Lynch Law

by Len Levinson

  Nobody was in sight. “Who the hell’s in charge here?” Dawson bellowed.

  A bony little mouse of a man came running into the saloon from a corridor. “Mr. Dawson!” he expostulated. “I’m so glad to see you! What can I do for you?”

  “Whiskey for me and my men.”

  “Yes, sir! Coming right up, sir!”

  Dawson and his men sat heavily on the chairs that surrounded the tables, but nobody dared sit at the same table as Dawson. Nobody sat at the same table with Red Feather, either. The proprietor placed bottles and glasses on each table. When he came to Red Feather’s table, he paused.

  “Should I serve likker to the injun?” he asked Dawson.

  “No,” replied Dawson.

  Red Feather’s face didn’t change its expression, but his heart boiled with anger. He wanted to walk out of the saloon and ride away, but he was being paid to find the killer of Dawson’s son, and couldn’t walk away from Hank Dawson.

  Dawson poured whiskey into his glass and guzzled it down. The ride had been long, and he was tired. Stone and McDermott wouldn’t suspect anything, he didn’t think. They’d just ride into town and get shot down in cold blood.

  Stone and McDermott might not come to Eagleton, he knew. They could be headed to some other town, but Dawson didn’t think so. He’d learned to trust the hunches of Indians, although he didn’t trust Indians themselves. He thought they were murdering, thieving sons of bitches.

  The proprietor walked up to Dawson’s table and bowed slightly. “Anything else, Mr. Dawson?”

  “You got fresh meat?”

  “I’ve got steers out in back.”

  “Steaks for me and my men.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The proprietor walked away. Dawson scratched his thick gray beard and took out a cigar, scraping a match on top of the table and lighting the end of the cigar with it. He took off his hat and hung it from the back of the chair next to him. His men murmured to each other. They were afraid to talk loud for fear of disturbing him.

  Dawson thought of his son. It hurt, but whenever he stopped to relax, that’s where his mind drifted. Dawson felt dead himself. It wasn’t fair, what happened to Wayne. Dawson wanted to kill Stone and McDermott slowly, and watch them suffer.

  ‘I’m offerin’ a hundred dollars bonus to the man who brings me Stone and McDermott alive!” he said.

  That was over three months’ pay. The cowboys sipped their whiskey and thought about saloons with roulette wheels and beautiful girls who’d do anything you want for five dollars.

  At the table by himself, Red Feather watched the men drinking whiskey, and an insatiable thirst for firewater increased in his throat. He wanted some desperately, but all he could do was sit still and stare at a Comanche Indian blanket hanging on the wall.

  He wondered how the proprietor came by the Indian blanket. Had a Comanche traded it for whiskey? Or had the Comanche been killed and the blanket taken from him.

  Red Feather hated the white man and hated himself for doing the white man’s odd jobs, but he was lazy; he liked to hang around towns and drink whiskey. He didn’t want to hunt or go to war unless he was being paid. Turning his head slightly, he looked out the corner of his eye at Hank Dawson.

  Dawson was a great chief of white men, but he was so much different from a Comanche chief, who earned his position by virtue of his skill at hunting and war. Dawson seemed to have no skills whatever. All he had was money. Red Feather had learned that money was everything in the new world the white man was making, and he was anxious to get more money for himself, so maybe he could buy some land and hire cowboys to work for him.

  Dawson would pay him a hundred dollars for tracking down Stone and McDermott, and an additional hundred dollars bonus if he captured them alive. That was enough to get started in the ranching business.

  I will catch them, Red Feather said to himself. They are mine.

  A wagon trail wound its way over the plains like a tan ribbon, and at its end was Eagleton. Stone and McDermott rode on the trail, looking at the town shimmering in the distance, a few miles away.

  “I been to this town before,” McDermott said, “and believe me, there won’t be nothin’ goin’ on today. All we gotta do is walk into the general store and take what we want. You just leave ev’rythin’ to me. I’ll put my gun on the man, and you take rifles, ammunition, money, supplies, ennythin’ you kin lay your hands on. There’s burlap bags behind the bar—just fill ’em up. Grab a couple bottles of whiskey while you’re at it. We’ll have us a little party on the prairie tonight. This is a town that don’t even have a sheriff. Bein’ a crook is easy, sometimes. You might even git to like it.”

