Death Head Crossing

by James Reasoner

  “All right,” Everett agreed, “but what are you going to do?”

  “Thought I’d talk to some of the hands, if any of them are around. If they’ve seen anything odd going on out on the range, they might be more likely to say something about it if their boss isn’t around.”

  Everett nodded. “What do you want me to ask Mr. Tillman?”

  “Pretty much the same thing I’m after . . . whether or not he’s heard any talk about strange goings-on, how he feels about what Harcourt told us about the Hand of God, things like that.”

  Everett looked over at his companion. “Do you still harbor any suspicions that Tillman himself might be behind all the trouble?”

  Jackson smiled. “To tell you the truth, Everett, I’m still suspicious of pretty much everybody except you and me . . . and I’m not too sure about you.”

  Everett thought for a second about taking offense at that comment, until he realized that Jackson was joking. He forced a chuckle.

  They came within sight of the Winged T ranch house and headquarters a short time later. Jackson veered his mount toward the bunkhouse and the barns, while Everett headed for the main house. He saw someone sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, and as he came closer he recognized Deborah Tillman, Benjamin Tillman’s cousin from back East. She wore a pretty blue dress with short, puffy sleeves and a square neckline, the sort of garment that a Western woman might wear, and Everett thought she looked very good in it. He was a lucky man, he thought, having dinner with Rosalie Graham last night and now getting to spend time with Deborah Tillman today.

  She was reading, but she put her book aside as he reined in and lifted his hat. “Good morning, Miss Tillman,” he said. “How are you today?”

  “Why, I’m just fine. It’s Mr. Howard, isn’t it?”

  He was pleased that she remembered him from his visit a few days earlier. “That’s right,” he said. “Is your cousin here?”

  “Oh, Benjamin’s around somewhere.” She stood up. “I’ll find him for you. In the meantime, though, why don’t you get down off that horse and come up here in the shade? I’ve never known anything as hot as this Texas sun.”

  It was turning into a very warm day, as usual. Gratefully, Everett dismounted, wrapped his horse’s reins around the hitching post, and went up the steps into the shade of the porch. He felt cooler right away.

  “I appreciate the hospitality,” he said as he took his derby off again and used his handkerchief to mop sweat off his forehead. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for living on the frontier.”

  Deborah laughed. “I know I’m not.” She was standing fairly close to him, and she moved closer to lay a hand on his arm. Smiling, she said, “Aren’t you glad that sooner or later we’ll get to go back to civilization?”

  Everett would have answered her, would have enjoyed chatting with her for a few minutes before she went to find her cousin, in fact, but at that moment the front door opened and Benjamin Tillman stepped out onto the porch. He halted abruptly and stared at them standing close together, Deborah’s hand on Everett’s arm and a smile on her face.

  Then he shouted, “Get away from her, you bastard!” and launched himself toward Everett, swinging a fist at the startled young reporter’s head.

  Chapter 20

  Jackson heard men’s voices through the open double doors of the barn, so he reined in there and waited for them to come out. He thought he had recognized Ned Dawson’s voice, and sure enough, the foreman was the first one to emerge. The cowboy with him turned around quickly and went back into the barn like he had forgotten something.

  Dawson stopped in his tracks and glared up at Jackson. “What’re you doin’ on the Winged T, gunslinger?”

  “Just wanted to know if you’ve had any more trouble out here lately,” Jackson drawled. “Like losing some stock to rustlers maybe?”

  Dawson’s already unfriendly face became downright hostile at that question. “What the hell do you know about that?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know anything,” Jackson said. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

  “The hell you don’t! Rustlers hit us again last night, and now you show up today askin’ about it. I’m supposed to believe that’s a coincidence?”

  “So you did lose some stock.”

  “Between forty and fifty head, as if you didn’t already know that.”

  Jackson’s eyes narrowed and his voice was as hard as flint as he said, “You’re not accusing me of being one of those cow thieves, are you, Dawson?”

  The foreman didn’t back down or look away, but he admitted, “I never heard tell of you bein’ mixed up with anything that crooked, Jackson. But it’s mighty strange, you showin’ up and askin’ about such, out of the blue like that.”

