Blood Bond 3 (15 page)

“I think we hurt their feelin's,” Josiah said.

“Maybe so.” Sam picked it up. “But how do you hurt the feelings of a liar?”

“Good point,” Matt said.

“You callin' us liars?” one of the raiders asked.

“I'm callin' you all liars,” Josiah said. “You're liars, backshooters, ambushers, and hired killers. You're scum, punks, and trash. We've trailed you all for days. And we've left a string of dead bodies from the Pecos to here, and the list includes Tom Johnson, Hale Rivers, Barry Jackson, and Heck Tucker. Now what do you have to say about that, you ugly bastard?”

The outlaws came up dragging iron. But the Rangers had anticipated that. They jerked first and the trading post thundered with gunfire. Matt, Sam, and Josiah had a six-shooter in each hand, two more tucked behind each gunbelt and they let the lead fly. The barkeep hit the floor and stayed down, the building trembling when his weight impacted the boards.

It was over in only a few heartbeats. Gunsmoke hung heavy in the low-ceiling post. The reverberating gunshots had caused old bird's nests, dirt, and droppings to fall from the ceiling. One raider crawled to his knees, blood on his face, hate in his eyes, and his hands filled with .45's. Six pistols roared as one and the slugs lifted the gunhand to his boots and flung him back against a wall, dead before he hit the wall.

“Holy Jesus Christ!” the barkeep bellered.

The trio of Rangers walked over to the blood-slick corner. Raiders were stacked up on top of each other, sprawled in death and near death. One of them looked up through the gunsmoke and cussed the trio.

“I'd hate to go meet my maker with them words on my lips,” Josiah told him.

The outlaw added a few more.

“Where's the rest of your bunch of trash?” Josiah asked him.

“You go straight to hell!” the outlaw told him.

“It don't make no difference,” Josiah said. “We'll find 'em if we have to track 'em clear to Canada. Who paid you to attack the ranch?”

The raider told the Ranger where to put his question. Sideways.

The Rangers loaded up while the raider cussed them. The barkeep was on his hands and knees, peeping around a barrel behind the bar. “I'll bury 'em for five dollars apiece,” he said.

“I ain't dead yet, you fat pig!” the only surviving raider gasped.

“You will be in a little while,” the barkeep replied. “And I can wait.”

“First thing you do it git up and fetch us somethin' to eat,” Josiah told him. “Then start draggin' this trash out the back. You take what they owe you and five dollars more per hole. And dig the holes deep or the coyotes'll eat 'em. Bring ever'thing else back in here. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir!”

Josiah turned to the brothers. “I figure we got ten back at the ranch. We've left ten more on the trail. They's six here. That means we ain't got but about twenty more to go. We ought to have this wrapped up in a week or so.”

“I want a doctor!” the surviving gunslick said. “I'm bad hurt.”

“You best hurry up and expire,” Josiah told him. “I don't see how you're livin' now. You got more holes in you than a prairie-dog colony.”

“I hope the Injuns git you all and stake you out over an anthill!” the raider gasped.

“What an unkind thing to say,” Sam told him. “After all we've done for you.”

“All you've done for me! You ain't done nothin' for me except kill me.” The raider shuddered and closed his eyes.

Sam started to reply, then looked down at the man. He was dead.

“I'm hungry,” Josiah said. “Let's eat.”

The Rangers caught up with five more at a tiny hamlet on the Blackwater Draw. The townspeople stood in silence and watched the lawmen slowly ride in, stable their horses, and slip their guns in and out of leather a time or two. One minute the few stores on the short street were window-lined with people. The next minute they were deserted.

“They'll be in that hole-in-the-wall saloon over there,” Matt said.

“Probably,” Josiah replied. “And they know we're here.”

The batwings opened and five men crowded out, stepping into the street. One called, “We're tarred of you pushin' us. Damn tarred of it. We'll settle it here.”

“Suits me,” Matt called. He jerked iron and put a slug in the man's belly. The man went down to his knees and the others grabbed for guns.

Sam's first shot hit a man's gunbelt and exploded the cartridges in the belt. One slug struck the raider in the foot, another hit him in the groin, and several others exploded and tore a hole in his stomach. Sam's second shot ended his painful screaming.

Josiah had a Peacemaker in each hand and took two out, the Colts thundering. Matt took careful aim and drilled the last man standing, knocking him up against a hitchrail. The raider's .45 went off and he shot himself in the knee. He pitched forward into a horsetrough and bubbled and gurgled for a few seconds.

“They come in with about ten more, Ranger!” a citizen said, running up. “Them others pulled out this morning. They headed west toward New Mexico Territory.”

“Thank you,” Josiah said, reloading. “Git someone to bury that trash and bring me what's in their pockets. We'll be over yonder in the saloon.”

Over beer and stew, the men inspected what the raiders had in their pockets. Sam read a letter aloud. “ ‘Dearest Rob, I hate to be the bearer of sad tidings, but I feel it is best to tell you that Father has stricken your name from the family Bible and forbade your name to be mentioned in this house. He (and I) cannot understand why you left a loving family and chose a life of desperate company and painted women. We are all heartbroken. Your sister, Meg.' ”

“Where's it from?” Matt asked.

