Brotherhood of the Gun

by William W. Johnstone

  “We heard back at that little town just south of us that the state militia is out in force, looking for Lake and his bunch,” Bodine said.

  “They’re getting organized now,” the portly man said. “One hundred strong. They’ll bring those savages to justice, by God.”

  “Sure they will,” Bodine said sarcastically. “All nice and legal-like, right?”

  Sam and Bodine turned their horses’ heads toward the north and rode off without another word.

  They came up on the bodies of the tortured men the next morning. The posse members had died very hard, in various ways. Sam shook his head and grimaced as he and Bodine dismounted, getting shovels from their pack horses.

  “Very inventive bunch of people,” he said. “Brother, do you remember reading about something like this taking place in Utah about five years ago?”

  Bodine paused in his digging. “Yeah. Come to think of it, I do. The paper said something about it also happening in Kansas, too.”

  “I was beginning to feel guilty about us pursuing Lake; wondering if this was our fault. Now I realize he’s done this before.”

  “There is a word for what he is.”

  “Criminally insane.”

  “How about just no good?”

  “That’s two words.”

  “I can think of another: scum!”

  * * *

  In the southern edge of the San Joaquin Valley, Lake and his gang cut a violent and deadly path as they turned, not west as Bodine had suspected, but northeast, toward the Sierra Nevada mountains.

  “Now what?” Bodine questioned.

  “There are probably lots of small mines in there. Lake could split his gang up into five or six groups and really terrorize those people.”

  Bodine reined up, allowing his horse to blow. “I don’t know, brother. Lake would set up an ambush for twenty posse members, but allows us to keep on coming after him. It just doesn’t make any sense. And where is the state militia?”

  They found the answer to that a few miles up the trail, at a small town, as yet untouched by the rampaging band of outlaws.

  “They’re spread out northwest of here,” the old marshal—the only law in the small town—told them. “They took a chance and guessed the gang would keep on heading northwest toward San Francisco.” He spat on the ground. “They guessed wrong, I reckon.”

  “What’s the Sierra Nevadas like?” Bodine asked.

  “Wild. Mountains to desert. Sagebrush country. Wagon trains is still comin’ this way, too. Although each year they’s less and less of them. This outlaw might have them in mind for easy pickin’.” The old marshal shook his head. “I never thought he’d come this way agin.”

  Both Bodine and Sam perked up. “What do you mean?”

  “This is the third time in twenty years he’s done something like this. He come rip-roarin’ through here back about ’57, I reckon it was. I was runnin’ a placer operation at the time. He was just a kid; no more’un nineteen or twenty years old. They’d run him clean out of Texas under threat of a hangin’. He put together a gang of no-counts and went on a rampage. After that he went overseas and joined up with the French army, so I heard. He fought in Mexico and other places. Then he come back here about ten years later and damned if he didn’t do the same thing agin. Now here it is ten years later, and he’s back.”

  “Why is he doing it?” Sam asked.

  “For one thing, he’s nuts!” the old man said. “He likes to kill. Likes to hurt people. He was born of good people but born bad.” He looked at the young men. “You know he killed his mommy and daddy, burned the house down around them, and took off ?”

  “No, we didn’t,” Sam said. “How old was he when he did that?”

  “Fourteen.”

  * * *

  They pulled out at dawn, two young men riding into the loneliness of the Sierra Nevadas, riding after a murderous madman and his band of cutthroats, who outnumbered them thirty to one, but who were still running from the two of them. Neither of them could figure it.

  It was cold in the high-up as the men huddled around the small warmth of a fire they had built under an overhang. They had eaten bacon and bread and then each enjoyed the last of the coffee. Bodine tossed out the dregs and rinsed out the pot.

  “It’s us he wants,” Sam said, figuring out part of the puzzle. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah. I know. It’s turned personal for him now. But he’s got to stop somewhere, sometime. They’ve been pushing it mighty hard. He’s too good a soldier not to know that once his men get tired, they also get careless. They’ve got to hunt a hole and rest. We just have to figure out where that is and hit them.”