  Jackson shrugged. “Nothing strange about it. A couple of days ago you mentioned that the ranch has had trouble with wideloopers. I just wondered if they had hit you again.”

  Dawson chewed on his mustache for a moment, then gave a curt nod. “I ain’t sure I believe you or not, mister, but I reckon I can give you the benefit of the doubt. Step down from that horse and say whatever else you’ve got to say.”

  Jackson dismounted and would have tried to get more information from Dawson about the rustling problem on the Winged T, but at that moment an angry shout came from the direction of the ranch house. When Jackson looked around, he was surprised to see Benjamin Tillman taking a furious punch at young Everett Sidney Howard.

  Dawson was shocked too. He exclaimed, “What the blue blazes!”

  Both men broke into a run toward the house. Deborah Tillman, who had been standing on the porch with her cousin and Everett, backed away with one hand pressed to her mouth, muffling a scream.

  Everett reacted at the last second, ducking and dodging aside so that Tillman’s fist thudded into his left shoulder instead of his face. The blow staggered him anyway. He stumbled against the railing at the edge of the porch.

  “I’ll kill you!” Tillman howled as he tackled Everett. Everett went over backward. Tillman hung onto him, and both men tipped up and over the railing to tumble into several rosebushes that were planted in front of the porch.

  Everett yelled in pain from the fall and the thorns, but Tillman didn’t even seem to notice them. He was too busy flailing away at the reporter, swinging punch after wild punch. Everett tried to block them, but several slipped through and thudded against the side of his head.

  Dawson pounded to a halt in front of the rosebushes. Beside him, Jackson said, “Damn it, we need to break that up!” But Dawson hesitated, clearly reluctant to interfere with his boss.

  Jackson grated another curse and lunged forward, getting a few scratches on his forearms as he reached down to grab hold of Tillman. He straightened, hauling the man away from Everett. Holding Tillman by the collar and the belt, he flung the Easterner bodily across the yard in front of the ranch house. Out of control, Tillman hit the ground and rolled over several times before coming to a stop. He lay there on his belly, lifting his head and shaking it dazedly.

  “Everett, take my hand,” Jackson said as he reached down to help the reporter. Groggily, his face streaked with blood from the scratches left behind by the thorns, Everett complied and grasped Jackson’s hand. Jackson lifted him out of the rosebushes, each of them getting a few more scratches in the process.

  “What in blazes happened?” Dawson demanded of Everett. “I never saw the boss go loco like that before. What’d you do to him, mister?”

  “I . . . I didn’t do anything!” Everett panted. “I was just standing there talking to Miss Tillman, and he came out of the house and went mad!” Everett looked at the porch, where Deborah still stood with her back pressed against the wall of the house, her eyes wide with shock and horror. Anxiously he asked, “Miss Tillman, are you all right?”

  She managed to nod. “What . . . what have you done to poor Benjamin?”

  “Poor Benjamin” was the one who had gone loco, as Dawson had phrased it, and attacked
Everett. Jackson put himself between Tillman and Everett, just in case the would-be rancher tried anything else, and asked, “What’s this all about?”

  Still breathing heavily, Tillman pushed himself to his hands and knees and then staggered to his feet. His face was washed out of color except for two bright red spots of anger on his cheeks. He pointed a shaking finger at Everett and said, “He . . . he was molesting my cousin!”

  “I was doing no such thing!” Everett practically yelped. “I was just standing there talking to her. She was about to come looking for you.”

  “He was touching her!” Tillman accused. “I saw it!”

  “You’re insane. I swear I didn’t—”

  Tillman didn’t let him go on. “Sinner!” he screamed. “Vile, filthy fornicator!” Sputtering with rage, he went on.

  “Th-that’s all men like you think of! T-touching innocent young women and giving in to all your carnal desires and corrupting everything that’s good and pure and holy! You should be punished! Sinner! Sinner!”

