Blood and Bullets

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “You would do this? Even though you say you wear badges on this side of the border?”

  There was a hurried and somewhat heated exchange of words from those over in the hotel. Firestick wasn’t able to catch everything that was said, but it was evident the gunrunners were protesting against Estarde striking any kind of deal for the rifles.

  When things quieted down, the colonel called again. “Were I not a man of my word, amigo, I might find your offer quite appealing. Unfortunately, a man must be able to live with himself or not be able to call himself a man at all, eh? Therefore, the deal I made first with these hombres over here I must honor. I cannot simply turn them over to you for the guns.”

  Firestick heard himself chuckle harshly. “I’d’ve been surprised and disappointed in you if you did, Colonel. I’d’ve still done the deal, mind you, but it would have been with some regret.”

  “You make less and less sense, amigo. But it matters not. The time for talking is through. I must have those rifles!”

  “You’d better hope the time for talkin’ ain’t through, and you’d better listen tight or those guns are gonna go up in a puff of smoke. You push me, I guarantee we can hold off your bunch long enough for this building to become an inferno you’ll never pull anything worthwhile out of.”

  “What more is there to say?”

  “I got one more offer—a way we can work this out and both walk away with our honor intact. You need to listen and make up your mind pronto. It’s gettin’ darker right along and pretty soon it’ll be easy for some of you from over there to slip across the street and flank us. I won’t wait for that to happen. The torches will hit this building long before it does.”

  “Say your piece. What is your new offer?”

  Firestick glanced around at Moosejaw, Kate, and Cleo. Then he turned back to the window and said, “It’s real simple. The guns those runners claim to have for sale are over here. All they have to do is come get ’em. Me and my pal will meet ’em out in the street. Four on two. They get past us, they bring you the guns and you complete the deal you agreed to. We stop ’em, you no longer have any obligation to dead men. We ride away with the women we came after; you ride away with the guns you came after. You got five minutes to make up your mind.”

  * * *

  Inside the old hotel, Vic Mason was enraged. “You don’t need five minutes; you don’t need five stinkin’ seconds,” he said, thrusting his purpled face close to that of Estarde’s. “Tell him to go to hell! He’s in no position to bargain.”

  Estarde regarded him calmly. “He has the guns. He is completely in a position to bargain.”

  “He’s bluffing! He won’t torch that building. If he tries, we’ll rush him. No matter what he says, the store ain’t gonna go up in flames that fast.”

  “You have not seen this man shoot. I have. We try rushing him, he will cut down half our number or more before they ever make it across the street.”

  Fleming, who had been seething silently on the periphery of things for several minutes, could hold back no longer. “See, Vic?” he said, pushing forward. “I tried to warn you all along that you can’t trust this greaser trash. First whiff of trouble, he’s trying to sell you down the river. Hell, this so-called colonel and his ‘amigo’ across the street are probably in cahoots right down the line, have been all along. Are you too blind to see it?”

  Estarde smiled. “Señor Mason, you may thank your friend Fleming for helping me to make up my mind. And then you may thank me for helping you to get rid of the poison within your ranks.” At a very subtle signal from the colonel, one of the rebel soldiers standing behind Fleming glided up closer. The soldier’s machete flashed dimly in the faded light and a thin arc of blood spurted up both in reality and in stark shadow.

  CHAPTER 54

  “You have your deal, amigo. You and your friend come out onto the street. We will send the gunrunners—now only three in number—to meet you.”

  Firestick released a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. Looking around, his eyes fell first on Moosejaw. A corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Kinda late to be askin’, I reckon, but you up for this?”

  Moosejaw grunted. “If you really needed to ask, you’d have done it before now. Hell yeah, let’s go clear the street and then get headed home.”

  Kate rushed into Firestick’s arms. “Is there no other way?”

  Firestick pressed her to him for a long moment, then held her back at arm’s length. “You heard me lay out the options. This is our best chance. You also heard me and Estarde mention how you women might be treated. If neither Moosejaw nor me make it, you need to consider that.”

