by Jake Logan
It wasn’t long before Jeter heard a soft hissing sound—leather boot soles gliding across rock.
“You are good, you cayuse,” Jeter said under his breath. He had heard Indians make more noise as they moved. But neither the Indians nor this piece of flypaper realized how acute Jeter’s hearing was or how much he thought through every move.
Everything happened fast. He saw a flash of starlight against metal and yanked on the rope, causing the shirt with the rifle attached to pop up. An immediate gunshot rang out, dazzling Jeter since he had been staring directly at the spot where the reflection had caught his attention.
“Gotcha,” the man cried, rushing out like he had before. Jeter thought the man was a glutton for punishment, but that only made it easier. And it made it even sweeter when the man realized how he had been duped into believing his trap had worked, only find a hat and shirt stuffed with weeds.
“You’re a dead man if you move,” Jeter cried in triumph. He had the man silhouetted against the night sky and couldn’t miss. “I don’t rightly know why I shouldn’t cut you down where you stand fer all you’ve done to me and mine.”
“Are you going to talk me to death, Jeter?”
“Ought to. That’d be crueler than putting a bullet through you. I just wanted you to know how much I admire the way you kept on my trail. Ain’t more ’n one or two men in all of Texas who could have tracked like you did.” Jeter chuckled, knowing how completely he had trapped this one.
“I reckon I ought to change that to ‘admired’ you since you’re a dead man fer what you did to my wife,” Jeter added.
“Do you even know her name, Jeter?”
“What?” This rocked Jeter. It mirrored something Ruth had said not too long ago about how he didn’t know her because he was always gone. The dumb slut should have known he did all the robbing for her. They were going to be rich and go off to Mexico and live in style in a fancy hacienda with servants. And all because he was risking his life to keep her and please her and guarantee that she would be able to lead a life of luxury like nobody in her damn family had ever believed possible.
“You neglect her. You keep her like a slave. You ever own a slave, Jeter? Before you married one?”
“You son of a bitch!”
Jeter wasn’t even sure what happened. One instant he had the lying bastard in his sights, the next he was jerking his six-gun around and firing wildly into the night.
Then he was put on the defensive when a fusillade came his way. Jeter scrambled back, caught his heel, and sat heavily. He tried to get his pistol up and firing, but was off balance. And then he had his hands full of a powerful, angry man ready to rip out his throat with his bare teeth. Jeter caught at the hands reaching for him, twisted away, and tried to roll and run, only to trip and fall heavily. A rock jammed itself hard into his chest and breath painfully gusted from his lungs, leaving him vainly gasping for air.
Jeter felt the hard fist landing repeatedly and then, clutching at sharp rocks all around him on the ground and not finding escape, he passed out.
The sun was warm on his face. This brought Jeter awake faster than cold water dashed into his face could have. He sat bolt upright and almost fell from his horse. He fought to keep his balance, then discovered his hands were tightly bound behind his back. Turning slightly, he saw that he couldn’t fall off his horse.
He was securely tied into the saddle.
“Welcome back to the land of the living.”
“I’ll cut your liver out and eat it for lunch,” Jeter snarled. He had never been caught like this before and it didn’t set well with him. Straining against the ropes holding his wrists only produced a sluggish flow of blood. He had been tied up expertly. There wasn’t any way he could hope to get free of those bonds by struggling.
“More likely, I’ll cut out yours and feed it to you,” the man said.
“Who are you?” Jeter had to ask, and found it hard to keep a hint of admiration from his voice. He had met his match after all these years. It was hard to believe it was some West Texas drifter. The man rode straight as a ramrod in the saddle, strands of lank black hair poking out from under the dusty Stetson pulled down to the tops of his ears. There wasn’t a trace of fat on his body—only whipcord muscle. But he was like a hundred other cowboys Jeter had seen—and killed.
He was like them all except for the cold green eyes. Jeter had seen eyes like that before, every time he looked in a mirror.
“Name’s Slocum, as if that matters.”
