by Lyle Brandt
“You want him alive. If possible.”
“That’s right. If he starts shooting, which he may, try winging him. Arms, legs, something to slow him down and let us get the drop on him. I want to have a talk with him before he dies.”
“An’ what about the sheriff?” Orville Deen inquired.
“It would be helpful if he lived,” Coker replied, “but it is not obligatory.”
“Huh?”
“Means we can beef ’im if we have to,” Ben Kyle clarified.
“If absolutely necessary,” Coker said and realized the prospect did not faze him, either way. Travis was shaky, growing weaker by the day. If he could be disposed of, and his death attributed to Ryder, it would be a double benefit.
A silent moment passed before he said, “All clear, then?” and received another round of nods. “Go on and take your places. They should be here soon.”
If Travis found the Yank, that was. Coker was never sure how much of any order Travis really understood or paid attention to. He’d been a fair choice as the county’s sheriff, and the only competition for that job had been a unionist who cast his vote against secession, back in February ’61. Between the two, there’d been no choice at all.
Coker took a moment to examine his LeMat revolver, even though he knew the gun was fully loaded. Better safe than sorry, when his life was riding on the line, along with everything he’d worked for up to now. The plan he had in mind wasn’t ideal, by any means, but since his side had lost the war, it was the next best thing to victory in battle.
If his plan worked out, it meant more damage to his people at the outset. Some of them would likely die or lose their homes, but in the end, if he was resolute and led them well, the rest would benefit. Texans had beaten Mexico, not thirty years ago, when they had been outnumbered ten to one or more. Their problem in the last war had been putting too much trust in leaders from Virginia, Alabama, and the Carolinas, none of whom had kept his state’s best interests in mind.
But this time, when his people rose in righteous outrage, Coker knew that it would be a marvel to behold.
*
They skipped the rear approach and passed the street side of the building, Ryder peering through the shop’s display window to verify that is was closed, no customers still lingering who might be in the line of fire. From there, it was a short walk through an alley, two doors down, to reach the back door unobserved.
“No second thoughts?” he asked the sheriff. “Anything you want to say before we go in here?”
The bleak-faced lawman said, “I’ve told you all I know. You’re gonna do whatever suits you, either way.”
“Correction, Sheriff. You’ll be doing it. The first man through that door, and first one down if somebody starts shooting. You can still fess up. If Coker doesn’t have the Butlers here—”
“He does. At least, he did, last time I talked to him.”
“And when was that?”
“’Bout half an hour ’fore I found you on the street.”
“You saw them?”
“Nope. No reason why he’d lie to me about it, though, is there?”
“Maybe, if he thought it would improve your acting.”
Travis frowned at that, considered it, then shook his head. “Uh-uh. He didn’t like me poppin’ in on him, like it was keepin’ him from somethin’ else. I figgered he was workin’ on your friends.”
“Nothing that bothered you about that?” Ryder challenged him. “I mean, since you pretend to be the law?”
“The only law we got in Texas now is what the Yanks tell us to do. Try livin’ with your world turned upside down, see how you like it.”
“Race is that important to you?”
“What else is there?” Travis countered.
“Did you ever own a slave, before the war?”
“Couldn’t afford none. Didn’t have no land, neither.”
“But you’re still working for the rich men. They still pull your strings.”
“No poor man ever paid my salary.”
“Which lets them tell you what to think.”
“I think, okay? I know my place. If I ain’t better’n a nigger, then what am I?”
Ryder dropped the hopeless line of argument. Some people were too stupid to be helped. Instead, he asked, “What’s next? Are you supposed to knock? Give out some kind of signal?”
“Just walk in,” said Travis. “After that …” He let it trail away and shrugged.
“They know you’re coming with me?”
“How’n hell do I know? I can’t even tell you who all’s in there.”
“You’re about to find out,” Ryder cautioned him.
“Still don’t know what you need me for.”
