Brutal Vengeance

by J. A. Johnstone

  “Don’t thank me,” Culhane replied with a shake of his head. “Jumpin’ into the middle of this ruckus was all Morgan’s idea. Although I got to admit that I probably would have if he hadn’t beat me to it, Miz Morrison.”

  “It’s Miss Morrison,” the redhead told him with a smile. “I’m not married. And that’s the crux of the problem I find confronting me now.”

  Culhane frowned. “You said the crutch of the problem ... ?”

  “No, crux. The center. The very thing that’s causing me trouble. That being the lack of a husband.”

  The Ranger shook his head. “I’m mighty sorry, ma’am, but I ain’t followin’ you at all. If you’re lookin’ for a husband among this bunch, you’re out of luck. We’re a posse, hot on the trail of a bunch of murderin’ outlaws.”

  “But you seem to be heading toward San Antonio,” the woman persisted.

  “Well, yeah, in that general direction, right enough,” Culhane admitted.

  The redhead clutched her bag tighter and smiled. “Then it shouldn’t be any problem for you to take me with you.”

  Culhane’s eyebrows rose in shocked surprise. The Kid’s face remained expressionless. He’d expected the woman to suggest something along those lines.

  Culhane said, “I’m sorry, Miss Morrison, but I told you, we’re after a mighty bad bunch of owlhoots. The last thing in the world you want to do is come along with us.”

  “But I have to get to San Antonio, and I don’t think it would be safe for a woman to travel alone all that distance. When you find those badmen you’re pursuing, I’ll stay back, well out of the way. You won’t be put to any trouble.”

  Culhane gave a stubborn shake of his head. “No, ma’am. It’s a loco idea, and I won’t do it.”

  “Then you mean to leave me stranded here in this terribly dreary place?”

  Culhane looked like he was starting to get mad now. “Look, ma’am, I don’t know how you came to be here—”

  “I was abandoned here,” the redhead broke in. “Lied to and then abandoned by an evil man.”

  A sort of understanding began to dawn in Culhane’s eyes. “This hombre promised to marry you, did he?”

  A flush spread over the woman’s peaches-and-cream complexion. “That’s right, and I believed him,” she said in obvious embarrassment. “I traveled with him this far—it’s scandalous, I know, but there’s nothing I can do about that now—and then he stopped to sit in on a poker game at that saloon down the street. Fortune smiled on him, and he won a considerable amount of money. Our plan was to go to El Paso and open a store there, and I thought this windfall would make it easier for us. But then this morning”—her voice hardened—“I woke up and he was gone. So was our buggy.”

  “I’m sure sorry to hear about that, but I’m afraid it don’t change anything. We don’t have any spare horses, and even if we did”—Culhane smiled faintly—“you ain’t exactly rigged out for ridin’.”

  “I have a little money,” the redhead said. “I thought it might be wise to keep a little my so-called fiancé didn’t know about.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “As it turns out, I was right. I can buy a horse of my own, along with a saddle and whatever gear I need. I just need the protection of a group of honorable men.” She gave the Ranger a dazzling smile. “And it’s obvious that’s what I’ve found in you gentlemen.”

  Culhane took off his hat, ran a hand over his thinning hair, and grimaced as indecision warred inside him. He glanced at The Kid. “What do you think, Morgan?”

  The Kid looked up intently at the woman for a long moment before saying, “I think Miss Morrison could use a helping hand. If she can keep up, I think we should take her along.”

  “Oh, I can keep up, Mister ... Morgan, was it?” She gave him the same smile. “I assure you I won’t be a hindrance.”

  Culhane clapped his hat back on his head. “No offense, ma’am, but you’d better not be. If you are, we’ll leave you behind and you’ll have to shift for yourself. And you ain’t got much time to get ready to ride with us, either. We’ll be pullin’ out of this burg as soon as my men finish pickin’ up some supplies. If you’re gonna buy a horse and an outfit, you’d better get busy.”

  “There’s a livery stable down the street,” The Kid said. “I’m still in good shape on supplies, so I’ll give the lady a hand.”

