Outlaw Ranger #2
Hangman’s Knot
James Reasoner
Outlaw Ranger #2 Hangman’s Knot by James Reasoner
Copyright© 2014 James Reasoner
Cover Design Livia Reasoner
Rough Edges Press
www.roughedgespress.com
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Chapter 1
Brewster County, Texas, 1900
The first warning the people of Santa Angelina had was a rumble like distant thunder. The sky that morning was a clear blue with no storm clouds anywhere in sight. Rain was unusual here in arid West Texas, anyway. People looked around, frowned, muttered.
Then somebody noticed the dust cloud rising just outside the town and let out a shout. No one knew what was coming, but there was an immediate sense that it couldn't be anything good. Women grabbed kids and hurried to get off the street. Men jerked their heads from side to side as they looked around, trying to figure out what to do.
Less than a minute later, the twenty riders swept into town, yelling and shooting. One of the townsmen caught out in the open screamed and arched his back as a bullet struck him from behind, shattering his spine and bursting out through his guts. He stumbled a couple more steps as blood poured from the exit wound and then pitched forward on his face.
Another man, a rancher who had come into town to pick up some supplies, crouched behind his wagon and aimed his single-shot rifle at the attacking horsemen. He fired, but with all the dust swirling around he couldn't tell if he hit any of the invaders. He bent forward as he fumbled to reload, and because of that the slug that found him went through the crown of his hat, hit the top of his head, and bored on into his brain, killing him instantly.
Along both sides of the street, more men died, cut down by the hail of lead that swept the boardwalks and the front of the buildings. One slow-footed hombre was trampled to bloody hash by the steel-shod hooves of the horses as he tried to flee. The shooting didn't stop until the riders reached the far end of the street.
There they regrouped and reloaded, and then they charged back through town and continued the slaughter.
Inside the Santa Angelina marshal's office, Deputy Tom Nation finished thumbing cartridges into the Winchester he held. The hammering of the pulse in his head seemed almost as loud as the shooting outside. He'd been dozing on the cot in the back room when the attack started, and by the time he'd jumped up, shoved his feet into his boots, run in here and grabbed the rifle and started loading it, the horsebackers had reached the end of the street, turned around, and started unleashing chaos again. Tom didn't know where Marshal Whitby was, but he knew his duty.
He had to get out there and protect the town.
All he had to do was get his leg muscles to work. At the moment they seemed to be frozen solid.
"Damn it!" Tom said. He worked the rifle's lever to throw a shell into the chamber. The curse and the metallic sound of the Winchester's action broke through the fear that gripped him. He forced himself to move. He ran to the door and jerked it open just as the killers swept past again.
A bullet hit the door jamb and threw splinters from it. Tom flinched, but he brought the rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. The Winchester cracked and kicked. One of the riders toppled from the saddle.
That drew the attention of two of the attackers. They whirled their horses toward the marshal's office and blasted shots at the open door. Tom dived to the side and grunted as he landed hard on the floor. He got his knees under him and scrambled toward one of the windows, where he stood up, threw the shutters open, and thrust the rifle out. The two outlaws were charging toward the office as if they intended to ride right through the door.
Tom fired five shots as fast as he could work the Winchester's lever. One of the men rocked back in his saddle as a bullet caught him in the chest. The other man's horse screamed and stumbled and went down, mortally wounded. The other horse ran into it, tripped, and fell, too. Dust hid the tangle of men and flailing horseflesh.
Breathing hard, Tom ran out the back door, turned and pounded along the alley behind the buildings. He cut into one of the narrow passages leading to the street. When he reached the front corner, he saw that he was between Donegan's Hardware and the drugstore.
Some of the outlaws were swarming toward the bank. These men who had invaded Santa Angelina on a hot, sleepy morning were interested in more than death and destruction.
The others were just about back to the north end of town, where they had started spreading carnage mere minutes earlier. It seemed to Tom that the attack had been going on for half an hour, anyway, but he knew that wasn't right.
He leaned against the hardware store's front wall and aimed after the horsemen. He hoped they would just keep riding this time instead of turning around for another savage pass through the town. Maybe a shot or two would help speed them on their way.
Tom squeezed the trigger, worked the lever, fired again. He couldn't tell if he hit any of the raiders.
They didn't leave, though. They turned their horses around yet again and spurred the animals forward.
This time, however, instead of shooting they threw things at the buildings they passed. Tom's eyes stung and watered so much from the dust hanging in the air that at first he couldn't see well enough to understand what they were doing.
Then the first giant ball of flame blossomed, and he knew. They were throwing crude bombs, bottles of kerosene with burning rags stuffed in the necks. When those bottles broke, the kerosene sprayed out and ignited, spreading fire along the boardwalks and the buildings.
Tom didn't know if his eyes were still watering from the dust or if he was crying from rage and frustration. Half a dozen fires were already burning, and he knew he couldn't do anything to stop the town from becoming an inferno. With an incoherent shout, he started shooting again, emptying the Winchester this time. The riders galloped on past and continued to spread their hellfire.
