was coming. Let it. The lady marshal had already decided on a desperate plan.

  “Who’s the best kisser?” Bess said. “I like a man who knows how to kiss.”

  The deputies roared with raunchy laughter.

  “Me!” Deputy Rickey puckered up.

  “You look like you’re kissing your mama.” Bess laughed. “I’m talking about a real kiss.”

  “Lady, my tongue is so long I can stick it clean down your throat.” The leering deputy named Clyde Lovejoy opened his mouth and stuck his tongue way out, and it looked a foot long.

  Perfect, she thought.

  Adjusting her butt on the rocks for leverage, Bess got balanced, sat opened-legged like a man, thrusting out her bosom and smiling as sexy as she knew how. “You get the first kiss.” Bess winked at Lovejoy. “Come and get it.”

  “Looks like I’m the winner, boys.” Lovejoy’s hands resting on the holstered stocks of his two Colt Single Action Army pistols hanging on his belt moved to his crotch, and gave himself a squeeze.

  “You gonna give me that kiss?” Bess asked.

  “Oh, I’m gonna give it to you. Then my friends here, they’re gonna give it to you. And you, pretty lady, are going to get it but good. We’re gonna pull a longer train on you than the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”

  Her mouth was dry, she couldn’t reply.

  Behind him, the five other deputies whooped and hollered, getting ready to take turns on Bess. She knew the gang rape they had in mind and what was coming; it was all part of her plan, which depended on her being manhandled. Had the young woman let it, fear might have paralyzed her, but she did what she had to do to get the men where they needed to be for the moves she had to make.

  Her life depended on the next minute or two; if the six men overpowered her she would be violated then murdered because they could not leave her alive.

  The lady marshal mentally ran through where her hands would be every second, where to put her feet. Everything she would have to grab. She would need to be very, very quick.

  Swaggering up to her like a king stud in his cowboy boots, the ugly deputy stuck out his crotch, staring down past his hips to her face as she sat below, his eyes bulging with lustful urge. Bess felt the redneck getting all pumped up thinking she was staring between his legs at his crotch, but her eyes were elsewhere: staring through his legs at the five deputies waiting in single file behind him to take their turn.

  Stacked up like a row of targets in perfect shooting formation and not spread out. Good.

  But before then things had to go just right.

  The deputy was going to have to kiss her first.

  CHAPTER 32

  Whiteout.

  It was a blizzard.

  Joe Noose raised his Winchester and slowly turned in a 360-degree rotation, unable to see ten feet in any direction.

  It was a void of white nothingness, the snowflakes swirling in a vacuum.

  The bounty hunter squinted, saw no sign of The Brander, who could have been a few steps away and he wouldn’t see him. The sound of his own heavy breathing in the thin air was drowned in the
roaring of the wind and whooshing of the pine tree branches.

  This was bad.

  A distance back, Joe had tied Copper off to a sturdy tree and continued on foot because his horse could break a leg in this snowbound terrain.

  Raising the repeater rifle to his shoulder, Noose looked down the gunsight and pivoted left and right at the hip, sweeping the barrel back and forth against the white. The damned sleet was getting in his eyes, blurring his vision with stinging tears. He cussed a string of profanity beneath his breath then shut up because he needed to listen. Hear what was around him.

  Targeting the enemy had suddenly become much more difficult because in this mess he couldn’t be sure what he was shooting at—even the nearby rows of conifers, barely discernable as faint shapes, resembled a man, the trunks the torso, the branches arms waving in the wind. Aiming had to be careful, and with caution came hesitation and a split-second’s hesitation pulling the trigger in a gunfight was what got a man killed.

  Trudging along the snowbound hill in a white maelstrom of thick flurries, Joe Noose kept his eyes peeled and his Winchester rifle raised. His finger off the trigger.

  No time to be trigger-happy.

  If he spotted The Brander it could be Emmett—the shape of a man could be anyone, identification impossible to make in the snowstorm—pull the trigger too fast, he could shoot his companion.

  And the marshal couldn’t see Noose any better than he could see him—if Emmett was too quick on the draw, he could easily put a bullet in Joe; the bounty hunter hoped wherever the marshal was that he was thinking the same thing and being damn careful with his weapon and placing his shots.

  All of a sudden, Joe Noose felt in worse physical danger than he had ever experienced in his life. Fatal friendly fire was now a clear and present danger.

  Until the blizzard died down and visibility cleared he couldn’t risk a shot at any figure over thirty feet away. To shoot The Brander, Noose was going to have to be right on top of him. The fiend practically beside him. Then Abe Quaid would be close enough to touch. The old man was near, very near; the bounty hunter felt in his gut his quarry was close, and his instincts never failed him.