The Devil's Winchester

by Peter Brandvold

  “Four dollars?”

  “A dollar for each wound I cleaned. I’m throwing in the exit wound for free. That ear took twenty-six stitches. Another dollar for medication. If he doesn’t take the powder I’ve mixed up, he’ll be howlin’ so you’ll think there’s an entire pack of wolves in here.” Blanchard grinned. “And I bet this room really echoes.”

  “Take it up with the mayor!” Utter intoned as he popped the cork on his Old Tennessee. “I don’t keep any money around here except my own, and that usually goes to feed myself. If I’d depended on the county to honor my food vouchers, I’d have shriveled up to nothin’ by now!”

  “You’re impossible, Max,” the doctor growled as he strode toward the door.

  “Thank you!”

  The doctor went out and slammed the door behind him. A moment later the door opened again, and the doctor stuck his long, craggy face into the jailhouse, grinning devilishly. “Riders comin’ from the south.”

  He pulled his head back out and slammed the door so hard that the whole room shook and Blanco sighed in his sleep.

  23

  UTTER TOOK A deep draw of his bourbon-laced coffee and slammed the mug down on his desk. He reached over to grab his double-bore from where it reclined against the wall and breeched it to make sure it was loaded. The girl and Gopher had swiped his shotgun, but Prophet had found it where they’d cast it off along the trail at the edge of town.

  When Utter had snapped it closed, he set the shotgun across his thighs and turned his wheelchair so that he faced the timbered door.

  He pricked his ears, listening.

  Blanco snored softly in the cell off Utter’s right flank. The coffeepot on the stove chugged. The wind was a monster pressing against the door and caterwauling as though trying desperately to shove it open.

  Utter frowned. Had the doc been toying with him?

  Then he heard the hoof thuds on the street fronting the jailhouse. A horse snorted and a bridle chain rattled. The sounds were almost inaudible beneath the savage wind, and Utter likely wouldn’t have heard them had he not been listening for them.

  But there they were.

  Riders didn’t necessarily mean Metalious’s men. But who else would be out on a night like this? If it was really Man-Killin’s boys, Prophet was probably dead. And so was the judge.

  Which meant Utter was all that stood between Sam and his boy.

  The thought was as raw as a panhandle winter.

  Utter ratcheted back the shotgun’s left hammer, then the right, feeling the eyelash triggers slide out to the middle of the trigger guard, pressing against the marshal’s right index finger. They were firm and cool against his calloused skin. Reassuring.

  If anything could hold Metalious off, the Greener could.

  He waited. The wind moaned. The ceiling timbers creaked. The coffeepot chugged. And Blanco snored.

  Utter nervously ran his tongue along the edge of his lower lip. His heart beat a steady rhythm in his chest. Slowly, he slid the shotgun out across his right knee, aiming the double-bore at the door.

  The door burst open.

  Ka-boommmm!

  The tall, hatted figure standing there in a blowing duster flew straight back out across the porch and into the street, as though he’d been lassoed from behind. Another man appeared at the door’s right side, his eyes widening when he saw Utter’s Greener aimed at him. He pulled his head back away from the door as Utter tripped the second trigger.

  Ka-boommmm!

  Part of the door frame disappeared along with a large chunk of the wall.

  A big man in a long buffalo coat and wearing a low-crowned black hat and smoking a cigar marched up the porch steps. Metalious stepped across the threshold and into the jail office. He held a cocked revolver down low in his right hand.

  With his left hand, he removed the cigar from his mouth and smiled. “The problem with them barn blasters is they only hold two shells.”

  Louisa set her empty teacup down on the doctor’s pine eating table.

  Something sounded outside beneath the howling wind. She’d been about to refill her teacup from the kettle on the doctor’s potbelly stove, intending to have one more cup before heading over to the jailhouse, as the doctor had wrapped not only the fresh wound in her left leg but the older one in the other leg with crushed mint and paregoric. But now she turned away from the stove and walked to the west-facing window, sliding the faded green curtain aside with the back of her hand.

