Rio Matanza (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 2)

by Wayne D. Dundee

  "So," Kendrick drawled, "now that we got these desperadoes right where we want 'em, any particular plan come to mind for how best we go about roundin' 'em up and takin' 'em back?"

  "My way’s always been to go at a situation like this head-on," Turpin replied. "When you’ve got a rat cornered in a grain bin, then you go in after it. That’s all. I was never much for skulking around the edges looking for the right opening, or trying to lay down some fancy trap or ambush. For one thing, I don’t favor giving vermin like these the notion they’re important enough or dangerous enough to rate any special consideration."

  Kendrick chuckled softly.

  "Something funny in what I said?” Turpin wanted to know.

  "Not really. Happens I ain’t much of a skulker, either. Reckon that means we’re gonna keep gettin' along fine…long as we don’t end up with our fool heads blowed off together."

  Turpin gave a fatalistic shrug. "I don’t figure the good Lord woke me up this morning and pushed me through the day for no better purpose than to let my candle get snuffed out by the likes of that bunch over there."

  "You a religious man, Doc?" Kendrick asked, genuinely curious.

  "Not in the way you probably mean. Not in a church-going, Bible-thumping kind of way. Fact is, the life I lead…hunting men down, having to kill some of them…I expect a lot of preachers and regular church-goers would frown real serious on most things about me. But I still believe in God Almighty, and Right and Wrong and Good and Evil. At least the way I see ‘em. Don’t you?"

  "I know about Bad and Evil, I’ve seen plenty of those. I keep tellin' myself there’s Right and Good out there somewhere, too, balancin' things. Easy to lose track of that part, the line of work we follow." Kendrick let his eyes sweep the sky and the raggedly majestic landscape, this region where the badlands were breaking up, giving way stubbornly to grasses and trees and more gently rolling hills. "Far as God Almighty, if He hangs strictly around churches and the like then I don’t reckon I rub up against him too often. But it’s pretty hard to ride this country day and night under a wide open sky that takes turns being angry and beautiful and mean and breathtaking…and not grow to figure there’s somewhere something bigger at work than us piddly little human beings."

  Turpin let his gaze follow Kendrick’s, squinting, giving some thought. After a minute or so, he said, "The thing that’s at work in that sky right now is the sun. It’ll be setting down on the horizon soon. We could maybe put that to our advantage.” He made a circling motion with his arm. "We’ll swing around that way, come at 'em from out of the west. I saw a narrow, open flat feeding into the wider clearing where they’re camped. We time it right, come across that flat with the sinking sun at our backs, it could give us a small edge."

  Kendrick tipped his head in an agreeable nod. "Seven to two ain’t much of an edge at all—I’ll take small over not much."

  They swung into their saddles and rode west into some grassy, tree-studded lowlands, then looped around and headed back toward the outlaw camp. The fiery red-gold ball that was the sun beat hot against their backs, throwing their shadows long out ahead of them.

  In the hours and days they’d ridden together they had discussed the men they were getting ready to go up against, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, advis­ing one another what to expect from those each had little or no familiarity with. It was generally accepted that Otis Klegg was the meanest and strongest and had the most influ­ence, even over the Harrups; but if bullets started flying, Klegg was too bulky and slow to be the most immediate worry.

  The man called Paris, known to Kendrick and Turpin both, was probably the fastest gun in the bunch, closely followed by Darrel and Clem Harrup. Huck Mather was a brooding young giant, as strong and mean as a gored bull, but slow mentally as well as physically. The remaining two Klegg men—a whiskey-nose named Bedney and a Mex known as Chulla—were scraggly hanger-ons of little conse­quence but nevertheless willing and able to take life at any opportunity.

  The bounty hunters rode up into the narrow flat Doc had described. Ahead, where it flared into a wider clearing, they could see men gathered around a campfire, unsaddled horses grazing close by. The timing was perfect, making their approach straight out of the blinding blast of the sun.

  As they slowed their own horses, Kendrick said, "We should dismount, lead our animals in on foot. That’ll look less threatening, probably allow us to get in closer."

  Turpin took the suggestion, dropping lightly from his saddle. "Don’t you figure they’re going to recognize us anyway?" he said.

