by John Legg
The Culpepper brothers came awake at the same time, roused from sleep by a loud crash, Bear’s sudden growling and then a stream of hoarse shouting. The two looked at each other, shrugged, and came up fast, grabbing for their guns. Together the brothers raced for the door, where Bear was already waiting, low growls still coming from his brawny throat.
Since Jonas had been sleeping in the chair this night, he was mostly dressed—with pants and boots, and the shirt part of his long underwear. Jody, on the other hand, was in red long handles and socks. Both had swiftly wrapped their gun belts around them on their race to the door.
Jonas flung the door open and Jody raced out right behind Bear. The noise in the hallway was louder, and Jody knew right off it was coming from Daisy’s room. Other people in the hotel were standing in their doorways, looking out in wonder, and some in fear.
Jody smashed through the door into Daisy’s room and became enraged when he caught sight of Marshal Stan Childress lying half atop Daisy, trying to strangle the life out of her. The San Miguel lawman was shouting obscenity-laced orders at Daisy to tell him where the outlaws were holed up.
Jody tossed his pistol down, and with a roar, latched onto Childress. Almost lifting the lawman off his feet, Jody swung and threw the marshal away as he had his revolver.
Childress hit the wall with a bang and fell. Bear pounced on him first, and Jody growled in anger. “Get the hell away from him, dog,” Jody snapped. He looked at his brother. “God damn it, Jonas, get that dog off him,” he shouted.
“Bear!” Jonas commanded. “Here, boy!”
The mastiff backed away from Childress reluctantly, and Jody surged in, pounding the marshal unmercifully.
Jonas stood leaning against the doorjamb, pistol dangling loosely from his right fist. The Stantons and several other residents of the hotel crowded up behind him, trying to see inside.
Somehow Childress managed to get to his feet. He reeled around, swinging a fist. It hit Jody on the jaw, but had no effect, and Jody slammed him back against the wall and pounded on Childress’s face for a while.
Finally Jody grabbed Childress’s shirtfront, jerked him forward, and spun him around. Away from the wall, the marshal had no support, and when Jody pasted him one in the face, Childress staggered backward toward the door.
“You folks’d best get out of the way,” Jonas warned, as he and Bear moved from the doorway, where the door was barely held up by one hinge.
Moments later, Childress came stumbling out, still backward, and he fell. Jody was right behind him. “Son of a bitch,” Jody muttered, “I’ll show you, damn it all.” He pulled Childress up and hammered him some more, driving him backward down the hallway. Everyone else followed, watching, sometimes wincing.
“Shouldn’t you stop him, Sheriff?” Silas Stanton asked.
“Can’t see why I should,” Jonas commented.
“But your brother might kill him.” Stanton didn’t seem all that concerned.
“Well,” Jonas said slowly, “I suppose he could. But to my thinkin’, that ain’t such a bad thing.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Sheriff,” Stanton said quietly.
Jody pitched Childress down the stairs. The marshal went with so much momentum that he bounced a few times and almost ended up against the door.
Stanton suddenly burst forward, shoving past Jody on the stairs. At the bottom, he yanked open the front door. “I ain’t gonna replace another door for you, Mister Culpepper,” he muttered.
Jody sort of nodded at Stanton, and kicked Childress in the ribs as the marshal tried to get up. The kick rolled Childress just out the door. Jody stalked forward, pulled Childress up by the hair, and then pounded him a good shot in the face.
Childress wobbled backward and fell in a clump off the edge of the boardwalk onto the street. Jody followed him out. Once more he kicked Childress, this time in the face.
“Don’t you ever come near Daisy again, you son of a bitch,” Jody snarled, pointing a finger at the downed marshal. “Or I’ll kill you sure as anything.” He turned and began walking slowly toward the hotel, rubbing his knuckles. He began to feel a little foolish, attired as he was in nothing more than long underwear, a pistol belt, and socks.
Everyone else who had been watching at the door of Daisy’s room had come downstairs and outside. They had watched with something approaching awe. They were still staring in fascination.