  Amidst the blowing trash and weeds in the street, two riders, hats tipped low on their foreheads, were riding in the direction of the jailhouse. In the stormy afterglow, guns shone on their hips and in their saddle sheaths. A wagon came up behind them, a bulky man in a buffalo coat in the driver’s box. A fur rifle boot was strapped to the box’s right side, within the driver’s easy reach.

  Within Metalious’s easy reach.

  Fury burned through Louisa. It was like a nail hammered through one temple and out the other. Of course, she had nothing personal against Metalious’s bunch, but she took her bounty-hunting/killing job more seriously than most.

  She whipped around, mindless of the pain in both legs, and grabbed her carbine off the table. She’d already dressed and wrapped her Colts around her lean waist, under her poncho. Now she grabbed her hat off a peg beside the door and was reaching for the knob when the door opened, and the doctor stumbled into his second-story quarters on a violent wind gust.

  “Good Christ—it’s really blowing out there!” As he started to close the door, he bunched his brows at Louisa. “Where do you think you’re going, young lady?”

  Louisa grabbed the door out of his hand, pulling it wider. “Out of the way, Doc.”

  “You don’t want to go out there. Metalious and his men are here.”

  “I saw.”

  “For cryin’ out loud, you’ve got a hole in each leg!”

  The man had stumbled around to berate her further but Louisa stepped out, barely limping, setting her teeth against the tightness in both wounds, and pulled the door closed behind her. She had to take her time descending the stairs—the last thing she wanted was to open up that recent wound and lose more blood—but as she reached the bottom she swung northwestward, facing the jailhouse.

  The riders had stopped at the jailhouse’s near front corner, the wagon behind them. Louisa began moving ahead, keeping to the darkness on the street’s right side, as the two riders swung down from their mounts and, shucking rifles from their saddle boots, walked one behind the other up the jailhouse’s porch steps.

  “Oh, no.”

  She knew what these killers’ presence here in Corazon meant about Lou’s success at alerting the judge.

  Louisa walked as fast as she could but had to stop behind a porch awning post and a rain barrel as more of Metalious’s riders came up from behind her, passing her as they joined their boss and the other two men.

  She dropped to one knee behind the rain barrel and watched the first two riders—one stepping to the jailhouse door’s left side while the other stopped in front of it. He raised his elbows, then a knee, and smashed the bottom of his right boot against the door.

  Louisa could hear the crash as the door burst open.

  She could also hear the loud blast of the shotgun, see the man who’d been standing in front of the door jerk up and back and hit the street about six feet back from the steps. The two ground-tied saddle horses whinnied and skitter-stepped at the sudden concussion.

  The other rider poked his head in front of the door.

  There was another blast. Then Metalious, who’d been waiting near the bottom of the porch steps but out of the line of fire from inside, puffing a cigar downwind, mounted the steps with casual arrogance. As he disappeared inside, Louisa racked a fresh round into her carbine’s breech. She walked out from behind the barrel, aiming the Winchester at the still mounted riders who fanned out around Metalious’s buckboard.

  A man’s deep voice said behind her, “Where you think yo
u’re goin’, princess?”

  She’d just started to swing the carbine around, when something cold and hard pressed against the back of her neck.

  “I’ll take that iron,” the man said. “Or you’ll take a bullet.”

  Louisa’s heart hammered. Could she swing around and shoot this dog before he could shoot her? Of course, she couldn’t. If she tried, she’d die. She’d most likely die, anyway, but she’d like to stick around long enough to take a few of these human dung beetles with her.

  Louisa let the carbine hang limp in her right hand. The man reached around and, keeping the barrel of his .45 pressed against her side, took the carbine out of her hands and threw it into the street.

  A couple of the other riders heard the thud and turned toward Louisa. One smiled. The man who had his gun in her ribs—she could smell his rancid breath despite the wind—pressed his face close to hers as he slipped both her pistols from their holsters, tossing one into the street. He gave the other a quick, cursory inspection, raised an appreciative brow, then stuffed it down behind the buckle of his own shell belt.

  He gave Louisa a hard shove toward the jailhouse. Her fresh wound barked, and she dropped to her knees with an involuntary groan, grinding her teeth against the pain.

