The Devil's Winchester

by Peter Brandvold

  It was almost noon when he returned from one such scout to find Rose where he’d left her, in a broad, shallow wash on the backside of which three spindly cottonwoods stood, their leaves bright in the midday sunshine. Rose sat on a boulder, elbows resting on her knees as she absently spun the cylinder of the S&W that Prophet had loaned her. She’d heard him coming and watched him expectantly as he halted Mean and Ugly on the bank of the wash.

  “A couple of sidewinders just ahead.”

  “You mean the human kind?”

  Prophet nodded. “They’re guarding a narrow canyon mouth. The Metalious ranch must be just beyond it.” He shucked his Winchester from the saddle boot. “You want to help?”

  “That’s what I’m here for.” Rose stood quickly and slipped the S&W behind the buckle of her cartridge belt.

  “It’s dangerous.”

  She scowled at him for mentioning the obvious, then grabbed the reins of her roan and swung up into the saddle. Prophet swung Mean around, and as Rose put the roan up behind him, he followed a notch through chalky buttes spotted with Spanish bayonet and short, wiry, late summer wildflowers. Back on the horse trail they’d been following from the main stage road, Prophet halted Mean and turned to Rose as she came up onto the trail and stopped beside him, their dust puffing in the still air.

  “Give me ten minutes to get around those fellas and get the drop on ’em. Then ride on ahead. You’ll see the canyon—just a gap in a rock wall, with a rocky floor. Ride straight toward it. The men are on the right side of the gap. They’ll hear you comin’ and when they turn their attention on you, I’ll pull down.”

  “You got it.”

  Prophet dropped his chin and narrowed a doubtful eye at her. “Now, I’m assuming they won’t shoot first and ask questions later, Rose.”

  “They’ll see I’m female and hold their fire.” Rose shook her head and reached forward to pat the roan’s sweat-damp neck. “I’m not worried.”

  Prophet booted Mean off the trail and through a crease in the buttes, heading in the general direction of a steep, sandstone ridge. When he’d reached the base of the ridge, he swung down from Mean’s back, loosened the dun’s latigo strap, and wrapped his reins around an ironwood shrub.

  He continued ahead along the ridge base, where occasionally he spied mummified bobcat and coyote scat amongst the rocks and weed tufts and along the cut-in base of the ridge, until he came to where the ridge wall curved to his left. He’d seen earlier that the two guards had a cookfire going, and when he spied the smoke rising from a nest of boulders, he stopped, looked around carefully, then continued forward on the balls of his boots.

  He kept the snag between him and the smoke that rose in thin white tendrils beyond it. When he’d gained the snag itself, he climbed up carefully, one rock at a time, and stopped at the snag’s right shoulder.

  Below, one of the two pickets sat on a rock facing a small coffee fire, the flames of which were nearly invisible in the harsh sunlight. He was also facing Prophet though he’d have to tilt his head up at a sharp angle to see the interloper. On one knee, he was tossing a knife into the sand with one hand while holding a blue tin cup in the other. He had a bored, lazy air, shoulders slumped.

  Three horses, one black, grazed a small patch of galleta grass on the far side of the trail, in a fold between two rocky bluffs.

  Prophet scowled at the mounts. Three? When he’d scouted the bivouac, he’d only spied two. The black must have been concealed by a trapezoid of boulder shade.

  Another trail guard stood several feet away, his back to the fire. He held a rifle in his arms as he stared toward the horse trail that snaked around through the buttes and continued on past him and into the gap to his right, the rocky floor of which shone damp from a runout spring.

  The rolling thuds of an approaching rider sounded in the distance, from the direction in which Prophet had left Rose.

  “Rider,” said the man with his back to the fire, looking left along the trail.

  The other man tossed the knife into the dirt once more, then, leaving the knife in the sand and setting his cup on a rock of the fire ring, straightened and turned toward the trail. A rifle leaned against a nearby boulder. As he reached for it, Prophet loudly racked a shell into his Winchester’s breech.

  “You two fellas wouldn’t want to drop them irons and turn around nice and slow, would you?”