  Tom Reece was perched on the highest roof in Eagleton, looking north toward Dumont. His hat was low over his eyes to keep the sun from blinding him, and his eyes swept the prairie from side to side and back again, searching for riders. Then he turned around and searched the terrain on the southern side of the town, in case the riders decided to come in the back way.

  He turned to the north again and looked at the rolling grassy plains. He had a headache, but needed to spot Stone and McDermott before they got close to town.

  Reece took off his tan, wide-brimmed hat, wiped his balding head with his hand, and put the hat back on again. He loosened the bandanna around his neck and unbuttoned a few buttons on his shirt. It was hot as hell on the roof and rivulets of perspiration dripped down his face and plastered his clothing to his body. He wished Atwell would’ve picked somebody else for the lookout job.

  Then he saw something. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, because the heat made everything shimmer in the distance, but then he perceived two men riding on the wagon trail that led to town. Reece knew what Stone looked like; he’d been in the jail the night Wayne Dawson had beat him up, but couldn’t recognize him in the distance. He didn’t recognize the other man either. Reece wondered whether to wait until they came closer, or report to Dawson immediately. He decided not to take any chances, and tell Dawson somebody was coming.

  It wasn’t easy to get down from the roof, because it was steeply slanted and one wrong move could send him tumbling to the ground. Slowly, gingerly, he crept over the clapboard shingles to the edge, then turned and looked at the two riders again. They were closer now, and he could see that one of them was dressed all in black, Tad McDermott the outlaw. The other was tall and broad-shouldered, and had to be John Stone.

  Reece looked down at the ground, approximately a ten-foot drop. Taking a deep breath, he jumped off the roof and fell to the dirt, rolled over, and got to his feet, running toward the saloon.

  Hank Dawson sat in the saloon, eating a massive steak with fried potatoes and a bowl of beans. A drop of gravy stained his shirt but he couldn’t see it, and even if he did, he wouldn’t have cared. All that mattered was the quantity and quality of the food, and the former was more important than the latter.

  Dawson’s mind was totally concentrated on chewing and swallowing. There was a terrible emptiness in him that he always was seeking to fill. It had driven him all his life.

  He wasn’t thinking about his dead son while he was eating. He wasn’t even thinking about Stone and the ambush he hoped to spring. He was just concentrating on masticating food and gulping it down like any other big dull animal.

  Reece burst into the saloon. “I just saw ’em! They’re on their way into town!”

  Dawson stood and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “The sons of bitches are here! Take your positions! You know what to do!”

  Stone and McDermott rode closer to Eagleton over the winding road rutted with tracks left by wagon wheels.

  “I don’t see anybody around,” Stone said.

  “Like I told you, it’s practically a ghost town most of the time.”

  “Seems there should be somebody up and about.”

  “The less people the better.”

  The road inclined toward Eagleton, constructed on a basin in the middle
of the plains. Mountains were in the distance on all sides of the town. Stone’s mind often functioned militarily: it was something that happened automatically, not out of conscious effort. In his cavalryman’s eyes, he viewed the town as a military objective, and wondered how to capture it. He often found himself planning military strategies, although the war had ended years ago.

  First he’d shell the town with artillery placed on the heights surrounding the town, then send in a troop of cavalry on a feint from the south. That would turn the enemy, while he’d send his main force against the northern end of town.

  Stone blinked his eyes. The artillery batteries and troops of cavalry disappeared. Eagleton lay silently in the sun. Stone could see the main street, and a spotted dog was walking down its middle, but there were no people around.

  “I don’t like this,” Stone said. “It’s too quiet.”

  “You worry too much,” McDermott replied. “I tell you— it’s going to be a picnic.”

  Hank Dawson and his men crouched behind windows and doorways, holding their rifles and pistols ready, waiting for Stone and McDermott to come abreast of them. Their orders were to open fire on Dawson’s command, but they were to aim for arms and legs, wound their quarries but not kill them. Dawson wanted to reserve that great pleasure for himself.

