Brotherhood of the Gun

by William W. Johnstone

  Wellman was plugging the hole in his arm with wet chewing tobacco and paused and laughed at Sam’s statement while Bodine tied a kerchief over the wound. “Let’s ride,” the old mountain man said, “afore them savages find some friends and decide to come back.”

  “Can we make Benson by dark?” Bodine asked, spilling out empties and reloading.

  “I damn sure intend to try,” Wellman said.

  They mounted up and rode away, leaving the bodies of the Apaches where they lay on the sand and among the rocks. The Apaches who escaped would probably return to gather up their dead if at all possible.

  Benson was a little spot on the map, but it had several stores, a saloon, a cafe, and a barber shop with tubs to bathe in out back.

  The men stabled their horses and walked over to the cafe. It had a real wooden floor and curtains on the windows and red and white checkered tablecloths on the table.

  “Class joint,” Wellman said, leaning his rifle against a wall and sitting down.

  The men ordered and were eating when the town marshal walked in. He sat down, ordered coffee, and glanced over at the trio, noting the bandage on Sam’s face and the bloody shirt sleeve of Wellman.

  “You boys run into trouble?” he inquired.

  “A mite,” Wellman spoke around a mouthful of beef. “’Paches hit us ’bout twelve-fifteen miles east of town. Them we kilt we left for the buzzards.”

  The marshal slowly nodded his head, shifting his gaze to Sam. “You a breed?”

  “Yeah.” Sam said it without looking at the man, and something in the short reply told the marshal it would be in his best interest to let it alone.

  He looked at Bodine. “Do I know you?”

  “I don’t know whether you do or not. I only know that I don’t know you.” Matt had not looked up; just continued eating his supper.

  The marshal almost said something sharp in reply, then thought better of it as the stage rolled in, several hours late. Boots sounded on the boardwalk and the door was pushed open.

  The man walked inside, wearing a deputy’s badge pinned to his shirt. He looked at the three men eating, checked the bloody bandages on two of them, and sat down at the table with the marshal. “Trouble, Marshal?”

  “I don’t know, Brun. What’d you doin’ this far over?”

  “Headin’ to Tucson to pick up a prisoner. Signs of a pretty fair scrap twelve-fifteen miles east of town. Driver pointed it out from the box. We stopped and looked around. Injuns toted off their dead, I reckon.”

  “That’s what these men told me. About the fight. And precious little else I asked ’em.”

  The sheriff ’s deputy held his tongue while he eyeballed the two guns of Bodine. Twin guns were not the norm; but were not that unusual, either. But there was something about the way this young man wore his that caught the deputy’s eyes.

  The other patrons in the cafe had fallen silent and stopped eating, listening to the exchange, wondering if there was going to be trouble.

  The deputy turned to the marshal.

  “You mighty calm about the news.”

  “What news?”

  “You ain’t heard about Smoke Jensen headin’ down this way?”

  “No! You’re funnin’ me.”

  “No, I ain’t neither. Down here lookin’ at cattle, so I was told.”

  “Man, I shore would like to see that feller just one time.”

  “I seen him half a dozen times,” Wellman said, forking a wedge of apple pie in his mouth. “Me and old Preacher—that’s the man who halfway raised the kid—was trappers together back some years ago.” He slurped at his coffee and said, “Jensen’s a right nice young man. In his thirties by now.”

  “You . . . know Smoke Jensen?” the deputy said.

  “Yeah. Et with him and Sally a time or two. What you all het up about Jensen for?”

  “ ’Cause he’s the most famous gunfighter in the west!” the marshal said.

  “Hell, he ain’t much more famous than this one!” Wellman said, jerking a thumb toward Matt.

  The marshal picked up his coffee cup and looked at Matt. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Matt Bodine.”

  The marshal spilled coffee all down the front of his shirt.

  Chapter 19

  “You told me you never met Smoke Jensen,” Matt said to Wellman, after they had left the cafe.

  “I lied. If I’d a told the truth you’d a been pesterin’ me for weeks on end about him. You’d have never shut up.”