  Inside the jailhouse, Sam “Man-Killin’” Metalious stared down at his son, asleep on the cot. Utter sat near the woodstove. He’d been relieved of his shotgun and side-arms, and now he sat there gritting his teeth as one of Metalious’s men held his chair so he couldn’t wheel himself to the gun rack.

  “Who shot him?” Metalious barked at the marshal.

  Utter grinned tightly. “Had us a robbery. Same girl who stole the stolen loot out of the next cell shot Blanco.”

  “Who’s the girl? The blonde?” Metalious’s big, dark-complected, bearded face resembled that of a rampaging grizzly. “No one shoots a Metalious!”

  “Well, she didn’t get the word. And it wasn’t the blonde.”

  “Where’s the money?”

  “Gone.”

  Metalious’s nostrils flared. He clenched the fist of his free hand, then lifted his gaze to the hard case holding Utter’s chair. “Fetch the doc. Tell him to pack an overnight bag. Be quick about it.”

  The man wheeled and tramped out of the jailhouse.

  Metalious looked at Utter. He holstered his pistol then walked slowly, menacingly around behind Utter. He grabbed the porcelain knobs at the back of the marshal’s chair and jerked the chair straight back. Utter nearly flew forward and onto the floor but managed to catch himself by the chair arms.

  Then he was thrown back in the seat as Metalious spun him around and, yowling like a wildcat, pushed the marshal at breakneck speed through the office, out the open door, and onto the porch.

  “Wait!” Utter wailed. “Stop!”

  Too late.

  Metalious had given him an extra-violent shove at the top of the porch steps, hurling the marshal down the steps and into the dark, windblown street. Utter piled up at the bottom of the steps, belly down on the ground, his wheelchair tipped on one side atop him, the big side wheel spinning.

  Utter groaned, clawed at the street, his ear ringing.

  Metalious shuttled his gaze left of the fallen marshal. One of his men, Burt Lomax, stood near the porch steps, grinning as he held his .45 to the back of Louisa’s head.

  “Look what I found,” Lomax said.

  “The blonde!” Metalious laughed malevolently. “Where’s that other bounty hunter—that big devil with the Winchester ’73?”

  “Ain’t seen him.”

  Metalious looked around carefully. He walked down the porch steps, sidestepping Utter, who continued to moan and groan and claw at the street. Continuing to look around warily, holding his cocked Colt out in front of him, Metalious turned toward where the gunman named Bolt was coming with the doctor in tow.

  “Any sign of that big bounty man?” Metalious asked him.

  “I ain’t seen him.”

  Metalious looked at the doctor, who looked incensed at being hustled out of his warm digs on this dark, windy night. “How ’bout you, Doc?”

  The doctor looked at the cocked Colt in Metalious’s fist, and shook his head. “He left town.”

  “I got a feelin’ he’ll be back.” Metalious looked at Lomax. “Put her in the wagon. Tie her up. And keep a gun at her. Doc, you’re goin’ with us to tend my boy. When he’s up and around, back bein’ his own self again, I’ll have a man run you back to town.”

  “You can’t kidnap me. I’ve a business to run!”

  “Yeah, well, you’re runnin’ it.”

  The burly Metalious gave an oily grin. He ordered two of the other riders to fetch Blanco from the jail, then, as the doctor and Louisa were both put up into the wagon, the outlaw leader walked over to where Utter had finally managed to roll onto his back.

  The marshal’s lips and nose were bloody. His mussed hair blew in the chill wind.

  Metalious held his cocked Colt out away from his body, squinting down the barrel as he drew a bead on Utter’s forehead. Utter’s eyes widened when he saw the .45’s large, round maw bearing down on him.

  He looked around the gun at Metalious. He grinned savagely, clenching his fists. “Go ahead.”

  Metalious held the gun steady. Then he depressed the hammer. “What—and leave Corazon without a proper lawman?”

  Laughing, Metalious holstered the .45.

  Then, guffawing as though at the funniest joke he’d ever heard, he shambled back to his wagon. Louisa sat on the right side of the driver’s box, ankles tied, her wrists tied behind her. The doctor was in the back with Blanco, who sat up on the edge of the tailgate while two outlaw riders spread a buffalo robe on the floor of the box, as per the doctor’s reluctant orders.

