Journey into Violence

by William W. Johnstone

  “Mister, you look like a feller who’s bored.”

  Dobbs turned and studied the man standing next to him. “You could say that.”

  The man was a city slicker by the look of his fancy duds. Slender and of medium height, he had the sly eyes of an outhouse rat. “I got a remedy for boredom. She goes by the name of High Timber Hattie Dickson, six foot tall and all woman.” The man smiled. “She’ll give you such a time, you won’t be bored for a week, just thinking back on it.”

  “Where is this woman?” Dobbs said.

  “Just down the street a ways. You won’t even get wet.”

  “How much?”

  The man smiled. He had a gold tooth. “Well, that’s between you and Hattie, but five dollars will guarantee you a good time and ten a real good time.”

  Dobbs thought about that. “Sure. It beats staying here waiting for the wrath of God to strike.”

  “Finish your drink and follow me.” The man pushed out his hand. “Name is Mordecai Benger.”

  “I don’t care what your name is,” Dobbs said, ignoring the proffered handshake. He pulled out a thick wad of notes that made the man’s eyes pop out of his head. “First I got to pay my score.”

  “Oh yes, certainly,” Benger said. “A man should always pay what he owes.”

  Dobbs saw greed in the pimp’s eyes, but he ignored it. A man who’s good with a gun could ignore much.

  * * *

  High Timber Hattie was tall and shapely but not real pretty. Her front teeth protruded and horses had slept on better straw than the bleached blond hair that grew on her head. “What do you want me to be?”

  “A whore,” Dobbs said.

  Hattie smiled and drew back the curtain of a recessed closet. She waved to the packed clothes hanging on a rail. “I can be a schoolmarm, a nun, a little girl with a little curl, an equestrienne with a whip, a Chinese, a—”

  “Just take your clothes off, lie on your back, and be what you are,” Dobbs said. “That’s all I want. I’m here to pass time.”

  “Whatever you say. You are my master.”

  “Yeah, for as long as I pay you.”

  “Business is business, so let’s get to it.”

  * * *

  As the storm raged outside and a relentless rain rattled on the bedroom window of Hattie’s shack, she got out of bed and tossed on a silk robe. “I’ll get us something to drink, lover.” She smiled. “By the way, you were great. A real lively gent. My favorite kind of guest.”

  When he’d climbed into bed, Dobbs had dropped his holstered Colt on the floor next to the bed, well away from his scattered clothes. He drew the revolver and placed it between the sheets out of sight. Hattie and her pimp had no way of knowing it, but Dobbs figured he was about to get rolled. He’d been there before and he read the signs. He’d seen it happen many times, but this con was cruder and more obvious than most.

  As he’d suspected, Hattie stepped into the bedroom, a Smith & Wesson .38 in her hand. Behind her, announced by a thunder roll, was the dressed-up dude with the gold tooth. He carried a nickel-plated Colt with a bone handle.

  The man smiled. “You know the drill, mister. We want your wallet, watch, gun, and horses.”

  “And then you’ll kill me.” Dobbs put a quaver in his voice, acting scared.

  “I’m afraid so,” said the man who’d introduced himself as Mordecai Benger. “Three in the belly and you’ll be dead so quick it won’t even hurt.”

  “Get up,” Hattie said. “You’re not going to bleed all over my bed. Go into the kitchen where I can mop up afterward.”

  “You heard the lady. Get the hell out of there. Make a fancy move and I’ll gun you right where you stand.”

  Dobbs decided to have some fun. “Carry me.”

  Benger was stunned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I don’t want to get up. You’ll have to carry me.”

  “Damn you. I’ll gun you right now.” Benger raised his Colt.

  “No!” Hattie yelled. “I just got a new feather mattress.”

  “I saw the rube flash his wad, Hattie. Hell, he’s got enough money to buy you another one and a new bed to go with it.”

  “Then we’ll give it to him in the head, Mordecai. He won’t bleed as much.” She raised her .38. “Like this.”

  Playtime was over.

  Dobbs pulled his gun and fired at Hattie. His bullet hit between her breasts and she went down hard, her convulsing finger triggering a wild shot.

