by J. Lee Butts
16
“DAMNATION, GIRL ...”
I SHOVED THREE fresh rounds into the Winchester’s loading gate and watched as a dying Roscoe Pickett dragged himself to Mendoza’s nearest porch pillar and propped one shoulder against it.
Rifle held out with one hand to cover the wounded outlaw, I strolled over to a position a few feet from him and squatted down to where the fading man could see me. Coach gun at the ready, Boz sidled up from his spot behind the now-dead Cullen’s original position.
“Well you sure as hell kilt the bejabbers out of these two, Lucius. Didn’t leave much for me,” Boz mumbled.
Blood poured from the corner of Roscoe’s twitching mouth and oozed from between the fingers clutching the hole in an already drenched chest. “Damn,” he gurgled. “That was fast. Cain’t b-b-believe it. S-shot me s-so quick. Son of a bitch. You done w-w-went and shot me through and th-through. Shit. Hurts like hell on a b-b-burnin’ stick. Prolley done went and kilt me deader’n a rotten stump. God Am-mighty. K-Kilt my brothers, too. D-d-damn you, Dodge.”
“Yes,” I said and nodded. “Yes indeed. Your sorry brothers are both very dead. And you’re headed to Hell with ’em.”
The outlaw groaned, rolled his head from side to side, then gasped, “W-w-well, soon’s I’m gone, you can roll me over, p-p-pull my britches down, bend over, and k-k-kiss my ass, Dodge.”
Rustling movement caused me to twist on the balls of my feet and glance over one shoulder. A step or so away from the bloody carnage of dying and dead men, I spotted Clementine Webb, with one hand rested on the panting Bear’s thick neck. From somewhere the girl had acquired a spanking-new Mexican palm-leaf hat.
“Ask him where the others went,” she said through gritted teeth.
I swung my concentrated attention back to Roscoe. “We already know where they’re going, Clem. Big Jim said he saw them heading out for Del Rio, remember?”
Her voice sounded like broken icicles falling from a frozen roof in Kansas when she snarled, “Where, exactly, Ranger Dodge? Those that kept running must’ve been in a hurry to meet somebody, somewhere, don’t you think? Who were they in such a hurry to see? Where did they intend to meet? How long do we have before they get completely away?”
I flicked a glance at the dying sun, then stared at the ground between my feet for a second and said, “Well, you heard the lady, Pickett. Who’re Murdock and Atwood so hot to meet up with in Del Rio that they would leave you boys here and go on ahead without you?”
A gurgling stream of pinkish-red froth bubbled from between the claw-like fingers clutching at Pickett’s chest. An unglier, darker river dribbled out onto his chin. “Ain’t—ain’t—ain’t tellin’. Ain’t tellin’ you bastards a goddamned thang. Sure, s-s-sure’s hell ain’t got nothin’, nothin’ to say to no runty, s-s-smart-assed split-tail of a girl.”
I felt the crackle of Clementine’s sleeve as it grazed my elbow. It sounded like fresh-fired bullets sizzling past my ear when she hissed, “Well, then, you’re completely useless to me or anyone else, aren’t you?”
From the corner of one eye, I saw the little pistol flash up in the girl’s hand and immediately recognized the weapon as a New Line .32-caliber pocket pistol.
For reasons I could not have explained to God, or anyone else, afterward, the fact that Clementine Webb had the barrel of a loaded weapon pressed to the end of the dying Roscoe Pickett’s nose just didn’t register with me for about half a second. When it finally dawned on me what was about to occur, I made an awkward, squatting lunge at the miniature shooter just as it went off. Burning powder singed my fingers when they wrapped around the weapon’s tiny cylinder.
The little gal’s well-aimed bullet hit the gravely wounded Roscoe right in the mouth. A searing chunk of peanut-sized lead knocked all his front teeth out, carved a tunnel through the soft tissue at the back of his throat, and blasted its way through a spot in his neck just below the skull bone. The bullet shoved most of his shattered teeth out the newly acquired port in his head and splattered the entire hair-covered mess onto the wooden porch prop he leaned against.
I ripped the smoking pistol from Clementine’s grasp, then rolled into the dust on my bony rump. Clumsily, I hopped up with all the red-faced embarrassment and alacrity of a suitor who’s just fallen down a series of steps right in front of a woman he was trying his best to impress.