“Slocum,” Jeter said, turning the name over and then spitting it out as if it burned his tongue. “That the name you want on your tombstone?”
“For a man who’s all trussed up, you’ve got a powerful lot of boastfulness left in you. Maybe I ought to pound some more out of you.”
“There’s nothing you can do . . .” Jeter’s words trailed off when Slocum reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a watch. He held it up so the sunlight caught its gold case, flashing like a lighthouse beacon as it spun on its chain. Jeter felt as if he had been stripped naked. The son of a bitch had stolen his watch!
“It’s mine, Jeter,” Slocum said coldly, responding to the expression on his face. “You should never have taken it from me.”
“The stagecoach robbery,” Jeter said. “I remember now. You were the galoot I thought was dead beside the road.”
“Before you murdered the other two passengers and driver,” Slocum said.
“I didn’t murder them. It was self-defense. They tried to shoot me.”
“You were robbing the stage. What’d you expect them to do?”
“What they did. Die!”
Slocum made a big deal of sticking the watch back into his pocket. Jeter watched with narrowed eyes. He’d enjoy taking the watch back off Slocum’s dead body. It’d be a matter of time. It didn’t matter that Slocum had Jeter’s six-shooter thrust into his belt and had him all tied up like a Christmas goose. This was a challenge, nothing more. And Lester Jeter was up to it.
He shifted uneasily in the saddle, wondering what torment Slocum had inflicted on him. Then he settled down when he realized what it was. Flopping around on the ground had cut up his chest something fierce. It looked as if he had been the loser in a vicious knife fight the way his shirt was all sliced up and caked with blood. But being on the ground had done something more to him—for him.
A sharp piece of flint had embedded itself in his left buttock. As he bounced in the saddle, it sent jabs of pain up and down his leg. A sharp edge also protruded the barest amount from his flesh. Straining until it felt as if he would dislocate his shoulder, Jeter began dragging the ropes around his wrists across the razor-edge. Every movement caused new pain to shoot into his leg as he pressed the flint deeper into his own flesh, but he could withstand the pain in return for getting free—and getting revenge.
“Why’d you do it?” he grated out, trying to cover his furious work on the ropes. “Reward? Is there a reward out for me?”
“Don’t know and don’t care. When I told the station agent in San Esteban about the robbery, he wasn’t even sure of your name. You’ve been real good covering your trail.”
“I killed them all so they couldn’t identify me.”
“That why you burned down the bank?”
“I had to. They forced me to do it if I wanted to get away.”
“The cornered rat,” Slocum said. “You’d do anything to escape with the money you took from the vault.”
“You’d have done the same thing. Don’t try to lie to me or yourself,” Jeter said, feeling a few strands break away due to his efforts. With the progress came new pain all through his left leg. He gritted his teeth against it and kept sawing. “You got the look of a road agent. And don’t tell me you never kilt a man.”
“What I am doesn’t matter as much as you being my prisoner.”
“I’ll pay you. I’ll give you money to let me go. I got a whole mountain of money hid.”
“Must be around the
cabin back in the valley,” Slocum said. “That’s why you headed for it after I saved Ruth.”
“Saved her? How could you save her from her own damn husband! You kidnapped her. You raped her and kidnapped her and—”
“Don’t stop,” Slocum said, laughing now. “I like seeing you get all het up. Your face is turning red about like it’ll look when you’re dancing in midair with a rope around your filthy neck.”
“I’ll—” Jeter almost laughed when he felt the final strand of rope cut free from his wrists. He forced himself to keep his hands clenched together so he wouldn’t reveal his hard-won freedom. He rubbed them together the best he could to get the circulation back, then clutched at the piece of flint buried in his ass. His fingers were too slippery with his own blood to get it out.
“You’ll do nothing but stand trial,” Slocum said with some satisfaction.
“You want Ruth. That’s all you’re after. You want to steal away my wife.”
“What she does is her business. I’m not in the market for a woman.”
“Yeah, that ’cuz you like little boys?”
