Return of the Gunhawk (The McCabes Book 3)

by Brad Dennison

  Mother had told Hiram to check on his father. See if he was asleep, and then report back to her. Hiram walked down the hallway carefully. He wore leather-soled shoes and the floors were hardwood, but oriental rugs with blazing reds and yellows were spread along the floor, and they served to muffle his footsteps.

  The door to the bedroom was hanging ajar. Hiram decided to push the door open a little and step in. If his father was awake, then Hiram would have to invent a reason for being there, like he was just checking on him.

  He tried the line in his head. “You looked so tired downstairs you had Mother and me worried.”

  No. Hiram was trying to be his own man. He didn’t have to invoke Mother’s name.

  “You looked so tired downstairs you had me a little concerned. Thought I’d check on you.”

  Yes. That’s what he would say, if his father should be awake.

  He stepped in. The lamp by the bed was burning low and gave a sort of dim glow to the room. Father’s cigar was smoldering away in an ash tray, and Father himself was lying face down on the bed, fully dressed.

  “Father?” Hiram said quietly.

  No response. Hiram could now see his father was breathing gently.

  Hiram backed out of the room and headed downstairs. He found Mother in the study that Father liked to call his office. She was in a chair, facing the hearth, and a fire was crackling away. Both hands were resting in her lap, and in them was a glass of sherry. Though it wasn’t cold, she had a shawl around her shoulders and was sitting as though she was chilled. Shoulders a little hunched. Arms drawn close to her side.

  “Mother,” Hiram said. “Are you well? You look like you have a chill.”

  Mother shook her head dismissively. “I’m fine. Got a little creak in my joints. Old age. It’s to be expected.”

  Old age? Hiram was about to say she was not even fifty yet, but decided not to pursue it. Mother could grow angry when pushed, and he didn’t want to deal with her temper. He was becoming his own man. He intended to one day rule this financial empire she was building, and he would do it on his own terms. But she was still here, still in power, and her temper was still something to be wary of.

  Timmons stood off to one side. He was in a black suit and a checkered vest, and white gloves. His posture as erect as usual, and his hands were behind his back almost like he was in some sort of parade-rest pose.

  Hiram was impressed with the air of power that seemed to radiate from Timmons. The man stood a few inches taller than Hiram, and even though he was as old as Father, he looked like he could lift Hiram with one arm. Timmons shoulders were broad, his neck thick, and his chest like a barrel. Hiram had seen miners built like this.

  Hiram decided to get to the point. Mother didn’t like needless small talk. He said, “Father’s asleep.”

  “Good. Now is the time to act.”

  A small coffee table was in front of the sofa. Mother leaned over and set down her sherry, and rose to her feet. She stood slowly, placing each hand on an arm of the chair and pushing herself upright. Timmons began to reach out a hand to steady her, but she said, “I’m all right.”

  He withdrew the hand, as though she was a wild dog and might bite it.

  “Hiram, we’re going out to the secondary house tonight. I want you and Timmons to get Dan ready to travel. And be careful not to awaken your father. This is primary.”

  Hiram looked at her with surprise. The secondary house? Tonight? At this hour? But he allowed himself to do this for only a moment. To ask questions might mean to incur her wrath. You surely didn’t want to do that. So he said, “Yes, Mother.”

  He started for the doorway and glanced to Timmons, who fell into place behind him.

  The secondary house, as Mother called it, was a small house at the edge of the property that Mother had bought a few years ago. Considering the size of their property, the edge of it was a few miles away. Mother had kept the secondary house a secret from Father. Since the books were always kept by Hiram and Father never saw them, keeping the place a secret was fairly easy. The house wasn’t even in her name. It was in the name of a dummy corporation Hiram had started for the both of them, for transactions they needed to make that they didn’t want easily traced back to them.

  Mother wanted this house because she said there might come a time when they would need to lie low for a while. It was actually a small two-level farmhouse. Timmons knew of it, and rode out once a week to see to its upkeep.

