by Jake Henry
‘Why, that’s right generous of you,’ said Beck. ‘You’ll find the corral around the back.’
Savage and the kid took their horses out to the corral under the watchful eye of the outlaw boss.
‘Watch them,’ he said to Milo.
When they arrived at the corral, Savage asked, ‘You know that feller?’
Hanson nodded. ‘His name’s Greg Beck. Outlaw son of a bitch.’
Savage smiled faintly. ‘You sure.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure.’
‘What do you figure they’re up to?’
Hanson shrugged.
Savage took the saddle off the roan and sat it on the top rail of the corral fence. He let the horse in through the gate where it could mingle with the few there. That was when he saw the second thing that set his nerves on edge.
‘Hey, kid. You notice anything strange about these horses?’
Hanson was about to growl at the Drifter for calling him kid but stopped when he saw what Savage saw.
‘They’ve got U.S. Army brands on them.’
‘Exactly. You see any such people around here?’
‘They could be inside.’
‘Maybe, but I doubt it.’
The kid gave Savage a serious look. Gone was the disdain that the Drifter saw every time Hanson stared at him. ‘What do you want to do?’
Savage shrugged. ‘Ride the trail and see where it leads. That Denver feller, he looked pretty nervous to me.’
The kid nodded. ‘He’s usually more chipper than what he was before.’
‘You know him then?’
‘We’ve been through here on the odd occasion.’
‘Uh huh. C’mon, let’s go have something to eat. I’m starving.’
Savage left the saddle over the top rail and took his Yellow boy and saddlebags with him.
Savage sipped his drink and placed the half-full glass on the table with a clunk. Looking from beneath the brim of his pulled down hat, he studied the men in the room with practiced eyes. Every one of them was a killer, that was easily seen, and the way they treated Denver left a lot to be desired. They didn’t even try to conceal their meanness.
The one he knew as Milo stood at the long, hardwood bar while the other two sat at a corner table.
Denver crossed the room to where Savage and the kid sat and placed a plate of stew in front of each of them. It was thick with gravy and lean on meat.
The kid looked at his plate and pulled a face. ‘Shit, Savage, maybe we should leave a cow or two here when we pass through, for the next poor bastard who gets a plate of whatever the hell this is.’
The Drifter glared across the table at Hanson.
The kid frowned and mouthed, ‘What?’
‘Did I hear your name is Savage?’ Beck asked from where he sat at a nearby table, drinking whiskey.
The Drifter stiffened and glanced at the Yellow Boy leaning against the table at his elbow. On his lap under the table was the Remington. If anything was to happen, this would be the weapon he’d go for.
Savage forked some stew into his mouth and turned his head to the left. Beck was still looking at him, expecting an answer.
‘Could be,’ Savage said.
‘The same feller who went on that revenge ride that every second feller is talking about? Killed all those men who did for your wife? How many was it? Twelve? Fifteen?’
Savage shook his head and said in a quiet tone, ‘It weren’t that many.’
A forkful of stew stopped halfway to Hanson’s mouth. ‘Shit, I heard of you. I sure as heck didn’t know it was you though. Damn.’
The Drifter went back to eating.
‘So, you fellers bringing a herd through, are you?’ Beck asked.
Savage nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Where you taking it? Denver? Cheyenne?’
Hanson opened his mouth to speak when Savage cut him off. ‘Cheyenne.’
The kid stared at him for a moment and went back to his stew.
‘How many head you got?’
‘Couple of thousand.’
The Drifter could almost hear Beck’s mind tick over as he was calculating the toll.
‘How much is it going to cost us to take the herd through?’ Savage asked.
‘Dollar a head,’ Beck answered.
Two-thousand dollars, Savage thought. It was more than they had. ‘I was told it would cost around five cents.’
Beck shrugged. ‘Price increase.’
Anger was bubbling just below the surface for the kid, and Savage could see it. He said, ‘How’s the stew, kid? Fills a hole, huh?’
Hanson’s eyes flashed and then settled on Savage. ‘Yeah.’
‘When do you expect you’ll be bringing the cows through?’ Beck asked.
‘In a about a week or so,’ Savage said. ‘Although I think we might have to go around now.’
Beck’s face hardened. ‘Why?’
There was noise from outside.
‘That’ll be the Santa Fe stage,’ said Denver. ‘It’s running a little late.’
Beck scowled at him for interrupting.
‘I’ll go see to it. They’ll need a change of horses.’
‘Take Milo with you to give you a hand.’
Denver opened his mouth to say something, but snapped it shut when he changed his mind.
Savage watched both men leave the room and had a feeling that things were about to get worse than they already were.
Beck turned his attention back to Savage. ‘Now, where were we?’
Savage ignored him and kept eating.
‘That’s right, you were about to tell me why you were going to take the long way around.’
‘No, I wasn’t.’
Beck sat up straight, a cold glint in his eye. ‘Yes, you were.’
The Drifter rested his fork on his plate and stared at the outlaw. He breathed out slowly, his right hand already resting on the Remington.
‘Well?’ asked Beck.
The hammer snicked back.
The tension could be cut with a knife.