  Benger was appalled by the suddenness of Dobbs’s attack. He hesitated for a second, maybe two, but realized instantly that he’d made a fatal mistake. You can’t give a gun-talented man that much time. Dobbs thumbed off three shots, all of them hits to the belly. Benger screamed as he saw death rush to meet him, the dreaded sickle slashing. The man sank slowly to the floor and lay groaning in agony. A gut shooting was one of the worst of all deaths and its torment lasted for a long . . . long time.

  Dobbs dressed hurriedly then checked on Hattie. She was dead. He pried the Smith & Wesson from her fingers and stuck it in his waistband. Benger still lived, dying hard, cursing the mother that bore him.

  “Do you recollect what you told me, old fellow? Three to the belly and I’d die quick.” Dobbs grinned. “Well, how does it feel? You dying quick?”

  Engulfed in a sea of pain, Benger was no longer capable of speech. Dobbs shrugged, kicked the man hard in the face, and made his way outside into the tempest.

  * * *

  “The sacks are still there, Mr. Dobbs, just as you left them,” the liveryman said. “I don’t let anybody get near.”

  Dobbs stepped to the rear of the stable where the rats and spiders lived. He lifted the tarp that covered the money sacks and nodded. “You done good, Matt.”

  “Your horses are all in good shape, too. Been feeding them a scoop of oats with their hay just like you said.”

  Dobbs walked to the door of the barn and the old man followed. “You seen the likes of this before?” Dobbs said.

  Matt nodded. “Maybe five, six times in my score of years here in Eagle Pass. This one is stronger than most I’ve seen.”

  “How long will I be stuck here?”

  “You can travel tomorrow, Mr. Dobbs, maybe so. These here storms don’t last very long. They blow into town, do their damage, and move on. Kinda like folks.”

  Dobbs stared at the old man, but Matt’s face was empty. “I thought I heard gunshots earlier.”

  Matt shook his head. “Hard to tell. Heard plenty of thunder, though.”

  “I was probably mistaken then.”

  “Easy mistake to make. Ha! There goes another bang. Just like a pistol shot, huh?”

  Dobbs glanced at the sky heavy with banded ramparts of black and purple clouds. Lightning scrawled like the signature of God. Torrential rain danced all over the surface of a large muddy puddle in front of the stable, kicking up exclamation points of water.

  “Sure wouldn’t want to be traveling on a day like this, Mr. Dobbs,” Matt said. “It ain’t fit for man nor beast.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  “I swear, in this kind of weather the ducks drown as soon as they get airborne,” JC Brewster said.

  “It’s coming down all right,” Kate said. “And I don’t see any chance of it letting up.”

  She, Brewster, and Frank huddled in the back of the wagon, sharing the shelter of the single slicker they’d brought from the Madison cabin. The slicker was old and full of holes but was better than nothing. The mare had been freed from the traces, but she stood close, her head down, as wet and miserable as the three humans.

  “You ever experience anything like this before?” Frank asked Brewster.

  The Ranger shook his head. “No, but I’ve heard about it. Big storms come up from the Gulf and play hob.”

  “The weather will keep Dobbs in Eagle Pass,” Kate said.

  “Unless he’s already in Old Mexico,” Brewster said.

  Kate pushed a damp strand o
f hair off her forehead. “Does anybody think we could be any more miserable, wet, and hungry than we already are?”

  “Not me,” Brewster said.

  “Frank?” Kate said.

  “Not me, either” Frank said.

  Kate said, “Good. Then we might as well continue our journey to Eagle Pass. It’s better than sitting here.”

  “It will be slow going and the lightning is dangerous,” Frank said.

  “It’s dangerous right here as well,” she said. “I’ve said a prayer to Our Lady of the Storm for her protection and she will not fail us.”

  Blown by a gust of wind, rain hammered on the ragged slicker, soaking everybody. Thunder crashed and the air sizzled from a nearby lightning strike.

  “Kate, I sure hope you’re right,” Frank said.

  “Have faith, Frank. Our Lady may not shelter us from dangers, but she will give us the courage to face them.”

  “Amen.” Brewster looked at Frank and winked.

