To Hell on a Fast Horse

by Peter Brandvold

“Mrs. Deets? I say there—Senora Deets?”

  She stopped and turned to him, frowning, straining slightly against the weight of the groceries in her arms.

  Tanner jogged up to her. “Don’t know what got into me. Where are my manners? I should have offered to help you with your burden.”

  “That is all right, Senor Tanner,” Lupita said. “You are a busy man. Besides, it is not so—”

  “Nonsense, nonsense. You let me help you with that.”

  “Really, it is not neces . . .”

  She let her voice trail off as Tanner took the small, tightly packed crate from her. “Of course it’s necessary. Your husband’s sick and you’re obviously feeling a mite off your feed about it. The least a good citizen . . . and gentleman . . . can do is carry your groceries home for you.”

  “Thank you, Senor Tanner,” Lupita said as she drew her chin down and started walking alongside the saloon owner.

  She said nothing as they walked along the partly shaded right side of the street, heading toward the cross street on which her and Deets’s house was located. Tanner glanced at her. Her brown cheek was screened by her coarse, dark-brown hair, which brushed her shoulders and arms.

  “So ole Roscoe is sick, eh?” Tanner said, feigning concern.

  “Si.”

  “Tell me, Lupita. I mean, it ain’t none of my business, and I assure you I’ll keep it just between you an’ me, but . . . is Roscoe drinkin’ again?”

  Lupita looked at him quickly, fearfully. But then tears shone in her eyes and she lowered her head again as she said, “Si. He is drinking again.”

  “Ah, that’s a damn shame. See, I knew Roscoe had a problem. Back when he was working for old Chester McCrae, he and a couple of his compadres would ride into town on Friday nights already lit up like Chinese lanterns. But he promised me and the rest of the town council he’d given it up.”

  “He promised me that, too, Senor Tanner.” Lupita turned quickly to Tanner again. “Please do not fire him, Senor Tanner. Please do not tell the others. It is just a small setback. It is a bender. My papa was the same way. When he is sober again, I will talk to him and he will listen to reason. He does not want to lose me, and I know he does not want to lose his job.”

  “It’s this bounty hunter mess, ain’t it?”

  “What?”

  Tanner kicked at a horse apple in mock frustration. “It’s this bounty hunter mess that got him all antsy and pulled him back into the bottle. Damn, that man . . . and that girl. They sure have complicated things in Box Elder Ford, I don’t mind tellin’ you, Miss Lupita. But it’s a passing thing. Roscoe has to understand that. And he’s tough enough to face up to Lou Prophet.”

  “I know that and you know that, Senor Tanner,” Lupita said as they turned the corner and headed for her and Deets’s house, “but Roscoe does not know that.”

  “As soon as he comes out of it, chiquita, I’ll talk to him.”

  Lupita glanced at him skeptically, hopefully. “You will?”

  “Of course, I will. Hey, listen—we all got problems. Sometimes just knowin’ we got friends who care helps a whole damn lot, pardon my French.”

  As they entered her and Deets’s yard, Lupita said quietly, “The back door, please, Senor Tanner. Roscoe is sleeping upstairs, and I don’t want to wake him.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  As they walked along the side of the house, Lupita glanced at Tanner skeptically. “You will not tell the other town council members?”

  Tanner gave her a winning smile. “I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”

  Lupita smiled, flushing. As they turned the rear corner of the house and headed for the back door, Lupita said, “I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Tanner.” She stopped and turned to take the box of groceries from him.

  Tanner held onto the box and, smiling lasciviously, said, “I think you do.”

  She frowned, staring at him with befuddlement in her chocolate-brown eyes. Then her dark cheeks turned darker and she pulled a little harder at the box in Tanner’s hands. “I will take this now, Senor Tanner.”

  Tanner pitched his voice low with both lust and menace as he said, “You know what I think, chiquita? I think you need a man. I think you need a real man. Not some young drunk who turns tail and runs at the first sign of trouble.”

  Lupita’s voice quavered as she tugged at the box. “Please, Senor Tanner, give me the box. I must go inside now. I have work—” She gave a startled cry as Tanner suddenly released the box and grabbed her. She dropped the box, and as the groceries spilled out on the ground around her sandals, she opened her mouth to scream.

