Riding Shotgun

by William W. Johnstone

  “What the hell are you?” Red said. “What are you doing in my room?”

  The skull grew closer, grotesque in the eerie glow of the gaslight.

  “What am I? I am the razor man. I am the bringer of pain. I am the herald of your screams, of your shrieks, of your squeals . . . of your death. Woe to you, Mr. Ryan, your dying will not be quick and it will not be pleasant, but your screeching for mercy will be like sweet music to my ears.”

  “Damn you, you’re Skull Jackson,” Red said. “I was warned about you, and you sound like Edgar Allan Poe in them stories of his.”

  “You were warned, and it was a warning you should have heeded.” Jackson shook his horrific head. “Undone by a paid whore. How easy it all was.” A razor appeared in Jackson’s hand. “When it comes to horrors, Edgar Allan Poe is an amateur compared to me. See the blade, see how it shines . . . how keen it is . . . and very soon now soon you will feel its bite. Holla! Here is a splendid idea! A taste of the steel as an appetizer.”

  Jackson moved to the bed, stared down at Red, and smiled. The razor flashed . . . and laid open the top of Red Ryan’s chest from armpit to armpit. Red raised his head and saw a thin ribbon of seeping scarlet that caused little pain . . . at first. Then the fire began.

  “You wince, Mr. Ryan, but that is just a little taste,” Skull Jackson said. “There’s much, much more to come, oh, a thousand cuts more.”

  “You go to hell,” Red said.

  “Ah, bravado. I like that in a man. An obstinate man does not die too quickly.” Jackson rubbed his deeply scarred chin. “Now we’ll play a little game. It’s called question and answer. I will ask the question and you give the answer. Comfy? Good, then we’ll begin. Where is the carpetbag?”

  “Go to hell,” Red said.

  The razor slashed again, from the middle of the cut across Red’s chest to his navel, forming a bloody T. Again, the cut was not too deep, but it hurt like a hundred beestings.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Ryan, the cuts will get deeper as our little game goes along,” Jackson said. “An hour or so before the end you’ll watch your guts spill out onto the bed. Not an agreeable sight, I grant you. Now, back to our game . . . Where is the carpetbag?”

  Red felt blood trickle down the sides of his chest and enter the conduits between the ribs. He felt that his upper body was on fire, and for the first time he felt real fear. “I don’t have the bag,” he said.

  “I know you don’t,” Jackson said. “Where is the carpetbag?”

  “Go to hell.”

  The razor was poised. “Where is the carpetbag?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Another slash, this time a little deeper, to the left side of the bloody T, a six-inch-long vertical cut that readily spurted blood. This one made Red gasp in pain.

  “Where is the carpetbag?”

  “Go to hell. I don’t know.”

  The razor poised again, the blade gleaming pale blue in the gaslight.

  “Where is the carpetbag?”

  Red bit back a groan. “Go to hell.”

  The razor did its work. A gash similar to the last, this time on the other side of the T. And it was deeper.

  “Where is the carpetbag?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The bloody steel blade hovered over Red’s face.

  “Where is the carpetbag?”

  Red opened his mouth to spit out his defiance, but the words were never uttered.

  The hotel room door crashed inward with tremendous force, and a man’s voice yelled, “Drop it!”

  Skull Jackson roared in surprise and anger. He let the razor fall from his hand and went for his holstered gun. A gunshot racketed like thunder in the confines of the small room, and Jackson shrieked as he took a hit. Red turned his head and saw the small figure of T. C. Lyons standing wide-legged just inside the room, the shattered door at his back. He held his Colt in both hands at eye level, his arms extended straight out in front of him. Jackson, unsteady on his feet from a chest wound, thumbed off a shot that missed, and Lyons fired again. For a man who’d never been in a gunfight, he acquitted himself well. His second bullet hit Jackson’s gun hand, caromed off the cylinder of his revolver, took a path upward and crashed into the bottom of his chin. Jackson, choking on lead and his own blood, staggered back, tossed his mangled Colt aside, and bent and grabbed his razor. When he straightened up he went for Red, his nightmare face contorted with hate. He raised the razor for a killing throat slash, but Lyons advanced on him, shooting. Three .45s slammed into Jackson’s body, punching great holes in his chest, and the man let out one last shriek of rage and frustration and dropped to the floor.

