“How did he get in here, Jay?” Pecos asked, standing off the end of the bed and wrapping a hand around a canopy post.
“He must have picked the lock.” Jay drew her left leg under her right one and massaged the ankle over the high top of her stylish, lace-up, doeskin shoe. “I came up to get ready for the night, and Penny jumped me.” She glanced at the other two dead men. “Those two are . . . were . . . Willie and Clyde. Don’t know their last names or where they came from, but they must have thrown in with Penny somewhere down the line. They weren’t here until about a half hour ago.”
“Those were the two we seen back along the creek, Slash,” Pecos said. “My hearin’ might not be too good anymore, but my peepers are still those of a young man.”
“Well, it’s good one last thing on you is,” Slash dryly quipped. He raked a thumbnail down his jawline, in bad need of a shave, frowning thoughtfully. “Penny must have sent those two out to scout for us, to give him some idea when we’d be back to town. He must have been around Fort Collins awhile, scopin’ out our habits. He knew that soon after we got back to town, we’d head this way.”
“To pay a visit to the purtiest gal in the Territory,” Pecos said, smiling down at Jay with several insinuating glances at Slash.
Slash flushed.
Jay shook her head darkly. “Yeah, well, this time your visit was almost your last.”
“It would’ve been if you hadn’t warned us.” Slash gave her forearm an affectionate squeeze. “What was Penny’s beef with us, anyway?”
“Oh, you know what it is.”
“Hell, he had us outnumbered!” Slash said. “The odds were in his favor that day!”
He was talking about the ambush Penny had affected, with the help of a dozen other bounty hunters, on Jay’s hideout cabin in the San Juan Mountains. Around a year ago, Slash and Pecos had holed up there with Pistol Pete’s widow, in the cabin Jay and Pete had shared for many years up in the high and rocky.
None other than Chief Marshal Luther T. Bledsoe had sicced those bounty hunters on Slash and Pecos, intending to assassinate them. When Slash, Pecos, and Jay got the better of the dozen, after they’d used an escape tunnel to work their way around the ragged group of killers, and killed them all save Penny and one other man, Bledsoe was so impressed by Slash and Pecos’s gun work, even at the pair’s advanced age, that he put the two cutthroats on his payroll and gave Penny the shaft.
“Still, I can see how he was a mite chafed,” Pecos put in, glancing down at the dead bounty hunter with the roaming eye. “He was known to hold a grudge, Jack was. A prideful man. I’m sure Bledsoe givin’ us the job instead of him burned him good, put him on our trail. He’s probably been stokin’ that fire in his belly for a whole year.”
“Yeah, well, there he lies for his trouble.”
Footsteps sounded in the hall. Most of the crowd outside the door had dispersed, and it sounded like there was only one man out there now, heading this way.
“Here comes the law,” Pecos said, dreadfully.
“Just what we need,” Slash complained. “More law.”
“It’s all right, fellas,” Jay said. “The marshal here in Fort Collins is a good, fair man. He’s new, and I know him personally.” A slight flush rose into her cheeks. Slash didn’t like seeing that flush there at all. Not at all.
He arched a brow at her. “You know him, do you?”
“Knock-knock,” said a man’s deep, resonant voice.
Slash, Pecos, and Jaycee swung their heads around to see a tall, handsome man poke his head through the remains of the door, then smile and wink when his eyes landed on Jay.
CHAPTER 6
The handsome gent looked around the room, frowning, then turned to Jaycee again with concern. “You all right, Jay?” He stepped into the room, doffing his hat, the look of concern deepening the frown lines cutting into his broad forehead.
He was a tall, handsome man in a handsome three-piece suit. A suit that didn’t look like it was long from the tailor’s dummy. A dark-brown suit of fine tweed and broadcloth, with a white silk shirt matched with a paisley vest and string tie. A gold-washed chain dangled from a gilt-edged pocket of the vest.
The man wearing the suit had been in turn tailored to wear such a finely sewn piece of duds. He was tall, broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, and long-legged. He appeared to be in his early forties. Thick, curly, cinnamon hair was combed into neat waves upon his regal head, just touching his ears and the back of his collar. His face was finely structured, handsome, even if the eyes were a tad on the oily side, the beard and mustache a little too finely and too regularly trimmed.
