by J. Lee Butts
“But you’re just figuratin’ on that one, right?” Boz said. “Actual events might not have transpired quite that way a’tall.”
“Well, naw, suh, Mistuh Boz. Actually happened exactly that way,” Glo said and hooked a thumb toward the jacal. “See, the feller what lives here, name of Benito Suarez, tells as how he seen them fellers a-sittin’ they hosses and talkin’ for several minutes ’fore they struck out for town.”
“What about the girl? What about her?” I said.
Glo shook his head. A pained look scrunched his tense, ebon brow into a series of darker, tighter lines. “Well, I followed her and the rest of ’em on into town, see. She trailed up right behind ’em others.”
“Little gal went into Del Rio behind Murdock, Atwood, and a pair of unknowns? That what you’re tellin’ us?” Boz said.
“Yah, suh. Course, gotta remember, she come on quite a few hours later. But sho’ ’nuff, that’s what I’m sayin’ all right. Think I come close to catchin’ her ’bout the time she reined up out front of a joint on Del Rio’s Main Street named the Broke Mill Saloon.”
“Came close?” Boz said.
“Couldna been behind her more’n a minute or two. Oddest of circumstances though, don’t you know. Seems as how Murdock, Atwood, and them other two was standin’ outside under the Broke Mill’s awning when she rode up. Gal musta stopped when she seen somethin’, or somebody, familiar. Confronted them boys like she’s gonna kill ’em all right on the spot. I watched a goodly bit of the noisy business from the doorway of a big ole grocery store and dry-goods outfit, ’tother side of the street.”
“Confronted? Confronted?” Boz blustered. “How’n the hell would Clem know who to confront? Girl wouldn’t have known Murdock and Atwood from a pair of red-eyed cows.”
“Didn’t say her attention was aimed at either of them boys. Right doubtful she recognized either one of them skunks,” Glo said and eyed each of us as though heavily burdened by some kind of mystery-laced secret.
I rubbed my jaw with the knuckles of one hand and said, “You mean to say Clementine challenged one of the two men we haven’t identified yet?”
A reluctant nod of the head, and Glo added, “Yah, suh, that’s the story for sure. Swear ’fore Jesus, Mistuh Dodge, gal acted like she done knowed one of them men. Most like she mighta knowed him all her life. Thought it was right strange-like and mysterious myself.”
Boz spanked one leg with his hat. “Now wait a second. This ain’t makin’ no kind of reasonable sense. Let’s back up some. Go at it from the beginning. Start with a place where I can get a real handle on this, Glo.”
Glo ran a hand up to the side of his head, scratched a spot over one ear, and looked puzzled. He said, “Well, like I done said, I followed the trail on into town. Spotted Miss Clementine outside the Broke Mill. Slipped up on that store’s covered porch to see what was happenin’.”
“Store’s covered porch,” I mumbled.
“Yah, suh. Did kinda surprise me some when I seen Miss Webb a-standin’ there in the street. She had that little pistol of hers out, you know. Appeared she ’uz a yellin’ at them four men what was just a standin’ on the boardwalk out front of the saloon.”
“Confronted them right out in the street?” Boz mumbled.
“Yah, suh. Well, kinda. Started out like that but didn’t last, you know?”
“No, we don’t, Glo. Go on, clarify this thing for us,” I said.
He took a deep breath and ran a finger back and forth under his nose as though something was tickling his upper lip. He coughed, then backed up again. “See, I got there right behind the girl. Seen her jump off that pony Big Jim done sold her. Bear, he right in the middle of it all, growlin’ and snappin’. She went and pulled her pistol. Goes to yellin’ at one of the fellers on the porch.”
“You hear any of the conversation?” I said.
“No, suh. Couldn’t, for certain sure, make out what was being said. Too far away. But, lawdy, Mistuh Dodge, that ’ere little gal was some kinda fierce upset with one a them fellers in particular. Sounded most like she called him ever kinda name she could lay her tongue on.”
“You didn’t recognize the man Clem singled out?” I said.
“Naw, suh. Never seen that particular man before.”
“So, standing outside the Broke Mill Saloon there was Atwood, Murdock, a feller you didn’t know that the Webb girl was yellin’ at, and one other gent. You recognize the other gent, the forth one, by any chance?” Boz said, while swiping at the drenched, inside band of his hat with a faded bandanna.