“Damnation, girl,” I yelped, then flicked a glance at Roscoe Pickett’s shattered teeth, blasted skull, and sagging corpse. I shook my head in total disbelief, then locked Clementine in a narrow, steely gaze and added, “You’ve grown a mighty thick layer of hard bark around your heart since this morning, darlin’.”
The girl’s ferocious, crazed, turquoise gaze flashed from Pickett to me and back again. It sounded damn near unearthly when she snarled, “I thought about what these men did all the way from Devils River to here, Ranger Dodge. He deserved to die. Moreover, he deserved to die by my hand. Truth is, they all deserved to die by my hand.” She ran trembling fingers through her hair, as though clearing away any arguments against her conduct, then added, “It’s biblical, by God. In the Scripture. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Blood for blood.”
I cast a bewildered glance toward heaven. Felt as though she’d somehow confused me into silence. After several seconds, I glanced at the tiny pistol in my hand and snapped, “I told you I’d take care of this. Gave you my word.”
“True,” the girl snapped back. “Just thought you could use a little help bringing this particular part of the dance to a suitable conclusion.”
I wasn’t thinking when I went to offer the pissant-sized .32 back to her. She tried to snatch it from me as I asked her, “Where in the blue-eyed hell did you get this anyway?”
There was no hesitation when the stone-faced girl snapped, “Bought it over at that falling-down mercantile store next to Big Jim’s. Same place I got my hat.” She made an insistent gimme motion. “And I want it back. I paid good money for that gun, and I want it. Might need it again when I catch up with the other two.”
With considerable reluctance, I extended the weapon and said, “Think it best that you get on back over to Big Jim’s and wait for us. We’ll take care of these boys and get after them other two quick as we can. Probably best to go after ’em tomorrow morning. Not a good idea to be on the Del Rio road at night. Even for men like us. Just never know what might happen.”
“Then where’ll we stay?”
“Big Jim’s livery with the horses.”
The girl shook her head, turned on her heel, and stomped away. Me, Boz, and Glo stood amongst the carnage and watched as Bear gave a slobbery yelp and loped happily off behind her.
After near a minute of silence Boz said, “How ’bout we go inside and have a drink? Hell, maybe two or three. Don’t know you boys feelin’s on the subject, but I could sure as hell use one right now. Given what we just seen and did and all.”
With a loud metallic click, Glo broke the Greener open and extracted the brass jackets of the spent shells. He dropped the empties into his coat pocket and fished out a fresh pair of hot loads. He shoved the new shells in place, snapped the weapon closed, leisurely checked to make sure the hammers were down, then said, “Sounds like a good idea, Mistuh Boz. Back of my throat feels like a barbed wire bird’s nest.”
I stepped over Roscoe Pickett’s corpse, stomped onto the plank porch, and headed for the cantina’s door. Stopped a step from the rude threshold, turned, and gazed back at the bloody wreckage my friends and I’d wrought.
I let a flinty gaze flick over to the skull-shattered corpse of Cullen Pickett. The dead man had come to rest lying nigh on directly in the cantina’s entryway. After several seconds my gaze moved to the now-toothless carcass of Roscoe, gape-mouthed and held upright in an ungainly, twisted position against the porch prop. Then for several seconds, I glared over at the lifeless body of their brother, Priest, cut nearly in twain by a double-barreled load of Glo’s expertly delivered buckshot.
I suppose we stayed longer at Mendoza’s than we should have. ’Course, it took some time to negotiate the hows and whys of Arturo Mendoza’s disposal of the Pickett boys. The old bandit finally agreed when we told him he could keep everything they’d arrived with—including their horses, guns, other trappings, and such.
We were sitting at a table by the front door, working on our second tumbler of tequila, when a small band of Messicans showed up out of nowhere and went to carrying the corpses away. Took a spell, but when they finished you couldn’t see a spot of blood on Mendoza’s porch. It was darker than a barrel of black cats when we dropped money on the table and headed for Big Jim’s. Time we got back to the stable it must have been around ten o’clock. I dropped into my bedroll and slept like a felled tree.
I woke up next morning to find Glo standing over me. Do believe he looked more distressed than I’d seen him in quite a spell. Said, “ ’At ’ere li’l gal done gone, Mistuh Dodge. Figure she could already be in Del Rio by now.”
