William W. Johnstone

by Savage Texas

  Luke was nowhere in sight.

  The newcomers were covered with trail dust from what must have been a long, hard ride. They looked tough, hardbitten. Nothing unusual about that. Most of the folk of Hangtree County were hardbitten types. If they weren’t, they usually didn’t last long.

  Sometimes they didn’t last long if they were, either.

  One was thirty, redheaded, with a same-colored mustache and long, narrow green eyes. He wore a black hat, black leather vest, and a low-slung gun on his left hip.

  The other had a thick head of oily black hair and blue-black beard stubble. A handsome man in an overblown way, whose looks were spoiled by narrow eyes and a tight, mean mouth. He wore a round-topped, flat-brimmed hat, and red bandanna. His dark, fancy-patterned shirt would have been more at home in a gambling hall than out on the range. Two guns were worn tied down, gunfighter-style.

  Johnny rose, standing up to face the newcomers as they reined in, hands resting easily at his sides, not far from his twin holstered guns. His manner was calm, untroubled.

  The redhead’s dirty face was split by a broad, white-toothed grin. His partner scowled like he was sucking on a lemon.

  “Howdy,” the redhead said.

  Johnny nodded. “What can I do you for?”

  The mean-faced man frowned, spat. “Who’re you?”

  “Seeing as how you’re on my land, I’m the one who should be asking you that,” Johnny said, his outwardly amiable demeanor unchanged. “Who’re you?”

  “You loco or something?”

  “He must be new to the outfit,” the redhead said.

  “Yeh? Well, he ain’t gonna get much older if he don’t learn some manners.”

  “Easy, Reese.”

  “Nobody tells me what to do, Red, not even you. And especially not some punk kid.” Reese looked around, his scowl deepening. “Where’s Monty and the rest of the boys?”

  “Y’all friends of Monty?” Johnny asked.

  “We’re with the outfit. I’m Dan Oxblood,” the redhead said, “and this here’s Reese Kimbro.”

  “Kimbro,” Johnny said, thoughtful-like. “You the one they call Killer Kimbro?”

  “Looks like some sense is starting to sink into that thick skull of yours, and not a moment too soon,” Kimbro said, smirking. “I reckon the name Killer Kimbro means something even to a snotnose like you.”

  Johnny shook his head. “Nope.”

  Kimbro’s thick black brows knitted together in a furious frown. His hand hung poised above the gun on his right hip. “You just bought the farm, sonny. You got your guns on. Go for ’em!”

  “Whoa now, Reese—”

  “Shut up, Red. This is between me and the kid.”

  “Not hardly. Take a look at that set of doublebarrels peeking at us from the corner of that window,” the redhead said.

  “Shucks, now you went and spoiled my surprise,” Luke said. He was inside the ranch house at the window to the left of the doorframe, sheltered behind the wall, holding a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun that rested on the lower corner of the windowsill so the big holes of the twin bores covered the two horsemen.

  Kimbro’s face paled beneath its tan, going sallow. His hand drifted away from his gun, moving well clear of it.

  “Hesh up, Reese, and let me me do the talking; mebbe we can get out of this without getting our heads blowed off,” Red said. He turned his face toward Johnny. “You seem like a sensible enough fellow. We ain’t looking for trouble.”

  “What are you looking for?” Johnny said.

  “Some jaspers we know were camped out this way. We come by to pay them a visit. Social call, you might say.”

  “Monty and friends?”

  “That’s right. They around?”

  “Not any more. They done moved on.”

  “Where to?”

  Johnny shrugged.

  “When’re they coming back?” asked Red.

  “Not in this lifetime.”

  “So that’s the way of it, huh? Looks like we made this trip for nothing,” Red said. “We’ll be riding out then.”

  “You do that,” Johnny said.

  “Hope your friend with the scattergun ain’t got no itchy trigger finger.”

  “Oh, he won’t shoot at nothing less’n he’s got a mind to. Ain’t that right, Luke?”

  “That’s right,” Luke said.

  “He’s a peace-loving type,” Johnny said. “Me, too.”

  “Fine. That’s fine. Okay we go now?” Red asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Well, that’s fine,” Red said. “By the way, I don’t believe I caught your name.”