  “Just the two of us?” Sam spoke the words with a faint grin.

  “We still got some dynamite. And as far as just the two of us goes, I don’t see any reenforcements riding up to lend a hand.”

  “I don’t understand this part of the country,” Sam said. “Back in Wyoming or Montana, there would be five hundred men hunting Lake. And they’d never stop until they were hanging from a tree.”

  “It’s civilized out here, brother. Not nearly so much as it is way back east, but much more so than what we’re used to back home.”

  In the fading light of the fire, Sam studied a crude map of the Sierra Nevadas. “I figure we’re here,” he said, pointing. “Now all we have to do guess where Lake might be holed up.”

  “He’s along this river somewhere,” Bodine leaned over and traced the river’s southward flow. “Bet on it. They’ve got to rest.”

  “Oh, wonderful! That really narrows it down. We only have about seventy miles of river to search.”

  “No,” Bodine said. “He’ll be heading for the wildest and most desolate part. Remember what that old marshal said, about the caves right along here? That’d be perfect for him and you can bet he knows about them. Add it up, brother. The last few towns he’s hit, he’s taken horses and supplies. Maybe he’s planning on holing up for the winter, and if we can catch them in those caves, we can seal their fate forever. It’s just a guess. But what else do we have to go on?”

  Sam smiled. “Now, brother, you wouldn’t do something like that, would you? Sealing people alive in caves? How terrible. It’s like that man in the posse told us: there might be boys along, just seeking thrills.” The sarcasm in his words was thick as molasses.

  Bodine rolled up in his blankets. “We buried that man, remember?”

  Chapter 29

  It began snowing the morning they pulled out. It was an overdue snow, coming late in the season, but now it was coming down with a vengeance. They made it to the Kern River before the snow halted them. They made camp and waited out the storm. As soon as the sun came out, the snow began to melt and they could travel. They agreed to split up, Bodine going north for fifteen miles, Sam traveling downriver the same distance. If Lake and Porter were here, they would be within that range.

  For two days the men and their horses struggled through the snow, inspecting the few caves they could find along the way. No sign of the outlaw gang.

  The sign they did pick up made no sense to either of them. Back at the meeting point, they sat with blankets wrapped around them, in front of a fire, a large fire, for they knew that the outlaws were nowhere in this vicinity.

  “So what do you make of it, Sam?”

  Sam drank his coffee in silence, then studied his brother’s face for a moment. “They crossed the Kern and went east. All of them.”

  “Well, damn, brother. I know that! But why? What’s he trying to pull?”

  “I don’t know. But according to the tracks, they’re a full day ahead of us by now, if they maintained direction.” He angrily tossed the dregs of his coffee cup into the snow. “But why? Why abruptly change directions?”

  “We’ll know that when we catch up with them.”

  They pulled out the next morning, just as the sky was turning steel gray in the east. They crossed the icy waters of the Kern and left the Si
erra Nevadas several days later, crossing just south of a dry lake bed and continued south, not wanting to cross through the center of Death Valley. With Brown Mountain in sight, they cut due east, riding through the northern tip of the Avawatz Mountains. They found a grizzled old prospector and swapped him food for information about water holes. His directions proved out and they rode hard for Las Vegas, Nevada.

  At this time, Las Vegas was no more than a sleepy little desert town with water. It had been settled by the Mormons back in ’55 and was abandoned by them some two years later.

  They put their horses up in the stable and told the man to rub them down and give them as much corn and oats as they could eat . . . they had earned it.

  “Some young hardcases in town,” the stableman said. “Over to the saloon. Guns all shiny and tied down low. They’re all makin’ big talk about how they made fools outta Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves. I ’spect they wouldn’t talk like that if they figured Bodine and the breed was anywheres near.”

