Tanner had boasted of his knowledge of the Drum bunch, Brazos recalled, as he travelled the warped boards. And he had had two friends at the saloon who seemed to share his admiration for the outlaws. None had seemed impressed when Brazos had opined that every hired gun in the Territory should stretch rope for the good of the country. None too impressed at all, he decided on sober reflection.
Brazos took them for a walk. It was several minutes before he found a suitable place. Behind the cattle-pens he stepped up his pace, slid around a corner—and vanished.
By the time Tanner, Zeb Kling and Lance Byron reached the corner, they were moving at a half-run. They were primed with cheap whisky and carried pick-axe handles. They were united in their intent: they aimed to beat the Texan over the skull and teach him not to run off at the mouth about their heroes at Drum.
The three tangled with each other as they rounded the corner and found the street empty and silent.
Where was he?
A blast of harmonica music sounded directly behind them.
They whirled and Hank Brazos smiled, their consternation and the heavy clubs they carried telling him all he wanted to know. He homed in on them.
“Hello, boys. Going my way?” he asked, as friendly as hell, then slammed a fist like an anvil against Lance Byron’s bullet-head.
Byron went down without a sound, but Tanner and Kling moved surprisingly fast. Splitting up, they attacked from the flanks, waving their clubs menacingly.
“Get the law-lover, Zeb!” Tanner panted.
So that was it, Brazos mused, sparring for space. Not that it mattered much. They were plainly on the hunt for trouble no matter what the reason, real or imagined. And they’d struck paydirt. The Texan hadn’t been born who would walk away from a situation like this, by Hank’s book.
Zeb Kling charged, fast for a man so big. Brazos halted his progress with a solid left, and was cocking the right when Tanner hurled his pick-handle. It caught Brazos in the throat and knocked him off-balance In the same moment, Byron came to and sat up. He spat a tooth, glimpsed a scuffed and cracked range boot and leather-chapped leg, and grabbed.
Brazos was in trouble. In the space of a handful of seconds, he took a jarring jolt to the side of the head, a wallop to the elbow that numbed his left arm, then an agonizing kick in the leg from a brass-tipped boot.
Reeling from the concerted attack, he realized he’d taken the opposition too lightly. These small-town bums were experienced street-fighters.
He balanced himself on the leg which Byron was hanging onto with passionate fervor, drew back his other leg and kicked Byron in the head. Byron skidded along the ground and came peacefully to rest against a lean-to wall.
Brazos took a vicious crack across the head as he whirled on Kling, but the blow only served to fan the flames of battle. Waiting for Kling to swing again, he grabbed the club, hauled the man towards him and at the same moment threw a punch from the shoulder.
The blow landed dead on target and with such devastating impact that Kling would be known as Fatnose Zeb from that time on.
Two down and one to go.
He swung on Gobey Tanner, the ringleader. But like many a man who can talk big in a bar, Tanner was no hero when the odds were loaded against him.
With a wild glance at his motionless friends, Tanner tossed his club in one direction and took off in the other, scattering dust and one startled yellow cat from his headlong path.
For a moment, Brazos was tempted to go after the rough-house ranny and teach him how to say his prayers. Then he decided against it. He’d proved his point and Tanner and company would think twice before taking up the cudgels for their heroes from Drum again. Besides, they’d done him a good turn in a way. For the past five minutes, he’d been anything but bored.
Retrieving his hat, he threw a mocking salute at his fallen adversaries and turned away.
Almost immediately he saw the lithe shape standing by a corner of the cattle-pens. The man stood so still, so ramrod straight, that for a moment the Texan took him for a post. But then he caught the glimmer of light on a cartridge belt and a strange sheen from beneath a low-tugged hat brim, and instinct sent his right hand towards gun butt.
His hand stopped as the man spoke, his voice strangely muffled.
“Don’t pull that unless you aim to use it, big man!”
Brazos halted. He could see both the man’s hands now. They were empty. He also saw that the lower half of his face was covered with a silver mask, the kind worn by some people whose faces were disfigured by illness. Or gunshots. He remembered something Marshal Fallon had said.
“Holly?” he guessed.
The slim shape moved slightly. “How’d you know that? Just who the hell are you, big man?”