Savage took a deep breath and started to move the six-gun when gunshots sounded from outside.
Beck lurched to his feet and rushed toward the door with the others. When they’d disappeared, the Drifter climbed to his feet and the kid watched him as he slid the Remington back into his holster.
‘You’re a careful man I see,’ Hanson said.
‘Same as you.’
Hanson raised his own six-gun from under the table. ‘How …?’
‘I heard the hammer going back. Come on, let’s get out there and see what has happened.’
Savage picked up the Yellow Boy and headed outside.
As soon as Savage hit the veranda, he took in the scene before him that was bathed in the orange glow of sunset.
A man stood beside the stage, arms up, hands held at shoulder height. The outlaw, Milo, stood with his six-gun trained on him. Savage guessed him to be the driver. He was a rail-thin man with a bushy mustache and unkempt, graying hair. His clothes were covered in dust.
Around ten yards from him lay another man. Most likely the shotgun guard. The Drifter guessed he was dead as he was unmoving.
The kid murmured, ‘This don’t look good.’
Ignoring him, Savage studied the other passengers. There were four of them. Three men and a woman. The latter had her head buried in the shoulder of a man maybe half a head taller than she was, as he consoled her.
The other two men showed the strain of the situation etched in their faces.
‘There was no need to shoot him, you son of a bitch!’
Savage’s eyes snapped back to the driver.
‘He shouldn’t have tried to shoot me with that scattergun of his,’ Milo said.
‘He wasn’t nowhere near it. You shot him down cold. And all because we wouldn’t pay ten dollars for the lousy toll. Ten dollars! You killed him for a lousy ten dollars.’
‘Everybody inside,’ Beck snarled. ‘Milo, get the stage arou
nd the back while I figure out what we’re going to do.’
Beck shifted his gaze back to Savage. ‘That means you two as well.’
The Drifter sensed rather than saw the tension come back to the kid’s body.
He said out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Leave it, kid. They’ll get theirs. Just not yet. I want to find out what their game is.’
They followed the others inside and found Milo and Beck in deep discussion. The outlaws stopped when they saw Savage and the kid come through the door.
‘What do you figure that’s about?’ Hanson asked.
A look of grim determination came over the outlaws’ faces, and they moved to close the gap between themselves, Hanson and Savage.
It was highly probable that nothing would happen, but when Milo dropped his hand to his gun butt, it was enough for Savage.
The Yellow Boy in his grasp swept up and roared. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space and it rocked the room. The .44 Henry slug slammed into Milo’s chest and kicked him back. He staggered and dropped to the floor, a scarlet blossom on his shirt growing larger as life-giving blood flowed freely.
Savage’s sudden movement and the subsequent violence of it all took everyone by surprise. So much so that the Drifter had already jacked another round into the Winchester’s chamber before they even thought to react.
By then it was too late.
‘What the hell?’ Beck snarled. ‘Christ, what did you do that for?’
The Yellow Boy centered on the outlaw’s chest. Savage said, ‘Just getting in first.’
‘Dude, that was fast,’ there was awe in the kid’s voice. ‘But what happened to wait and see?’
‘Keep the others covered,’ Savage ordered. ‘The rest of you assholes, drop your gun belts before you join your friend on the floor.’
The mask of hatred on Beck’s face stood out like a beacon. ‘You’re a dead man, Savage.’
‘Shut up and do as you’re told.’
Three, gun belts thudded to the floor.
In the background, Savage could hear the woman’s sobs.
‘Denver?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Have the woman taken upstairs and then come back here.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Denver ushered the man and woman out the door to the stairway. Once they were gone, Savage said to the stage driver, ‘Get their guns.’
‘Yeah, right,’ he growled.
Beck clenched his jaw.
‘What’s your angle, Beck?’ Savage asked. ‘Why are you fellers here?’
‘We work for Denver,’ Beck lied.
A cold smile touched Savage’s lips. ‘And I’m the President’s butler. Cut the shit and try again.’
‘They work for Barnaby French.’
All eyes stared at Denver who’d returned.
‘Shut up, Denver,’ Beck grated.
But the toll man wouldn’t be silenced. ‘They were sent down from Cheyenne to get as much money as they could from all of those who passed through here. By any means necessary.’
‘I said shut the hell up, Denver.’
‘They killed an army detail yesterday and took the money they were carrying in their wagon.’
Beck snarled and started to lunge toward the toll man. He got two steps before the Winchester in Savage’s hands roared and the slug smashed into the outlaw’s leg just above the knee.
He gave a loud yelp and fell into a heap on the floor. He grabbed at the wound as it pumped blood between his fingers.
‘You damned bastard son of a bitch!’ Beck snarled. ‘I’ll frigging kill you!’
Savage’s voice was cold. ‘Not in this lifetime. I was fixing to let you all go. That was before. Instead, you’re going to hang.’
Beck snorted. ‘You got to get us to a town first.’
The Drifter shook his head. ‘You ain’t going to no town. You’ll hang right here in the morning. I saw a tree out the back that’ll do just fine for it.’
‘You can’t just hang all three of us without a trial.’