Glo stared at the ground and kicked at the brittle, dusty earth with the toe of one worn boot. “Yah, suh. Sorry to say, but I knowed ’im alright. I done seen ’im before. Took a spell of studyin’, but I knowed ’im for sure.”
A second or so of silence followed before I said, “Well, you gonna tell us, or do we rub the bumps on your head and hope it just comes to us through our fingertips?”
Glo almost looked embarrassed when he hissed, “Hateful to say, but I’m pert sure it were Eagle Cutner, Mistuh Dodge. Didn’t recognize him at first. Like I said, too far away. Got a better look a minute or so after the dance started. Man turned my way, pushed his hat back. That’s when I recognized him. Was Cutner alright.”
Boz’s hat slipped from his fingers and plopped upright onto the peon’s manure-covered yard. He stared at Glo, as if the man had slapped him across the face with a paper bag full of rotten cow guts that had a hole in the bottom of it. Came nigh on to whispering when he said, “Shit almighty. For sure? Eagle ‘Mad Dog’ Cutner?”
“You’re absolutely certain, Glo?” I said. “Ain’t no doubt the man you saw Clem jawin’ at was traveling with Mad Dog Cutner, Pitt Murdock, and Tanner Atwood?”
“Yah, suh. ’S right as rain. Scared the pure bejabberous hellfire outta me, Mistuh Dodge. Figured on bringin’ that little gal back this way with me, leastways till I seen Cutner. Always heard as how that man’s a good one not to mess with. Bet I’ve heard a hundred people tell as how he’s meaner’n ten acres of snakes and will kill you dead as Hell in a Baptist preacher’s front vestibule. Most folks say he’s killed more people than a body can read about in the first three books of the Bible. Worse, he’s had his evil ways wid more women than any dozen other men’ll ever know in a lifetime.”
I could see the puzzled pain in Boz’s eyes when he said, “Do you believe this, Dodge? Three of the worst killers in Texas and they’re all here, together, at the same time. Two of ’em just recently left the company of them stinkin’ Pickett brothers for the company of a murderer and brutal rapist of the first water like Eagle ‘Mad Dog’ Cutner. And somehow, they’re all related to the massacred family of a little-known state senator name of Webb. All them poor folks killed on property we’re responsible for.”
I felt like my brain flip-flopped inside my skull. Rubbed one temple with a fingertip. “I thought sure as how ole Mad Dog was locked safely away in prison over in Huntsville. Seems I heard tell as how he finally got caught in the very act of committing heinous acts on a lady from down Reynosa way.”
“Me, too,” Boz mumbled.
Right certain I looked most like the man who’d been slapped sillier than a bag full of tumblebugs when I said, “Anything else you can tell us, Glo? Anything else you might recall but didn’t mention.”
“Naw, suh. ’Cept that feller I didn’t recognize, he stepped off the saloon’s board porch, walked up to Miss Clementine and took her pistol away like he was dealin’ with his very own child. Like he was her father, or somethin’. And that’s when Pitt Murdock went and shot the dog. Kilt poor ole Bear like he warn’t nothing more’n a passin’ nuisance.”
Boz snatched his hat off the ground and whacked it against his leg again. A roiling cloud of powdery dust puffed up around him. Gritted his teeth and snarled, “Damnation. You mean to tell me the son of a bitch shot Bear?”
“Yah, sur, Mistuh Boz. Kilt that poor unarmed animal deader’n Santa Anna. Little
gal went to screeching like a gut-shot panther. That there feller I didn’t know grabbed her by the wrist and set to draggin’ her off sommeres. But I ain’t sure to this very minute exactly where they went. Just seemed to vanish of a sudden, like a couple a puffs of driftin’ smoke carried away by an invisible wind.”
Felt like I was eating an entire beehive when I snapped, “Murdock went and killed Bear, did he? Well, he’ll pay for that, by God. I’ll see to it if it’s the last thing I ever do. Dog never hurt a soul—lest he was told he could.”
Boz looked like a man whose fevered brain was about to explode when he growled, “You sure you didn’t see anything else we need to know about?”