Slash could see this gent folding himself into a barber’s chair every morning of the week, as though he fancied himself some frontier version of Jay Gould, likely right at eight a.m., as soon as the barber had finished sweeping off his boardwalk, tossed his cigar stub into the street, and turned the placard in his window to OPEN.
No man should be that intimate with a barber’s chair. No real man, anyway.
This one wore a well-polished, brightly nickeled town marshal’s badge on his vest, positioned so that it subtly showed itself peeking out from beneath the fancy Dan’s left coat lapel. A big, black Colt .44, with ivory grips in which a horse’s head was carved, adorned a black leather holster residing high on his right hip. The holster bore the initials CW.
“Oh, hello, Cisco. Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Jay said. Slash didn’t like how a soft, feminine flush rose into the nubs of Jay’s cheeks, nor how her green eyes seemed to at once soften and brighten as she stared up at the tall newcomer.
Cisco? Slash thought. She knows the badge-toter by his first name?
He tried to ignore the slight, uneasy churning of his innards, but there it was.
Slash rose from the bed. “You, uh . . . you two know each other, do you?”
“Jay an’ me?” the marshal she’d called Cisco said, showing a full set of marble white teeth in a charming grin. “Sure, sure. Miss Breckenridge and I go back a ways—don’t we, Miss Breckenridge?”
“Cisco . . . er, Marshal Walsh and I,” Jay corrected with a smile and an ironic dip of her chin, “met in Dodge City some time ago. Before I tumbled for that old hornswoggler Pistol Pete.”
The marshal and Jaycee shared a warm smile, which made Slash’s guts churn and grow a little warmer, as though he’d eaten something he shouldn’t have. The lawman turned to the business at hand, frowning at the dead men. “Trouble, I see.” He glanced at the door. “Three dead men and a ruined door.”
“As well as a good bit of blood on my rug,” Jay added, sourly. “Rest assured, however, Cisco, that the three dead men had it coming. They held me here to set a trap for Slash an’ Pe—”
“Uh, that’s Jimmy and Melvin,” Pecos corrected with a toothy, sheepish grin.
“Oh, don’t worry about that nonsense,” Jay said. “Cisco here knows all about Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid. Cisco himself once rode the wrong side of the straight an’ narrow.” She beamed again at the tall, handsome marshal, adding, “Didn’t you, Cisco?”
“That I did, that I did.” The lawman slid his gaze from Slash to Pecos. “Until I, just like I’ve heard you fellas have done, mended my ways.”
Slash turned to Jay. “You told him?”
She nodded. “I saw no reason to keep your past a secret from Cisco. I’m sure he’d have figured out who you were sooner or later. He’s not as soft in his thinker box as Sheriff Decker or the man’s cork-headed deputies.”
“Not to worry, fellas,” Marshal Walsh said, raising his hands, palms out. “Your secret is safe with me. Especially since you’re making good on the sundry sins of your past by riding for—”
“Oh, my gosh!” Jay slapped a hand to her mouth, lowering her jaw and widening her eyes in shock. “In all the commotion, I forgot that Bledsoe sent word earlier.”
“Bledsoe did?” both Slash and Pecos said at the same time.
“Yes, yes. One of his deputies came i
n to speak to me earlier. The chief marshal wants you boys to ride out to the old Cormorant Saloon. For a powwow, as the deputy put it. I assume Bledsoe has some trouble he needs his former cutthroats to iron out for him. I told the deputy when you two were due back, so he’s likely been waiting for you.”
Slash cursed and looked at Pecos, who glowered and shrugged. “So much for lettin’ our hair down.” He glanced from Slash to Jay, adding, “And for . . .” He let his voice trail off, dropping his sheepish gaze to the floor.
“For what?” Jay asked, frowning at Slash.
Slash’s cheeks burned with both embarrassment and anger. The anger was directed at his partner. Pecos always seemed to get a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease at the most inopportune time.
“Nothin’,” Slash said quickly, absently brushing his hand across his coat pocket—the one in which his mother’s ring resided. “We was just hopin’ to have a few drinks and a slow, leisurely supper, is all. But, now, I reckon we’d best . . .”