  “This is true,” Sam said solemnly. “Bodine can certainly be a pest and he rattles on and on about the most trivial of matters.” He tried, but could not hide his smile.

  “What’s he like?” Matt asked, giving his blood brother a dirty look and otherwise ignoring him.

  “You see?” Sam said. “It’s started already. You should never have brought it up.”

  “We all make mistakes,” Wellman admitted.

  “Jensen’s a quiet sort of fellow. Very much in love with his wife and devoted to his kids. He’s a decent man who don’t like thugs and punks and outlaws and trash. He wasn’t nothing but a kid when he rode into that minin’ camp up on the Uncompahgre lookin’ for the men who raped and kilt his wife and murdered they baby boy. I don’t know how many men he kilt that day. Some say fifteen, others say thirty. But he’s a bad man to mess with. Just like you, Bodine. You and Jensen got a lot in common. He’s a little taller and heavier than you. And he might be a tad quicker pullin’ iron. Now is that enough to suit you?”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  Wellman muttered something under his breath.

  “What’d you say, Dick?” Bodine asked.

  “I said I don’t know ifn I want to be in the same town was you two to get together—bein’ the peaceful sort of man that I am.”

  Sam and Bodine were still chuckling as they went to the hotel for night’s sleep in a bed.

  * * *

  It was becoming a pattern: no one knew the whereabouts of Lake or Porter. It seemed the outlaws had gone into deep hiding somewhere along Arizona’s hoot-owl trail. But nobody knew where.

  Or if they did, they weren’t talking.

  The trio pulled out the following morning, following the stagecoach road toward Tuscon, about fifty miles away. Before leaving Benson, they had inquired as to waterhole and spring locations along the way, and found the information to be right on the mark. They kept the Empire Mountains to the south of them and made the ride without seeing any sign of Apaches.

  Tucson was where Wellman felt they might pick up the trail of the outlaws, more than likely in one of the rougher saloons, where a man placed his life in the hands of the Almighty just by pushing open the batwings and stepping inside.

  “You want to take Mex town, Sam?” Wellman asked. “I think they’ll probably talk to you whilst they wouldn’t to me or Matt.”

  “I’ll give it a whirl.”

  “I’ll take the miner’s hangout and you get all spiffed up, Matt, and take the saloon where the fancy-dans gather. We ought to come up with something.”

  Bodine bathed and got a shave and a haircut and his clothes laundered before heading to the Hall, as the better of the saloons in town was called. It was the gathering place for businessmen and ranchers and mine owners and the like.

  Bodine introduced himself as Matt and left it at that. He could talk cattle and horses with the best of them, and did so, every now and then dropping in something like, “I heard some ranchers between here and Phoenix have been having some trouble with an outlaw gang; supposed to be fronted by two men called Lake and Porter.”

  Finally he hit paydirt.

  “It ain’t just ranchers,” a mining equipment salesman told him. “They’re working on gold shipments as well. It’s a big gang and they control a lot of country up thataway. They come bustin’ out of the Tonto Basin to strike and then run back in that wild country to hide out. Least that’s what I been told.”

  Bodine left shortly aft
er that to hunt up Sam and Wellman. He found both of them in the roughest saloon in town.

  Before he could share his information, a rough-dressed, unshaven, and smelly lout popped off at him. “Well, well, would you take a look at the dandy. All duded up in his pretty new suit.” Bodine was wearing a black suit he’d just purchased, with a white shirt and string tie. His boots had been blacked while he was bathing.

  Bodine ignored the man.

  But the bully wasn’t going to be put off that easily. “Hey, pretty boy! I’m talkin’ to you.”

  Bodine said to Wellman and Sam, “Word I got is that Lake and Porter are just northeast of Phoenix. They’ve got a big gang of men; working at rustling and robbing gold miners.”

  “That’s what I heard, too,” Sam said.

  “Goddamn you, pretty boy!” the bully shouted, banging a fist on a table. “You turn around an’ talk to me.”

  Bodine told the bartender to draw him a beer, and while his beer was being drawn, he turned to take a look at the bigmouth. And the man was huge. Bodine figured him at six-five and probably weighing two-hundred and fifty pounds, or better. But Bodine had fought other men of the same size . . . and won. With both fists and guns.

