by Ralph Hayes
Everything stopped in that moment, Corey Ross sucked his breath in, and his hand went to his holster briefly.
‘Nobody puts a whip to me!’ Saucedo was muttering angrily. Dulcie was crying quietly. Latham casually drew his Starr .44, aimed it at Saucedo’s chest, and fired. Saucedo was punched backwards off his mount and hit the ground near Dulcie, kicking up dust there. He was dead when he hit the ground.
Dulcie let out a scream in the midst of her tears. Ira Sloan, still sitting off from the others, frowned and shook his head slowly.
‘Jesus!’ Corey Ross whispered.
Weeks just stared at Latham.
‘Oh God!’ Dulcie murmured through her tears. Her bravado was gone.
‘I told all of you,’ Duke Latham said in a hard, quiet voice. ‘Nobody touches this girl but me.’
‘What the hell,’ Weeks muttered.
‘Somebody might have heard that shot,’ Sloan said to Latham. ‘We’d better make tracks.’
Latham went to Dulcie himself, dismounted, and tied her hands securely to her saddle pommel. Then he handed her reins over to Sloan. Dulcie’s cheeks were wet, but she couldn’t dry them with her hands tied.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she said to Latham.
Latham grunted. ‘Your daddy will figure it out. . .’ He went to his horse and mounted up again. ‘He’s about to lose the thing most important to him. And he won’t ever get it back again. Take a good look around, girl. It will be the last time you see the Provost ranch.’
‘Please. Don’t do this,’ Dulcie pleaded.
‘And you,’ Latham turned to address Ross. ‘I’m letting you ride back to tell Provost what happened here. I want him to know who did it. Say I hope he has a good photograph of his daughter. You know, to remember what she looks like.’
Then Latham and his two men led Dulcie’s mount across the Wolf Creek ford and into her new, unexpected and dark future.
CHAPTER TWO
Close to a day’s ride south of the Provost ranch, at about the same time that Duke Latham was absconding with Maynard Provost’s daughter, a lone rider appeared in the back country town of Burley Crossroads.
He wore dark clothing and rode a black stallion, and he fairly bristled with guns. His primary weapon rested low on his right hip, a Colt .45 Peacemaker, the same revolver that Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were currently wearing, and snugged into a shoulder holster was a back-up one-shot Derringer. He also carried a Winchester lever action 1866 repeating rifle in a saddle scabbard on his mount’s irons, and on its other flank an American Arms eight-gauge, double-barrelled shotgun.
His name was Wesley Sumner, and he was a bounty hunter.
He rode slowly into Burley Crossroads now, looking around him. He was just over six feet tall, with dark hair and eyes, and rather handsome, aquiline features. He was athletically built, but slim. The darkness of his clothing was relieved by a blue kerchief at his neck, and a dark Stetson finished off his rather sombre look.
He walked his mount down a sunny, dusty street and reined in before a saloon called the Prairie Schooner. In a pocket of his riding coat was a ‘wanted’ dodger on a man named Billy Del Rio, a thief and murderer with three thousand on his head, and Sumner had evidence that he would find Del Rio hiding from the law in this backwater village. Sumner dismounted and wound his reins over a short hitching post, then casually slid the Colt in and out of its holster a couple of times, hoping this was the end of his hunt for this man.
Sumner had no intention of taking Del Rio into custody. He restricted his hunting to those wanted dead or alive, and he had never brought a man in. That was why many lawmen and outlaws alike had begun calling him ‘Certainty’ Sumner. Of course, he never knew when a man he confronted would be lightning fast with his gun, or something might occur to make things go wrong. But he kept taking the risk because it was the only occupation he knew.
Sumner climbed three steps to the swinging doors and stepped into the saloon. It wasn’t a busy afternoon there, but several cowboys were bellied up at the long bar, and there were a couple of tables of drinkers. An out-of-tune piano was making tinny music at the rear, and men were talking and joking at the bar.
