“You’ll have to be the one that places it. I won’t.”
“All I have to do is to raise a holler that Blackjack Ketchum is still alive. The whole country will be down on you like a pack of wolves.”
“But they’d find out how the hangin’ was rigged, and who paid to rig it. You’d have to get out of town so quick that your shadow couldn’t keep up with you.” Blackjack pointed the muzzle at Lazarus. “You promised me travelin’ money. I want it.”
“You haven’t earned it.”
“Only because you lied. I figure you still owe me. Now fork it over.” He poked the pistol closer to Lazarus’s face.
The man’s eyes widened in a mix of fear and anger. “I don’t have much on me.”
Blackjack had noticed a small safe in the corner the first time he was in the office. It was the sort of thing that always caught his attention. “I’ll bet you’ve got some in there. Open it.”
Grumbling, Lazarus knelt reluctantly in front of the safe. He began turning the dial, first left, then right, then left again. “You won’t get away with this.”
“I’m bettin’ I do. What’re you goin’ to say, that a dead man robbed your safe?”
Lazarus swung the safe’s door open. “No, but I can say that he died trying.” He whirled around, a derringer in his hand, and fired.
Blackjack felt as if a horse had kicked him. By reflex he fired the pistol. Through the smoke he saw Lazarus fall back against the safe, shock and disbelief in his eyes. Blackjack fired again, and Lazarus slumped to the floor.
Blackjack took a long step toward the safe, eager to grab whatever money he could find and get out of here. But his legs betrayed him. He fell forward on his knees, then on his face. He rolled half over and placed his hand over his stomach. It came away bloody. He tried to rise up, but could get no farther than his knees.
A derringer might be considered a woman’s weapon, but its bullet could kill a man. He realized Lazarus had put one through his lower chest. It burned like the furnaces of hell.
He heard excited voices in the saloon. The door burst open, and half a dozen men rushed in. Some almost knocked others down in their haste. One wore a bartender’s apron. He shouted, “He’s shot Diamond Joe!”
Blackjack presumed that was the name by which people knew Lazarus, not that it mattered. His vision was blurred, but he pointed the pistol in a way that he covered everybody. “You-all stand back. I’ll kill the first man that comes any closer.”
It was a hollow threat. Someone grabbed the pistol and wrested it from his grip, then used its barrel to strike a hard blow against the side of his head. Blackjack sank to the floor.
He heard the bartender say, “The safe is open. This jaybird was tryin’ to rob the place.”
Someone examined Diamond Joe’s body. “He’s dead. Took two straight to the heart. Who do you reckon this man is?”
The bartender said, “Never seen him before. Probably dropped off of a freight and figured on grabbin’ some easy money before the next train comes through.”
“We’d better send for the sheriff.”
“No, sir,” the bartender argued. “Diamond Joe was a friend of ours. You know how bad the courts are about turnin’ prisoners loose. We’ll take care of this killer ourselves and tell the sheriff afterwards. Grab ahold of him. Somebody find somethin’ to tie his hands with.”
Blackjack struggled, but the wound had made him too weak to put up much defense. He felt himself manhandled by rough hands. His arms were twisted behind his back, and he felt the bite of a coarse rope around his wrists. He argued, “He shot me first. I just defended myself.”
Somebody struck his face with a hard fist. He saw an explosion of light and felt the salty taste of his own blood from a split lip. He was jerked to his feet, then slammed back upon the floor again.
He cried, “It was him that fired first. I’m shot, can’t you see?”
They might have seen, but it was obvious they didn’t care. They began pulling him across the floor. His knees bumped painfully over the threshold as they dragged him out into the morning.
He had no strength to mount his horse, but rough hands lifted him into the saddle. They held him there as they led the horse down the alley to a telephone pole with crossbars that supported several lines. Through burning eyes, he saw someone pitch the end of a rope up in an effort to lay it across a crossbar. It took three tries to get it done.
Strong hands pulled him far enough down the horse’s left side that the bartender could reach him with the open loop and drop it over his head. It chafed his neck as it pulled tight.
Tears burned his eyes, and his heart pounded in panic. Blackjack cried, “For God’s sake, you can’t do this. You can’t hang me again.”
He felt the horse fidgeting beneath him, caught up in the wild excitement of the crowd. This was the nightmare of Clayton all over again. His tongue seemed swollen and dry. He started to scream from deep in his throat when he heard a slap and felt the horse surge out from under him. His head seemed to explode. The scream was cut off abruptly at its highest pitch.
The crowd grew quiet, watching the body swing back and forth.
The bartender looked up in satisfaction at the morning’s work. “Can’t nobody blame us for doin’ this. He had it comin’. Some people are born to hang.”
Someone said, “It was a peculiar thing he said, that we couldn’t hang him again. What do you reckon he meant?”
The bartender said, “There ain’t no tellin’. One hangin’ ought to be enough for anybody.”
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-1824-6
Lost Trails Page 23