The mayor rolled his eyes around behind his glasses, perplexed. “Why . . . ?”
“Why would Waylon impersonate his brother? Think about it.”
The mayor didn’t have to think about it long. His lower jaw sagged. The morning light flashed on his spectacles as he turned toward Sartain, beetling his brows. “Because his father wrote him out of the will. As Warren, he’d inherit most of it.”
“All of it—lock, stock, and barrel.”
“Hell.”
“Yeah. Now, why don’t you have a little powwow with the other posse members, and all of you ride back to town and spread the news?”
The mayor nodded slowly as it all came together in his mind. “You know, I thought there was—”
A rifle thundered nearby.
The mayor’s head fairly exploded, blood and white brain tissue spewing out the hole above his right ear. His glasses tumbled off his head as he sagged sideways and dropped into the canyon.
Sartain spun.
Waylon Chaney, dressed in the Fancy Dan garb of his brother, stood on a ledge about twenty feet above the Revenger. Grinning beneath the brim of his crisp, felt Stetson, he pumped another round into the chamber.
He was fast with a long gun. Before Sartain could raise the Henry and draw a bead on the man, Chaney’s Winchester thundered. The slug ripped a hot line across Sartain’s left temple.
Instantly, the Cajun’s lights dimmed. He was half-aware of dropping his rifle as he stumbled backward. Then he was falling. Still half-conscious, he flailed out with his arms, grabbing at rocks and what appeared to be old tree roots angling out the side of the cliff wall. Agony ripped through him—he could feel the skin being torn from his fingers as he grabbed anything he could find to break his fall.
And then, mercifully, he stopped falling, and everything went dark as dusk.
He heard a rifle belching from afar, felt the vibration of bullets slamming into the ground around him.
And then everything went dark as night.
Chapter 16
Misery hammered away at Sartain’s head and body. Mostly at his head, but his body ached, too. The pain was like a deep pool, and several times he tried to swim out of the pool, but it was ocean-sized. The pain clung to him like a cold blanket.
Relentless.
Then he heard a man’s voice from close by say, “Gotta get you up . . . get you outta here . . .”
He was aware of being lifted and half-dragged, half-carried. And then someone went to work with a sledgehammer against his head and his ribs, hammering both at the same time. Vaguely, distantly, he thought he might be lying belly down over a horse’s rump, a saddle blanket cushioning him.
Then everything went dark and quiet again for a time, and he dreamed fleeting but vivid dreams.
In one, he was carrying the body of his dead lover, Jewel, killed by soldiers a handful of years ago in Arizona, across a blazing desert.
Wolves leaped at him from the rocks all around him. When he looked at one of the wolves lunging at him and the dead Jewel in his arms, he saw that the beast’s fur was on fire. Flames even lapped from its eyes. He was overcome with the need to carry Jewel to safety, to find a place to bury her where the wolves would not find her and chew her and the baby in her belly to pieces.
Gradually, that dream died and there were others, less vivid and even more fleeting, until a man’s voice said, “Looks like the fever’s broke some.”
Sartain was aware of something cool against his forehead. He reached up and touched a cloth.
“Jewel?” He jerked his head up hopefully and opened his eyes.
A ruddy, round, mustached face stared at him from a foot and a half away.
“Jewel?” asked the man. “Nah . . . I don’t have no jewels, amigo. Other than the family jewels. Still got them, though they don’t work so good as they used to.” He spoke with a thick Spanish accent, and Sartain frowned at the man until he recalled the name of the stocky Mexican friend of Waylon and Carleen Chaney.
“Vicente?”
“Si. Yeah, that’s better. You remember. Brain must not be too scrambled up. Jewel—that a name, or were you hoping to find a diamond or somethin’ on your pillow?”
Sartain looked around. They were in a small stone cabin. Several candles and a bull’s eye lantern flickered a watery light. The dark of night pushed at the small windows and seeped in through the door that was propped open with one of Sartain’s boots.
The floor was hard-packed dirt. The ceiling over Sartain’s head was brush. He lay on a small cot in his shirt and summer underwear and socks.