Jay turned to the town marshal, who was walking around, staring down at each of the dead men in turn. “They can go—can’t they, Cisco? I’ll tell you the whole story and sign whatever needs signing. I assure you Slash and Pecos were acting in self-defense.”
“That’s all I need, then.” The handsome town marshal glanced over his shoulder at Slash and Pecos. “I’m sure Chief Marshal Bledsoe needs you more than I do. If there are any holes left in the affidavit after I’ve talked with Jay about what happened here, I’m sure we can fill them in when you return. Good luck, gentlemen.” Walsh smiled his broad, handsome smile once more, turning to face the two cutthroats, adding, “It was nice to meet you both. Don’t worry about Jay.”
He switched his warm smile to the copper-haired beauty standing beside Slash, flushed more than ever. “I’ll take very good care of her while you’re away. Rest assured.”
Slash could almost feel the electricity popping around inside of Jay as she stood beside him, exchanging nauseating grins with the badge-toting fancy Dan. Slash just stood there, silently fuming, clenching his fists at his sides, until Pecos reached out and grabbed his arm, and gave it a tug.
“Come on, Slash. You heard the lady. Ole Bleed-Em-So’s waitin’ on us. If we don’t want him bleedin’ us, we’d best hightail it.”
Slash had been in a trance of sorts. When Pecos gave him another nudge, pulling him out of it, he said, “Yeah, yeah. Right. I reckon we’ll be on our way.”
As he glanced at Jay once more and stepped around the tall, handsome Cisco Walsh, the marshal glanced at him again with that infernal, charming smile and said, “Again, it was nice to meet you fellas. See you around.”
“Good luck, boys,” Jay called.
“Good luck, boys,” Slash growled to himself as he picked his hat up off the hall floor, where it had tumbled when he’d first hit the carpet. “See you around . . . my ass!” Setting his hat on his head, he added, keeping his voice low, “Not if I see you first, you starch-drawered hooplehead!”
Pecos had retrieved his own hat and, donning it, caught up to Slash. He walked along beside him, scowling at him. “What the hell’s got into you?”
Slash tried to respond, but only a growl bubbled up out of his throat.
“What is it?” Pecos prodded as they started down the stairs. “You think Jay’s got somethin’ goin’ with the marshal?”
“Ain’t it obvious?”
Pecos frowned, shrugged. “No. I mean, they’re obviously friends. Like Jay said, they met back in Dodge. Before Pistol Pete. But old friends—that’s all they are.”
As they gained the bottom of the stairs and began sidling through the swarming crowd, heading for the front door, Slash said, “How do you know they were just friends? How do you know they’re still just friends?”
Pecos threw his head back and laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“You.”
“How am I funny?”
Pecos snarled when they stepped through the batwings and started across the Thousand Delights’ broad front veranda.
“You’re jealous. Why, you stiffened up like a conquistador’s suit of armor as soon as that big rake walked into the room. It was obvious as the nose on your face.”
“Well, of course I’m jealous. Did you see that tailor’s dummy? Some women like ’em . . . you know . . .”
“Tall and handsome as a freshly minted penny? Men who know how to dress an’ comb their hair? I’ll be damned if he don’t bathe at least once a week, too. Oh, yeah—women are all over that!” Pecos chuckled as they headed for the freighting compound and the corral in which they kept their horses.
“Wears a badge, too.” Slash shook his head and added through gritted teeth, “Big fancy pistol . . .”
“I bet he rides a big black Thoroughbred, too,” Pecos teased his friend. “A stallion, no doubt. With fire in its eyes. Hah!”
“Oh, stop makin’ fun of my misery,” Slash railed as they approached the barn and corral to the left of their business’s main office. “Can’t you see she’s gone for that . . . that badge-totin’ fancy Dan?”
Pecos stopped in front of the barn door. “Oh, she is not.”
“She is, too!”
“No, she’s not.”
“Is too!”
Pecos placed a hand on Slash’s shoulder. “I seen the way she looked at that fancy Dan, as you call the jake. But I’ve seen the way she looks at you, too, and, believe me—because if I’ve learned one solid thing in this life, it’s the hearts of the ladies—when Jay’s eyes fall on your rancid countenance, for some reason or another they light up even brighter than they did for Cisco Walsh.”
