Brownlow’s gaze moved from the scuffed toes of the intruder’s boots to the crown of his plug hat, lingered a moment on his holstered revolver, and then summed Red up, dismissing him with a contemptuous grimace that could have been a smile.
Bill Stanton had been around gunmen before, and he headed off any possibility of trouble with a smile and a friendly, “Sit yourself down, Red. Stew’s coming right up. I got buttermilk. You like buttermilk?”
“Coffee will do just fine.” Red sat at the table. Then, the devil in him, he said to Brownlow, “A fair piece off your home range, ain’t you, Charlie?”
Brownlow’s face froze in an expression of disbelief. It was an affront to his touchy, gunman’s pride that this nobody, a shotgun guard for a pissant stage line, would address him directly and use his given name in such a familiar fashion. When he found his voice, he said, “What’s it to you?”
Red smiled. “Nothing, Charlie. You mean nothing to me. I’m just making conversation, is all, you being such a friendly feller.”
“Mister, I ain’t your friend,” Brownlow said. “So shut your trap.”
“Anything you say, Charlie.” Red looked down at the bowl of stew Stanton placed in front of him. “Ah, that smells good, Bill. Glad there’s something smells nice in here.”
Charlie Brownlow was on the prod that night at Stanton’s Station, and there are some, including a few historians, who say he would have pushed Red Ryan into a draw . . . but the cards didn’t fall that way. At least, not then. From outside, Buttons Muldoon said something, his voice raised in surprise. A young female answered, and Buttons laughed and hollered, “Well, don’t that beat all!”
A moment later he walked inside with a pretty woman in tow.
“Red!” he yelled. “You’ll never guess who this is. Not in a million years you won’t.”
Red stopped chewing and said, “No, I don’t suppose I will.”
“Damn it all, Red, it’s Roxie!” Buttons reached into his shirt pocket and produced the carte de visite. “Lookee. She was younger then, but it’s her.”
“She’s wearing a heap more clothes, but that’s her all right,” Red said, nodding.
“That was me when I was eighteen,” the woman said. “It’s me no longer. The name’s Leah Leighton.”
Red said. “Right glad to make your acquaintance, ma’am. It’s a small world, isn’t it?”
Then, from Charlie Brownlow came, “Hey, driving man. Let me see that picture.”
Buttons hesitated, but Red said, “Let Charlie see it, Buttons. He’s downright testy this evening and needs some cheering up.”
But Buttons shook his head. “No, this ain’t for the likes of you, Charlie.” He handed the photograph to the girl. “Here, you keep it.”
Leah smiled her thanks and slipped Roxie into the pocket of her ankle-length duster. Under the coat, she wore canvas pants that had been tailored to fit her long, slim legs and black vest over a white, collarless shirt. Spurred boots and a flat-brimmed hat with a low crown completed her outfit, and around her hips hung a cartridge belt with a blue Colt in the cross-draw holster.
Red thought the girl had been alluring as Roxy, but despite the masculine duds, he figured she looked even prettier as the grown woman Leah Leighton.
Brownlow was seething. Buttons Muldoon’s snub had irritated him, and he stood by the fireplace and glowered, his hand very close to his gun.
Bill Stanton felt the tension in the air as he stepped to the table where Leah sat. “Young lady, we cater to the stagecoach trade, but you can eat here for two bits.” He smiled. “I won’t ask why you’re in this wild country without a male chaperon.”
“Please don’t,” Leah said. “What do you have to eat?”
“Pork stew and buttermilk to drink, if you like buttermilk.”
“Any bread?” Leah said.
“Sure. A loaf of sourdough fresh baked just three days ago.”
“Do you have butter?”
“Yes, I have salted butter. It ain’t fresh from the churn, but it’s still good.”
“Bread, butter, and coffee, then. Two bits’ worth.”
Stanton seemed disappointed. “No pork stew?”
“No pork stew,” Leah said. “It sounds disgusting.”
“It isn’t so bad, once you get used to it.” Red placed his spoon on his empty plate.
Then it happened ... Charlie Brownlow decided to bring things to a head. It was time the uppity shotgun man was taken down a peg or three.