“Jewel?” he said, frowning.
“That’s what you said—‘Jewel’.”
Sartain felt a pang of grief stab the backside of his heart, and he shook it off as he continued to look around the small, crudely furnished cabin. There was a small beehive fireplace. A cast-iron pot hung over glowing coals from an iron tripod. The pot bubbled, filling the shack with the smell of cooking beans and meat. Those smells mingled with the sweat, leather, and horse smell of Vicente and another, cloying, medicinal odor that Sartain couldn’t identify.
Sitting in a hide-bottom chair beside the cot, the Mexican held a smoking tin cup on his beefy left side. He lifted the cup and arched his shaggy, salt-and-pepper brows. “You hungry? Your fever’s broke, I think. Thought you might like a bite. Even if you don’t feel like it, you might force a few bites down. Need to get your strength back, amigo. That bullet creased you pretty good.
“I brought my old mother out here, and she doctored your cuts and bruises and forced some tea down your throat. She doctored our whole family—nine kids—and only one o’ them kids didn’t make it into his twenties. That was Hector, but he fell off his mule and was bit in the chest by a diamondback. Dead before Mama could reach him.”
“What’s that smell?”
Vicente glanced at Sartain’s forehead. “Some wild herb concoction she smeared on that bullet crease. Supposed to keep it from festering.”
“Smells like mule dung.”
“Who knows—it probably is.” Vicente’s heavy shoulders jerked as he chuckled, showing crooked, yellow teeth beneath his heavy, drooping mustache. He raised a spoon containing a few beans and a chunk of meat.
“Why not?” Sartain said. “Couldn’t make me feel any worse.”
He opened his mouth, and Vicente slid the spoon between his lips. Sartain ate a couple of bites and then realized his bladder was bursting.
“I gotta take a leak,” he said, suddenly desperate. “Christ—how long I been here?”
“This was the second full day. This is the third night.” Vicente set the cup down and fished a coffee tin out from beneath the cot. “Here you go. You gonna need some help?”
Sartain took the can and sat up. “I don’t think so.”
“That’s good, brother.” Laughing, Vicente ducked out through the low door to give the Cajun and his bursting bladder some privacy.
When Sartain had filled the can nearly to the brim, and Vicente had emptied it over a rock outside, Sartain asked him where in hell they were. The Mexican kicked Sartain’s boot out of the way, shut the door, and replaced the coffee tin beneath the Revenger’s cot.
“Old outlaw shack over Cobalt Canyon.”
Vicente sat in a chair at the small, square table that was the only other furnishing besides the cot and a few chairs in the little shack. The chair creaked precariously beneath his bulk. He’d built a cornhusk cigarette outside, and he puffed it now and sipped from a tin cup on the table next to a half-empty, clear bottle that probably housed mescal or tequila.
“Me an’ Waylon and a few others used it back when we were runnin’ roughshod,” the Mexican added, tapping ashes from the cigarette onto the floor. “Ten, twelve years ago now. When we were young an’ stupid.”
Sartain lay back against the wall, propped on the flour sack he’d been using as a pillow. He kept the cool cloth pressed to his forehead, over the stinky bandage. “How’d you find me?
Why . . . did you help me?”
“I seen what happened. I seen Waylon shoot Boyd and then you. I was watchin’ through field glasses. Didn’t realize it was Waylon at the time, but then I knew. Only Waylon would pull a dirty trick like that. I had no use for his brother, but his brother wouldn’t bushwhack a man with a rifle. His brother wouldn’t kill his own brother so he could inherit his old man’s fortune. Oh, Warren would have taken the money, all right. He wouldn’t have cared a damn about cuttin’ his brother and sister out, but . . . what Waylon done was wrong.”
“You didn’t know he was gonna pull that trick?”
“Ahead of time? No. I didn’t know Carleen was in on it, neither. Always knew she was wild. Didn’t know she was as crazy, rotten-mean-wild as Waylon could be.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Sartain said, trying to ponder it all beneath the dull hammering in his temple. His hands were sore where he’d scraped skin off trying to break his fall into the canyon. “Carleen put a price on her father’s head.”