Jeter almost shouted in triumph when Slocum slowed and rode closer.
“You looking to get your face shoved in?” Slocum asked.
It was Slocum’s face that got smashed in. Jeter swung his fist around in a powerful roundhouse punch that caught a cheek and opened a cut. But dishing out punishment to Slocum wasn’t what he was after. As he struck, Jeter leaned over and grabbed the handle of his six-shooter shoved into the man’s belt. He whipped it free, cocked, and fired.
He would have killed Slocum if both horses hadn’t reared. Jeter’s stallion rocked back on its hind legs and kicked out as he fired. Slocum’s horse took the round in the back of its head and fell, dead.
Jeter fired a second time, but he couldn’t control his rearing horse too well. By the time he got the powerful horse under control, he saw there was no big hurry. Slocum was pinned under the deadweight of his horse, struggling to get free.
“Good-bye, Slocum. Burn in hell!”
The hammer fell on an empty chamber.
16
“I have all the notes I need,” Ambrose Killian said happily. “Whether I ought to take photographs of the townspeople is a matter I need to consider further. The plates are so expensive and developing them is a tedious and somewhat dangerous process best done back at my hacienda rather than here in some improperly appointed room.”
“I can help,” Amy said. She smoothed the wrinkles in her skirt as she sat primly across from Ambrose in the hotel lobby, such as it was. The hotel was only a two-story clapboard structure that whistled when the wind blew. She tried to ignore the little mounds of sand in the corners of the sitting room that had escaped the cleaning woman’s attention, if there even was a cleaning woman. The only staff she had seen were the bored clerk and a handyman who had passed out from too much liquor. Once there had also been a kitchen staff, but the clerk had informed them when Amy had arranged for the rooms that the kitchen was shut down. If they wanted food, they had to go to the restaurant beyond the Prancing Pony Drinking Emporium down the street.
Amy was familiar with the place, having taken John Slocum there when she interviewed him. She tried not to sigh as she thought of the man. He was so commanding, but he was nothing like Ambrose. Her eyes worked up from her examination of the lobby floor and fixed on her employer. Ambrose was caught in throes of excitement over the nearness of Jeter’s capture. It made him seem so boyish in his enthusiasm, though he retained his manly bearing.
“There’s no need. I will shoot the pictures I need when they apprehend Jeter. How long’s it been since the posse left to track him down?”
“Two days,” she said. “You mustn’t be too anxious,” she said. Staying with Ambrose was exciting for her, even if they had separate rooms—and beds.
“How can I avoid being excited?” he asked. “My life is wrapped up in that rapscallion. If I can call such a cold-blooded murderer that.”
“It does seem more in line with a mischievous schoolboy rather than a man who kills and robs the way Jeter does.”
“Never mind that. He’ll be brought to heel soon. The town finally got its dander up.”
“The posse looked less than . . . reliable,” Amy said, choosing her words carefully. For all the excitement Ambrose showed for the posse going after Jeter, she held only a wary regard for them. They had made certain their saddlebags were filled with bottles of liquor supplied by Luke, the barkeep at the Drunk Camel Saloon. “For medicinal purposes,” Marshal Eaton had said, but Amy worried they were heading for trouble if they drank too heavily and actually found Jeter. The man would enjoy killing the posse one by one, especially if they were too drunk to fight.
While she didn’t wish any of the temporary lawmen to be killed, such a massacre would only enhance Jeter’s reputation and make Ambrose’s quest for artifacts and details the more important. What pleased Ambrose pleased her.
If only he would knock on her door at night and invite himself into her room. She would not mind if he called her into his and they—
“Miss Gerardo! Pay attention.”
“Sorry, sir,” she said. “I was going over . . . details in my mind. To be sure everything is ready.”
“That’s all well and good, but I need the notes transcribed as quickly as possible so I might check them to see if I have omitted anything. Now is the time to add those pertinent details, while events are fresh in the townspeople’s minds and they haven’t scattered to the four winds. You know how it is with these small-town residents. They’ll be off to find their fortunes elsewhere as soon as the railroad takes away their stagecoach route.”