Glo stared at his feet again. “Naw, suh. Didn’t stick around after I seen that feller take Miss Clementine’s pistol away and Murdock went and kilt Bear. Figured there weren’t nothin’ a man alone, like me, could go a doin’ with gents like Murdock, Atwood, and Mad Dog Cutner hangin’ around. Decided as how I’d best be gettin’ on back this way fast as I could ’fore somethin’ happened to me. Hoofed it back so’s I could let you fellers know what’s a waitin’ for us just down the road a piece.”
There was more than a bit of shuffling and dirt kicking after that. Finally, Boz pawed at the grip of his belly gun and said, “Well, how you wanna handle this poisonous mess, Dodge? Go along with anything you can bring to mind.”
I shook my head, then said, “Not sure, and that’s a pure fact, Boz. Hatful of unknowns in this twisted spider’s nest. Sure don’t want to do anything to jeopardize Clem’s young life, if we can keep from it. However we go at this manure pie, though, don’t sound like it’s gonna be any kind of party, does it?”
Boz squinted and pushed at his hip pistol’s shiny, well-used grip with the heel of his gun hand. He scratched a whiskered chin, then said, “Well, here’s how I see it, Lucius. We might as well just go on ahead and grab the bull by the tail. Face on up to a really bad situation. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah, suppose you’re right,” I offered. “If nothing else, we should still have the advantage of surprise on our side. No way any of those boys can have the slightest inkling we’re fogging up behind them, unless Clem lets that particular cat out of the bag before we can get to her.”
Boz unlimbered the cross-draw hand cannon snugged against his bony left hip. He flipped the loading gate open, then rolled the cylinder down his arm, and eyeballed the primers of each round. “Might as well start at the Broke Mill,” he said. “I could sneak around back while you and Glo hit ’em from the front. That way we can brace whoever might still be hanging around from both directions. Confronted by enough guns, maybe they’ll think twice ’bout getting all froggy and jumping into a fight.”
“Sounds like a good ’nuff plan to me,” I said. “Would like to talk to at least one of them skunks ’fore we have to kill the whole damned pack though.”
“Well, you know that might prove hard to do, Lucius. Especially if the girl’s still somewhere nearby and they can get at her,” Boz said and re-holstered his weapon.
“What about local law?” I said.
“Ain’t enough to worry ourselves over,” Glo said. “Del Rio’s got a town marshal, but way I done heard it, he don’t do much but shovel all the horse manure outta the streets, keep the pigs run off and sech. Locks up a drunk railroader now and again. Railroad takes care of most of its own problems. Have their own troop of lawmen for dealin’ with railroad problems.”
“Hell with local law then,” Boz said. “We’re Texas Rangers, by God. Go wherever’n the hell we need to and do whatever we have to do when the occasion presents itself. Personally think we should stick to the plan. March right in, brace any of them bad boys as we can find. If that don’t work, we can always adjust our methods to whatever the situation requires.”
So, that’s how we decided to play it. Got ourselves mounted and headed straight for the Broke Mill Saloon. Tied our animals outside a grocery and mercantile across Del Rio’s main thoroughfare named Rocha’s.
Wagon traffic passing up and down the street didn’t pan out near as problematic as I’d figured it might. Glo allowed as how most of the railroad’s numerous track crews were probably somewhere out west of town and wouldn’t return until a good bit after dark. Sounded reasonable to me.
Boz pulled his cut-down shotgun. He hoofed it for the alley between the Broke Mill and a leather-working outfit, where it appeared the owner mostly dealt in custom-made saddles.
According to my big-ticking Ingersoll pocket watch, Glo and me gave Boz five minutes to get situated. Then we sauntered across the near-deserted thoroughfare to a spot on the boardwalk out front of the watering hole’s fancy, bloodred batwing doors.
Being as how Pitt Murdock would for sure recognize my face first jump out of the box, I had Glo peek inside and give me a description of the layout. He stared over the door for near a minute before he nodded to the left and held up two fingers. “ ’S Murdock and Atwood,” he hissed.
Seemed some of our prey had gone missing. Didn’t matter one whit to me. I pulled at Glo’s sleeve and said, “Either of ’em goes for his weapon before we can brace ’em, don’t you dare hesitate. Send ’em straight to Jesus.”
We pushed our way inside. Unlimbered my belly gun as I stepped across the joint’s rugged threshold. I was immediately enveloped by a dark curtain of interior coolness. Cocked the weapon and held it next to my leg as we quickly sidestepped to the right. Heard the heavy hammers come back on Glo’s long-barreled Greener.