  Hiram and Timmons climbed the stairs silently. The stairs were carpeted and their footsteps made no sound at all. They found Dan deeply asleep, which didn’t surprise Hiram at all. Mother had told Timmons to double his laudanum dosage.

  Hiram pulled the bed covers back and then gently tapped Dan’s face. “Dan. Wake up.”

  Dan stirred, but nothing else.

  “We can carry him. Just be careful not to open his wound.”

  With Timmons slipping his hands under Dan’s shoulders and Hiram getting his feet, they got him downstairs. Mother had him deposited on the sofa in the parlor, and sent Timmons out to hitch a buggy.

  After a time, Timmons returned, stepping in through one of French doors in the parlor. “The buggy is ready, ma’am.”

  He had pulled it out back so they wouldn’t have to carry Dan as far. He and Hiram then lifted Dan and carried him outside. The buggy was a two-seater, so they deposited Dan in the back one and covered him with a blanket.

  Mother said to Hiram, “Climb into the front seat and wait for me. You’ll be driving. Timmons will be joining us once he finishes a task I have for him.”

  She stepped back into the house. Timmons followed her. She crossed the parlor and went through the doorway to the entryway, and stopped at the base of the stairs. Timmons followed her.

  “Has the staff been sent away?”

  He nodded. “There’s no one else here.”

  “Good,” she said, “Kill him.”

  Timmons nodded.

  “Meet us out at the secondary house once you’ve finished. Don’t let anyone see you leave.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She laid a hand on his arm and met his gaze. A silent gesture of appreciation. He nodded.

  She then stepped back into the parlor, and out to the buggy.

  Timmons looked up to the railing at the top of the stairs. He reached into his jacket and pulled a five-inch long dagger that he always kept there. He then began to climb the stairs.

  13

  Sam Middleton said to the men lying on the saloon floor, “Now I want you boys to stay right where you are.”

  Wells was looking at him.

  “Eyes on the floor. You look up at me, and I’ll put a slug right in your head. I really am a good shot. Eyes straight down.”

  They did as they were told. They didn’t know if Middleton would kill a man in cold blood, but he was a professional gambler and such men generally weren’t known to be too strong in the ethics department. Wells decided he was brave enough to find out, and neither were Bardeen or Marty.

  Sam kept his pistol pointed toward Wells and his men while he backed up toward a door at the other side of the barroom. A door that opened into an alley. The patrons who had not fled the place formed a small crowd at the far end of the room. Sam threw a glance at them, and they were watching wide-eyed.

  Sam stepped out the door and then ran down the alley and came out on the street behind the saloon. He saw a rider down the street, heading out of town. Looked like it was McCabe.

  He ran down the boardwalk, revolver in hand. He needed to get to the livery, which was on the main street, but he didn’t want anyone on the main street to see him. He knew Wells and Bardeen would be gunning for him, and Wells had other men who lurked about town, ready to be called into action. A call to them and there could be as many as seven or eight gunmen combing the town for him.

  Middleton tried to estimate how far down he had to go to be parallel with the livery. He hoped he had guessed right, and turned into an all
ey. He could tell by the smell of horse droppings and hay that he had guessed right.

  He holstered his gun and climbed up and over a fence, and then across the corral. Twice he stepped into piles that he knew wouldn’t be pleasant, but he would worry about his boots later.

  He could see light through gaps in the boards of the livery. He stepped in and found Peddie waiting for him, with two horses saddled.

  An old man stood with her. Long white beard and bushy brows. A vest worn over an undershirt, and baggy trousers were tucked into riding boots. Old Harley Yates, who ran the livery.

  Peddie ran to Middleton and threw her arms around him in a hug.

  “I’m all right,” he said. “We’ve got to ride.”

  The horses had saddle bags and a canteen each, but no bedrolls. Not even a rifle.

  Old Harley said, “The young lady said the horses had to be saddled and in a hurry.”

  “Thanks, Harley,” Middleton said. He reached into his vest and pulled out a silver dollar and handed it to him.

  “A dollar? Thanks, Mister Middleton.”