  Lyons emerged from the gunsmoke, stepped to the bottom of the bed and said, “Ryan, are you still alive?”

  “Yeah, more or less,” Red said.

  “Damn, that’s discouraging. I was sure Skull Jackson had done for you.”

  “He tried, Lyons. He tried.”

  “You’re all bloody, Ryan. Stay right there, I’m sending for a doctor.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m roped to this damned bed.”

  “I wish I could keep you there,” Lyons said.

  He walked through the doorway and into the hall, and Red was left to gaslight and pain.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  The elderly doctor, a tall, thin white-haired man by the name of Tom Malone, declared Red Ryan’s wounds to be superficial except for the last cut that was deep enough to cause him concern but was not life-threatening, and he discounted any danger from tetanus.

  Directing his pedantic words at T. C. Lyons and Buttons Muldoon, not his patient, he said, “Bleeding wounds are always alarming to the nonprofessional bystander, but—”

  “Doc, they’re alarming to me,” Red said.

  Malone ignored that and continued, “In this case a bandage may be conveniently employed, once the wounds have been thoroughly cleaned with alcohol. Later, if the patient expresses discomfort from pain, laudanum may be administered at the caregiver’s discretion.”

  Hope fled Lyons’s face. “So, Ryan is going to pull through?”

  “I appreciate your concern, Sheriff, but I see no reason why he should not,” the doctor said.

  Lyon’s nodded, disappointment writ large on his face.

  After Red was freed from the ropes that bound him to the bed, Dr. Malone bandaged his chest, left a bottle of laudanum and then stepped aside as Thaddeus Wraith and an assistant carried out Skull Jackson’s body, the death mask of the gunman’s face made even more grotesque by the manner of his dying.

  After the doctor and the undertakers were gone, Red got up from his bloodstained bed and with difficulty dressed.

  “How are you feeling, Ryan?” Lyons said.

  Red managed a smile. “Sorry to dash your hopes again, Lyons, but I’ll survive.” He stuck out his hand. “Thank you for saving my life. You played a man’s part tonight.”

  Lyons thought it over and finally shook Red’s hand. “I’ve never killed anyone before,” he said.

  “You didn’t kill a man, you killed a monster,” Red said. “Skull Jackson intended to slice me up piece by piece.”

  “Maybe you should thank Trudy True,” Lyons said.

  “You mean the treacherous little whore that got me into this mess?” Red’s shirt bulged over his bulky bandage, and he felt light-headed.

  “She thought Seth Roper was playing a practical joke on you,” Lyons said.

  “Roper hired her?”

  “That’s what she told everyone in Joe Dolan’s saloon. One of my sometime deputies heard her.” Lyons smiled. “Whores don’t keep secrets.”

  “And Skull Jackson was the practical joke?” Red said.

  “The girl didn’t know that. But her loose talk in the saloon led me here, so if I were you, I wouldn’t be too hard on her.”

  “All right, what did the girl know?”

  “Roper told her it was all a big joke, that’s all. The girl didn’t know he planned on Jac
kson killing you one cut at a time.”

  “He wanted Stella Morgan’s carpetbag.”

  “And you didn’t tell him?”

  “No. I told him nothing.”

  “You’re a tough man, Ryan.”

  “I don’t know how tough I’d have been after a few more cuts. I think I would’ve told Jackson what he wanted to know.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Lyons said. His watch chimed, and he snapped it open and looked at it. “One o’clock.”

  “Then Stella doesn’t have much time,” Red said. “She sent two killers after me, Danny Kline and Jackson, and she’ll send more. The first train out of El Paso leaves this morning at seven, six hours from now, but without the carpetbag she won’t be on it.”

  “I still don’t have the proof I need to arrest her,” Lyons said.

  “You can arrest Roper.”

  “He wanted to play a practical joke on you, Ryan. He didn’t know that Jackson would show up to avenge his friend. He’s horrified about what happened, just horrified. That will be his defense, and there’s no way around it.”