“I understand, sir. Should I see if the undertaker is ready?”
“We can go now.”
“Good!” Amy jumped to her feet, then realized such unseemly eagerness would only put her in a bad light. “I’m ready, sir.”
“You arranged for decent work? Not some cheap pine box?”
“The very finest available. The undertaker, a man named O’Dell, assured me he is a first-rate carpenter and able to make any coffin, from the plainest to the most ornate.”
“While I have a moment, let’s talk to this O’Dell. I need to be certain.”
“I’ve checked it all myself.” Amy was pained that Ambrose didn’t care that she had attended to the details personally. Worse, he thought her incompetent to arrange for the coffin to be constructed in a suitable fashion befitting an outlaw of Jeter’s stature. He had to see for himself. She trailed him out into the hot afternoon and across the street to the undertaker’s parlor.
O’Dell rose and moved around his large wooden desk, hands clasped together in front him and looking like a ghost. His pale face bespoke little time in the sun, and the odors rising from his clothing did more than hint at the fluids used in his profession.
“You are Mr. Killian. I am pleased to be doing business with you, sir,” O’Dell said in his curiously squeaky voice. Amy was fascinated by the way the man’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny throat as he talked. She imagined an ugly albino bird pecking its large curved beak down for grain and then clucking as it swallowed.
“That desk,” Ambrose said curtly. “Where’d it come from?”
“Why, I built it myself. Although San Esteban can be a violent place, there have been rather long stretches when no one dies. I make furniture then and sell it. If you’ve been in the Drunk Camel Saloon, you might have noticed another example of my work. The bar was lovingly crafted, I assure you.”
“Yes, yes,” Ambrose said, dismissing this information. “Show me the coffin I’ve purchased for Jeter.”
“This way, sir.” O’Dell bowed slightly and held open black silk curtains leading to the back room. “I have roughed it out, and will do the exterior carving and finishing in a day or two. Would you like something more done on the interior?”
“Hmm, nicely done,” Ambrose said, walking around the coffin on a workta
ble in the middle of the room. He ran his hand over the padded satin interior. “No, the inside is adequate. I see you have roughed in the exterior curlicues already. Good, very good. But I need to see the viewing room.”
“This way, sir,” O’Dell said, holding the curtains for both Ambrose and Amy. As she pressed past O’Dell, she caught the faint scent of lavender water and embalming fluid. It caused her stomach to clench and her nose to drip. She took her handkerchief and dabbed discreetly. She hastened after Ambrose through an arched doorway on the far side of the office leading into the viewing room.
“Everything is as you specified,” O’Dell said, sounding more cheerful now as he strode up the narrow aisle, pews on either side. “The departed will lie in repose surrounded by what wildflowers we can find when the moment is at hand. This time of year poses a problem. If you wait until fall, there are brilliant flowers throughout the Davis Mountains.”
“Where can I set up the camera tripod? It requires at least eight feet distance.” Ambrose paced around, studying angles and tinkering with the lamps strategically placed at the sides of the room.
Amy saw that her employer couldn’t care less about flowers and other more delicate observances. All that mattered to him were decent photos of Lester Evan Jeter—taken as soon as possible.
“On the dias, to the side,” O’Dell said. “Miss Gerardo has measured and approved the location.”
Amy shuddered when he mentioned her by name and looked at her. She wondered if he wanted her sexually from the way he fixed his button eyes on her—or if he was only mentally measuring her for a coffin. The notion that both were possible made her shudder again, in spite of the closeness of the room.
“Excellent, excellent. You’re doing a fine job, Mr. O’Dell.”
“The reception, if that is the proper term, has been arranged at the restaurant. There will be facilities for more than twenty people. If you desire more room, it might be necessary to go to the Drunk Camel and ask if that establishment might be rented. We might consider it a wake, in the Irish fashion. I doubt many will mourn, but many might be drawn to a celebration of this nature.”