“Coker used you for bait, Sheriff. In fishing, bait gets eaten.”
“You’re supposed to be a lawman, too, ain’tcha?
“I’m playing by your rules. They don’t seem fair to you, you should’ve thought about it earlier.”
Travis stood at the door, his shoulders slumping more than usual. He reached out for the doorknob, wrapped his hand around it, then turned back toward Ryder.
“Whatever we find in there, I had nothin’ to do with hurtin’ either one of ’em.”
“You didn’t stop it,” Ryder said. “You swore an oath and broke it. You’re as guilty as the rest of them.”
Instead of arguing the point, Travis turned back to face the door. The knob, unlocked, turned in his hand. He pushed it open on to darkness and went in.
*
It’s been a long time since he left,” said Anna. “Do you think he’s gone?”
“I doubt it,” Abel answered. “And it hasn’t been that long.”
“Are you having any luck?”
“Not yet.”
Since Coker left, the two of them had worked on loosening the rawhide thongs that bound their wrists. Anna could feel the leather chafing at her skin, abrading it, and wondered whether she was bleeding yet. She didn’t think so, but her hands were nearly numb, her wrists too sore to know for sure.
“You don’t think … maybe … Gideon?” She was unable to articulate her hope, knowing it sounded desperate.
“Don’t count on it,” her brother said. “Don’t count on him.”
“He’s helped us both. He’s helped you twice.”
“Because it fit in with the job he’s doing. Don’t set too much store by him.”
“I’m not.” And yet, her cheeks were flaming.
“I’m just saying—”
“Ssshhh! Somebody’s coming!”
It was Coker, stepping through the door with a revolver in his hand. At first, Anna imagined he had come to kill them, contradicting what he’d said before about requiring information. But he kept the weapon’s muzzle pointed toward the floor, regarding them with an expression close to curiosity.
“We are expecting visitors,” he said. “A visitor at least. A friend of yours, I think.”
Anna could feel her pulse quicken. Ryder! She tried to keep her face blank, give nothing away.
“No ‘hallelujah’?” Coker asked. “Not even smiles?”
“We don’t know who or what you mean,” Abel replied.
“Don’t you? Ah, well, perhaps not. You will have a chance to meet him, though. Or, at the very least, to view his corpse.”
A sob caught in her throat on hearing that, but Anna tried to swallow it. She couldn’t tell if Coker noticed, since he seemed distracted.
“As it turns out,” he went on, “this should work perfectly. Killing the pair of you, no matter what the means, might not arouse our heroes at the garrison. A Secret Service agent, on the other hand … well, that should send a ripple all the way to Washington.”
“You’re not making sense,” Abel told him.
“Oh, no? What do you think will happen when the bluebellies are ordered to retaliate for Agent Ryder’s death? Do you believe their captain will be able to control them? Think about the black troops, in particular.
I personally think they will behave exactly like the savages they are.”
“You have some gall!” Anna replied. “There’s nothing in the world more savage than a lynch mob.”
“That depends upon the cause, wouldn’t you say? Threats to a decent woman’s honor, or her very life, bring out the rage in white men, I’ll admit. They rise to the occasion in defense of hearth and home. In fact, I’m counting on it.”
“So, you’re what? Expecting a rebellion here, against the Union?” Abel asked him. “I’d have thought you would have learned your lesson from the war.”
“Oh, yes, I learned a lesson,” Coker said. “This time, I won’t be trusting any outsiders, whether they come from North or South. A new Texas Republic’s what we need, and we shall have it. Mark my words!”
With that, he turned and left, slamming the door behind him. Anna listened to his footsteps fading in the corridor outside, then said, “He’s lost his mind.”
“All the more reason to get out of here,” her brother said, “if we can find a way.”
*
Harlan Travis had started to tremble and hoped that the Yank with the gun at his back couldn’t see it. Ashamed of himself for his fear, he still couldn’t control it. Worse yet was the thought that Roy Coker had meant this to happen, had used him as bait, and would not miss him much if he died.
