by Jory Sherman
“Caught me some buckshot,” Briggs said. “Like a bunch of bee stings. Hurts like hell. Got me in the knees and arms, I think.”
“You were lucky, Daryl,” Tyler said, lighting another lamp so he could see.
“Never mind about me,” the bartender said. “Esmerelda’s out in the kitchen. She might be hurt.”
“Dan, why don’t you check on Daryl’s wife, whilst I look at the sieve holes in this boy.”
Dan went through the door and entered the kitchen. It was pitch dark.
“Esmerelda?”
“Ummm, ooohhh.”
“I can’t see.”
“Here. Over here.” The woman’s voice was weak, but didn’t show any sign she was in pain.
Dan struck a match and looked around for a lamp. There was one lying on the floor, its glass chimney broken. He picked it up. It was wet and smelled of coal oil.
Dan lit the broken lamp and placed it on a counter away from anything flammable. In the dim light, he saw the woman curled up in a corner next to the woodstove. He saw that her hands were bound to one of the stove legs with twine, twine that was digging into her flesh.
“Ayudame,” she said in Spanish. “Help me.”
“Yes’m. Hold still and I’ll untie you.”
Dan bent down and untied the twine, working the knots loose, then enlarging the loops until he could remove the twine. He took her hand and helped the woman to her feet.
“Esmerelda,” he said. “I’m Dan Cord.”
“Are you a killer?” she asked.
“No’m. I mean I didn’t shoot your husband.”
“My husband. He is dead?”
“No, ma’am. Daryl’s alive.”
“They hit me,” she said. “They were very cruel.”
Dan looked at her in the wavery light. The flame in the lamp was unstable. It flickered and dimmed, flared and waved, with every gust of breath in the room. He could see she was a bit addled, and when he looked at her face, he saw there was a bruise on one side. Someone had struck her hard, probably with a pistol or a shotgun butt. She stood there, her eyes out of focus. He offered her his arm.
“I’ll take you to your husband,” he said.
“Thank you.”
She followed him walking a wobbly gait, and he had to step slow so she could keep up. They entered the bar/café’ and Esmerelda saw her husband laid out atop the bar. Tyler was picking shotgun pellets out of his legs, having ripped his pants open so that he could see the wounds.
Esmerelda rushed to Daryl, looked at the little black holes and the blood, and seemed to regain her senses.
“I will take care of him, Vern,” she said.
“Yes’m. He’s going to be all right, Esmerelda, if you get all them pellets out.”
They left her to attend to her husband while Dan and Vern looked at Pete’s wound. He had apparently been hit by a spent bullet, for the lead ball was embedded in the back of his calf. Pete couldn’t see it, but Tyler plucked it out, held it up for Raskin and Cord to see.
“You’re one lucky feller,” Tyler said. “You ain’t goin’ to die of lead poisoning, Raskin.”
“I wondered why there wasn’t much blood,” Pete said.
“That the only place you was hit?” Tyler asked.
Pete nodded. He touched a finger to the small indentation in his leg. He winced from the slight pain.
Dan smiled at him. “Bulletproof Pete,” he said.
The three men laughed.
Tyler looked over at the bar then turned to the other two. “Our drinks are still settin’ up there,” he said. “Anybody thirsty? I sure as hell am.”
Pete grinned. So did Dan.
The three men walked to the bar and drank the whiskies down without a word.
“Where’s Jones?” Pete asked.
Tyler and Cord looked at him as if they had suddenly lost the power of speech.
“He’s dead,” Tyler said a few seconds later. “Krebs shot him like a dog.”
Pete’s face blanched as if he had been kicked in the stomach.
“Damn,” he said.
“I will fix you some food,” Esmerelda said. “I will feed you and my husband. He said he is hungry and that is good.”
“That would be mighty fine, Esmerelda,” Tyler said, “but you don’t have to go to no trouble.”
“There is another dead man,” she said. “Out back. I heard them call him Lonnie.”
“Dead?” Tyler said, a look of bewilderment on his face.
