by Ben Boulden
J.D. turned to the right, raised his Winchester to his shoulder. Kate pivoted to her left, brought the Colt up in a smooth, practiced move. They saw no one.
“I wouldn’t.” The click of a hammer being pulled back. “I have you both dead to rights.”
J.D. stopped short. “Hold on, Kate.”
“Smart move, Mr. Blaze.”
“Rockwell?” J.D.’s voice tight.
“You know who I am?”
“I figured you’d still be asleep from our last conversation,” J.D. said. “Your head must hurt as bad as mine.”
“Do you know who I am?” he repeated.
“Rockwell?” J.D. said. “You’ve been using me as a punching bag all day.”
“No,” Jackson Rockwell said. “Did you know me before you came here?”
Uncertainty caused J.D. to hesitate. Finally, he said, “Should I?”
“I guess not,” Rockwell said. “But after tonight everyone will know who I am.”
J.D. searched the pale night for Rockwell’s hiding place. “Why’s that, Jack? You don’t mind if I call you Jack, do you?”
“I’m going to be the son of a bitch who killed J.D. Blaze.”
“Big plans,” J.D. said. He looked at Kate, motioned for her to ease away.
“Stop!” Rockwell shouted. He fired a single shot into the dirt a few feet to Kate’s right. “Another step and I’ll put one in your belly.”
Kate stood still. Her chest tight. The back of her neck flared ice cold.
“That’s better,” Rockwell said. “Now, lower your guns. You first, J.D.”
“Okay. I’m dropping my rifle.”
J.D. leaned the rifle against the barn’s exterior wall.
Rockwell said, “Step away from it.”
J.D. complied.
“Your turn, Kate.” Her name sounded vulgar in Rockwell’s mouth.
“J.D.?” Kate said. Her revolver still held waist high.
“Go ahead, Kate. If Mr. Rockwell wanted to kill us, he would have already.” Then J.D. said to Rockwell, “Am I right? Or are you going to gun us down like a coward?”
“I’m no coward.”
Kate said, “That’s been said before.”
“Shut your foul mouth!” Rockwell said. Then to J.D., “Your woman talks too much.”
“You ask me, she’s kind of timid,” J.D. said. “I’ve been trying to draw her out a little, but it’s a work in progress.”
“Drop your gun!” His voice a hard hiss. “I’m only interested in the mister. But I have no compulsion about killing whores.”
Kate opened her mouth to speak.
J.D. said, “Do it, Kate. I think Mr. Rockwell wants something more than just killing us.”
Kate sighed. The Colt clattered when it hit the dirt.
“Good girl,” Rockwell said. “Now, take two steps to your left.”
She obliged. The Colt abandoned between her and J.D.
“Take off your belt.”
“Why?” Kate said. Cold fear rising in her bowels.
“That’s not part of the plan. Or did I misread you as an honorable man?”
“Shut up!” Rockwell barked. “Take off your gun belt. Now.”
Kate looked sideways at J.D. With steady hands she undid the heavy brass buckle; let the belt drop to her feet.
“Good.” Rockwell stepped from a dark recess in the barn’s wall. A narrow rectangular storage room. The moonlight cast his face cold, ghostly pale.
J.D. cursed himself. He should have known about the room.
“Now, J.D., this is how it’s going to play. Put Kate’s gun belt on—”
“It’s not going to fit me,” J.D. said.
“Shut your smart mouth and do as I say. If it don’t fit that’s your problem. Nobody’s going to say I didn’t give you a fair chance.” Then: “Kate, kick the belt over to J.D.”
Kate hooked the belt with the toe of her boot, slid it towards J.D.
“Pick it up.”
J.D. leaned over, grasped the belt by its buckle, brought it up. Pulled it around his waist. It came up two inches shy of fitting.
“Too short,” J.D. said.
“Too bad. I wanted to give you a fair fight. I guess it’s not your night. You’ll just have to draw from the waist of your pants.”
“Ah,” J.D. said. “I should have known. You’re a gunfighter without a reputation.” J.D. looked at Kate. “Can you beat that? A man who wants to make his name by bushwacking his betters?”
