Devil's Brand

by Len Levinson

  “Go ahead,” Stone said.

  Von Falkenheim remembered Stone shooting Dave Quarter-night, one of the fastest guns on the frontier, and one of the most expensive. Von Falkenheim concluded he shouldn’t take the chance.

  “No,” he said, “I am not a common gunfighter.”

  Stone turned and faced him again, hitching his thumbs in his gunbelts. “What do I have to do to make you act like a man?”

  It was a slap in the face, because Von Falkenheim valued his masculinity above his wealth or title. I must not let him tempt me, he thought. I must stay calm and walk out of this alive.

  Stone took off his hat and flung it away. Then he untied his bandanna and tossed it in another direction. He unbuttoned his shirt, peeled it off, and turned his back to Von Falkenheim.

  Von Falkenheim stared at the network of scratches, and it was like looking at his own back after he’d been with Veronika. His cheeks grew hot, and now the burgeoning rage swept over him. This was the deepest and most terrible insult of all, and it could only be wiped out with blood.

  He raised his chin an inch, and his features became white marble. “I duel in the classical manner,” he said icily. “Do you?”

  “Pace off ten steps, turn, and fire on signal from the referee.”

  “Exactly. Vill you gif me satisfaction?”

  “You bet your ass. I’ll flip you for the referee.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  Stone tossed the coin into the air and said, “I’ll take heads.”

  The coin landed on the buffalo grass, and Stone bent over it. “Tails. Choose somebody.”

  Von Falkenheim turned to his cowboys and hollered: “Fairfax!”

  Don Fairfax, ramrod of the Diamond D, climbed down from his horse and walked toward Von Falkenheim. He was ruddy-faced, middle-aged, and wearing chaps and a hat with the brim rolled up on the sides. There was a worried look on his face as he came to a stop in front of Von Falkenheim.

  “You are going to referee a duel,” Von Falkenheim told him, and then described what he’d have to do. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take your position.”

  Fairfax walked away, chaps flapping on his legs, and stopped midway between his men and those from the Triangle Spur. Meanwhile, Von Falkenheim turned the revolving section of his gun to make sure it was operating properly. He holstered his gun, removed his black leather coat, red bandanna, and white silk shirt, dropping them beside him on the ground.

  When he walked toward Fairfax, the men could see the scratches on his back identical to Stone’s. A murmur went up among cowboys on both sides of the line as Von Falkenheim came to a stop and pointed his pistol straight up in the air.

  Stone walked toward him, remembering once more the Gypsy’s curse. He’d never dueled in the classical manner, and maybe his time had come, but he didn’t think so, and didn’t give a damn anyway. All he wanted to do was put a bullet between Von Falkenheim’s eyes.

  The two adversaries stood back to back, their scarred flesh touching, their elbows bent and guns pointing straight up at the sky.

  “Pace off!” Fairfax shouted. “One ... Two . .. Three …”

  Stone and Von Falkenheim stepped away from each other, and Von Falkenheim held his head proudly, like a Prussian officer, while Stone’s chin was closer to his chest, like a prizefighter. Fairfax hollered: “Ten!” And both men stopped. “Turn around!”

  Stone and Von Falkenheim wheeled and faced each other sideways, to present the smallest possible target. They gazed at each other across the dueling ground, and everybody knew one of them was going to die. Tomahawk pawed the ground nervously, because he’d developed an affection for Stone during the weeks they’d been together.

  “All right, gentlemen,” Fairfax said. “When I say fire, you know what to do. Are both of you ready?”

  “It is customary,” the count said, “at this point in a duel, to offer the combatants an opportunity to apologize.”

  “We can skip that part,” Stone replied, holding his Colt tightly in his fist, aligning his arm with Von Falkenheim, so all he had to do was bring his hand down quickly and pull the trigger.

  “You may proceed,” Von Falkenheim said to Fairfax.

  There was a pause, and Stone and Von Falkenheim stared at each other, casting long shadows in the light of the setting sun. Hatred and revulsion passed between them as they tensed for the final word.

  “Fire!” Hollered Fairfax.