  Both men froze with their backs to Prophet, the nearest man with his hand angled out toward his Henry repeater. The man nearest the trail, from which Rose’s thuds grew louder as she approached the camp, turned his head slowly toward Prophet. He held a half-smoked quirley between in his long, thin lips. His face was so freckled beneath the brim of his torn-brimmed, coffee-colored Stetson that it nearly looked dun colored.

  It was also a mask of savage fury.

  The other man, frozen in the act of reaching for the Henry, turned his head toward his partner, whose eyes slid to meet the first man’s gaze. It was a fleeting, oblique glance.

  The eyes of the freckled gent slid back toward Prophet, and his jaws hardened as he jerked toward Prophet’s position, swinging his Winchester around and levering a shell into its breech.

  Almost at the same time, his partner completed the motion of reaching for his Henry, wheeling on one foot and showing gritted teeth beneath his mustached upper lip. Prophet’s rifle belched twice at his shoulder, leaping in the bounty hunter’s hands, and both men went spinning, the man nearest the fire managing to squeeze off a shot with his Henry, the bullet spanging with an angry whine off a rock ringing the fire.

  As both men lay jerking and kicking their lives away, Prophet ejected the second smoking round and seated a fresh round in the Winchester’s breech. Movement on the other side of the trail caught his eye—a man pushing up out of a rocky nest like the one on which the bounty hunter stood. He was dressed in a black duster and black, flat-brimmed hat, and he was lifting a rifle to his shoulder.

  An eye wink after Prophet had spied the third gunman, Rose trotted into the bounty hunter’s field of vision from his left, her roan kicking up dust along the horse trail. She scowled down at the dead men, only one of whom continued to jerk and flex his hand as though yearning to fill it with a gun.

  The black-clad rider lifting up from the rock nest on the other side of the trail swung his rifle toward Rose.

  Prophet shouted, “Rose, down!”

  27

  ROSE WHIPPED HER head around to follow Prophet’s gaze, and her shoulders tightened.

  He could not take a shot, because she was nearly directly between him and the black-clad gunman. Rose kicked her horse off the trail’s far side and raised the Smith & Wesson that Prophet had given her. For a half second, she obscured the gunman with her own body, but Prophet heard the shot and saw the smoke puff atop the rock nest.

  Blood sprayed from Rose’s back, high up near her right shoulder, and she jerked backward in the roan’s saddle. She triggered the S&W into the ground. The roan pitched and whinnied, wheeling angrily, and Rose flew off the horse’s left hip, hitting the ground only a foot from the horse’s scissoring hooves.

  Rose rolled, her hat flying. Dust wafted.

  The black-clad gunman was jacking a fresh round into his own Winchester’s breech when Prophet, tearing his fervid glance from the wounded girl, drew a bead on the man’s middle and fired.

  As the Winchester roared, Prophet saw first the red spray against the rocks behind the gunman. Then the man’s head jerked back violently. His black hat tumbled forward, bouncing off his chest. He triggered his own rifle skyward and flew straight back into a little cavity in the brush-stippled snag, one leg hanging up on a slightly higher rock in front of him. His hat caught on his right black boot toe as though it had been tossed there.

  He bobbed his head, a grimace furling his gray-brown mustache. His shoulders jerked, waving one hand in a death spasm. His smoking rifle dropped with a clatter into the rocks beneath him.

  “Rose!”

  P
rophet lurched forward and hopscotched the rocks to the ground, then leaped the body of the man who’d been tossing the knife. Holding his rifle in one hand, he crouched beside Rose, who’d piled up on the near side of the trail. Dust still sifted after the roan that had galloped back in the direction from which it and the girl had come.

  Rose was on her belly, arms akimbo, one knee bent. Her right shoulder was bloody, and thick red blood oozed down her back.

  She groaned as she lay on her side, her face a mask of pain, and looked up at Prophet. “What a fool,” she said. “I guess I’m not as good a hard case as I feared I was.”

  “Maybe not a good hard case.” Prophet ripped his bandanna off his neck. “But I reckon you saved my bacon.”

  She narrowed an eye suspiciously.