“You know—” he said, then swallowed it when Ryder poked him with the Henry’s muzzle from behind.
“No talking!” Ryder hissed.
Against his better judgment, Travis stopped and turned to face his captor, stopping when he’d made three-quarters of the turn and found the rifle jammed beneath his flabby jawline, hurting him.
“You tired of living, Sheriff?”
Whispering, he told the Yankee, “Listen! Kill me if you wanna, but you need to know I wasn’t in on Coker snatchin’ them two what you’re lookin’ for.”
“So what? You covered for him.”
Travis nodded, best he could, the Henry gouging him. “Tha’s true enough.”
“I’m not your priest, and this is no time for confession.”
“I can help you, though.”
“You’re helping now. Shut up and move.”
“I likely know the boys he’s got here, waitin’ for you. I can try’n talk ’em out of it.”
“Are you their boss, or Coker?”
“He is. But I’m still the law in Jefferson.”
The smile that Ryder gave him back was harrowing. “All right,” he said. “Go on, then.”
“Gimme back my gun?”
“How stupid do you think I am?”
Travis managed a shrug without shuddering. “Okay, then. But if they start shootin’—”
“At the law?” said Ryder, mocking him.
“Awright, then. Have it your way.”
Travis turned back to the hallway, doors shut tight on either side. Ahead of him, if he kept going straight, he’d wind up in the dry-goods store and visible to anybody passing on the street outside. The hostages weren’t there, as he’d already seen. That left the basement or the second floor, both served by stairs located thirty feet or so in front of him. One flight, serving the upper story, was located to his left and quickly accessed from the shop. The other, going down, was hidden by the third door on his right.
“Hey, boys!” he called out in a shaky voice. “It’s me, the sheriff! Listen up! There’s been a change of plans.”
No answer from the silent floor above him, though he thought he heard a floorboard creak up there. Somebody moving, or the building’s normal settling noise?
“This thing has gone too far,” he told the silence. “We’re just buyin’ trouble that we can’t afford. I’m takin’ the two carpetbaggers outta here, and you’d be wise to stand aside.”
He’d reached the point where it was time to make a choice. Stairs to his left, door to his right that opened on the basement. Even guessing where the captives were, he couldn’t leave Roy’s shooters at his back. He had to calm them first, persuade them to forget their orders and cooperate.
Travis turned left, to face the stairs, and peered up into murky shadows on the second floor. “I know you’re up there,” he advised. “You best come down now, with your hands where I can see ’em.”
“Go to hell,” a gruff voice answered from above. He saw a shadow shift up there, and then a blinding muzzle flash, before a storm of buckshot ripped into his chest.
*
The sheriff died with a surprised expression on his face. Instead of rushing to him, Ryder waited, standing well back from the staircase, Henry at his shoulder and his index finger on its trigger. Overhead, a muffled conversation reached his ears.
“You get him?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“What about the Yank?”
“Don’t see nobody else.”
“Well, get down there and look!”
“Why me?”
“’Cause I said so!”
Chain of command, thought Ryder. It might work to his advantage, yet.
He stood and listened, heard footsteps slowly descending toward the ground floor. That would be the fellow with the shotgun, one barrel still primed and ready to release a spray of lead. Fair fighting didn’t enter into it from this point on. His focus was survival and attempting to retrieve the Butlers from captivity.
A pair of boots came into view, their owner edging down the stairs until his legs and rump were visible, and then the rest of him. He held the sawed-off shotgun at his waist, still pointed toward the sheriff’s ventilated corpse. When Ryder shot him in the back, his finger clenched around the weapon’s second trigger and another blast of buckshot ripped into the lawman, who was long past feeling it.
The shooter toppled forward, plunging headfirst down the staircase. When he hit, his neck snapped. It would be a toss-up whether Ryder or the fall had killed him, and it didn’t matter, either way.