  “Cross, Johnny Cross.”

  Red stroked a crescent-shaped scar in the corner of his chin. “I heard tell of a fellow name of Cross who rode with Cullen Baker down East Texas way a while back. Cullen, Bill Longley and some other good ol’ boys. Any relation?”

  “Could be,” Johnny said.

  “Fast crowd. Man’d have to be pretty quick to keep up with that bunch.”

  “I like Hangtree better. It’s nice and quiet.”

  “You think so? Well, mebbe.”

  “You seem like you got some sense, Red,” said Johnny.

  “I try.”

  “This here’s Cross land. It’s been Cross land for a long time and that’s how it’s gonna stay. You might spread the word around.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “That’s fine,” Johnny said. “Y’all can go now.”

  “We’re on our way,” Red said.

  “Next time we meet, kid, it’ll be even-up. You won’t always have a shotgun covering you,” Kimbro said.

  Johnny laughed. “If that’s all that’s bothering you, climb down off that horse and we’ll settle it now. Just you and me.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll pick my own time and place.”

  “No time like now.”

  Kimbro sneered. “Betting against a pat hand is a sucker play. I’ll wait till my deal comes around.”

  Red turned his horse’s head away from the ranch house, toward the south. “You do what you want, Reese; I’m riding out.” He touched spurs to the horse’s flanks and started away, the animal moving at an easy lope.

  “You talk big, sonny. Got enough sand to keep from shooting a man in the back?” Kimbro said.

  “The last thing you’ll ever see is me looking you straight in the eye,” Johnny said.

  “Until next time, then,” Kimbro said. He spat on the ground. “See you soon.”

  He turned his horse and started after Red, who’d already put some distance between himself and the ranch house.

  Johnny stood there, watching the two of them ride away. Luke came out of the ranch house and joined him. “We should have cleaned up on them two when we had the chance,” Luke said.

  “It’s a hot day. I didn’t feel like getting rid of any bodies this afternoon,” Johnny said.

  “That Kimbro got a nice fat reward on him.”

  “Now you tell me. Well, he’ll be back. We’ll bag him yet.”

  “Just so he don’t bag us.”

  “Kimbro? I heard of him, sure. I made like I hadn’t to rile him up. But it’s the other one, Red, who’s the dangerous one in that combination.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Dan Oxblood, from west of the Pecos, a real hellbender. He knows some people I know. Did some gun work with Cullen Baker down in the bosky East Texas country. Moved on before I came along so I never met him. Cullen spoke well of him, though, and he don’t have much good to say about most folks.”

  Red and Kimbro angled west, entering the pass to Wild Horse Gulch.

  “What’ll you bet they’re heading down to Buffalo Hump, Luke? To that hideout in Ghost Valley?”

  “No bet.”

  “Dan Oxblood, Kimbro . . . a couple of highpowered gunhawks to be hunkered down in the Breaks. I wonder who else is part of that outfit Red spoke of, and what they’re up to out there.”

  “Knowing you, John
ny, I’m sure we’ll find out the hard way. You made Kimbro look small. He’ll be back and he won’t be alone.”

  “He’ll get what Monty and his pards got. I’m through drifting. Nobody’s bulling me off my land.”

  “. . . ’Course, that don’t mean we can’t make a strategic retreat,” Johnny added. “Let’s herd most of the horses to the upland park where they’ll be safe out of sight. Then we go into town tonight. We’ll pick up some information and see which way the wind’s blowing.”

  “Hot damn! That ain’t all I’m gonna pick up,” Luke said. “You know how long it’s been since I had me a woman?”

  “Judging by the steam coming out of your ears, I’d say too long,” Johnny said.

  FIFTEEN

  Gunfire sounded on Thursday afternoon at Rancho Grande. It came from behind the back of the hacienda, the big house.

  Sam Heller and Lorena Castillo went toward it, Lorena leading the way. They walked side by side, a respectable arm’s-length of distance between them. The sun’s strong heat felt good to Sam. His left shoulder and side ached, and the soothing warmth soaked into him.

  Somewhere beyond the north face of the hacienda, a pair of handguns was blasting away. Sam and Lorena rounded the northwest corner of the house. “Here is where our pistoleros practice their skills,” Lorena said.