  * * *

  As Kate and the others drove into Eagle Pass with the mare faltering in the traces, the wild oaks no longer sang their wind song and the dark sky manifested stars and was calm. The storm had passed and the town would have seemed at peace if not for the score of armed men that patrolled its debris-strewn streets.

  Frank planned to drive Kate to the hotel, where she could get out of her damp clothes, but he pulled up the mare when a man wearing a battered top hat and long black coat beckoned to him.

  “You folks just get in?” the man said, looking over the wagon and its drenched occupants.

  “Yeah,” Frank said. “What’s happened here?”

  “Somebody took advantage of the storm to murder High Timber Hattie Dickson and her paramour Mordecai Benger. Seems like a crime of passion to me, two men after the same whore. Well, we’re looking for the murderer whoever he is. You folks be careful.” He saw Kate and touched his hat brim. “Ma’am. Myself and the armed men you see are members of the Eagle Pass Peace Command, so you have nothing to fear, young lady.”

  Kate fluttered her eyelashes. “Why, thank you, sir. You are very gallant. I shall sleep better tonight knowing that you and the other stalwarts are on duty.”

  The man gave a little bow. “Your obedient servant, ma’am. My name is Marcellus Twining and I own the general store. For this week only, I’m selling ladies’ shoes at cost and ditto for the finest French bloomers. Do stop by.”

  “I most assuredly will, Mr. Twining,” Kate said. “You are very kind.”

  Frank clucked the mare into motion. “Got yourself another admirer, Kate.”

  “He’s trying to sell shoes is all.”

  “And bloomers,” JC Brewster said.

  “Ranger Brewster, a gentleman must refrain from using that word or any other word pertaining to underclothing in the presence of a lady,” Kate said, frowning.

  “But the storekeeper said it,” Brewster said.

  “I’m aware of that, but he is of the merchant class and doesn’t know any better.”

  “Real nice night,” Frank said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  * * *

  The desk clerk assured Kate that he would send a copper bathtub and a plentiful supply of towels to her room and that her clothes would soon dry in front of the furnace that heated the hotel’s hot water. He made no such assurances to Frank and Brewster, who were assigned a room and left to their own devices. Since he was the only one with money to pay the bill, the Ranger thought himself ill done by.

  Kate consoled him when she told him he could also dry his clothing at the furnace. “So long as our intimate garments don’t touch. That would be most improper.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Frank left the wagon outside the livery and led the exhausted mare inside.

  The man in charge was a gouty oldster with no teeth but a ready, gummy smile. “What can I do fer you, mister?”

  “It’s what you can do for the horse,” Frank said. “I’ll rub her down, but she needs a dry stall and oats along with her hay.”

  “I can do that. Put her back there beside your other hosses. Cost you an extry two bits for tonight, though.”

  His last dollar light as a feather in his pocket, Frank nodded. “Sounds like a deal.” He handed over the dollar.

  The man said, “I’ll get your change. Name’s Matt Lister, but most folks call me Gimp.”

  “I’ll call you Matt,” Frank said.

  “Much appreciated. There’s a piece of sacking over there and a brush.”

  Frank spent considerable time on the old horse, getting her grooming right, and then led her to a stall at the rear of the barn.

  “Not that stall, mister, the one next to it,” Lister said. “I’m storing stuff in there for a gent.”

  A pile of something covered by a tarp lay against the stall’s far wall and Frank idly toed it, expecting the feel of leather or canvas. Instead, he heard the clink of coin.

  “Your man doesn’t believe in banks, huh?” Frank gave that some thought for a few moments. “Can you describe the man who left this here?”

  “Sure. Big man, bearded, a gruff way about him. Wears a gun like he was born to it.”

  “By any chance is his name Jesse Dobbs?”

  Lister shook his head. “I don’t know his name. He never put it out and I didn’t ask. Like I didn’t ask your’n”

  “Frank Cobb.” He led the horse to its stall and forked hay while Lister supplied a scoop of oats.

  Frank returned to the mysterious pile, opened his Barlow, and took a knee beside the tarp. He threw it aside and cut into one of the sacks. It was filled with gold and silver coin. He grabbed a handful and held it up. The coins gleamed in the light of the oil lamp the old man held high.

