Jimmy turned his head as the doctor tried to give him a sip of laudanum. “I . . . I’m past pain,” Jimmy said. “Leo Grand’s got my rifle. I seen him . . . admirin’ it. I . . .”
Jimmy died in mid-sentence. Doc Winters leaned over and closed the young cowboy’s eyes with gentle fingertips. He looked up at Josiah. “Surely, surely now you can arrest the man?”
Josiah shrugged. “You heard Jimmy say he tried to bushwack John Lee. Life’s hard out here, Doc. You gotta understand that. This ain’t Philadelphia where you can call a uniformed police officer if you get in a jam. I ain’t sayin’ it’s right what John Lee done to the boy, but a jury probably would once a slick lawyer got done with them.”
“This is a strange and barbaric land,” Doc Winters muttered, laying a white cloth over Jimmy’s face.
“Not really,” Matt told him, standing up from his squat. “There’s a saying out here, Doc: A man stomps on his own snakes and saddles his own horses.”
“I don’t understand that.”
“A man settles his own troubles, Doctor,” Sam said. “Out here, the sheriff might have a county to patrol that’s as big as some Eastern states. The law might be five or six day’s ride away from a trouble spot. You just settle matters yourself out here, and usually frontier justice is administered to the right party. We’re trying to bring law and order here, Doctor. We’re really trying. But it’s still years away. Any way you look at it, Doctor, frontier justice is damned effective.”
“That would never be tolerated back in New York City,” the doctor said.
“Yeah?” Josiah looked at him. “Them New York folk will be sorry for that decision someday, too, I betcha.”
Matt looked at Sam, and his brother nodded his head. They both took off their Texas Ranger badges and handed them to Josiah. He smiled and handed them a piece of paper. “Got that when the stagecoach run this noon. Read it.”
Sam took it and read it. He grinned. “Your request for a leave of absence has been approved.”
“I don’t understand,” Doctor Winters said. “Of all the times to ask for a leave of absence! Good God, man. We need your authority figure here, now!”
“You need my guns, Doc. Sometimes the law just don’t work the way it ought to.” Josiah took off his badge and put it in an inside pocket of his vest. “And when that happens, it’s time to step outside the law to beat the lawless at their own game. That’s the way it is, Doc.”
He nodded his head. None of the three men felt the doctor really understood, but he was trying.
“Let’s go, boys,” Josiah said.
Outside, Matt asked, “You got a plan, Josiah?”
Josiah nodded his head. “We crowd them. We push them. We make them pull iron agin us. We knock their numbers down ever’ time we come up on a bunch of them. We hit them first and we hit them hard. Don’t think about the law. ’Cause we ain’t much better than them from now on out. Let’s go on back and get some sleep. Tomorrow is gonna be the start of a busy time, I’m thinkin’.”
It started early. Jeff Sparks had just ridden in with a wagon to fetch the body of Jimmy back to his place for burying in the family plot. He was at Doc’s office. And he was mad clear through. Killing mad.
Three of the Broken Lance riders came riding into town as if nothing eventful had happened. It made Matt mad just looking at them. One of them, Blackie, was an arrogant son.
Blackie and the two others reined up in front of the saloon, and that was where Matt was standing, leaning up against a support post at the edge of the boardwalk.
Blackie’s eyes flicked to Matt’s shirt front as he dismounted. He narrowed his eyes at the absence of a badge. “What’s the matter, Bodine, you git tarred of lawin’ or turn yeller?”
“You want to find out right now, Blackie?”
That stopped Blackie where he stood in the dirt. He smiled. “You callin’ me out, Bodine?”
“In a word, yes.”
Blackie stepped away from his horse, moving into a position more directly in line with Bodine. As most men who depend on their guns to keep them alive, Blackie had slipped the hammer thongs from his .45’s the instant his boots touched the ground. He waved at the two who had ridden in with him.
“Stay out of this. This is a personal matter,” Blackie said.
Bodine stood on the boardwalk, putting him about a foot and a half higher than Blackie.