  “I would appreciate that very much, Mr. Morgan.” She started down the steps.

  Culhane was still mounted. He swung down from the saddle and stepped aside to let the redhead pass. The Kid joined her, and as he did, Culhane said in a low voice, “Don’t lose track o’ time, Morgan.”

  “Don’t worry,” The Kid assured him. “I won’t.”

  He fell in alongside the woman, and they walked toward the livery stable at the other end of the street. When they were out of earshot of Culhane, the redhead said, “Thanks for not giving me away, Kid.”

  “Don’t thank me just yet,” he snapped. “I might still tell Culhane the truth. It all depends on what explanation you have for that load of crap you just handed him, Lace.”

  Chapter 17

  A low, throaty laugh came from her. “You saw through me right away, didn’t you?”

  “As soon as I laid eyes on you,” The Kid said. “It hasn’t been that long since I saw you, remember?”

  “Almost a year.”

  The Kid shook his head. “That’s not long enough.” In fact, he was unlikely to ever forget Lace McCall. She had come close to killing him ... and she had also saved his life.

  And she was the only woman he’d made love with since Rebel’s death.

  Lace was a bounty hunter, and they had met in New Mexico Territory when there was a price on The Kid’s head. She had intended to collect that bounty, but in the end she had helped him to clear his name.

  She had been seriously wounded, and the last time he’d seen her, she had been recuperating from those injuries.

  He had covered the cost of her medical care—Conrad Browning was a rich man, after all, whether The Kid still claimed that identity or not—and had provided money to make sure Lace’s daughter back in Kansas City was taken care of properly.

  But he hadn’t been back to visit her. He had been consumed by a quest of his own. Since it had come to an end, he hadn’t felt like seeing anybody from his past.

  Fate had taken that decision out of his hands.

  “I’ll bet you can guess what I’m doing here,” Lace said as they approached the livery stable.

  “I suspect it has something to do with a man named Warren Latch. How big is the bounty on his head?”

  “Ten thousand dollars. And the rewards on the other men I know are in his gang add up to several thousand more dollars, at the very least. Bringing them in would be a nice big haul for me, Kid.”

  He stopped walking, and so did she.

  “I offered to take care of you—”

  “The hell with that,” she snapped, interrupting him. “I don’t need anybody to take care of me. Men used to offer to do that when I was working in the whorehouse, and when I finally believed one of them, it didn’t work out too well.”

  The Kid remembered the story she had told him in an isolated camp in New Mexico ...

  “I wasn’t always a bounty hunter. My mama ... she worked in a house in St. Louis. You know?”

  “I know,” The Kid said. “You don’t have to tell me any of this if you don’t want to.”

  “If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t be telling you,” she snapped. Her tone softened again as she went on. “I was born there. She wanted a better life for me than she had, so she moved to Kansas City and tried to find a real job there. It was hard for her, though, and after a while ... well, she went back to it. With all that, I don’t guess anybody would be real surprised to hear I turned out the same way.”

  The Kid didn’t say anything, although actually he was a little surprised.

  “I wound up in a family way,” she went on. “One of my customers, a man named McCal
l, offered to marry me. I took him up on it. I wanted my child to have a name. He turned out to be a pretty bad sort, though. He didn’t treat me good. After a while I found out he was even worse than I thought. I happened to see a wanted poster with his picture on it. The man on the poster had a different name, but McCall was one of the names he was said to use sometimes. I went home, and the next time he raised his hand to me, I was ready. I shot the son of a bitch.”

  “You killed him?” The Kid asked.

  “No, I just put a bullet in his knee, and while he was rolling around on the floor and screaming, I went and found a policeman and told him there was a wanted fugitive in my house. They hauled him off, and I claimed the reward. I got it, too. That was enough for me to be able to set my mama and my little girl up so they’d be all right.” She laughed. “That was how I found out I liked bounty hunting a lot better than I liked being a whore.”

  “And that’s what you’ve been doing for the past few years?”

