The Backstabbers

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “What about you, Milt?” Kane said. “You saw the Rathmores up close when Jake Wise was murdered, or so you say. How do we destroy the nesters and square it with the Rangers?”

  “Kill ’em all and then bring a mountain down on them,” Barnett said.

  “Bring a mountain down on them,” Dryden repeated, scorn in his words. He’d set store by Wise, a top hand. “You’re one crazy peckerwood.”

  “Wait, Anse. Maybe he’s crazy, maybe he isn’t,” Kane said. “Bring down a mountain . . . how?”

  Barnett swallowed hard, then said, “Well, not a whole mountain. We drive them Rathmores into an arroyo carrying their dead and then bring the walls down on top of them with giant powder. Hell, the Rangers will never find them. Nobody will ever find them.”

  “We could set it up beforehand,” Kane said. “Have the barrels placed so they’re ready to blow the minute the Rathmores are in the arroyo. Anse, what do you reckon?”

  “It could work,” the foreman said. “Take some planning, but it could work. Destroy the evidence under tons of rubble.”

  “White people lying in unmarked graves, now there’s a disturbing thought,” Kane said. “But who cares? The Rathmores aren’t really white. They’re scum.”

  “Unmarked graves is all they deserve,” Barnett said. “They’d no need to kill Jake. Bushwhacked us and never gave us a chance.”

  “Milt, you’re a smooth talker, but I’m not sure about you,” Kane said.

  “Because of what happened to Jake?”

  “Jake’s in his own unmarked grave by now,” Kane said. “That grieves me.”

  Barnett shook his head. “Boss, it wasn’t my fault. There was nothing I could do. Jake went down with the first volley and then they came after me. There was a lot of them Rathmores. Too many for one man to handle.”

  “Anse, take this man out and give him a job to do,” Kane said. “And study on that gunpowder idea. It has to work and it has to work soon, savvy?”

  The big foreman nodded. “I’m on it, boss.”

  As Dryden and Barnett stepped to the door, Kane said to Dave Sloan, “Dave, you stay here. We need to talk.”

  After the punchers left, Kane said, “How are you feeling?”

  “Coughing up my lungs and slowly dying a little more each day,” Sloan said. “When it gets real bad, I’ll blow my brains out.”

  “I hope that day doesn’t come any time soon.” Kane was a hard man forged on the anvil of a merciless land and the hammer of a lifetime of violence but trying his best to be compassionate.

  Sloan shrugged, unwilling to accept sympathy from anyone. “What do you want to talk about, Mr. Kane?”

  “I want to talk about killing.” Kane smiled an evil old man smile. “On a grand scale.”

  “How many of them Rathmores?” Sloan said.

  “Forty . . . no more than fifty.”

  “Including children?”

  “Of course. The Rathmore trash breed like rabbits.”

  “Pulling the trigger on young’uns gives me pause,” Sloan said.

  “Nits make lice, Dave,” Kane said. “Tom Quick the mountain man said that when he was taken to task for killing Indian brats. Ol’ Tom knew what the hell he was talking about.”

  Sloan was silent for a moment, thinking, and then he said, “All right. Let’s say ten fighting men at most. Mr. Kane, you’ve got enough gun hands to take care of them, especially if we hit them when they least expect it.”

  “At night?”

  “You read my mind.”

  Kane said, “Huzzah, for the man from Austin! Kill the men and then drive the women and children into the arroyo and blow them to hell, huh?”

  “No. Kill the men and bring the arroyo down on top of their bodies. The women and children can leave.”

  “Damn it all, man. First chance they get, they’ll tell the Rangers,” Kane said. “We kill every last one of them, Dave. I ain’t gonna argue with you on that point. I want the whole Rathmore clan dead. They’ve been a thorn in my side for the last three years.”

  Sloan was about to object, but the door slammed open, and Ansley Dryden rushed inside, his face like thunder. “Boss, you’d better come see this. Jake Wise ain’t in his grave. He’s come home . . . at least, some of him.”

  Kane rose to his feet, his eyes wild. “They skun him?”

  He read the answer to that question on his foreman’s face and ran outside.

