Unnerved by the brothers’ silence, Layton, who had a reputation as a mean, nasty son-of-a-bitch, said, “On your way. There’s no grub or money for you here.”
The D’eth brothers drew at the same moment, and Layton fell with two bullets in his chest. The chickens in a coop at the side of the cabin flapped and clucked in alarm.
A small spotted pup, malnourished and dragging its left hind leg, scrambled out of the cabin and sniffed around the fallen man.
Then, displaying a dog’s infinite capacity to forgive and forget, the pup looked up at the twins, whined a little, then sat awkwardly, its injured leg paining the animal.
The brother called Petsha swung out of the saddle as Layton groaned and tried to push up on his arms. Petsha’s face expressionless, he casually shot the miner in the back of the head. Layton jerked, then lay still.
Petsha holstered his revolver and picked up the frightened puppy. With gentle hands he soothed the little creature, then checked its leg. The dog yelped a little, and looking concerned, he carried it to his brother.
Milos’s hands were as careful as those of his brother. He examined the leg and after a while he kissed the puppy on the top of his head and tucked him into his coat.
He dismounted and both men entered the cabin.
Despite the brightness of the day, it was dark inside and one of the twins lit the oil lamp. The light spread into the cabin, revealing an untidy room but one that was fairly clean.
A coffeepot smoked on the stove. The brother who carried the puppy hefted the pot, then lifted the lid and sniffed.
Satisfied, he found a couple of clean tin cups and poured.
Petsha stepped across the room to a timber pole that was hammered into the wall. The pole served as a clothes hanger for underwear, much worn and stained, a couple of bib overalls, and several patched shirts.
The man grunted and threw the overalls and a couple of shirts on the floor. After some searching he tossed a ragged newsboy cap and a straw boater onto the pile.
Like his brother, he built a cigarette and smoked in silence as he drank coffee.
Later, another search uncovered a can of meat that the D’eth brothers fed to the hungry pup. The little dog had been kicked and his leg might be broken, but only a mule doctor would be able to treat it.
They hoped to find one of those in Broken Bridle.
Quickly the brothers stripped off their fine clothes and carefully laid them over the clothes pole. They each changed into a pair of overalls and Layton’s shirts that proved to be too small for them. But they would have to do.
Finally they discarded their flat-brimmed, low-crowned black hats and grinned when they saw each other in the newsboy cap and straw boater.
But they looked like a couple of rubes, and that was exactly the impression they wanted to give.
There was nothing they could do about their tooled Texas boots. It seemed the dead man had only one pair of shoes and he was wearing them. They were too small anyway.
But then, how closely do folks look at a couple of hayseeds in town to see the bright lights and fancy women?
Their big American horses they could stake out on grass a fair ways from town. The man they’d killed had a rawboned yellow mustang in the corral and riding it two-up without a saddle would complete their disguise.
The brothers used string to cinch the waists of their overalls tight, and each shoved his short-barreled Colt into the bib where it would be hidden.
They smoked and drank more coffee, then scooped up the spotted pup and stepped outside.
Once the mustang was bridled the D’eth brothers mounted up and left the dead man where he lay.
The spotted pup wriggled his way upward and licked the face of the brother who held him. Milos grinned and gently patted the little mutt’s head.
Like his brother Petsha he hated people . . . but he loved dogs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Burt is in no state to see anyone,” Sunny Swanson said. “He is very ill.”
“He’ll see me,” Shawn O’Brien said.
“No, I’m afraid he won’t.”
This from Pete Caradas who sprawled tall and elegant at a table, a crystal decanter of brandy in front of him.
“No offense, O’Brien,” he said. “I’m sure you understand.”
“Why are you so damned sure he won’t see me?” Shawn said.
“He has a brain fever,” Caradas said. Then, “You saw what happened to June and Little Face. Well, so did Burt and he hasn’t been right in the head since.”
“Where do you stand, Pete?” Shawn said.
“Right now I’m sitting.” Caradas smiled. “Stand on what? As of today I believe I’m still on Burt Becker’s payroll, and I haven’t thought it through any further than that.”