Pen and Bam stood in front of the marshal’s office window, watching the scene. Josiah was across the street, leaning against a post, watching. Sam was at the other end of the short block from Josiah, waiting and watching.
“I can’t believe you’d actually call me out, Bodine,” Blackie said with a smile. “You bein’ such a high-minded sort of law-and-order feller. A principled sort, I guess you’d say.”
“All that’s changed since scum like you hired on with John Lee,” Bodine told him.
Blackie tensed, a flush creeping up from his neck to cover his face. “Scum, Bodine?” he asked, his words softly offered.
“Just like what you’d find on a stinking pool of bad water, Blackie.”
“What’s goin’ on here, Bodine?” the hired gun asked. “How come you sudden on the prod?”
Blackie’s two riding buddies were standing silent and listening, sensing that the rules of the range war had suddenly changed, and not to their advantage.
“The law is oftentimes inadequate, Blackie,” Bodine replied. “Especially when decent people have to deal with the filth of the earth—like you.”
The hired gun thought about that for a few seconds and got mad. “Why, damn your eyes, Bodine. I’m gonna kill you.”
Bodine shot him. His draw was lightning quick and his aim right on the mark. The .44 slug struck Blackie just to the right of center chest, turning him around in the dirt and numbing his right arm. Blackie had not even had time to drag iron.
“Jesus,” one of his fellow guns-for-hire whispered. It was the first time he’d ever seen Matt Bodine in action, and he hoped he would never have to face the Wyoming gunfighter. He wasn’t in Bodine’s class and knew it.
Blackie pulled his second gun from behind his gunbelt, and Matt drilled him again, putting the slug a couple of inches above Blackie’s ornate silver belt buckle. That slug sat Blackie on the ground, on his butt. The gun fell to the earth with a small plopping sound and lay in the dust by his leg.
The newly arrived undertaker and his assistant came rushing out of their half-completed building to stand on the edge of the boardwalk. The undertaker carefully measured Blackie with a practiced eye and concluded they had a pine box that was just right for him. It might be a little snug around the shoulders, but Blackie wouldn’t mind the tight fit.
With blood staining his lips, Blackie gave a macabre grin. “You’re good, Bodine. But they’s a surprise in store for you. He’ll be gettin’ here any day now. Wish I could hang round and see it.” He fell over on his side and turned his head in the dirt to stare at Matt. His left hand was close to the .45 he’d pulled from behind his belt.
“I like surprises, Blackie,” Matt told him. “Makes everyday seem like Christmas.”
Blackie moved his hand closer to the butt of the pistol. “You won’t like this one, Bodine. Monty Brill stands to earn big money by killin’ you.” He closed his eyes against the pain that suddenly hit him, rolling over him in hot waves. He sighed and opened his eyes. His world was getting all fuzzy and blurry. The .45 only inches in front of him had turned into three pistols. He didn’t know which one to grab.
He didn’t have to worry about it. He died in the dirt.
Matt turned to face Blackie’s buddies. “You boys rode in with him. That makes you both just as crap-sorry as he was.”
“We can ride out,” one of them said, a thin sheen of sweat making his tanned face shiny. “You just tell us which direction you want us to head, and we’ll do ’er.”
His buddy looked around him and silently cussed. Bodine faced them. To their right was Josiah F
inch. Sam Two Wolves stood watching to their left. Right behind them was Pen Masters and Bam Ford. All in all, it made for a lousy situation.
“And I’m supposed to take your word that you’ll keep riding and not return to Broken Lance range?” Bodine asked.
“You’ll not see either of us again, Bodine,” the third man spoke. “In two days we’ll be in Fort Stockton, and we won’t even look back.”
“When’s Monty Brill due to arrive?”
“Today or tomorrow.”
“Coming alone?”
“Beggin’ your pardon, Bodine, but he don’t need no help.”
That was a fact. Bodine knew one thing for fact about Monty Brill: he was supposed to be the fastest gun west of the Mississippi. He been hired to kill dozens of men, and he had done it without ever taking lead.
