Torches burst into flame, and the men carrying them ran toward their targets, one running toward the rear of the house where the kitchen was located. Where Conchita was waiting in the darkness, all lamps out. She sat in a chair facing the back door, holding the double-barreled shotgun, both hammers back.
The gunhand grunted in pleasant surprise when he found the door unbarred. He pushed it open and stepped into the darkened kitchen. John Lee’s hired gun had only a very brief second to realize what he had stepped into and not nearly enough time to scream, pray, cuss, or wish he had stayed home in the Idaho Territory.
Conchita blew him in two, the force of the rusty nails, broken bits of metal, and ball bearings loaded in the shells slamming both parts of the man clear off the back porch and into the dirt where Conchita was trying to raise flowers.
Conchita reloaded then stepped out and threw dirt on the flaming torch until it was out. A gunhand ran around the corner of the house, a torch in one hand and a six-shooter in the other. Conchita showed him the twin muzzles of the shotgun. He lifted his pistol just as Conchita shot him. The blast caught him in the chest, lifted him off his boots, and slammed him backward, the torch falling into a water barrel and dying with a hiss.
She stepped back into the house, taking shells from her apron pocket and reloading. She poured a cup of coffee and sat down in her chair. No one else, not even Jeff Sparks, sat in that chair. “Come on, you sons of Hell,” Conchita said. “I’m waiting.”
“It ain’t workin’, Trest!” Pukey Stagg panted, sliding down beside the gunman behind a well. “The roof won’t catch fire on the house and them ol’ boys is dead shots with them rifles. I seen five of our people go down myself. They’s someone with a shotgun behind the house and Benny and Frank don’t answer to no one’s call. I think they’re dead too and I think we’ve had it for this night.”
Trest looked around him. The torches had been put out by the men carrying them when they realized there was no way they were going to burn anything down except one privy behind the bunkhouse. It was still burning. The man who had torched the outhouse lay dead in front of it.
“Let’s get out of here,” Trest said, after some fancy cussing.
They lost one more man in leaving. Barlow drilled him dead center in the chest and that was the last shot fired that night. Before the men had left their positions, Dodge and the boys were galloping hellbent into the yard.
“I was afraid of something like this,” the foreman said, swinging down from the saddle with the grace and ease of a man half his age. “When’d they hit you boys?”
“’Bout half an hour ago, I think,” Matt told him. “I wasn’t checking the time. It got a little busy around here.”
“So I see,” Dodge said drily.
“Conchita put the skids to two back here,” Bell called from the back of the house. “Blowed one plumb in half and damn near tore the other’n up ’bout as bad.”
“She’s hell with that shotgun,” Dodge said. “And there ain’t no back-up in that woman. Hell of a woman!”
Matt knew then that what the older hands said was true. Dodge and Conchita had quite a thing going for each other. Very discreetly, of course.
“We could probably catch ’em, Dodge!” Gene said. “Let’s go after ’em.”
“You just sit tight, boy,” Dodge told him. “There ain’t none of us goin’ a-blunderin’ around out yonder in the dark. We’d likely be ridin’ right smack into an ambush. We got plenty to do here this night.”
“Dodge!” Conchita called from the side of the house. “You get your old bones in here and sit and have coffee with me. I baked a cake, too.”
Dodge grinned sheepishly. “Take charge here, Matt. I got cake on my mind.”
“Among other things,” Sam muttered, low enough so that Dodge couldn’t hear him. In the West, a man had best be very careful how he spoke of another man’s woman, even in jest.
“Got some wounded over here, Matt!” Lomax called from out of the darkness.
“Be right there.” To Sam: “Let’s go see what these yahoos have to say, brother.”
“I have no doubts whatsoever that the conversation will be mentally stimulating.”
“Sam?” Gene Sparks said, walking along with them. “Can you teach me to talk like that?”
“Certainly!” Sam grinned and looked at Matt who was shaking his head in disgust. “A small voice crying out from the wilderness for education. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Matt reached over and jerked Sam’s hat down over his ears.
