Outrage at Blanco

by Bill Crider

  He smiled in spite of himself.

  One horse might have been Jink’s, but two meant that there was someone else around.

  He didn’t know who was out here in this godforsaken country with him, but he welcomed whoever it was. They would soon be providing him with a horse and whatever else they had that he wanted.

  He thought for a moment about who it could be. Lawmen? That was a possibility. They’d have to be mighty good trackers, and it looked like they would have caught up to him sooner if they were that good.

  He thought about the dead marshal. Maybe someone had found the body and come looking. Again, that meant they’d have to be fast and good.

  Well, it didn’t matter. Law or not, they didn’t appear to be expecting company, and they were about to get it.

  Ben had reloaded his pistol earlier, and he slipped it out of its holster. He didn’t want to rush things. He’d just sidle up to the camp on the side away from the horses. No need to stir things up and announce that he was coming in. He’d take it nice and easy. Give the folks a little surprise.

  He looked up at the moon. It was sinking now, and there was a large cloud not far from its face, being pushed slowly along by the night breeze. He’d get as close as he could, then wait for the cloud to cover the moon.

  He wondered again who might be in the camp. He hoped they’d have some water for him.

  NINETEEN

  Ellie couldn’t sleep. She knew why, of course. She couldn’t stop thinking about the man she’d killed, about the way the buckshot had torn him apart, about the way he’d fallen, like a used-up old rag doll dropped by a child that no longer cared about it.

  She’d done exactly what Burt set out to do, at least as far as that one man was concerned, and she wished she could be happier about it. She knew, however, that her motives were in the long run no better than Burt’s had been.

  And now she had Jonathan Crossland to deal with. He wanted to keep on after the other two men, but he wasn’t in the least like Burt. Maybe he’d weakened there for a while and given in to a selfish motive, but when you got right down to it, he wasn’t being selfish any longer.

  Well, not entirely.

  She was sure that he had a lingering desire to recapture something of the man he’d been years ago, but she was equally sure that he wouldn’t try again to get himself killed to spare himself the pain he was anticipating. He’d promised about that, and he was the kind of man who’d keep a promise.

  No, he wanted to go on for exactly the reason he’d given. Not because it was what people expected of him. Nothing like that. He wanted to go on because it was the right thing to do. There weren’t many men like that left. Rawls Dawson had been one, she thought, but she couldn’t think of anyone else, not even Burt.

  A horse snorted and stamped the ground. Ellie wondered if something were bothering them. Maybe it was only that there was a strange horse with them, the one that had belonged to the man she’d killed. They had found it not far from where she’d shot him, patiently waiting for someone to come and claim him.

  She had surprised herself by recognizing him. It was the same horse the man had been riding the day before, but she hadn’t even thought about the horses since that time.

  It had occurred to her then that she would probably never forget anything about that day. It was one thing to reclaim for herself something of her integrity and self-respect, but it was another to forget what had happened.

  Jonathan was right. They had to go on. The other man had to be stopped.

  The horse snorted again and Ellie half raised herself from the ground, pushing back the blanket that she had used to cover herself.

  The moon was lowering, and a cloud was about to glide across it, but the night was still suffused with a silvery light. Ellie looked in the direction of the horses, but she could not see anything that could be disturbing them. Far off in the distance beyond the horses two owls called, and the long mournful notes trailed off into silence.

  Then she heard a muffled sound from the opposite direction. It sounded like something scuffing the dirt, as if someone might be moving quietly up on the camp. She could see no one, but she and Jonathan had laid out their bedrolls near a clump of cedars and oaks. There could be someone prowling there in the shadows cast by the trees.

  “Jonathan,” she whispered. “Jonathan, did you hear anything?”

  There was no answer. Jonathan did not move.

  She had shoved the blanket aside and started to get up when Ben stepped out of the shadows, pointing his pistol at her.

  “Well, well,” he said, recognizing Ellie as quickly as she recognized him. “Can’t get enough of it, huh? Had to come looking for more.”