  Hammers on pistols were thumbed back. Rifles were cocked and ready to fire. Each man wanted to capture Stone and McDermott, for the hundred-dollar reward. They looked at each other and grinned. At last they were going to capture the men who’d murdered Wayne Dawson and made fools out of them for nearly two days.

  Atwell was on the east side of the street with half the men. Dawson was on the west side with the rest of them. They hoped to catch Stone and McDermott in a murderous cross fire.

  They heard the faint sound of hoof beats approaching from the northern end of town. The hoof beats came closer, and the men tensed, peering out the windows, tightening their fingers around their triggers.

  Stone and McDermott advanced steadily into the town.

  “I still don’t like it,” Stone said. “At least there should be a drunk or a housewife or somebody on the street.”

  “It ain’t that kind of town,” McDermott replied.

  “Something’s telling me to get the hell out of here.”

  “The general store is halfway down the street on the left side. We’ll just ride up to it real easy-like, hitch our horses to the rail, and go inside. I’ll draw on the shopkeeper as soon as he comes out, and you grab everything we need. Got it?”

  “What if there’s shooting?”

  “Shoot back, and don’t be so serious, for Christ’s sake. You look like you’re goin’ to a damn funeral. All you got to do is pay attention to what I say.” McDermott laughed. “I’ll make an owlhoot out of you yet.”

  The sound of hoof beats came closer. Sweat dripped down Hank Dawson’s face and seeped into his beard. He was on his knees beside a window that faced the street, and his men were all around him. They outnumbered Stone and McDermott and should be able to shoot them down without any great difficulty, but gunplay always was unpredictable and dangerous. Stone or McDermott might get off a few shots and kill somebody. Anything could happen.

  Dawson moved the curtain aside and peered down the street. He saw John Stone and Tad McDermott approaching, and clenched his jaw. The revenge he thirsted for would soon be his. He gripped his gun more tightly. “Git ready now,” he said softly. “Here they come.”

  The inhabitants of Eagleton had been told by Hank Dawson’s men to stay indoors and out of sight. They hid under beds, in closets and pantries, and behind furniture, and some took advantage of the opportunity to take a nap.

  Louisa Perez was one of those taking a nap. She lay on her bed with her four-year-old son Tino, her arms wrapped around him, dozing softly. The windows and side door were open to let in fresh air, and curtains fluttered in the breeze. The town was silent, and Louisa fell more deeply into slumber. She was tired because she’d been scrubbing floors all morning.

  Young Tino opened his eyes and lay still for a few moments, watching a fly buzz in lazy circles over his head. He was a chubby little boy with a round face and straight black hair worn long like his father’s, who worked at the stable.

  Tino was well rested and didn’t feel like lying in bed anymore. He wanted to get up and play, but didn’t want to wake his mother because he knew she was tired. She’d give him a smack across the top of his head if he woke her up.

  Gently and smoothly he crawled out of her arms. She moaned and rolled over, turning her back to him. Tino’s teddy bear lay on the floor. Tino slid down from the bed and picked it up.

  He hugged the teddy bear, bright light came to him from the door, and he moved toward it like a moth to flame. He pushed it open and stood in the alleyway between two houses. To his left was the street. He liked to watch the horses, so he turned in that direction to see if any were around. Clutching his teddy bear closer to him, he shuffled barefooted toward the street.

  Stone and McDermott rode down the main street of the town, and Stone still didn’t like the way it looked. He pulled the six-gun out of its holster.

  McDermott noticed him. “What the hell you think you’re doin’?”

  “I feel safer with it in my hand.”

  “You tryin’ to tell everybody you’re an outlaw? Put it away!”

  “Something’s wrong here.”

  “You’ll scare everybody before we git to the store, you damn fool!”

  Stone thought McDermott might be right. He had to settle down and behave normally, so he pushed the gun into its holster.

  “It’ll be easy,” McDermott said. “We’re almost there.”

  Stone looked at the deserted sidewalks and still thought something was wrong.