Swear ’fore Jesus, if God himself had reached down from Heaven’s front gate and slapped the bejabbers out of me, don’t think I would’ve been any more surprised. But, hell, it was becoming more and more clear to me that Clementine Webb was chock full of such mind-boggling astonishments.
I covered my eyes with one hand, thought it over for about a second, then said, “Go on and get after her. Me’n Boz will be comin’ along quick as we can. Probably catch up ’fore you can get to Del Rio.
Glo hit the door running. Minute later he was nothing more than a fading memory and a lingering cloud of dust.
Getting myself in gear and moving took some doing that morning. Felt like somebody stood over me the night before and beat me with a single tree. Boz appeared to have the same problem. When I finally did scramble up and set to the task, I must have said “Damnation,” twenty-five times or more while I saddled my animal. Just about had the job finished when Big Jim Boston strolled up and leaned against the stall rails. I glanced over at him and said, “You knew Clementine had struck out, didn’t you, Jim?”
The mountainous smithy had his hands shoved behind the bib on his scarred and soot-covered leather apron. He gifted me with a sheepish nod, then said, “Gal paid me to keep quiet till you boys woke up this mornin’, Lucius. Easiest money I’ve made in more’n a year.”
“She paid you?”
“Hell, yeah. Dropped a pair of ten-dollar gold pieces in my hand like they weren’t no more’n a couple a grains a sand. You got any idea how long it takes me to make twenty dollars around a windblown dump like Carta Blanca these days?”
“Not a clue,” I said and jerked my saddle’s cinch strap into place. “Sure it’s right tough though.”
One skillet-sized paw came from behind Big Jim’s apron. He waved at the world outside in a kind of meaningless, general, all-encompassing gesture. “Damned right, it’s tough. Takes a couple a weeks to make that much money these days, by Godfrey. Whole town’s a-dryin’ up like rotten fruit layin’ on the ground around a dyin’ tree. Couple more years won’t be nothin’ left but blowin’ dust and tumbleweeds ’round here.”
“Yeah, well, everybody’s got problems, Jim. You shouldn’t have let her go it alone. Gal don’t have no business roving the countryside around these parts unaccompanied.”
“Come on, Lucius, gotta cut me some slack here. What that little gal gave me to keep shut, plus what I made on the horse and saddle I sold her is more money than I’ve seen at one time in three, maybe four months. Hard to pass on a deal like that when you have a family to feed. ’Sides, she strikes me as the type who can damn well take care of herself.”
Snatched up the reins and backed Grizz out of the stall. Led him toward the door with Boston hobbling along beside me. “Unfortunately that’s the same mistake a lot of women make these days. But this one’s not a woman yet. Only a girl, Jim,” I said. “And a mighty young one at that.”
“Maybe so, Lucius. But, I’ll tell you true, sure as hell wouldn’t wanna be either of them ole boys she’s a chasin’. I mean, shit, she kilt the hell outta Roscoe Pickett ’thout so much as blinkin’ one a them cold blue eyes a hern. Gal looks at me, my blood runs cold.”
“How would you know ’bout her doin’ for ole Roscoe? You weren’t there when it happened.”
“Tatum tole me ’bout it. Said it was the damnedest thang he’d ever witnessed. And I seen what was left of Roscoe afterward, when you boys was drinkin’ it off.”
Hand-rolled dangling from his lips, Boz leaned against his horse and waited for me near a water trough just outside the barn’s double-wide door. He nodded and said, “ ’Fore he left, told Glo to keep an eye peeled for anythin’ unusual. Said we’d catch up with ’im quick as we could.”
“Told him the same thing myself,” I said.
Big Jim shook his head and stared at his feet. Said, “Well, good luck with catchin’ up with her, boys.”
Boz pulled the smoke from between cracked lips, spit a sprig of tobacco at his feet, then said, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean, Jim?”
The big-bellied Boston grinned. “Sold that gal a paint pony that you fellers would have trouble runnin’ down on the best day any of you ever had. Big ole horses of yours are all loaded down with men twice that little gal’s size and lots of iron. Wouldn’t even be a race. Bet them gold pieces she gave me she’s already in Del Rio by now.”
I gazed over my saddle at the smithy and said, “Well, you’d best offer up a prayer that we do exactly that, Jim. Any harm comes her way, I just might come back here and take it out of your lardy ass.”