“I’m guessin’ she didn’t know it was Waylon till later that night, after she rode to town with Warren’s body in her wagon. They had ’em a little powwow outside my shack. I didn’t know what it was about, but her mood changed considerable after that. Took the venom out of her bite.”
“Waylon didn’t tell her what he was going to do beforehand?”
“My guess is Waylon wanted to see how she’d react to his death before he told her. Maybe he was testing her.”
“He must’ve been right proud of that bounty she put on his head. He even managed to look afraid, jumpy.”
Vicente said, “I thought when he came back from outlawin’ up in Colorado and down in Mexico, he’d settled down like I had. Those wild ways are for young men that don’t know better. When you get older, you respect people. You respect yourself and lawful ways.”
He blew smoke out his broad nostrils, sighing and wagging his head regretfully.
“What you do,” he continued, “ain’t so bad. Some folks need help when they can’t help themselves. That’s why I came back for you, brought you here.”
“Waylon doesn’t suspect, I take it?”
“Nah. I rode back with him and the rest of the posse, rode back out to that canyon he left you in the next morning, brought you here.”
“I’m much obliged, Vicente. My horse . . . ?”
“He’s out back, in the stable. Carleen went to town with her old man. I think she’s livin’ up at the Chaney house with Celeste, still playin’ like she’s heartsick, eyes red all the time. Must chop a lot of onions.”
The Mexican chuckled. “She missed her calling—should have joined a traveling theater show. That horse of yours—now, there’s a stallion!” Vicente laughed. “He’s worried about you, I can tell. Keeps lookin’ toward the shack and sniffin’, like he’s lookin’ for you.”
“He just knows that anyone else besides myself wouldn’t be stupid enough to put up with him.”
Vicente laughed his rollicking laugh, ground out his cigarette on the table, flicked it out an open window, and rose. He nodded at a stone jug. “This here jug has water in it. There’s a creek out back. Barely runs this time of year except when it rains, but it’s got good, cold water. I’ll leave the tequila. Might ease your pain.”
He removed the iron pot from the tripod and set it on a flat rock near the beehive fireplace. “This pot’s nearly full. That should do you till tomorrow night. I’ll come back then and check on you.”
“Much obliged for the help.”
“You’ve helped your share of others, brother. I figure you were due some help yourself.”
“Maybe I can pay you back some day.”
“I hope not!” The Mexican laughed and crouched in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob. “Get some rest.”
“Vicente?”
“Yeah?”
“What about Chaney? Carleen? What are they up to, you think?”
“Oh, yeah. Meant to tell you. The same day we rode back to town, after Waylon shot you and the mayor, he went up to see his father. Ain’t it funny how the old man breathed his last in his son’s presence?”
A stone dropped in the Revenger’s belly.
“Yeah, Waylon killed the old man, most likely,” Vicente went on. “Probably put a pillow over his face. Funeral’s tomorrow morning.” Vicente laughed, but this time there wasn’t an ounce of humor in it. “The will’s gonna be read tomorrow afternoon in the judge’s office in the courthouse.”
Vicente wagged his head darkly, ducked out of the shack, and drew the door closed behind him. In a few minutes, Sartain heard the Mexican’s horse drum into the distance.
And then he was left with the silence of the night and the fury of his revenge-oriented thoughts.
Chapter 17
The next day at two p.m., the last surviving members of the Chaney family gathered in Judge W. George M. Stall’s office in the Brown County Courthouse, just down the hall from the sheriff’s office.
The judge stood behind his large cedar desk as Celeste Chaney and her niece, Carleen, both dressed in somber, conservative frocks complete with dark bonnets and black gloves, sank into two of the three chairs angled in front of the desk.
Waylon Chaney, dressed in his brother’s Fancy Dan three-piece suit adorned with his brother’s five-pointed sheriff’s star, stood back near the loudly ticking grandfather clock, twirling his hat on his finger. Carleen was a better actor than her father, Chaney silently noted. He just couldn’t keep his enthusiasm under wraps. Against all odds, his scheme had worked, and he was about to be a rich man indeed, in spite of his brother’s crooked hijinks.
