Probably he had never needed any boxing ability to win a fight. His size, reach, and strength would have been enough.
John Henry ducked under the looping swings and shot a pair of punches, left and right, into Gunderson’s belly.
His fists just bounced futilely off the layered, rock-hard slabs of muscle.
While John Henry was close, Gunderson tried to envelop him in a bear hug that would lead to broken ribs and possibly death. John Henry twisted away from the deadly embrace and shot an uppercut to Gunderson’s chin.
Once again, it was like punching rock.
So, the big man didn’t have a glass jaw, and hitting him on the button didn’t do the job, either. John Henry moved back, breathing hard.
His hands ached. He knew he was going to wind up breaking his knuckles if he kept on pounding away at the seemingly invulnerable Gunderson.
Everybody had a weak spot, though. It was just a matter of finding it. John Henry didn’t like to fight dirty, but sometimes a man didn’t have any choice.
As Gunderson charged again, John Henry kicked him in the groin.
Gunderson laughed and flicked out a punch that clipped John Henry on the jaw.
Even that glancing blow was like a stick of dynamite exploding in his face. He flew backward and rammed up against one of the thick beams that supported the bunkhouse roof. His vision blurred and he would have fallen if not for the beam at his back.
His sight cleared in time to see a fist that looked like it would have filled a bucket rocketing at his face. John Henry’s legs were unsteady to start with, so he let them fold up and dropped out of the way. Gunderson’s fist slammed into the beam.
That brought an actual grunt of pain from the giant and caused the grin to disappear from his face. He bellowed again and tried to kick John Henry. The lawman flung himself out of the way and rolled across the floor.
As he came up to one knee, he saw something unexpected. Nick Mallette leaped at Gunderson from behind and landed on the big man’s back. He wrapped his legs around Gunderson’s waist and started flailing punches at his head.
Gunderson brought up his left arm and drove his elbow back at Mallette’s head. It was as casual and effective as swatting away a bug. Mallette sailed through the air and came crashing down on one of the bunks.
The gambler deserved some credit for trying. And his attack served one purpose. It had distracted Gunderson long enough for John Henry to get his feet under him and set himself for another punch. There was one spot he hadn’t tried yet....
As Gunderson turned back toward him, John Henry darted forward and snapped a sharp right to the big man’s nose.
The punch landed perfectly, and hot blood spurted under John Henry’s knuckles as Gunderson howled in pain. As he took an involuntary step back, the first time he had been rocked in this fight, John Henry bored in and shot a left hook to the same place.
Another right followed it with blinding speed. Crimson welled from Gunderson’s nose and coated the lower half of his face as tears of pain trickled down his cheeks.
Gunderson brought up his ham-like hands, but instead of striking out at John Henry, he pressed them over his face to protect his bleeding nose. As he stumbled backward, his legs bumped against one of the bunks and he folded up on it, rolling awkwardly onto his side and drawing his knees up as he curled into a ball. He whimpered pathetically.
John Henry almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
Some of the other outlaws had called out encouragement to Gunderson during the battle, not that he had appeared to need any. Now they stood around, looking on in stunned silence . . . as if they were seeing something they had never witnessed before.
That was entirely possible. It might have been the first time Gunderson had ever lost a fight, maybe in his entire life.
A female voice confirmed that, saying coolly, “You just chopped down a tree with your bare hands, Saxon. How does that feel?”
John Henry looked over at the door and saw Lottie Dalmas standing there, one shoulder propped against the jamb. He summoned up a smile, flexed his fingers, and answered her question. “Sore as hell.”
“Your hands will hurt worse come morning,” Lottie said as she straightened. “You ought to soak them in some brine. Simon, why don’t you see about that?”
“Sure, Lottie,” Garrett replied.
“A man as fast on the draw as Saxon is supposed to be, we don’t want his hands so stiff they won’t work.” Lottie turned to leave, but paused. “Bring the two new men to supper in the main house tonight.”
“Sure,” Garrett said again, but he didn’t sound quite so happy about it.