  Both guns streaked down, and Von Falkenheim got off the first shot, but he was too eager, and his bullet flew two feet over Stone’s head. Then Stone’s gun fired, and Von Falkenheim was rocked back on his heels even as he was cocking his hammer for the second shot.

  Von Falkenheim felt himself unraveling, and there was a terrible pain in his chest. He didn’t have the strength to pull the hammer back, but with the pride of a former Prussian officer, he tried. Stone fired again, and everything went black before Von Falkenheim’s eyes. He dropped his gun, wondered what mad dream brought him to this strange land, and fell to the ground, shuddered, and coughed blood.

  Stone walked toward him, aimed his gun at Von Falkenheim’s head, and put him out of his misery. The shot echoed across the valleys and canyons, and buzzards circled in the sky.

  Stone turned toward the mounted gunfighters from the Diamond D. “Who’s next!” He asked.

  Nobody said a word.

  “Get off this range!”

  “Let’s go, men!” Shouted Fairfax, walking back to his horse.

  The Diamond D cowboys draped Dave Quarternight and Count Wolfgang Von Falkenheim head down over their saddles and led them away. Blood dripped from Von Falkenheim’s head onto the white coat of his Arabian stallion, who walked solemnly, head low to the ground, mourning the death of his master.

  Stone thumbed cartridges into his Colt, as the cowboys from the Triangle Spur gathered around him, and there was new respect in their voices as they congratulated him. Stone didn’t say anything, and didn’t seem to hear them. He picked his shirt off the ground and buttoned it, knowing Von Falkenheim had fired the first shot, and if the count had held his gun an inch lower, Stone would be head down over Tomahawk, and the gypsy’s curse would be redeemed.

  “That was some display of shootin’.” Truscott said admiringly.

  Stone tucked in his shirt and put on his hat. He looked at the herd, and the cattle continued to chew grass complacently, they couldn’t care less about men shooting each other.

  “Can you imagine that?” Young Ben Thorpe said. “They tried to steal our herd! Thought they could just ride away with it!”

  Don Emilio stood nearby, his wide sombrero on his bandaged head. “Happens all the time in the brush country, my friends. That is how I and my vaqueros have come to be here ourselves.”

  Stone thought of Cassandra, as a mountain pierced the sun on the horizon. Her herd was safe now, because no creditors would show up in the middle of the night. They’d leave on schedule in the morning, and somehow they’d make it to Abilene. Truscott and the rest of them stood up to the Diamond D, and if they could do that, they could do anything. Cassandra would be proud of her cowboys, when she heard what they had done.

  Stone flashed on the one-armed colonel who’d tried to cheat Cassandra out of her property. Stone didn’t recall seeing Whiteside after the duel was over, and wondered where he’d gone. Then he remembered Whiteside smashing Cassandra in the face in the bunkhouse, and a terrible thought came into his mind.

  He ran toward Tomahawk, jumped over his rump, and landed in the saddle. He grabbed the reins, spurred Tomahawk, and the black stallion leapt forward, pounding his hooves into the ground, gathering speed, as the mountains on the horizon sank into the dusk of night.

  Chapter Nine

  It was dark at the Triangle Spur, and the two women sat exhausted in the living room, a stack of boxes near the door. The windows were boarded, furniture draped with protective cloth, and tomorrow morning they’d nail
shut the door. If they were lucky, maybe the Comanches wouldn’t burn the place to the ground, and they could come back someday.

  “I’m ready to go to bed,” Cassandra said wearily. “I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard in my life.”

  “Want some warm milk?” Agnes asked.

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  Agnes got to her feet, a spindly old woman in a long dress and apron. “No trouble at all.”

  She walked toward the kitchen, and Cassandra sprawled in the big upholstered easy chair, the heels of her boots digging into the rug. She still wore her jeans and shirt, with the top two buttons of the shirt unfastened.

  She felt as though the worst was over. No creditors had arrived that day, and she’d be hard to find tomorrow morning. She was going to Kansas, and someday she’d be able to tell her granddaughter all about it.

  She expected it to be a grand adventure. There were rivers to cross, Indians and outlaws to fight, hailstorms, stampedes, and anti-Texas bias in Kansas, but somehow they’d make it through.

