by Sam Clancy
‘He’s crazy, Pa,’ Hiram called almost hysterically to his father.
There was a pause in the conversation and Ford waited for something to happen. Instead, Charlie Dent shouted, ‘What’s your name, Marshal?’
‘Ford. Josh Ford.’
‘All right, Marshal Ford, you’ll get your horse.’
Ford nodded with satisfaction. ‘Hiram, get your murdering ass back in here.’
The rancher’s son returned to the relative safety of the gloomy store. ‘What now?’
Ford pointed to a barrel in the far corner. ‘Take a seat and don’t move.’
As he walked past the blue roan, the horse made to bite him, however, it stopped when Ford snapped, ‘You do and I’ll leave you here for the rest of the Dents to eat. They kinda strike me as people who’d like a good feed of horse, being inbred the way they are.’
The horse gave him an unhappy snort and let Hiram Dent be. Ford could see the horse was becoming even more cantankerous than normal and said, ‘It’s only until nightfall. Then we’ll get the hell out of here.’
They brought a horse to the hitch rail outside the store an hour later. It was a bay, and one look told Ford that Charlie Dent had picked the sorriest looking animal the town had to offer.
Across the street, they watched and waited for Ford to make his next move.
Eventually it was Hiram who broke the silence. ‘You ain’t going to make it out of here, Ford.’
‘You mean like those others who came before me?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Your pa going to tie me up in barbed wire like the last marshal he sent back? What was that, anyway? Why would you need barbed wire out in a swamp?’
Hiram nodded, a smirk on his face. ‘We got to keep the cows out somehow, besides, we ain’t in the swamp, just on the edge of it. Pa has cattle west of here.’
He paused and remembered the question. ‘It were a goodun, weren’t it? Except, Pa was telling the truth about that when he said he had nothing to do with it. That was me and brother Billy.’
Ahh yes, the other Dent brothers. ‘I gather your brothers weren’t in town today.’
Hiram shook his head. ‘Nope, they was all doing other things. They’re here now though. I seen them out there, just waiting to put a bullet in you.’
Ford leaned back in the timber chair he was sitting in, his Winchester across his lap.
‘Whose idea was it to tie the marshal up in the barbed wire? Yours? Your brother’s?’
A look of pride crossed Hiram’s face. ‘That was all mine, that one. The son of a bitch came sniffing around here looking to take me back to hang. I was in town with Billy when cousin Abel came and told me about it. The best part was, he’d gone and given the marshal a little love tap on his head and locked him up in his storeroom.’
‘Cousin Abel?’
‘Sure. He owns the drygoods store. He also happened to have some barbed wire there too. We killed him there, after we had a chat, of course, then we did the whole barbed wire thing. After that, we just turned his horse loose. We figured he’d go back home.’
‘What about the first marshal?’
‘Jake killed him. Actually, truth be known, Abel went to Jake first about the second marshal too before he came to us. Jake told him to get Billy and me to sort it out on account he was busy doing something else.’
‘Jake your brother too?’
‘Oldest.’
Ford’s mouth set in a thin line as he fought the urge to punch Hiram in the face. Eventually he asked, ‘Why the barbed wire?’
Hiram shrugged. ‘Figured it’d be a good warning. I guess they didn’t take any notice though, ’cause you turned up.’
There was a grim expression on Ford’s face as he stored the names away in his brain for a later date. Maybe pass them on to the rangers who might send in a company to clean out this nest of vipers.
‘I’m thinking that if Pa takes you alive, I might persuade him to send you back in pieces. Do you reckon Marshal Grimes will like that?’
Ford frowned. ‘How do you know Grimes?’
‘His son told me.’
Ford’s eyebrows shot up. ‘His son?’
Hiram’s laugh rang loud throughout the room. ‘Ha! Didn’t the old buzzard tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’
‘About his son, of course.’
Ford grew impatient and it showed. ‘Stop talking in damned riddles, Hiram.’
Hiram shook his head in bewilderment. ‘I’ll be. . . . He didn’t tell you. The feller we tied up with barbed wire and sent back. His name was Clay Grimes. He was the old bastard’s son.’