  The area behind the back of the house was a stretch of open, empty space, far removed from the corral, stables, bunkhouse, outbuildings, and the little rancheria, the handful of shacks belonging to married vaqueros with families. The space had been turned into a shooting gallery.

  A tiled patio aproned the north face of the hacienda. Beyond its far edge lay a broad, grassy yard enclosed by a chest-high adobe wall covered with a white limestone wash. Behind the wall rose an eight-foot-high earthen mound that served as a kind of a bullet-catching berm, a backstop for target practice. The earthen mound showed a face of bare dirt; no blade of grass grew upon it.

  The top of the wall was lined with a row of empty glass bottles, pieces of pottery, water jugs, empty flowerpots and the like. The bullet-pocked adobe wall was cratered like the face of the moon. It evoked in Sam’s mind the sinister impression of a backdrop for a firing squad. Perhaps it had been used for just that, he thought, though the wall was bare of bloodstains. Don Eduardo reigned supreme on Rancho Grande; he was the law here, wielding the power of life and death.

  It was mid-afternoon. The sun hung halfway between the zenith and the western horizon. A man stood at the ornate stone balustrade at the far end of the patio, facing the adobe wall. An oversized figure in a big sombrero, he cast a long, angular shadow that slanted east.

  The effect was a trick of the light, for there was nothing angular about this big bear of a man. Shaggy-haired, some of his graying locks were entwined into long, snaky braids with little bows of colored ribbons knotted into the ends. The lower half of his face was covered by a bushy irongray beard.

  He stood facing the adobe wall, a six-gun in each hand, blazing away at the bottles and pottery lined up on top of the wall bordering the yard. Alternating from one to the other, he fired the gun in his right hand, then the one in his left. Each shot scored, shattering a bottle or pot.

  Lorena halted where the patio edged the house, Sam stopping beside her. She moved her mouth close to his ear to be heard over the gunfire. “That is Vasquez,” she said. “Do not let his size fool you. He is quick with a gun—lightning fast. The jefe, the chief of Don Eduardo’s pistoleros.”

  A boy stood facing a wooden plank table in the upper left-hand corner of the patio. A slight youth with glossy black hair and birdlike features, he was loading one of a line of pistols laid out on the table.

  A door opened in the north wall of the house and a man stepped out on to the patio. He was carrying some of Sam’s gear: the mule’s-leg sawed-off rifle in its custom-made leather rig; a bandolier whose loops were filled with cartridges for the weapon; and a long, flat, dark wooden box with a suitcase-type handle.

  He made brief eye contact with Lorena, inclining his head slightly in an almost imperceptible bow. Was there a touch of courtly formality there, a sign of obeisance? Or had Sam imagined it? The gesture was quick and subtle, and he was unsure of its meaning, if any.

  “That is Gitano,” Lorena said, low-voiced. “Mark him well, hombre. He is one of mine. His family has served the House of Delgado, my people, since long before the Castillos came to this land. Like Alma, he was one of my retainers who came here to stay with me at Rancho Grande when I married Ramon.”

  Sam recognized Gitano as the piratical-looking Gypsy from the night Lorena had doctored him. In his mid-twenties, he had straight hair, matte black, parted in the middle and reaching to his jawline. It framed a sharp-featured, dark-eyed, clean-shaven face.

  Sunlight glinted off the gold hoop-ring piercing his left earlobe. The cheeks of his mahagonycolored face were pitted with smallpox scars.

  He had broad shoulders, a tapering torso, lean hips. He wore a white ruffled-front long-sleeved shirt, thin black vest, black bell-bottom pants, and good boots. A scarlet sash was wrapped around his middle like a cummerbund, a gun stuck in the top of it.

  The hammer of the gun in Vasquez’s right hand clicked on an empty chamber. The gun in his left also came up empty. The top of the wall was cleared of bottles and ceramics, only pieces of broken glass and potsherds remaining. Vasquez set the empty pistols down on the table so the boy could reload them.

  Gitano crossed to the far end of the patio, bootheels clicking on the tiles. Vasquez glanced over his shoulder, saw Gitano coming. Saw, beyond him, Sam and Lorena.