  She had complete confidence in her cowboys, after the way they’d interceded for her the previous evening. She’d never dreamed that bunch of sloppy drunkards could stand up to the authority of Gideon, but they had. Underneath everything, they were decent men, and she loved every one of them. She couldn’t wait to join them, and fully intended to pull her weight all the way to Abilene. She could ride, and would become one of the boys.

  Her thoughts turned to John Stone, biggest surprise of all. She’d thought him a derelict who couldn’t think beyond his next bottle, and he was the one who’d led the revolt against Gideon. Stone had been a different man last night in the bunk-house. For a few moments, she’d seen the cavalry officer he must’ve been. God pity the man who got on the fighting side of John Stone.

  She remembered Gideon, and compared him with John Stone. It seemed as though Gideon had been a bad dream, now that the veils had been torn away. Gideon was a stout old man and an obnoxious braggart, wrapping himself in the Confederate flag, using the Cause for his own dark purposes, and now she wondered if he’d ever really been in the Army at all.

  She became aware of silence in the kitchen. “Agnes?” She asked. There was no answer, and Cassandra furrowed her brow. “Agnes?”

  No sound came from the kitchen, and a breeze blew against the clapboards that covered the ranch house. The hairs stood up on Cassandra’s neck, and she got to her feet, reaching for the gun in her holster.

  “Agnes?”

  There was no answer, but Cassandra was sure there was a reasonable explanation. Maybe Agnes had gone to the privy. Yes, that must be it. Cassandra eased the gun into her holster and sat in the chair.

  She knew Comanches and Apaches were in the vicinity, although she’d never had difficulties with them during the two years she and Gideon had owned the ranch. There also were reports of outlaw gangs and free-lance thieves robbing banks and stealing cattle. But there’d never been problems at the Triangle Spur.

  “Agnes?”

  No one answered, and a chill passed over Cassandra. She glanced around nervously, and then something creaked in the kitchen. She rose and pulled out her gun. Her heart beat swiftly in her breast as she walked down the corridor, and she wanted to believe she was being foolish, because Agnes would return in a few minutes, and they’d laugh over Cassandra’s panic attack.

  It was pitch-black in the kitchen—why had Agnes turned out the lantern? Cassandra wanted to run, but there was no place to go and no one to hear her if she screamed. A wave of unholy terror came over her as she froze in the dark corridor.

  She could return for the lamp in the living room, or continue into the kitchen and light the lamp. “Agnes?” she asked, and her voice echoed down the corridor. She decided to get the lamp in the living room, but then suddenly heard rushing footsteps coming toward her. She screamed, and something smashed into her head. The last thing she saw was Gideon’s hideous face looming out of the darkness as she fell senseless to the floor at his feet.

  She opened her eyes, lying on her bed. A lantern glowed atop the dresser, and her hands and feet were tied to the bedposts. The side of her head was bloody where Gideon had struck her with the butt of his gun.

  He stood at the foot of the bed, light from the lamp throwing weird shadows onto his face, and his gray hair was mussed on his head; he looked like a madman.

  “You’re awake!” he roared, as if playing to an audience. “That’s good, because I was afraid I’d killed you, but I guess your skull is too thick for that!” He laughed, filling his chest with air, his hand outstretched at his side. Then he stepped forward, grabbed a handful of her hair, and jerked her head from the pillow. “Who did you think you were when you contradicted me in the bunkhouse that night? Had you forgotten who I am, I, Colonel Gideon Whiteside, the hero of Sharpsburg? Did you think you were dealing with an ordinary man, someone who could be overcome by your idiotic smile?”

  He let her head go, took a step backward, and threw out his arm dramatically. “If only you knew how much I’ve hated you. You never even had the brains to ask questions—you could’ve written to the War Department in Washington, you could’ve corresponded with men who’d served under General Jackson, but no, you believed every word I said, my performance was impeccable, I delivered every line perfectly. Sometimes I let you think you’d made a decision, although I had cleverly led you to it by your little nose. I have made you what you are, you are my creation, and just as I made you, I shall destroy you!”