Matt looked across the street toward Doc Winters’s office. Jeff Sparks and some of his men had stepped out at the sounds of shooting. They stood on the boardwalk, looking at the bloody scene in the street.
“I’d not like to face the law on the wrong side of it,” Jeff called to Pen and Bam. “If you boys get my drift.”
Pen looked at Bam. “There was that matter of them runaway kids down by the river.”
“Sure was. We best go have a look.”
The two remaining lawmen walked toward the livery to get their horses.
No one spoke a word until they had ridden out of town.
“What the hell . . . ?” one of Blackie’s buddies said.
“I think we’re in a world of hurt,” his partner whispered.
“I think we’re dead,” his friend replied.
Jeff Sparks hanged them both from the hay hoist at the livery. The tortured and blanket-wrapped body of Jimmy lay in the bed of a wagon only a few feet from where the gunmen now swung.
“But there was no trial!” Dr. Winters protested. “You just . . . hanged them.”
“They rode for John Lee,” Al told the doctor. “And that’s the way it’s going to be from now on. If you don’t have the stomach for it, Doc, then you best catch the next stage out.”
“I have a back room full of shot-up gunhands from the other night. I can’t leave them. They’d die.”
The look he received from Al told him without words that that probably would be the best thing that could happen to them.
The doctor shook his head at Western justice and walked back to his office.
The undertaker looked up at the swaying bodies of the hired guns. “You go back and extend that long box by about a foot, Ralph. Get some of that scrap lumber from out back. And do a better job of it than last time. I don’t want the end fallin’ off and his bare feet pokin’ out like before. It wouldn’t have been so bad ’ceptin’ his damn feet was dirty!”
Chapter 19
“So he’s hired Monty Brill,” Josiah said. The men sat at a table in the saloon, drinking coffee. They were leaving for the Circle S in about a hour to attend the funeral of Jimmy, to be held just at sunset.
“Do you know him?” Sam asked.
“Never laid eyes on the man. All I know about him is he’s killed about thirty men face-to-face. He’s never had a warrant writ out on him. He’ll deliberate bump a man at the bar, and they’ll be a few cuss words exchanged, and one man will call the other out into the street. Brill always collects in advance in some manner—never in person—and minutes after the shootin’, he’s gone.”
“Any idea what he looks like?” Matt asked.
“I’ve heard a dozen different descriptions. But the one that keeps comin’ back is that he’s a tall, rangy sort of man. Very soft-spoken and well-mannered. Never uses profanity and is very polite around the ladies. Not much of a drinker. He’s no backshooter. He’ll face you head on and throw down. And he’s fast.”
“Age?” Sam asked.
Josiah shook his head. “Anywhere from forty to fifty. Monty Brill’s been around a long time. He’s faced a lot of men and made a lot of money by killin’ for hire, and there ain’t nobody that I ever heard of ever got no lead in him. Don’t nobody seem to know where he calls home. But several have said it’s up in the Dakotas.”
“Then maybe Dodge knows him?”
“Could be. It won’t hurt to ask.”
Sam looked at the clock over the bar. “It’s time to head for the Circle S.”
Jeff had sent heavily armed punchers out from the ranch to prevent any replay of the tragedy that had occurred during the funeral services at the Flying V. It was an indication of how badly conditions had deteriorated just west of the Pecos.
When Jimmy had been buried and the last words spoken and the final prairie flower placed on his grave, the men and women returned to the house, the men to gather on the front porch and the ladies inside, fixing coffee and food.
“Monty Brill?” Vonny Dodge said. “Yeah, I know him. Or, rather, I knew him, years back, when he was just earnin’ his reputation. You talk to him and he comes across like a nice fellow. But he’s all twisted inside his noggin. He enjoys killin’. And he don’t always charge for it. Sometimes he just strikes out on his own to stalk and kill somebody. It’s like it’s something he has to do; something that just builds up inside him like steam in a kettle. Folks say he’s killed thirty men.” Vonny shook his head. “More like a hundred and thirty. Maybe more than that. He comes into town, Matt, you kill him first time you see him. Don’t ponder on it none. Just plug him and keep pourin’ the lead into him until you’re sure he’s dead.”