  * * *

  The bloody skin of Wise’s upper body hung on a T-shaped frame that was tied upright to the saddle of his horse. A dozen punchers surrounded the grisly trophy, staring at it in horror.

  “Boss, the horse come home by itself,” a young hand with a sparse beard said to Kane. “It brung Jake’s skin back.”

  “Damn you, I can see what the horse brung back,” Kane said. “You men, don’t just stand there gaping. Bury that obscenity.” Then, loud enough so that everybody heard it plain, “The God-cursed Rathmores will pay for this. They’ll pay in blood.”

  A murmur of approval ran through the punchers as a young man with unruly black hair said, “When do we ride, boss?”

  “Real soon, Curley. I’ll give the word when the time comes. In the meantime, load up your guns and be ready.”

  “Damn right,” Curley said, and another puncher grinned and slapped him on the back. Encouraged, the youngster said, “After what they done to Jake, I reckon them Rathmores ain’t even human.”

  “No, they ain’t human. They’re animals, Curley,” the backslapper said. “They done the same thing to Jim Shaw, but that was afore your time. Jim was one of the nicest fellers you could ever hope to meet.”

  He wasn’t. Jim Shaw was mean, nasty, and downright dangerous in drink, but the passage of time had conferred martyrdom on a man that until the day he died nobody had cared to remember.

  Ben Kane bought into that sentiment. “I done right by ol’ Jim. I hung three of them Rathmores from the same cottonwood, and I’ll do right by Jake. We’ll come down on those savages like the wrath of God.”

  That last brought a cheer.

  Sensing the mood of his men, Kane declared a day off for every hand. “Plenty of whiskey for every man jack of you.”

  Dave Sloan had earlier given him an additional piece of advice that Kane would not soon forget. “Keep them boys drunk between now and the attack on the Rathmores,” he’d said. “A likkered-up man kills easier.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Three bounty hunters came after him and he killed them in self-defense.” Red Ryan stood by the stage and handed up his shotgun to Buttons Muldoon. “Can’t blame a man for that.”

  “Dead or alive,” Bill Stanton said. “That’s what they told him. Mrs. Talbot said they planned to take his head back to Louisiana in a pickle jar. She told me that.”

  “Well then there you go,” Buttons said. “As clear a case of self-defense as ever there was.”

  “When a Ranger comes by, I’ll tell him,” Stanton said. “Do my duty, like.”

  “Sounds about right.” Red climbed to his perch beside the driver.

  Buttons handed him the shotgun. Luna Talbot was already aboard, and Arman Broussard was saddling his horse and hadn’t showed yet.

  “He told me to keep the dead man’s horses and traps,” Stanton said. “Said he didn’t want to profit from the deaths of three men, even bounty hunters. Well, the horses ain’t worth much, three hammer-headed mustangs that don’t go any more than eight hundred pounds. But it was white of him nonetheless. Ah, here he comes.”

  Broussard rode up on the coach, touched his hat to Luna, and then said to Buttons, “I’ll tag on behind you.”

  “And eat dust from here to the Cornudas.” Buttons said, shaking his head. “Ride on ahead of us and keep your eyes skinned for road agents.”

  Broussard smiled. “Whatever you say. You’re the boss.” He urged his gray forward, waved to Stanton, and rode fifty yards in front of the stage before he drew rein.

  “See you on the r
eturn trip, Bill,” Buttons said. “You take care.”

  “Yeah, you too, Buttons, and you, Red, take care.”

  Red nodded and settled back in his seat as Buttons slapped the team into motion. Drivers never showboated leaving a stage station. Usually there was no one around to watch.

  * * *

  The Patterson stage had entered the grassland and yucca country of the Chihuahuan Desert when Red Ryan got a familiar feeling at the back of his neck that told him he was being watched by someone on his back trail. He mentioned it to Buttons Muldoon.

  “Damn it, Red, I wondered why your head was on a swivel this past ten minutes,” Buttons said. “You see anything?”

  “Yeah, I thought I caught a glimpse of dust. It was there and then gone.”

  “Wolves in this country,” Buttons said. “But they don’t usually hunt at this time of the day. Could be a deer.”