Sumner’s eyes narrowed down on a table not far away with two men playing poker at it, and nursing a bottle of Planters Rye. The man facing Sumner was Billy Del Rio, and his eyes squinted down on Sumner warily now, wondering who he was. Del Rio was a swarthy, blocky man with a badly broken nose and hard, glittery eyes. He was wanted for three murders in the mid-west, and had already raped a teenage girl since his arrival here two days ago. Sitting with him was another outlaw known simply as Raven, a very thin fellow with a hook nose and very black hair, whose bony face wore a perpetual scowl.
Sumner took a seat at a table near the doors, and faced the two men. A waiter came, and he ordered a black ale. The music still played, and nobody had paid much attention to his entrance. His ale came and Sumner quaffed most of its contents, assessing the looks and actions of his prey at the other table, appraising the way he moved and noting the personality he displayed. Del Rio had lost interest in him now, and had gone back to playing cards with his new partner.
Sumner swigged the rest of the ale, and was ready to make his play. He was glad to have settled into the room without notice. But then circumstances intervened. Two cowboys moved past him, on their way out, and the first one stopped beside Sumner’s table as he was about to get Del Rio’s attention.
‘Hey, looky here! Ain’t you Certainty Sumner?’ The second cowpoke had stopped with his friend.
Sumner muttered an obscenity. Over at the other table, Billy Del Rio laid his cards down and slowly turned toward Sumner.
‘Why don’t you move it along?’ Sumner growled at them. ‘You must have a cow to punch out there somewhere.’
But the cowboy wasn’t paying attention. ‘By Jesus! You’re the man who killed Curly Quentin! You worked for Clay Allison!’
The second cowpoke’s eyes were big. ‘You’re Certainty Sumner? My God, they say you’re as fast as Wyatt Earp!’
Sumner finally looked up at them. ‘I guess you boys would like to live past this afternoon.’ The grins slid off their faces.
‘Then I suggest you move your freight out of here while I’m still in a fairly good mood.’ He had left his riding coat on his mount, and with his dark jacket pulled back as it was now, the big Peacemaker stood out menacingly on his hip.
The first cowpoke swallowed hard. ‘Sorry, Sumner. You just get on with what you’re about.’ Then he and his companion hurried out.
‘Holy Jesus,’ the bartender muttered.
Billy Del Rio and Raven were both staring hard at Sumner.
‘So you’re Certainty Sumner,’ Del Rio called over to him in a Spanish-accented tone. ‘What the hell are you doing in this one-horse dung heap of a town?’
‘I came here to collect the reward on you, Billy,’ Sumner said in his easy, well modulated voice. ‘You’ve graduated into the big time.’
‘I’ve heard about you,’ Del Rio said with a hard grin. The music had stopped, and a heavy silence filled the close confines of the room. ‘I heard you’re a back-shooting weasel that murders men for money.’
‘I’ve heard that, too,’ Sumner grunted – it was often a man’s very last words.
‘I hear Clay Allison taught you real good,’ Del Rio continued, playing for time, doing the same kind of assessment Sumner had engaged in earlier.
‘I know where to oil the Colt,’ Sumner said with a half-smile. He scraped his chair away from the table, rose, and moved carefully away from that obstacle.
Del Rio stood up, too, and his cohort Raven followed suit, looking very confident. Unlike Del Rio, he didn’t know Sumner’s reputation.
‘Let me take him,’ he urged Del Rio quietly. He was very fast with the Colt Navy revolver on his hip, and had never been beaten. He was one-quarter Mescalero and had killed three lawmen in Montana. But seeing the svelte, lean look of Sumner standing there facin
g him, Del Rio wasn’t as eager to test himself.
‘So it’s both of you,’ Sumner said easily. Behind the bar, there was a tinkle of glass as the barkeep set a shot glass carefully down. ‘Who are you, boy?’ Sumner asked the black-haired Raven.
‘The last man you’ll ever lay eyes on,’ Raven replied with a grin.
‘You got a dodger on you?’
‘What’s that to you?’
‘If you haven’t, I suggest you bow out of this,’ Sumner told him. ‘You’re of no value to me.’
Raven laughed. ‘No value? Why, you goddam snake! Go for your iron!’
‘Boys,’ the nervous bartender called over to them. ‘This boy here is Certainty Sumner. Why don’t you take it outside?’