* * *
The blond gunman took John Henry to the cook shack. Mallette tagged along, still holding his chin and working his jaw back and forth to make sure nothing was broken.
“It felt like he walloped me with a two-by-four,” Mallette explained.
Garrett ignored that and told John Henry, “Nobody ever put Sven down before. Probably because nobody ever got close enough to hit him in the nose like that. He’s got arms like an ape. If he’d ever gotten hold of you, Saxon . . .”
“I know,” John Henry said. “I was lucky.”
“Or smart. How’d you know to hit him in the nose?”
“It was the only place I hadn’t hit him so far.”
At the cook shack, Garrett introduced John Henry and Mallette to the cook, a gnarled, whiskery old-timer named Cribbins.
“Fix up a pot of brine so Saxon can soak his hands,” Garrett told the old man. “He just knocked Sven Gunderson down and had him bawling like a baby.”
Cribbins peered owlishly at Garrett. “You been guzzlin’ quarts of bust-head? I thought it sounded like you said this fella just whipped that big ol’ Swede.”
“That’s what happened,” Garrett assured him. “You’re not any more surprised than the rest of us.”
Cribbins looked John Henry up and down. “I been rustlin’ grub for bad hombres for nigh on to thirty years, and I never seen a varmint like the Swede before. He’s half-horse, half-bear, and half-gator. And a scrawny little fella like you whipped him?”
Mallette said, “You can’t always judge by appearances.”
“No, but sometimes you can . . . tinhorn.” Cribbins snorted. “Sit down on that barrel over yonder, Saxon. I’ll fix up a bucket of brine for you.”
Garrett said, “I’ll come back to get you later. Don’t let Lottie asking you to supper go to your head, Saxon. She’s just being polite.”
“Sure,” John Henry said. “I understand.”
When Garrett was gone, Cribbins said, “You’re eatin’ supper with the Flame tonight?”
“You mean Miss Dalmas?”
“Some folks call her the Flame of the Prairie on account of that hair of hers. Sometimes it looks like it’s brown, but other times it looks like it’s on fire. All depends on the light.”
“She doesn’t invite all the new men to supper?”
Cribbins just looked scornfully at him.
That was all the answer John Henry needed.
When he and Mallette left the cook shack an hour later, his hands weren’t as stiff and sore as they had been before he soaked them in the brine. They might still be a little painful to use, but John Henry didn’t think his draw would be slowed down any. That was the important thing.
Quietly, Mallette said, “I think our new friend Mr. Garrett is a bit jealous of the attention our hostess is paying you.”
“You were invited to supper, too, you know,” John Henry pointed out.
“Yeah, but that’s only because I rode in with you. I don’t mind saying that I’ve always been pretty lucky with the ladies, but I know when one of them is interested in me and when she isn’t. You’re the one Miss Dalmas has her eye on, John.”
“I didn’t come here for romance. All I want is to lie low for a while, let the hue and cry over our escape die down, and then move on. I had thought about seeing if I could get a job at the Anvil, even
after shooting Deverill, but I reckon that’s out of the question now.”
“You wanted to ride for J.C. Carson?”
John Henry looked over at Mallette. “You know the man?”
“Only by reputation,” the gambler said. “I always keep my ears open when I’m in a new town, and I heard quite a bit about Carson before Sheriff Rasmussen realized I was wanted and clapped me in jail.”
“What do they say about him?”
Under the circumstances, John Henry wasn’t sure why he was interested in the rancher unless it was just habit. A wise man asked questions and learned as much as he could about everything that went on around him.
“That he’s pretty ruthless about getting whatever he wants. His foreman, Dell Bartlett, has a reputation as a gunman, and so do most of the other men who work for him. He’s been feuding with the other big cattleman in the area, Jed Montayne, for years.”
“Sounds like a range war in the making,” John Henry commented.
“Yeah. A setup like that would be a good opportunity for a man like you to make some money if you weren’t already running from the law.”
“There’s always somebody else who needs a hired gun,” John Henry said offhandedly. “If it’s not this range war, there’ll be another one coming along before you know it.”