“I stuck him with a butcher knife when he walked in the back door,” she said, in a calm tone. “He staggered out before the others grabbed me and I heard him fall. I would like my knife back so that I can clean it.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Tyler said.
“You must not swear, Vern,” Esmerelda said. “This is a time for praying, I think.”
And so it was—not for Lonnie Bartlett and the dead Mexicans—but for Jerico Jones, whom they carried to the undertaking parlor that night after supper. Tyler paid for his burial.
They prayed for Jerico, but Dan also prayed he would find Krebs and kill him so he, Dan, could finally be released from hell.
Chapter Twenty-four
Before they left Kerrville, Dan looked long and hard at the body of Deputy Marshal Frank Gaston. Tyler told him to take his money, pistol, whatever else he wanted, but Dan didn’t want any of it.
“Let the undertaker keep it all as his pay,” Dan said. “As for me, I wouldn’t even bury the bastard.”
“You sound pretty bitter, Dan,” Tyler said. “How come?”
“This man was hunting me down like a dog. He was a sworn officer of the law. He betrayed the badge he wore, tarnished its honor bestowed by other brave men who came before him. I’m bitter because I think he knew I was innocent of any crimes and yet he chose not only to try and hang me, but to help the man who was really guilty of the crimes I was accused of. Yeah, I’m bitter, Vern. Riding the owlhoot trail has changed my life, has changed me, and I don’t like none of it.”
“I get your point, Dan,” Tyler said.
Pete slapped Dan on the back. “I know how you feel, Dan,” Pete said.
They rode out of Kerrville toward San Antonio after the sun was a bloody smear on the horizon and later that afternoon, they ran into the rain, a drenching, pelting, hammering rain that the red sky had promised.
Despite Tyler’s protests, Dan had been following Krebs’s tracks, which happened, also, to be heading for San Antonio. The rain wiped out all traces of Krebs’s horse, Duke, and Dan’s hopes evaporated just like the hoofprints washed away by the downpour.
They huddled like shivering birds under the limbs of a green-leafed tree, blinded by the slanting lancets of wind-blown raindrops that pelted their faces and raincoats, their hands and boots, with a sound like hail hitting a wet blanket. They rode blindly under black skies, Tyler in the lead, Cord and Raskin following only because their horses followed the Ranger’s.
Pete leaned toward Dan in the midst of the downpour, when the two were some distance behind Tyler, and said something that Dan couldn’t hear above the din of the rain spattering on their sougans.
“What?” Dan asked.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about, Dan.”
“Now?”
“Real soon.”
“Better wait until the rain quits, Pete.”
“It’s eating at me.”
“Then, spill it.”
“It’s Tyler.” Pete’s whisper was loud enough for Dan to hear.
“What about Tyler?”
“Something wrong.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I think he shot Jerico back there.”
“What? Are you crazy?”
The two fell further behind Tyler. He was just barely visible ahead of them, a dark figure behind a curtain of rain.
“He did it. I saw him shoot Jerico.”
Dan swore.
He could barely make out Pete’s fac
e and what he saw there told him Raskin was dead serious. Dan tried to sort out all the conflicting images in his mind. Could Tyler have really shot Jones the first time, bringing him down? Was it an accident or deliberate? And if he did shoot Jerico, then he must be working for Krebs. That could be, he reasoned. Tyler had led them to Kerrville. He had picked out the saloon where they were to eat and drink after that long hard hungry ride.
“Are you dead sure it was Tyler you saw shoot Jerico?” Dan asked.
Pete didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. It was Tyler all right. He just snapped off a shot when Jerico was running. Aimed right at him.”
“Then Krebs must have paid off Tyler.”
“I been thinkin’ about that,” Pete said. “You know when he could have done it? Krebs, I mean—paid off Tyler?”
Dan’s thinking flashed back to the ride after they crossed the Colorado River. Tyler had ridden well behind them, told them all he had found tracks and that someone was following them. Maybe that was when he ran into Krebs and Jake bought him off, put greenbacks in his hand and ordered him to either set up Jerico or find a way to kill him before they got to San Antonio.
