“It's enough you know that my posse's here and can come if I need them. Now pitch all your pistols, knives, hideout guns, and such out here in the street. Then step away from Arturo's front door and get your faces down in the dirt where they belong.”
Roscoe's lips twisted into an angry, tense sneer. “Damned if we will. Ain't givin' up my gun to no man. Gonna have to use that long-barreled shooter a yern, Dodge.”
“Me, neither,” Priest growled. “Keepin' my pistol fer damned sure.”
I could easily see the belligerence of the coming fight grow in their intoxicated eyes before any of them had even made the slightest move toward their weapons. Then, from nowhere, the mute Cullen Pickett's hand suddenly dropped to the ivory grips of the Smith & Wesson Russian model shooter snugged high and crosswise against his left hip.
A horror-stricken Roscoe tried to wave his unthinking brother off, but before either man could clear leather, the Winchester thundered, bucked, and slapped a massive blue whistler into the bony, centermost part of the elder Pickett's chest. Sixty grains of spent black powder delivered a 395-grain chunk of pure lead into Roscoe's breastbone, and from thence out his back and into the wall behind him. A fist-sized wad of the man's blood and splintered bits of rib bone followed the bullet. The club-like blow knocked the stunned killer backward onto the porch amidst a cloud of swirling wood fragments.
The barrel of Cullen's cocked weapon had almost topped his gun leather's front lip when the second ear-splitting blast from my rifle punched a hole in the man's forehead just above his left eye. The red-hot bullet plowed a furrow through half his addled brain, ricocheted around inside the man's skull. The massive slug knocked his palm-leaf hat off when it exited through the top of his head, then carved a blood-spattered hole in the roof above. In spite of being dead where he stood, Cullen's handgun went off. The blast ripped the entire face out of his holster. The wayward shot kicked up a flying cloud of dirt a few paces into the windblown street. Woman-killing scum went down like all the bones had been jerked out of his body at the same time.
The only man on the porch who'd not uttered a single word during the entire confrontation went to the ground like a load of brick dropped from the roof of a San Antone whorehouse. I knew without bothering to check that Cullen Pickett was deader than Wild Bill was when his head hit the poker table in Deadwood's NO. 10 Saloon.
In his whiskey-sodden haste to get outside and pick a fight with a man who appeared to be alone, Priest Pickett had completely forgotten to flip the hammer thong away from his weapon. The sound of my two shots still hung in the air as he panicked and jerked on the uncooperative shooter once, twice, three times.
On the third try, the crazy-eyed varmint's sweaty fingers slipped from the oiled walnut grips with such force he came nigh on to slapping himself right in the face. Terrified, flusterated, and unnerved, he grabbed at the weapon again and fired a burning shot down his own right leg that chewed a massive hole in the plank porch at his feet. Then, the confused child murderer screeched like a wounded animal, turned on his heel, and went to running like he'd lost his mind. Darted past Glorious Johnson's hiding spot around the corner.
Standing amidst a roiling cloud of spent black-powder smoke, I levered a third shell into the rifle's receiver and called out, “He's yours, Glo.”
With the stock of the Greener pressed to his shoulder, Glo stepped away from his hiding place like a man on a leisurely stroll to Sunday school and yelled, “You can go on and stop runnin' now, Mr. Pickett.”
Guess Priest made two more steps before a cannon-like wad of tightly grouped buckshot blasted him between the shoulder blades. A gob of lead lifted the fleeing killer out of his boots like a rag doll and dumped him onto his face. A handful of witnesses, who had viewed the action from inside the paltry group of functioning business in Carta Blanca
,
would later tell anyone who'd listen that it was as if someone had run up beside ole Priest and hit him in the back with a long-handled shovel. The murderous wretch landed in the dirt deader than a brass doorknob on an outhouse. Didn't even flop.
16
“DAMNATION, GIRL ...”
I SHOVED THREE fresh rounds into the Winchester's loading gate and watched as a dying Roscoe Pickett dragged himself to Mendoza's nearest porch pillar and propped one shoulder against it.
Rifle held out with one hand to cover the wounded outlaw, I strolled over to a position a few feet from him and squatted down to where the fading man could see me. Coach gun at the ready, Boz sidled up from his spot behind the now-dead Cullen's original position.