  “Christ, his wounds are gonna open up!” the doctor complained to Metalious.

  The outlaw leader climbed into the driver’s box, sat down beside Louisa, and released the brake. “That’s what you’re here for, Doc. My boy dies, you die. You an’ this purty little girl! After she done screamin’, that is.”

  Metalious roared.

  He turned the wagon around and, his riders mounting up and swinging around as well, headed back along Brush Street. The wind wailed like a thousand angry demons behind him.

  24

  PROPHET HAD HAD lousy luck on the trail back from the dead judge and his contingent of murdered soldiers.

  His freshest horse, the sorrel, had gone lame after stepping off the trail and into a prairie dog hole. Prophet had turned him loose, as he couldn’t be ridden, and hoped the mount found its way back to the livery barn in Socorro. He had to take his time with Mean despite his burning, aching, heart-hammering desire to get back to Corazon as fast as possible.

  He wouldn’t be going anywhere with a dead horse.

  He was walking the lineback dun along the wind-combed trail, making his way through the stormy darkness, when the rattle of a fast-moving wagon sounded from ahead. Quickly, he led the dun off the trail and into some scrub, where he tied him, then shucked his Winchester from the saddle boot.

  He hurried back to the side of the trail, hunkered low behind a boulder. The moon was coming up, resembling an old dime behind thin, wind-tattering clouds in the east. By its wan light he could see the riders moving along the trail from the direction of Corazon.

  The wagon’s clattering grew louder as the jostling figures on the two horses fronting the wagon and on the wagon itself grew larger. As they came within thirty yards, Prophet dropped to his butt behind the boulder and, pressing his back to the rock, swung his body to look around the rock’s right side.

  The wagon passed in front of him. Prophet blinked, his features hardening into an expression of incredulity and anger.

  Louisa rode in the wagon’s driver’s box beside the big, bearded Metalious. At least one other man was in the wagon box—Prophet saw a high, domed forehead and a thin thatch of blowing, silvery hair. Something else lay humped behind the wa
gon’s low side panel. Probably Blanco. If they had Louisa, Utter was either dead or dying, and Metalious had gotten his son back.

  Resisting the urge to run out into the trail, shooting, Prophet tightened his jaws and rolled back behind the rock, thoughts racing. He no longer much cared for what happened to Blanco. His old man could have him. Prophet would even wish him a long, wicked life if he could get Louisa back safely.

  When the caravan had drifted out of sight in the darkness, Prophet heaved his weary body to his sore feet and tramped back to where he’d left Mean and Ugly. He’d only started walking the horse about a mile down trail. Mean still needed a rest, as he was standing splay-legged and hang-headed. If Prophet tried to keep up with Metalious on Mean’s back, the horse would drop, and the bounty hunter would be stranded out here.

  He’d gone as far as he could go without several hours’ solid rest.

  “Shit,” Prophet groused, turning to stare after Louisa.

  There was nothing to be done about it. Since Metalious hadn’t killed her yet, she probably wasn’t in immediate danger. Prophet would find a campsite out here somewhere, rest both himself and the horse, and start after Metalious’s bunch in a few hours. They’d likely bed down when they got back to their outlaw ranch, and that would give Prophet time to catch up to them.

  “Man-Killin’” Sam’s wagon would leave a good trail despite the wind that seemed to be picking up all the dust and tumbleweeds in western New Mexico and hurling them in all directions. The rain seemed to have passed.

  He led Mean back away from the trail. In the dull, silver-blue light of the slowly rising moon, he saw a low ridge on the other side of a shallow wash. Reaching the ridge—a long, weathered sandstone spine—he found a natural alcove big enough for both him and his horse.

  He scouted the notch to make sure he wasn’t intruding on a bobcat or wolf. Seeing only a shredded pack rat’s nest amongst the rocks at the back of the place, he led Mean inside and quickly unsaddled him, piling the gear along the base of one wall. He watered the horse from his hat, then fed him a couple of handfuls of parched corn from his saddlebags.