Chapter 10
Matt knelt down beside a man who looked like he did not have long to live. He’d been shot through and through, from one side to the other. The pink foam leaking from his mouth indicated he’d been lung shot.
“You got anything you want to say?” Matt asked.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Go to hell, Bodine.”
“You’ll be there a long time before I make it, partner.” He rose and walked to another, squatting down. He knew the man. “Jess. Long way from the Wind River Range, isn’t it?”
“Far piece, Bodine. Looks like I hired my gun out to the wrong person this time, don’t it?”
“I won’t lie; you’re hard hit and there’s no doctor anywhere near here.”
Matt could barely see the nod of the man’s head in the darkness. “I figured I was. Hurts.”
“Family?”
“Naw. Had a wife once. She got smart and left me. That was years ago. Took the kids. I don’t know where they are.”
“Don’t that just break your heart, now?” another shot-up hired gun sneered from his position a few yards away. “I always knowed you was a real sob sister, Jess.”
Jess smiled through his pain and turned on his side. He palmed a derringer with his left hand and put a .41 slug into the outlaw’s head. The tiny two-shot pistol fell from his suddenly very weak fingers. “I never did like him,” Jess said. “I think I’ll just close my eyes for a minute or so.
He never opened them again.
“Conchita is pretty good at patchin’ folks up,” Jimmy said, “But you’ll never get her to work on this bunch.”
“Who the hell wants a greasy Mex to work on them, anyway ?” a gunhand said. “I’d sooner have a goddamn Injun medicine man helpin’ me.”
“You better be glad Dodge didn’t hear that,” Lomax muttered. “If he had, you wouldn’t have to worry none about gettin’ patched up.”
The mouthy gunhand did not hear the last part. He was dead and cooling.
Dodge strolled out into the yard, a cup of coffee in one hand and a large piece of cake in the other. “Take all their guns and ammo,” he ordered. “Store them. Put them that look like they might make it in a wagon. We’ll drive them to where Crossin’ used to be and leave them. If John Lee wants these gunslicks, he can come fetch them.”
“That ain’t decent!” a man shot in both legs hollered.
Dodged turned to Red. “Git a rope, Red.”
“Now wait a minute!” the outlaw bellered. “I ain’t real happy about that suggestion, neither.”
“Then shut your damn mouth,” the old foreman told him. “Open it up again and I’ll hang you. Get this pack of crud out of here, boys.”
The hands were sober and reflective the next morning. They had been very lucky so far, and they all knew it. That six men with rifles had managed to beat back an attack by three times that many was something just short of a miracle, and all knew that the next time the Broken Lance attacked, they probably wouldn’t come out of it nearly so well.
After breakfast, the hands rolled the dead into blankets and buried them in unmarked graves. Jeff Sparks read from the Bible and the hired guns became one with the earth.
Matt and Sam accompanied Jeff and his wife and daughters into town. The ladies went shopping and visiting, while the men went to the saloon.
“Fifteen new folks pulled in yesterday,” Al said with a big grin. “We got us a preacher and a schoolteacher. Got us two
bar girls and a piano thumper. Folks to work the general store on shares and a smithy and leatherworker. Nameit’s gonna boom, boys. I can feel it.”
It would. But not under that name.
“How about supplies for the businesses?” Sam asked.
“Stage stopped by yesterday. Left word that the wagons are rolling from the settlement. Be here today.”
“I reckon we better hang around and see this,” Jeff said. “Big day for us.”
Al turned to look at the clock. “Stage will be back in a couple of hours.”
“How about some coffee, Al?” Matt asked. It was a little early for beer and the café wasn’t open yet. No cook. But one was supposed to be arriving soon.
“Comin’ up.”
“What’s the new buildin’ over yonder?” Jeff asked, pointing across the street.
“That’s the marshal’s office,” AI said. “With all these new people comin’ in, don’t you think Matt should stay in town?”
Matt felt eyes on him. He nodded his head. “That’s probably the best thing,” he said reluctantly. He hadn’t wanted the job of marshal and had taken it only at the other’s persistent requests.
“I’ll stay on as deputy,” Sam volunteered.