“Now on to a more pleasant topic.” He flicked the decanter with a forefinger and after the ting! said, “I’m assured, if I can believe the Streetcar mixologist, that this cognac is from a new winery, the Chateau de Triac in France. Oddly enough I find it quite pleasant if a trifle pretentious. May I pour you a snifter? I’d like your opinion.”
Shawn glanced at the decanter. “Judging by the mature color I believe it’s a Bonaparte,” he said. “But I’ve never tried that particular chateau before.”
“Then there’s a first time for everything.”
Shawn nodded. “Then you may pour.”
Caradas tipped cognac into a clean glass.
Shawn sniffed, then sampled the alcohol. He rolled the cognac around in his mouth for a while to allow the aromas and flavors to fully develop, La Minute Mystique, as the French connoisseurs called it, then swallowed.
“Well?” Caradas said, smiling slightly.
“A tad rustic for my taste, earthy overtones of dried apricot, mushroom, and a hint of cigar leaves, but nonetheless, as you said, a pleasant enough cognac.”
“Another?” Caradas said.
“Not when I’m on business,” Shawn said.
Caradas was silent for a few moments, then he tensed and said, “Not on revolver-fighting business, I trust.”
Shawn smiled. “No, Pete. But when I am, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Thank you kindly for the courtesy,” Caradas said.
“Where’s Becker?” Shawn said.
Caradas nodded to the balcony that stretched on both sides of the saloon. “In a crib up there. You won’t get a lick of sense out of him.”
“He needs to recover quickly,” Shawn said. “Becker is all that stands between Thomas Clouston and this town.”
Suddenly Caradas’s gray eyes shrouded, a fleeting moment like the shadow of a scudding cloud on prairie grass. “They made me puke,” he said. “Or, in cruder terms, they made me throw my guts up.”
“Huh?” Shawn said. “I’m not catching your drift.”
“Clouston’s men. They scared me so bad I got sick from fright,” Caradas said. “I thought I’d stopped being scared around the time I bought my first Colt. The mad doctor showed me otherwise.”
“Seeing what happened to June Lacour and Little Face, you’d a right to be scared,” Sedley said, speaking for the first time.
“Imagine getting scared and having to hurl in the middle of a gunfight,” Caradas said. “That should never happen to a man who makes his living with a revolver.”
“Tell me about the fight,” Shawn said.
“There isn’t much to tell. After Lacour and Denton were caught, Clouston’s boys took pots at me with rifles. They weren’t trying to hit me, just put the fear of God into me. I guess they figured I was a man who scared real easy.”
“A yellow belly today can be a hero tomorrow,” Sedley said.
“Hamp,” Shawn said, “that really didn’t help.”
Caradas smiled. “Look on the bright side, O’Brien,” he said. “If you ever come calling on revolver business I may be so scared I’ll cut and run.”
“I don’t think I’ll put my faith in that happening,” Shawn said.
“That didn’t help, either, Hamp,” Shawn said, angling the gambler an irritated glance.
Caradas grinned and slowly rose to his feet, unwinding like a watch spring. “I’ll take you to Becker,” he said.
But Sunny Swanson would have none of it. “I told you, Burt is ailing. He’s not in a fit state to see anyone,” she said.
More than ever she looked like a scolding school ma’am.
“Sunny, if Burt is that sick, I don’t think he’s paying our wages any longer,” Caradas said.
“We owe him,” the woman said. “Well, I owe him.”
“I want to talk with him,” Shawn said.
“He can’t talk. He raves, but that’s not talk,” Sunny said.
“I’d like to find that out for myself,” Shawn said.
Sunny reached into the pocket of her dress and came up with a Remington derringer that she pointed at Shawn’s face.
“And I say you won’t, Mr. O’Brien.”
“Sunny, put the stinger away,” Caradas said.
“I’ll be damned if I will,” the woman said.
“You’ll be damned if you don’t,” Shawn said.