“Yeah, Pete. Tyler could have run into Krebs before we got to Kerrville. And Krebs could have bribed him to see that Jerico got killed. One way or another.”
Pete’s face brightened, even in the hard rain, his face glistened with understanding.
“What are we going to do?” Pete asked.
“Leave it to me. I’ll think of something.”
They nearly ran into Tyler a moment later. The Ranger had stopped to wait for them and they both shut up when they saw him. Dan’s heart was pumping fast. But he knew Tyler hadn’t heard anything they said. The question now was whether or not he suspected that they had been talking about him.
“You boys ought to keep up,” Tyler said. “You could get lost in all this shit.”
“Hell, we’re lost now,” Dan said.
Tyler laughed. “We’re headin’ for San Antonio. I know these hills.”
“How long’s this rain goin’ to last?” Raskin asked.
“Hard to tell,” Tyler said. “It’s a frog strangler.”
“Like a cow pissin’ on a flat rock,” Pete said.
They all laughed and Tyler turned his horse and headed once again into the brunt of the rain. The wind picked up and blew watery lances against them, stinging their eyes with nettles of blown water, making their hands and wrists smart and setting up a constant tattoo on their slickers.
The rain let up by mid-afternoon and turned into a drizzle. By the end of the day, the drizzle had stopped and the sun slowly emerged as a feeble light behind a thin scrim of clouds. The wind dried their slickers. There was a tang in the air, a feeling of freshness to the land by the time they made camp near a small stream that trickled down from the dwindling array of hills.
“We should make San Antonio sometime tomorrow,” Tyler said after they set up camp, started a fire, and put the coffeepot on to boil. “That rain set us back some. But we still made pretty good time.”
“What are you going to do in San Antonio, Vern?” Dan asked.
“Why, I’ll go to the Ranger headquarters there and make my report. Explain why Jones won’t appear before the grand jury.”
Dan had asked the question casually, but Pete stopped putting more sticks of wood on the fire and stood up, listening with a more than usual intensity.
“And, what are you going to say in your report about Jones?” Dan asked.
“What the hell? You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’m going to write down what happened. That we was attacked by Krebs and his men and that Krebs shot Jones dead.”
“Jerico was wounded when I dragged him out of the open and in between those two buildings.”
“Was he?”
“You know damned well he was,” Dan said. His voice was increasing in intensity.
Pete started to back away from the fire, away from the smoke. He looked ready to spring at something.
“What are you getting at, Dan? I didn’t know the man was wounded. You never said nothing.”
“Didn’t you see Jerico fall and me run over to him?”
“No, I reckon I didn’t.” Tyler’s voice was crisp and brittle with a testiness that flared up in his throat like the bitter taste of bile.
“Do you know who brought Jerico down, Vern?”
“Hell, no.”
“How much money you got on you?”
Tyler bristled at the question. “None of your damned business. What are you driving at, Cord? Spit it out.”
“How much did Krebs pay you to see to it that Jerico got killed, that he never made it to that grand jury?”
“So, you figured it out, did you, Cord?”
Tyler backed away from Dan, stood with his legs spread in a fighting stance.
“I figured it out. Krebs paid you off, just like he did Gaston and who knows how many other dishonest lawmen.”
“Listen, Sonny, you got a smart mouth. And you can’t prove none of this. My advice to you is to just shut your mouth and mind your own business.”
“Why, Vern? Why did you sell out to Krebs?”
Tyler didn’t answer right away. He moved his lips, flexing them as if he had something sour in his mouth. His face contorted in a building rage that seemed to bubble up from inside him. His neck swelled like a bull’s in the rut and his face grew red as he tried to control his anger.
“Krebs is a powerful man in Texas,” Tyler said. “He’s going to be a big man in this state someday. He’s got politicians in his back pocket and big friends in Austin and all over. You might be wise to remember that.”