“The lady doesn’t want to hear your opinion, on pork stew or anything else,” he said. “So, until you pull out of here, keep your trap shut like I already told you.”
A redheaded man will only take so much, and Brownlow had crossed the line.
“You making war talk, Charlie?” Red’s green eyes suddenly turned cold.
“Not just talking . . . but I aim to back up my words real soon.”
If a pin had dropped in the room, everyone would have heard it.
Leah Leighton broke the silence. She rose and said, “Let him be, Charlie. He’s ferrying the dead.”
Red didn’t move. “Ma’am, keep out of this. This is between me and Charlie.”
“Listen to the man, lady,” Brownlow said. Then, his face twisted into a leer. “Later, when he’s dead, I’ll deal with you.”
“Drop it, Charlie,” Buttons said. “We want no trouble.”
“Too bad, because you got it,” Brownlow said, pushing it again, the words of a born killer supremely confident in his gun skills.
“Mister, I told you these men are ferrying the dead. Let them be.”
“Missy, sit down and shut your mouth,” Brownlow said. “I’ll tell you when to open it.”
“Do you really want to kill a man so badly?” Leah said.
“Sure, I do. It’s been a while and a killing keeps a man sharp, gives him snap, know what I mean?”
Stanton said, his voice sounding hollow, “Sit down and have a drink, Charlie. Red Ryan is a good man and he has friends here.”
“Then his friends can die with him,” Brownlow said. His eyes glittered, no longer quite sane.
“They’re ferrymen,” Leah said. “I won’t let you harm them.” Her next words dropped into the quiet like pieces of marble falling on glass. “I don’t want to kill you, Charlie, so don’t push it any further.”
The gunman could have reacted in many ways, but he chose to brush the woman’s warning aside as a thing of little merit . . . and drew down on Red.
Brownlow was fast. He cleared leather, but his gun wasn’t yet level when Leah Leighton’s bullet slammed into him, a center chest hit that staggered him. His face a mask of fury and disbelief, he turned on Leah and tried to get his work in, but the girl saw the danger and fired twice, handling her revolver with amazing speed and dexterity. Two shots, two hits, one to the chest, the other to the belly. A man can’t take that amount of lead and still stand. Brownlow’s gun dropped from his hand, and he went to his knees, his eyes on Leah as he tried to accept that he was dying like a dog on the dirt floor of a cabin on the edge of nowhere . . . at the hands of a woman. The truth hit him like a fist in the gut just a second before the darkness closed in on him. He groaned and then fell on his face, as dead as he was ever going to be.
Red had drawn, but Brownlow was dead and the danger was past. Red dropped his Colt into the holster and watched Leah reload her revolver. “Lady, somebody taught you the draw and shoot. He taught you real good.”
“She taught me real good, not he,” Leah said. She looked at Brownlow’s sprawled body, scarlet blood pooling under his chest. “He was notified. He was warned to leave the ferrymen be.” She reached into her pants pocket and then laid two silver dollars on the table. “Bury him decent, stage station man.”
Bill Stanton was incredulous. “Lady you . . . you killed Charlie Brownlow. Hell, even Dallas Stoudenmire walked mighty quiet around him.”
Leah nodded. “Strange you should say that. I knew Dallas, knew him
well. He was a two-gun man, and I remember how fast he was, but he didn’t come close to me. One time, back in the summer of ’eighty in El Paso, a couple of years before he was killed, he told me that women can’t shoot a Colt .45. That we don’t have the wrists for it. I bet him fifty dollars that I could outshoot him, and he lost the bet.” She smiled. “As far as I recall, I heard that Charlie Brownlow was a bully and a braggart, and he wasn’t the shootist Dallas Stoudenmire was back then . . . or I am now.”
Stanton shook his head. “Lady, I ain’t fool enough to argue with you. Buttons, will you help me carry Charlie to the woodshed? It ain’t decent, him lying here.”
“And when you come back, I still want my coffee and bread and butter,” Leah said. “Two bits’ worth.”
* * *
After Buttons and Stanton carried the body outside, the woman sat at the table again.
Red leaned back in his chair. “You may have saved my life tonight.”