He remembered the day he’d followed Warren out to Cobalt Canyon. Warren had gone out to try to pick up the trail of three claim jumpers reported to be in the area, and Waylon had seen that as his chance to put his plan into motion. While Warren had instructed Waylon and Amos McCluskey to stay in town and keep an eye on the saloons—as it was payday out at the Circle K, the largest ranch in the area, and the Circle K riders could really do some damage once they got a few drinks under their belts—Waylon had secretly followed Warren.
He’d run him down and threatened to shoot him unless he shucked out of his duds. Once Warren stood in only his short underwear, socks, and an undershirt, Waylon ordered him to turn around.
Warren had not been able to believe his brother would actually kill him. He hadn’t thought Waylon would actually go through with it, though Waylon had enjoyed detailing his plan to his doomed twin. Warren had thought it would all turn out to be a joke, that Waylon was merely trying to humiliate him by making him return to town in his underwear.
“You ain’t gonna do it, Waylon,” Warren had said, smiling nervously and shaking his head stubbornly as he’d turned around. “I just know that even you, the low-down, mean an’ nasty Waylon Chaney, couldn’t squeeze the trigger on your own twin brother.”
Waylon had laughed in delight at that.
Pow!
And then Waylon had stripped down, shot a hole through his own shirt and vest, about where he’d shot Warren, and exchanged clothes with his brother. He’d left Warren in Cobalt Canyon, where he figured someone would find him eventually. As it happened, Carleen herself had found the body the very next day, on her way to town to sell rattlesnake skins to a hat maker. Waylon had been delighted to see how upset she’d been, thinking her father was dead—killed by his own brother.
For who else but his cowardly brother, incensed by how Waylon was gaining more power around the county, would have shot Waylon Chaney in the back?
Warren Chaney valued power and respect almost as much as he’d valued money.
Too bad for him.
Waylon did, as well. But Waylon was smart enough to know how to acquire and keep it.
“Sheriff, would you care to have a seat?” the judge asked Waylon now, glancing at the chair beside his “niece.”
Chaney tossed his hat on a hat rack on the far side of the grandfather clock a
nd plopped onto the judge’s leather sofa. “Sure—why not?” he said, stretching out, resting his head against one arm of the couch, crossing his boots on the other arm. “Go ahead and read it out for us, Judge. I think I know what it says, but I reckon we’d better make it all formal and legal-like.”
Celeste glanced over her shoulder at him, anger reddening her cheeks. Chaney grinned.
Carleen sat staring down at her hands in her lap, still playing the bereaved daughter, but he could tell by the way her ears had turned red, she was doing her damnedest not to laugh.
She was also likely imagining what she and her old man were going to do with the old bastard’s fortune. For his part, Waylon was going to buy a few more businesses, possibly even the Circle K ranch and hire someone else to run it while he just raked in the money. He knew of a few mines he’d like to buy some interest in, as well.
Money and power.
Of course, he’d need a few more deputies. The Revenger had really hammered a dent in Waylon’s deputy department. It thrilled him no end to think of the great Sartain lying dead at the bottom of that canyon, his bones probably being licked clean by coyotes and cougars.
Eventually, Chaney would get out of the lawdog business, but first he needed the position to wield his power—for the thrill as well as to build and maintain his properties, namely, more saloons and brothels. Booze and girls brought in the most money.
Money and power.
Soon, Waylon would have such a stranglehold on the town, the county, that its citizens would see him as a god. Or at least as the Jay Gould of Brown County, Texas.
He chuckled at that and then cleared his throat and brushed a fist across his nose to cover it.
The judge frowned at him.
“Get on with it, Judge—I got me a powerful thirst,” Waylon intoned. He couldn’t help loosing another chuckle.
Money and power: Just the thought of them had his proverbial cup filled to overflowing. He couldn’t wait to get over to Nora’s Place and eat and drink and tussle for the rest of the afternoon. Tomorrow, he’d start getting down to business.
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