He moved as fast as a striking rattler. His head darted to one side as his left arm came up and grabbed Sunny by the wrist.
The woman yelled and triggered a shot into the ceiling.
Shawn used his right, battered and painful as it was, to wrench the derringer from Sunny’s hand.
The woman rubbed her wrist. “You brute, you hurt me,” she said. “Pete, did you see that? He attacked a woman.”
“What do you want me to do about it, Sunny?” Caradas said, smiling.
“Shoot him! Shoot him now! He’s . . . he’s a savage.”
Shawn unloaded the Remington and passed it back to the angry woman. “Don’t drop it,” he said. “You could break a toe.”
Sunny took a step back from Shawn and her tone bitter she said, “Haven’t you done enough to Burt already, O’Brien? You beat him to within an inch of his life and now you want to piss on him when he’s down? What kind of man are you?”
“The kind that tells you to get your facts straight, lady,” Shawn said.
He stepped around Sunny and walked to the stairs, feeling his anger on a slow burn.
Pete Caradas was right behind him. “Don’t be too hard on Sunny,” he said. “I think she actually loves Becker.”
Shawn turned and smiled slightly. “Wildcat, isn’t she?” he said.
Caradas nodded. “She’s all of that.”
“My kind of woman,” Shawn said. “In some ways her bravery and loyalty reminds me of my wife.” He shook his head, his face stiff. “Oh hell, why did I say that and open an old wound.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Burt Becker lay in a narrow cot in a crib only a little larger than a steamer trunk. Both cot and crib were not designed for comfort but for quick business deals.
The big man lay on his back, his tied-up jaw giving him the appearance of a corpse laid out for display. His wide-open eyes stared at the bright red ceiling. The tiny room smelled of women and of Becker himself, a heady mix of sweet and sour.
“Becker,” Shawn said. Then, aware that he whispered, he said in a normal voice, “I want to talk with you.”
He got no response.
Shawn moved closer and stared into Becker’s face.
The man’s features were blank, eyes flat, as though someone had placed silver coins in the sockets to pay the ferryman.
“Becker,” Shawn said. “Can you hear me?”
After a few moments, Pete Caradas said, “He’s been like that for hours, not moving, saying nothing. He just stares at the ceiling.”
“Ol’ Burt gets the same view as the girls, huh?” Hamp Sedley said, grinning.
“Hamp, is it just me or does anyone else think you’re particularly irritating today?” Shawn said.
“He’s irritating,” Caradas said.
“See if I talk again,” Sedley said.
“Becker isn’t going to talk again, that’s for certain,” Caradas said.
“Well, you’ve seen all you want, and now I want you all out of here,” Sunny said. “I don’t know where Burt has gone, but I’m the only one who can bring him back and that will take time and patience.”
She glared at Shawn. “Why are you so all fired determined to talk to him?”
“Ma’am, this town is in grave danger,” Shawn said. “We need his help.”
“From the Chinese? We already know that.”
“No, from Thomas Clouston, the little drummer boy. He wants the Rattlesnake Hills, and Broken Bridle stands in his way.”
“What’s that got to do with Burt?” Sunny said. “This town has already rejected him.”
“Perhaps if he tells where he’s holding Jane Collins the folks will welcome him back to the fold,” Sedley said, a man who couldn’t remain silent for long.
By the shocked look on the woman’s face Sedley had hit a nerve. But she quickly shrugged it off.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sunny said. “The little slut has probably lit a shuck with a whiskey drummer. Now all of you get out of here.”
Shawn remained where he was. “Listen, Miss Swanson, as far as I’m concerned, Burt Becker is a sorry piece of trash but he’s a skilled revolver fighter, and so is Caradas. Who else is in town, Pete?”
The tall hired gun gave a languid shrug. “Coop Hunter and Uriah Spade. They’re a pair of onetime lawmen up from the Arizona Territory.”
“Are they good?” Shawn said.
“They’ll do.”
“Including myself and Hamp we can count on maybe half a dozen professional guns and the rest will be storekeepers,” Shawn said. “When Clouston attacks, Becker needs to be on his feet.”