“It doesn't say.”

“Another unmarked grave,” Josiah said. “Another family who'll wait to hear from a son gone bad. The West is full of them kind of stories.”

Matt picked up a tintype and looked at it. “Very pretty lady. Young. Must be his sweetheart.”

“She's better off without him,” Josiah said. “What's that on the back?”

Matt turned the tintype over and looked at the scratchings. “ ‘Ruth Sessions. Kansas City. Age fifteen.' ” He slowly placed the picture on the table.

Sam opened a folded sheet of paper and read, “ ‘In the event of my death, I wish to tell the whole damn world to go right straight to hell.' It's signed ‘Billy Jackson.' ”

“Heard of him,” Josiah said. “Horse thief and murderer from over Louisiana way. We had warrants on that one.” He clicked open a pocket watch and read the inscription. “To Jay from Mother. Love. 1871.” He shook his head and sighed. “Another mother to sit by the door and wait for a son that'll never return. They never think about their mothers. I don't know what the hell they think about.”

A citizen nervously approached the table where the men were sitting. “The man who'll be prayin' over the deceased, ah, wants to know if there is anything that should be said. I mean, you know what I mean.”

Josiah looked up at him. “Might say they shoulda stayed in closer touch with their mamas.”

 

 

They lost the trail cold shortly after entering New Mexico Territory. Someone had been driving a small herd of cattle and the raiders found out where the drovers were pushing the herd and got ahead of it.

Josiah sat his saddle and sighed. “Hell with it, boys. It'd take us days, maybe weeks, to pick up the trail. Maybe never.”

The brothers looked at him in astonishment. Josiah Finch—giving up?

Sam put it together. “You got chewed out for crossing the Texas line last time, didn't you?”

Josiah smiled. “You might say that, yeah. I was told to keep my butt in Texas, for a fact. Come on, we'll cut south. I know a little tradin' post not too far from here. Folks keep talkin' about there bein' a town there someday. Damned if I can see it. Why would anybody want to build a town in New Mexico when the Texas line is only five miles away?”

 

 

The trading post was made of adobe and rock and looked like it had been there for some years. Matt said as much.

“Has been,” Josiah said.

“Looks deserted,” Sam remarked.

“Corral and stables are on the south side. This was supposed to have been a church, so I'm told. Injuns killed all the priests and the place was abandoned for years. Fellow name of Aquillo opened a tradin' post here years back. His son runs it now. I'm told it's nice and cool inside and the food is good.”

They rode around the back of the place, looking it over, and pulled up short at the sight of a dozen or so horses in the corral.

“I recognize that black,” Sam said.

“And that mustang,” Matt said.

“We lucked up, boys,” Josiah said with a grin. “Them raiders took a chance that we'd follow the herd and give them some breathin' room. Then they cut back south. And here they stopped and here we are.”

The men rode into the barn and stripped their weary mounts of saddle and bridle. A worried-looking boy helped them.

“Bad hombres in the post, son?” Matt asked him.

“Si,”
the boy replied. “They beat up my father and I'm thinking they want to do ugly things to my sister.”

“Did they see us ride in?”

“No. They are concerned only with drinking and cussing and saying vulgar things to my mother and sister. They sent me out here and told me not to come back in until they called.”

“Any other gringos in the store besides them, son?” Sam asked.

“No, señor. Just my mother, my father, and my sister.”

Matt gave the boy a dollar. “You rub these horses down good and give them all the grain they can eat. And you stay in this barn and out of sight, you hear me?”

“Si,
señor. Señor? There are twelve of them in there. They are very rough men, and they all smell very bad. There are but the three of you.”

Since they were in New Mexico Territory, and Josiah said his butt still hurt from the chewing he'd received, he had taken off his Texas Ranger badge and Matt and Sam had done the same. Josiah smiled at the boy. “We'll get your sis and your mom and dad outta this mess, son. You can count on that. You ever heard of the Wyoming gunfighter Matt Bodine?”

Sam rolled his eyes and snickered at Matt's sudden discomfort.

“Si,
señor!
Everybody
has heard of Matt Bodine.”

Josiah jerked a thumb in Matt's direction. “That's Bodine right there, boy.”

The boy's eyes widened. He looked at Sam. “Then you must be the half-breed, Sam Two Wolves?”

“That's right, son.”

Back to Josiah. “You must be famous to be riding with these men.'

“I'm Jesse James, son.”

The boy drew back in fear. “No!”

“It's the truth. But I ain't here to rob nobody. Bodine and Two Wolves wouldn't ride with me if I was here to do a wrong. So don't you fret none about that.”

“Stay in here now, boy,” Matt told him. “Keep the horses calm when the shooting starts.”

They stepped out of the barn and slipped along, hugging the adobe of the trading post. Sam looked at Josiah and whispered, “Jesse James?”

“The man's got enough bad things being said about him. Might as well have something good circulatin' too.”

