"Easy simmer," said Hunter.
"Who the devil er' you?" asked the man closest to him.
"No, no," replied Hunter. "The question is, who the devil do you want to continue to be?"
At that moment, the three men at the back table stood, their chairs sliding on the floor in unison as they pulled their guns and started moving forward.
The talk was over; Hunter pulled both triggers of the shortened 12-gauge, blasting the two gunfighters, and opening up their bellies as they were too late on the draw.
Scooter hit the floor behind the bar.
Hunter dropped the sawed-off, pulled his 44 Colts, and began firing at the men approaching from the back of the saloon. The three were fanned out and firing, but they were hesitant and more concerned with being shot than shooting.
This was where the half-breed gunslinger always had an advantage. He stood steadfast, not caring if he lived or if he died. He had no weak nerve to contend with; he just fired while aiming true and pulling the triggers. The gunslinger drew both pistols simultaneously with the speed of a rattlesnake strike. He shot the man to his left in the chest with his left-hand Colt. At the same time, the man to his right made a gurgling sound as the bullet from his right-hand revolver pierced his liver.
Through the smoke, the revolver in his left hand thundered once again as his right moved to the man in the middle. After opening his belly, his right gun shifted back to the man on the right for another hit. His left Colt shot the man on the left once again as he was falling forward, putting a bullet in his left cheek and out the back of his head. Without hesitation, his right Colt fired back to the middle, accompanied by the left, hitting the scoundrel and not wasting a shot.
The following silence seemed more deafening than the previous sound of gunfire, as it always seemed to do. Hunter dropped the depleted cylinders from his pistols and replaced them with new ones from his belt. He was waiting for the smoke to clear and wondering where Scooter might be lurking when he heard shuffling coming from behind the bar.
With his Colts loaded and holstered, he picked up the shotgun from the floor where it had landed. He broke it and removed the empties, then dug two new shells from the sewn in sleeves inside his coat, and slid them into the chambers. With one quick move he flicked his forearm, locking in the barrels to the stock, and pulling back both triggers with his thumb.
Hunter heard another scraping noise moving away from him; this time he was able to pinpoint the sound, coming from behind the bar.
"Scoo-o-tter-r-r-r, I hear you back there," Hunter taunted as he slowly walked toward the other end of the saloon's counter. Ba-boom, clank, ba-boom, clank was the sound of his boots and spurs as he walked. Hunter got to the end of the bar and turned at the opening. There on the floor, with a gun in his hand, was Scooter Johnson crawling on his belly like the snake that he was.
The gunslinger crushed the man's hand with a boot until he screamed and released the revolver. "Scooter!" said Hunter. "where do you think you're goin'?"
"Go to hell, you stinkin' Injun bastard."
Hunter pushed down even harder with the heel of his boot, two of Scooter's fingers split out the side, spewing blood onto the dirt floor.
"AAAGGGHHH!" screamed Scooter.
Hunter flipped the shotgun around. "Goodnight, belly snake," he said and hit him in the back of the head with the butt end, knocking him clean out.
* * * * *
I'm cold, my head hurts, and my hand hurts, thought Scooter. Where am I? What the hell happened? Scooter's eyelids felt like lead balls as he continued to try to push them open. After some labored flickering, they finally did just that. The problem he had now was focusing; he could see the ground through the blurriness and felt the cold dirt on his left cheek. After some thought, he realized he was laying on his stomach and his hands were tied behind his back. His ankles were latched together too.
"Hey!" Scooter yelled, but it came out not much louder than a whisper.
"Over here, belly snake."
Scooter blinked his eyes several times trying to focus. As his vision cleared, he could see the gunslinger sitting on a rock and plucking the feathers off of a dead chicken, its neck was dangling, clearly broken.
"What are you doin'?" asked he.
"Oh, I'm feedin' my buddies over in the creek, stirrin' them up just a bit."
Scooter tried to turn his head to look around; he could not see the water but he could hear it behind him. He looked back to Hunter, his head hurting as he did so.
