New Mexico Powder Keg

by JR Roberts

  Since he hadn’t been privy to Clint’s conversation with Hall, Ed didn’t find that comment to be very amusing. Clint chuckled anyway and gave Ed a shove. The fact remained that some men were born good and some were born bad. Others were just born to be filthy little rats who got pushed around by stronger men. In his youth, Clint might have felt sorry for those in the last category. After spending enough time seeing just how cruel the world was, he’d learned that more often than not, those rats got what they deserved.

  The streets became much less crowded once they put the entertainment district behind them. It was a short walk to the dry goods store and Clint got there without wasting any time. Even so, there were three men emerging from the place as he and Ed approached it. They didn’t seem to be expecting them but they weren’t exactly about to welcome them either.

  “What the hell you lookin’ at?” one of the men snapped. He was a tall fellow with long, stringy hair and a bowler hat.

  “There a law against taking a walk in this town?” Clint replied.

  “If you’re out for a walk, then keep walking!” Grinning, the tall man added, “You licking this one’s boots now, Ed? I thought you were gonna go into business for yourself?”

  Ed kept his mouth shut.

  The three men chuckled at Ed’s expense but got serious again when it became clear that Clint wasn’t going to be cowed so easily. Standing next to the tall one was a Mexican with a scalp that had been shorn almost down to the skin and a squat man carrying a shotgun. All three stared at Clint as if Ed meant less than nothing.

  “You deaf, mister?” the tall man growled. “I told you to move along.”

  “I’m looking for Andy Bennelli,” Clint said.

  “What for?”

  “I’ve got some horses to sell.”

  “We don’t know you,” the Mexican replied. “Sell your animals somewhere else.”

  “You know me,” Ed said.

  When Clint heard Ed’s voice, his first instinct was to react as though he’d been thrown to the wolves. But it seemed that Ed wasn’t trying to cause any trouble just yet so Clint waited to see where he was headed.

  “You’re a messenger,” said the tall man.

  “And I’m bringing you a message. This man has three horses to sell.”

  “Just take me to Andy Bennelli,” Clint said. “We’ll straighten everything out.”

  The front door of the dry goods store was opened by a man who was easily a foot shorter than almost everyone else in the vicinity. He had a solid, muscular build and hair that stood out at wild angles that made him look like more of an animal than a man. He took one step outside, surveyed what was happening with dark eyes and immediately drew his pistol. Locking a glare onto Clint, he said, “Kill those sons of bitches!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  All three of the other men in front of the store reacted instantly. The man with the shotgun brought the weapon up to fire while the other two went for the pistols at their sides. Despite being surprised by how quickly the fight had started, Clint wasn’t about to be cut down in the street by the likes of them.

  Without taking his eyes from his targets, Clint drew the Colt from its holster and dropped to one knee. Since the scattergun was the one that needed the least amount of skill to be put to deadly use, he sent his first round at the man carrying it. His round burned a hole through the shotgunner’s chest, knocking him back so he emptied his barrels amid a clap of thunder that sent a whole lot of buckshot into the sky.

  The short man who’d gotten this ball rolling stayed in the doorway of the store which also put him behind the row of three men in front of the place. He fired a shot at the easiest target, which was Ed. After putting a bullet straight through Ed’s heart, he ducked back inside and fired once more at the street to cover his departure.

  “Don!” The Mexican hollered. “Get out here!” The Mexican had his pistol in hand and was sighting along the top of its barrel when Clint’s attention was shifted in his direction. The modified Colt barked once more, spitting a round that punched through the Mexican’s skull. As the Mexican dropped, another man filled the doorway of the dry goods store.

  The tall gunman was the first one to fire back at Clint. He did so in a series of fast pulls of his trigger that sent lead hissing through the air to Clint’s left. His shots may have been wild but they were drawing closer, so Clint answered back with a shot of his own. That one clipped the tall man in the shoulder without doing much damage.

  “Clear a path!” the man in the doorway, who Clint guessed was Don, said. Without waiting for anyone to react to his request, Don fired at the street. Since he pulled his trigger without taking a moment to aim, the street was the only thing he had any chance of hitting.

  Clint had used half of the rounds in his Colt. Rather than waste another, he shifted the odds more into his favor by making a move that none of the gunmen expected. He rushed straight at the tall man. Not only did that rattle the biggest gunman, but it also put him between Clint and the others who were trying to gun him down. He reached the tall man after three bounding strides, deciding that he would knock the guy down unless he was forced into something more drastic. The tall man sealed his fate by bringing his pistol around to fire another wild shot that whipped through the air several feet over Clint’s head. Instead of waiting for the big man’s aim to improve, Clint put him down with a single bullet through the heart.

  Apart from Don, there was another weapon being fired from the dry goods store. Clint recognized the cracking shots as coming from a Sharps rifle. The rifle’s barrel wasn’t hard to miss. It protruded from a broken window of the store with smoke still curling from its tip. Now that he was already much closer to the storefront, Clint leaped onto the boardwalk in front of the place and grabbed the barrel of the Sharps.