“Well you sure as hell kilt the bejabbers out of these two, Lucius. Didn't leave much for me,” Boz mumbled.
Blood poured from the corner of Roscoe's twitching mouth and oozed from between the fingers clutching the hole in an already drenched chest. “Damn,” he gurgled. “That was fast. Cain't b-b-believe it. S-shot me s-so quick. Son of a bitch. You done w-w-went and shot me through and th-through. Shit. Hurts like hell on a b-b-burnin' stick. Prolley done went and kilt me deader'n a rotten stump. God Am-mighty. K-Kilt my brothers, too. D-d-damn you, Dodge.”
“Yes,” I said and nodded. “Yes indeed. Your sorry brothers are both very dead. And you're headed to Hell with 'em.”
The outlaw groaned, rolled his head from side to side, then gasped, “W-w-well, soon's I'm gone, you can roll me over, p-p-pull my britches down, bend over, and k-k-kiss my ass, Dodge.”
Rustling movement caused me to twist on the balls of my feet and glance over one shoulder. A step or so away from the bloody carnage of dying and dead men, I spotted Clementine Webb, with one hand rested on the panting Bear's thick neck. From somewhere the girl had acquired a spanking-new Mexican palm-leaf hat.
“Ask him where the others went,” she said through gritted teeth.
I swung my concentrated attention back to Roscoe. “We already know where they're going, Clem. Big Jim said he saw them heading out for Del Rio, remember?”
Her voice sounded like broken icicles falling from a frozen roof in Kansas when she snarled, “Where, exactly, Ranger Dodge? Those that kept running must've been in a hurry to meet somebody, somewhere, don't you think? Who were they in such a hurry to see? Where did they intend to meet? How long do we have before they get completely away?”
I flicked a glance at the dying sun, then stared at the ground between my feet for a second and said, “Well, you heard the lady, Pickett. Who're Murdock and Atwood so hot to meet up with in Del Rio that they would leave you boys here and go on ahead without you?”
A gurgling stream of pinkish-red froth bubbled from between the claw-like fingers clutching at Pickett's chest. An unglier, darker river dribbled out onto his chin. “Ain'tâain'tâain't tellin'. Ain't tellin' you bastards a goddamned thang. Sure, s-s-sure's hell ain't got nothin', nothin' to say to no runty, s-s-smart-assed split-tail of a girl.”
I felt the crackle of Clementine's sleeve as it grazed my elbow. It sounded like fresh-fired bullets sizzling past my ear when she hissed, “Well, then, you're completely useless to me or anyone else, aren't you?”
From the corner of one eye, I saw the little pistol flash up in the girl's hand and immediately recognized the weapon as a New Line .32-caliber pocket pistol.
For reasons I could not have explained to God, or anyone else, afterward, the fact that Clementine Webb had the barrel of a loaded weapon pressed to the end of the dying Roscoe Pickett's nose just didn't register with me for about half a second. When it finally dawned on me what was about to occur, I made an awkward, squatting lunge at the miniature shooter just as it went off. Burning powder singed my fingers when they wrapped around the weapon's tiny cylinder.
The little gal's well-aimed bullet hit the gravely wounded Roscoe right in the mouth. A searing chunk of peanut-sized lead knocked all his front teeth out, carved a tunnel through the soft tissue at the back of his throat, and blasted its way through a spot in his neck just below the skull bone. The bullet shoved most of his shattered teeth out the newly acquired port in his head and splattered the entire hair-covered mess onto the wooden porch prop he leaned against.
I ripped the smoking pistol from Clementine's grasp, then rolled into the dust on my bony rump. Clumsily, I hopped up with all the red-faced embarrassment and alacrity of a suitor who's just fallen down a series of steps right in front of a woman he was trying his best to impress.
“Damnation, girl,” I yelped, then flicked a glance at Roscoe Pickett's shattered teeth, blasted skull, and sagging corpse. I shook my head in total disbelief, then locked Clementine in a narrow, steely gaze and added, “You've grown a mighty thick layer of hard bark around your heart since this morning, darlin'.”