  “Five years,” she said. “I already knew how to fight. I taught myself how to ride and shoot and found that I really took to it ...”

  That was putting it mildly. Lace was as good a shot as any man The Kid had ever seen with the exception of himself and his father, and she could sit a saddle all day without getting weary. He wouldn’t count her out in a bare-knuckles brawl, either. She packed quite a punch.

  But she’d also been packing some fairly serious bullet wounds the last time he’d seen her.

  “The doctor said you probably wouldn’t ever be in good enough shape to go back to bounty hunting.”

  Lace shrugged and shook her head. “I’m here, aren’t I? Doctors don’t know everything. I’m fine. Hell, I was laid up for so long I thought I’d go crazy. I feel a lot better now than I did when I was laying around doing nothing.”

  “Why the long, involved story you told Culhane about being abandoned here by some lothario?” The Kid asked.

  Lace grinned as mischievous lights sparkled in her green eyes. “Pretty convincing, wasn’t it? I made it up on the spot to get that Texas Ranger to go along with what I wanted, once I realized I could get a whole posse to help me.”

  “Nobody here in Stubbtown knows any different?”

  “How could they? I just rode in a little while ago.” Lace laughed. “Stubbtown. What a horrible name. Would you want to admit you were from Stubbtown?”

  “Probably not.” The Kid had to admit it.

  “I left my horses at the livery stable and changed into this getup.” She gestured at the hat and traveling dress. “I planned to ask some questions about Latch, and thought I might be more likely to get honest answers if nobody knew I was hunting bounty. Now that’s not necessary. You’re on his trail, so I’ll just come along with you and the posse.”

  She was a quick thinker, he had to give her credit for that.

  “By the time anybody who lives here heard your story and started to question it, you’ll be gone,” he said.

  “That’s the idea.” She gave him an intent look. “How about it, Kid? Is it going to work?”

  “Do you know what Warren Latch did a few days ago?” he asked grimly. “Do you know what he’s capable of ?”

  “Damn right I know,” Lace said. “I have contacts at the Ranger post in San Antonio. When Culhane wired there about what happened at Fire Hill, I got wind of it. I knew they were headed in this direction. That’s why I set out to intercept the gang somewhere along the way.”

  The Kid grunted. “One woman against a gang of forty killers.”

  “I thought I’d figure something out when the time came,” she said with a smile. “And so I have. What I don’t know is how Latch got past me.”

  “It’s a big countr y,” The Kid pointed out.

  “Yeah, I guess so. And you still haven’t answered my question, Kid. Do I get to come along ... or are you going to tell Culhane the truth?”

  “Even if I did, he might take you along. We’ve whittled down the odds a little, but Latch’s bunch still outnumbers the posse by quite a bit. If I tell Culhane how good you are in a fight, he’s liable to offer you a job as a temporary Texas Ranger!”

  Lace shook her head. “No thanks. I want to be able to collect all the bounties I can.”

  They couldn’t stand out there in the street much longer, The Kid realized. They had already been talking for several minutes, and Culhane was liable to start wondering what was going on.

  “If Culhane decides you can’t come along, you’ll just find some other way of going after Latch, won’t you?”

  Lace smiled. “You know me, Kid.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He started toward the stable again. “Come on.”

  “Thanks, Kid. I’ll see to it you don’t regret it.”

  Not sure what she meant by that, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He didn’t regret the things they had done, but he wasn’t interested in any sort of long-term romance, either.

  “Are you going to keep up this ridiculous masquerade as a spurned woman?” he asked as they walked side by side.

  “I almost have to, don’t I? At least for the time being.”

  “You mean until you capture Latch and can claim the ten grand?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” Lace laughed.

  “Will you go along with that, Kid?”

  “Why not? I just hope it doesn’t backfire on you.”

  “I won’t let it.”

  Life had a way of dealing harshly with the plans people made, though. The Kid knew that all too well.

  Inside the shadowy stable, Lace opened her bag and slipped a coin to the Mexican hostler. “Thanks for taking care of my horses, Felipe. If you hear any odd stories about me, for all you know they’re true, comprende?”

