Chapter Four
Three days later Herne and Charlie Bowdre were riding the western limits of the Tunstall range when they spotted a group of riders making off with some two dozen head of cattle. Charlie headed back towards the ranch as fast as he could, while Herne kept them in sight, leaving a clear trail for the others to follow.
Less than two miles back, Charlie met up with Billy the Kid. Billy had Tom O’Folliard, Pecos and Jim French along with him. When the Kid heard the news he grinned his lopsided smile fit to bust.
The five of them set out after Herne, who’d tracked the rustlers to a draw on the far side of the Tunstall line. It looked as if they were planning to leave the steers there and change the brands as soon as they could. Two men rode herd on the cattle, leaving two in the ramshackle building on the hill to the north of the draw.
Herne hurried back to where he’d left his mount hobbled and met up with Billy and the rest, walking their own horses in. Herne quickly explained the set-up.
Billy’s girlish mouth giggled. ‘We’ve got ’em cold.’
Charlie Bowdre nodded. ‘Looks like.’
‘What we waitin’ on, then?’ Pecos pushed his hat back so that it hung down from a cord at his neck. He reached up to his saddle and pulled his Winchester clear, hefting it and working a shell into the breech.
A hundred yards nearer and with a full view Billy sent O’Folliard and Jim French around to the rear of the shack with instructions to hold their fire until he gave the signal. Herne and Charlie Bowdre went left so that they would be towards the south of the shack. Billy borrowed Charlie’s rifle and stayed where he was, Pecos a couple of yards to his left.
‘The first shot’s mine,’ he grinned as the others moved away.
It was: he lined up the sights on the side of the nearest rider who was quite still on the edge of the small herd of rustled cattle. Tongue tip showing between his lips he squeezed carefully back on the trigger. The slug ploughed through the man’s upper arm, breaking the bone and veering away so that it scored a deep line across his back.
A moment later the second man yelled a belated warning and dug his spurs into his horse’s flanks, striving to gallop across towards the cover of the shack. He got ten yards and a .45 shell from Charlie Bowdre whipped him round in the saddle as it punched into his left side, a few inches over the hip. Five yards further and swaying dangerously, Tom O’Folliard’s rifle smashed his right shoulder, splintering bone and leaving the arm hanging uselessly as the panicking horse galloped headlong towards the cattle.
Herne and Jim French fired steadily at the door and windows of the shack, bringing little return from those inside.
The rustler Billy had hit first tumbled sideways from his saddle, rolled over and was still. The second wounded man stayed on his mount a few moments longer, finally pitching head first to the ground. The horse threw up its front legs and went directly into a bunch of steers. One foot trapped in the stirrup, the man was dragged along for twenty yards before leg and boot separated.
Answering fire was coming from the shack now, but only sporadically. Billy ducked back from sight and moved round to where Herne and Charlie were, opposite the front of the building.
‘They ain’t got a chance,’ said Herne.
Billy laughed: ‘That’s damn right.’
‘Want to talk ’em out?’
‘What for?’
Herne shrugged. ‘Take ’em in to Sheriff Brady?’
‘So’s he can let ’em ride free?’ Billy sneered.
Herne looked at him coldly. ‘That might be kind of difficult seein’ as we caught ’em red-handed.’
Billy glanced down at where the cattle were milling about, bumping into one another and ready to stampede out of the draw as soon as any one of them took it into his head to lead.
‘Could be you’re right … only let’s soften ’em up a little first’
He started to pour lead into the shack, the rest of the men following suit. After a few moments the rustled steers stampeded for the eastern end of the draw, leaving two trampled bodies on the ground behind them.
‘There goes our evidence,’ muttered Herne as he lined up his Colt on the window to the side of the shack door. Every now and then a pistol poked between the uneven planks that had been nailed across it and Herne was looking for it to reappear.
It didn’t.
There hadn’t been any answering fire for some little time. Bullets hammered the building and sections were blasted back inside or fell to the ground. A white shirt was pushed around the edge of the door on the end of a piece of wood.