  Ben knew better than that. He had a pretty good idea why she had come. He was watching her warily.

  Ellie had taken off the pistol and hung it on her saddle, but she laid the shotgun on the ground beside her, and her fingers groped for it.

  “No use looking for a gun,” Ben said. “I’d kill you before you got to it, and that still wouldn’t stop me from doin’ anything I wanted to. Hell, you weren’t much more fun than a dead woman, anyhow.”

  Ellie’s eyes widened. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. “You’re crazy,” she said.

  “Maybe I am, at that,” Ben said. Her comment didn’t appear to anger him. He glanced over to where Jonathan lay, unmoving. “Who’s your friend?”

  “No one you’d know,” Ellie said.

  “It ain’t Jink, is it? He oughta be around here somewhere. You liked old Jink, too, but I’d sure be surprised if he was up to havin’ another go at you.”

  “Jink,” Ellie said. “So that was his name.”

  “Won’t do you no good to know it now.”

  “No, I guess not.” She wasn’t going to tell him what had happened to Jink.

  Ben walked over to Jonathan and prodded him with the toe of his boot. Jonathan still did not move.

  “Heavy sleeper, ain’t he?” Ben said.

  “He was sick,” Ellie said, feeling a sudden sadness sweep over her. “He might be dead.”

  “Looks like it, sure enough.” Ben prodded Jonathan again, and when he didn’t move, Ben looked at Ellie and smiled. “I guess he won’t be botherin’ us any.”

  “You’re hurt,” Ellie said, noticing the wound for the first time.

  “Don’t worry. It won’t slow me down none. You treat me right, and I might let you live.”

  Ellie didn’t believe him, and it didn’t matter even if he was telling the truth. She was not going to treat him right, no matter what.

  But he didn’t have to know that. “I’ll treat you right,” she said.

  Ben walked over to where she sat. He kicked the shotgun out of the way.

  “I know you will,” he said, slapping her so hard that her head twisted until her chin hit her shoulder. She fell backward to the ground, unable to move.

  Jonathan was not dead. He was asleep and dreaming.

  The day’s ride, the brief flurry of action, both had tired him much more than he had realized, and he drifted off to sleep nearly as soon as his head touched the saddle that he was using as a pillow.

  It was a deep and healthy sleep, very much unlike the ragged dozes of the last weeks, the kind of sleep generally enjoyed only by cats and babies.

  No slight noise, no nudge of a boot was going to waken him from a sleep so calm and deep.

  In his dreams he rode the prairies with the great cattle herds once again. He was young and strong, smelling the dust of the trail, the scent of hundreds of cows mingled with his own sweat. He felt the stickiness of his sweated shirt sticking to him, heard the creak of his leather rigging and the bawling of the moving cattle.

  If he had died then, in the midst of that dream, he would have died happy.

  But he didn’t die.

  Ben kept the gun in one hand and undid his belt buckle with the other. To hell with O’Grady. Ben was going to have himself a little fun. There were plenty of ho
rses here. He’d take them and catch up with O’Grady later.

  The woman lay there waiting for him. He squatted down and reached to throw her dress up over her face.

  When he did, her fist came up from the ground and smashed into his wounded shoulder.

  It was as if someone had stuck a red-hot knife in his shoulder and twisted it.

  “God damn!” he screamed, dropping his pistol and sitting back on his haunches.

  Ellie attacked him like a wildcat, punching her fist into the wound with one hand and clawing at his face with the other. She felt his skin tear under her fingers and she tried to gouge out his eyes.

  “Jesus Christ!” Ben yelled, throwing up his good arm in an attempt to protect his face.

  He fell backward and Ellie fell on top of him, hitting and clawing.

  Pain was making Ben weak, but it was also making him desperate. He was so much bigger than Ellie that he was able to sit up even with her on top of him, and when he managed to get in a blow to her face, he knocked her back and away from him.

  She twisted around and came at him again, but this time he was ready. He doubled his fist and hit her hard on the point of the chin. Her head snapped back, and she fell.