Kate smiled. “From my vantage point, everyone is his better.”
Rockwell laughed. “You two are clowns. You want a fair fight, or should I gun you down right now?”
“You put it that way, I guess we have a gunfight,” J.D. said. “I use Kate’s revolver?”
“Yes.”
“What does Kate use? When you turn the gun on her?”
“For her,” Rockwell said. “I have other plans.”
“Rockwell, Kate’s too much woman for you. She isn’t an ass-whipped thirteen-year-old. And she isn’t your sister.”
Rockwell went silent for several seconds.
Then J.D. said, “It’s okay if I pick up the Colt?”
Rockwell laughed. “How the hell else we going to do this? Pick it up with your left hand, thumb and pinky only.”
J.D. took three small steps towards the fallen revolver. He held his arms and hands away from his body. The bluing of the revolver’s barrel shimmered coolly in the moonlight. He glanced at Rockwell, who nodded, then bent down to pick up the gun. His thumb on one side of the grip, his pinky finger on the other. He slowly brought the Colt up.
“Now what?”
“Stick it in your belt. Anywhere you want,” Rockwell said. “Kate will count to ten when I tell her. You know the rest.”
J.D. glared at Rockwell. He knew Jackson planned to kill him as soon as Kate started the count. If he were to crawl out of this alive he had to do something right now, while Rockwell’s guard was down. J.D. slowly brought the revolver closer to his body.
He lost his grip on the Colt. Juggled it in the air for a moment. The revolver tumbled end over end away from J.D.; looped in an arc towards the ground. J.D.’s eyes never left the gun’s trajectory. He took half a step forward, dove to his left, caught the gun’s grip in the palm of his right hand. His index finger slid inside the trigger guard.
J.D. raised the gun, calmly squeezed the trigger.
The Colt bucked. Flame licked the night. The bullet caught Rockwell below his right arm, spun him in a tight circle. He shouted; reflexively pulled the triggers of his own guns, the bullets harmlessly slammed into the ground. He fell in a heap, took a single ragged breath, then died.
J.D. stood, dusted himself off. He watched Rockwell’s motionless body for a moment. Then turned to Kate. “You okay?”
“Sure. How do you like my Colt, now?” Kate said. A feminine lilt in her voice where a quaver should have been.
“None better,” J.D. said. “Want it back?”
“Whenever you’re done with it.”
J.D. walked several feet to where Rockwell lay on his back. His eyes open sightlessly to the night sky. His mouth twisted with a grimace of pain and fear. J.D. bent over the dead man, pried the revolver from his right hand.
J.D. looked over his shoulder at Kate. “I hate doing this.” He held up Rockwell’s gun. “It feels like I’m stealing.”
“You’re a complicated man, J.D.,” Kate said. “Close his eyes while you’re down there. You’ll feel better.”
J.D. closed Rockwell’s eyes. He stood, stuck Rockwell’s revolver at the small of his back. Then dropped a handful of bullets into his pocket. He walked to Kate, handed back her revolver, butt first.
“Adalina?”
J.D. picked up his rifle. Then said, “You lead.”
CHAPTER 29
The backdoor of the house stood ajar, as if someone had left in a hurry without checking its latch. Kate looked at it suspiciously. Her first thought was that R
ockwell had left it open in his haste to reach the barn and set his own trap. But she knew the kitchen was on the other side. Long and narrow, a doorway at the far end, walls on the other three sides. A perfect place for an ambush.
Kate stared at the open door, tried hard to see into the darkness beyond. She motioned J.D. forward. When he was at her side, Kate pointed to the door. He nodded. Then, with a few hand signals, told Kate to go through the door low and he would go high. Kate nodded. Raised the Colt chest high. She brought up three fingers. Then counted down. Three. Two. One. She hit the door hard with her left shoulder, twisted right. The Colt covered the long hallway-like kitchen to the interior door at the other end. J.D., rifle at his shoulder, stood above her.
“Clear,” J.D. whispered.
Kate lithely moved towards the interior doorway. Past an iron cook stove. She found the doorway empty. When J.D. arrived they repeated the maneuver into the room. It was square and large. A long table along its external wall piled high with what appeared to be cloth. At its center a large quilting frame stood like a prehistoric skeleton.
