Ben couldn’t face that.
He turned the horse to the nearest hitching rail and dismounted. Standing beside the animal, he waited for his chance. It didn’t take long. A man riding a sleek pinto came abreast of him. Ben stepped out into the street with his pistol drawn. “Hold it, mister.”
The man, his eyes opened wide in surprise and fear, abruptly reined up. “What the hell’s going on here?”
“Get off that horse!”
“Are you crazy or something?” his victim demanded to know.
“Damned right. Get off that goddamned horse or I’ll shoot you off it,” Ben said coldly.
The man dismounted, holding his hands high. “Don’t you shoot now, mister. You got the horse.” Ben slipped his foot in the stirrup and forked the saddle. “My name is Ben Cullen and I’m wanted by the law. The sheriff here will have posters on me. You got that name? Ben Cullen?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Say it, goddamn you!”
“Ben Cullen.”
“You go tell the sheriff that Ben Cullen is out at the bend in Sand Creek. Is that grove o’ trees still there?”
“Sure,” the man answered. “It belongs to a feller named Johnson.”
“That’s where I’ll be,” Ben said. “And tell that sheriff he’d best get a posse, ’cause there’s only one way I’ll go into that jail o’ his—feet first.”
“Sure. I’ll tell him, Mister—Cullen.”
“Yeah. Ben Cullen. Say it again.”
“Ben Cullen”
“Once more—loud!”
“Ben Cullen. Ben Cullen! Ben Cullen!”
“Get on now, and hurry up,” Ben said.
“Sure, Mr. Cullen. I’m going over there right now.” Ben watched the man scurry down the street, then he pulled on the pinto’s reins and galloped toward the end of town.
Epilogue
The posse brought Ben Cullen’s body in draped across the same horse he had stolen a short time previously.
Word of the bad man’s killing had preceded the lawmen into town and they rode up rather proudly among the citizens gathered around the courthouse.
The sheriff himself untied the ropes that held the cadaver in place. Then he grabbed the dead man by the hair and unceremoniously dumped him at the foot of the stone steps.
Several women, their delicate senses offended by the sight, backed away as children grinned and poked each other in their gleeful dread at viewing the body.
“Did he put up a fight?” some wag in the crowd asked.
“He shot a hell of a lot of bullets,” the sheriff said. “But he couldn’t hit anything.”
A deputy laughed. “Yeah. It was almost like the dumb sonofabitch was shooting straight up in the air.”
“But he was a bad ’un,” the sheriff added. “Ben Cullen was a real tough hombre.”
Ben Cullen did not appear to be particularly tough.
He was evil smelling and very filthy, his dead eyes wide-open and staring at nothing. Short and scrawny, he appeared even more emaciated in death. This appearance was sharply contrasted by the husky members of the posse who stood around now giving their individual accounts of the outlaw’s demise. Their larger sizes seemed emphasized by the diminutive game they had just bagged.
“Photographer coming,” someone called out. “Let him through.”
The man, lugging his camera while his assistant carried a two-by-eighteen board, pushed his way through the crowd and immediately set up his instrument. Meanwhile, willing hands took the same ropes that had held Ben Cullen to the horse and used them to strap his corpse to the piece of lumber.
After the slat bearing the dead man was propped up, the posse posed one by one with the bullet-riddled corpse. Following the individual photos, they had their pictures taken in pairs. Finally each had his likeness made with the sheriff to record the incident for posterity.
Another hour of activity passed before the undertaker arrived with his wagon. A couple of strong men picked up the pitifully light dead man and dumped him onto the bed of the vehicle. They left him lying in an awkward position, face-down and pigeon-toed.
It didn’t take long for the crowd to disperse after the undertaker left, and Ben Cullen was the topic of most conversation even though the town was getting back to its usual business.
As a port is to a sailor; a nest to an eagle; or a den to a wolf; is death to an old outlaw: Home.
The run was over.
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Desperado Run (An Indian Territory Western Book 2) Page 17