‘Now maybe we could let up?’ suggested Herne to Billy, without attempting to hide the sarcasm in his voice.
‘Maybe.’ Billy put a bullet through the shirt, making it flap wildly. Then he waved his left arm and called for the others to hold their fire. A final rifle bullet ricocheted off the post by the side of the shack and then the door swung open. As it did so, one plank of it toppled sideways, attempted a cartwheel, failed and thumped downwards,
The first man out was holding the piece of wood and white shirt out in front of him. He had a pistol in his left hand, gripping it between his fingers by the barrel end. Ten feet in front of the shack he paused, throwing the weapon to his side before carrying on walking slowly forward.
The second man came cautiously out into the light, a rifle low in his right hand. His other arm was folded across his chest, thumb hooked inside his shirt. Both arm and left side of his chest were dark with blood. He stumbled, almost falling, letting the rifle slip from his grasp.
‘Hold it right there!’
Billy stood and walked down into the draw, Herne and Charlie covering him. Tom O’Folliard and Jim French came into sight from behind the shack; Pecos stayed at the eastern side, watching.
‘Throw that damned thing down!’
The leading man dropped his flag of truce and looked at Billy. He was around thirty, hair showing signs of going at the temples, stomach starting to spread over his belt. One side of his face was black as if from a powder burn. The wounded man was younger, perhaps a couple of years older than Billy. His face kept screwing up with pain, as if the bullet that had taken him was still lodged somewhere inside his body. Once or twice his knees started to buckle as if he might faint away.
‘You Murphy’s men?’
Neither answered; the one in front stared at the ground, at the hoofmarks of the cattle.
Billy took a couple of paces towards them. ‘I said, are you Murphy’s men?’ The voice wasn’t loud but there was no denying the menace in it.
‘No,’ the nearest one shook his head.
Billy punched him on the side of the jaw and as the man’s fists came up instinctively, he punched him again on mouth and nose. The man staggered back, managing to keep his balance.
‘Don’t goddamn lie to me!’
‘I weren’t lyin’.’
Billy looked as if he might hit him again, but instead he threw back his head and laughed. ‘You must be ridin’ for Dolan, then.’
Again the man shook his head. ‘I ain’t never heard of no Dolan.’
Billy’s laugh broke off sharply, jaggedly, like glass,
‘We just rode in, two, three days back. Set up here. Thought we’d run a few head our own way. You know how it is.’ He looked at Billy, appealing. ‘Never heard of this, what’s his name, Dolan? Murphy neither.’
For a second Billy’s wide-set eyes blinked then his body curved and his right arm arched; his pistol came up in his hand and his mouth opened wide as he fired.
The man leapt back as if he’d been kicked, both hands clutching at his stomach. He landed on the ground alongside his companion, who turned and started to make a run for it, thinking he too was sure to get shot down.
Within five yards, his legs had given way under him and he was thrown sprawling. Jim French hurried and stood over him, rifle pointed at the back of his head.
The gut-shot rustler groaned loudly, rolling from one side to
another, legs drawn up towards his stomach. Blood seeped out over his fingers, reddening them. He stared at Billy as if trying to focus on him and not succeeding.
‘What the hell you do that for?’ asked Herne.
The Kid swung fast, gun still in his hand but lowered; he glared at Herne and the glare changed into a smile. He shook his head. ‘I can’t stomach liars.’
Billy rocked back and forth on his heels, laughing till the tears began to appear in the corner of his eyes.
The two sounds welded awkwardly together–the one man laughing, the other dying.
‘Shut him up,’ said Billy finally.
The men glanced at one another, uncertain.
‘I said: shut him up.’’
Jim French turned and brought the rifle to his shoulder and blasted half of the man’s head clean away, blood and fiber and shards of bone flying through the air.
When the echo of the report faded there was no more sound–unless you counted the quiet sobbing from the man stretched out by French’s feet, certain that at any moment a bullet would split his head in two.
~*~
They took him into Lincoln in style, tied to the saddle of his horse, the wound in his arm and chest making him wince with each fresh step the animal took.