They dropped down behind a pile of stove wood as the back door opened and a man stepped out, heading for the outhouse. He walked to it without looking in their direction.

“He saw us,” Sam said. “It's unnatural for a wanted man not to look in all directions upon leaving a building.”

“I agree,” Josiah said. He picked up a piece of stove wood and waited. The man stepped out of the privy and began his walk to the post. He looked neither left nor right. Josiah stood up and tossed the chunk all in one motion. He missed the man's head by a good two feet.

But Sam was already up and running at the throw. Before the man could jerk iron or yell out, Sam was on him, his forward momentum knocking the raider down. Sam clubbed him on the head and dragged him back to the privy. Having nothing to tie the man up with, Sam jerked off the two-hole privy seat and shoved the man down in the pit. He landed with a thick splashing sound. Sam replaced the seat.

“What'd you do with him?” Matt asked, when Sam slid back behind the stove-wood pile.

Sam told him.

Josiah grinned. “Good place for him. But be sure to tell the people here to dig a new hole and fill this one in. It'll be ripe here 'fore long.”

“You're becoming very inventive, brother,” Matt said with a smile.

“I didn't know what else to do with him!”

“They'll be missin' him in a few minutes and somebody else will be out to check,” Josiah said. “Anybody got a plan?”

“We sure can't go in shooting,” Sams said. “And if we try to take them out one at a time, they'll get suspicious and hold the people hostage.”

“That's what they're doin' now,” Josiah said sourly. “But I know what you mean.”

A bubbling, gurgling sound came from the outhouse.

“Wait here,” Matt said. “I want to talk to the boy one more time.” He was gone only a short time. When he returned, he laid out the interior of the trading post, drawing each room into the dirt. “The raiders are all in the saloon part. The boy's father was pistol-whipped and tossed in this small storeroom, tied up. When the boy was ordered out of the place, there was no one in the family's living quarters, right here.”

“That's the window right there?” Sam asked, pointing to an open-shuttered window only a few yards away.

“That's it.”

“Someone has to do it. So I'm gone.” Sam ran from behind the woodpile, reached the house, stayed close to the wall, and peeked into the bedroom. He signaled that it was empty and then disappeared into the room, crawling through the open window. Matt and Josiah followed.

With Matt in the lead, the trio walked through the bedroom and into the hall. Sam and Josiah had guns in hand, hammers back. Matt carried a long-bladed knife for silent work. Loud talk and dirty laughter reached them, coming from the far end of the long building.

“Come on, baby!” a man's voice lifted above the laughter. “Dance for us. Hike up that skirt and show us some skin.”

The sound of a brutal slap followed that, then a woman's crying.

“Sounds like we're just in time,” Josiah said.

The men flattened against a wall as a door opened and a man staggered out, sloppy drunk and careless. He fell against a wall, turned, and saw Matt only a few feet away in the dark hall. He opened his mouth to yell. The warning died in his throat as Matt's knife buried to the hilt in his belly, the cutting edge up. Matt ripped the knife upward with all his strength, the razor-sharp edge slicing through bone and tearing into the heart. Matt grabbed the outlaw's shirtfront with his left hand and lowered the body to the floor, wiping his blade clean on the dead man's shirt.

The trio moved on, silently working their way toward the rough talk and drunken laughter. They had hung their spurs on their saddle horns and moved without a sound.

An older woman carrying a platter of food passed by the open door and spotted them. Matt put a finger to his lips and the woman nodded her head in understanding. Matt sheathed his knife and pulled his guns, cocking them. He held up a gun and motioned that when the shooting started, the woman should get down.

She again nodded her head and moved out of the way.

“Take them petticoats off, baby!” a man yelled. “And I mean take it all off like right now!”

“I'm first!” a man yelled. “I ain't waitin'no longer. Jerk 'er down from that table and lay 'er over yonder on the floor.” The other thugs and trash began hollering and yelling obscenities as they lined up to rape the girl.

“Now or never,” Matt said. “I'll go straight in. Sam, you cut right. Josiah, you take the left side.”

“Let's do it.”

With both hands filled with guns, spare six-shooters tucked behind their gunbelts, the trio ran toward the open archway and went in low and fast, splitting up. It took only a second for the men to find clear targets and they opened up.

The young girl was naked, except for a few rags the men had left on her as they ripped her clothing away. She was screaming in terror and thrashing on the floor, pleading with the men.

Josiah shot the man who was forcing the girl's legs apart through the head. He fell to one side, part of his head gone. The mother grabbed her daughter and dragged her against the wall under a table.

The walls seemed to tremble as the guns of the Rangers thundered out frontier justice and retribution. Standing tall, the Texas Rangers held court in the old trading post; the Colts in their hands were the judges and the juries and the lawyers, dealing out death sentences in smoke and fire and lead.

One big thug managed to clear leather and fire, the slug blowing Matt's hat off his head. Matt shot him twice in the belly. The man's boots flew out from under him and he pitched backward, dying with his head stuck in a spittoon.