  Tanner clamped his hand over her mouth, and the scream sounded like a moan. He wrapped his free arm around her shoulders and shoved his face up to within six inches of hers, tipping her head back.

  “Let’s go on over to the stable yonder, chiquita, and I’ll show you what it’s like with a real man.”

  She moaned against his palm clamped down hard on her mouth, and tried to wrestle out of his grip, but he was far larger and stronger than she.

  “If you don’t,” Tanner said. “If you keep makin’ a big fuss over it, I’ll see that Roscoe’s fired. Understand? Now, you like your little house here, don’t ya? Prob’ly wanna fill it with little half-breeds? Well, that ain’t gonna happen if you don’t come nice and quiet with me over to the stable and act like a woman’s supposed to act.” The saloon owner grinned. “Understand, chiquita?”

  She stared at him through those terrified brown eyes. Her lips were moist and warm against his hand, fueling the fires of his goatish desire.

  “Understand?” Tanner asked her again and gave her head a quick, savage shake.

  She blinked once, twice. Tears shone in her eyes. They dribbled down her cheeks to roll up against Tanner’s hand.

  She nodded once.

  Slowly, Tanner lowered his hand to his side. Lupita did not scream.

  Tanner took her hand and led her back to the small stable and buggy shed Roscoe had built at the rear edge of his and Lupita’s property. Deets’s chestnut gelding stood in the small corral abutting the stable, eyeing the pair curiously as it chewed hay and switched its tail at flies. The hot, dry breeze stirred the leaves of the cottonwood partly shading the stable.

  A squirrel chittered angrily in the branches.

  Tanner opened the stable’s side door. He stepped aside, and Lupita stared up at him for a second before she moved on through the door and into the stable’s heavy shadows, brushing tears from her cheeks.

  “Why are you doing this, Senor Tanner?” she asked quietly.

  Tanner closed the door and walked over to her. The empty stable was neatly kept, with gear hanging from spikes in the walls. There were three stalls standing side-by-side though Deets had only one horse. More of the young marshal’s optimism, Tanner thought.

  He walked up to Deets’s pretty little wife and slid her hair back from her cheeks with the backs of his hands, staring hungrily down at her. “Because you’re the prettiest little thing in the whole damn county, chiquita. Don’t you know that?” He stepped back and hardened his voice, keeping it low. “Now, take that pretty little dress off.”

  Lupita sniffed, lowered her head, and began unbuttoning the dress. When she had it open, she slid it off her shoulders, stepped out of it, and set it on a saddle rack.

  “The rest of it,” Tanner ordered.

  Sobbing quietly, she reached down and pulled her camisole up and over her head. Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders and small, pert, brown-nippled breasts.

  “Jesus,” Tanner said throatily, swallowing. He placed a hand on her right breast and fondled it roughly. “Niiice.”

  When Lupita had removed her lacy drawers and set them, too, on the saddle rack, Tanner brusquely picked her up and set her down on the clothes piled on the racked saddle. She gave a small cry and then she just sat there on the saddle, naked and sobbing, as Tanner unbuckled his cartridge belt. He let his gun and holster fall to the hay-strewn
floor. He unbuttoned his pants and lowered them and his underwear to his knees.

  He stepped forward and, holding his jutting dong in one hand, spread her left knee wide with the other.

  “Nice and quiet now, chiquita,” he warned, sliding himself forward against her. “Nice . . . and . . . quiet. Ohh, yeah!”

  Suddenly bright sunlight swept over him as the stable door opened behind him.

  “Huh?” Tanner said, awkwardly turning, stumbling over his trousers.

  “Roscoe!” Lupita cried.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Deets stumbled through the stable door, the golden sunlight showing copper on the naked, brown body of his young wife sitting on the saddle rack, knees spread wide. It shone, too, on L.J. Tanner, whose denims had been shoved down to his knees although, as he swung around toward Deets, they dropped down to his boots.

  Deets saw the man’s erect dong jutting up from between the hanging coattails of his shirt.

  Deets was so badly hung over that it took his drink-fogged brain nearly five seconds to fully realize what had been happening in here. As he did, he saw the corner of the one-eyed Tanner’s mouth begin to quirk a mocking grin.