  “Or a rider.”

  Buttons turned, and his eyes scanned the rolling terrain behind him. After a while he said, “I don’t see anything. Red, the desert loves to play tricks on a man.”

  “Seems like. Damn it, I had a feeling we were being watched, but it’s gone now.”

  “It was a deer, Red. Deer watch what men are doing, and maybe they never saw a coach and horses before. They stared and stared and made you feel it at the back of your neck.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably it.” But Red picked up the Greener and placed it across his thighs. He was sure he’d seen dust.

  * * *

  Juan Sanchez reined in his pinto mare and drank sparingly from his canteen. The breed wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and watched the receding dust cloud kicked up by the stage. It was headed for the Cornudas. Had to be. Where else would there be a gold mine? To his northeast rose the steep, rocky hills of the Sierra Tinaja Pinta, but once when he was on the scout he’d camped there for several days and there was no sign of gold workings.

  The stage, with Luna Talbot and the treasure map inside, was headed for the Cornudas all right . . . and that’s what he would tell Johnny Teague.

  Sanchez had no liking for Teague, but the man paid him a top share of the loot whenever they made a score and usually footed the bill for women and whiskey when they hit a town. Tom Racker and the others had given Johnny three days to come up with a plan, so it was high time he headed back and told him what was happening.

  But that could wait.

  It should be noted here that Juan Sanchez harbored more than his share of the savage Apache hatred for Mexicans and white Americans and he was as dangerous and avaricious as a lobo wolf. He was a violent, mindless criminal in the worst sense of the word and he possessed no sense of empathy for other human beings.

  When he saw the two travelers in the distance he watched them with menacing black eyes as a predator would study its prey.

  In the lead, riding a burro, was a plump man with a full beard, the flat-brimmed hat on his head pulled low over his eyes. He led a pack burro, heavily laden. Trailing a few yards behind, a woman sat a third donkey. She held a small yellow parasol directly above her head and wore a dress of the same color that was hiked up for riding, revealing an expanse of white thigh.

  Sanchez was not a smiling man, but his thick lips pulled back from his teeth in a feral grimace as he came to a decision. Johnny Teague could wait a little longer. Sanchez had other fish to fry. Two of them.

  He urged his horse into a canter as he rode toward the man and woman at an oblique angle, so as to cut them off. The man saw him pretty soon and turned a startled face to the newcomer. When he was a few feet from the bearded man, the breed drew rein.

  “And good morning to you, sir,” the man said, smiling. He looked to be about fifty. “I take it you are a fellow traveler.”

  “You could call me that,” Sanchez said. “Then again, you could call me plenty of other t’ings.”

  The fat man smiled again. His beard was so thick and black his mouth was almost hidden behind it. “Then let’s get off to a sociable start, shall we? I am the Reverend William T. Loveshade and yonder on the burro is Mrs. Loveshade, my new bride.”

  The breed’s gaze moved to the woman, not a grown woman, but a girl of around fourteen or so. She was slim and not pretty, but not ugly, either. A “plain Jane” described her. But she looked clean, judging by her hair and naked leg, and she showed no fear. In fact, she smiled at Sanchez as though she was mighty glad to see him.

  He turned his attention back to the reverend. “Fat man like you shouldn’t be riding a burro. Break its back, is what you’ll do.”

  “‘And when the ass fell down under Balaam and Balaam’s anger was kindled he smote the ass with a staff.’ Numbers: 27,” Loveshade said. “When it comes to lazy burros, I follow Balaam’s example and spare not the rod. Now, will you give me the road? I know that to the west there are many people in need of soul-saving. Fire and brimstone is what I give the sinner. Yea, verily, I put the fear of the living God into them, man or woman, as I did with my own dear bride.”

  It is said of Juan Sanchez, one of the most savage outlaws to ever plague the West, that he never mistreated an animal and that for no apparent reason horses and dogs were drawn to him. He once adopted a little tabby cat that he carried around for years before it drowned in the Great Indianola Hurricane of 1875 while Sanchez was in the local jail.