He was wary as he and Mallette went into the bunkhouse. It was possible that Sven Gunderson might be lying in wait for him and want to get even.
Gunderson just sat on his bunk, though, and glared at John Henry and Mallette as they came in. His nose had stopped bleeding, but it was swollen and somebody had fastened a plaster on it, the white color standing out in stark contrast against Gunderson’s deeply tanned face.
John Henry got a clean shirt from his gear and washed up at the pump behind the bunkhouse, dousing his head and shaking it to make the water fly away from his hair.
Mallette didn’t have any extra clothes, but he stuck his head under the water, too, to get rid of the trail dust. The two of them looked slightly more presentable when Simon Garrett came to get them and escort them to the main house for their supper with Lottie Dalmas, the so-called Flame of the Prairie.
Chapter Eleven
“You two be on your best behavior,” Garrett warned them as they went in.
“I always am around a beautiful woman,” Mallette said. That comment drew a frown from the outlaw, which the gambler blithely ignored.
The house was furnished like most ranch headquarters, with heavy chairs and divans, a long dining table, thick rugs on the floor, an assortment of rifles and shotguns hanging on pegs, and a massive fireplace that would provide heat in the winter but was cold at that time of year. Oil lamps in wagon wheel chandeliers that hung from the ceiling cast a smoky yellow glow over the room.
The stuffed and mounted heads of several antelope were displayed on the wall above the fireplace. They looked a little moth-eaten, like they had been there a while—probably trophies belonging to the ranch’s original owner. The other furnishings appeared to be relatively new.
Lottie Dalmas was waiting for them in front of the fireplace. She wore a dark blue dress with a low, square-cut, white-trimmed neckline that revealed the creamy, freckle-dusted upper swells of her breasts.
The dress meant she wasn’t wearing a holstered revolver anymore, and John Henry didn’t think she could hide a sheathed bowie knife in the outfit, either.
The fact she was unarmed didn’t mean she was any less dangerous, though. Any woman who could run an outlaw sanctuary and apparently rule it with an iron hand had to be respected at all times.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” she greeted John Henry and Mallette. “Thank you for joining me. How are your hands, Mr. Saxon?”
“They’ll be all right,” John Henry said. “I might think twice about picking another fight with your friend Gunderson, though. Punching him was sort of like punching a stone wall.”
Garrett grunted, but didn’t say anything.
“Not exactly,” Lottie said. “Show them, Simon.”
Garrett hedged. “I don’t think—”
“I said show them.” The sharp tone of her voice removed any lingering doubt about who was the boss.
Garrett hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he lifted his left hand and used his right to tug the buckskin glove off.
“Good Lord,” Mallette said under his breath.
John Henry didn’t say anything and managed to keep his face impassive, but what he saw was shocking.
Simon Garrett’s left hand was twisted and misshapen and covered with angry scars that looked like they hadn’t been there long. It was like someone had taken a hammer and brutally smashed every bone in his hand. The fingers were stiff and immobile, hooked permanently into bent claws. He could hold a horse’s reins with them, but that was all they would be good for.
“That’s what punching a stone wall is like,” Lottie said softly. “And Simon inflicted that punishment on himself.”
“Why would anybody do that?” Mallette asked.
“I was in prison,” Garrett said. In an impressive display of self-control, his face and voice betrayed no emotion. “I got word that my brother was dead. I didn’t think about what I was doing. I was just so full of hate right then that it had to come out somehow.”
A ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. “I wasn’t completely loco. I didn’t use my gun hand. But every time my fist hit the wall, it was like I was dealing out punishment to the men responsible for Henry’s death.”
“Henry Garrett,” John Henry said. “That name’s familiar. I think I’ve heard it. He used to lead a gang of desperadoes up in these parts.”
“It was my gang!” Garrett stopped short and drew in a deep breath. When he resumed, he sounded calm and in control again.
“It was my gang starting out, and then I landed behind bars. Henry took over. He wasn’t much more than a kid, but he kept the bunch together.”