  The sound of the hoof beats came closer. Dawson could see Stone and McDermott more clearly now, and the corners of his fat lips turned up in a grim smile.

  “Here they are, boys,” Dawson murmured. “They’re walkin’ right into our laps. Get ready now.” Dawson licked his lower lip as Stone and McDermott came abreast of him. “Fire!”

  His men raised their guns and poked them out the windows, then saw something that stopped them cold.

  A little Mexican boy shuffled onto the sidewalk directly in their line of fire, and the men’s trigger fingers froze.

  Dawson hesitated too. He was a rotten son of a bitch, but he didn’t want to shoot a kid.

  Stone and McDermott saw guns and rifles on both sides of them. They ducked and slammed their spurs into the withers of their horses. The horses sprang forward and Stone pulled out his gun. The two horses kicked clods of dirt into the air as they plunged down the main street of Eagleton.

  Dawson saw his quarry getting away. “Stop them!” he shouted. “Bring them down!”

  His men jumped out the windows and charged out the doors, firing down the street at the two riders.

  “Don’t let them get away!”

  Dawson ran out the door and saw Stone and McDermott approaching the far side of town at a fast gallop. His men let out a barrage of fire, but the riders were fast-moving targets getting smaller every moment.

  Bullets flew all around Stone and McDermott, slamming into the ground, whizzing past their ears. They were out of town now, on the open range, heading for the mountains in the distance.

  “I told you that town wasn’t right!” Stone hollered.

  McDermott flashed his desperado smile. “They’ll never get Tad McDermott!”

  The smile vanished from McDermott’s face, and a red flower appeared on the back of his shirt. He closed his eyes and tilted to the side. Stone watched in horror as McDermott fell off his horse and hit the ground.

  Stone pulled back on his reins, and the animal dug in his heels. He jumped out of the saddle and ran to McDermott, lying on his back on the ground. McDermott opened his eyes.

  “Get goin’,” he croaked. “I’m a goner.”

  “You’re coming with me
.”

  McDermott raised his gun and pointed it at Stone’s head. “I said git goin’, and I ain’t kiddin’.”

  Stone looked toward Eagleton. Riders were coming fast, firing guns, and dirt exploded into the air near Stone and McDermott. Stone knew he had to move.

  “You was right about the town,” McDermott whispered, his lips ringed with blood. “Guess I ain’t as sharp as I used to be. It was nice meetin’ you, pardner. If you’re ever somewheres with a purty gal, give her one fer me.”

  McDermott coughed, and blood burbled out of his mouth. A bullet whacked into the dirt ten feet from Stone. He looked at the oncoming riders and knew it was time to get going.

  Stone ran and jumped onto his horse, digging in his spurs. His horse snorted and charged forward. Stone turned around in his saddle and saw the posse spreading out over the prairie and galloping toward him, firing their guns.

  Stone faced forward and looked at the mountains in the distance. The wind stream washed his face and bent the brim of his hat. If I can just get into those mountains, I might have a chance. He had to push his horse even if he rode it to death.

  The horse’s hooves pounded on the ground, and Stone thought of McDermott lying on the ground, bleeding to death, the owlhoot’s luck run out. Something had told Stone to stay out of Eagleton, but he’d gone along with McDermott because he thought McDermott knew what he was doing. Should’ve trusted myself

  A bullet cracked over Stone’s head, and another ricocheted off a rock about ten feet away. Stone hunkered down in his saddle and clenched his teeth as his horse raced wildly toward the mountains.

  Chapter Six

  The galloping horsemen approached the prostrate body of McDermott lying on the green prairie grass.

  “Atwell!” Dawson shouted. “Take the men after Stone and bring him back to me!”

  “Let’s go, men!” Atwell hollered.

  Atwell maneuvered his horse in front of the posse, and they rode hard after the lone rider approximately a thousand yards ahead of them. Dawson pulled back on his reins and slowed down, allowing his men to pass him by. He angled the head of his horse toward McDermott’s body, and it walked in that direction, snorting from the exertion of carrying an extremely heavy man.