  “That son of a bitch had the drop on me. You distracted him.” Prophet ripped the bandanna in two, wadded up one piece and shoved it into the entrance wound, tamping it firmly with his fingers.

  Rose arched her neck and back, and her mouth drew wide in a silent, agonized scream. The blood drained from her face.

  “Sorry, girl, but you’re losing blood fast,” he said, hearing his own desperation in his voice, anxious for Rose but also worried sick about Louisa, knowing that the rifle reports had likely been heard at the Metalious ranch.

  He tipped Rose toward him and leaned over her to inspect the exit wound, wincing at the damage the .44 bullet had done to her slender shoulder. Wadding up the second half of the bandage, he said, “One more time,” and rammed it into the exit hole.

  This time, she merely squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth.

  “I’ll be all right,” she said in a low, razor-edged voice. “Go get your partner.”

  Prophet stared down at her. He didn’t want to leave her. If she died, he didn’t want her to die alone. On the other hand, he couldn’t leave Louisa with the killers, who were likely onto his presence now. They’d be sending riders here soon.

  A wooden rattling sounded from up trail. A wagon was heading toward Prophet. He eased Rose, who appeared only half-conscious now and who hung limp in his arms, in a sitting position against a boulder, so the blood wouldn’t so easily drain out of her, then grabbed his Winchester and walked out into the trail.

  He frowned toward the sound of the approaching wagon that was still out of sight behind the low, sandy buttes, back in the direction of the main trail from Corazon.

  Sitting in a hide-bottom chair on the stoop of the Metalious bunkhouse, Louisa watched a black widow spider scuttle across the rotten floorboards toward where the scar-lipped hard case, Clell, was sitting on the edge of the stoop, feet on the ground. He was leaning back on his arms, his rope-scarred hands resting on the porch floor. The right hand rested near his walnut-gripped Remington revolver that he was keeping close by in case Louisa made a move.

  The black widow, ignoring the pistol, headed straight toward Clell’s bare right hand as if it held something the spider wanted.

  Louisa, sitting with her chair back against the front of the bunkhouse while the doctor and Sam Metalious were tending Blanco inside the smelly hovel and the other men milled about like bona fide ranch hands on a Sunday afternoon, watched the spider with keen interest.

  A faint smile pulled at the corners of her pretty, pink mouth.

  The spider stopped just in front of Clell’s middle finger, the nail of which was nearly as black as the spider itself. The spider was a female, its round abdomen marked with a tiny red dot in the shape of an hourglass.

  The spider seemed to be considering Clell’s dead fingernail. Louisa stared at it, the corners of her mouth rising slightly higher as she silently urged the spider on.

  Meanwhile, inside the bunkhouse, Sam’s voice was rising. Things didn’t seem to be going well for Blanco. Sam was severely graveled at his son’s having gone out on his own and robbed the stage and the Corazon bank with the obvious intention of keeping the money for himself. He and his gang likely would have headed to Mexico with the loot if Prophet and Louisa hadn’t caught up to them in Nugget Town.

  Of course, Blanco had been denying this all morning.

  His argument was that he’d simply wanted to try a couple of jobs on his own, and he had every intention of splitting the loot with his father and his father’s men. But, so far, that argument seemed to be landing on deaf ears. Louisa thought that Sam had gone to a lot of work, and had lost a lot of men, to simply spring his son from jail so he could punish the kill-crazy hard case himself.

  But that was the lobo breed for you. Nothing they did made much sense to sensible folks. Louisa had stopped trying to figure them out a long time ago. The only thing for the entire lot of badmen and the occasional badwoman was a bullet or, barring that, a hangman’s noose.

  The noose was where Blanco appeared to be headed, as three of Metalious’s gunmen were stringing a hang rope over a gnarled, long-dead cottonwood in the middle of the yard while three others watched from the shade of the barn, passing a bottle and smoking cigars.

  Preparing for a little entertainment.

  Their bemused, self-satisfied expressions told Louisa they’d been itching to see Sam “Man-Killin’” Metalious’s son hang for a good long time.