As I threw a leg over Grizz’s back, Boston patted the beast’s enormous rump and said, “Ain’t gonna worry much ’bout that, Lucius. Figure you’ll see the light of reason ’fore then. ’Sides, it’d take you, Tatum, Johnson, and two hard-rock miners armed with sharpened picks to get anything out of an ass the size of mine.” He grinned then gave Grizz’s rump a resounding smack.
Me and Boz headed out of Carta Blanca like red-eyed, fork-tailed demons were dogging our trail. Along the way, I offered up a silent prayer that we got to Clem before she found Murdock and Atwood. I had the uneasy feeling in my heart that either man would likely kill the girl graveyard dead and not so much as bat an eye, if’n her true identity should be discovered, that is. Could hardly bear the thought of another slaughtered child’s funeral in my near future. Whole business weighed mighty heavy on my heart.
17
“. . . WALKED UP TO MISS CLEMENTINE AND TOOK HER PISTOL ...”
THE ROAD TO Del Rio plummeted south from Carta Blanca in the manner of a carpenter’s snapped chalk line—flat as a tabletop and straight as a planed board. A harsh countryside of colorful wildflowers, stunted greenery, dry washes, and reddish brown, rock-strewn earth fell away on either side of the rugged trace like the last remnants of a hellish world blasted by Satan’s own fiery vengeance. A world inhabited with every form of biting, stinging, fanged, and clawed form of instant death a body could imagine.
My heart got to beating like a hand-pumped San Antone fire wagon the more I thought about the deadly consequences of what might well occur should the headstrong Clementine Webb err but a few steps off that rough path. Nothing I could’ve conjured up, in my wildest imaginings, however, came anywhere close to preparing me for the strange, twisted reality of what lay waiting as we drew to a clod-slinging halt near a Mexican peon’s stick-sided, hay-roofed jacal, just a few steps off the road, about four miles from downtown Del Rio.
A pen of bleating goats off to one side of the makeshift dwelling raised almighty hell as we stepped off our animals. A troop of scrawny chickens squawked, flapped, and scattered in every direction and added to the general hubbub of racket caused by our thunderous arrival.
A buck-nekkid child of about three or four stood
in the hut’s open doorway and sucked his thumb. A disembodied female arm snaked from the interior dark and drew him away as we approached the place on foot.
His ever-present shotgun draped over one arm, Glo rose from a shaded bench beneath the pitiful shack’s stingy overhang. He strode out to meet us, handed me a fresh-filled canteen, and said, “Ain’t gonna believe what I gots to tell you, Mistuh Dodge.”
I took a swig of the refreshing liquid, then handed it off to Boz. Wiping my damp lips on the sleeve of my shirt, I said, “Well, gonna hope over hope it’s good news.”
Glo shook his head. He narrowed his gaze and peered off to the south, as though distracted. “Naw, sur. Cain’t say as how it is. Don’t appear good at all. Not to me. Leastways on the surface of it.”
Boz dragged his hat off and upended the canteen over his sweaty mop of hair. He wagged his soaked, dripping noggin back and forth like a wet dog. Managed to sling huge, soaking drops of the water all over himself, me, and pretty much everything else within ten feet.
He offered the canteen back to Glo, then slicked his hair down with one hand and said, “Well, go on ahead, Glo. Tell us. Might as well have it all. Cain’t be that bad. Can it?”
Glo stared at his feet again. The canteen still dangling from the strap in his hand, he glanced up, then pointed toward the road behind us. “Pert sure I found Murdock and Atwood’s trail. Neither one of ’em made any effort to cover up. Miss Clem, her tracks are right on top a what those bad men left.” He stopped and for several seconds didn’t say anything more but let the container of water fall to the ground next to one foot.
“Well,” I said and impatiently motioned for him to go on.
Our old friend glanced up and nodded toward the spot he’d pointed out before. “Whole trail got right messy over yonder by that big rock, ’tother side of the road.”
“Whaddaya mean by got pretty messy?” Boz said.
“Well, near as I could figurate, Mistuh Boz, when they got here, sometime late yesterday afternoon, Murdock and Atwood met up with two other riders over yonderways. ’Pears them others came straight outta Del Rio, joined up with them two murderin’ skunks I ’uz trailin’, then they all rode on back into town together.”