"What the hell are ya talkin' bout? You're crazy." Scooter was getting very nervous, one look at that savage Injun son-of-a-bastard and he knew he was in big trouble, but he wasn't sure what that trouble was.
"No, not crazy," said the gunslinger, "What do you call it, vengeful maybe. You and your friends killed people I cared about, and now you will suffer for that – you're the last, end of story."
"What are you gonna' do?" asked Scooter desperately.
"Well," explained Hunter, "I'm gonna do a little fishin'." Hunter stood from his rock and chucked the dead featherless chicken into the creek.
Scooter could hear thrashing in the water behind him as he struggled nervously to look around.
"Well, let's git on with it," said Hunter, as he grabbed Zeke's reins and started moving the horse forward.
Scooter was dragged backwards by his ankles; panic began to set in as his mind began to register what was happening.
Hunter tapped the Appaloosa on the hindquarters, moving the horse quicker and slinging Scooter upside down – up and out, over the water. Pieces of cut chicken fell down and dangled from rawhide strings, coming to rest two feet below his head.
Scooter was swinging like a pendulum as very large gators came up out of the water and snapped at the chicken, just out of reach of the man's head. Scooter was screaming again, as Hunter backed Zeke up a bit, putting his face and head closer to the teeth-laden jaws of the twelve foot reptiles. The largest of the gators stretched his neck up and snapped two pieces of chicken hanging down less than a foot from Scooter Johnson's head.
"PULL ME UP!!!! PULL ME UP!!!!" shrieked the dangling man.
"I'm not the last – Montgomery's alive! HE'S ALIVE, PLEASE!!!"
Hunter urged the Appaloosa forward so the rope hanging over the branch moved with him, pulling Scooter up and out of the reach of the gator's bite.
"What do you mean, he's alive?" yelled Hunter. "I blowed him up in his own hotel."
"NO, NO!!!" said Scooter, calming just a bit, "Think about it – did you see him? He sent his men in there, but he stayed behind."
Hunter dug deep into his memories; he'd been in the ravine behind the hotel that he had wired with black powder. He waited to see the men show themselves in the back window before he pushed down the plunger. He could not remember actually seeing Richard Montgomery. The man who shot his Lilith, his one love, in the head execution style.
"Dammit all to hell," Hunter said aloud. "Where's Montgomery now?"
"He built a house on Lake Okeechobee, I don't know wheres. PLEASE, let me down, I beg you," pleaded Scooter as he dangled just out of reach of the hungry gators.
"Yeah, I'll let you down," replied Hunter.
"Oh, thank God, thank you, God!" said Scooter, almost crying with relief.
"God's got nothin' to do with it," replied the gunslinger, as he quickly pulled out his Bowie knife and slashed the rope, cutting it a foot from the saddle horn.
Scooter's screams were short as he dropped head first into the hungry jaws of the feeding gators, the large reptiles thrashed furiously as they tore the man apart; 'til there was nothing left but red-colored water and a few short pieces of rope.
Hunter James Dolin packed up his gear, feeling no regrets. This man was a scoundrel, and deserved to die. Who names a kid Scooter anyhow? Should have named you gator bait, thought Hunter. He mounted Zeke and got back on his revenge trail, riding southeast with renewed purpose, toward Lake Okeechobee.
Chapter Five
>
Richard Montgomery was a wealthy man; he had struck it rich some years back in Colorado, known at the time as the Pikes Peak Gold Rush of 1859. After Montgomery had mined his claims dry, he moved in on other miner's lands with vigor – the men who would not sell outright were run off or murdered. His money bought him many men who had no problem killing for their living. That was where a young sixteen-year-old girl named Lilith Bailer was found in hiding, after her father refused to sell Richard Montgomery his land. When the smoke cleared, he took her for his own. He told everyone she was his daughter, but unfortunately for her, they were much closer than that.