Dick Brewer rode at the head of the column, Billy wide of him, wearing the same all-black outfit that Herne had first seen him in. Herne rode in front of the prisoner, side by side with Charlie Bowdre. At the rear were Pecos and Tom O’Folliard, Jim French and Mason, the large, bald man toting his favorite double-barreled Remington.
This time there was no quiet reception. News had got out of what Brewer intended to do and folk were thick on the streets, eager for a sight of the showdown they thought to be in the making. The procession made slow, at times almost triumphal progress, a couple of girls from one of the town brothels throwing fading flowers down at them from upstairs windows.
Two yellow petals landed on the sleeve of Billy’s black shirt and he shrugged them off fast, face twisting up as if they’d been spots of blood.
Sheriff Brady stepped off the sidewalk to meet them. William Brady was a strongly-built man, no longer young; he’d served in the army with Murphy, then a major, and had jumped at the chance of teaming up with him again in Lincoln County.
He stood in the center of the street, a sawn-off shotgun over the crook of his left arm, right hand touching the polished wood of the butt. A pistol was strapped at his belt, too high for a fast draw. The sheriff’s badge took what light the sun offered and reflected it weakly down the street.
There were four deputies in sight. Dad Peppin, gray hair mostly covered by a high-peaked Stetson, and George Hindman were on the sidewalk outside the sheriff’s office. Brady’s chief deputy, a rangey man called Matthews, was on the opposite side of the street, a rifle in his hands. Five yards behind him, Frank Fairview stood with his left hand on the butt of the Colt Peacemaker at his side.
Dick Brewer raised his left arm twenty yards short of where the sheriff stood and brought the line of Tunstall men to a halt.
Brady let his hand shift along the butt of the sawn-off, stopping against the trigger guard.
‘What business you men got here?’ His voice was loud, gruff; it brought with it memories of parade grounds and army camps all over the south-west.
Brewer jerked a finger in the direction of the wounded man. ‘Brought you in a prisoner, sheriff.’
‘Oh yeah? I bring in my own prisoners, Brewer. I don’t need this riff-raff to do it for me.’
Dick Brewer kept his voice even. ‘Seems you didn’t get round to this one, sheriff.’
‘What’s he supposed to have done?’
‘He was rustlin’ cattle on Tunstall range. Caught him red-handed.’
‘I just bet you did,’ put in George Hindman from the sidewalk.
‘What’s that mean?’ bristled Billy.
Hindman looked away, pretending not to pay the Kid any attention. Herne watched as Billy sidled his mount over so as to have a clear line on the chief deputy.
‘You got evidence?’ Brady asked Brewer.
Brewer was beginning to lose his self-control; his voice was harder, flatter, his body straighter in the saddle.
‘I told you, we caught him an’ three others red-handed.’
‘And I asked where’s the evidence?’
Brewer reached round towards one of his saddle bags and all of the lawmen shifted fast, thinking he might be going for a gun. Herne felt rather than heard a movement up above and looked up to see a rifle poking over the frame of a window on the upper story of the saddler’s.
Brewer drew out a folded paper and moved forward, handing it down to the sheriff.
‘That’s a sworn affidavit...’
‘Drawn up by lawyer McSween, I suppose?’
‘Drawn up by McSween, bearing the depositions of six men all of which testify to catching this man here ...’ Brewer made a nodding movement with his head ‘... rustling Tunstall cattle.’
Brady opened the paper, glanced at it briefly, then tucked it down into his pants pocket.
‘I thought you said there was three others?’ said Dad Peppin.
Billy laughed: ‘There was.’
‘An’ I guess it’s foolish askin’ what happened to them?’
Billy spurred his horse forwards fast, moving level with Brady and Dick Brewer. His hand was awful close to his gun butt and he wasn’t laughing any more. Herne nudged Charlie and nodded in the direction of the rifle covering them from above.
‘What happened to them,’ said Billy tight-lipped, ‘was the same as what you claim happened to Tunstall. ’cept that Tunstall never rustled a single steer in his life an’ he wasn’t tryin’ to fight his way clear, neither.’
