The outlaw Ranger scooped up the weapon and fired from where he knelt beside Tom Nation. Instinct and a sure hand guided the three shots he squeezed off. All three bullets pounded into Santiago Quintero's chest, knocking him back a couple of steps in a macabre, jittering dance. Quintero dropped his gun, pawed at the holes in his chest, then spun around and collapsed.
Amos Pollard, Ray, and Bert were all down, but before he could check on them, Braddock sprang up and dashed over to Quintero to kick the revolver out of the man's reach. He was pretty sure Quintero was in no shape to use the gun again, but taking chances could cost a man his life.
He put the toe of his boot under Quintero's shoulder and rolled the killer onto his back. Quintero gasped and spasmed. He said, "I thought...I thought if I helped him...Henry would...reward me..."
He straightened out and sighed as he died.
Braddock swung around. In the flurry of gunfire he had lost track of Henry Pollard, but he saw now that the shots had caused Ray's horse to bolt out from under him. Henry swung from the noose, kicking feebly. Braddock walked over and looked up at him.
Henry must have tried to get his fingers under the rope in time to keep it from tightening on his neck, but he'd been too slow. The noose had jerked closed when his weight hit it and dug into his flesh so deeply that he couldn't pry it out. His face was dark red, almost purple, and his eyes bugged out so far it looked like they were about to come out of their sockets.
He made some noises, and after a moment Braddock realized they were words. Henry was pleading for his life, saying, "Help...me...help...you're...a Ranger..."
Braddock drew in a deep breath and shook his head.
"No," he said. "Not really."
Then he turned his back on Henry Pollard and went to check on the other men. By the time he discovered that Ray and Bert were both dead but Amos Pollard was still alive, Henry had stopped kicking and hung still and silent instead.
* * *
The sun was well up when Braddock and Tom Nation reined in their horses on a rise overlooking the town of Fort Davis. What was left of the abandoned military post that gave the settlement its name were visible just north of town.
The light of day had confirmed what Braddock thought about Tom's injuries. They would heal, and although they would leave scars, he would be all right. Physically, anyway. No one could predict how wounds of the other sort would mend.
Behind them, linked together with a lead rope, were the horses Braddock had found hidden in the trees along the creek, where Henry Pollard had hidden, too, before crawling out to jump Braddock because he didn't have a gun to ambush him. The horses carried the bodies of Henry Pollard, Raymond Harper, Bert Luttrell, and Santiago Quintero.
Amos Pollard was back there, too, riding hunched over in the saddle, a crude bandage around his bullet-shattered shoulder. He hadn't said a word since Braddock had lifted him onto the horse. He'd looked over at his brother's body, roped face-down over one of the other animals, and silence had been his only response.
That, and a look in his eyes as if grief had begun to consume him from the inside out, a slow, agonizing process that would end only in death.
"I'm sorry I let you down, Ranger," Tom said as he and Braddock sat on their horses. "I didn't get Henry here so the law could deal with him."
"Sometimes the law has to take what it can get," Braddock said.
Tom hesitated, then went on, "What did you mean...when you told Henry you aren't really a Ranger? You've got a badge..."
"With a bullet hole in it."
"That doesn't make a difference. It's still a Ranger badge."
"It's too long a story to tell," Braddock said. "You can make it on into town from here. I have other places I need to be."
Back across the border, he thought. Back in Esperanza, where he wasn't an outlaw, only a man without a home.
Braddock started to turn the buckskin away, then paused and added, "Henry Pollard said one thing worth listening to. June Castle's going to need a friend. I reckon you're better qualified for that job than anybody else."
"Because I'm carved up and ugly, too?" Tom asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"Because you care for her," Braddock said. "And ugly's just like beauty...all in the eye of the beholder."
He lifted a hand in farewell and headed south, back to Mexico, and as he rode he wondered if he would ever be back.
He supposed that would depend on whether Texas had need of an outlaw Ranger.
About the Author
James Reasoner has been a professional writer for nearly forty years. In that time, he has authored several hundred novels and short stories in numerous genres. Writing under his own name and various pseudonyms, his novels have garnered praise from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as appearing on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. He lives in a small town in Texas with his wife, award-winning fellow author Livia J. Washburn. His blog can be found at http://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com.
Outlaw Ranger by James Reasoner
G.W. Braddock was raised to be a Texas Ranger and never wanted anything else. But when he's stripped of his badge through no fault of his own and a corrupt system turns the vicious killer Tull Coleman loose on the people of the Lone Star State, Braddock has to decide if he's going to follow the law—or carry out the job he was born to do, even if it means becoming an outlaw himself!
Never before published, OUTLAW RANGER is the first book in an exciting new Western series by best-selling author and legendary storyteller James Reasoner. Based on actual incidents, this action-packed novel is the stirring tale of a little-known era in Old West history. Rough Edges Press is proud to present this compelling saga of a man haunted by the past and fighting to make a place for himself in the violent world of the Texas frontier.
www.roughedgespress.com
Hangman's Knot (Outlaw Ranger Book 2) Page 10