The girl's ferocious, crazed, turquoise gaze flashed from Pickett to me and back again. It sounded damn near unearthly when she snarled, “I thought about what these men did all the way from Devils River to here, Ranger Dodge. He deserved to die. Moreover, he deserved to die by my hand. Truth is, they all deserved to die by my hand.” She ran trembling fingers through her hair, as though clearing away any arguments against her conduct, then added, “It's biblical, by God. In the Scripture. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Blood for blood.”
I cast a bewildered glance toward heaven. Felt as though she'd somehow confused me into silence. After several seconds, I glanced at the tiny pistol in my hand and snapped, “I told you I'd take care of this. Gave you my word.”
“True,” the girl snapped back. “Just thought you could use a little help bringing this particular part of the dance to a suitable conclusion.”
I wasn't thinking when I went to offer the pissant-sized .32 back to her. She tried to snatch it from me as I asked her, “Where in the blue-eyed hell did you get this anyway?”
There was no hesitation when the stone-faced girl snapped, “Bought it over at that falling-down mercantile store next to Big Jim's. Same place I got my hat.” She made an insistent
gimme
motion. “And I want it back. I paid good money for that gun, and I want it. Might need it again when I catch up with the other two.”
With considerable reluctance, I extended the weapon and said, “Think it best that you get on back over to Big Jim's and wait for us. We'll take care of these boys and get after them other two quick as we can. Probably best to go after 'em tomorrow morning. Not a good idea to be on the Del Rio road at night. Even for men like us. Just never know what might happen.”
“Then where'll we stay?”
“Big Jim's livery with the horses.”
The girl shook her head, turned on her heel, and stomped away. Me, Boz, and Glo stood amongst the carnage and watched as Bear gave a slobbery yelp and loped happily off behind her.
After near a minute of silence Boz said, “How 'bout we go inside and have a drink? Hell, maybe two or three. Don't know you boys feelin's on the subject, but I could sure as hell use one right now. Given what we just seen and did and all.”
With a loud metallic click, Glo broke the Greener open and extracted the brass jackets of the spent shells. He dropped the empties into his coat pocket and fished out a fresh pair of hot loads. He shoved the new shells in place, snapped the weapon closed, leisurely checked to make sure the hammers were down, then said, “Sounds like a good idea, Mistuh Boz. Back of my throat feels like a barbed wire bird's nest.”
I stepped over Roscoe Pickett's corpse, stomped onto the plank porch, and headed for the cantina's door. Stopped a step from the rude threshold, turned, and gazed back at the bloody wreckage my friends and I'd wrought.
I let a flinty gaze flick over to the skull-shattered corpse of Cullen Pickett. The dead man had come to rest lying nigh on directly in the cantina's entryway. After several seconds my gaze moved to the now-toothless carcass of Roscoe, gape-mouthed and held upright in an ungainly, twisted position against the porch prop. Then for several seconds, I glared over at the lifeless body of their brother, Priest, cut nearly in twain by a double-barreled load of Glo's expertly delivered buckshot.
“Yeah,” I grunted, then laid the rifle across my arm again. “Sure enough. Think we could all use a drink 'bout now. Fact, more'n one sounds like a good idea to me.”
I suppose we stayed longer at Mendoza's than we should have. 'Course, it took some time to negotiate the hows and whys of Arturo Mendoza's disposal of the Pickett boys. The old bandit finally agreed when we told him he could keep everything they'd arrived withâincluding their horses, guns, other trappings, and such.
We were sitting at a table by the front door, working on our second tumbler of tequila, when a small band of Messicans showed up out of nowhere and went to carrying the corpses away. Took a spell, but when they finished you couldn't see a spot of blood on Mendoza's porch. It was darker than a barrel of black cats when we dropped money on the table and headed for Big Jim's. Time we got back to the stable it must have been around ten o'clock. I dropped into my bedroll and slept like a felled tree.
I woke up next morning to find Glo standing over me. Do believe he looked more distressed than I'd seen him in quite a spell. Said, “ 'At 'ere li'l gal done gone, Mistuh Dodge. Figure she could already be in Del Rio by now.”
Swear 'fore Jesus, if God himself had reached down from Heaven's front gate and slapped the bejabbers out of me, don't think I would've been any more surprised. But, hell, it was becoming more and more clear to me that Clementine Webb was chock full of such mind-boggling astonishments.