Blood Bond 5

by William W. Johnstone

  “Stay down!” Bob Coody told the two men with him. “It’s a deathtrap out yonder.”

  “We’re tryin’ the bank,” they told him.

  “You’re damn fools if you do.”

  “Hell with you.” The two ran across the dust-filled street and up the alley, heading for the rear of the bank.

  “Idiots,” Bob said, and headed for the livery and his horse. He was getting gone from this town for this day. But he passed by the house where young Billy was protecting his ma and his puppy. Billy lined him up and pulled the trigger. The .22 slug slammed into Coody’s gunbelt and discharged several .45 caliber rounds. Coody did a wild dance as he tried to both run and rip off his exploding gunbelt. Billy put another slug into Coody’s thigh, and the man yelled and pitched forward into the murky safety of the cavernous livery. “Jesus!” Coody said, limping toward his horse. “What fool dreamed up this plan?” He saddled up and got out of there.

  The two who decided to try the bank slammed open the back door and charged in. They had only a few seconds to realize the error of their decision. Four shotguns roared, and the two were slung back outside, one dead before he hit the ground and the other badly wounded.

  The dust from frightened, rampaging and riderless horses was thick in the air, and the gunsmoke was arid, hanging close in the streets. But the battle was very nearly over . . . at least this round of it.

  Matt and Sam cautiously looked around for any of the known gunhands. But few of them had ever even shown up for this disaster, perhaps sensing that is what it would turn into. They might be paid gunmen and in some cases cold-blooded killers, but that did not make them stupid. Just a little short in the morals department.

  A hired gun staggered out of an alley and screamed curses at Matt and Sam. He lifted an empty hand and tried to cock the pistol that wasn’t there. “Damn you!” he shouted hoarsely. “Damn you both to the hellfires.” Then he collapsed face-down in the street.

  “Do you know that fellow?” Sam asked.

  “I never saw him before in my life,” Matt replied, punching out empties and reloading.

  “Name is Barton,” Parley said. “He’s a drifter and a no-good. When he does work, he works for Ladue.”

  “It’s beginning to get a bit clearer now,” Sam said. Doc Blaine had holstered his pistols and was now carrying his black bag. The undertaker and his helper were wandering from body to body, the helper carrying a tape measure and jotting down measurements.

  Farmer John had left the saloon and was standing on the boardwalk, sipping at a glass of whiskey. Dud, Proctor, and Donner joined him. They stood silently, looking at the carnage that lay still and bloody in the street. Only a few who had attempted to tree the town were still alive.

  “They’s four back here in this alley,” a shout came. “One is still breathin’.”

  “Wo Fong’s got one in his cleanin’ place,” a woman hollered. “He busted his head with an iron.”

  “Two behind the bank,” a man yelled.

  “One behind Miss Charlotte’s,” a woman called.

  Matt and Sam and Parley walked the street and the alleys, looking at the dead and wounded. They stopped in front of Singer’s Land Office and looked in through the open door. The four bodyguards were sitting in the outer office, Singer sitting alone in his big office.

  “It didn’t work out quite like you planned, did it, Singer?” Matt called.

  Ralph Masters’ flashpan popped. The newspaperman was busy taking pictures of the dead. Somebody had propped Chub up on a board with his rifle in his dead hands and was charging two bits to anyone who wanted to pose for a picture.

  Miss Charlotte had kept Chub’s pistols.

  “Somebody get that one the horse dragged,” Parley ordered. “Toss him in a wagon and bring him back here.”

  “Eighteen dead and four still breathin’, Parley,” a citizen reported. “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this.”

  “I hope I never see anything like it again,” the young deputy replied.

  “You will,” Lawyer Sprague said, walking up, still carrying his rifle. “The worst is yet to come.” He looked in on Singer. “Isn’t that right, Singer?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Singer said hotly. “This is a terrible, terrible thing that happened to this lovely town today. A tragedy, I say. I have never before witnessed such an overt act of wanton brutishness. I . . .”

  “Oh, blow it out your backflap, you big windbag,” the lawyer said, and walked on up the street.

