Stand Up and Die

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Most likely, McCulloch figured, seeing the beads scattered about the scene of the tussle and the studs that had been nailed into the broken Spencer’s stock. He spotted one eagle feather that had been caught against a jagged bit of rock.

  “Now what?” he whispered.

  The Indian likely crawled into the rocks. Maybe to die. McCulloch didn’t see the Indian pony, but when a bear comes charging at you, horses run like hell. If that horse with two rear iron shoes hadn’t been part of the mustang herd, it might have joined up already. Even wild horses and trained horses knew the value of teaming up in numbers in that part of the United States.

  He looked up at the rocks, and again at the trail of blood and trampled grass. The wind cooled him. Despite the morning chill, he had started to sweat. He had lived too long to risk his hide going after a wounded Indian. Besides, the bear and maybe the Indian had made finding that herd of mustangs a whole lot harder.

  McCulloch rose, moved to the side of the rocky wall and slid around the bear. Stepping back a few feet, he looked up the mountain and listened again. Still nothing but the wind. Not completely satisfied but in a hurry to get after those mustangs, he decided to make for his horse. He didn’t think the Indian would have another long gun. Maybe a short pistol, but probably nothing more than a knife. Odds were McCulloch could make it to the black, mount up, and ride away without any trouble. Better odds were that the Indian had bled out and would soon be feeding javelinas and coyotes.

  Three steps later, McCulloch leaped back, more from instinct and that hearing he prided himself on. Even then he almost bought it. The knife blade sliced through his shirt, through flannel and the heavy underwear. The Winchester dropped from McCulloch’s hands and into the dirt as he staggered away. Blood trickled.

  The Indian came at him again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sean Keegan had been drummed out of the United States Cavalry after saving the lives of a bunch of new recruits but having to shoot dead a stupid officer who was inclined to get everyone under his command killed. Keegan had learned to accept the fact that he no longer wore the stripes of a sergeant, no longer had a job to whip greenhorns into shape and teach green officers the facts of surviving in this miserable country of Apaches, Comanches, rattlesnakes, cardsharpers, bandits, hornswogglers, and various ruffians.

  He often missed that old life he had led, but every now and then he came across the opportunity to relive some of that old glory.

  The morning proved to be one of those times.

  Purgatory City had become civilized, damned close to even gentrified, with marshals, sheriffs, Texas Rangers, city councils, school boards, churches, and a new newspaper that wasn’t the rag that old one had been. The editor kept preaching—along with the Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Hebrews, and Lutherans—about the need for more schools, better roads, a bridge or two, and higher taxes on the dens of iniquity that allowed gambling, dancing, ardent spirits, and, egads, in some cases . . . prostitution. But there was one place a man could go and feel like Purgatory City remained a frontier town.

  The Rio Lobo Saloon, although no river named Lobo flowed anywhere in the great state of Texas, and certainly not one in the vicinity of Purgatory City. The saloon had been open seven years and had not closed its doors once. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week—no matter how much the Baptists raised holy hell—serving liquor that would either put hair on a man’s chest or burn off the hair he had on his chest. Potent, by-gawd, forty-rod whiskey that would make Taos Lightning seem like potable water. Even that fire that had swept across the bar two and a half years back had not shut down the Rio Lobo, and Sean Keegan had done his best, starting the fire and the fistfight that landed him in jail for thirty days and got him busted, briefly, back down to mere trooper.

  Keegan had arrived the previous afternoon, ate the sandwiches the bartender set out for free to patrons paying for their drinks, did a couple of dances with the prettiest chirpies, put a good-sized dent in the keg of porter, arm-wrestled the blacksmith Winiewski, and lost, that was fine. Nobody had bested the Polish behemoth in four hundred and eighty-three tries, but it took the smithy seven minutes before he damned near broke Keegan’s wrist and forearm.

  Finally Keegan found a seat in a friendly poker game at about two-thirty that morning, and set down with a bottle of Irish and seventeen dollars and fifteen cents.

  When the game broke up while the Catholic church bells were ringing eight times, and folks were opening their shops on Front Street, Keegan tossed the empty bottle toward the trash bin, missed, and smiled at the sound of breaking glass and the curses of Clark, the barkeep.