“Think nothing of it,” Leah said. “Charlie had the drop on you. I had to kill him, ferryman. I had no choice.”
“However it happened, I’m beholden to you. Where are you headed?”
“South.”
The clipped tone of Leah’s voice discouraged other questions, but Red ignored it. “Ma’am, since Mr. Muldoon and me are traveling south, you’re welcome to ride on the Patterson stage.”
“I ride alone,” the woman said. “But thank you for the offer. You are most kind.”
It was strange, Red decided . . . exchanging pleasantries with a beautiful woman who’d just killed one of the most dangerous gunmen on the frontier. Stranger still, Leah Leighton seemed relaxed, at ease with herself, and the implication was obvious . . . that she’d killed a man before. Other Western women carried guns and had gained a measure of infamy. He brought to mind Calamity Jane Canary and Belle Starr, but they were not known as shootists. He did recall a time when a drunk teamster by the name of Tobey Williams tried to cut a whore in a Fort Worth cathouse. The woman, called either Nancy Morrison or Mulligan, drew a .32 caliber Remington-Elliot pepperbox and emptied all four barrels into Tobey, who was dead by the time he hit the floor. Longhair Jim Courtright, who was the city sheriff at the time, said he could have covered the four bullet holes in Tobey’s chest with a playing card and hailed Nancy as “Some kind of a pistolero.”
Maybe that was it. Leah Leighton said she’d been taught to shoot by a woman. She may have learned her gun handling at the Rendezvous Gentleman’s Club. Stranger things had happened.
* * *
Bill Stanton served Leah Leighton her bread and butter on a blue plate and her coffee in a china cup. He also offered the sanctuary of the ladies’ corner where she could sleep that night, should she feel fatigued.
Leah ate the bread and butter, drank the coffee, and refused Stanton’s offer of accommodation. “Thank you, kindly, but I’m riding on.”
“In the dark?” Stanton said.
“I think I can find my way due south. The stars are out.”
“The offer of riding in the Patterson stage still stands,” Red said.
“For twenty dollars,” Buttons added.
“As my guest.” Red angled his driver an irritated look.
Leah smiled. “Thank you, but no. I’d rather ride. Oh, look!” She rose from the table, picked up a little calico cat that was crossing the floor, and hugged it to her breast.
For its part, the cat seemed glad of the attention and purred.
“What’s her name, Mr. Stanton?” Leah said.
The man shrugged. “She doesn’t have a name. She comes and goes, and I feed her sometimes.”
“Then since you’re such a pretty kitty and so sweet, I hereby name you Precious.” Leah said. She kissed the cat on the top of its head. “But I have to leave you. Where I’m going there already is a kitty, a cookhouse kitty, but he’s mean and growly and you wouldn’t like it there.” She returned the calico to the floor and turned to Stanton. “How much do I owe you for the grub and the hay and oats for my horse?”
Stanton smiled. “Nothing, not a red cent, dear lady. It’s on the house.”
Buttons and Red stared at the station agent in amazement. He’d never, in all the time they’d known him, given anybody anything on the house, not even a cup of coffee.
“Then again, thank you for your kindness,” Leah said. “I’m sorry about what happened here tonight, Mr. Stanton, but Charlie Brownlow called it.”
“That’s what I’ll tell the Hudspeth County sheriff,” Stanton said. “And the Texas Rangers.” He nodded his head and repeated what the woman had just said. “Charlie Brownlow called it.”
Leah Leighton smiled. “Good. Now I must be on my way.” She stepped closer to Red. “Her name is Luna Talbot, Mr. Ryan.”
Red frowned his puzzlement. “Who?”
“The woman who taught me to shoot. Her name is Luna Talbot and I’m not a patch on her with a Colt’s gun.”
“Wait up there, missy,” Buttons said. “That’s who we’re taking the dead man to. She’s his niece.”
“That’s right, ferryman,” Leah said. “You’re Charon, and you’ll take Morgan Ford across the River Styx.”
“Huh?” Buttons said, confused. “Hell no, I’m not. I’m Patrick Muldoon and I’m taking him to the Brazos.”
Leah laid her slender hand on Buttons’s shoulder and said, “The Brazos will be just fine.” She stepped to the door to leave, but Red’s voice stopped her.