We eased our way over to the middle of the narrow, oblong room and took up spots about midway of a marble-topped, hand-carved, mahogany bar. Other than that astonishingly out-of-place liquor serving counter, wasn’t much that could be called fancy about the Broke Mill Saloon in the remotest stretch of the word’s definition.
The joint sported a dozen or so crude tables along the wall on our left. Spittoons the size of a Messican’s favorite sombrero were jammed under virtually every table and a thick layer of fresh sawdust covered the rough-cut board floor. Customers were scattered here and there, but not that many.
A snooker table, in serious need of a new covering of felt, filled the open bit of floor space at the far end of the bar. A couple of beer-swigging cowboys smoked hand-rolled ciga-reets and bumped balls back and forth. I spotted Boz standing near a potbellied stove in the corner opposite the dilapidated billiards table.
I can’t even begin to say how happy it made me when I spotted those two skunks huddled together like a couple of old biddies perched on the last railing in a henhouse. They were sitting at a table near the back of the room. Had their heads together and were engrossed in such deep, whispering discussions that neither of them appeared aware of me and Glo—leastwise, not at first.
A number of the regular tipplers sure enough took notice of our arrival, though. Right difficult not to detect a pair of heavily armed, hard-looking men who appear on the prowl for a fight. Several of the red-faced drunks eyeballed us like we carried some form of horrible disease that needed to be avoided at all costs. We had barely got situated when a good many of those boys threw down the remnants of their drinks and scurried for the door like cockroaches running from the light.
Guess me and Glo stood there next to the bar for nigh on fifteen seconds, letting everything sort itself out, before Pitt Murdock glanced over the rim of his dripping whiskey glass and spotted us. I flashed a friendly grin his direction and nodded like we were long-lost family that hadn’t seen each other in a spell.
I thought sure the man would have a brain-killing, eye-popper of a stroke. The beaker of panther sweat he held between trembling fingers hung on his bottom lip as if he’d suddenly become petrified. The ropelike scar I’d put across his ugly countenance, with a pistol barrel, glowed pink and suddenly got pinker, then damn near turned bloodred.
Color flooded up in the man’s neck and tinted his ears. Another second or so of glaring at me, and he threw the entire shot of hooch down in one swallow. He sla
mmed the glass onto the tabletop with a resounding thud, then reached over and touched Tanner Atwood on the arm. He cut a rheumy, bloodshot gaze back our direction and nodded.
Atwood twisted in his wobbly, creaking seat, then let one hand fall beneath the table. He glared at me like he wanted to twist my head off and take a dump down the hole left in my neck. Then he whispered something to Murdock from the corner of a sneering, twisted mouth. The pair of them got to looking right wormy, but calmed a bit when Murdock glanced over his shoulder and spotted Boz standing in the corner behind them with his shotgun pointed their direction.
I nudged Glo with my elbow and whispered, “Well, let’s stroll on over and say howdy.”
Tension in the room shot through the roof as we moved to a spot less than ten feet from that pair of murderous swine. Couple of the remaining local boozehounds finally realized something dangerous was definitely afoot. Could see it on their pinched faces as they hastily threw back what remained of their most recent beaker of scamper juice and headed for the safer climes of anyplace except where gunfire might be about to ensue. Hollow-eyed Death himself had very definitely strolled into the Broke Mill. Anyone who could get out of Ole Bony Finger’s way was, for damned sure, heeling it for the perceived safety afforded them somewhere out along Del Rio’s central thoroughfare.
18
“DO YOUR WORST.”
PITT MURDOCK BROUGHT both hands up to the tabletop, pushed his chair back onto two legs, and said, “You’re just about the last man on this earth I expected to see today, Dodge. Swear to Jesus you are.”
Cocked pistol still held behind my leg, I grinned and said, “Sorry to put a crimp in your drinkin’, Pitt.”
Murdock twisted his stringy-haired head to one side like a mangy dog about to lift a foot and scratch a flea-riddled ear. He said, “See, Dodge, I done heard tell as how you’d went and got kilt all to hell and gone over in Rio Seco. ’Course I offered up prayers of thanks soon’s that more’n welcome news hit my baby-pink, shell-like ears.”