  Kate shook her head fiercely. “I won’t contemplate such a thing. You will make it, and we will leave here together.”

  Suddenly Josh Stallworth was on his feet and crowded up close. “I’m goin’ out there with you, Marshal. The only way you can stop me is to shoot me.”

  “Don’t tempt me. You’re the reason—”

  “I know. That’s why I’ve got to go. To hit a lick for the right side, to try and square at least a smidgen of what I helped mess up so bad.”

  “Let him come. We ain’t got time to argue,” said Moosejaw.

  Firestick made an indifferent gesture and turned to the door.

  Cleo came over and handed Josh his pistol. “Try not to get yourself killed,” she said, gazing up at him. “You’re lonely and you have some wrongheaded notions . . . but I’ll always remember you saw me as an angel. Even though I’m anything but.”

  “That’s the only thing I’ve ever seen when I look at you, Miss Cleo. From the first second I laid eyes on you.”

  * * *

  Out in the street, the grotesque shadows thrown by the old buildings on all sides had pooled into patches of almost impenetrable darkness. But there was still enough gray half light to see sufficiently for what had to be done.

  Firestick, Moosejaw, and Josh exited the old store and fanned out along the edge of the street.

  A soft breeze had come with dusk, stirring the dust faintly, nudging some of the tumbleweeds so they shivered and rocked back and forth a bit.

  Mason, Lefty, and Beaudine came down the steps of the hotel.

  “Which one of you lowlifes killed my friend Charlie?” Josh demanded abruptly.

  Beaudine swallowed. “I guess it was me. I didn’t know if I kilt him or not. He’s the first fella I ever straight up shot.”

  “I aim to make him your last,” said Josh.

  A single clocktick of time rolled by slowly.

  And then it all broke loose. It started with young Beaudine, caving under the pressure of Josh’s glare. The young man was fast, faster than Josh, and the bullet streaking from his gun hit its target square in the middle of the chest. Josh’s torso jolted but he didn’t go down, didn’t even back up a step. And then his own gun was talking and it was shouting out revenge for his best friend. One slug and then another tore into Beaudine’s spare frame. He jerked sideways, staggering, and his knees started to buckle. He squeezed off two more shots as he went down. One went high, the other pounded into Josh’s chest. This time the cowboy was knocked backward and down but he, too, got off a final shot that drilled the final gasp of life out of Beaudine.

  While that exchange was taking place, Mason drew on Firestick. He never came close. His gun failed to clear leather before the marshal’s first slug punched through his guts and the next, a split second later, hammered his teeth out the back of his head.

  Firing his Winchester from the hip, Moosejaw cut down Lefty also without him ever getting off a shot. Three rapid-fire rounds slammed in a tight pattern to the outlaw’s chest, lifting him up on his toes and driving him backward until he collapsed on the hotel steps with his arms flung wide.

  It was over in a matter of seconds.

  The pools of shadow filling the street grew darker; only now, within them, were spreading patterns of scarlet.

  CHAPTER 55

  Two days later, they
arrived back in Buffalo Peak.

  A couple of wranglers from one of the outlying ranches spotted them on the way in and carried word ahead to the town. By the time Firestick, Moosejaw, Kate, and Cleo reached the outskirts, there was quite a throng waiting to welcome them.

  Prominent among the greeters was Daisy, who wasted no time in literally dragging Moosejaw down out of his saddle so she could shower him with hugs and kisses until his face glowed as bright a red as one of the hot coals from her forge. Not far behind was Beartooth, ready with hearty handshakes and claps to the backs of his old friends and a chaste embrace for Kate. He and his posse had gotten similar treatment only the day before when they returned from running down the bank robbers.