  That smile was like a keg of black powder detonated in Deets’s head. The young marshal bounded forward, cocking his right fist.

  “Hey, now!” Tanner screamed.

  “Roscoe!” Lupita cried.

  Deets slammed his fist so hard against Tanner’s jaw that he heard cracking sounds issuing from both his fist and the saloon owner’s face. He felt the pain of the blow jolt up his arm and into his shoulder. Tanner grunted, twisted around, tripping over his pants and underwear, and hit the stable floor on his belly. Then Deets was kneeling on him, hammering his head with one savage blow after another.

  Tanner gave a gurgling cry and raised his arms to shield himself from the blows. He turned his head to stare up at Deets between his arms.

  The bald terror in the man’s lone eye only fueled Deets’s fury. Only half-hearing Lupita’s screams and the whinnies of his frightened horse in the corral, the young marshal continued to punch the saloon owner wildly, working so furiously that only about half of his blows landed square on the man’s head, the rest glancing off his head or smacking his hands and arms.

  Unsatisfied with his and Tanner’s position, Deets grabbed Tanner’s arms and began to pull him toward the door.

  “Roscoe, stop!” Lupita cried. “Stop!”

  She grabbed at Deets, but in his insane state, not realizing what he was doing—she was a mere obstacle to the beating he intended to give Tanner—he threw his arm out, smacking her shoulder and sending her reeling against a stall partition. He dragged the groaning and grunting Tanner out into the yard, into the sunlight, and then he kicked him hard in the belly with the toe of his boot.

  “Ohh!” Tanner cried, jackknifing.

  Deets drew the man’s head up by his hair, and holding it thus with one hand, he landed two solid blows on the man’s jaws and a third one smack against his nose, which exploded like a ripe tomato, splattering both Tanner and Deets with blood. Then he drove the toe of his boot once more into Tanner’s belly.

  When Tanner folded again, Deets kicked him in his left side, hearing a rib snap.

  Deets kicked him again, rolling him over. He kicked him again and again until Tanner, yowling and mewling, had rolled nearly all the way to the back wall of Deets’s house, dust sifting around him. He intended to continue kicking him until he’d turned every bone in the man’s body to powder, but then Lupita threw herself on his back and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Roscoe, that’s enough!” she screamed. “That’s enough! That’s enough!”

  She pulled Deets back onto the ground, where he sat on his butt, leaning back against Lupita, who kept her arms wrapped around his neck, pressing her face against his back.

  “That’s enough, my love,” she said softly now, sobbing. “You saved me. That is enough.”

  Deets continued to glare at Tanner who lay writhing, beaten and bloody, the man’s trousers still twisted around his boots. The man’s shirt was torn and filthy. He’d lost his eye patch and the scarred, empty socket was puckered and caked with dirt and bits of the sage Deets had kicked him through.

  The man’s lone eye was swollen and nearly closed.

  “You’re crazy,” Tanner whimpered into his arms, moaning. “You’re goddamn crazy!”

  Deets turned around to face Lupita. She’d donned her dress, but she hadn’t buttoned it. Her hair was disheveled, and tears were rolling down her cheeks from her anguished, brown eyes.

  “Oh, Roscoe!” she cried, hugging him tightly.

  “It’s all right, Lupita,” Deets said, wrapping his arms around her, squeezing. “Don’t you worry. He’ll never hurt you again. I’ll see to that myself. In fact, that son of a bitch is never gonna hurt no one ever again.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Tanner, and hardened his jaws once more. He raised his voice, making sure that Tanner would hear him.

  “In fact, if the son of a bitch ain’t out of town by midnight, I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna kill him and burn his fuckin’ saloon to the ground!”

  An hour or so later, Lou Prophet was rolling a quirley on the hotel’s front porch. A glass of lemonade, his second of the afternoon, sat on the porch rail before him, the sunlight turning the tiny sugar crystals to gold dust. The slice of lemon in the glass glowed like a miniature sun.

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, rolling the smoke and looking around.

  He wasn’t sure what, but something told him that hell was about to pop. There was no single, identifiable reason for him to think so. It was just the feeling he had. He’d learned in his many years of hunting men, and the trouble involved, to trust that feeling. It had kept him out of a grave . . . so far.