Billy’s hand moved closer to his pistol butt. Dad Peppin’s rifle was at his waist, angled slightly towards the ground.
Sheriff Brady brought the sawn-off shotgun to bear on the Kid, eyes steady.
Dick Brewer glanced around, then moved between Billy and the lawmen, raising both hands. ‘Steady, Billy. This ain’t the time.’
‘Maybe it is,’ murmured Brady, just loud enough for his voice to carry to those closest him.
Herne turned sideways in his saddle and spoke out clear and loud. ‘You got any more men stashed away with rifles, sheriff, or is that the only one?’
Brady stared at him as the rifle pulled back from sight.
‘’cause if whoever’s up there sneaks that gun out again, I’m goin’ to blast him without another word.’
Sheriff Brady flushed a little and exchanged looks with George Hindman, who slowly shook his head from side to side. Dick Brewer managed to ease Billy back amongst the other men.
‘Push that miserable bastard up here,’ Brewer said to Charlie Bowdre.
The prisoner folded forward and cried out in pain as his mount trotted towards the sheriff.
‘You claim to be the law,’ said Brewer. ‘Here’s your chance to prove it. Let’s see if you can deal with Murphy’s men the way you would with one of ours.’
Billy pointed a black-shirted arm. ‘An’ if you let that thievin’ bastard ride free, we’ll be back to find out why!’
Brewer moved to face the sheriff. ‘Put up your weapons. We’re ridin’ out of town and we don’t want to do it with your guns at our backs.’
Brady stared at him a while then lifted the shotgun to one side, motioning for his men to do the same. The Tunstall men turned their horses around and headed along the main street in the direction they’d come, heads turned to make sure Brady and the others didn’t change their minds.
‘Only scum like that Brady’d shoot a man in the back,’ said Pecos.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Billy. ‘Yeah, that’s right. That’s damn right.’ A thin trail of saliva ran from one corner of his mouth and his eyes were smiling. ‘Only scum like that’d shoot a man in the back.’
Chapter Five
Mason’s horse was lined with sweat and slavering
at the mouth. When the big man slid to the ground the back of his shirt was stuck to his back, sweat ran from his bald head and dripped from the end of his nose. Flies hummed around rider and mount.
Mason looped the reins around the post and hurried towards the house. Alarmed by the sound of his hasty approach, men ran from the bunk house and barn. Billy and Dick Brewer emerged from the house side by side.
Mason was unfolding a paper he’d taken from his pocket and which was stained dark with perspiration,
‘What the hell’s goin’ on?’ demanded Brewer. ‘Devil on your tail?’
Mason shook his bull head.
‘Must be somethin’?’ said one of the men.
Mason nodded. ‘Somethin’ right enough.’
The Kid pushed through to stand close by Mason. ‘Is it Brady?’
Mason nodded and drops of sweat flicked from his face. ‘Uh-huh.’
Billy snarled. ‘He’s let that rustlin’ bastard go free.’
‘No, it ain’t that. He’s set for trial, ten in the morning.’
‘What is it then?’
Mason had finished unfolding the handbill; he handed it over to Billy. He could make out clearly enough the name in inch high letters above the head and shoulders drawing.
WILLIAM BONNEY.
Billy read it the first time almost as if not connecting the name with himself.
William Bonney.
A nerve started ticking at the side of Billy’s head. His wide-set eyes blinked and then settled, stared. The corner of his mouth turned upwards at the right side.
William Bonney and in smaller letters beneath alias William Antrim or Henry McCarty - also known as Billy the Kid. And then, in the tallest, blackest lettering of all, DEAD OR ALIVE.
The handbill fluttered loosely in the Kid’s hand. The nerve beat against the pale skin beneath the left temple; his mouth was twisted, ugly. Dick Brewer steadied the paper and read the remainder.
Wanted for the murder of William Morton and Frank Baker, duly appointed deputy sheriffs of Lincoln County at Black Water Spring on 26th February, 1878.
Billy the Kid (A Herne the Hunter Western Book 13) Page 4