“I’d appreciate it, brother.” Conversation stopped at the sounds of wagons rumbling up the street.
“Look at that!” Al said proudly. “The word has gotten out and people are comin’ in. Five wagons with settlers and those are supply wagons behind them. We got us a town, boys. We got us a real town!”
Later, standing outside the saloon, Jeff said, “This ain’t farmin’ country. I got to get the word out about that. Them folks that come in today was merchants and the like. That’s good. But this ain’t farmin’ country. It might be someday, but not now. People have tried and failed.”
Jeff had jumped the gun on John Lee, ordering all available lumber from the settlement’s supplier. Even if John Lee had plans to rebuild Crossing, it would be several months before any lumber order could be filled. He probably knew that by now and would be furious.
Sam pointed that out.
“John Lee can go straight to hell,” Jeff said. “The rest of us are tryin’ to look ahead and build for the future while he wants to destroy. Far as I’m concerned, there’s no turnin’ back now. It’s come down to root hog or die for all sides. I’ll have your things sent in this afternoon, boys. Good luck to you both.”
The heavy hand of John Lee had been lifted from the area. The oppressive and deadly grip he had tried to maintain was, while not gone, at least softened. And the news quickly spread.
For the next several days, the sounds of hammers and saws filled the town. Buildings went up quickly with everybody pitching in to help. Jeff and Ed split their hands and sent half into town to help out. The town of Nameit no longer looked as if it might fall down in a stiff breeze. There was an air of permanency about it now. Women walked the boardwalks and kids played in the alleys and in front of tents that would soon be replaced by wooden structures.
Quarters had been built behind the marshal’s office, and Matt and Sam settled in.
“I wonder just how far our authority reaches?” Sam wondered aloud.
“I asked Jeff that,” Matt replied. “He said just as far as we wanted to push it.”
“You’re the only law between here and El Paso,” Al said, joining them on the boardwalk in front of the saloon.
“No,” Matt corrected. “There is one more badge-toter somewhere around here.”
“Oh?” Al said.
“Yeah. A man by the name of Josiah Finch.”
Josiah sat his horse and looked around him, momentary confusion stamping his face.
“Now, I know I ain’t lost,” he said to his horse. “I ain’t been lost in years. I didn’t know where I was a time or two, but I wasn’t lost!”
He knew there had been a town here several weeks past. He’d stopped and had him a bite to eat and several cups of coffee. Now all that was visible to the eyes were half a dozen outhouses. Josiah’s horse was named Horse. All of Josiah’s horses were named Horse. It was easier to keep track of them that way.
“Horse,” Josiah said. “Did you take a wrong trail somewhere down the line?”
Horse swung his head, a reproachful look in his eyes. A look that seemed to say: Don’t blame me.
Josiah swung down from the saddle and ground-reined Horse. He studied the situation for a moment. The sounds of riders coming turned him around. A lot of riders. A big man leading them. They reined up in a cloud of dust. Josiah slapped the dust from his clothing and put a disgusted look on the big man.
“You got to be John Lee,” Josiah said. “Anybody else would have showed some respect and common courtesy by not raisin’ a dust cloud.”
“Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me that way?” John blustered.
“I know who I am,” Josiah said. “Name’s Finch. Texas Rangers. And if that news don’t suit you, get down off that horse and do something about it, if you think today is a good day to die.”
John sat back in his saddle. He did not want trouble with the law, and he especially did not want trouble with the Rangers. Texas Rangers took a very dim view of people who inflicted bodily harm on one of their own. As a matter of fact, they could get downright hostile in reacting to news of one of their own being hurt or killed.
“Sorry about the dust,” John mumbled, as if the words hurt his mouth.
“Where the hell’s the town that used to be here?” Finch asked.
John sighed. Now he was caught in a bind. If he told his Ranger that someone had stolen the town, there would be an investigation. And he sure didn’t want that. Goddamn Matt Bodine!
Finch saw several smiles among the hardcases that rode with John Lee. Two smiles, as a matter of fact. He knew both men. Pen Masters and Bam Ford. Ford was from the Big Thicket country and while he was known as a gunslinger, he was not really a vicious man. Neither, really, was Pen Masters.