In one corner a narrow cast iron spiral staircase led to the next level, just as Jed said it would. Kate motioned for J.D. to follow. She put her foot on the first step of the staircase. It creaked, then sighed with her weight. Kate held her breath. Listened. The house eerily quiet for all the activity in the valley. She took another tentative step. Then another. The stairway quietly escorted her to the second floor. It rose into the center of a large open room; two glass windows overlooked the valley, large overstuffed furniture cluttered the space.
Kate waited for J.D. to appear. Then made her way down the long hallway. She stopped at the first door, listened intently. Then with J.D. at her side she carefully twisted the knob, cool to her touch, pushed the door open lightly. Searched the room. It was crowded with three rows of bunk beds. A small dresser next to the door. Otherwise the room was empty. They continued down the hallway, secured the rooms one by one. At the fourth door a noise tickled Kate’s ears. Small and irregular. Muffled.
Kate brought a finger to her ear, then pointed at the door. J.D. nodded. Moved closer to Kate. He placed the Winchester against the wall, pulled Rockwell’s revolver from the small of his back.
Kate put her left hand on the knob. The Colt in her right. She looked at J.D., nodded, then roughly swung the door open. J.D. rushed past her shoulder to the left. Sweeping the room with his pilfered gun. Kate followed, swinging to the right, away from J.D.
A fear saturated scream enveloped the room. Kate gasped at a picket fence of human shadows. It spread along the back and side walls. Stuffed into corners. Heads and shoulders folded into each other.
“Please!” A female voice shouted. “Please don’t hurt us!”
“Who are you?” Kate rasped.
“There are children,” the disembodied voice said. Then, as if on cue, a small child began to cry.
“Where is Levi?” J.D. said.
“He,” the woman said, “is hiding in his room.”
“Do you know Adalina Fernandez?” Kate asked.
No one spoke. The children restlessly moved. The fear and tension wearing on their discipline.
“The new girl,” J.D. said.
“Oh. She. She is with Brother Skousen.”
“Where’s Brother Skousen’s room?” J.D. said.
“At the—”
Kate interrupted, “Follow me.”
Kate raced out the door, back into the hallway. J.D. cringed as she recklessly passed two closed doors. He stayed several feet behind her to see if the doors opened and anyone appeared. No one did. He caught up to Kate at the last door in the hallway. It was wider than the other doors with ornate hand carved detail almost invisible in the darkness.
A sob. The flat echo of a hard slap. “Shut up, you bitch!”
Kate tested the doorknob. Locked. She looked at J.D. who drew up beside her.
“Open up, Skousen!” J.D. yelled through the door.
“I’ll kill the girl,” Skousen yelled back. “I swear I will!”
“You don’t need to get hurt.” J.D. positioned himself on the other side of the hall from the door.
“I’ll kill her!”
Another slap. A guttural scream.
J.D. rushed the door. Kicked it with his boot heel. Wood splintered. Iron squealed. The door shot open with a crack, bounced off the wall. J.D. moved inside. Adalina stood at the room’s center. Skousen beneath her. She yanked roughly on his long hair. He screamed. Kicked at her legs. J.D. grabbed Skousen’s ankles, jerked him away from Adalina. A large chunk of his hair still in her hands. Adalina fell hard to the floor.
A flash of blued steel caught the window’s reflection. Kate saw the gun in Skousen’s hand. She leveled the Colt, pulled the trigger. Did it again. Skousen shuddered, twitched. A breath rattled in his throat. He fell into silent death.
Kate rushed to Adalina. Dropped to her knees, cradled Adalina’s head in her lap. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay.”
“Who?” Adalina whispered.
“It’s me. Kate. Kate Blaze.”
Adalina laughed hysterically. “Gracias a Dios,” she said over and over.
“We have to go, Kate,” J.D. said.
“Can you stand?” Kate said to Adalina.
Adalina didn’t speak, but she pushed herself to a sitting position. Then with Kate’s help stood on wobbly legs.
“I was so scared,” Adalina said.
“I know. We came for you. It’s fine now.”