  "Expect so," Kendrick agreed. "But we’ll still look less intimidating for awhile. And if it comes to throwin' lead—which it likely will—reckon we’re better off standin' on the ground than sittin' the backs of a couple hoppin' horses."

  "Done my share both ways," Turpin said stub­bornly.

  Kendrick took time to rearrange his weapons, pulling his Winchester out of its scabbard and slipping it behind the saddle cantle where it was wedged loosely in place by his bedroll. The Greener double-barreled shotgun that usually rode in that position (although lashed securely with leather thongs) he temporarily dropped into the Winchester’s scabbard.

  "I take it you don’t figure to get the job done by your short gun?" Turpin said with a trace of impatience.

  Kendrick shook his head. "Comes to yankin' out shootin' irons, I can’t match the speed of Paris or Darrel Harrup. So I’ll try to make it up with the added accuracy and punch of my rifle."

  "Well, however you plan to do your part, let’s be getting to it. We’re losing the sun. " As he said this, Doc was checking the load in the Colt Lightning .38 he’d pulled from his saddle bag. Satisfied the gun was ready if needed, he then slipped it under his belt to the left of the shiny buckle, butt forward and angled toward his right hand.

  They took their horses’ reins and began walking toward the camp. As an afterthought, Turpin muttered, "Any sonofabitch shoots my horse, I’ll kill him certain."

  The men in the camp had seen them by now. Some who’d been squatting or sitting on the ground rose to stand. Cold eyes followed every step of the intruders' approach. Otis Klegg stood in the middle of the group, fists planted on hips, the grimy long duster he wore fanned open by the posture, making his bulk look twice as wide as any of the others. Darrel and Clem Harrup stood off to Otis’s right, their contrastingly lean bodies looking bowstring tight with anticipation. Their cousin Huck was a ways back from them, over by the horses; he had a bridle in his hands and appeared to have been repairing or adjusting it in some way. Paris was to Klegg’s left, his stance deceptively relaxed, his eyes crackling with alertness. Chulla was busily stirring a pot of something over the fire and seemed content to let the others worry about whoever was coming. That left Bedney, off by himself over to one far edge of the clearing, paused in the act of breaking up tree branches for firewood.

  When they’d closed to about a dozen yards from the camp, Kendrick and Turpin stopped walking and tugged their horses to a halt.

  "Hello, the camp," Turpin called easily.

  "Right back at you," Otis Klegg responded, squint­ing hard into the fingers of sunlight spraying around the figures of the newcomers.

  "We saw your smoke, smelled your cooking fire."

  "That’s a lie."

  Muscles fluttered along Doc’s sharp jaw line. "Say again?"

  "You heard me. That there’s a drywood fire, ain’t giving off no smoke. And what’s in the pot ain’t been cooking long enough to send no smell."

  "I’m not in the habit of being called a liar."

  "Shouldn’t take on such a nasty habit, then."

  Kendrick spoke up, "Maybe my partner was mis­taken. Maybe what we smelled clear across the way was just the stink of an overripe, murderin' tub of guts wrapped up in a ratty old duster coat."

  Klegg grinned broadly, showing brownish stumps of teeth and then showing the sun didn’t have him all that blinded by saying to Turpin, "Partner’s got kind of a mouth on h
im, don’t he, Doc?"

  "Only problem with that’d be if he couldn’t back up what comes out of it."

  "You figure he can?"

  "Wouldn’t be partnered with him if I didn’t."

  Darrel Harrup took a step closer to Klegg. "His name's Kendrick—Bodie Kendrick. He’s from up our way. I recognize him same as you did Turpin. Makes them two vulture bastards cut outta the same cloth."

  "Looks like you got your own self a partner who ain’t afraid to speak his mind," Turpin told Klegg.

  Klegg shrugged. "Like you said…only problem with that'd be if he can’t back it up."

  "So let’s quit gnawin' around the edges," Kendrick said. "You know who we are, we know who you are. Reckon we can all figure out what this visit shakes down to."

  "You aim to take us in—that what you’re saying?"

  "For a fact."