Everybody ignored him, and silence returned to the room. Del Rio put a hand on Raven’s arm. ‘Do you really think you can beat both of us, back-shooter? While we’re looking right at you? Neither of us has ever lost a draw-down. Tell you what. If you’re only after money, why don’t I throw a thousand at you and send you on your way? You can walk out of here with your skin.’
Raven shot a look at him. ‘Are you crazy? I’ll take this scum by myself if you don’t want him!’
Del Rio shrugged. ‘You heard him, Sumner. Sorry.’ A brittle grin. Then suddenly he drew his Colt .45 at the same moment Raven went for his revolver. Their Colts roared out almost simultaneously, making the overhead rafters shake with the explosions.
Sumner, though, had read Del Rio’s eyes, and by the time the lead came flying at him, the long Peacemaker had magically appeared in his hand as if it had already been there, and from a crouching position he fanned the hammer of the big gun. He was hit in the collar of his shirt, and along his floating ribs as he sent lead in their direction. His first shot struck Del Rio in the high chest, and the second smashed into his cohort’s sternum and exploded his heart like a paper bag. Then Del Rio was hit just under the right eye, and Raven in the throat. The back of Del Rio’s skull blew away, sending blood and matter flying as he danced backwards across the floor, taking two tables down with him. Raven hit the floor a half-moment later, clutching at his throat with a bewildered look on his Indian face. His leg kicked the floor once, and he joined his partner in death.
Gunsmoke was thick in the room as silence settled back in. Sumner twirled the Colt over twice in his hand and let it settle back into its holster. A nearby drinker uttered a low whistle.
‘I tried to tell them,’ the bartender muttered.
Sumner walked over to the bar, drawing a paper out of his pocket. ‘Here. You saw the whole thing. It was self-defence. Sign this affidavit for the local authorities.’
The barkeep nodded. ‘Anything you say.’
A middle-aged patron came over to Sumner. ‘Excuse me, mister. That piece of cow dung you just killed raped my little girl last night, and he was coming back again this evening, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. You just did me and this town a big favour. I’ll never forget it.’
Certainty Sumner stuffed the signed paper back into his pocket. He touched his side and crimson came away on his hand. ‘No need for gratitude,’ he said diffidently. ‘Without the bounty I wouldn’t have bothered.’
Then he left the saloon with everybody staring after him. Silent.
At the Provost ranch, everything was in a turmoil. Maynard Provost was in the large, carpeted parlour of his ranch house, pacing the floor, anger clouding his lean face. Corey Ross, the cowboy who had had to bring Provost the bad news about Dulcie, stood beside a guttered-out fireplace, watching Provost anxiously. Sitting on a long sofa, his hands clasped on his knees, his posture giving the impression he was about to begin a foot race, was Jake Cahill, Provost’s trail boss and foreman. He was a thick-set, broad-coupled man with a weathered face from years on the cattle trail. He had taken over the duties of Duke Latham when Latham was fired.
Provost stopped pacing in front of Cahill. ‘I don’t understand it. How could you lose their trail? Do you understand how hard that makes it now? We’ll have to scour this territory for them. Maybe even go outside it. And even then.’ He was churning inside. Dulcie was the love of his life.
Ross spoke up for Cahill. ‘They got on to a main trail, Mr Provost. Their tracks got all merged up with lots of others.’
‘After that, we were just guessing,’ Cahill said quietly. Provost had been impossible to talk to since his daughter was taken. ‘We think they were headed west.’
‘He came here from Montana,’ Provost said to himself. ‘We’ll scour this territory from border to border. Then we’ll head west if we have to.’ He stopped pacing again. ‘Do you two really understand? Every day that passes could place her in more and more danger.’ He shook his head. ‘God knows what that animal could be doing to her as we speak.’
‘Don’t think like that, Maynard,’ Cahill said soberly. ‘It’s you he wants to hurt, not Dulcie. And he’s already done that.’
Provost turned suddenly to Ross. ‘And you! I ought to fire you, goddam it! You just turned my girl over to that bastard without firing a shot!’
Ross’ mouth went old-paper dry. ‘I’m real sorry, boss. But l told you. There was four guns on me. And if they’d killed me, you’d never have known what happened to her out there.’