  “You’d better leave town while you’re still able,” Sam told Singer. “I think your time is growing rather short.”

  Singer glared at him and said nothing.

  Parley walked across the street, and the blood-bonded brothers walked on. They climbed the stairs to the hotel, which had not received a single bullet hole this time around, and went into the dining room.

  “Coffee,” Matt said, just as the chef stuck his head out of the kitchen. Matt started laughing. The chef wore a Prussian-style helmet complete with high plume.

  He frowned at the brothers and disappeared back into the safety of his kitchen.

  Sam wiped his eyes and said, “The way things are going, that helmet is not such a bad idea.”

  Matt stared at him for a moment, working up a mental picture of Sam in a Prussian helmet, and busted out laughing again.

  Sam did his best to look hurt. “I think I would appear quite dashing.”

  “Oh, I do, too, Sam. I do, too.

  One of the badly wounded gunmen still lying in the dirt of the street lifted himself up on one elbow and took a shot at young Parley. The shot missed the deputy, busted one of the front windows of the dining room, and shattered the vase of flowers on the table where Matt and Sam were sitting. Both men hit the floor. The bullet stopped when it impacted against the brand new coffee urn. It now had a hole in it, spewing hot coffee. The chef hollered as he hit the floor of the kitchen, cussing in French and German.

  The gunman shook his head at his bad marksmanship and then lost consciousness, the six-gun slipping from his hand.

  Sam looked at Matt, both of them under the table. He pointed a finger at his blood brother. “I told you weeks ago that we should have headed south. But no, you wanted to see the Idaho Territory.”

  “You didn’t have to come along, you know.”

  “I promised your parents I’d look after you.”

  The men crawled out from under the table and moved to another table, this one a bit more protected. They stopped at the coffee urn and held their cups under the stream of coffee gushing from the urn, filling them full.

  “You got any pie?” Matt hollered, seating himself at the table.

  “The kitchen is closed!” the chef shouted.

  “Look there,” Sam said, cutting his eyes. “Someone is getting desperate.”

  A lone rider was walking his horse up the street. The man was dressed all in black, from his hat to his polished boots, and carried his rifle across his saddle horn. Even at this distance Matt recognized the rider.

  “Gates,” Matt said.

  The chef came out of the kitchen with two huge wedges of apple pie. “I changed my mind,” he explained. “The shooting wasn’t the fault of you gentlemen. And the pie is delicious.” Then he picked up on the direction his only customers’ eyes were taking. “Who is that?”

  “Wilbur Gates,” Sam said. “Nobody really knows where he’s from. But he’s a long-distance shooter. And I’ve never known him to miss.”

  The chef tossed the plates of pie on the table and beat it back to his kitchen. He was still wearing his helmet.

  “I wonder who brought him in and who he’s after?” Matt asked.

  “Killing us would solve nothing,” Sam said. “We’re not the principal players in this little drama. But that isn’t to say Gates wouldn’t shoot us if we got in his way.”

  Matt knew that was a pure fact. “Sam? Is there a fifth player in all this mess?”

&n
bsp; Sam stared at him for a few seconds. “Why would you think that?”

  Matt forked him a piece of pie and chewed for a moment. Gates had swung down from his horse and walked into the Red Dog, carrying his deadly rifle. He was not a big man, but that rifle made him a giant. “Who slipped that note under our door?”

  “I’ve thought about that. I’ve given it a lot of thought. I don’t know. There isn’t anyone else in town who stands to gain by all this.”

  “There has to be. Nothing else figures. Think about it. Who in town—what businessman—is making money out of all this? Who stands to profit by keeping all this stirred up? John and Bull can be discounted. The Sutton and Carlin kids don’t have the sense to plan something this complex. Singer is devious, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s just about played out his string. So there has to be someone else.”

  “Not Ladue?”

  “No. Ladue is a half-crazy, bitter old man.”

  “I’m stumped.”

  “So am I.”

  “Well, a good lunch will give us time to ponder it.”