“Relax,” Brazos drawled, starting forward. “I’m with the marshal. We’ve been waitin’ for you all day.”
“We? I was only supposed to meet Fallon here.”
“He’s recruited a couple of extra hands,” Brazos said, standing close. “He’ll tell you about it.”
The gunman looked him over carefully, then stared back at the unconscious shapes of Byron and Kling. “What was the ruckus about?” he demanded suspiciously.
“Just a bunch of rannies with big ideas.” He nodded towards the lights. “We’d best be gettin’ along to see the marshal, mister.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, big man. Nobody tells Holly what to do.”
Shrugging, Brazos stood hipshot as he fashioned a Bull Durham cigarette. The gunslinger, who had been attracted by the sound of the fight as he made his stealthy way in from the plains, gave him time to get the smoke going, then jerked his chin towards the town.
“Now we go, big man,” he said. “And don’t make any sudden moves until Fallon tells me you’re all right.”
Hank Brazos had no intention of trying anything smart. The set-to with Gobey Tanner and his friends had been ugly but predictable. They would have thumped him into the ground like a tent-peg had they been able, but compared to this slender, silver-masked man at his side, they had been like clumsy schoolkids. He hadn’t even needed the name nor that sinister face mask to warn him about this man. The bristling he’d felt down the back of his neck the moment they’d come face to face had told him that this one was dangerous.
Chapter Four – The Man Who Didn’t Die
THE KILLER’S FACE ached.
The bullet that had come so close to ending the career of the man called Holly in Dodge City, two years earlier, had done a lot of damage. The heavy .45 slug had caught him in the upper jaw, tearing away half the lip and the lower part of the nose. A mask had been essential to a vain man and it had been fashioned by the best silversmith in Colorado.
There were those who knew the true facts of that night in Dodge who would insist that the killer from Drum had got off lightly. These men could have related how Holly’s murderous temper had touched off a gunfight in a crowded place that had accounted for eleven dead, seven of them women and children. These men would contend that the only fitting punishment for such a crime was not a handsome silver face-mask, but a gallows rope.
Naturally Holly didn’t think that way. When his face hurt as it did tonight as he sat listening to Fallon outline the plan of action, he didn’t think of all those bodies in Dodge City, just of the injustice that had been done to him. The pain made him irritable, and he was never a man to conceal his feelings.
“All right, all right, Fallon,” he snapped, breaking into the lawman’s monologue. “You don’t have to spell it out for me. We head across the badlands to the gulch where you stay behind, and Brazos and Benedict and I ride in to Drum. I tell Shacklock they’re new recruits, he accepts them and then we start lookin’ for the governor’s wife. As soon as we find out where she is, we contact you, then bust her loose. Then we head back to Capital City, you hand me a full pardon and a job in the Militia and everybody lives happily ever after. Right?”
Fallon frowned in the lamplight of the back room of
the Last Hope, then nodded.
“I guess that’s it, though I guess you’re making it sound too simple, Holly.”
“I make everything simple,” the killer retorted, glancing at Benedict and Brazos. “Anythin’ else before I catch some sleep?”
“Hell, man, there’s everything else!” Fallon said. “We need to know things like the numbers we’ll be up against and the disposition of lookouts. We’ll need to plan our run-out, when and if we find Mrs. Arnell—a dozen other things.”
“We can figure the details on the trail,” Holly said impatiently, getting up. “But just so’s you won’t get any sleep, I can tell you how many you’ll be up against, Marshal. How does thirty sound to you?”
Fallon stared. “That many?”
Holly made a careless gesture. “Lawman, with boys like that, ten’s as bad as a hundred. You beat them by guile and cunnin’ or you don’t beat them at all. But stop frettin’. I can handle Shacklock ... I can handle them all. Leave it to me.”
“That’s exactly what we will be doing in the main,” Fallon said glumly. “Hank and Duke will just be there to back your play should anything go wrong.”
“Just as long as they don’t cramp my style, is all.” Holly frowned at Benedict who was buffing his fingernails on the lapel of his broadcloth coat. “He still looks like a dude to me.”