  "Sort of insulting, the odds you’re giving us.” Klegg paused and showed his ugly grin again. Then he placed the edge of his hand above his eyes and did a mocking pantomime of sweeping his gaze carefully around. "Or have you maybe got some members of that fee-rocious New Gleanus posse lurking somewhere out there to back you up?" He and his men emitted a round of snorting laughs at this idea of a big joke.

  "You try to make an argument of this," Turpin said evenly, "you’ll be doing your laughing in Hell. Me and Kendrick mean business, and we haven’t done our training behind store counters or hay bales like those poor posse boys you cut apart. This is it, Klegg. Throw your guns down or make a go for 'em. One way or another, we’re taking you with us."

  Klegg’s ugly grin turned into an even uglier sneer. "Why, you bold bastard! Who do you think you’re talking to? I demand more respect than that."

  "I got more respect for a diseased coyote," Kendrick muttered.

  "The only thing you’ll get from us," Turpin said, voice still calm and steady, "is a way to the gallows or a bellyful of lead. You choose."

  Klegg jerked his arm down, sweeping his great coat open even wider, and clawed for the long-barreled Remington revolver jammed in his belt. "Damn you to hell­—I choose this!"

  The scene exploded into a flurry of deadly-intentioned activity. Men scrambling, dodging this way and that, feet trampling, arms flailing, fingers clutching at hol­sters and diving under coat flaps and vests to grab for weapons.

  Two figures remained comparatively motionless: Doc Turpin and Klegg’s gunny, Paris. Only their hands moved. Like twin lightning bolts. Their drawn guns roared simultaneously—the first shots to be exchanged—and Paris reeled and fell as a result with a bullet hole punched straight through his heart.

  Kendrick pivoted on his heel, turning hard and sharp to the right, reaching, snatching the Winchester from where he’d placed it behind the saddle cantel. He let the turn take him full around in a continuous fluid motion, dropping into a slight crouch at its completion, the rifle braced against his hip, and from that pose began levering a rapid-fire rain of lead into the outlaw camp.

  Darrel Harrup lived up to his own fast-draw reputa­tion, Colt flashing to his fist with startling speed. He cocked and fired only a fraction of a second behind the reports of Turpin and Paris. But Darrel was confused by Kendrick’s spinning move; he threw two shots wide, anticipating Kendrick’s motion would pull him off to one side. By the time he started to correct his aim, Kendrick’s Winchester was spitting its own brand of death. Harrup took hits to the groin and stomach, the slugs doubling him and knocking him skidding to the ground. Beside him, his younger brother Clem, sprayed by Darrel’s blood, slightly slower on the draw and also confused by the whirling tactic of Kendrick, got off a single ineffective shot before he, too, was ripped by the bounty hunter’s rifle fire.

  Having downed Paris, Doc Turpin began to move. In long, unhurried strides he advanced directly on the camp, holding his torso twisted to the left, offering an even narrower target in profile than his spare frame presented straight-on. He walked with his right arm extended full in front of him, Smith and Wesson barking in his grip. Cock and fire, cock and fire…he squeezed the trigger with each downstep of his right heel.

  Otis Klegg got the big Remington pulled free of his belt but never had a chance to raise it before one of Doc’s slugs smashed his Adam’s apple. He dropped abruptly to one knee, teetering that way for a long moment, blood bubbling down the front of him, eyes wide as if disbelieving he’d been hit. Two more bullets tore into his chest, an inch apart, and his massive frame slowly toppled backward and down, like a tree. The Remington stayed gripped in his dead fingers, unfired.

  At the outbreak of action, Huck Mather had dropped the horse bridle he’d been fiddling with and turned to grab for the Henry repeating rifle that leaned against a nearby mossy hump. He came around with it in time to see his two cousins hit the ground. Choking back a sob, blurting instead a roar of emotional pain and rage, he came rushing forward, leaping over the fallen bodies of Darrel and Clem and making straight for Kendrick in a plodding run, firing the Henry wildly. In spite of the recklessness of the charge, one of his shots managed to tear a long gouge in Kendrick’s side just above the beltline.