One down. How many left to go?
A voice called down from overhead. “Orville? You hear me?”
“No more Orville,” Ryder answered back.
“Goddamn you!”
“If you want what he got, come ahead.”
“Don’t think we won’t,” the angry voice replied, but no one started down the stairs.
“I haven’t got all night,” Ryder advised his unseen enemy. “I need to grab your boss before he slips away and leaves you with the short end of the stick. Time now for you to make a choice.”
“What choice is that?”
“Whether you want to live or die.”
“Big talk for one man on his own!”
A lamp hung from the wall beside him, giving Ryder an idea. “Throw down your guns right now, and come down showing empty hands, I’ll let you walk away. You want to fight, I’ll burn the place and leave you to it. See if you get roasted.”
“I believe you’re bluffing,” came the answer, but the speaker didn’t sound convinced.
“So, call me on it.”
Raspy whispering upstairs, and then the same voice said, “Awright, we’s comin’ down.”
“Guns first!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
A pistol sailed through space and clattered near the bodies huddled at the bottom of the staircase. It was followed by two more, one striking Travis in his lifeless upturned face and gouging flesh.
“That’s all of ’em,” the mouthpiece said. “Don’t shoot, now. We’s unarmed.”
Ryder stayed silent, rifle angled toward the stairs, and waited. Three men were descending, single file, hands down against their sides and hidden from him. When they’d nearly reached the bottom, they began to turn, half-hidden weapons rising, swinging in his general direction.
Ryder shot them each in turn, one round each from the Henry, rapid-firing with no need to aim at such close range. They fell together, dead or dying, in a heap beside their fallen friend and Harlan Travis, leaking blood and bile into the floorboards there.
He listened for a w
hile, heard nothing more upstairs, and struck a match to light the hanging lamp before he took it down. Another moment, and he had the basement access door standing ajar, shouting downstairs.
“Anna? Abel?”
A muted sound came back to him, muffled by walls and doors.
Unhappy with his options, Ryder started down into the dark.
20
He found the Butlers in a dirt-floored room, behind a padlocked door. The lock was cheap and shattered at the first shot from his Henry rifle, loud in Ryder’s ears below ground, with the whole weight of the world on top of them.
They sat together, up against a wall, hands tied behind their backs with rawhide thongs. Ryder unsheathed his Bowie, cut them free, helped Anna to her feet while Abel got up on his own. He noticed Abel wince a little, pressing one hand to his ribs.
“Are you all right?”
“I will be,” Abel answered, “once we’re out of here and far away from Jefferson.”
“Get moving, then,” Ryder advised. “You think it’s safe to stop at home and pack your things?”
“Should be,” said Abel. “Coker’s people won’t expect us there.”
“A few more minutes, and they won’t expect you anywhere.”
“What’s that mean?” Anna asked him.
“Never mind. Go on, now. And at least consider going home. I mean your real home.”
“Thank you,” Abel said, shaking his hand, then starting for the stairs. “Anna?”
“A minute.” She stepped close to Ryder, one hand on his arm. “Won’t you come with us?”
“Sorry,” he replied. “I still have work to do.”
“Can’t you just leave it?”
“That’s not how it goes.”
She rose on tiptoes, startled Ryder with a warm kiss on the lips, then turned and fled, trailing her brother up the stairs and out of sight. He gave them a head start, then followed, pausing on the ground floor near the heap of corpses. There, he pitched his lantern at the nearest wall and watched it shatter, streams of flaming kerosene igniting wallpaper, woodwork, the stairway’s narrow strip of carpeting.
How long before the whole place was ablaze, flames threatening its neighbors? It was built of wood, dried out by Texas heat and a relentless sun. The walls and floors were little more than tinder, ripe for burning. If a breeze came up, he thought the fire might spread to take out half the street and make a nice distraction for him as he went about his business.