Ford’s mind reeled. Why hadn’t Grimes told him about it?
Hiram laughed again. ‘I can’t believe he sent you here and he didn’t tell you. Ha ha ha.’
‘They’ll be lucky if that horse makes it two miles before it drops dead on the trail.’
Looking up at the rail-thin man standing before the battered saloon table, Charlie Dent sat with a half-empty bottle of rye in front of him. Beside it was a full glass of the tea-brown liquid.
Most of the people in the Dent Saloon were either Dents, related to Dents, or worked for them. Even the balding barkeep was a Dent.
The saloon itself was in need of repair. A wall-panel here, a chair there, a balustrade on the stairs that led up to the landing, even the brass footrail along the base of the bar. But considering all of this, overall, it was rather well presented.
Charlie nodded and said, ‘Good boy, Mart. Once they’re out of town, it might be easier to kill that damned marshal.’
‘What about the dynamite?’
It was the question on the lips of every man gathered around the rancher. Charlie toyed with the full glass and then looked up at his son, Jake, who was the biggest of the boys and had sandy hair.
The others were there too. Billy, Cort, Gray, Joe and Mart.
‘Go home and get your Sharps, Jake,’ Charlie ordered. ‘After they leave here, we’ll trail them until morning. You can set up and take a shot once it’s daylight. Shouldn’t need more than one.’
‘All right, Pa.’
‘Why don’t you just let Jake shoot Hiram, Pa,’ said Gray. ‘He always said he wanted to go out with a bang.’
The other brothers chuckled at the comment. Not Charlie, however. He glared at his son and growled, ‘I shoulda punched your ma in the mouth the day you were born, boy. How a man could end up with such an idiot son is beyond me.’
Gray returned his father’s glare. ‘I guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, hey, Pa.’
Charlie Dent lurched from his chair. ‘I’ll wail that sass out of you, boy, if you don’t watch that mouth of yours.’
All of those who stood close to Gray, stepped away from the broad-shouldered young man; except for Cort.
‘Ease up, Pa,’ he said in his customary drawl.
‘What did you say, boy?’
‘I said, ease up.’
‘Just ’cause you been away for the past two years, Cort, don’t mean you can come back here and tell your pa what to do.’
Cort had been back in Dent for a week now, and as far as the Dent brothers went, he was the furthermost apple to fall from the so-called Dent tree.
In his late twenties, he wasn’t tall as such, just a shade over six feet. He was, however, solidly built with powerful shoulders. His jaw was square, his hair black. About his hips he wore a gunbelt with holster tied low. In it was a Peacemaker .45 with walnut grips, polished from a lot of use.
No one knew, or cared, where he’d blown in from. He wasn’t there and then he was. His father’s reaction to his reappearance was a simple, I see you’re back.
‘You’re digging more trouble than you can re-bury, Pa, going up against a United States Marshal.’
‘Who asked you?’ Charlie snapped.
A chuckle from Joe was followed by, ‘A badge didn’t much matter about the last two who came to Dent. Did it, Billy?’
&
nbsp; A cold smile settled on Billy’s lips. ‘Nope. Not one bit.’
‘You mean this has happened before?’
Billy nodded. ‘Sure did. Grimes sent two of his marshals. One was his son. Me and Hiram sent him back special delivery. All trussed up in bob wire. Same as we’ll do with this feller.’
‘Don’t go getting too excited,’ Charlie growled. ‘This feller seems different.’
Cort looked at his father. ‘So that was what the marshal was on about before? When he said about those who came before him?’
‘They came here after your brother!’ Charlie snarled. ‘They would have hanged him if they could have got him out of town. And no, I didn’t tell Hiram and Billy to kill them. But if it had come to it, I would’ve done it myself.’
‘Well, you got one thing right, you old fool.’
Charlie’s eyes narrowed. ‘What was that?’
‘This marshal ain’t going to be no pushover. Not Ford.’
Charlie’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You know him?’
Cort nodded. ‘I know of him. Before I come back here, I was working up Montana and Wyoming way. His name may not be well known down here, but up there, he’s damned near a legend.’