  Buttons Muldoon said, “On the bright side, so long as she doesn’t have the carpetbag we can keep Stella Morgan in town until Pip Ogden can pin a murder charge on her.” Buttons gave Red a sidelong look and said, “Though me and Red won’t be in El Paso much longer.”

  “I’m not leaving until I see this through,” Red said. “Now it’s become a personal thing with me.”

  “Just to remind you, Red, we got a date with a yellowbelly in Fort Concho,” Buttons said.

  “He can wait. I have a feeling that one way or another, this whole business will be settled real soon.”

  “Ryan, watch your step,” Lyons said. “I don’t want you breaking the law.”

  “Whatever it takes,” Red said.

  “Ryan . . . I don’t like where you’re headed,” Lyons said.

  Red looked the sheriff in the eye. “Neither do I,” he said.

  * * *

  Lyons left, to be replaced by the hotel owner and a couple of maids who had been roused from sleep and looked irritable.

  “I’m here to assess the damage,” said the manager, a bearded man named Pollock who looked a heap more irritable than the maids. “Door wrecked, bedsheets destroyed,” he said. “Mr. Ryan, you’ve brought ruination to my house.”

  “Send the bill to Sheriff Lyons,” Buttons said. “He busted down the door and did the shooting. And as it’s still early yet, Mr. Ryan will need another room.”

  “Then he can move in with you,” Pollock said. “I won’t trust him with another of my rooms. Not after what he’s done to this one.”

  One of the maids looked at the bloody bed, shrieked, and scampered out of the room, adding to Pollock’s annoyance. “That’s it!” he yelled. “Ryan, get the hell out of here, or do I have to throw you out?”

  A split second later he found himself looking into the muzzle of Buttons Muldoon’s Remington, the hammer back and ready. “I don’t advise that,” Buttons said. “But you suit yourself, mister, state your intentions.”

  Pollock’s gaze went from the Remington to Buttons’s bleak eyes, and he decided he wanted no part of either. “At your convenience, of course, Mr. Ryan,” he said.

  “Now is convenient,” Buttons said. “Gather up your stuff, Red.”

  * * *

  Red Ryan sat on the corner of Buttons’s bed and said, “Well, where do we go from here?”

  “I don’t know,” Buttons said. “Do you?”

  “Wait for Stella Morgan to make the next move, I guess,” Red said.

  Buttons nodded. “I thought that might be your way of thinking.” He stepped to the corner of the room and grabbed Red’s shotgun. “Keep this close. You do a sight better with the Greener than you do a Colt’s gun.”

  “Danny Kline is the one that’s dead,” Red said, slightly miffed.

  “Yeah, he is,” Buttons said. “And you’re the one that was almighty lucky.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  It was well after midnight, and Stella Morgan was still awake. And Lucian Carter and Seth Roper were also sleepless. Roper had just brought news of the death of Skull Jackson at the hand of T. C. Lyons, and Stella had summoned Carter to join in what was an emergency meeting.

  “I’m not leaving El Paso without my money and jewels,” Stella said. “It’s out of the question.”

  “Red Ryan is badly cut up and is at death’s door,” Roper said. “That’s what I heard in the Platte, and that’s why I’m here.”

  “We can delay our departure for a few days if need be,” Lucian Carter said.

  “We may have to,” Stella said. “Does Ryan even have the bag?”

  “Him and that fat driver of his?” Carter said, “I’m sure they do.”

  “Seth, saloons are full of gossips. Did anyone in the Platte mention a carpetbag?” Stella said.

  Roper shook his head. “No, but it’s possible Lyons has it, especially if Ryan is about to turn up his toes.”

  “Lyons or the driver, what’s his name? Muldoon,” Carter said.

  “There still might be time,” Stella said. “The train doesn’t leave until seven.”

  Roper shook his head. “That’s pushing it, Stella. T. C. Lyons killed Skull Jackson, not an easy thing to do, and if Lyons doesn’t have the bag we go after Muldoon, and he’s no pushover either.”

  “Damn it, Seth, don’t tell me what we can’t do,” Stella said. “Tell me what we can do.”

  “We need time, that’s all,” Roper said.