When the War Between the States seemed to be inevitable, Montgomery traveled to Myakka City, Florida, where with his riches he built a hotel way out of the reach of the fighting armies. What he did not plan on was his Lilith falling in love and running off with a half-breed. His men managed to capture Lilith and in an act of retaliation, Montgomery shot her in the head in the presence of her lover, Hunter James Dolin.
This action resulted in the killing of many men and the destruction of the city. Montgomery was a smart man, as well as unconscionable, and in the end he sent his men into the gunslinger's trap and watched from a safe distance as his hotel exploded. He searched all around for any survivors. Richard assumed the half-breed was killed in the explosion along with his men, so he mounted his horse and left the town behind, leaving it to burn.
Unknown to Montgomery, Hunter had escaped out the back of the building finding refuge in the ravine where his plunger awaited. The gunslinger had dug himself from under the debris to find no one left alive. He presumed Montgomery was dead, and moved on.
It took Richard Montgomery a little over a year to build a new army of men, along with a mansion on the north side of Lake Okeechobee. The southern style home was like no other anywhere in the state of Florida, or any other place on record. Stilted, it stood ten feet off the ground with three floors above that. The first floor had four bedrooms on the four corners of the rectangular shaped building. Located in the center of the floor plan was a fully equipped kitchen along with the eating area.
The second floor was Richard Montgomery's private space, divided into two rooms: one was a large sitting area equipped with leather-backed chairs; the second was his sleeping quarters fitted with a custom built bed and matching dressers. All the furniture had been shipped in from North Carolina on a steamboat that Montgomery owned. The third and last level had four bedrooms on the four corners like the first, the center of this level had a small living area, mostly consisting of boxes of rifles, boxes of ammunition and boxes of dynamite. All three floors had a single fireplace connected to the same chimney running up the outside of the building. The third floor fireplace was never used due to the dynamite and ammunition stored there.
On top of the flat roof stood a waist-high wood wall that went all the way around, like a crow's nest for riflemen. In the middle of the roof was a trap door that had stairs which ran all the way down to the first floor, allowing access to the top from any part of the house. There were railed balconies on every floor all the way around the building. The first floor balcony was connected to ten-foot wide steps that went from the front doors to the ground. The window openings were covered with planked wood shutters with cross-shaped slits in them to allow for shooting rifles.
The men who lived in the corner rooms on the first and third floors were the best sharpshooters Montgomery could find. These men were well fed and well paid for their loyalty.
This house was a fortress; built to protect a man who made many enemies over the years by murdering men, women, and children for the sole purpose of enriching himself. Richard Montgomery was greedy and evil, but at the same time, he was also educated and clever. He had engineering skills acquired in his youth while building bridges for the railroad which he used to build this great house. Holes were dug for the wood pilings cut from yellow pine trees that measured twelve inches in diameter. They had been driven ten to fifteen feet in the ground with a large lime rock boulder that was dug from the edge of the lake. The rock would be tied to one end of a long rope which would then be thrown over a large tree branch. The other end was then fastened to an ox that would be backed up, raising the boulder. Then the animal was quickly led forward, dropping the rock on top of the log, again and again, guided by men with tag lines and driving the wood down into the mud.
When the house was complete, Montgomery could see only one weakness in its defense, Being built ten feet off the ground and of wood made it vulnerable to fire. He'd instructed his local, hired builders to dig a shallow pond under the entire house. A trench was then dug from Lake Okeechobee to the pond under the house, filling it with water. The fenced in waterhole was stocked with gators, six big ones. The water eliminated the threat of fire and the gators kept anyone from sneaking in from the bottom. The place was a fortress, plain and simple.
Richard Montgomery stood at the end of his dock, which was connected to the front stairs of the house by a four-foot-wide by one-hundred-foot long walkout. This walkout was over the top of the trench that carried the water to the gator pit underneath the fortified mansion.
Richard was overdressed for this part of the country; the only thing that looked casual about him in this time and place was his guns that hung from his waist belt. The pistols were 1862 silver plated, Navy Colt revolvers, 36 Caliber, they were custom made and monogrammed on the pearl-boned handles; the French script simply read, Master.