“Take my word, you couldn’t have a better man at your side,” Fallon assured him. Then, “I take it from what you’ve been saying that Kain Shacklock is boss-man in Drum?”
“Yeah,” came the terse reply.
“You’ve heard of Shacklock?” Fallon asked of Brazos and Benedict. Both men nodded. The fame of some of the Drum gunfighters extended far beyond the Territorial borders. The name Kain Shacklock was one. Holly was another.
“He’s a tough one,” the marshal went on, “deadly and completely ruthless. But would I be right in guessing, Holly, that he doesn’t get the same sort of loyalty you men used to give Caleb Flint?”
That was another Drum name known throughout the West. Caleb Flint’s reputation had once had him rated as the fastest of them all, the crown prince of gunslingers west of the Mississippi.
“Flint was nothin’ special,” Holly said sullenly. “Just another gun.”
“That’s not the way I understand it,” Fallon said firmly, eyes fixed on the killer’s. “I still feel we’re lucky we have Shacklock to deal with and not Flint. But then, I don’t believe Flint would have stooped to kidnapping a defenseless woman. Do you, Holly?”
Brazos and Benedict looked from one man to the other. There was an underplay going on here that they didn’t understand.
Holly rested the heels of his hands on the table edge, his hair the color of new rope under the drop-light. His eyes were cold.
“Flint was just another gun, Fallon,” he said, his voice as sharp as a Bowie blade.
“If you say so, Holly.” Fallon’s tone was placatory. He had let his natural hatred for this murderous breed tempt him into taunting Holly, but now reason reminded him this was a luxury he could ill afford. He forced a smile. “Have you heard of him lately?”
“Caleb Flint’s dead.”
Fallon stared. “Are you sure? I hadn’t heard anything.”
“He’s the deadest son of a bitch in the Territory,” Holly grated, snatching up his hat. “If you don’t believe anythin’ else in your life, you can believe that, Fallon. See you at first light.” Then he was gone, a slender silhouette in the doorway before he disappeared.
“Whew!” Brazos grinned, wiping imaginary sweat from his forehead. “That gun shark’s one pilgrim with grit in his gizzard, Marshal.”
“He’s one of the most lethal men in the Territory, Brazos,” Fallon said soberly. “Some say he’s the fastest of them all.”
“He’s got a mean look,” observed Benedict. “And that silver mask sure is spooky.” He raised dark brows. “Are you sure he can be trusted, Fallon?”
“Of course not,” Fallon answered without hesitation. He tasted his cold coffee and grimaced. “Holly is a man who’s grown tired of running. I don’t know why but I’m sure that’s the case. He’s after amnesty and the sort of freedom no Drum killer can ever get. We’re prepared to give him what he wants, for a price. I believe he means to go through with our plan. I wouldn’t be dealing with him if I didn’t believe that. But I’m not losing sight of the fact that with men like Holly, it’s self first, last and always. If something goes wrong in Drum, I wouldn’t trust him out of sight. And of course that’s why I sent for you, Duke. I want you there, breathing down Holly’s neck.”
“I guessed as much,” Benedict drawled, and blew a perfect smoke-ring. “Thirty gunfighters, Kain Shacklock running the show, backed up by the Lord only knows who in Capital City—and Holly our ally. Well, I suppose the best that can be said for it is that it probably won’t be dull, Fallon.”
“Not having second thoughts, are you?” Fallon asked. “Quit that kind of talk, Marshal,” Brazos reproved him. “When me and the Yank give our word on somethin’, that’s it. Right, Benedict?”
“Right,” Benedict said with some reluctance.
“It seems to me that our chances are pretty good, all things considered,” Brazos opined to Fallon. “Sure, Holly’s prickly, but he shapes up as somebody who can carry a thing through. He don’t seem scared any by this Shacklock, does he?”
“He’s scared of no man, as far as I know,” Fallon replied.
“Could be he was scared of that Flint feller,” Brazos said.
“Why do you say that?” Fallon asked.
“Somethin’ in his eyes when you was talkin’ about him.” Brazos nodded. “Scared a little, but hatin’ even more. Was there somethin’ between Holly and Flint, Marshal?”
Fallon leaned forward. “I thought you knew,” he said. “Knew what?” asked Benedict.