Kate held Adalina as they walked from the large room. The smell of metallic death and shit in the air.
J.D. led them down the large staircase at the front of the house. He stopped at the door, looked out the window. A group of ten men stood in a half circle, Sheriff Allred at the center.
“Come on out, J.D.!” Allred shouted. “We know you’re in there!”
CHAPTER 30
“Shit!” J.D. said.
Kate left Adalina leaning against a wall, joined J.D. “It looks like they got organized. Do you think we can still make it out the back door?”
“Don’t know. Maybe,” J.D. said. “But how do we get out of the valley?”
“Good point. What if we hole up here in the house? Pick them off one by one. They’re standing so close it’ll be easy—”
Allred’s booming voice interrupted, “You come on out, now. Or me and my boys are coming in.”
J.D. watched as Sheriff Allred paced back and forth at the center of his gathered men. A cut-off side-by-side double barrel shotgun in his hands.
“You still got my Colt, Sheriff?” J.D. shouted.
Allred stopped pacing, looked at the front of the house. Cocked his head a little to the right. “Sure I do, J.D. But it’s not yours anymore.”
“This is silly, Sheriff. This is between you and me. There isn’t any reason to involve the women.”
Allred said, “What does that mean? You offering something?”
“You and me,” J.D. said. “No guns, no knives. Just our knuckles. Last man standing wins.”
“And?”
“Kate and Adalina walk away clean.”
“A good deal for you,” Allred said. “But I’ll have you anyway.”
“You’ll never know,” J.D. said. “If you do it that way.”
Allred was silent a beat. Then, “I won’t know what?”
“If you’re better than me.” J.D. winked at Kate.
“If you win, the women go free? What if I win?”
“The women go free now, Sheriff. That’s the price of admission. If you win, you get bragging rights. And if you have the stomach for it, a scalp on your belt.”
The night felt unnaturally quiet in the wake of the earlier chaos. The men stood in their circle. Sheriff Allred, still as a statue, stared at the front door of the house.
“Okay,” Allred said.
J.D. said, “The women walk first. I come out only after they’re clear of the area.”
&
nbsp; Allred hesitated. Then, “Okay. The women first. We’ll let them pass. Then you, hands and gun belt empty.”
J.D. touched Kate’s shoulder. Whispered, “Take Adalina. If I’m not at the barn in ten minutes, leave without me.”
“That’s ludicrous,” Kate said. “Just how do you expect to beat up eleven men in ten minutes?”
“Ludicrous?”
“Foolish,” Kate said. “It means foolish.”
“Well. I reckon the only one I need to beat is Allred and the rest will scatter.”
“You sure?”
J.D. grinned, pulled Kate close and kissed her. “Of course I’m sure.”
J.D. turned back towards the door. “They’re coming out!”
Kate unbuckled her holster, let it drop to the floor. She put the Colt under her blouse at the small of her back. She twirled once for J.D. “How do I look?”
“Fabulous,” J.D. said. “And the gun will pass unless they search you.”
“Do you think they will?”
“Maybe.”
Kate took Adalina’s hand. Walked to the door, opened it a crack. “We’re coming out!”
“You’re safe!” Allred said.
Kate opened the door, stepped out of the house hesitantly, both hands held high. Adalina’s left hand in Kate’s right. She walked several feet, started down the wide steps descending from the house. She watched the men below for any sign of movement, any sign of betrayal. They stood still, gave no indication.
When she reached the last stair, Sheriff Allred held his hand up. “That’s far enough.”
“We’re leaving, Sheriff.” Kate’s voice hard. “That was the deal. Adalina and me for my husband.”
“Deals change, sweet Kate.” Allred looked at the women lustily. His tongue obscenely hanging from his mouth. He stepped forward, slammed the shotgun into Kate’s ribs. She gasped, fell to her knees. Folded over. Allred pulled Adalina roughly to him; rubbed her face with the back of his hand.
“Allred!” J.D. slammed through the door of the house. “You double-crossing son of a bitch!” He pulled Rockwell’s .44 from behind his back, fired two quick shots into the line of men. One of the men screamed with agony, another fell silently. The others scattered across the landscape looking for cover.