“Miss Leighton, earlier tonight were you in Cottondale during the thunderstorm?”
Leah’s back stiffened and she turned slowly. “Some questions are best not asked.”
Before Red could speak again, she opened the door and walked outside into the silence of the moon-dappled night.
CHAPTER SIX
The stage’s sidelamps glowed amber in the gloom as Buttons Muldoon urged the team across the rocky, cactus-strewn flat. To the west, lost in darkness, rose the rugged Finlay peaks, where the Old Ones, the ancient and long-forgotten Indians who once lived there, had left their mysterious mark on the sandstone cliff faces. The moon was still high over the mountains, and it silvered the coats of the coyotes in the draws as they paused in their hunt to stare at the coach as it rumbled by, pluming dust.
“So . . . what do you think, Red?” Buttons said.
“About what?”
“About Leah Leighton. You think she done for the Reverend Solomon Palmer?”
Red Ryan took time to light the cigarette he’d been holding between his lips for the past few minutes and then said through a cloud of blue smoke, “I don’t think Palmer was a reverend, and yeah, I’m sure she shot him.”
“Murdered him, more like,” Buttons said. “The question is, why?”
Red said. “Maybe Palmer was headed for his gun and Leah had no choice but to trigger him. I mean, that’s possible, ain’t it?”
“It’s possible, but what could lay between them that would lead to a killing?” Buttons said.
Red shook his head. “I have no idea. I can’t even make a guess.”
“Me neither,” Buttons said, his eyes probing the gloom ahead. “It’s a great mystery.”
Red smiled and rapped on the coffin behind him. “I bet he knows the answer.”
“Yeah, I’d say he does, but he ain’t talking.”
* * *
At first light, Buttons rested the team and then broke out the grub sack. He and Red shared stale sourdough bread and cold bacon and then each took a swig of whiskey as a morning heart-starter.
Buttons used his gloved hand to wipe crumbs off his mustache and his hand froze in place when he saw the riders coming in from the east, three men on tall horses. He looked at Red, a question on his face.
“Yeah, I see them. Looks like they mean business.”
“What kind of business?”
“They’ll let us know, I’m sure.
Buttons closed his mouth and then opened it again. “Rangers maybe? They might be Rangers.”
<
br /> “Could be.” Red placed the shotgun across his thighs. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
A minute later the riders proved they were not Rangers. A bullet shot from a rifle spanged off the wrought-iron armrest of the driver’s-seat, and a second split the air inches from Red’s nose.
He jerked back in alarm. Damn, those boys were good!
Buttons had that same thought and said urgently, “Let them come, Red. We got nothing they want.”
“Except our scalps.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Even if they used the shotgun and then went to their revolvers, it was a fight they couldn’t win without taking lead themselves. Red knew it and so did Buttons. The best course was to be downright sociable and see what happened.
They let the riders come in at a walk, three men on blood horses dressed in the rough garb of the frontier. Their oiled rifles glinted in the sun. As they came closer Red saw that their saddles, boots, spurs, and gun leather were of the highest quality, probably Texas-made. As a rule, outlaws threw away their ill-gotten gains on whiskey, whores, and gambling, but they didn’t stint when it came to spending considerable amounts of money on the tools of their trade—horses and firearms. The three hard-faced men who spread out as they approached the stage were no exception.
When they were within talking distance, Buttons, mighty affable when he had to be, said, “Howdy, boys. Shaping up to be a hot one today, huh?”
A rider with thick, black eyebrows and a huge cavalry mustache grinned . . . no, he didn’t . . . he snarled, showing teeth. “You, shotgun messenger, toss that Greener away and then sit on your hands.”
“Red, oblige the man,” Buttons said. “He asked you real nice.”
“Listen to your driver, feller,” Big Mustache said. “I see you even think about making a play, I’ll shoot you right offen your perch.”
“That’s telling him, Hank,” said another man, a towhead with crafty eyes.
Two rifles were trained on Red and he knew he faced a stacked deck. He dropped the scattergun over the side and said, “Abe Patterson ain’t paying me enough.”
The Backstabbers Page 3