Montgomery was smoking a very expensive Cuban cigar while he watched out over Lake Okeechobee. It was early morning and the fog was thick rising off the top of the lake. His thoughts of smoke on the water were interrupted when he heard hooves stomping the ground behind him. He turned to see two of his men dismount and approach, hurrying up the boarded walk. Montgomery did not like the look on their faces as they reached him.
"What's your purpose, Bodie?" asked Richard, as he blew smoke from his nostrils across his black and grey handlebar mustache. "You're interrupting my quiet time."
"Sorry, Mr. Montgomery, but we have some news from Myakka."
Trenton Bodie was his name. He was six-foot-five, skinny looking, and bowlegged. His shoulders were extra wide, but thin. Strong as an ox, many men had made the mistake of challenging him. He was ex-Army and smarter than most – in fact; he was Richard's right-hand man.
"Well?" insisted Montgomery. "You know I'm not a very patient man."
"Yes sir... We were headin' back from that thing you sent us to do."
"Did you take care of it?" interrupted Richard.
"Yes sir, he won't be testifyin', never."
"Good, good. Have the chink cook you all up a steak, and some whiskey too."
"Thank ya, Mr. Montgomery." Bodie turned to the young man to his right. "Birdie, git on up to the house and start that Chinaman on them beef steaks. I'll be there, right shortly."
"Yes sir, Bode." The tall and skinny blonde boy, with the hooknose that looked like a beak, turned on his heel and ran back up the wood walk.
Richard spoke, bringing Bodie's attention back to him, "By the look on your face and the way you shooed that boy away, I'd say you have somethin' else on your mind."
"There's more news from Myakka, sir, and it ain't none too good."
Richard could see the concern on his face; he knew from experience that Trenton Bodie feared no man. Montgomery suddenly had a bad feeling that ran up his spine and tightened the back of his neck.
"Well, spill it, Bodie – what you got?"
"Like I says, me and Birdie were headed back from takin' care of that business when we took a mind to stop at Scooter's to git a drink. We found Scooter's men dead, shot full of holes. By the size of um, I'd say 44s. They were precision shots, boss."
Montgomery began rubbing the back of his neck as it tightened even more.
Bodie continued after a slight pause. "There were two others, bounty hunters. Their guts were spilled, buckshot by the looks – I'd say sawed-off."
&
nbsp; "Son-of-a-bitch!" involuntarily escaped Montgomery's lips. "What about Scooter?"
"He was missin'; we found a blood trail dragged out the back door."
"Did you foller it?" asked Richard.
"Yes sir; it led us to a water hole, gator filled. There was shredded clothin' and some chewed up pieces of rope. Looked like he were dangled over um like a side of beef, before he was dropped."
"How do you know he was dropped, Bodie?"
"Birdie boy found a boot, with a foot and part of a shin bone in 'er."
"Shit!" exclaimed Richard. "You know that lily-livered…" As soon as he said the word lily, the reality of what was coming hit Richard like a sledge hammer. "Scooter talked – that means he's comin' for me."
"It's him, ain't it. The half-breed..." This was more a statement than a question from Bodie.
Montgomery did not answer. Instead, he ordered, "We got men strewn all over; send the word and git them back here right quick. But don't mention a word about the half-breed, or some of them won't show, got it?"
"Yes sir, boss, right quick," agreed Bodie, as he headed toward the house for that steak. The boy named Birdie would have to get his to go, for he had to round up the men for the trouble that was surely on its way.
Richard Montgomery turned back to the lake; Where is she? he thought. She's a day late. I could really use her now, 'cause I got to kill that savage gunslinger once and for all. He left the dock for the house, knowing there was much to prepare. The gunslinger was coming, and death would surely follow.
Chapter Six
Jebediah and Walt were hunting black bear on the southeast side of Lake Okeechobee, where they found some tracks early on. They had been following them for a week now, and these prints were the biggest either man had ever seen in these parts. Both of them had an idea what they had here, but neither was willing to admit it out loud.
Hunter James Dolin Page 3