‘One thing I know about legends, boy,’ Charlie’s voice held menace, ‘is that they die. That’s your brother he has over there, Cort. Don’t that count for anything?’
‘What did Hiram do, Pa?’
‘He shot a man in Hadley. Says it was self-defence.’
Cort shot his father a sceptical look. ‘If it was self-defence, Pa, why are the marshals involved?’
Charlie mumbled something under his breath that Cort couldn’t quite make out.
‘Speak up, Pa, I can’t damned well hear you.’
Charlie’s eyes flashed. ‘Don’t you speak to me like that, boy. I’m still your pa, and I could still whip you to a standstill.’
‘Who, damn it?’
‘The Hadley sheriff!’ Charlie roared, his face purple with rage.
Cort rolled his eyes. ‘For Chris’sakes, Pa. Let the marshal take him. It sounds to me like he’s outta control. What happens if you kill another marshal? Do you know? They’ll send another. Or maybe even the Texas Rangers.’
‘You should know,’ a new voice said.
Cort turned to face the speaker. ‘You keep out of this, Hogue.’
Charlie’s interest was piqued. ‘Just hold on a minute. What do you mean, Hogue?’
Hogue Polsen was one of those who didn’t have the last name Dent, but was a relative somewhere along the line. He looked warily at Cort before he said, ‘I was kind of curious as to what Cort has been doing since he was gone. After all, he didn’t say.’
‘No one asked,’ Cort snapped.
‘So when I went to Hazard a couple of days back, I picked up a paper from up north. Some city feller brought it down with him on the stage. It had a picture of Cort on the front of it. Anyhow, it seems he’s been up in Kansas, working for a feller called Hooper.’
Charlie was growing impatient. ‘Yeah, so?’
‘Hooper was sheriff of Hays City.’
Charlie’s eyes narrowed and he shifted his gaze to Cort. ‘Really.’
‘Seems your boy is good with a gun, Charlie,’ Hogue said. ‘Never knew that, did you?’
Charlie shook his head. ‘Nope, I did notice he was wearing it different, though.’
Hogue continued, ‘Anyway, it seems he’s been back in Texas longer than we figured. A month longer, in fact.’
‘Damn it, Hogue, get on with it!’
‘He was in Austin before he came here. At Texas Ranger headquarters.’
Suddenly the Colt in Cort’s holster leaped into his hand. ‘I think this is where I leave.’
Charlie’s gaze grew cold. ‘You’re a Texas Ranger, are you?’
‘I am now. I was a deputy sheriff for a while before I came back to Texas.’
‘So why are you here? You spying on your family, Cort? Gone and turned traitor, maybe?’
Cort nodded. ‘With all the stories the rangers were hearing about this place, they asked me to come and find out what was going on. Stories were right, I guess, Pa. I knew you were a tough old sonuver, but you’ve done lost it now. Murdering peace officers. What for? To keep Hiram from hanging for killing a sheriff? Let the marshal take him, Pa. He’s no good. He’s always been no good.’
‘What about Billy? You want to hang him too?’ Charlie snarled.
Cort nodded. ‘He’ll have to pay for what he did. But you need to stop this before it goes too far. You’re dragging the rest of our kin in too. If you keep this up, Austin will send a whole company of rangers in here to clean the town out.’
Charlie Dent gave his son a look of contempt and spat on the floor. ‘You’re a traitor, boy. Plain and simple. You’d hang your own brothers.’
‘There ain’t much choice, Pa.’
‘There’s always a choice!’ Charlie roared. ‘If your ma could see you now.’
‘I’d say she’s better off where she is, wouldn’t you?’
Anger flared in Charlie’s eyes and, in spite of the six-gun pointed at him, the old rancher lunged at his son, hands made up into fists.
Cort met his forward movement with a solid left because his gun was in his right. It was a stinging blow that brought his father up short. The rancher rocked back on his heels, shook his head, and prepared to have another crack at Cort.
He spat blood on the floor and gave Cort a bloody-toothed grin. ‘I’m going to rip your arms off and feed them to you, boy.’