  The iron was still hot from the rounds that had been fired but that didn’t stop Clint from tightening his grip and pulling the rifle through the window. His intention had been to take the weapon away but he received a bonus when the man behind the rifle decided not to let go of his weapon. The expression on his face was priceless since he seemed just as surprised to be yanked from the store as Clint was to see him flop through the window. To make things even better, the man cracked his head on the wooden frame of the window that had been raised to allow him to poke his nose outside. His head snapped back with a sickening thump and it was plain to see that he was knocked cold, leaving Clint with the Sharps rifle in hand.

  When he saw movement from the doorway, Clint pointed both his Colt and the newly acquired Sharps at the man who’d stepped outside. “Stay right where you are!” he yelled.

  Don stood rooted to his spot.

  “Where’s Andy Bennelli?” Clint snarled.

  “G-gone.”

  “What about the short, scraggly fella?”

  “He’s gone too.”

  “Don’t play with me!” Clint roared as he made his way to the front door. “That short fella was just here!”

  “And he just left,” Don replied in a rush. “Him and Andy both.”

  The inside of the dry goods store was exactly what anyone would have expected. It was mostly open space with several long tables and a few shelves along the walls, all of which was laden with various bits of merchandise. Don stood near the door, bumping against a counter where the cash register was kept.

  “Where’d they go?” Clint asked.

  “Out back. They went . . .”

  Clint holstered his Colt so he could hold the Sharps properly. Prodding Don with the rifle barrel, he said, “Drop the gun!”

  Don did as he was told, although he was so flustered that he seemed to have forgotten he was even holding a pistol.

  “Now show me where they went,” Clint demanded.

  “They went out back.”

  “Lead the way and do it fast.”

  Although Don shuffled his feet at first, a few knocks from Clint was more than enough to get him moving. He took Clint straight to the shop’s ba
ck door, which Clint shoved him through in case anyone was waiting to spring an ambush out there. Nobody fired a shot, so Clint came outside as well.

  Without any torches or light of any kind out there, Clint could barely make out a mix of several large shapes moving away from the lot behind the store. The rumble of horses’ hooves was unmistakable.

  Clint called out to Eclipse but heard no change in the pounding of the hooves. Other than that, he thought he heard wagon wheels and some men’s voices. All of those sounds quickly faded as the whole group rode further into the darkness.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Stay put!” Clint snarled as he turned and stormed through the store. He went straight to the front door, climbed onto one of the horses he’d brought and rode the animal bareback around the building.

  Even though his eyes were adjusted to the dark, there was precious little to see. The sounds he’d heard were gone and when he tried to ride in the direction they’d last been, he quickly came up against a few more buildings that practically leapt out at him from the thick shadows. Just riding that short distance was enough for him to realize the sounds he was hearing could be coming from anywhere for miles ahead of him. Worse than that, those sounds were blending in with the rest of the noise coming from the rowdier sections of Parker.

  “God damn it!” Clint said as he turned the horse around and returned to the dry goods store. To his surprise, Don was still where he’d left him.

  When he saw the expression on Clint’s face, Don shrugged and said, “You told me to stay put.”

  “Where did they go?” Clint asked while dropping down from the horse’s back.

  “Probably the same place they always go when they get some horses that’re worth keeping.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “West.”

  Clint grabbed hold of Don by the collar. “Don’t make me drag it out of you,” he warned. “I’m not in the mood for a long conversation.”

  Don held his hands up as if he had any chance of warding Clint away. “I don’t know a lot more than that. Usually, the horses are just sold off, but every so often, they take some West. Since they’re not usually back in less than a few days, they must be going into New Mex. If they were headed any further than that, they’d be gone longer.”

  “How often do they make those runs across the border?”

  “Usually once a month. They just got a fine stallion in and were gonna head out anyway.”

  “Until they got spooked.”

  Don shook his head. “I think it was a coincidence. Could have been they knew someone might be coming for that stallion but I doubt it. They were set to make that ride either today or tomorrow.”

  “If they weren’t spooked, then you’re telling me they would normally ride out in the middle of the night?” Clint said.

  “Yeah. They would. They all know the way with their eyes closed and Victor’s got eyes like a hawk. I swear to the Lord that man can see in the dark. Some say he just knows this part of the country so well he can get to every little cave without having to look.” Snapping out of the admiring haze he’d fallen into, Don quickly added, “Ask anyone.”

  “Can you take me to where they went?” Clint asked.

  “Not in the dark!”

  “What about at first light?”

  Don winced. “I can get you a little ways in the right direction, I suppose. I’ve gone with them one time before. I should be able to recall a few landmarks.”

  “Just a few?”

  “Once I get out there, some things might start to look familiar. Please,” Don frantically added. “I’ll do my best, just don’t kill me.”

  It wasn’t until then that Clint realized he was still hanging on to Don’s shirt in a grip so tight that his knuckles had turned white. More than that, his other hand had come to a rest upon his holstered Colt and was tensed as if ready to draw and fire the pistol at any second. Suddenly, it didn’t seem strange that Don was being so cooperative.

  Deciding to play on the fear that was already inside the other man, Clint asked, “How many others are here?”

  “They’re gone. Or dead.”

  “Who else is on the way?”