  “It’s been a fine game,” Keegan said, grinning at the dealer, and sliding him a double eagle. “But I suppose all good things must come to an end.”

  “Thank Queen Victoria for that,” said the weasel in the bowler hat.

  The railroad hand with the ruddy face leaned back in his chair and waited for Sean Keegan to react.

  “The hell did you say?” Keegan asked, though he wasn’t sure if he was looking at the right pipsqueak, since for the moment he saw two, and both of them were fuzzy.

  “I said thank Queen Victoria that you’re leaving. You took me for better than two hundred dollars.”

  “Queen”—Keegan closed his eyes tightly—“Victoria?”

  “Yes.”

  When his eyes opened, Keegan saw only one runt of a weasel.

  “She’s your queen.”

  “The bloody hell she is. She’s the queen of England. I’m Irish,” said Keegan.

  “She’s the queen of England and Ireland, and, if I remember correctly, Empress of India.”

  “She’s a piece of dung like every other English pig, sow, and hog.”

  The runt rose and brought up his fists. “You shall not insult Queen Victoria in front of me, you drunken, Irish pig.”

  What confused Keegan was that he didn’t detect one bit of an English accent rolling off the weasel’s tongue, and while he was trying to figure out why a drummer in a bowler hat who didn’t sound like a Brit would bring up Queen Victoria in West Texas, the little weasel punched Keegan and split both of his lips.

  He had been leaning back in his chair, trying to clear his head, and wound up on the floor, tasting blood and seeing the punched-tin ceiling of the saloon spin around like a dying centipede.

  Chair legs scraped as the bartender said, “Oh, hell.”

  Keegan rolled over and came to his knees, just as the weasel brought his right boot up. The boot, Keegan later recalled, appeared to be a Wellington, which didn’t make the runt an Englishman but hurt like hell, and sent Keegan rolling toward the nearest table.

  “I’ll teach you to libel Queen Victoria and servants of Her Majesty.”

  The Wellingtons crunched peanut shells and a few stray poker chips as the weasel rushed to give Keegan another solid kicking, but Keegan came up with one of the chairs from the nearest poker table, and the chair became little more than kindling after he slammed it into the charging, puny devil.

  “Keegan!” the bartender roared.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Keegan saw the bartender lifting a bung starter and removing his apron.

  Keegan figured that would give him enough time to pick up the bleeding, muttering, sobbing fellow and throw him through the window, which he did. As the glass rained across the boardwalk, hitching rail, Front Street, and the now quiet weasel, Keegan turned to meet the morning-shift barkeep and saw something else.

  The railroad worker was helping himself to some of Keegan’s winnings.

  “You damned sneak thief.” To his surprise, he realized he still held the broken chair leg in his right hand. The railroad thug swore, tried to stuff some more coins and cash into his trousers pocket, then grabbed the pipsqueak’s chair and came after Keegan.

  “You men stop this!” the bartender yelled. “You’ll wreck this place!”

  Like that had never happened before, Keegan thought with a smile
and a few fond memories about previous times when he had tried to shut down the Rio Lobo Saloon. He’d never been able to manage it, but he had done his best, bless his Irish heart.

  The railroad man was used to swinging sixteen-pound sledgehammers, and lacked the savvy needed for surviving saloon brawls. He brought the entire chair over his head, likely intending to slam it hard over Keegan’s head, but as he swung that chair back toward Keegan, the old army sergeant jammed the broken chair leg in the man’s solid gut.

  Not the broken, jagged end. This wasn’t one of those kinds of fights. That would have likely proved to be a mortal wound, and the way Keegan had it figured, this fight was on the friendly side. He was surprised, though, at how hard that man’s belly was. The big man grunted and his eyes bulged, but the chair kept right on coming, and the next thing Keegan knew he was rolling on the floor again, bleeding from his scalp and nose, and his shoulders and back hurt like blazes.

  But he came up quickly, saw the railroad man shaking his head to regain his faculties, saw the barkeep slipping on a pair of brass knuckle-dusters, and saw the house dealer, still at the table, rolling a cigarette and counting his chips.