  “Bitch,” he said. He got shakily to his feet and aimed a kick at her head.

  Ellie grabbed his boot in both hands as it came at her head and twisted hard to the right. Ben fell, landing on his wounded arm.

  “Oh, Jesus!” he said.

  Ellie sprawled across him, sinking her teeth into his shoulder as near to the wound as she could get.

  Ben yowled like a dying dog.

  Ellie bit down harder, trying to make her teeth meet through the hunk of skin and muscle that she had clamped down on. With one hand, she gouged the wound in Ben’s shoulder. With the other, she beat at Ben’s face. She felt something crunch under her fist, and she hoped it was his nose.

  Ben howled louder.

  Ellie kept on biting and hitting. There was a roaring in her ears like the roaring of the wind in tall cedar trees on a stormy night.

  She was dimly aware of something touching her back, of some sound other than the roaring, but she ignored it until Ben at last stopped screaming. Even then she didn’t stop hitting and gouging and biting until someone took her by the shoulders and shook her, shook her hard.

  “You can let up on him now,” Jonathan said. “I think he’s passed out.”

  The muscles of her mouth seemed frozen, but finally she was able to open it and let go. She sat up and spit into the dirt several times. The she wiped her mouth with her dress.

  “Too bad we don’t have any likker,” Jonathan said. “Might be good to wash your mouth out about now.”

  She looked at him. Her eyes were filled with tears. “Why didn’t you wake up? I thought you were dead.”

  “Dead to the world, more like it. Best sleepin’ I’ve done in a month of Sundays. But you might know nobody’d let me enjoy it.”

  Ellie brushed at her eyes and attempted a smile. “I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said.

  Jonathan kicked Ben with his toe. “Looks like you didn’t have much of a choice. Sorry I wasn’t much of a help to you, but by the time I woke up I couldn’t shoot him. Too much chance of hittin’ you. And by the time I got over here, you didn’t look like you needed my help. Don’t look like I’ve done you much good on this whole trip we’ve been on.”

  Ellie stood up. “I’m glad you came.”

  “Me too. It’s been a good many years since I’ve seen a fight like that one. Fact is, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like it. Never with a woman in it, anyhow.”

  “He was going to—”

  “I know what he was goin’ to do. Looks like he won’t be tryin’ it again anytime soon, though.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “You sound like you’d be sorry if he was.”

  “I would. Is he?”

  Jonathan knelt down and felt Ben’s throat. “He ain’t dead, worse luck. What’re we gonna do with him?”

  “Take him back to Blanco,” Ellie said.

  When Ben regained consciousness, his arm was hurting him something fierce. He jerked his head and tried to sit up, but his hands were tied in front of him with a strong lariat and he made a clumsy job of it.

  “Glad to see you decided to join us,” Jonathan said. “My name is Crossland. I think you knew my boy.”

  “Yeah, I knew the fat bastard,” Ben said.

  His face was hurting him, and he knew his nose was broken. He thought there was blood in his mouth. He spit on the ground. Blood, all right.

  “You killed him,” Jonathan said.

  “He needed it,” Ben said, twisting his head to wipe his mouth on his shirt. That hurt him, too.

  He looked at Jonathan suspiciously. “You was supposed to be the next thing to dead.”

  “I am,” Jonathan said. “You would be, too, but the lady here didn’t want me to kill you.”

  Ben turned his head to look at Ellie. He started to say something, but the look in her eyes changed his mind.

  “What’re you gonna do with me?” he said.

  “Take you back to Blanco,” Ellie told him. “Let you stand trial for what you did.”

  Knowing that he was in no immediate danger restored a bit of Ben’s confidence. Jink was around here somewhere, and if the little bastard hadn’t died, he might be able to help Ben out.

  “Be hard to prove I did anything,” he said.

  “Not so very hard,” Ellie said. “I can testify to one thing, and Mr. Crossland can testify to the others.”

  “What others?” Ben said.

  “You killed the marshal after you killed my boy,” Jonathan said. “I saw you.”

