Chapter 19
“So he's hired Monty Brill,” Josiah said. The men sat at a table in the saloon, drinking coffee. They were leaving for the Circle S in about a hour to attend the funeral of Jimmy, to be held just at sunset.
“Do you know him?” Sam asked.
“Never laid eyes on the man. All I know about him is he's killed about thirty men face-to-face. He's never had a warrant writ out on him. He'll deliberate bump a man at the bar, and they'll be a few cuss words exchanged, and one man will call the other out into the street. Brill always collects in advance in some mannerânever in personâand minutes after the shootin', he's gone.”
“Any idea what he looks like?” Matt asked.
“I've heard a dozen different descriptions. But the one that keeps comin' back is that he's a tall, rangy sort of man. Very soft-spoken and well-mannered. Never uses profanity and is very polite around the ladies. Not much of a drinker. He's no backshooter. He'll face you head on and throw down. And he's fast.”
“Age?” Sam asked.
Josiah shook his head. “Anywhere from forty to fifty. Monty Brill's been around a long time. He's faced a lot of men and made a lot of money by killin' for hire, and there ain't nobody that I ever heard of ever got no lead in him. Don't nobody seem to know where he calls home. But several have said it's up in the Dakotas.”
“Then maybe Dodge knows him?”
“Could be. It won't hurt to ask.”
Sam looked at the clock over the bar. “It's time to head for the Circle S.”
Jeff had sent heavily armed punchers out from the ranch to prevent any replay of the tragedy that had occurred during the funeral services at the Flying V. It was an indication of how badly conditions had deteriorated just west of the Pecos.
When Jimmy had been buried and the last words spoken and the final prairie flower placed on his grave, the men and women returned to the house, the men to gather on the front porch and the ladies inside, fixing coffee and food.
“Monty Brill?” Vonny Dodge said. “Yeah, I know him. Or, rather, I knew him, years back, when he was just earnin' his reputation. You talk to him and he comes across like a nice fellow. But he's all twisted inside his noggin. He enjoys killin'. And he don't always charge for it. Sometimes he just strikes out on his own to stalk and kill somebody. It's like it's something he has to do; something that just builds up inside him like steam in a kettle. Folks say he's killed thirty men.” Vonny shook his head. “More like a hundred and thirty. Maybe more than that. He comes into town, Matt, you kill him first time you see him. Don't ponder on it none. Just plug him and keep pourin' the lead into him until you're sure he's dead.”
Matt shook his head in the rapidly fading light. “You know I can't do that, Vonny.”
“Well,” the old gunfighter said, “if I'm in town, you won't have to worry about it. I'll do it.”
The men sat in silence for a time, enjoying each other's quiet company and the peacefulness of the purple-shadowed close of day. Even some of the revengeful fire seemed to have been banked in Vonny Dodge, but all knew that while the flames were not visible, the coals were still white hot inside the man, and it would take but a whisper of a breeze to fan them into a hellfire of a killing inferno.
Vonny abruptly excused himself and walked off into the night, heading to his bachelor quarters off from the main house.
On the ride back to town, Matt said, “Vonny's up to something, I think.”
“I got the same impression,” Sam said. “The death of Jimmy is affecting him more than he's letting on.”
“Them few days he gave us back yonder at the burned-out ranch is over,” Josiah added. “I seen that the other night in the saloon. From here on out, any time Vonny comes up on a Broken Lance rider, he's gonna kill him. And he'll be lookin' hard, bet on that.”
“You think he's passed the word to the hands?” Matt asked.
“Oh, yeah. John Lee don't know the narrow corner he's worked hisself into. But he's gonna be findin' out shortly.”
As they were speaking, Vonny Dodge and half a dozen Circle S hands were quietly saddling up and getting ready to ride.
Jeff Sparks and his son stood on the porch of the ranch house and watched them walk their horses out of sight before mounting up.
“What if Cindy catches a bullet during this sneak attack, Papa?” Gene asked.