  Gitano set down Sam’s hardware on the wooden table.

  Sam and Lorena climbed three shallow stone steps to the patio and crossed toward the opposite end. Vasquez turned to face them. Here was the ogre from when Sam had had the bullet pulled. He was all heavy upper body and torso, bandy legs seeming stunted by comparison.

  Vasquez doffed his big sombrero in a gesture of respect. “Buenos tardes, Señora Lorena,” he said.

  “Good afternoon, Hector,” she said.

  Vasquez’s eyes glittered as he gave Sam Heller the once-over. His face split in a big, toothy grin. “Back on your feet, eh, gringo? The last time I saw you, you were flat on your back. I thought we would have to bury you.”

  “Hope you’re not too disappointed,” Sam said.

  “Ha ha, you make the joke, yes? That is good.”

  A man exited the house on to the patio. In his mid-thirties, of medium height, he was trim, athletic, with wavy brown hair slicked back and shaped into a pompadour. His chiseled oval face featured almond-shaped moist brown eyes and an eyebrow mustache.

  He wore a short chocolate-colored jacket with black frogging and trimmings, matching pants that flared at the cuffs, a pale yellow shirt with ruffles at neck and wrists, a hand-tooled brown leather gun belt with an elaborately engraved gold buckle, and a holstered gun worn low on the left-hand side. Expensive imported boots of fine cordovan leather showed off his small, narrow feet to good advantage.

  Vasquez, Gitano and the boy reloading the guns acknowledged his entrance with respectful head-bows. The newcomer crossed to Sam and Lorena. He smiled from ear to ear, exhibiting a gleaming mouthful of pearly teeth.

  “Senor Diego, meet Samuel Heller,” Lorena said, pronouncing Sam’s last name with the H silent: “Ay-lair.” “Senor Heller, this is Diego Castillo, son of Don Eduardo and my brother-in-law.”

  Diego made no motion to shake hands, nor did Sam make the mistake of expecting him to. Sam acknowledged the introduction with a slight inclination of the head, not a bow but a nod.

  Diego’s beaming grin remained undimmed. “Ah yes, the mysterious stranger in whose wellbeing our beloved Lorena has taken such an interest.”

  “My interest is in all things affecting Rancho Grande,” she said.

  “Quite so. It is a tribute to your healing skills that our guest is back on his feet so soon.”

  “For which th
e Señora has my gratitude and thanks—as do you, Señor, for the hospitality of your house,” said Sam.

  Diego made a dismissive gesture, as if brushing away a bothersome insect. “It is of no matter.”

  “Of considerable matter to me, Señor. I hope to thank Don Eduardo for the kindnesses shown to a stranger.”

  “I doubt that will be possible. The padrone is of a most retiring nature and rarely grants the privilege of a personal audience to outsiders.”

  “Then perhaps you will be so good as to convey to him my deep thanks and appreciation.”

  “I will endeavor to do so—when the Don finds the time to condescend to meet with me, his own son.” Diego laughed somewhat self-consciously, as though aware of having revealed perhaps too much of the Castillo family’s inner workings.

  He pointedly turned his attention to the weaponry arrayed on the table, displaying a special interest in the mule’s-leg. “So this is the unusual firearm I have heard mention of! A most formidable-appearing instrument. I have never seen one quite like it. A cut-down rifle, no?”

  “That’s right, Señor,” Sam said. “It’s a Winchester, the latest make. It’s a breech-loading, leveraction repeating rifle. Cutting it down makes it more compact than a carbine but with greater firepower. It can be worn as a sidearm. It’s what’s known as a mule’s-leg.”

  “A ‘mule’s-leg’ . . . ?” Diego said.

  “Because it’s got a kick like the hind leg of a Missouri mule.”

  “Most amusing. Perhaps you would be so good as to give us a demonstration. I am sure we all would like to see it in operation.”

  “If you like.”

  “Please.”

  Diego spoke to the boy. “Pablito, put some fresh targets up.” Near the table was a wheelbarrow whose hopper was full to overflowing with empty bottles and earthenware pots. “Mostly tequila and whiskey bottles, Señor Heller. And those are just the ones our good Vasquez drank.”