Outlaw Lawman (Leisure Historical Fiction)
Page 19
Big Nose beat me to it. “We cannot take snakes as prisoners. This was a war. They lost.”
“But they would’ve just ridden the hell out of here! There was no reason to kill them!”
“Sure there was,” Hairy Dog said. “If you ever wanted to walk around anywhere without looking over your shoulder, they needed to die.” He turned his head and spat on the floor. “They was cowards, Pound.”
Blood from the furrow in my head was running rather freely, but not in an amount that I was afraid of. I’d been shot worse. I rubbed some that blood between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand, while I was trying to figure out a response to Dog and Nose.
“Lookit,” I said. “Those men were unarmed and wounded. We’d killed their partners. All they were doing was trying to get out of Gila Bend, and you two shot them down. Where the hell’s the sense in that?”
“The sense is,” Big Nose said, “is them sonsabitches would have killed us in a second if we weren’t the fighters we are. Damn, Pound, for an outlaw and gunman, you sure are passing stupid.”
“The way a white man fights is…”
“I know how white men fight. That’s why I’ve killed so many of them. Dog and me are finished here. Give us our money and we’ll ride.”
“Maybe you’re finished here,” I said, “but I’m not. And until I take down Powers, I won’t be done.”
Powers had quite obviously been listening to our conversation. “Pound,” he called down. “You come on up here an’ we’ll have a good ol’ fashioned gunfight. You got the balls for that?”
“I’ll go one better than that,” I said. “I’ll give you my words these two Indians will let you walk by them an’ out the door if you’re as fast and as good as you say you are.”
“Your word don’t mean shit to me, Pound.”
“It does to the Indians, and that’s what counts.”
Powers seemed to think it over a bit. “Yeah, OK,” he said. “I can’t see that I got nothin’ to lose.”
“Go down to the end of the hall, and I’ll come up the stairs to face you. Fair enough?”
“Fair don’t mean a goddamn thing more than your word does, but come on.”
Except the occasional moan of a man on the floor dying, it was as silent as a cemetery at midnight in the saloon. The fire from the wall and ceiling was moving right along to the second story, but other than some crackling and the snap of dry wood catching fire, it made little sound.
My hands were hot and sweaty and my gut-fire promised to burn right through me if I didn’t get a move on and get this thing finished, one way or another. Powers moved to the far end of the hall, and I came to the top of the stairs. He’d left the door of the room he was in open when he came out of it. There was an open wooden case of dynamite against the wall.
He took his position, the standard gunfighter stance: slightly crouched, left boot back maybe a foot, body angled slightly. His right hand hung just barely above the grips of the .45 in his holster. There was a smirk on his face, the kind one sees on smartass kids who sass their teachers.
I topped the stairs, backed a bit, and set myself up.
Things get slow in a one-to-one battle to the death like this: movement and motion were lagging the slightest bit. Why that is I don’t know. But I’ve talked to gunmen who’ve told me the same thing.
Powers didn’t attempt any eye games with me. Our eyes locked and stayed that way. He flicked his left shoulder a bit to see if I’d react; I didn’t. It was his right shoulder, arm, and hand I was concerned with.
The fire had licked its way to the second-floor ceiling, and I could feel the heat emanating from it. I didn’t think about it; I didn’t think about anything but the Colt .45 in Billy Powers’s holster.
There was a patina of sweat on Powers’s forehead, but I didn’t know whether it was from nerves or the fire moving closer to him. A fat drop hung from his eyebrow for a moment, then dropped down into his eye. That’s when I drew. With that slowing effect—whatever the hell it was—it seemed I had a better part of a day to draw and fire.
Powers’s pistol had barely cleared leather when my first two slugs took him square in his chest. I kept firing; a couple more rounds went to his gut and two to his head.
There was no question whatsoever. Billy Powers was dead, along with his army, his Confederate sympathies, and his disregard for life.
The ceiling fire was moving faster now, hungrier for fresh fuel. I ran back down the stairs, empty Colt still in my hand, hollering, “Come on, boys—we gotta get outta here! That goddamn dynamite is gonna go!”
Dog and Nose didn’t question me—they hauled ass to the door, with me a couple of feet behind them. We ran a good ways down the street and then stood there in the arctic cold, sweating, waiting.
After perhaps five minutes dragged past, Big Nose shook his head. “Is no dynamite…” he began.
Just then the entire saloon rose a good foot from the ground and was wrenched apart as if a twister hit it. The sound was monumental, and it seemed to go on long after the destruction of the building had been wrought.
The explosion lit the whole town of Gila Bend, pushing aside the darkness, burning through the cloud cover.
“You done real good with Powers,” Hairy Dog said.
“Right now,” I said, “I’d rather do real good with that bottle back at the office. This shit takes something out of a man.”
Big Nose shook his head slowly. “No, Pound—you’re wrong. It puts something into a man.”
We turned our backs on the fire and squeaked down the snowy street to the office.
A couple months later I saw the judge’s surrey parked in front of the hotel. There were lots of people on the street, laughing, talking, carrying on like they would in any West Texas town. It was good to see that. A kid and a dog ran past me—best friends, no doubt.
I went into the restaurant bar and sat down at the judge’s table.
“I have to admit,” he said, “that I didn’t expect a bloodbath such as you created, Pound, nor did I anticipate you burning down parts of Gila Bend that could have been put to better uses.”
“A deal’s a deal,” I said. “You didn’t mention any stipulations or so forth when we talked before.”
He smiled and put his hand out to me. “To tell you the truth, I was relatively certain Powers would kill you within the first few days.”
“He didn’t.”
“Obviously.” He poured cognac into a glass and pushed it across the table to me. “It looks like our business is complete, Pound. You’re a heck of a lawman—unorthodox, but you get the job done.” He sipped at his cognac. “I’ll need the badge,” he said.
I started to unpin it, then stopped. “No. I want to stay on as the sheriff of Gila Bend.” I hadn’t made that decision a hundred percent before, but now, facing the judge, I realized it was what I wanted.
“I’m not sure I can…”
“Cut the horseshit, Judge. You haven’t lied to me before, and there’s no reason to start now.”
He leaned back in his chair. “The pay is barely what you’d earn as a cowpoke,” he said. “The town won’t even pay to plant you should you be killed, Pound.”
“I don’t plan on being killed. And the money means nothing to me.”
The judge refilled both our glasses. “I guess we have a deal then—Sheriff.”
“Not quite,” I said. “I’ve hired on a couple of deputies.”
“The budget doesn’t allow…”
“I’ll take care of their pay, and they each have a couple of thousand behind them right now—cash money.”
“Who are these two?”
“A couple of Indians who are the best men in a fight I’ve ever seen.”
“Indians? I can’t…”
I unpinned my badge and tossed it on the table in front of the judge.
“Jesus God, boy, but you’re a pain in the ass. You don’t know anything more about negotiating than a prairie dog does.” He picke
d up the badge and handed it back to me.
“Deal,” he said, holding out his hand again.
“Deal,” I said, taking his hand and shaking to seal things up.
Other Leisure books by Paul Bagdon:
OUTLAWS
BRONC MAN
DESERTER
PARTNERS
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK®
June 2009
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Copyright © 2009 by Paul Bagdon
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