Tom threw the empty Winchester aside. He had a Colt holstered on his hip, so he pulled that as he ran out into the street. It was clear now that the invaders intended to kill everybody in Santa Angelina, so the only thing he could do was go out fighting. He would meet them standing on his feet, shooting until the revolver was empty, and then they would ride him down.
Clouds of black smoke rolled from the burning buildings and mixed with the dust to form a blinding blanket. Tom couldn't see very far through it, but he heard more screams and shots. He imagined the attackers were cutting down more townspeople as the flames forced them to run out into the open.
"Come on, you sons of bitches!" he yelled. "Come on!"
A man on foot lunged out of the smoke at him. Tom caught a glimpse of the blood on the man's shirt and knew that he was wounded. He stepped forward, intending to help the man, but then the man tackled him instead, knocking the gun out of his hand and driving him over backward.
The man's weight landed on top of him and drove the breath out of Tom's body. The back of his head hit the ground hard enough to stun him. Tom's senses swam crazily. Then he regained enough of his wits to realize that the man's hands were around his neck, choking him.
Tom flailed and bucked, but he couldn't get rid of the weight on his chest or the iron bands around his neck. The fingers of his right hand brushed against something, recognized it as the ba
rrel of the Colt he had dropped. He closed his hand around the barrel and brought the gun up to crash it as hard as he could against the man's head.
That did the trick. The man let go of Tom's throat and slumped to the side. Tom fought his way out from under the senseless body, gasping for breath as he did so. Instead of clean air, though, he got a lungful of smoke and dust that sent wracking coughs through his body.
If he stayed here he would die from the smoke, even if the flames didn't get him. He staggered to his feet and was about to stumble away when he hesitated and looked down at the man he had clouted.
Tom didn't know if the man was a citizen of Santa Angelina or one of the invaders. The man's face wasn't familiar, at least what Tom could see of it through his tear-streaming eyes, but that didn't mean anything. He didn't know everybody in town. For that matter, the man could be a cowboy who rode for one of the spreads scattered along the Rio Grande, a few miles south of here. Tom sure wasn't acquainted with all of those punchers.
He shoved his Colt back in its holster, bent down, grabbed the unconscious man under the arms, and started dragging him toward the alley. Sure, the fella had tried to strangle him, but that could have been because he was crazed from his wound and all the chaos around him. Anybody could panic and lash out in dire circumstances like that.
Tom might not be able to save anybody else, but he could save himself and this hombre, he told himself. They had to get clear of the fire.
For a few moments, Tom's world consisted entirely of smoke and flame and fear. He was lean and wiry, not the strongest fella around, and dragging the man was difficult. The easiest thing would have been to lie down and give up, but he forced himself to keep moving, backing through the smoke as he dragged the unconscious man.
Then he burst out into clearer air, and it was like nectar as it poured into his tortured lungs. He wasn't safe, though, and he knew it. He needed to put more distance between himself and the conflagration. So he kept moving stubbornly away from the inferno that had been Santa Angelina.
He didn't stop until he stepped back into empty air and fell into a dry wash about a hundred yards from the edge of town. The man he had brought with him tumbled down the slope with him.
Tom sprawled face down on the sandy bed of the wash. He pushed himself up, shook his head, and looked around. The man lay a few feet away, still out cold, with his face turned toward Tom.
The deputy blinked, pawed at his eyes with the back of his hand. Away from the smoke and the dust, his vision began to clear, and he got his first good look at the man who had jumped him. A shock of recognition went through Tom.
He was looking at Henry Pollard, whose brother Amos owned one of the biggest ranches between El Paso and Del Rio.
Nobody in Santa Angelina had seen Henry Pollard in the past six months. The rumor was that his brother Amos had sent him to San Antonio or Austin or Fort Worth, somewhere well away from the border country after the terrible incident with June Castle.
Now it appeared that he had come back to Santa Angelina—and brought hell with him.
Because Tom was convinced Henry Pollard was the raider he had knocked out of the saddle with his first shot.
Tom drew his gun, which somehow had stayed in its holster during that tumble into the wash. If Henry was loco enough to be part of that raid, Tom didn't want to be unarmed around him. Henry's holster was empty, but he was still dangerous.
Even down here in the bottom of the wash, the huge column of black smoke rising from the burning town was visible, filling a large swath of the sky. Still gripping his Colt, Tom climbed to the top of the slope.
The whole settlement was ablaze, just as he feared. He didn't hear any more shooting, though, so he hoped the raiders had gone, leaving their devastation behind them. Some of the townspeople might escape with their lives, even though everything else they possessed was destroyed.
He heard a groan from the bottom of the wash. When he looked around, he saw Henry Pollard stirring. Tom slid back down. Pollard wasn't fully conscious yet, but his eyes fluttered open as Tom rolled him onto his back.