“Let the sheriff handle it,” Sunny said. “That’s what he’s being paid for.”
“He can’t handle it,” Caradas said. “That’s the problem.”
“And that’s why I’m willing to make a deal with the devil,” Shawn said.
“As soon as Burt is able to ride, him and me are getting out of here,” Sunny said. “Let this town fend for itself, I say. It isn’t worth dying for.”
Sedley glanced around him. “What’s that damned scratching sound I’ve been hearing since I came in here?”
“Rats,” Sunny said quickly. “They come in from the cattle pens and Chinatown.”
“Big rats,” Sedley said.
“Now, out, all of you,” Sunny said. The look she gave Shawn was less than friendly. “When Burt recovers I’ll tell him your proposition.” She smiled. “Hell, what is your proposition exactly?”
“If Becker helps defend this town against Clouston, when it’s done he can ride on out of here. I’ll do nothing to stop him.”
“And what about Jane Collins?” Sunny said.
“I’ll expect him to tell me where she’s being held.”
“Dream big, mister,” Sunny said. “Burt will leave Broken Bridle when he feels like it. And he doesn’t know where that little Collins baggage is.”
Shawn nodded. “You’re lying. I think you know where the girl is.”
“Get out of here,” Sunny said.
On the cot Burt Becker groaned and twitched, his mind haunted by dreadful visions.
CHAPTER THIRTY
There was fortune to be made in the Rattlesnake Hills for men who were good with a gun and not overly squeamish about whom they shot with it.
Rank Mason was such a man. During an outlaw career that spanned two decades he’d killed both men and women for profit, and none of those murders troubled his conscience even a smidgen.
Mason was tailor-made for Thomas Clouston’s enterprise as were the three hardcases that rode with him.
The oldest was Jim Mulholland, a bank robber, hired gun, sometimes lawman, and a vicious, unfeeling killer. He was fifty t
hat year. Ten years younger, Dave King was an all-around bad man with rotten teeth and a worse attitude. He’d killed three men and considered himself an elite shootist. The youngest was William Anderson, an eighteen-year-old draw fighter and killer who liked to call himself Billy the Kid. The real Billy would have dismissed him as a coward and a braggart.
Following orders from Clouston, Mason led a routine patrol of the rugged hill country east of Fales Rocks. He planned to head southeast, pick up the middle fork of Casper Creek, and follow it back into the Rattlesnakes.
Mason had ridden that patrol seventeen times and was yet to come across a human being. Bears were scarce in the brush country and wolves generally kept to the high timber, so the land seemed empty, shimmering in the heat, the silence funereal as a fallen warrior’s tomb.
But Clouston insisted that the patrols were necessary to keep interlopers at bay, and Mason had orders to shoot any such trespassers on sight.
Imagine the gunman’s joy then when Billy the Kid Anderson’s sharp young eyes spotted a couple of riders in the distance.
He cried out to Mason and pointed. “Rank, lookee there!”
The older man’s gaze followed Anderson’s pointing finger. He looked for a while, grunted, and raised the field glasses that hung around his neck—yet another Clouston precaution.
Mason studied the riders through the glasses for long moments, and Anderson, with the impatience of youth, said, “Hell, Rank, what do you see? Lawmen?”
Mason lowered the field glass and shook his head, a bemused look on his hard-planed, bearded face.
“Well?” Anderson said.
“Rubes. A couple of rubes riding two-up on a yeller hoss.”
Dave King spat a stream of chewing tobacco over the side of his mount and said, “What the hell are rubes doing out here?”
“Damned if I know,” Mason said. He passed the glasses to King. “Here, take a look for yourself. By the dead wild oak yonder.”
After a while King turned to the others and said, “Rank called it right. Two farm boys in overalls riding a mustang. Hell, now I’ve seen everything.”
“Must be on their way to Broken Bridle to see the bright lights and fancy women,” Anderson said.
“I reckon so,” Mason said. He sighed deeply. “Well, let’s ride on down there and kill them.”
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