Childress groaned in the street and managed to roll over onto his back. Then he half sat up. He got the loop off the hammer of his pistol and drew the pistol in shaky hands.
Daisy, standing on the boardwalk in her nightdress, gasped and pointed.
As Jody began to turn back toward Childress, his brother stepped forward, pistol in hand. “Don’t, Childress,” he warned.
But the marshal would not—or could not—hear him, and Jonas fired. The single shot hit Childress in the chest and knocked him back to the ground. He lay there gasping.
The Culpeppers walked to Childress and looked down. The marshal had died in the few seconds it had taken them to get there. Jonas turned and walked to the boardwalk. “There an undertaker in San Miguel, Mister Stanton?” he asked.
Stanton nodded. “Mister Wallace. I’ll get him.”
“Please do.” He looked at the hotel residents. “All right, folks, go on back to bed. I’ll see to what needs doin’ here. Go on, now.” He turned to his brother. “Take Daisy on upstairs, Jody. Bring her to our room. Let her have the bed. You can stand watch.”
“What about you, Jonas?” Daisy asked.
“Once I get done here, I’ll go to your room. I can prop the door up enough to keep unwanted eyes out.”
“But supposed someone wants to cause you some trouble?”
“Bear’ll be there, Daisy. He’ll warn me if someone comes around. Now, go on upstairs with Jody.”
Finally Jonas was alone in the street, alone except for Childress’s body—and Bear, of course. Before long, though, a grumbling, rumpled little man in a frayed robe over his nightdress came growling up in the wake of Silas Stanton.
“Why don’t you kill people in the daytime, Sheriff?” he asked, as he knelt over Childress’s body.
“Just to make it inconvenient for you,” Culpepper said dryly. “I think you did,” Wallace said.
“Enough of this nonsense, Reuben. Just cart the corpse out of here so we can all go back to bed,” Stanton said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Wallace said, rising. “You stay and watch while I get some help.”
“Just don’t take all goddamn night.”
It seemed like it was several hours, but it was probably no more than fifteen or twenty minutes before Wallace returned with two strapping young men who unceremoniously hauled the body up and toted it away.
When Wallace and his helpers were gone, Culpepper asked, “What’re the good people of San Miguel going to do for a marshal?”
“We’ll figure somethin’ out, Sheriff. But...”
“I know,” Culpepper said with a sigh. “You want me to stick around and play town marshal for a few days until you can find a new man to replace Childress.”
“‘Well, yes. I hate to impose on you, Sheriff, but...”
“It’s all right, Silas. But I’m tellin’ you here and now, I’m not stickin’ around more than two, three days, tops.”
“We should have someone by then.” The two turned and headed toward the hotel.
“What gives you the right to make such decisions, anyway?” Stanton grinned. “I’m the mayor of San Miguel,” he said proudly.
“I’ll be darned,” Culpepper laughed. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Sarah Stanton waited just behind the screen to the Stantons’ quarters out back. “Well, goodnight, Silas. Mrs. Stanton.”
“Goodnight, Jonas,” Stanton said. “And thank you.”
“For what?” Culpepper asked a little tensely. “For killin’ a man? There’s no thanks in such deeds.”
“That’s true many times—and for man
y men. But you didn’t kill a man just for the hell of it. You saved a young girl’s life, when it comes down to it. And you saved your brother’s life, too.”
“I suppose that’s so. But I still don’t have to like it any.” He smiled weakly and began climbing the stairs. Culpepper propped Daisy’s door up as best he could, took off his gun belt, and lay down on the bed. It took him a little while to get to sleep, though.
In the morning, Daisy looked the most refreshed of the three, though she had a slightly haunted look in her deep blue eyes. Jody was tired but otherwise chipper; Jonas was grumpy.
“Come on, Jonas,” Jody said with a grin as the Culpeppers and Daisy were eating breakfast, “cheer up some.”
“Bah. It ain’t you was drafted to nursemaid San Miguel till the good folks hereabout get themselves a new marshal.”
“You didn’t say anything about that,” Jody said with a laugh. “Never had a chance. But I only give them a couple days to get it done.”