  Felipe bobbed his head. “Sí, señorita. Though we have known each other only a short time, you have always been the soul of honesty with me.”

  “That’s right,” Lace said with a smile. “Kid, help me get these horses ready. I still have to go back to the store and see if I can buy a riding outfit. Wouldn’t do for Lucille Morrison to gallivant around in boots, jeans, and a buckskin shirt, now would it?”

  “Go tend to that,” The Kid told her. “I’ll saddle your horse and get your supplies back on the pack horse.”

  “That’s mighty generous of you.”

  “Just trying to speed things up so we can get back on Latch’s trail.”

  “Warren Latch?” Felipe asked as his eyes widened. He made the sign of the cross. “I have heard of that one. It is said he is very much like the Devil himself.”

  “That’s not far wrong,” The Kid said.

  “Señorita, you should not have anything to do with a man such as this Latch,” Felipe advised.

  “I don’t have any choice,” Lace said. “He’s got something I want.”

  “What is that, señorita?”

  “His head,” Lace said.

  Chapter 18

  When Lace emerged from Brennaman’s Trading Post and Emporium a short time later, she had traded the green traveling outfit for a brown, divided riding skirt, a gray shirt, and a brown vest that matched the skirt. So did the flat-crowned Stetson she wore with the strap taut under her chin. On her feet were short riding boots.

  The Kid was mounted on his buckskin by then, sitting the saddle in front of the store as he held the reins not only of his pack animal but also Lace’s, along with her saddle mount. As he handed the reins over to her, she asked, “Where are the others?”

  “They pulled out a few minutes ago,” The Kid explained. “I told Culhane I’d wait for you and that we would catch up in a little bit.”

  She swung up easily into the saddle. “Let’s go. We don’t want to let them get too far ahead.”

  The Kid gestured at the rifle in Lace’s saddle boot. “How are you going to explain a genteel lady like Lucille Morrison being able to use a Winchester?”

  “I’ll think of something. I always do, don’t I?”

  “That’s true.�
� As they turned away from the store and started riding along the street, The Kid went on, “Where’s Max?”

  The big, shaggy cur had been Lace’s inseparable companion during the ruckus over in New Mexico Territory. She shrugged. “He’s back in Kansas City with my mother and Linda Sue. It’s a good thing for a kid to have a dog around, and besides, Max is getting a little too old to go traipsing around with me all over the frontier, chasing outlaws. He deserves some time to lay on the porch in the sun.”

  “Sounds good,” The Kid said.

  Lace shot a glance over at him. “That’s not for us. People like us don’t get that luxury, Kid. We’ll never see those so-called golden years. We’ll meet somebody who’s faster or trickier or just plain meaner, and we’ll end up in a shallow grave somewhere, or with the coyotes scattering our bones. Sorry if you hadn’t figured that out by now, but that’s the way things happen for people like us.”

  “You’re probably—”

  Before The Kid could finish his sentence, a man stepped out from the mouth of the alley they were passing, pointed a revolver at them, and started pulling the trigger.

  The shots were so loud The Kid couldn’t hear the slug whistle past his ear, only inches away, but he sensed it. By that time his Colt was in his hand, coming up so swiftly it was only a blur. The gun roared and bucked.

  The man in the alley mouth twisted halfway around as The Kid’s bullet punched into the left side of his chest. He struggled to stay on his feet and bring his gun back around toward the two riders, but the bullet had ripped through his heart, pulping it. With a groan, the man dropped to his knees and toppled sideways.

  It was the first chance The Kid had to get a good look at the man. He recognized the roughneck he’d had the brawl with earlier. The man had a friend, he recalled—

  “To your left!” Lace called.

  She had pulled her rifle from its sheath, and the Winchester snapped to her shoulder with the same sort of speed The Kid had demonstrated with the Colt. The repeater cracked as The Kid turned his head. He heard another shot at the same time and saw dust spurt in the street just in front of the buckskin.