  A jubilant Victoria was present, too, having remained in town, staying at Kate’s hotel until some kind of word was received on the fate of the abducted women. And Kate’s loyal friends and employees—headed by a joyful Big Thomas Rivers and sobbing Marilu, who had kept the Mallory House running smoothly during her absence—were there, as well.

  It was well into evening before the crowd of well-wishers thinned out and only a remaining handful retired to the Mallory House barroom to cap things off. By that point, the accounts of the abducted gals and their pursuers as well as details of the bank robbery and the successful rundown of the perpetrators had been exchanged and re-told a number of times. Oberon Hadley was among those gathered in the barroom, though it was revealed that he would be leaving the following day to accompany Rupert Shaw’s body on its return to England.

  In the end, during the ride back from the Viejas, the big Englishman’s rage and disappointment in his former captain had subsided. He had asked the other posse members that the exact details of Shaw’s cowardice and how he died be altered for the sake of his family and the proud Shaw legacy. “There’s nothing to be gained by revealing the truth—only shame and deepened sorrow for his survivors. Let us merely say he stopped a bullet during the attempted rescue and retrieval of him and the bank money. Let him face eternity as the hero of Baba Wali Pass. A greater power will have the final say on his soul.” The other posse members agreed to honor this request, and that’s how it was told when they got back to town and how it was discussed still that evening there at the gathering.

  Later, Beartooth would get around to telling Firestick and Moosejaw the truth; the bond between the three of them never allowed for anything less. In the telling, Beartooth would also speak of another bond, the rather unexpected one that had developed between him and Hadley. He genuinely hated to see the big Englishman go, yet his sense of Hadley’s appreciation for the Western frontier and the American spirit left him with a strong hunch they just might be seeing him return one day.

  All during the initial greeting in the street and then the smaller gathering that made its way to the Mallory House, Cleo had basically floated on the periphery of the talk and well wishes—uncomfortable looking, small and sad and mostly silent, an ill fit to the proceedings. Frenchy Fontaine and Earl Sterling had welcomed her and embraced her, but then had faded back into the earlier throng and were no part of the group that eventually ended up at the Mallory House.

  After a while, with the others hardly noticing her and darkness descending in the street outside, she slipped away from the barroom and started to leave the hotel. But as she was getting ready to step down off the boardwalk out front, a voice stopped her.

  “Where are you going?”

  Cleo turned to see Kate coming out behind her.

  “I’m tired,” Cleo said softly. “I . . . I thought I’d go on home.”

  “Home?”

  Cleo gestured feebly toward the Lone Star Palace a short ways up the street. “The only place I got.”

  Kate frowned. “Is that how you want it to be?”

  “Ain’t a matter of want, Miss Kate,” Cleo said with a somewhat bitter smile. “That’s just the way it is.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be.”

  “I’m afraid you’re wrong. It’s where I belong. I surely didn’t belong in there”—she jabbed a finger toward the hotel behind Kate—“with you and your friends. Oh sure, everybody was polite and they all made sure not to say anything to offend me. But I could feel it every second. The message was clear. Every single person there was uncomfortable rubbing elbows with nothing but a dirty little who—” Cleo stopped short, checked herself from completing the word. And it wasn’t because of anything Kate said or did or the way she was looking at her. It was because of a voice suddenly streaking through her head. Josh’s voice, saying, “Stop it! Don’t call yourself that no more. You’re better than that!”

  A strange smile spread across Kate’s face. “He made you believe, didn’t he?” she said softly.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Josh. He convinced you that you were better than that. That you didn’t have to be what you’d always been.”

  “Josh was crazy.”

  “Maybe. A little. But sometimes a little bit of craziness is what’s needed to give us a kick in the bustle in order to keep us from being stuck in a rut. Being taken by Josh and Charlie proved to both of us that we are strong, smart, spirited women who are more durable than we might otherwise have ever thought. I know this because of what I felt in myself and what I saw in you. Neither of us ever gave up, ever lost hope.”

  “It was easier for you. You knew Firestick would be coming for you.”