“You know, Jonas,” Jody said, punctuating his words with his fork, “I could act as marshal here, if you want to get on the trail.”
Jonas noticed that Daisy perked up at that. “That what you want, little brother?”
“I didn’t say that. In fact, I think it’d be a plumb foolish idea to let you go wanderin’ around out in the wilds alone, lookin’ for outlaws and stolen loot. I just thought I’d mention it in case you’d prefer it that way.”
“Thanks for the offer, Jody, but I think it’d be best if we stuck together—both in San Miguel, and out there in the wilds. There’s no tellin’ what kind of characters we’ll run into in either place.”
After breakfast, Jonas had Jody and Daisy go off together, while he went to Childress’s office and looked things over. He didn’t really expect to have to do a lot while he was the town’s acting marshal, but one could never tell. He wanted to make sure he knew where things were just in case trouble started.
Done with that, and tired of sitting around, Culpepper strolled around town, poking his head into the bars and shops. He was a little surprised when nearly everyone greeted him with a polite, sometimes even cheery, hello. The bounty hunters he had accosted earlier the night before gave him a wide berth, though they always seemed to be just where he was going. Most other folks kept their distance from him, too, which made him wonder. Until he realized nearly all of them were scared to death of Bear. Despite his puggish, droopy-jowled face, the huge mastiff was rather terrifying to anyone who didn’t know him, Culpepper supposed. Over the next few days, though, Culpepper and Bear made friends with many of the children in San Miguel. They delighted in playing with the big dog, who was as gentle as could be with the youngsters.
By the time Culpepper went back to his room that evening, Stanton had had Daisy’s door repaired. Jonas could see on his brother’s face that Jody wanted to stay with Daisy to protect her, if nothing more. Jonas suspected it was more, and he could understand that. “You’d best stay in Daisy’s room tonight, Jody,” he said when they were at supper. “You never can tell but what Childress had a friend or two—certainly no more than that—who might be foolish enough to come tryin’ to bother her. And then there’s those durn bounty hunters.”
“You think that’d be all right, Jonas?” Jody asked seriously. He wanted that very much, but there was Daisy’s reputation to be thought of. That’s all she would need was rumors about her behavior. “I mean, you know, won’t people talk about Daisy?”
“They might—if they was to know about it. You keep quiet, and come back to our room just before dawn. Nobody’ll be the wiser.”
Both Jody and Daisy beamed brightly.
The two Culpeppers—and Bear—rode out of San Miguel three days after Jonas had killed Marshal Stan Childress. Jody was more quiet than usual, and cast frequent glances behind him, longing for Daisy. He had fallen for her hard, and was heartbroken at this separation.
His looks back, though, served another purpose. In doing so, he noticed that the mastiff quite frequently would stop and sit, looking toward the town and whining or growling a little. Jody figured the dog missed Daisy and somehow felt protective of her. Then he began to realize that the dog was checking for someone or something behind them. Near noon he rode up alongside his brother.
“I think we’re bein’ followed, Jonas,” he said.
Jonas nodded. “Have been since we left San Miguel. I ain’t positive, you understand, but I’d wager a year’s pay that it’s those four durn bounty hunters.”
“What do you think they want?”
“I suspect they figure we learned something back in town, and they’re plannin’ to follow us ’til they can find out what it is. Once they do that, they’ll kill us. Or so I figure they’ll be thinkin’.”
“You gonna let them follow along like this?”
“For a time, little brother. For a time.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jonas Culpepper allowed the bounty hunters to follow him and his brother all that day and all the following day as the two Culpeppers rode northwest. But on the third day, he turned them more westerly, into a small valley between two low, long lines of hills. About midday, they crossed a riverbed that actually had some water flowing through it. There wasn’t much, but it was far more than in all the dry watercourses they had seen out here.
Just across the muddy creek was a haven of colorful rocks piled atop each other over an area maybe twenty yards long by forty deep. Small clumps of brush provided some cover, but little in the way of shade. Jonas and his brother pulled into the rocks and tied their horses and mule to a fair-sized juniper, the only tree of any consequence that the Culpeppers could see. Rifles in hand, the two men climbed up onto the rocks. Bear hopped from boulder to boulder nearby. Then they settled in to wait.