‘Don’t do it, Pa. Don’t. . . .’
Cort grunted and slumped forward to the floor. The Peacemaker fell from his grip to clatter on the floorboards. A puzzled expression crossed Charlie’s face and then he saw the reason for Cort’s fall.
Billy had chosen the distraction as the perfect time to come in behind his brother and club him with the six-gun in his fist. ‘Son of a bitch ain’t taking me back to hang.’
Charlie looked at Gray and Mart. ‘Get him upstairs and locked away in a room. I’ll deal with him after we’re finished with this.’
The two brothers bent down and picked Cort up, dragging him away roughly. In the far corner of the barroom, a man dressed in a pinstriped suit and bowler hat slowly rose from his seat and slipped outside.
Chapter 4
Ford thought he was hearing things at first. He shook his head and frowned. Nope, it was still there. An urgent knocking coming from the back room of the mining supplies store.
Outside, the sun was low in the sky and in another hour or so it would be dark. Inside, the gloom was already closing in.
Ford rose from where he was seated and drew his Peacemaker. He started to cross the room and then paused. He faced Hiram and fixed him with a hard stare. ‘If you’ve moved when I get back, I’m going to shoot you in the knee so you won’t do it again.’
Without waiting for a response, Ford turned and walked into the back room.
The knocking was louder. Looking around the room, he spotted a door behind a pile of crates. He moved over to them and said, ‘What do you want?’
‘You have to let me in. I have something to tell you, Marshal Ford.’
‘Who are you?’
‘James Bowen.’
‘Who?’
‘James L. Bowen.’
Ford’s eyebrows knitted. What on earth was he doing here? The only James L. Bowen he knew was a damned dime novelist.
He said, ‘Go away.’
‘I need to talk to you. Let me in.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they’ve got a plan you should know about, and they also have themselves another prisoner I think they’ll kill if you don’t stop them.’
While he cursed under his breath, Ford cleared the back door and opened it to reveal an average built man in a suit.
‘Get in here, quick,’ he ordered Bowen.
Once Bowen was inside, Ford faced and glared at him. ‘What the hell are you doing in
Texas? Here anyway? This ain’t no place for you.’
‘I . . .’ Bowen stopped because Ford had turned and was walking out of the small room.
The dime novelist followed him hurriedly into the main room, and Ford halted, awaiting his answer.
Bowen looked about him. One sight of the dead man on the floor, and the roan inside, seemed to make him even more apprehensive and he blanched. Then there was Hiram Dent.
‘What have you got there, Marshal? Some kind of dude by the looks of him.’
Bowen looked indignant. ‘I’ll have you know I’m an accomplished author, sir.’
Hiram pulled a face at Bowen and smirked.
Ford interrupted before he could be drawn further into the conversation with the killer. ‘Tell me what you want and then be gone, Bowen.’
Bowen shot a nervous glance at Hiram and then looked back at Ford. ‘They’re planning to follow you out of town and ambush you. The old man sent one of his sons home for a Sharps.’
Ford nodded. ‘Is that it?’
The scribbler opened his mouth to say more when a low groan from outside on the street was followed by the sound of a thud. The deputy marshal looked at Bowen and then crossed to the window to look out. Bowen followed Ford and stood beside him.
Out in the street at the hitchrail, the horse provided by the town was now down and lying on its side.
Bowen’s forehead furrowed. ‘That’s strange. I heard them say it would at least make it out of town.’
Ford gave him a sidelong glance and then looked back out at the dead animal. His mind was working overtime as he tried to figure out what he could do. Backing away from the window, he said, ‘Tell me what else you overheard.’
‘You better shut your mouth, scribbler, if you know what’s good for you,’ Hiram snarled.
‘Pay him no never mind, Bowen.’
‘Speak and you’re dead,’ Hiram snarled.
Ford’s lips pressed together and he turned away from Bowen. He walked across to Hiram and ripped the man’s bandanna from around his neck and forced it into his mouth.
Ford growled at him when he was finished. ‘Keep it up and I’ll knock you cold.’