‘I’m not going to. I’m just going to hang you. Your friends can take their horses and deliver a message to French for me.’
It finally dawned on Beck that his life was forfeit. It had run its bloody and violent course. Now he would go out of this world, kicking and fouling himself at the end of a rope.
‘Shoot me.’
‘What?’
‘You ain’t going to hang me, Savage. Shoot me now.’
‘You’ll get what you deserve.’ Savage looked at Denver. ‘You got somewhere we can lock him up?’
The gatekeeper nodded. ‘I got me a nice cold-cellar the bastard can rot in.’
The Drifter nodded. ‘Kid, help Denver get him down there while I have a word to these other no-goods.’
‘Are you sure you just don’t want to shoot him?’ Hanson asked.
‘It sounds tempting, but I think a long drop is more appropriate.’
The kid nodded, and he and Denver got the wounded, protesting outlaw to his feet and carted him away.
Savage turned to face the other two. ‘Right, listen to me, and listen good. If I ever see any of you again, I’ll kill you. No second chances. Make sure you tell French what happened here and if he wants to look me up, he’ll find me in a new town called Dobson on the South Platte.’
They nodded.
‘Now, get your horses and get out of here.’
After they had gone, one of the stagecoach passengers, a man wearing a suit, asked, ‘You aren’t really going to hang that man tomorrow without a trial, are you?’
Savage looked at him, stone-faced. ‘Just as soon as the sun comes up.’
The tree had once been struck by lightning. A long, open scar ran down one side of the trunk where the bolt had laid it bare. The top half had been shattered, splintered. All that remained was a small peak with very little growth and one branch which stuck out to the left, thick and strong.
It was over this that the rope with the noose at the end of it was thrown. The loop hung in front of the outlaw’s face, a sign of his impending doom, as he sat astride a bay.
Savage reached up and put it over his head and brought the knot up firm.
‘You got any last words?’ the Drifter asked.
The hatred on Beck’s face was quite visible. ‘Frig you, you son of a bitch.’
‘Is that how you want to do it? Go out cursing and screaming.’
‘It ain’t your neck about to get stretched, is it? Asshole. You ain’t got no right to be doing this. You ain’t the law. You ain’t –’
His words were chopped off as the bay lurched forward and the outlaw became unseated. The noose took up any slack that was left and the strangulation commenced in a flail of kicking legs and jerks.
Savage stared into the smiling face of the kid and knew right away what had happened.
The kid shrugged. ‘I hope he was ready to go. I was kinda getting bored with all his yowling.’
Savage shook his head and turned away from the still-swinging body.
About an hour later, after the stage was gone, Savage had finished saddling the roan when he was approached by Denver.
‘Mr. Savage. I just wanted to thank you for everything that you’ve done for me.’
‘Think nothing of it. He was a bad man who needed killing. If it weren’t us that did it, the law would’ve.’
Denver nodded. ‘Still, once you get here with your herd you’ll have free passage over the pass.’
‘Much appreciated, Denver. We’ll see you in around a week. Probably be less by the time we get back to the herd if they’ve been moving all right.’
‘I’ll see you then.’
‘See you then.’
Dobson sat on a flat plain near the South Platte River which provided all the water required by the town.
The first thing Brit noticed when he rode into town, was the size of the stock pens. He figured they could hold at least ten-thousand more head than Cheyenne could. Th
e rail line was sited right alongside them, with five loading chutes so multiple railcars could be loaded at any one time.
The town itself seemed to shine against a backdrop of green. The new lumber used for all the false-fronted buildings along the main street, helped them stand out.
More construction was happening in the back blocks and a train loaded with freight had pulled into the siding and was being unloaded.
There were no cattle yet, but the abundance of people was evident.
Things were indeed moving fast. All indications were that whoever had set this all up, was expecting Texas herds to come. French wasn’t going to like this at all.
Brit eased his buckskin to a halt outside of one of the four saloons in town. It was called simply, The Watering Hole.
The paint on its large sign stood out in bright, bold letters. The front windows were large and when Brit pushed in through the batwing doors, he found them to be stiff.
Inside were maybe ten people. Three of those were working girls and one was the barkeep. Once the herds arrived, it would be a different story.
All the furniture was new, unmarked. The mirror behind the bar was clean and most of the bottles on the shelves were full. To the right side of the room was a long staircase that climbed to the second floor where the rooms were. From the ceiling hung a chandelier and on the papered walls were wall lamps. Come the end of the droving season, it would look different.
Brit bellied up to a long, hardwood bar. He looked sideways at the barkeep who remained where he was, polishing an already clean glass.
‘Whiskey,’ said the gunman.
The middle-aged barkeep looked up, gave him a disinterested glance, and went back to the glass.
Brit growled, ‘I know you ain’t deaf, bar slop. I asked you for a drink. Move your ass.’
Still nothing.
The six-gun from Brit’s holster leaped into his hand. The weapon roared, and the sound slammed against the walls. The glass in the barkeep's hand shattered and small, sharp splinters scythed through the air.
In shock, the barkeep looked at his empty, bleeding hand. His mouth agape, he looked up at Brit and numbly asked, ‘What the hell did you do that for?’