Slash frowned, canted his head to one side, skeptically. “Really?”
“And she gets an even pinker flush in those pretty cheeks of hers.”
“Ah, hell—you’re just sayin’ that so I’ll get the hump out of my neck.”
“No, I’m not. She’s gone for you, Slash. Pure and simple. You keep that ring in a safe place till you’re ready to put it on her finger.” Pecos paused. “Take one more word of advice?”
“Go ahead—you’re on a roll!”
“Ask her soon. She’s not gettin’ no younger. You can’t expect her to wait around forever, wonderin’ if you’re ever gonna pull the trigger.”
He lifted the wire loop from the corral gate and drew the gate open. “Come on. Let’s see what kind of nastiness ole Bleed-Em-So’s got in store for us now.”
CHAPTER 7
Chief Marshal Bledsoe thought it prudent that he and the two former cutthroats keep their arrangement as secret as possible. The marshal didn’t think it would reflect well on the federal government if folks knew it had amnestied two career criminals in return for their service, that is, running down owlhoots every bit as bad as Slash and Pecos once were—and worse—and killing them.
The eastern newspapers would have an ink-fest if they found out that Uncle Sam had amnestied two career criminals and turned them into paid assassins.
Apparently, Bledsoe and even the president of the United States thought it made sense, though, given the nasty cut of the outlaws who currently ran off their leashes on the still relatively lawless western frontier. Who but two cutthroats would be better qualified for running down and bringing to justice—or flat-out killing—their own?
Bledsoe’s sending Jack Penny and a whole pack of nasty bounty hunters to kill them, and then Slash and Pecos in turn killing the bounty hunters, with Penny now included, had been a pretty good test of their abilities. Even at their advanced ages, though neither Slash nor Pecos saw their mid-fifties as being all that advanced. Of course, Bledsoe hadn’t intended Penny’s ambush to be a test. He’d genuinely wanted Slash and Pecos dead.
Who could blame the man?
Slash himself had crippled Bledsoe many years ago. He hadn’t intended to, but the lawman—a deputy U.S. marshal at the time—had caught one of Slash’s ricochets. It had shattered Bledsoe’s spine, confining him to a pushcha
ir.
Slash knew that, given their history, Bledsoe wasn’t going to pull any punches when handing out job assignments to the two former cutthroats. Slash and Pecos were always going to be going after the worst of the worst.
Until their tickets were punched.
Luther T. “Bleed-Em-So” Bledsoe would not shed any tears at their funerals. If they received funerals. Which they almost certainly wouldn’t.
Bledsoe kept an office of sorts in the little near-ghost town of Cedar City, which sat amongst rocks and cedars in a broad horseshoe of the Cache la Poudre River. The town had never been a city, despite its obvious aspirations, and had ceased even to be a town when the army pulled out of Camp Collins, which was the original name for Fort Collins. Now it wasn’t even a fort anymore, and all that remained of Cedar City were a few abandoned mud-brick dwellings, an abandoned livery barn and stock corral, and a single saloon, the Cormorant, which mostly served the rare drifter and local cowpuncher and acted as a home to the old gentleman who owned the place—a stove-up former Texas Ranger, Tex Willey.
Tex and the chief marshal had been friends for a couple of generations, having worked together in chasing curly wolves in their heydays.
These days, Bledsoe came out here to get work done when he found himself drowning in red tape in his bona fide digs in the Federal Building in Denver. It was a handy location, given its close proximity to the railroad line. An old freighting trail, still in good repair, offered access from the rail line to Cedar City.
Now as Slash and Pecos rode into the ghost town from the west, they saw the old Concord mud wagon that Bledsoe had customized for himself, nattied up a bit with brass fittings and gas lamps, softer seats and velvet drapes offering privacy, and brackets on the side for housing his pushchair. The horses milling in the corral flanking the mud wagon were likely the two that had pulled Bledsoe out here from the train.
The other two would be those of the two deputies who always escorted and ran interference against possible assassins. The wily old reprobate had locked up his share of owlhoots over his long years of service to Uncle Sam, and he had a poisonous personality, to boot. There were likely plenty of gunslingers who would love to add the crippled old devil’s notch to their pistol grips.
A Good Day for a Massacre Page 5