  Sanchez swung out of the saddle and grabbed the burro’s reins when Loveshade tried to ride away. “Git off that animal. Stand on your own two feet.”

  The reverend’s face flushed, and he said, “Have a care. You’re dealing with a man of the cloth. I will not be handled in this way.”

  The breed ignored that, pulled Loveshade off the burro and then said, “I want your wallet, watch, and the ring you’re wearing. Rapido!”

  “And if I don’t?” the fat man said, defiance in his brown eyes.

  “Then I’ll shoot you in the belly and leave you for the wolves,” Sanchez said. “Come dark they’ll find you and you’ll still be alive. A bad t’ing for you, I think.” He thumbed back the hammer of his drawn Colt. “Make your decision.”

  Loveshade saw the writing on the wall and quickly produced his wallet and silver watch.

  “And the ring,” Sanchez said.

  “It’s my wedding ring,” Loveshade said. “I bought it for my lady wife.”

  “He’s a liar,” the woman said. “He found it in the street outside the post office in Buffalo Gap.”

  “The ring,” Sanchez said to Loveshade.

  The preacher tugged at it. “I can’t get it off.”

  “Well, that’s all right,” Sanchez said. “I’ll shoot your finger off.”

  “No, no, I got it. Here, take it. I got it,” Loveshade said.

  The breed took the ring and then said to the woman, “Get off the burro.” Then to the reverend, “Strip the burros. And remove the pack.”

  “Why?” Loveshade said.

  “Because I’ll shoot you if you don’t,” Sanchez said.

  The reverend immediately saw the logic of that statement, stripped the burros, and removed the pack from the smallest donkey. Sanchez yipped and hazed the three burros, waving his arms. For a moment the animals stood stock still, perplexed over what the yelling human wanted them to do. Then it dawned on them that they were being set free. The last Sanchez and the others saw of them, they were kicking their heels in a southerly direction and were soon lost behind a dust cloud.

  “Here, that won’t do,” said the Reverend William T. Loveshade. “I need an animal to carry my water and supplies.”

  “You have a broader back than the donkey had,” Sanchez said. “Carry your own supplies.”

  “But it could be many miles to a settlement,” Loveshade said. “I can’t carry that much of a load.”

  “I reckon that’s what the burro thought,” Sanchez said.

  The reverend was a man much given to sweat, and his light gray coat was stained black at the armpits and back. He turned to his wife and said, “Dap
hne, pick up the pack. You’re younger than me.”

  “You go to hell,” Mrs. Loveshade said.

  The preacher looked like he’d been slapped. “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones. Proverbs 12:4. Daphne, you have shamed me before this highwayman. Now make amends and pick up the pack.”

  With what could have been a stillborn smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Sanchez said, “Better do as your husband says.”

  “No, I won’t,” the girl said. “Mister, you saved me from him and I’m not going anywhere he goes. He weighs close to three hundred pounds and he uses me like a rutting hog.”

  “Then why the hell did you marry him?” Sanchez said.

  “I’m an orphan, and he paid a farmer and his wife two hundred dollars for me,” Daphne said. “He told me he’d give me a better life . . . and then led me into this desert.”

  “Yes, I did, for I’m a good shepherd seeking a flock,” Loveshade said. “Now, do as you’re told, woman, and pick up the pack.”

  “No,” the girl said, stiff-backed and defiant.

  “Then, verily, I will not spare the rod,” Loveshade said. He unbuckled the thick leather belt he wore around his waist and advanced on his wife.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” Sanchez said. To Daphne he said, “Get over here. You’re coming with me.”

  The girl smiled. She had bad skin and was small and thin, as though she’d missed a lot of meals in her young life. She hurried to Sanchez, a gaunt carpetbag in one hand, yellow parasol in the other.

  “You damned brigand, this is an outrage,” Loveshade said, his bearded face black with anger. “By God, sir, I’ll see you hanged.”

  Sanchez swung into the saddle and then pulled the girl up behind him. He leaned from the saddle and said, “Mister, I’ve killed men for less than that, but shooting a preacher might be bad luck, I think.” He touched his hat.“Vaya con Dios.”