“Krebs is nothing but a skunk,” Dan said. “And any lawman who would sell out to him is a skunk, too. Like you, Tyler.”
“You lookin’ to call me out, Cord?”
“You’ve got blood money in your pocket, Tyler. You had a hand in killing an innocent man. Jones might have spelled the ruin of Krebs, but you let him die and you let Krebs have his way. You’re even lower than he is.”
Tyler couldn’t take it. His anger flared up and propelled him into action. His right hand streaked for his gun with practiced precision.
Tyler was fast.
But Dan was even faster. His hand flashed to the butt of his Colt and it appeared in his hand like magic. Tyler heard the click of the hammer on Dan’s gun before his own pistol cleared leather. His face drained of blood and blanched white.
Dan shot from the hip, the Colt bellowing with explosive force, sounding in the stillness like a cannon. White smoke and flame spewed from the barrel. The lead bullet smashed into Tyler, striking him just below the gullet. Blood poured from his mouth as it gushed up from the hole in his throat. He tried to speak and strangled on blood. His eyes glazed over and he pitched forward. The bullet tore a hole through his spine, paralyzing him, shutting off all signals to his brain, leaving a hole the size of a fist in the back of his neck.
Dan stood there, a wispy curl of smoke rising from his gun barrel.
“He’s dead, ain’t he?” Pete asked.
Dan didn’t answer. He felt suddenly weak. His legs began to quiver and it was all he could do to remain standing. He had killed another man. And it didn’t make him feel any better that Tyler was a Ranger gone crooked.
If it came to a hearing in a court of law, he knew he would be branded a criminal, no matter the circumstances. And, the hell of it was, Dan didn’t care any more.
He was already an outlaw and killing Tyler wasn’t going to change that. It was only going to change him.
Chapter Twenty-five
Dan washed Dapper’s legs in the stream, cleaned the clumps of mud tangled in his fetlocks. The setting sun left a charcoal sky brooding in the west. Overhead, the graceful arcs of mare’s tails floating like wispy scarves portended more bad weather to come.
“What are we going to do with Tyler?” Pete asked. “His corpse, I mean.”
&nbs
p; “Tie him on his horse in the morning, pack him to San Antonio.”
“How are you going to explain him to the law?”
“I’ll write out an account of what happened with Krebs and him and stick it inside Tyler’s shirt. We’ll leave him and his horse in front of the sheriff’s office or the Ranger station, if there is one. Let them figure it out. I took Vern’s report papers from his saddlebags and there were some pencils in there, too.”
“What about the money you found on him?”
“Blood money. I’ll leave that, too, and tell them where it came from.”
They had found two hundred dollars in folded bills in one of Tyler’s pockets. More money than Tyler would have been carrying when he left Waco. In his wallet, he had about forty dollars.
“What if somebody sees us ride in with his body?”
“We’ll go in late at night when nobody’s about, Pete. Why all the questions?”
“Just curious. And nervous as hell.”
“You can go on back home if you want.”
“You know I can’t do that, Dan. I’m still a wanted man. Just like you.”
“Well, you don’t have to go into San Antonio with me.”
“Why are you going there?”
“I’m hoping to run into someone there.”
“Someone you know?”
“Yeah, someone I have to talk to, Pete. Now, drop it, will you?”
Dan knew he was risking a lot, but he knew Ben Alexander was bound to be in San Antonio, waiting for the delivery of his star witness before the grand jury, Jerico Jones. Alexander would have to be there for that. Only, Jones wasn’t going to be there, or anyplace else. Ever.
Raskin walked off, away from the creek, away from the fire. Dan supposed he was brooding over his rebuff, like a little kid. Well, he’d get over it. Pete had seen a lot of life, and of death, on their journey from Waco. It had to affect Pete, as it had affected him. It would take them both a long time to get over all that had happened, make sense of people you thought you could trust, people who disappointed you, who let you down, who lied to you. Raskin would be better off if he went back to Austin and his wife. That was the only place he was liable to find comfort, Dan thought, with a wry sense of regret twisting in his mind like an auger.