Tom stood over him, pointing Pollard's own gun down at him. The deputy grimaced as he said, "I ought to go ahead and shoot you like the mad dog you are, Henry. You're responsible for this, damn you! I know you are!" With an effort, Tom brought his raging emotions under control and went on, "You don't look like you're hurt too bad to make it. You're gonna live, Henry, and I'm gonna see to it that you answer for what you've done. By God, if it's the last thing I ever do, I'm gonna see to it!"
Chapter 2
G.W. Braddock rode into Alpine and headed straight toward the two-story red brick courthouse. It was a pretty building with arched windows topped by white trim that stood out against the bricks. Set off to one side and behind the courthouse was a somewhat smaller and less fancy building that resembled it. That would be the jail, Braddock thought.
That was his destination.
He was a tall, lean man who rode easy in the saddle. His skin bore the permanent tan of a man who spent most of his time outdoors. A white scar ran from his forehead up into the sandy brown hair under his pushed-back Stetson. A mustache of the same shade drooped over his wide mouth. He was a young man who looked older than he really was, not an uncommon occurrence in the harsh landscape of West Texas.
As he rode along the main street of Alpine, the only settlement of any size in the vast county that was larger than several Eastern states, he saw the boardwalks were crowded. A low, angry-sounding buzz of conversation came from the throngs. It looked like just about everybody from a hundred miles around was in Alpine today, and most of them were mad.
The settlement lay in a broad, relatively flat valley surrounded by gray, hump-backed mountains. Alpine was a ranching community and always had been since its founding, because the surrounding area was ranching country and not much good for anything else—although there was some cinnabar mining down in the southern part of the county, he recalled, around the little towns of Terlingua, Lajitas, and Study Butte.
The large number of wagons parked along the street and the horses filling the hitch racks confirmed Braddock's hunch that the ranchers from the spreads around here, along with their crews, had come into town. They were there for the same reason Braddock was: to see that justice was done in the case of Henry Pollard.
Of course, their idea of justice likely differed from Braddock's. Most of the people in Alpine probably thought that what Pollard deserved was a short rope and a high tree branch.
Braddock, though, served the law.
He rode around the courthouse and drew rein in front of the jail. A short flight of stairs led up to the entrance, and on the small landing in front of the door stood a couple of men holding shotguns. The stars pinned to their shirts shone in the sun.
"Best just stay on your horse, mister," one of them called to Braddock. "You got no business here."
"How do you know that?" Braddock asked. "Maybe I want to talk to one of the prisoners."
"Ain't but one prisoner in this jail right now, and he ain't gettin' any visitors."
Braddock frowned and said, "One prisoner? In the whole jail?"
"That's right. Now move along."
Braddock glanced at the windows on the building's first floor and saw that several of them were open. He caught glimpses of movement behind them. He looked up at the roof, which was flat instead of the peaked roof of the courthouse. In a couple of places, rifle barrels poked over the edge. From the looks of things, he guessed he had at least half a dozen guns pointed at him right now.
He raised his voice and said, "Now, don't any of you boys go gettin' trigger happy. I just want to show you something."
Slowly and carefully, he raised his left hand and moved his vest aside so that the badge pinned to his shirt underneath it could be seen. The silver star in a silver circle was instantly recognizable as the emblem of the Texas Rangers.
The deputies might not notice there was a bullet hole smack-dab in the
center of the star. Even if they did, that wouldn't make the badge any less real...whether or not Braddock still had the right to carry it.
The two men at the front door looked at each other. One of them muttered, "A Ranger. Didn't the sheriff send for the Rangers?"
"I dunno," the other guard said. "He might've, I reckon."
Braddock let the vest fall back over the badge and smiled slightly.
"Is it all right if I get down off my horse now?"
"Yeah, I reckon," one of the men said. "I mean, sure, Ranger. Come ahead."
Braddock swung down from the saddle and looped the buckskin's reins around the hitch rail. He tugged his hat down a little, hiding most of the scar, and climbed the half-dozen steps. The two deputies moved aside to let him pass.
"Sheriff's office?" he asked.
"Right inside to the left," one of the guards replied.
Braddock nodded his thanks and opened the door. The air in the hallway was hot and still and faintly musty as he stepped inside. He smelled an underlying odor of unwashed flesh and human waste, common to every jail he had ever set foot in.
To his left was a door with a frosted glass panel in its upper half. Gilt letters that read SHERIFF were painted on it. Braddock opened the door and went in.
He found himself in a small outer office with an empty desk in it. A door on the other side of the room led into the sheriff's private office. A bald man with a crisp white mustache stood behind the desk in that room, bent over a little and reaching down as if he were putting something into or taking something out of a drawer. He wore black suit pants, a dark gray vest, and a white shirt buttoned up to the throat without a tie. The vest had a tin star pinned to it. The man straightened, looked at Braddock, and said, "Who're you?"
Braddock moved the vest aside again to let the sheriff see his badge and said, "G.W. Braddock."
"Captain Hughes send you out here?"
Hangman's Knot (Outlaw Ranger Book 2) Page 1