  Old Harley was normally lucky to see a dime. A quarter was a large tip. Middleton always made a point to tip Old Harley excessively, because he never knew when he might need the old man’s help. Middleton never stayed in a town unless he made preparations for a speedy exit. Such a thing had saved his life more than once.

  He held Peddie’s hand while she stepped up and into the saddle. Her dress and petticoats bunched out behind her. Sam then swung onto the back of the other horse.

  Old Harley said, “Take good care of them horses.”

  Sam had bought the horses from Harley weeks ago, for just this type of occasion. He had bought one horse first, and then when he discovered Peddie was in town, he bought a second. He had left her behind before, but intended never to again.

  “Harley,” Sam said. “If they ask you, tell them what you need to, to keep them from getting rough with you. Tell them I took the horses at gunpoint if you have to.”

  They rode out back, into the corral. Old Harley walked along and opened a gate in the fence, and they rode out and through an alley, and to the street beyond. The one that ran behind the saloon.

  Peddie had been raised on a small ranch. She could ride. Sam wouldn’t have to worry about her.

  “Okay,” he said to her. “Let’s ride.”

  Peddie said, “To Jessie’s place.”

  “It might be better if we cleared the area entirely. Maybe we could get through the passes to Carson City before winter fully sets in.”

  She shook her head. “I have to make sure Jessie’s okay, first. She was a friend of Belle’s, too. In some ways, we were more family than friends. I have to make sure she’s okay.”

  Sam smiled. Peddie was like a daughter to him and he could never say no to her, as much as he sometimes tried. “All right. Jessie’s place it is.”

  Matt’s dreams were filled with motion, like the sleep of exhaustion often is. He was back in the old days, riding across open grassland with Johnny at one side of him and Joe at the other. This was not the middle-aged Johnny with the long, graying pony tail. This was the young Johnny, before he had wintered with the Shoshone and began adopting some of their ways. His hair was a chestnut brown and short cropped, and his jaw covered with the fine whiskers of a young man. He wore a pair of Remingtons then, one at each side. This was long before there were pistols that took metallic cartridges, or railroad track beginning to criss-cross the land. Before there were any towns between Missouri and California. No telegraph wires. Only an occasional Army fort or trading post.

  They would laugh the carefree laugh of youth. They watched warily for any sign of Indians, because this was also before the Sioux or the Comanche had been rounded up and placed on reservations, and if they caught a lone traveler or even a small group, they would lift his hair and torture him to death. But Matt, Johnny and Joe were young. Despite the danger they found much to laugh about. They sat by the fire at night talking about dreams and looking off at the huge sky filled with stars or sometimes just sitting quietly listening to the coyotes howl in the distance.

  And then his dreams took him today, covering miles he with Johnny and Ben Harris. Following the tracks of rustlers who had shot his son.

  Johnny now was graying, had the long Indian hair, and there were lines on his face. The Remingtons had been replaced with a Colt Peacemaker, a modern gun for the modern world. And Matt was no longer young and his joints creaked and he had fallen onto his bed like an old man on the verge of exhaustion.

  He rolled over on the bed and stirred awake with a “Hmm?”

  He didn’t know what had awakened him. It was like he had heard something, but he didn’t know what. He was alone in the room.

  Then he realized he wasn’t. Timmons was standing there. In his black suit and trousers, he had sort of been lost in the dim lighting of the room.

  “Timmons?” Matt said.

  Matt then realized Timmons was holding a knife in one hand.

  “Timmons, what the hell?”

  Timmons charge toward him, crossing the distance in two quick steps.

  Matt was old. His joints creaked. He had been out of action for far too long. But the action he had seen in his days of riding with Johnny and Joe had left reflexes that were still there.

  He raised one foot and caught Timmons in the chest. Matt’s boots were still on and he kicked hard, enough that he figured he would leave a boot print on the man.

  Timmons grunted and was pushed back a few feet. But he was tough and strong. Matt remembered old Moses Timmons. No one had filled the definition bull of a man better than him.