  “The hell you did.”

  Ben turned his head and looked around. Jink must surely be around here somewhere. Why didn’t he show up and do something? It would be just like the sorry little rat to have died.

  “If you’re lookin’ for your pard, you don’t have far to look,” Jonathan said. “He’s not gonna be much help to you, though.”

  “Damn,” Ben said. “Where’d you find him?”

  “He found us,” Ellie said.

  “Worse luck for him,” Jonathan said. “There ain’t much left of him to pray over.”

  Ellie turned her face away at that, and Ben said, “You killed him?”

  “That we did,” Jonathan said. “But he was going to kill us if we didn’t. You, now, I’d just as soon kill you where you’re sittin’, but Miz Taine don’t think that’d be a good idea for some reason or another.”

  Ellie turned back to them. “Get up,” she said.

  Ben wasn’t sure he wanted to get up. He didn’t move.

  “Maybe you’re right, Jonathan,” Ellie said. “Maybe he’ll just be too much trouble to us. Go ahead and kill him.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Ben said, scrambling to his feet. It wasn’t easy with his hands tied, but he did it.

  “Now let’s go over here and get you on this horse,” Jonathan said. “It’s your pard’s horse, but he won’t be needin’ it no more.”

  They had to help Ben mount. It was an awkward process, but he was able to put his tied hands around the saddle horn and get aboard.

  “While we’re ridin’, I reckon you can tell us about the other man that was ridin’ with you,” Jonathan said.

  “That Irish son of a bitch,” Ben said.

  “I’d watch my language if I was you,” Jonathan said.

  TWENTY

  Shag Tillman was up before sunrise, waiting at the little Blanco jail for the arrival of the Texas Ranger. He didn’t know what time the Ranger would arrive, and he’d gotten up at the first rooster crow so he could be at the jail waiting. He didn’t want anyone to think he was getting lazy now that Rawls Dawson was no longer there to look over his shoulder.

  The telegram he’d received the night before, not long after delivering Dawson’s body to Fowler’s, had said there would be only one
Ranger coming. Shag hoped that one Ranger would be enough. He wouldn’t much want to go chasing after those three killers all by himself, and he would be surprised if the Ranger did, either.

  If the Ranger did want to go out after them, Shag hoped the Ranger wouldn’t ask him to go along. He had to stay there in Blanco, after all. He told himself that it was his job to protect the town now that Rawls Dawson was gone, and he didn’t see how he could very well go traipsing off after anybody, even if they were robbers and killers, and leave the town without a lawman in case of emergency.

  He looked out at the streets to be sure there wasn’t an emergency occurring right that very minute.

  There wasn’t.

  There was hardly anyone stirring in Blanco at that time of the morning. Mr. Rogers hadn’t opened the mercantile store yet, and there was no one over at the White Dog Saloon except old Hodge Mason, who swamped the place out every morning in return for a drink or two later in the day. There was a mangy cur dog wandering down the street, looking for something to eat or maybe a cat to chase. He didn’t find either one.

  Shag went into the jail and brought out a sturdy wooden chair. He put it near the wall and then sat down in it, shifting his weight until he was comfortable.

  He had just tilted back to watch the sun change the color of the sky from gray to blue when a movement at the corner of his eye attracted his attention.

  He sat up, the chair’s front legs thudding against the boards of the narrow board porch that ran in front of the jail. Someone was coming into town from the west.

  Shag couldn’t make out who it was. It was too dark back in that direction to see much, but he could tell there was more than one of them. Couldn’t be the Ranger, then. He wondered who’d be riding into town so early. He hoped it didn’t mean trouble, not that he couldn’t handle it, but he’d always had Rawls Dawson to tell him what to do in the past.

  He had it in mind to ask for Dawson’s job, and he didn’t want to make a misstep right off and maybe turn the town against him before he got a chance to prove he could handle the marshal’s job on his own.

  On the other hand, maybe this was his chance to show what he could do. If there was some kind of trouble coming, he could go right out there and put a stop to it.