  Bodine smiled thinly, as did Sam. The stableman took a closer look at the pair. “Holy Jumpin’ Jehosaphat!” he yelled. “It’s you!”

  “Which saloon?” Sam asked.

  “That one right there!” the man pointed. “They’s five or six of ’em in there.”

  “They ride in alone?”

  “Shore did. Been here two days now. Makin’ a nuisance outta theyselves. They ain’t caused no real trouble. But everybody would be just as happy to see them go. Tell you what though: they all got their pockets stuffed full of money.”

  “Anything else in their pockets?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know what you . . .” The stableman paused. “Yeah. I do know what you mean. Yeah. Watches and rings and stuff they’ve tried to sell to folks.”

  “They say where they got those articles?”

  The stableman smiled. “Yeah. Said they got lucky at poker.”

  “Not a word to anybody that we’re in town,” Bodine warned the man.

  “You got it,” he was assured.

  Bodine and Sam checked their guns and walked first to the cafe, keeping out of sight as much as possible. At the cafe, they relaxed and ordered a pot of coffee and whatever the cook could dish up for a meal. Over beef and beans and potatoes, Bodine put into words what had been nagging at him for several days.

  “They’re heading for Utah, brother.”

  Sam paused in the lifting of fork to mouth. “I don’t follow you.”

  “Laurie.”

  Sam laid his fork across the plate. “For pure spite.”

  “That’s it. That’s the only thing that makes any sense to me. Porter has said that he wants her. Lake, as nutty as he is, might be blaming her and Jenny for all his misfortunes.”

  “This bunch in town now?”

  “Put here to stop us, maybe. Although that’s reaching for an answer. I just don’t know. Maybe they just got tired of it all and quit.”

  The counterman had been leaning on the counter, listening. “Your name Bodine?” he asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Them hardcases is here to stop you from goin’ on. They been in here several times, braggin’ about how they was gonna make a reputation right here in this one-horse town. By killin’ you.”

  Sam drained his coffee cup. “I guess that settles it.”

  Bodine stood up and hitched at his gunbelt. Sam did the same. They tossed money on the table and moved toward the door. Before leaving the stable, Sam had tucked a spare Colt behind his gunbelt and both men had loaded up the cylinders full.

  They walked up the street to the saloon the outlaws had chosen. They could hear the laughter of those inside. Bodine opened the door and they stepped inside the stuffy and beery-sweat smelling warmth of the barroom. A potbellied stove was cherry red in the center of the room. The saloon was empty except for seven gunslicks and one barkeep.

  The men fell silent, watching the pair walk to the bar.

  Neither one of them wanted anything to drink. Bodine told the barkeep, “Hunt a hole, mister.”

  The barkeep vanished into the stock room located in the back of the building.

  “How come you boys didn’t ride on to Utah with Porter and Lake?” Bodine suddenly tossed the unexpected question at them.

  By the looks on their faces, Sam and Bodine knew they had guessed right as to where the outlaw gang was heading.

  “Huh?” one of the dirty and unshaven hardcases tried to cover up.

  “That’d be about your speed,” Sam said. “Making war on women and little girls.”

  The gunslicks looked at one another. This was not the way they had planned to take out Bodine and Sam. This was no good; it was too close here in the saloon. If they opened the dance in here, they were all going to get lead in them, for Bodine and Two Wolves were going to be hard to put down. The outlaws had planned an ambush; maybe a backshooter on a building. This just wasn’t working out at all.

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” a hardcase said. “I don’t know no one name of Porter or Lake.”

  “If you don’t shoot any better than you lie,” Bodine told him. “You’re in a hell of a mess, coyote-face.”

  The man flushed, but made no attempt to grab iron.

  A young man stood up. He was a fancy-dan and cocksure of himself. He was dressed to the nines, with a belt made of silver dollars and wearing twin pearl-handled pistols, tied down low. He had tried to grow a mustache, but had succeeded only in growing something that looked like a deformed dead mouse under his nose. His black-gloved hands were hovering over the butts of his guns.