“I'd hate that, boy,” the father said. “It'd be a hard thing. And I'd have to live with it for the rest of my life. But she made her choice when she turned her back on her family. Personally, I think Noah would seriously consider shootin' her hisself if he got the chance. And that's an awful thing to say.”
“He told me that just the thought of her havin' Nick's baby makes him sick to his stomach,” Gene said.
“It don't make me feel real good. But let's hope that nothin' happens to the unborn child. It ain't the baby's fault.”
Vonny personally led the attack on the Broken Lance spread. The riders went in hard and fast and caught everyone by surprise. They set one of the bunkhouses on fire with thrown torches and managed to set the shed out back of the main house blazing while Tate, Lomax, and Cloud tore down the corral and sent the horses scattering in a wild stampede.
Bell pulled sticks of short-fused dynamite from a sack on his saddle horn and really got the fireworks started when he tossed a stick into the well and ruined their drinking water. He bounced another stick off an outhouse door and blew it apart. Its occupant was blown several feet into the air and came down with his pants around his boots and splinters driven deep into his bare butt. He would not be sitting a saddle for several days.
Chookie tossed a stick of dynamite onto the front porch of the mansion and caved in the overhang, the porch roof collapsing and blocking the entire front portion of the house.
John Lee was having a brandy in the dining room when the attack came. Beavers rode past the lighted area and stuck a sawed-off shotgun through the open window, blowing the chandelier that John Lee had brought in from St. Louis into a million pieces and sending the rancher diving for the floor, crawling under the table.
The charge that ruined the front porch lifted the table off its legs and turned it over, the supper dishes and chicken and dumplings slopping all over John Lee and a silver serving platter conking him on the head. Cussing and hollering and screaming, John Lee looked up just in time to see Gilley level a six-shooter at him through the open window. John Lee, slipping and sliding in the dumplings and the chicken and the apple pie got his butt out of the way just as Gilley fired, the slug knocking a hole in the expensive table.
Nick ran out the back door, his hands full of six-shooters and Chookie dabbed a loop over the young man and jerked it tight. Screaming like a Comanche, Chookie dragged the rancher's son through the yard until Nick impacted against the side of a horse trough and the force of the sudden stop tore the saddle horn off.
Two Broken Lance riders faced Vonny with Colts in their hands. Vonny smiled a hard smile and John Lee could scratch two more hands off his payroll sheet.
Just before the Circle bunch rode off into the night, Chookie tossed a bundle of taped-together sticks of dynamite into the now-empty barn. The charge blew a huge hole in one wall and collapsed that side of the barn. With a earsplitting creak, the other side slowly caved in, until the barn roof was sitting flat on the ground.
Whooping and hollering, the Circle S attackers rode off into the night, knowing that it would take several hours for the Broken Lance men to round up their horses and launch any kind of pursuit.
John Lee staggered out of the house, still slipping and sliding on his slick-soled boots, dumplings in his hair and a piece of boiled chicken hanging out of one ear. In a futile gesture of rage and frustration, he emptied his pistols into the air, hitting nothing.
Nick slowly got to his boots, a huge knot on his head where he had impacted with the watering trough. He had lost his fancy guns and he was addled, for a moment not knowing where he was, who he was, or what the hell had happened. Cindy stuck her head out of an upstairs window and brought her reluctant husband back to reality by squalling at him.
“Aw, shut up,” Nick said. But he was catching on fast to married life. He did not say it loud enough for his wife to hear.
“Round up the horses,” John Lee said. He was so angry his voice trembled. And he was having trouble hearing out of one ear. He reached up and pulled a piece of boiled chicken out of it. “We're striking backâtonight!”
His foreman said, “They'll be expectin' it, John. and they'll be waitin' for us.”
“Not at the Flyin' V, they won't. Those were all Circle S riders that hit us.”
Max nodded his head. “I'll get us saddled up and fetch a sack full of dynamite. I'll have one of the boys cap and fuse it while we're roundin' up the horses.”
“Pay-back time,” John Lee muttered and whistled and sprayed spit. “You boys had you a good time this night, now I'm going to have me a better one.”