  “God, Sam, you’re eatin’ half a pie, now!”

  “You’re forgetting your Cheyenne upbringing.”

  “Please, spare me that.”

  “I should never have rescued you that day. But then, we all make mistakes.” Sam ducked his head to hide his smile.

  “You, rescued me? I seem to recall it was me who dug you out from under that dead pony when we were kids.”

  “That was merely a ruse on my part. I was tricking you, that’s all. I could have gotten out anytime. I was going to take your scalp.”

  Matt leaned back in his chair and laughed at that. Sam had never taken a scalp in his life. The very idea of it disgusted him. Besides, as Sam pointed out, scalping was a white man’s idea in the first place. They brought that practice to the Indians. “You would have died had I not come along. You and the pony would have become as one. Dead. You were one scared little Indian.”

  “Bah. I have never known fear. Eat,” Sam said, waving a fork at Matt’s pie plate. “Don’t try to think. You know it gives you a headache.”

  Waiters were busy cleaning up the mess made by the wandering bullet.

  Matt looked up the street and suddenly smiled. “I know who the fifth party is.”

  “So tell me.”

  “You’re so smart, you figure it out.”

  “All right. I shall. Over a steak. Medium. With potatoes and a side order of scrambled eggs.”

  “For lunch?”

  “Why not?”

  “I can see it now. When you’re fifty years old you’ll have a new name: Big Fat Man Who Makes The Ground Tremble.”

  The brothers needled each other through lunch. And a second dessert for both of them.

  6

  A tired posse rode in the next day, Bull and John with them. The men needed only one look at the boarded up windows and the blood stains on the boardwalks to know that one hell of a battle had taken place.

  Over coffee, Matt and Sam explained what had taken place.

  “And none of our people got hurt?” Tom said. “That’s incredible.”

  “Not a scratch.”

  “Did you see any of our kids taking part in the fight?” Bull asked.

  “No,” Sam told the man. “Not a sign of them. But Wilbur Gates is in town.”

  The marshal slowly took off his hat and then threw it violently to the floor. He cussed softly but with a great deal of expression. He wound down and said, “I’m going to get a bite to eat, then sleep for a few hours. Then . . .”

  “There’s more,” Matt said.

  Tom looked at him.

  “Ralph Masters is keeping all this stirred up.

  “What?”

  “Has to be. He’s making a small fortune selling this story and the accompanying pictures to the big city papers back East. He’s got to be the one who slipped that note under our door. He’s not in any conspiracy with Singer or any . . .” Matt paused, a reflective look on his face.

  “What’s the matter?” Sam asked.

  “Think back, Sam. After the Carlin and Sutton kids staged that mock battle and tried to kill John, remember I told you that I saw Singer looking at me sort of funny?”

  “Yeah. And you also said you thought somebody was with him in his offices. Who was it?”

  “Ladue.”

  Sam and Tom and the deputies all looked at Matt, Parley finally saying, “You know, you may be right. I saw old Ladue that day, ridin’ out of town with somebody. I don’t remember who it was.”

  “Which way were they heading?” John said, a grim note to his words.

  “Toward the crick where you and Mr. Sutton was gonna meet.”

  “I hate this. I helped Ralph get set up here,” John said with a frown.

  “Hell, so did I,” Bull said.

  “What?” John stared at his half brother. “He told me that he felt you were entirely in the wrong and I was in the right.”

  “He told me that I was in the right, and you were in the wrong.”

  “That lyin’ little weasel! The damn little no-count played both ends against the middle, and we never caught on.”

  “This is givin’ me a headache,” Tom said, his fingertips rubbing his temples. “But something doesn’t figure. Look, what has Ralph Masters got to gain from all this? As soon as it’s over, it’ll be old news.”

  “He and Ladue just might be playing a very dangerous game,” Sam said, after a moment’s thought. “This situation here is fraught with deceit and back-stabbing. We might not have to do anything except light the fuse and stand back and watch it blow up in everybody’s face.”