  “Nobody! I swear. Please. If there is anyone coming, they’ll probably just want to watch a fight. Now that the shooting’s stopped, they’ll just get back to what they were doing. That’s how it is around here at this time of night. Any respectable folk lock themselves into their homes at sundown and stay there.”

  “What about the law?”

  Don chuckled until he saw that Clint wasn’t joining in. “I thought you were kidding about the law.”

  “There’s no law in Parker?”

  “There’s a sheriff but he’s more of a street sweeper. Comes along to clean up the bodies once the fights are over. He’ll probably make it here after breakfast.”

  Clint released his grip on Don’s shirt, only to drop that same hand onto the other man’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said as he shoved him out the front door. “We’ll be away from this pit of a town before then.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “So?” Hall said when Clint returned to the stable. “Did everything go as planned?”

  Clint scowled at the bounty hunter. “Not exactly. Didn’t you hear the shooting?”

  “There’s been shooting here and there all night long. This is a wild town. I’m definitely coming back here for another visit sometime.” Pointing his Remington at Harry, he added, “If this one double-crossed us, then we all know what comes next.”

  “I didn’t double-cross nobody!” Harry said. “All I did was send word to Bennelli that someone was coming with some horses to sell. I did it the same way I did it every other time!”

  “Let him go,” Clint said.

  “You sure about that?” Hall asked.

  “Things went south but not because of him. But if he doesn’t forget all about us and what happened here tonight as soon as we leave,” Clint said to the trembling liveryman, “then we’ll be back and we won’t be happy.”

  Harry nodded quickly. “I’ll hold up my end. No problems here, mister. None at all.”

  With that, Clint gathered up his saddle and headed outside with Don following him like an obedient puppy.

  Hall emerged from the livery and strode a few paces to catch up with him. “Mind telling me who the hell this is?” he said while giving Don a not-so-gentle nudge.

  As he led the way down the street a ways, Clint found a hitching post without anyone nearby and tied the horses off. He then told Hall what had happened at the dry goods store while placing his saddle on the horse he’d chosen for the ride into town.

  “So what do you intend on doing with another prisoner?” Hall asked. “Or are we not taking prisoners?”

  Clint hadn’t thought Don could be any more nervous. He was proven wrong when he saw the sweat break out onto Don’s face to cover him in a sheen that glistened in the flickering light cast by a nearby torch. “He can help us find where we need to go.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  “It’s just that he looks like he’ll say just about anything to save his life. Actually,” Hall added, “it looks like he won’t be able to say much of anything at all.”

  As if to prove his point, Don tried to say something in his defense and only managed to sputter a few quaky syllables.

  “He worked with Bennelli and knows a thing or two. He wasn’t valuable enough for any of the others to save before they left but he must have seen some things we can use.”

  “If he knew anything worth knowing,” Hall said, “one of those outlaws would have also tried killing him rather than leaving him with us.”

  By the time they’d reached the hotel where Clint had rented his room, Don finally managed to steady himself enough to say, “They wouldn’t do anything like that. At least … I don’t think they would.”

  Ignoring the frightened man, Hall asked, “Where was thi
s place anyway?”

  “Right there,” Clint replied as he pointed across the street.

  Within a stone’s throw of the hotel was a short row of storefronts including a hat shop and the dry goods store. There were bodies still lying outside of the place but were easily overlooked in the inky darkness and the other pieces of trash scattered in the deeply rutted street.

  “That’s the place where you met up with those horse thieves?” Hall asked.

  “Sure is,” Clint replied.

  “No wonder you knew right where to find it. At least you’re getting to know this town inside and out.”

  “For all the good it’ll do us. We’re leaving.”

  “No, Adams. We ain’t.”

  Clint chose to ignore those words as he hitched the horses in front of the hotel. “I’m going in to fetch my things. You want to help me with the man I got tied in there or do you just want to watch over this one?”

  “I’ll take this one with me and we’ll all ride out in the morning,” Hall said.

  “Strictly speaking, it is morning,” Clint said. “Very early morning. It’ll be light before you know it.”

  “Which means we can get a bit of sleep before riding.” Seeing that he was being ignored once again, Hall moved to stand in front of Clint and stop him with an outstretched hand.

  Looking down at the bounty hunter’s arm, Clint said, “That’s a real good way to lose that.”

  “I know you’re fond of your horse,” Hall said. “Hell, I’d be riled up too if it was my horse that got stolen. But we won’t do any good for any one or any horse if we go floundering around in the dark on a trail we don’t know while we’re too tired to see straight.”

  “I’ve been through West Texas plenty of times,” Clint told him.

  “Enough to know this particular stretch of trail better than men who’ve made it their business to ride this route come rain or shine?”

  Clint didn’t have an answer for that.

  “In fact, we’d have to know this terrain better than those men because the bastards we’re after are horse thieves. If there’s anything more slippery than a horse thief in Texas, I don’t know what the hell it is. Those men will know exactly where to look for anyone following them and they’ll have plenty of hiding spots and ambush points in mind to deal with anyone they find.” Jabbing a finger against Clint’s chest, Hall added, “You know I’m right.”