  Keegan grunted, spit out blood—but no teeth—and lowered his shoulder as he charged. He caught the railroad man in the side, just above the hip, and drove him all the way to the wall. The impact caused both men to grunt, two pictures to fall to the floor, and the bartender to curse and scream that he would kill the both of them if they didn’t stop right this minute.

  The railroad man’s head faced the wall. He had lost his railroad cap, but had a fine head of red hair. Hell, maybe he was Irish, too, but it didn’t matter. Keegan latched on to the hair, jerked it hard, and then slammed the man’s forehead against the wall of pine planks. Another painting hit the floor. Keegan pulled back the man’s head and let it feel pine again. The pine had to be expensive to get all the way from wherever you could find pine trees to the middle of nowhere that was Purgatory City.

  He pulled the head back and was going to see if he could punch a hole in the wall and give the Rio Lobo Saloon a new door, but the railroad worker’s eyes had rolled back into the head, so Keegan let the man drop to the floor.

  Besides, the bartender was bringing back his arm to lay Keegan out with those hard brass knuckles. Keegan ducked, felt the man’s right sail over his head, and heard the crunch as the barkeep’s fist slammed into the wall where there was no painting—actually a cut-out from some old calendar that had been stuck into the frame—to soften the blow.

  The barkeep screamed in pain and grasped his right hand with his left. Tears poured like he was some little baby, and Keegan figured those broken fingers must hurt like hell. They’d likely swell up, too, so that fool would have the dickens of a time getting those knuckle-dusters off. Hell, the doc might have to amputate his hand.

  That wasn’t Keegan’s concern. He grabbed the man’s shoulder, spun him around, slammed a right into the stomach, a knee into the groin, jerked him up, pushed him against the wall, and let him have a left, right, right, left, and finally grabbed his shoulders with both hands and hurtled him across the room. He caught the closest table, slid over it, knocked down and busted a chair, and lay spread-eagled on the floor.

  After sucking his knuckles, Keegan went back to the railroad man and pulled out most of the money the thief had tried to steal. He did leave a few coins, chips, and greenbacks to help pay for the man’s doctor bill, and for damages, and a tip for a hell of a fun fight.

  He then went back to the poker table where the dealer raised his coffee cup while sucking on his cigarette, and smiled.

  “Nice fight, Keegan,” the dealer said.

  Keegan knocked him out of his chair. The man rolled over, his cigarette gone, his coffee spilt, and lifted himself up partly, leaning against a cold stove.

  “What the hell was that for?” the dealer demanded.

  Keegan gestured toward the unconscious railroad worker. “For not stopping him from lifting my winnings.” He stepped back to the table, and began getting the rest of his money, but kept his eye on the dealer.

  The batwing doors at the front of the Rio Lobo rattled, and Keegan recognized a familiar voice.

  “Sean, let’s take a walk to the calaboose, old friend.”

  Keegan laughed, shoved the winnings into his pocket, tossed a greenback at the dealer, and dumped some more money on the felt top of the table. “For damages,” he told the dealer, nodded good-bye, and walked to the old man waiting with the handcuffs.

  “Sergeant major,” Keegan told the old horse soldier from Fort Spalding.

  “It’s deputy marshal these days,” Titus Bedwell said. “Retired from the army a few months back.”

  “Buy you a drink, Titus?”

  “After you’ve served your time, Sean.”

  Keegan shook his head at the handcuffs. “You don’t need those, Sergeant major.”

  “That’s good to know. Let’s take a walk.” Bedwell pushed open one of the doors and nodded at the dealer standing in the back of the saloon. “I’ll let you know, George, if and when you need to testify. And when Millican comes around, have him get with Clark and figure out the damages. But don’t cheat Keegan after what he has paid you already.”

  Bedwell and Keegan walked down the street, Keegan admiring the stares from men and women alike, and laughing as others cleared off the boardwalk to let them pass. When they reached the city jail, Bedwell opened the door, and Keegan walked in and made his way toward his cell.

  “Not that one, Sean,” Bedwell said.

  Keegan stood at the iron door, grabbed the bars, and stared inside.

  “Get out of my face,” the dark figure on the bunk said bitterly.

  Keegan turned, and Bedwell grabbed a set of keys. “That’s Tom Benteen, Sean. We’re hanging him tomorrow.”