  He pulled a knife from his belt, and its six-inch blade gleamed in the light of the lantern. Cassandra screeched at the top of her lungs and strained at her bonds, while Whiteside threw back his head and laughed.

  “Go ahead! Let it all out! See what good it does! No one can hear you now! We’re all alone, the way a husband and wife should be alone, and we’re going to make love, just as in the old days, only this time I’m going to use this!”

  He held the blade before her face, and she screamed again, tears flowing down her cheeks. She could see blood on the blade; he’d cut down Agnes in the kitchen.

  Whiteside filled his lungs with air and laughed, staggering from side to side, holding the back of his fist to his forehead, while his fingers gripped the gory knife.

  Cassandra was so terrified she was nearly out of her mind. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t happening, it was a nightmare and everything would be all right in the morning, but somehow the ropes around her wrists and ankles were too insistent, Gideon’s laughter too loud, and the knife in his hand too real.

  She remembered the derringer suspended by the gold chain, and wondered if there was some way she could get it. She looked at Gideon laughing at her, his eyes glittering with dementia. Somehow she’d have to outsmart him, otherwise he was going to kill her. What was his weak spot, and how could she reach it?

  He struck another actor’s pose. “I’ve been stealing from you even before we were married, and you never suspected. On many of those nights when you thought I was attending Veterans’ meetings, I was with other women far younger and more beautiful than you, and it amused me to buy presents for them with your money, and you never even dreamed it could be happening, because you trusted me the way a sick cat trusts her mother. How poignant and immeasurably stupid, but if you’d continued to trust me, I’d have let you live. Instead you chose to humiliate me in front of those filthy drunken cowboys, and for that, my dear Cassandra, you must die!

  “You see,” he said in a vague singsong voice, “I’ve had to eat too much dirt in my life. Do you know what it is to be poor, and watch from the gutter as your betters passed, on their way to banquets, theaters, balls, and races? Do you know what it is to have a stomach hollow with hunger, and gaze through the window of a restaurant at wealthy people stuffing themselves with haute cuisine? Of course you don’t know what it’s like, and I guess you never will, because now, my dear Cassandra, I’m afraid your time has come. I’m going to cut your throat slow
ly, so you’ll know you made a very great mistake when you had the audacity to rebel against me.”

  He advanced toward her, knife in hand, but he’d showed her his weak spot, and she homed in on it. “Gideon my darling,” she said, “I’ve never loved anyone the way I’ve loved you, and if you think I should die, then go ahead and kill me. But before you do it, let me tell you about the money!”

  Whiteside stopped in his tracks. “Money?” he asked. “What money?”

  “Five thousand dollars! I kept it in a special account, for emergencies, and never told you about it! I drew it out of the bank today, for the cattle drive, but instead I want to give it to you, so you’ll never again have to be hungry, cold, or without a roof over your head in your life!”

  “Where is this money?” he asked.

  “In the barn—I’ll have to get it for you.”

  “If you try anything, Cassandra, I’ll cut your throat without hesitation. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but first let me give you one last gift, as a token of my high esteem, for the great sacrifice you’ve made for the Cause, a sacrifice that has ennobled both our lives.”

  Five thousand dollars was a tremendous amount of money. He saw Fate smiling again. He sliced the ropes, and Cassandra arose from the bed. Somehow she’d have to get that derringer, cock it, and shoot Gideon. She stood unsteadily, feeling the sting of the abrasion on her head, and the ache left by the ropes on her wrists and ankles. He jammed the knife into his belt and drew his gun.

  “Move,” he said, pointing the barrel to the door.

  She stepped toward the hallway, and turned her back to him so he couldn’t see her hands as they reached to her blouse. Heading toward the stairs, she unfastened the buttons of her blouse. Gideon walked behind her, breathing like an old bull elephant, and her fingers closed around the handle of the derringer. Please God, she thought as she drew back the hammer—it made a soft click.

  “What’s that!” Whiteside shouted.

  Cassandra spun around, her finger tightening around the trigger, and he smashed her in the face with his gun. She fell to the floor at his feet, blood oozing out of a gash on her forehead, and he aimed his gun at her right temple, then paused and recalled that he wanted her to feel every cut of the knife, especially now.