Less than half an hour later, the four bounty hunters hove into view. Jonas let them get almost to the muddy depression that was the ford of the creek. Then he fired his rifle once, putting a bullet into the ground in front of Carl Jaegger’s horse. They all stopped fast. Adam Cole, who was leading a supply laden mule, had trouble with the fractious animal.
“This is San Juan County Sheriff Jonas Culpepper,” he shouted. “You boys been on my tail plenty long enough. You got warned about it once in San Miguel. This here’s your second warnin’. Turn back now and keep away from me. There won’t be a third warnin’.”
“You can’t stop us from tryin’ to find Mack Ellsworth and collectin’ the reward on him,” Jaegger said with bravado.
“That’s a fact. But I can stop you from tryin’ to crawl up my tail while I find him for you. Now get goin’ or get dead.” Jaegger and his companions sat there a few moments, as if mulling over their choices. Then Jaegger turned his horse. He had enough sense to know there were no alternatives. The others followed suit, but as they began to ride away, Danny Hillman spun in his saddle, tearing out his pistol. He emptied the weapon in the direction of the rocks.
The Culpeppers simply kept their heads down until Hillman was done. Then Jonas fired once with the Winchester, hitting Hillman in the chest. Hillman was knocked backward, but a good grip on the reins and his feet in the stirrups kept him from falling. At least at first. When he started to tumble off the horse, Dave Eberhardt managed to catch him.
The bounty hunters galloped off, wanting to get out of range of the Culpeppers’ rifles as quickly as possible.
“You think they’ll turn back, Jonas?” Jody asked.
“I doubt it. But maybe they won’t be right on our tails anymore.”
“What’re you fixin’ to do?”
Jonas shrugged. “I vote for stayin’ here for the night. That’ll give us a chance to rest a little, and give the animals a breather. There’s a little wood around and water. Besides, if those bounty hunters decide to start followin’ us again, we’ll be well defended here and can put a stop to their foolishness right off.”
Jody nodded. “Sounds good to me. You keep a watch for those assholes. I’ll try’n find
what firewood there is.”
The rest of the day was quiet, and the Culpeppers saw nothing more of the bounty hunters. In the morning, they rode northeast, following the course of the creek, heading for a small gap in the low line of hills. In early afternoon they were through the gap and turned northwest.
A mile on, gunfire suddenly erupted from a small grassy ridge to their left. Jody grunted and weaved in the saddle. Jonas glanced at his brother and saw blood on the upper back of his shirt. He then looked toward the ridge and saw the three remaining bounty hunters racing toward them, firing on the run. The two looks had taken little more than a few seconds.
“Ride, Jody! Ride.”
“No! I...”
“Just ride, darn it!”
Jody nodded and spurred his horse, racing off, towing the big mule behind him.
“Go with him, Bear,” Culpepper said, as he slid out of the saddle, Winchester in hand. When the mastiff did not move, Jonas muttered, “Darn dog.”
Holding the reins to his horse tightly in his left hand, Culpepper brought the Winchester to his shoulder. He fired six times, hastily, yet smoothly.
Jaegger and Adam Cole were knocked off their horses, but Dave Eberhardt remained steadfastly upright in the saddle despite the red stain spreading across his shirtfront.
Culpepper considered firing at Eberhardt again, but decided he did not need to waste the ammunition. Eberhardt had dropped his pistol and was too concerned about staying in the saddle to be able to draw the rifle from the saddle scabbard.
Just before horse and rider reached Culpepper, Bear raced out, barking and growling fiercely. Eberhardt’s horse reared in sudden fright at this strange apparition. Eberhardt fell backward off the horse, and then was stomped on several times by the animal, which was still rearing and dropping, whinnying in fright. Finally the horse galloped off, stirrups flapping madly.
“Good work, Bear,” Culpepper said, as he walked over to check on Eberhardt. The bounty hunter was dead, with a red frothiness coating his lips. Culpepper wondered how the man had ridden as far as he had with two bullets in him, at least one of them through a lung.