Matt shook his head in the rapidly fading light. “You know I can’t do that, Vonny.”
“Well,” the old gunfighter said, “if I’m in town, you won’t have to worry about it. I’ll do it.”
The men sat in silence for a time, enjoying each other’s quiet company and the peacefulness of the purple-shadowed close of day. Even some of the revengeful fire seemed to have been banked in Vonny Dodge, but all knew that while the flames were not visible, the coals were still white hot inside the man, and it would take but a whisper of a breeze to fan them into a hellfire of a killing inferno.
Vonny abruptly excused himself and walked off into the night, heading to his bachelor quarters off from the main house.
On the ride back to town, Matt said, “Vonny’s up to something, I think.”
“I got the same impression,” Sam said. “The death of Jimmy is affecting him more than he’s letting on.”
“Them few days he gave us back yonder at the burned-out ranch is over,” Josiah added. “I seen that the other night in the saloon. From here on out, any time Vonny comes up on a Broken Lance rider, he’s gonna kill him. And he’ll be lookin’ hard, bet on that.”
“You think he’s passed the word to the hands?” Matt asked.
“Oh, yeah. John Lee don’t know the narrow corner he’s worked hisself into. But he’s gonna be findin’ out shortly.”
As they were speaking, Vonny Dodge and half a dozen Circle S hands were quietly saddling up and getting ready to ride.
Jeff Sparks and his son stood on the porch of the ranch house and watched them walk their horses out of sight before mounting up.
“What if Cindy catches a bullet during this sneak attack, Papa?” Gene asked.
“I’d hate that, boy,” the father said. “It’d be a hard thing. And I’d have to live with it for the rest of my life. But she made her choice when she turned her back on her family. Personally, I think Noah would seriously consider shootin’ her hisself if he got the chance. And that’s an awful thing to say.”
“He told me that just the thought of her havin’ Nick’s baby makes him sick to his stomach,” Gene said.
“It don’t make me feel real good. But let’s hope that nothin’ happens to the unborn child. It ain’t the baby’s fault.”
Vonny personally led the attack on the Broken Lance spread. The riders went in hard and fast and caught everyone by surprise. They set one of the bunkhouses on fire with thrown torches and managed to set the shed out back of the main house blazin
g while Tate, Lomax, and Cloud tore down the corral and sent the horses scattering in a wild stampede.
Bell pulled sticks of short-fused dynamite from a sack on his saddle horn and really got the fireworks started when he tossed a stick into the well and ruined their drinking water. He bounced another stick off an outhouse door and blew it apart. Its occupant was blown several feet into the air and came down with his pants around his boots and splinters driven deep into his bare butt. He would not be sitting a saddle for several days.
Chookie tossed a stick of dynamite onto the front porch of the mansion and caved in the overhang, the porch roof collapsing and blocking the entire front portion of the house.
John Lee was having a brandy in the dining room when the attack came. Beavers rode past the lighted area and stuck a sawed-off shotgun through the open window, blowing the chandelier that John Lee had brought in from St. Louis into a million pieces and sending the rancher diving for the floor, crawling under the table.
The charge that ruined the front porch lifted the table off its legs and turned it over, the supper dishes and chicken and dumplings slopping all over John Lee and a silver serving platter conking him on the head. Cussing and hollering and screaming, John Lee looked up just in time to see Gilley level a six-shooter at him through the open window. John Lee, slipping and sliding in the dumplings and the chicken and the apple pie got his butt out of the way just as Gilley fired, the slug knocking a hole in the expensive table.
Nick ran out the back door, his hands full of six-shooters and Chookie dabbed a loop over the young man and jerked it tight. Screaming like a Comanche, Chookie dragged the rancher’s son through the yard until Nick impacted against the side of a horse trough and the force of the sudden stop tore the saddle horn off.
Two Broken Lance riders faced Vonny with Colts in their hands. Vonny smiled a hard smile and John Lee could scratch two more hands off his payroll sheet.
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