  “And you knew—or should have—that also meant he would be coming for you, too. But, in the meantime, you also realized . . . I know you did, I saw it in your eyes . . . that Josh was willing to lay down his life before letting any harm befall you.”

  “He did . . . lay down his life,” Cleo said quietly.

  “Yes. And do you think he did that so you could return to the Lone Star Palace?”

  Suddenly Cleo fell into the older woman’s arms and began sobbing raggedly. “I don’t want to go back. I want to be something better. Like Josh believed I could. I know I can’t be the angel he saw, but I want to try.”

  “If you really mean that and are willing to work hard,” said Kate, “I’ll find you a job here. It may only be maid service or kitchen help at first, but you’re bright. I can see you learning the reception desk, maybe do some bartending. It won’t pay a lot, but it will come with your own room and some of the best food in town out of Marilu’s kitchen.”

  “That sounds like heaven,” Cleo replied. Then, giving a little laugh through her sobs, she added, “Maybe I can come closer to being an angel than I thought.”

  “Just keep that in mind when some of your early jobs are apt to include mopping and cleaning spittoons,” Kate told her.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve done worse,” said Cleo. Then, abruptly, her body went rigid and she jerked partly away from Kate. “But what about my reputation, my past?” she gasped. “Folks all around town are gonna know. They’ll talk and gossip . . . you know they will. Will that hurt your business? And what if some randy, half-drunk cowboys show up in town and won’t want to believe I’ve changed my ways?”

  “How about lettin’ me worry about that?” said a new voice.

  The women turned to watch Firestick ghost out of the shadows off to one side of the hotel’s front door. “Excuse me for eavesdroppin’ a bit, ladies. I came out to see where you two had slipped off to and stopped to listen a minute.

  “I liked everything I heard except that last business about your worries, Cleo. First off, I think you’ll find folks around town are more reasonable and forgivin’ than you might expect. Second, any hardheads who ain’t inclined toward such . . . well, me and my deputies, along with Big Thomas who looks after things around the Mallory House mighty tight, will see to it their attitudes get straightened out right quick.”

  Cleo wiped away a tear and regarded him with a lopsided grin. “I thought you were tired of cleaning up the trouble I seem to always end up in the middle of?”

  Firestick grunted. “Who says I ain’t? But I’ve found out th
at when a body gets to be a certain age—and I ain’t sayin’ I’m old, mind you—you recognize you’re stuck with certain habits. Some of ’em ain’t especially good or even reasonable, but like I said, you might as well admit you’re stuck with ’em. It’s beginnin’ to appear like you and your troubles have fallen in that category for me—especially if you’re gonna be hangin’ around Kate and the Mallory House from now on.”

  “That doesn’t seem so unfair,” said Kate. “After all, you’ve gotten to be a habit with me . . . and look at all the blasted trouble you keep throwing yourself at.”

  Firestick looked like he was going to try and defend himself. But then he changed his mind and instead spread his hands in a what-are-you-gonna-do gesture, saying, “You got me. Guilty as charged.”

  * * *

  Six months later, ahead of winter’s heavy snows, Cleo had saved up enough money to hire a pair of men with a buckboard to return to Bright Rock and dig up the remains of Josh and Charlie that had been buried there. She gave specific directions to make sure the right bodies were retrieved.

  Back in Buffalo Peak, she had them re-interred in the town cemetery. She arranged stone markers for each.

  Charlie’s read: Charlie Gannon—A Schemer and a Dreamer; He Died Bravely.

  Josh’s read: Josh Stallworth—A Kindhearted Soul; May He Rest in the Arms of Angels.

  Turn the page for a special excerpt!

  William W. Johnstone

  with J.A. Johnstone

  THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

  A STONEFACE FINNEGAN WESTERN

  As a Pinkerton agent, Stoneface Finnegan faced the deadliest killers in the West.

  But now that he runs a saloon, he serves them hard liquor—with a shot of harder justice . . .