  Bodine looked at the young dandy. “You want something, boy?”

  “My name’s Sundown,” the young man announced. “And I think I can take you, Bodine.”

  Bodine sighed, wondering where in the hell these would-be gunhawks came up with their nicknames. “That’s good, boy. Everybody ought to have a name so it can be cut into their headstone.”

  The young man sneered at him. “What do you want on your marker, Bodine: Injun lover?”

  “You’ll never live to see my final resting place, boy. Now why don’t you sit down and shut up and maybe you’ll live through what’s coming here.”

  “I think he’s afraid of me, boys!” Sundown yelled. “Hell, he’s yeller.”

  Another gunslick stood up. “I do believe you’re right, Sundown. I think maybe Bodine’s reputation is bigger than he is.”

  Sam said, “Well, one thing about it, brother.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A few less for us to deal with in Utah.”

  Both men drew and fired as if on silent signal.

  The fancy-dan was doubled over from a .44 slug out of Bodine’s Colt and the man who had stood up to stand with him took a slug in the center of his chest from Sam’s Colt.

  Neither one of them had managed to clear leather.

  Both Bodine and Sam hit the floor before the echo of their shots faded and crawled behind whatever cover they could find as the room exploded in gunfire. Sam rolled to his right and came up near the edge of the bar, as Bodine went to his left and did the same.

  Both men filled their hands with Colts and let them bang.

  The attack came so suddenly it was seconds before the remaining outlaws could react, and those seconds cost them their lives as Bodine and Sam filled the beery air with lead.

  Bodine reached behind the bar and came up with an express gun, jacking back both hammers and lining the twin barrels up with two gunnies still on their feet. He pulled the triggers and the force almost tore it from his hands, the muzzle blast rattling the windows of the saloon, the double charge taking the gunnies chest-high.

  Bodine and Sam slipped behind the dubious protection of the bar and quickly reloaded, just in case any might still be alive and with some fight left in them.

  They stood up, hands filled with Colts.

  The barkeep stuck his head out of the storeroom, looked around wide-eyed, and said, “Holy Christ
!”

  One of Lake’s gunslicks had crashed through the big window on the street side, hanging half in and half out of the saloon. Another was dead on his boots against the back wall, his shirt collar caught on a hatrack, both hands hanging by his side. The two gunnies who had first braced Sam and Bodine were on the floor, dead or dying. The two that Bodine had let have the loads in the sawed-off were spread all over the center of the room.

  “That’s six,” Sam said. “Where’s the other one?”

  A galloping horse answered his question. They ran to the door and watched the seventh gunny hightail it out of town, riding low, presenting less of a target.

  “Damn!” Bodine summed up their feelings at letting one get away. It was then he noticed the left side of Sam’s face was covered with blood.

  “Scratch,” Sam said. “What about your shoulder?”

  Bodine hadn’t even noticed. He took off his sheepskin-lined jacket and looked at the bullet hole. Another fraction of an inch lower and he’d have been plugged in the shoulder.

  The brothers grinned at each other and turned to the bar.

  “Now give us something to drink,” Sam said.

  The bartender placed a bottle of rye and two shot glasses on the bar. “What about them dead folks?”

  “What about them?” Bodine poured both glasses full.

  “Who’s gonna plant ’em?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  A deputy pushed open the door and walked in, shaking his head at the sight.

  “It’s about damn time you showed up, Lars!” the barkeep yelled. “Where the hell have you been for the past two days?”

  “Down south of here, chasin’ rustlers, that’s where.” He walked to the bar, picked up the bottle and gestured for a glass. He poured a shotglass full and then looked at Bodine and said, “You boys know these hombres,” he waved his hand at the dead, “or do you shoot up ever’ saloon you come to?”

  “They’re part of a gang that’s been robbing and raping and killing through half of California. We’ve tracked them from Los Angeles.”

  “You boys got names?”