Henry Garrett had done more than that. The information John Henry had gotten from Judge Parker made it clear that Henry had led the gang on more daring and successful raids than his older brother ever had. That must have bothered Simon if he had heard about it while he was in prison.
Any resentment he felt hadn’t diminished his love for his brother, though, otherwise he wouldn’t have smashed his own hand in blind rage when he heard that Henry had been hanged. Judge Ephraim Doolittle’s idea that Simon Garrett was behind the murders of Charles Houston and Lucas Winslow had to be right.
But there might be more to it than that. So far it seemed that Lottie Dalmas was pulling Garrett’s strings. What was her connection with the Garrett brothers?
And why had she made Simon Garrett reveal his self-mutilated hand to two strangers?
“I owe Henry a lot,” Garrett went on. “That’s why I swore a vow that I’d settle the score for him. But Lottie’s the one who showed me how.”
“It’s the judge and the jury who are to blame for Henry’s death,” Lottie said. “Along with the sheriff, of course, but Rasmussen is a fool. It was pure luck that he captured Henry. The judge, though, and the men who sat on that jury, they were the ones who made sure that he died. They’re the ones who need to pay. It’s not enough just to kill them, though.”
She smiled coldly. “They need to suffer first, and nothing makes a man suffer more than being scared. Deep down, lying in his bed at night, soaked in a cold sweat scared. That’s why they’re dying one by one.”
“And that was your idea,” John Henry said.
“It was.” Lottie’s voice held a note of macabre pride.
Nick Mallette said, “That’s . . . quite a story. But why are you telling us about it?”
“We can always use another good man,” Garrett said. “Saxon’s the sort of hombre I’d like to have riding with us. Revenge for Henry isn’t all we’re after. Before we’re through, we’re going to strip this whole part of the country. Every bank, every express shipment on the railroads, every herd of cattle on the ra
nches. It’ll be a cleanup like nobody’s ever seen before. We’ll make all the other outlaw gangs out there look like pikers.”
That was certainly an ambitious goal. Whether Garrett and his bunch could pull it off was pretty doubtful, even with Lottie Dalmas masterminding their plans. Eventually the law would catch up to them and smash them.
But before that happened, a lot of innocent people might die. Others might be ruined.
John Henry knew he needed to put a stop to it before Garrett drew in even more thieves and killers and the gang got too big to stop without a lot of bloodshed. “Those are big plans. I wouldn’t mind being part of them. But what’s to stop a posse from coming in here and wiping out the whole lot of you?”
“Nobody knows we’re holed up here. Everybody in these parts thinks this ranch is abandoned and has been for years. Besides, you saw that trail up the bluff. It’s the only way for miles around to reach this spot. We keep guards at the head of it all the time. Four men with rifles can hold off a posse from there. Hell, they could hold off an army!”
“What about from the northwest?”
Lottie explained. “There’s a deep ravine about two miles from here in that direction. It’s too deep and the walls are too sheer for horses to get across, and it runs for miles, just like that rimrock on the other side. We have men patrolling it, just in case anyone tries to sneak up on us. We might as well be in a fortress here.”
“But if that’s true, then you’re bottled up, too,” John Henry pointed out. “A posse could keep you from getting out, just like you can keep them from getting in.”
Lottie just smiled and didn’t say anything. She didn’t seem concerned about the possibility John Henry had raised—which meant she had at least one more card to play. But it didn’t look like she was going to reveal it.
“The food is ready,” she said. “Let’s eat.”
She led them over to the long table, where Simon Garrett held her chair for her when she sat down at the head of the table. John Henry and Mallette waited until Lottie was seated before they took their chairs. They were to Lottie’s left, facing Garrett to her right across the table.
A Mexican woman Lottie called Valencia brought in platters of beefsteak, potatoes, and greens, along with loaves of fresh-baked bread and a bowl of gravy. The steaks probably came from rustled cows, but it was possible the Silver Skull Ranch raised a few head of beef to feed its visitors.
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