“A . . . cyclone came up and blew the town away,” John Lee finally said.
“A cyclone?” Finch said. “You mean it took down all the buildin’s except the privies?”
“Looks that way,” John said sourly.
“Blowed them about ten miles south of here,” Pen said, obviously enjoying John Lee’s discomfort, for John twisted in his saddle and gave the man a very dirty look.
“Yeah,” Bam picked it up. “Just set ’em right down on the ground just as pretty as you please. Folks down there give the place a new title. They call it Nameit.”
Finch blinked. “Nameit? We got a town in Texas called Nameit?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’s the law in . . . Nameit?”
“Matt Bodine,” John said, then spat on the ground.
Josiah Finch smiled. He now had a pretty good idea what had happened to Crossing. A cyclone hit it, all right, in the form of Jeff Sparks, Ed Carson, and a couple of Wyoming gunhands.
No, he corrected that. Bodine and Two Wolves were not gunhands in the ordinary sense. They were not coldblooded killers nor did they hire their guns. They just both happened to be very, very good with short guns and very, very bad men to fool with.
Josiah swung up on Horse and picked up the reins. He gave the gunhands a long slow once-over, then looked at John Lee. “For a prominent rancher, you sure keep strange company, John Lee. Word I get is that this is only about a third of the men you’re payin’ fightin’ wages to. The last thing the governor wants is a range war. And if that happens, he’s gonna be a mighty unhappy man, he is. Now, I’m gonna take me a ride over to Nameit and check into the hotel—if there is one—and have me a haircut and a shave and a hot bath. If you boys is plannin’ on goin’ over there, fine. Go on. But you’ll by God follow me, ’cause I don’t feel like eatin’ your dust.”
Josiah turned his back to the men and put Horse into an easy canter.
John Lee looked back at Pen and Bam. “You boys think this is funny, do you?”<
br />
They both grinned at him.
John backed his horse up and handed them both greenbacks. “There’s your pay. Don’t let me see your faces around here again.”
“Or you’ll do what?” Pen asked him, his right hand close to the butt of his gun.
“Too close, boss,” Bob Grove muttered. “‘Way too close in here.”
John Lee knew it. Packed in like the riders were, should gunplay start now, a lot of people would get hurt or killed. And John Lee knew he’d be the first one to take a bullet. He savagely swung his horse’s head and galloped off toward Nameit.
“I hate to see a man treat a horse like that,” Bam said. “A man who’s mean to animals ain’t much of a man.”
“Yeah,” Pen said, looking at the money in his left hand. “Well, what now, partner?”
Bam grinned. “We ride to the Circle S and ask for a job, after we stop off in Nameit and tell Matt what’s happened.”
“It might be interestin’ to see what goes down in town.”
“Yeah. Let’s just poke along after our ex-partners and see what happens.”
The men rode slowly along, heading south. Pen was the first to break the silence. “You know, Bam, the last two, three jobs I had, and they were fightin’ jobs, I just . . . well, I wasn’t very happy with myself. I felt all out of place. You know what I mean?”
“Oh, yeah. I been that way since Utah. I been thinkin’ about gettin’ a real job, an honorable one, and savin’ some money. I’d like to head to California and start all over.”
“Sounds good to me. You want a ridin’ partner?”
“Sure. Pen, if we hook up with the Circle S, we’re gonna have to kill some of them ol’ boys ahead of us, you know that, don’t you?”
“Most of them ol’ boys up yonder need killin’,” was Pen’s reply.
Bam couldn’t argue it. He knew it was fact.
“Boys,” Josiah said, stepping into the marshal’s office and startling Matt and Sam. The man moved like a damn ghost. “I got John Lee and his bunch about ten minutes behind me, all of ’em primed and cocked for trouble. So I think I’ll wait ’fore I get all duded up at the barber shop. I do hate to get all cleaned up and then have to bathe again. Too much soap and water in one day is not good for the skin.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. “What do you boys know about Pen Masters and Bam Ford?”
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