  All the men looked around at each other, all of them deep in thought. “I’m thinkin’ right along the same lines you are, boy,” Bull said. “But let’s just make damn sure that we’re not too close when it does blow up.”

  “What do you two have in mind?” Tom asked.

  “Nothing firm yet,” Sam said. “At least I don’t. We might not have to do anything. It might ignite all by itself. I’m thinking it probably will. Let’s just wait and be very cautious while we do so. And keep an eye on Ralph Masters and Miles Singer.”

  “I’d like to go stomp Singer slap into the damn ground,” Bull growled.

  “I’d like to go slap the pee out of Masters,” John said. “Lyin’ little skunk.”

  “I’d like to jerk up Ladue and shake the truth out of the old fart,” Tom said.

  Sam smiled and held up a hand. “Patience, gentlemen. Patience.”

  “I’d give some thought to grabbing up Ladue,” Matt said. “That old man would as soon kill you as look at you. He’s not playin’ with a full deck.”

  “You can bet your boots and saddle on that,” Van Dixon said. “And he ain’t got no use for either of you men,” he reminded the ranchers.

  “There goes Wilbur Gates ridin’ out,” Nate said, staring out the window. “That is one man who gives me the creeps. I guess I’ve heard too much about him.”

  “And none of it good,” Matt added.

  “Not one word of it,” the deputy agreed.

  Bull looked at John. “I just wonder which of us Gates has come to kill?”

  “It might not be either one of you,” Matt said. “This web is so tangled, it could be anybody. Or nobody.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Tom asked.

  “None of us considered that the man just might be passing through.”

  “Well, you can forget that,” Nate said, still staring out the window. “Gates just pulled up at the hotel, and he’s gettin’ his warbag. Looks like he’s here for a spell.”

  Van picked up the large stack of wanted flyers. Tom cut his eyes and said, “Forget it, Van. Gates is not in there. There are no flyers out on him. I’ve been behind a badge for more years than I care to think about, and I ain’t never seen a wanted poster on Wilbur Gates. He comes into an area, somebody dies, and he leaves without a black mark on him. Nobody has ever been ab
le to prove anything against him.”

  “What about the cattle that were rustled?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, we found them,” John said. “’Bout fifteen miles from home range. It was a trick to get the men out of town. Tracks went ever’ which-away. We decided to give it up and come on back in.”

  “What do you want me and John to do, Tom?” Bull asked.

  “Stay close to home, and if you just have to do any ridin’, don’t do it without men with you,” the marshal was quick to reply.

  “We’ll stick to Gates like glue,” Matt said, looking at and receiving a nod from Sam. “If he doesn’t like it, he can damn well turn and make a play.”

  “Our kids have to be runnin’ out of money,” John said. “I know what those gunhands are paid a month. Me and Bull put a crimp in Singer when we pulled out of his bank. He’s doin’ all he can to pay those high-priced bodyguards of his. I know damn well that Ralph Masters doesn’t have that kind of money. Ladue now is another story. That old coot has probably got wads stashed back. And he’s got the patience of a cigar store Injun. Damnit!” he almost shouted the word. “I wish I knew what was really goin’ on around here.”

  “It has to come to a head ’fore long,” Bull said. “After this attack on the town failed, they all got to be gettin’ desperate. And when people reach that point, they get careless. Everybody on all sides. But you and me, John, we just have to make sure that we don’t get careless. Not with that back-shootin’ Gates in the area. We’ll send some boys in with wagons and double stock up with supplies. Then we’ll hole up at our ranches. Agreed?”

  “Yeah, but it goes against the grain,” John said. “I don’t like for other people to fight my battles.” He looked square at Tom Riley. “Why don’t you take a vacation, Tom?”

  “And it will all be taken care of when I get back, right, John?”

  “You can damn well bet on that.”

  Tom shook his head. “You know better than even to suggest that, John.”

  “It was worth a try.” He stood up. “I’ll be gettin’ on.”

  “Van, you ride with John,” Tom said. “Nate, you ride with Bull. You boys take it easy and relax and lay low.” He smiled. “Make plans for the big weddin’ comin’ up.”