  The black widow lifted its long, jointed black legs suddenly and crawled up onto the black nail of Clell’s middle finger. Louisa lifted her furtive gaze to the back of Clell’s head. The hard case was turned toward the hang tree, watching the activity over there with silent interest. He hadn’t yet felt the spider on his finger.

  Slowly, almost tentatively, it continued across the fingernail, over the first knuckle, and then the second knuckle. Louisa flinched slightly as it continued over the bulging last knuckle.

  She glanced at the sunburned back of Clell’s unshaven neck. He was still looking toward the hang tree, where two of the men appointed to the task of preparing the rope were arguing over where the end should be tied off.

  Clell must have had some thick skin.

  The spider stopped just past the middle of the man’s hand before he lifted the hand and brought it around in front of him, along with the other one. Louisa saw that he slapped the back of his right hand into the palm of his left one, and jerked with a startled grunt.

  The black widow arced out away from him and fell in the dirt.

  Louisa began to lurch forward, intending to grab the gun, but stopped. It was too far away. And her left knee was too tight for a quick movement like that. Even if she could grab it, she couldn’t straighten fast enough to keep from being turned into human hamburger in a matter of seconds.

  “Fuck!” Still clutching his right hand in the left one, Clell straightened, walked out a little ways from the porch, and looked down. “Black widow.”

  He looked down at the back of his right hand, and fear reddened his scar-lipped features, worry furling his auburn brows.

  “Contrary to what most people think,” Louisa said from her chair, leisurely tipping back against the bunkhouse’s front wall, “the black widow’s sting is rarely deadly. The female’s, however, can inhibit breathing, which can understandably lead to death in the infirm. You’re not in ill health, are you, Clell?” She pursed her lips and favored him with her chill, hazel-eyed gaze. “Just ugly as fresh dog dung.”

  Clell looked at her, his eyes blazing, his lips bunching in anger. He’d just opened his mouth to speak when the bunkhouse door burst open and Blanco came stumbling through it, sobbing and dropping to his knees at the edge of the porch, dust rising from the rotten floorboards.

  “Pa!” he cried. “Now, don’t do this!”

  Sam strode out behind him and kicked him off the porch and into the yard. More dust flew. Blanco cowered on his knees, wrapping his arms around his belly and sobbing. “Bastard!”

  “Metalious,” the doctor cajoled from the open doorway, holding his black bag in his hand. “I didn’t ride all the way out here, keeping that man alive, just so you could kill him.”

  Metalious stood, his fists on
his hips, staring down at his son writhing in the dirt at his feet. “You did a good job, Doc. Damn good job.” He turned to the doctor standing on the porch. “I do appreciate it. But I’m damn tired of hearing you yap.”

  Fear sparked in the doctor’s eyes.

  Louisa jumped to her feet, mindless of her aching legs. “No!”

  Metalious’s right hand was a blur of motion as it whipped down to grab the ivory-gripped .45 strapped to his right thigh. Pow! Pow! Pow!

  The doctor dropped his bag and flew straight back into the bunkhouse, where he hit the table with a thump, then knocked over a chair on his way to the floor.

  Louisa looked at Metalious, rage turning her cheeks beet red.

  Metalious turned the smoking gun on her, but he did not draw the hammer back. His big chest and bulging belly rose and fell heavily. Finally, he smiled, but the humor remained only on his thick, cracked lips inside his shaggy, black, gray-flecked beard.

  Distant gunfire sounded east of the ranch yard. Two quick shots. Sam looked in the direction from which they’d come, as did the other men in the yard.

  Louisa’s heart quickened as she peered that way, too.

  They all stood listening for a time. There were a couple of more shots, then silence.

  The others looked at Sam expectantly. He turned to Louisa, licking his lips, thoughtful, then grinned.

  “You’ll be dead in a few hours, too. Only after you’ve been the guest of honor at the funeral celebration for my son. In respect for his memory, you understand.” Metalious raised his voice and turned to sweep the yard with his gaze. “And because I honor my promise that anyone who double-crosses me dies, including my own blood!”

  The men around the yard showed their teeth as they snickered or laughed, looking around at each other and then at Blanco sobbing at his father’s feet.