  Jackson, Everett, Dawson, and Deborah could only stand there and stare at Tillman as he continued his harangue. His raving became more and more incoherent, until finally he covered his face with his hands and began to sob. The wretched sounds continued as he fell to his knees. His back shook uncontrollably.

  A limping, bald-headed man in a cook’s apron had emerged from the house to stare in confusion at the scene. Dawson snapped, “Hiram, help me get the boss inside.” The cook came down the steps, and together he and Dawson helped Tillman to his feet again and led him into the house. Tillman was still crying. His sobs were audible even after the door was closed behind them.

  Jackson reached carefully into the rosebushes, retrieved Everett’s derby, and handed it to him. Everett said, “Ow,” as he put it on. Several of Tillman’s wild blows had connected with his head, leaving painful swollen lumps.

  “I . . . I don’t know what to say,” Deborah said from the porch. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Howard. I don’t know what got into Benjamin. I’ve never seen him like that before. Never!”

  “If I did anything to offend you, Miss Tillman, I sincerely apologize,” Everett said in a voice stiff with anger. “I thought we were just having a nice conversation—”

  “Oh, we were!”

  Everett shook his head. “Evidently we weren’t. Not in your cousin’s eyes anyway. At any rate, I’m sorry, and I won’t trouble you again.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a mite hard on the young lady?” Jackson asked. “It’s not her fault that her cousin acted like an insane man.”

  “Benjamin’s not insane,” Deborah said. “Obviously, he’s more . . . troubled . . . than I realized, but I’m sure he’s not insane.”

  Jackson shrugged. He knew loco when he saw it, and for a few moments there, Benjamin Tillman had been stark raving mad. Whether the condition was permanent or not was another question.

  Dawson came out onto the porch again and said, “I gave him a slug o’ whiskey, and that seemed to settle him down a mite. I think it’d be a good idea if you and your young friend lit a shuck outta here, though, Jackson.”

  Jackson thought about it for a second and then gave a curt nod. He hadn’t found out everything he wanted to know, but there wouldn’t be any point in Everett trying to talk to Tillman today—or maybe ever again.

  “We’ll go,” he said. “But if you want to talk any more about what we were discussing, Dawson, you can find me in the Big Bend most nights. I might be able to give you a hand with that problem.”

  “We’ll see,” Dawson said, equally curtly. “Now you two vamoose.”

  Jackson untied the reins of Everett’s horse from the hitching post and pressed them into the young Easterner’s hands. Trying not to moan in pain, Everett swung up into the saddle, while Jackson walked over to the bunkhouse and retrieved his own mount.

  They rode out slowly, side by side. Everett glanced back, and Jackson turned his head to see what he was looking at. Not surprisingly, he saw that Everett was looking at Deborah Tillman, who still stood on the porch, obviously shaken. She didn’t lift a hand to wave good-bye to them or acknowledge their departure in any other way.

  “All right,” Jackson said when they had ridden a couple of hundred yards, “now that we’re away from there, you can tell me what the hell happened.”

  “I already told you,” Everett said. “I rode up, said good morning to Miss Tillman, and asked if her cousin was there. She said that he was and offered to fetch him. By that time I had dismounted and stepped up on the porch. We exchanged a bit of small talk, and then Tillman burst out of the house and attacked me.”

  “You weren’t touching the girl?”

  “Absolutely not. In fact, she was touching me. She placed her hand on my arm as we talked, and then she laughed, and then . . . and then Tillman came out . . .” Everett’s voice trailed off as he looked over at Jackson. “Good Lord! He acted just like a jealous lover!”

  Jackson nodded slowly and said, “Yep. Same thought occurred to me.”

  “And . . . and when he started ranting about sinners, it sounded like the things that Matt Harcourt mentioned. The things that the Hand of God said about punishing sinners.” Everett looked and sounded stunned as the implications of that soaked in on him.

  No, Jackson thought as he replayed in his mind everything that had happened during their visit to the Winged T, they hadn’t found out everything he had intended when he and Everett rode out here.

  But maybe they had found out enough.