  Whirling, Keegan tried to get a good look at the man in the bunk. Tom Benteen. The Benteen brothers and their old uncle, Zach Lovely, and cousin Tom—who had taken the Benteen name after getting sick and tired of folks making jokes about being Tom Lovely or Lovely Tom—had been rampaging across Texas for four years, robbing banks, trains, killing two sheriff’s deputies, a judge, a jailer, four bank tellers, two railroad conductors, and one lawyer from San Angelo . . . but no one cared much about the lawyer.

  “How’d you catch him?” Keegan asked.

  “Jed Breen brought him in.”

  “Alive?” Keegan laughed and spit out blood. “Jed’s getting soft in his old age.” He turned around and shook his head. “I must have missed the trial.”

  “Didn’t last long,” Bedwell said.

  Keegan looked back at Tom Benteen. “Hey, Tom, what’re your cousins Bob and Hank gonna do without you?”

  The front door opened and a deep voice said, “Yeah, Tom. What exactly am I gonna do without you?” The metallic cocking of a revolver punctuated the end of that sentence.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Whoever named Deep Flood, Texas, had a sense of humor Jed Breen appreciated. He was willing to bet that the wells dug in this town reached two hundred feet, the nearest ground water had to be twenty miles away, and the last time this one-road town had experienced a flood occurred when a gent named Noah had built himself an ark. But it was a town, with a pretty decent café, a livery, a saloon, a barber shop, and a hotel with a soft mattress—plus it was on the way to Purgatory City. The hotel, café, livery, and saloon were what Jed Breen needed for the time being. He had boarded his horse for the rest of the day; he had gotten a bath, shave, and a haircut from the barber; had asked the waitress at the café if she could bring a steak, pot of coffee, potatoes, and that last slice of cake to his room; had treated himself to two whiskeys at the saloon; and was heading to that hotel. A good meal, a soft bed and . . .

  Deep Flood had a bank, too, Breen noticed for the first time, but not much of one. From the size of the town, he didn’t know how a banker could make any money, unless he charged outrageous interest, but it was indeed a ban
k. That’s what the sign said that was bending with the wind. Breen tugged down the brim of his hat and leaned against the wooden column in front of the general store—Deep Flood had one of those, too, but it was closed for some reason, likely the lack of business.

  What interested Jed Breen was the fellow swinging out of the saddle of a dun horse in front of the bank. He looked at Breen, who snapped his finger, and turned toward the door to the store. It didn’t open, of course, but he pulled the handle a couple of times, then cursed loudly, and stepped back and stared at the window, as though those lace-up Creedmoor shoes were exactly what his wife needed. Breen didn’t have a wife, but he rubbed his freshly shaved chin and focused on the reflection in the window.

  The man with the dun horse studied Breen’s back several seconds and then moved to his saddlebags. He pulled out a couple of sacks—wheat, grain, something like that—but one of them wouldn’t hold much meal. Holes had been cut out near the bottom. The man also unbuttoned his coat, looked at Breen again, and finally moved to the door of the bank.

  Breen turned, began whistling, and bounded down the boardwalk, crossed the dusty alley, climbed up the next boardwalk, whistling even louder, and pushed open the door to the hotel, letting the door slam, and stopped long enough to tell the hotel clerk, “There’s a gal from the diner bringing me some food upstairs. Don’t worry. She’s just dropping off my supper and then going back to work. I know a classy place like this would frown upon overnight visitors of the friendlier sex.” He made it to the stairs and said as he took the steps three in a bound. “Don’t mind the shooting you’ll likely hear in a few minutes from upstairs. If the girl makes it inside, tell her to take cover behind the stove there, and try not to spill my coffee. And if I were you, buster, I’d drop down behind that counter right now and stay there until the ruckus is over.”

  By the time he finished, he was at the top of the stairs, racing down the hallway, and kicking open the door to his room. He didn’t have time to wait for that bumbling clerk to find his key. He slid to his knees and quickly pulled the leather scabbard from under the bed, slipped out the .45-70 Sharps rifle—the one with the brass telescopic sight—and thumbed out four heavy cartridges from the holder on the scabbard. By the time Breen reached the window, the Sharps was loaded, and the other shells laid perfectly on the floor. He looked out the window, amazed at his luck.