  “Did you know it was money?”

  “Surely didn’t. I suspicioned it might be treasure of some kind, but I wasn’t sure. The gent said he’d pay me fifty dollars to keep a close eye on it.”

  “If it’s Jesse Dobbs’s money, he would have paid you in lead,” Frank said. “I believe this is a stolen army payroll and a lot of men have died because of it.”

  The old man’s face took on a stricken look. “Mister, you’re funnin’ me about paying me in lead, right? Fifty dollars buys a heap of cartridges.”

  “When he leaves with the money, Dobbs will not let you live. That’s a natural fact.”

  “Well, what the hell do I do? I ain’t a gunman.”

  “You do what I tell you, Matt.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Frank told him.

  * * *

  The tap on Kate’s door was soft, almost apologetic. She wrapped a towel around herself and picked up the derringer. “Who is it?”

  “It’s old Matt Lister from the livery stable as ever was, with an urgent message from Frank Cobb.”

  “Hold on.” She turned the key in the door lock and then stepped behind the dressing screen. “Come in.”

  Dressed in an old Confederate greatcoat and a battered bowler hat, the small man stepped into the room. He looked at Kate, her naked shoulders visible above the screen, and if he was flustered he didn’t let it show. Lister was silent for a few moments, recalling what Frank had told him, then said, “You want to hear the message, ma’am, or should I come back when you’re decent?”

  “I’m always decent. State your business.”

  “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but my business is to tell you that Frank says he’s found the missing army payroll.”

  “Found it? Where?”

  “In the livery stable. See, I was keeping an eye on it fer a feller Frank says is Jesse Boggs.”

  “Dobbs?”

  “Yeah, right. That was the name.”

  “Is there anything else?” Kate said.

  “Sure is, ma’am. Frank says you and the Ranger are to stay away from the livery, that he’ll handle things his own self. And he says not to mention the money to the vigilantes that are prowling all over town doin’ nothing
but getting drunk and drunker. Frank didn’t say the drunk part. I said that.”

  Lister doffed his hat. “Frank said one more thing, ma’am. He said I was to steer clear of the livery because Dobbs would shoot me for sure. He said I was to throw myself on your mercy, like, and that you’d protect me.”

  “A difficult thing to do when I don’t have any clothes,” Kate said. Then her face brightened. “Matt. It is Matt, isn’t it?”

  “As ever was, ma’am.”

  “Matt, go down to the boiler room and bring me the clothes that are drying on a rack before the furnace. There are both male and female garments, but bring them all to me.”

  “Who put them there, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “The desk clerk. But I want you to go get them. The less he knows the better. Are you a married man, Matt?”

  “I got hitched one time, lasted three years afore she ran off with a banjo player.”

  “Good. You had a wife. Handling female undergarments will not get you overly stimulated.”

  * * *

  “Are you certain Frank said he’d go it alone?” Brewster asked. “He’s shot through and through, you know.” He’d pulled his pants over his long-handled underwear after Kate had passed his clothes through the door. His suspenders hung loose at his sides. The bandage on his wounded shoulder was fat as a boardinghouse cat.

  Lister shrugged. “If he is, he didn’t let it show.”

  “I should be there. A Texas Ranger can’t stand idly by while others are performing stirring deeds.”

  Kate, wearing clothes that were still damp in places, said, “JC, there is no doubt in my mind that you are bold and courageous, but wounded as you are, Frank knows that if it comes to a gunfight you’re no match for Jesse Dobbs.”

  “But Frank’s wounded,” Brewster said. “He’s shot all to pieces.”

  “I know, but Frank is a different breed. He’s strong and enduring as though forged from steel. He’s ridden outlaw trails and learned how to survive in a hard, unforgiving land among men equally hard and unforgiving. He’s been wounded before, many times, and by sheer strength of will lived on to fight another day. Strange as it may seem, and though Frank would deny it, he and Dobbs are two of a kind, opposite sides of the same coin. The West is changing and there are folks who think that men like Dobbs and Frank don’t stack up to much and maybe they’re right . . . but in my lifetime, they’ll all be gone and I’ll never see their like again.”