  Chapter 21

  There wasn’t much else to say about the matter, but during the ride back to Death Head Crossing Jackson and Everett both thought a great deal about what had happened. As they approached the settlement, Everett asked, “What are we going to do now?”

  “We don’t have any proof against Tillman,” Jackson pointed out, “or anybody else either, for that matter. One thing I reckon we can be sure of, though, if he is the one calling himself the Hand of God, he’s not doing those things alone. He had to have help with those killings.”

  “So we go after whoever has been helping him?” Everett guessed.

  “I plan to keep stirring things up,” Jackson said. “Poke a hornet’s nest often enough, and sooner or later all the little varmints will come pouring out.”

  Everett looked like he didn’t quite understand what Jackson was getting at, but he said, “So what do you want me to do?”

  “For the time being, not a blasted thing. Leave it to me for now.”

  “Wait a minute,” Everett said. “I thought we were partners.”

  “What gave you that idea?” Jackson asked, deliberately cool.

  “But . . . but you said—”

  “I said you could tag along with me for a while. You’ve done that, Everett. Maybe now it’s time to move along.”

  Everett stared at him as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Finally, he said, “That’s not fair. I’ve helped you. I’ve done everything you asked.”

  “And I appreciate that,” Jackson said with a dismissive shrug.

  Everett glared for a moment longer, then shook his head and blew his breath out angrily. He kicked his horse in the sides and sent the animal trotting forward, ahead of Jackson and his mount. Jackson let the young man go.

  He felt a mite bad about what he had just done. It was necessary, though. The next couple of days were liable to be dangerous, and Jackson didn’t want Everett around, wearing the same sort of target he intended to plaster on his own back. Later, when it was all over, Everett would understand why Jackson had been so harsh with him. It had been for Everett’s own good.

  At least, Jackson hoped he would understand that.

  They had reached Main Street. Everett jerked his horse’s head toward the boardinghouse. Jackson continued on down the street and came to a stop in front of the sheriff’s office. He dismounted, tied his horse to the hitch rail, and went inside.

  Sheriff Brennan was at his desk, pa
wing through some papers and looking distracted. He barely glanced up at Jackson and grunted, “What do you want?”

  Jackson picked up a ladder-back chair, turned it around, and straddled it. “I was just wondering if you’d found out anything more about those killings.”

  “Not a damned thing,” Brennan said. “Are you still pokin’ around in that business, Jackson?” His tone indicated that he wasn’t sure what answer he wanted to hear to that question.

  “I might be on the trail of something. Ought to know more in a day or two.” Jackson kept his own tone deliberately cryptic.

  Brennan frowned at him. “What the hell does that mean? Either you know something or you don’t.”

  “If I do, you’ll be one of the first ones I tell, Sheriff. You have my word on that.”

  “I’d damned well better be. I’m still the law around here, you know.”

  Jackson nodded and stood up. “I’ll be seeing you, Sheriff.”

  “I’m still thinkin’ about callin’ in the Texas Rangers!” Brennan said to Jackson’s back as the gunslinger went out the door.

  Calling in the Rangers might be the best thing to do, Jackson thought as he moved along the boardwalk, but it might also do more harm than good. If a troop of Rangers rode into Death Head Crossing, chances were the man behind all the killings would just lie low for a while and wait for the Rangers to leave before he resumed slaughtering people.

  Jackson went into the Big Bend and indulged himself in the free lunch, talking to Jasper Whitten as he did so. The saloon owner was justifiably anxious.

  “If this keeps up, folks will start leaving town,” Whitten said. “Death Head Crossing is liable to dry up and blow away.”

  “I don’t think that’ll happen,” Jackson told him. “Sooner or later, whoever is responsible for the trouble will be forced into the open.”

  “Maybe, but when?”

  “Might happen sooner than you think,” Jackson said.

  When he left the saloon, he reclaimed his horse from the hitch rack and walked down the street toward the boardinghouse. He made a couple of stops along the way, at the general store to buy a box of cartridges for his Colt and at the blacksmith shop to see about getting one of his horse’s shoes checked. At each place he talked about the killings and made comments that made it sound like he knew more about them than he really did.