  Chulla, the Mex who’d seen fit to worry only about the stew pot until the shooting started, fell instantly into a world of problems when he finally decided to pay attention and join the fight. In trying to stand up, he somehow got his feet tangled together and ended up sprawling on his hands and knees directly in the fire. Screeching with pain and panic, he jerked away and sprawled again, tumbling this time like a smoldering log, both of his shirt sleeves and one pant leg bursting into flames. As Otis Klegg went crashing down in death, Chulla was only a few feet away, howling and flailing at the fire that threatened to spread and consume him. In his condition he presented no immediate danger to anybody other than himself, but his outcries were annoying enough to draw a pair of bullets from Doc. So energetic was Chulla’s flopping about, however, that both shots missed, kicking up dirt around their intended target.

  The remaining Klegg man, Bedney, had positioned himself to be a more serious threat. When the fight broke out, he had dropped the armload of fire wood he’d gathered, turned and ran as fast as he could to gain the cover of a durable oak tree on the edge of the clearing. From there, he drew his Colt and took careful aim on Doc Turpin.

  Meanwhile, Huck Mather was continuing his charge at Kendrick. The bounty hunter had sent round after round of Winchester slugs thudding into the young giant and while each stag­gered him and slowed him, none of them stopped him. He kept coming. When his Henry rifle was empty, he flung it aside and came on with both hands reaching claw-like. His face was shiny with sweat and tears, chest and stomach streaked with blood. Kendrick’s Winchester was emptied, too, but he hung onto the heavy piece and when Mather got close enough he knocked aside the clawing hands with its stock then brought the butt up and across in a slashing chop to the jaw. Mather’s neck popped like a dried corn stalk and he finally went down.

  Bedney’s first shot took Doc’s hat off and creased his scalp, spilling an instant trickle of blood down over his face. At the same time, the hammer of Turpin’s Smith and Wesson began clicking on spent cartridges. Bedney fired twice more. Coolly, with the bullets singing to either side of him, Doc shifted the spent gun to his left hand and with his right drew the backup Colt Lightning from his belt. When Bedney leaned out to fire again, a .38 slug shattered tree bark a hair’s breadth from his face. Turpin kept walking, adjusting his course specifically for the tree now. Every time Bedney tried to poke his head out, another bullet crashed into the trunk where he showed himself.

  While Doc was keeping his man pinned down, Kendrick walked over to Chulla, who’d managed to smother the flames that had caught his clothing and was now rolling back and forth on the ground, mewling in pain, panting to regain his breath between coughs brought on by the tendrils of smoke that still engulfed him. Kendrick paused long enough to kick him nonchalantly in the head, knocking him unconscious and putting him out of his misery. That done, he drew his
Colt and turned to Turpin, saying, "Lend a hand there, Doc?"

  "Join in if you like," Turpin answered. "Workin' on flushing out a yellow dog."

  But before Kendrick got off even a shot, Bedney called from behind the tree: "Wait a minute! Hold it! Hold your fire. I ain’t no match for the two of you, not no how. Ain’t there some way we can end this without me getting blasted to pieces? I’ll throw my guns out … I’ll do anything you say."

  "Talk is cheap," Turpin said, "but it takes money to buy whiskey. Let’s see the color of your money—let’s see those guns come out"

  Bedney hesitated. "How do I know you won’t shoot me anyway?"

  Kendrick said, "If we’re of a mind to shoot you, then shot is what you’ll get, regardless. Comin' out unarmed with hands high is your best chance. Believe it."

  After several clock ticks, Bedney’s Colt sailed out and landed on the ground seven or eight feet from the tree. A handful of seconds later, a big bore derringer landed next to it.

  "That’s it. That cleans me out."

  "Haul yourself out from behind that trunk then, where we can see you," Turpin said. "Hands high, like you were told."

  Bedney emerged, visibly shaken. His hands, thrust at arms’ length over his head, were trembling badly. By contrast, neither of the guns trained on him wavered one whit.

  Bedney’s bug-eyed stare swept over his fallen comrades. "My God, look at ‘em … all my pards … every one cut down." His eyes found Kendrick and Turpin, danced nervously back and forth between them. "You two are a couple of holy terrors, you know that?"