  “What’s your problem, pig-face?” Bodine asked.

  The crowd hushed and moved away from the path of the big man.

  “What’d you call me, fancy-dan?”

  “Pig-face,” Bodine repeated. “You know. Like in oink-oink?”

  The big man blinked. He shook his head and stared at Bodine. Nobody talked to him like that. Ever. Not and got away with it.

  “I think I’ll tear your arm off and beat you to death with it!” pig-face grunted.

  Bodine laughed at him.

  That infuriated the man. He picked up a chair and hurled it across the room, the chair splintering against a wall.

  “Did you ever see anything so impressive?” Bodine asked.

  “Never in my borned days,” Wellman said. “Scares me half to death. I ain’t never seen such a sight in all my life. And did you ever see anyone so ugly?”

  “I’m so frightened I might run screaming out into the street,” Sam said.

  Then the three of them laughed at the man.

  “I’m Jack Bennett!” the bully shouted, his face flushing.

  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Bodine asked.

  “It will when I stomp your guts out!”

  “You like to hurt people, huh?” Bodine asked, feeling that old familiar coldness begin to spread throughout him. He hated a bully; especially men the size of Bennett who threw their weight around, intimidating others.

  “Damn right!” Bennett said.

  A woman had been standing on the balcony of the second floor, watching and listening. She ran a string of soiled doves, operating on the second floor. “That’s Matt Bodine, Bennett,” she called.

  The bully had started forward. He stopped as if running into an invisible barrier, his face a study in conflict. He knew that he had made his brags and to back down now might well mean his leaving town in disgrace, the laughter and taunts of the others ringing in his ears.

  But Matt Bodine! Nearabouts as famous a gunhand as Smoke Jensen.

  And Bennett knew well the ways of the west. He was wearing a gun, and in the west, when a man or boy strapped on a gun, he better be willing, and more important, able to use it.

  But against Matt Bodine!

  Bennett was better than the average with a gun. But nowhere near Bodine’s class.

  What to do?

  Bodine settled it for him.

  Within every good man, and Bodine was a good man, there runs a darker side. Oftentimes the dislike of a certain type of person—the bully Bennetts of the world—can turn as unreasonable as the bully’s mind.

  Bodine was more like Smoke Jensen than even he knew. Bodine knew he could tell the man to sit down, buy him a drink, and it would be over, with the bully saving face. But how often had the bully allowed any of his victims that option?

  Never, Bodine would bet.

  “Hello, Patty,” Bodine said, flicking his eyes to the woman for a brief second, then returning them to stare at Bennett.

  Bodine had noted that the bully was wearing a gun.

  “Matt,” Patty said. “Bennett’s no hand with a gun, Bodine.”

  “That’s his problem.” Matt’s eyes bored into the eyes of the bully. “How many men have you given a break, pig-face?”

  Bennett chose not to reply.

  Suddenly, Matt smiled, albeit a cold, thin smile. He took off his suit coat and folded it, laying it on the bar. He untied the leg straps and unbuckled the gunbelt, placing it beside the coat. “You’ve used your fists on no telling how many innocent men, pig-face. You’ve bullied your way all your low-down, miserable life.” Bodine was walking toward the bigger man, shoving tables out of the way. “Always being very careful to pick your victims. And always sucking up to men you knew you couldn’t take.”

  Bodine abruptly picked up a chair and hit Bennett smack in the face with it, the blow knocking the big man sprawling, his face bleeding.

  Bennett was up with a bound, grabbing for the gun he wore.

  A dozen hardcases jerked iron, jacking the hammers back. “No, you don’t, Bennett,” one said. “Lay your gun on the table and take your beatin’. You started this.”

  “Beatin’!” Bennett laughed. “Not from this punk.” He tossed his pistol to Matt. “I’ll even give you an edge, pretty-boy.” His face was bloody but his confidence was fast returning.

  Matt tossed the six-shooter on a table and said, “Then come on, lard-butt. Show me how tough you are.”