  Timmons came at him again, this time raising the knife, but Matt doubled up and rolled off the bed in a backwards somersault, and the knife plunged into the mattress where Matt had been stretched out.

  Too many years had passed since Matt had been involved in anything like this, however, and his backward roll was not as controlled as he would like it to have been. He landed on his feet but off-balance, and the roll continued without his say-so, and his back landed hard against the wall.

  Matt didn’t have time to catch his breath. Timmons leaped up and onto the bed with one running step, and then landed on the floor beside Matt and drove his knife toward him. Except Matt lunged to one side and the knife drove itself into the wall where Matt had been standing.

  Timmons had driven the knife hard. It buried itself into a timber behind the plaster. He gave the knife a pull, but it didn’t come out.

  Matt drove a fist into Timmons’ cheekbone. There was a smacking sound and Timmons’ head was knocked a little to one side, but again it had been too long since Matt had done this sort of thing. His punch didn’t have nearly what it would have back in the proverbial day, and on top of that he hurt his knuckles.

  Timmons backhanded Matt across the face, knocking Matt against the wall and he fell to the floor.

  Timmons gave up on the knife and decided to focus on Matt. Timmons had been expressionless until Matt punched him, but now his eyes were wide with fury.

  He grabbed Matt by the back of his shirt and pulled him to his feet. He then wrapped both hands around Matt’s neck, gripping hard. He apparently intended to choke the life out of him.

  Matt drove a boot into Timmons’ shin. No reaction. He did it again. Timmons grunted with the pain but held on. Matt knew he had only a few more seconds of Timmons’ grip on this throat before he blacked out. He drove a knee up and into Timmons’ groin. That hurt, and got the reaction Matt wanted. Timmons’ grip relaxed, and Matt pulled away from him.

  Matt stood a moment, rubbing his throat with his own hands, coughing and trying to catch his breath. Timmons stood bent over, enduring the aching pain that can come from a knee in the groin. Pain that reached up into his hips and down into his legs.

  Matt then turned and tried to run for the door. Timmons dove across the bed and grabbed him. Matt was pulled to the floor and Timmons landed on top of him. Ma
tt didn’t wait for Timmons to try to reestablish his choke hold, and grabbed Timmons by the face and drove a thumb into his eye.

  Timmons howled and Matt pushed him away. Matt struggled to his feet but Timmons grabbed him, wrapping his arms around him. Matt pushed him backward and they crashed into the night stand. Matt heard the lamp shatter on the floor.

  “Hiram!” Matt called out. “Hiram!”

  Matt couldn’t wait for his son to get there. He snapped his head back and into Timmon’s face. The cartilage in Timmons’ nose cracked and he let go of Matt and again howled.

  “Hiram!” Matt called out. There was no answer. Where was everyone?

  Matt was in a fight for his life, he knew, and apparently there would be no one coming to help. He would have to deal with this himself. And this meant he was going to have to kill Timmons.

  Matt ran, but not to the doorway. On the wall across from the bed was a hearth. There was one in every bedroom. It was to this that he ran.

  Timmons was right behind him. Matt grabbed a poker and turned to face him. Timmons’ eyes were crazed, and he grabbed for Matt.

  Matt didn’t swing the poker. He had been in enough fights in his younger years to know a swinging weapon like that can be parried. Instead, he thrust it straight out and into Timmons’ face.

  This was the third time for Timmons to howl, but this time it was serious. He staggered back, grabbing at his face with both hands. Matt thought he might have gotten the man’s eye.

  Matt then swung the poker hard at one knee, and Timmons was down. He then swung the poker hard once again, this time at Timmons’ head. He made contact, and the sound reminded Matt of hitting a pumpkin with a stick.

  Timmons didn’t stop, though. In dime novels, a strike to the head induces instant unconsciousness. A writer’s trick to render a character inactive for a little while. But in the real world, a strike to the head never has guaranteed results. A stream of blood immediately started through Timmons’ hair and down his face, but he still managed to stagger to his feet and he lunged at Matt.