  “How much time?” Stella said.

  “Two more days. I can arrange things in that time,” Roper said.

  Carter said, “Roper, you arranged the Ryan business, and look where that’s gotten us . . . nowhere.”

  “Well, hell, Carter, can you do better?” Ryan said.

  “It wouldn’t be hard,” Carter said.

  “Stop it, you two,” Stella said. “There’s no use quarreling among ourselves. Seth, we know what has to be done, so you and Lucian put your heads together and come up with a solution.”

  “It’s easy,” Carter said. “Roper spelled it out . . . first Lyons, and if he doesn’t have the bag, then Muldoon. But as Roper said, we need some time.”

  “Well, it’s not all bad news,” Stella said “It seems pretty obvious that Ryan will die, so that only leaves Lyons and Muldoon. Get the bag and use two bullets and we can leave for Washington free and clear.” Stella’s smile was as beautiful as ever. “Seth, Lucian, why don’t you draw straws for who kills who?”

  “I’ll take Muldoon,” Carter said. “I never liked that man from the git-go.”

  “I can kill Lyons,” Roper said. “But he’s a lawman and it has to look good.”

  Stella said, “That leaves Pip Ogden. Do we have to worry about him?”

  “I’ll take care of him too,” Carter said. “I don’t like him worth two bits either.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Stella said. “Lucian, pour us a drink. I think we all need one.”

  Seth Roper grinned. “Hey, maybe Ogden has the carpetbag.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Stella said. “But I don’t think Ryan would trust him. I mean, he hardly knows the man.”

  Carter raised his glass. “Well here’s to Red Ryan,” he said. “May he rest in peace.”

  “Amen to that,” Stella said. “One down, three to go.”

  * * *

  Stella Morgan lay in bed sleepless, her mind racing. Once the present difficulties were resolved and the carpetbag safely returned to her, she would have a decision to make . . . Roper or Carter . . . which one should accompany her to Washington? Though wouldn’t there be plenty of tough men in the big city willing to do her bidding, at least as long as she remained desirable and had something to offer in bed? Carter was jealous of every man she met, and he might become a burden after a while. Roper was a western man and as rough as a cob. He had muscle and a gun and was willing to kill for her, but she could no
t see him at home in Washington society. Now if Carter and Roper killed each other, it would solve her problem. Stella smiled into the darkness at the thought. How could she make it work? There had to be a way. Well, she’d think about it once her money and jewels were returned. Plenty of time then to . . . arrange things.

  Stella closed her eyes, and whispered in her mind, “John, thank you for dying so conveniently and leaving me a rich woman with so many things to think about.”

  Someone knocked on the door, a soft, discreet rapping. Who could it be at this time of the night? Had Roper or Carter come back hoping for some mattress time?

  The soft, tap-tap-tap again.

  Stella rose, hurriedly put on her dressing gown and picked up her Colt, keeping it behind her back. She stepped to the door and said, “Who is it?”

  No answer.

  Well, she never could resist a mysterious caller.

  Stella opened the door a crack, saw who stood in the hallway, and opened it wider.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said, smiling. “Do come in.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Buttons Muldoon stood in the recessed entrance of Mark Kidd’s Rod & Gun Store and watched into the night, his gaze moving from the street to the entrance of the hotel and back again. He’d had a hard time convincing Red Ryan to lie in bed and get some rest. Although his wounds were mostly superficial, Red had lost blood, and it had weakened him. Buttons didn’t really expect that there would be another attempt on Red’s life . . . yet something nagged at him, a feeling that all was not well, that there was danger in the darkness, unseen, unheard . . . but out there, waiting to strike.

  Buttons had the Irish gift. As his sainted mother had once told him, “Patrick, hindsight is to be admired and so is foresight, but second sight is the most admirable of all. You have the gift, so be sure that you use it well.”

  He was using it well that night.

  A careful man, Buttons had propped Red’s scattergun in the corner of the doorway. He was a fair hand with a revolver, but knew he’d be no match for the kind of gunman Stella Morgan would send to make sure Red was well and truly dead. A 12-gauge Greener loaded with double-aught buck was a great equalizer.