Provost gave him a scouring look. ‘I’m putting this on you, Ross. And you, too, Jake. I want you to take a couple boys with you, and get out there and find my daughter. I don’t care where you have to go, or what I have to spend to get it done. I want my daughter back.’
‘I’m sure we’ll find her eventually,’ Ross offered quietly.
Provost turned on him again. ‘Eventually? What the hell is wrong with you, Ross? Is “eventually” good enough for you? We have no idea what this sub-human has in mind! I find out now that he’s a thief and a murderer! Is he thinking of killing my girl? Using her for rape? Is he beating her while we stand here talking about it? Time is of the essence, damn it! I want you two out there before dawn tomorrow. And I want to be wired daily about your progress.’
Cahill rose to his feet. ‘We’ll begin by looking west of here. I’ll check every saloon and hotel from here to Laramie if we have to.’
Provost went and stood nose to nose with him. ‘And when you find Latham. . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t want him and his men arrested.’
Cahill met his stony look. ‘You want them dead.’
‘That’s right,’ Provost told him.
‘That will be my pleasure,’ Cahill assured him.
The next morning, in the pre-dawn darkness, Cahill, Ross and two other ranch hands rode off to look for Provost’s daughter. They inquired in several towns closer to the ranch that first day, including Ogallala, but without any result. Then Cahill decided to head west, which he and Provost thought was the most likely direction. For days they rode in and out of big and small towns, inquiring at saloons, hotels and stores. They also talked to the local law in each place, in case Latham had broken the law as he passed through.
After almost a week, they came up empty-handed.
At the end of that time the four men stopped at a saloon in a small town called Lakota Wells. They were all dusty, tired and out of sorts. It was a clean-looking little town, on the western edge of Nebraska territory, almost into Wyoming. The four of them had stopped at the local city marshal’s office and a rooming house and now the only saloon, known as the Trail’s End. They entered in a group and took a table in the centre of the room.
It was a pleasant place, with a potted plant near the slatted doors, a scattering of sawdust on the floor, and a small Remington painting behind the bar, of Sioux Indians scalping a conestoga driver. A heavy bartender came to take their orders, and a moment later returned with a pitcher of beer with four glasses.
‘You boys just passing through?’ he asked, wiping his forehead with a bar towel.
‘We’re looking for a man,’ Jake Cahill responded. ‘Name of Latham. Duke Latham. Maybe
you’ve heard of him.’
The other man’s face changed. ‘Maybe.’
‘Has he been through here lately?’ Corey Ross asked him anxiously.
The barkeep’s eyes narrowed down. ‘Why do you want to know?’
Cahill rose from his chair, and went around the table to the other man. He was a large, brawny man who was the best bronco buster Provost had. Without warning he threw a steel-hard fist into the barkeep’s face. A bone snapped audibly in his cheek, and he went flying across the room and banged loudly up against the mahogany bar, then sliding to the floor in a sitting position.
‘Sonofabitch!’ the bartender muttered. He spat out a loose tooth.
‘You’ll push that saucy line too far, mister. Now, I’ll ask again. Have you seen this boy Latham?’
‘We ain’t supposed to call the names of patrons,’ the other man spoke past a thick mouth. ‘It’s saloon policy.’
‘Well, this is Provost policy,’ Cahill growled angrily. He turned to his three men. ‘Boys, how would you like a little target practice to go with our beer?’
Ross and the other two lanky cowpokes gave him big grins, and they all drew their revolvers. In the next moment, the raucous roar of gunfire filled the room, as the four cowboys began shooting at house rules signs, kerosene lamps, gaslight chandeliers, and bottles on shelves behind the bar. Customers ran for the doors, and for cover.
‘Jesus in heaven!’ the bartender protested thickly. ‘Stop!’
Cahill aimed his gun at the Remington painting. ‘Maybe I’ll rearrange the design of the picture, barkeep? What do you think?’
The bartender was gasping for breath. Patrons were cowering in corners. The cowboys had momentarily stopped, but gunsmoke was thick in the close air.
‘No, don’t!’ The bartender was back on his feet, holding his hands out.
Cahill lowered the gun.
‘He used to come into town. He raised hell here a lot. The authorities think he robbed a couple stagecoaches near here. That was three, maybe four years ago.’