“About Holly and Caleb Flint. It was Flint who blew half his face away in Dodge City.”
“How come?” Brazos asked curiously. “Wasn’t they on the same side?”
“They were. But apparently Flint held Holly responsible for something that cost many lives. He shot him down and disappeared, has never been heard of since.”
“Sounds a strange kind of gunfighter,” Benedict said.
“Strange and quite impressive by all accounts,” said the marshal. “But it seems he’s dead and gone now.”
“You believe what our friend said about Flint?”
Fallon nodded. “If Holly says a man is dead, you can believe it.”
Caleb Flint forded the Pearl River and followed the watercourse, passing gnarled old cottonwoods and then a bright sweep of desert flowers that grew in pockets of the limestone. The sorrel’s hoof struck a stone sharply and two meadowlarks flew straight up before him, twittering in alarm as they levelled out and winged away.
Far ahead, the Eternal Mountains were a smoky smudge against the blue sky. He headed that way with the San Cristobel Desert stretching away into infinity on his right. The big horseman with the black cigar clenched between his teeth gazed out over the sagebrush. One light jerk on the reins and he would be heading into those sandy wastes.
A man could lose himself out there. But Flint knew how to find waterholes. He knew how to survive where others would perish. A man could ride through the San Cristobel in easy stages and keep right on going until he got to Mexico, then he could find himself some sleepy little town and get himself a job and a woman. Or he could go Mex and sleep all day and drink all night and his woman wouldn’t nag him the way an American girl would, because she’d be sleeping all day and drinking all night right beside you.
Yes, there were places where a man could hide.
But no place where he couldn’t be found ...
Iron Man Flint rubbed his chest, not feeling like an iron man today, but infinitely stronger than he’d been yesterday, and the day before that. Underneath the heavy blue shirt, his barrel chest was bruised almost from shoulder to waistline, with the deepest, mo
st violent purpling directly over the heart.
The medic who’d treated him in Hogback had been astounded that he’d survived, even allowing for the fact that Holly’s bullet hadn’t broken the skin. The terrible impact should have stopped his heart at such close range, Doc Venner had insisted, and kept declaring he was the luckiest man alive.
Caleb Flint didn’t believe in luck, any more than he believed in love or honor or any of those other qualities that belonged to the past. He’d survived because he was as strong as a bull and because Holly’s single bullet had flattened itself against the steel-backed portrait he carried as a memento of the days when he’d still believed in fairy tales. It was as straightforward and uncomplicated as that.
He rode past a twisted piñon tree shaped like an old man bent in prayer, then out across a sweep of ochre-colored sand, a solitary horseman kicking a spiral of dust into a vast and empty sky.
He still didn’t know how Holly had found him.
Two years ... He’d thought himself safe after that time. Safe from the law, from the wild gun boys with ambitions to hang Iron Man Flint’s scalp on their belts, safe from a lithe, gun-crazy man who hated him. Two years of peace, then everything gone with a rainstorm that had swept away his corn and brought the killer from his past to sweep away the rest.
The woman’s face was already dimming in his memory. She had been proud and serious and affectionate, and now she was dead. But the memory of her boy lingered. Flint had never let the kid get too close; there was no way through his cynical armor. But he’d been a bright kid with a way of laughing sometimes that reminded him of long ago times before the war when he too had been young and given to easy laughter. Before they taught him to kill. And hate.
His cigar had gone out.
The gunfighter reined in and tugged his lucifers from the breast pocket of his shirt, the hot, desert sunlight bouncing off his pale face and striking points of fire from his cartridge belt.
The gun and the belt still felt strange after all this time, yet he knew that even two years of back-breaking labor hadn’t slowed him. Back at Doc Venner’s in Hogback after his nightmare ride down from the Altars, he’d buckled on the black Colt and tested his reflexes on the draw. He found himself as fast as ever and hadn’t been surprised, for Caleb Flint’s awesome gun speed had always been a natural thing, not something he’d had to learn. He believed he’d been as fast the first time he’d buckled on a gun as he had at the height of his Colt career. He’d never known if he were the fastest of them all; it had never interested him in that way. All he knew was that he was as fast as ever, and that he would need to be when he faced Holly.
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