  Bennett jumped at Matt, both fists swinging. Matt sidestepped and clubbed the big man on the ear with a right fist. He had slipped on black leather riding gloves—that had been hand-made for him. The leather gloves not only enabled him to hit harder, but they also protected his hands.

  Bennett recovered quickly and busted Matt on the jaw with a rock hard and flat-knuckled fist that hurt. Matt backed up, shaking his head, and Bennett made the mistake of pursuing him. Bodine faked the man out and drove a straight right fist into the man’s face, pulping his lips. He followed that with a punch to the bully’s wind, then sidestepped away and kicked the man on the kneecap, bringing a howl of pain.

  Bennett backed up and changed tactics, deciding to box Bodine.

  That was a mistake, for Bodine’s dad was still a good boxer and had taught his sons well.

  After Bodine smacked Bennett several good blows, going right through his guard, the bully decided he’d better stick to rough and tumble.

  That wasn’t too bright on his part either, since Bodine could hold his own in gutter fighting as well as Indian wrestling.

  Bodine showed him that by rolling the bigger man over his hip and tossing him to the dirty barroom floor. Bodine kicked the man in the side, bringing a grunt of pain, then backed up, allowing the bully to slowly get to his boots.

  “How many men have you humiliated, Bennett?” Bodine asked him. “How many men who had done you no harm have you beaten in your life?”

  Bennett’s reply was a roar of rage. He picked up a chair and charged Matt, screaming incomprehensible animal sounds.

  Matt tripped the big man, sending him crashing into the bar near Sam. Sam looked at him, lifted his glass of beer in a mock salute, and said, “Not having too good a day, I see.”

  Bennett heaved himself away from the bar just in time to catch a left and a right to the jaw—both sides. He lifted his hands to protect his face and Bodine started working on his mid-section; hard, trip-hammer blows that hurt and tore the wind from the bully.

  Those who had shouted out bets on Bennett now sat or stood quietly, all knowing what the smaller man was going to do. Not all of them liked it, but no one tried to interfere.

  Bodine was going to destroy the man.

  Bennett swung a heavy arm and knocked Bodine back, giving the man time to collect his wits and wind
. Bodine stood in the center of the barroom, his shirt ripped open, and all could see the hard-packed muscles of the man, put there by years of wrestling steers and breaking horses and digging post holes and cutting and stacking and manhandling heavy bales of hay.

  “Come on, bully-boy,” Bodine panted the words. “Come get what you’ve been dishing out to others for years.”

  “Why are you doin’ this to me?” Bennett shouted the question.

  “Because you deserve it, you son of a bitch!” Bodine stepped in and hit the man flush on his red nose, breaking it and sending blood squirting.

  Bennett once more fell back against the bar and Sam said, “Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed, does it?”

  With a wild curse, Bennett lumbered away from the bar and the smart-aleck Injun-lookin’ man and faced Bodine in the center of the room.

  Bodine lifted his fists, holding them close to his face, the left slightly higher than the right. He was signaling Bennett to box.

  “All right,” Bennett said. “To box it is then.”

  The men stood toe to toe on the barroom floor and fought it out, with both of them drawing blood. Bennett toe-hooked Matt’s ankle and sent him crashing to the floor. Matt rolled to avoid Bennett’s kick and came up on his knees. He drove one fist into the bully’s crotch and Bennett doubled over, screaming in dizzying pain. Bodine jumped to his boots and hit the man as hard as he could over one kidney, driving the bully to his knees. Bodine circled and brought a knee up into the man’s face, jerking the man’s bloody face up with the impact.

  “That’s enough, Bodine!” a man yelled. “You’re goin’ to kill him!”

  Bodine told the man where he could put his words and continued smashing Bennett’s face with hard left and right combinations. One of Bennett’s ears was dangling by a thin flap of skin. His nose was smashed flat against his face and his mouth was a bloody smear; teeth littered the dirty floor.

  Bodine grabbed the bully’s bloody shirt front and literally muscled the big man up on his boots. He turned him around and with one hand on the back of his dirty shirt collar and the other gripping the seat of his baggy pants, Bodine propelled the man through the batwings and tossed him into the dusty street. Bennett landed on his face and lay still.