  The street was nearly empty, but he saw a single portly man moving toward the hotel. He could tell from even a block away that it was the banker, George Campbell, easily the fattest man Prophet had so far seen in Box Elder Ford.

  The man was shaped like a rain barrel with legs, wearing a three-piece, spruce-green suit and black string tie. He wore an opera hat on his egg-shaped, bald head. Little pince-nez glasses were perched on his pudgy nose.

  As he made his way, taking little, mincing steps in his black shoes, he glanced at Prophet, stopped, removed the glasses from his nose, and stuck them into a breast pocket of his suit coat. He scowled at the bounty hunter sitting at his usual place on the porch, and swerved toward the Arkansas River Saloon.

  He glanced at Prophet several more times as he crossed the street. Prophet pinched his hat brim to the man, who turned sharply away, the back of his bald head beneath his hat turning red, and disappeared into the saloon.

  Prophet scratched a match to life on his gun holster and touched the flame to the quirley. As he lit the cigarette, he spied another man moving toward Prophet’s end of the street.

  This man came slowly, haltingly along the street’s other side, sticking to the shadows widening out from the building fronts. As the man moved closer, Prophet saw that it was L.J. Tanner.

  Tanner was walking as though he had a full load in his drawers, and he was holding his right arm across his belly, as though he’d injured the limb. He brushed his left hand against the walls of the buildings he passed, clomping slowly, heavily, uncertainly across the boardwalks.

  Prophet frowned as he puffed the quirley, staring at the saloon owner.

  Drunk?

  Or injured?

  Injured, he concluded a few seconds later when he saw that Tanner’s clothes were badly disheveled. His shirttails were hanging out of his pants and his face was a smeared mess of half-dried blood. His lone eye appeared to be swollen. He wasn’t wearing the patch over the other eye socket.

  “Why,” Prophet said, feeling his mouth corners quirk in a grin, “he’s had the shit kicked out of both ends. Now, who in the hell would have done that . . . ?”

  Tanner st
aggered over to his saloon and clomped up the steps, his boots sliding off every other riser so that he had to grab the rail to keep from falling. When he finally gained the porch, he dragged his boot toes over to the batwings and on inside.

  “Good Lord, Tanner!” Prophet heard Campbell’s voice echo from inside the saloon, “what in the hell happened to you?”

  If there was a response, Prophet didn’t hear it.

  The bounty hunter sat in his chair, smoking and sipping his lemonade, pondering the saloon owner’s condition. A half hour later, two horseback riders came into town from the east. They were hard-faced men wearing battered, broad-brimmed hats and at least two pistols apiece.

  One was small and wiry, and he wore a thick, blond mustache with upswept ends. He wore a blue calico shirt and suspenders, and he rode a cream gelding.

  The other man was bigger, heavier, and slope-shouldered. He had a thick, gray-brown beard and he wore his long, gray-brown hair in a braid down his back. A cream felt sombrero with a brown leather band shaded his broad, mean-looking face with close-set eyes and a nose like the prow of a clipper ship.

  They both looked around cautiously as they rode, lightly bouncing in their saddles, holding their reins up close to their chests. When their eyes found Prophet on the hotel porch, they scrutinized him carefully, warily, and then swung their horses toward the Arkansas River Saloon.

  They dismounted and continued to cast frequent, wary glances toward Prophet. The bigger man spat a stream of chaw into the street, ran a gloved hand across his mouth, and said something under his breath to the smaller man. The smaller man chuckled, and, adjusting his double shell belts and two Colt Peacemakers on his lean hips, glanced again at Prophet.

  Batting their hats against their denim-clad thighs, causing dust to billow, they mounted the saloon’s porch and pushed through the batwings.

  “Now,” Prophet said, sitting slowly back in his chair, staring toward the saloon with a speculative glint in his eyes, “what have we here?”

  The Arkansas River Saloon’s sole whore, Laurie, dabbed at Tanner’s split bottom lip with a cloth she’d dampened with water from a tin pot. Tanner was sitting gingerly at a table near the bar, and the whore stood beside him wearing a gauzy black wrap over her corset and bustier.