But Vonny had warned young Noah what was going to happen right after the funeral, and Noah had turned his ranch into a fort, with riflemen ready in the best positions around the area. While there was only seven of them counting Noah, seven men with rifles could do a tremendous amount of damage. In addition to the riflemen, Noah and his crew had worked hard in painting rope black and then stringing it from barn to bunkhouse, house to barn, and corral to bunkhouse. The painted rope was just high enough to catch a mounted man in the chest or in the throat, and it was stretched tight.
“Here they come!” Burl called from the barn loft. “And they're comin' hard.”
“Let 'em hit the ropes!” Noah called. “And then open up.”
“For a youngster,” Mark raised his voice to be heard from the loft to the bunkhouse, “that boy's got a lot of nerve and good sense.”
“And after what happened to his ma and pa,” Pete called, “I reckon he's fightin' with a heart full of hate for John Lee.”
Nick was leading the assault against the ranch. He came riding in with both hands filled with guns and knee-reining his horse. He was the first to hit the ropes and the rope caught him across the chest, lifting him out of the saddle and hurling him against Lew Hagan, slamming both men to the ground and knocking the wind from them. They both lost their guns. Their horses galloped on and kept on going.
Bradshaw had sticks of dynamite looped together and hanging around his neck when he hit the rope and was knocked from the saddle. He rolled and came to his boots, looking wildly around him. Burl lined him up in rifle sights and pulled the trigger, the hot slug striking the cap.
The explosion concussioned the night, and when all the bits and pieces finally fell back to earth, there wasn't enough left of Bradshaw to write home about.
Nick was running wildly, disgust and fear moving him; part of Bradshaw had splattered all over him. He ran into the barn, and Mark rolled a bale of hay over the edge of the loft. The bale hit Nick on the back and knocked him to the rough floor, where he banged his head on the floor and was out cold.
A hired gun called Peck had run his horse into the back of another horse who had refused to go any farther, sensing that something was wrong up ahead and had stopped quite abruptly. The rider on the reluctant horse had gone sailing through the air, crashing into the corral and shot dead.
Peck left his saddle almost as suddenly as the now-dead gunny had and upon hitting the ground had started crawling on his hands and knees, getting the hell gone from that area. He'd been in too many fights not to know when one was going sour.
John Lee had his horse stumble and fall, spilling him from the saddle. He lost his hat and one gun and ran into the south end of the barn and stepped on the tines of a rake. The handle flew up and busted him directly on the snoot, breaking the nose. The blood flew as John backed out of the barn and caught up a loose horse, swinging into the saddle.
“ 'Et's 'o,” he hollered.
“What the hell did he say?” Lightfoot asked Lopez.
“ 'Et's 'o!” John squalled, his words slurred because his nose was spreading all over his face, and he didn't have any front teeth to begin with.
“I'm gone!” Leo Grand said, and those close to him followed suit, riders heading out in all directions.
In the confusion, no one noticed Nick was not among them.
Noah and the hands roped the bodies of the dead by the ankles and dragged them to a gully about a quarter of a mile from the house. Two men were not seriously hurt and they were hog-tied and tossed back to the ground just as Nick was shoved out of the barn.
Noah pulled his .45 and cocked it, the sound loud in the night. He put the muzzle against the head of one of the hog-tied gunhands. “Tell me the names of those who whipped Jimmy to death, or die right here.”
The hired gun didn't even take a breath. “John Lee and his son Nick, the foreman Max, andâ”
“That's enough,” Noah told him, holstering his pistol. “Gary, get me that quirt that Mex rider left here a couple of years back. Burl, you and Teddy strip Nick bareass and turn that barrel over yonder and tie him across it. I want his butt shinin' up.”
“You got it!”
The short-handled quirt had four long, tightly braided lashes and was a cruel whip. Nick started hollering as the men tore his clothes off him and tied him belly down across the barrel. The two tied-up gunnies were thinking: Better him than me.
“Jimmy had the courage to crawl into town and live long enough to tell us who did it to him, Nick,” Noah said. “And I doubt he screamed once while you and your sorry father and the others were whipping him to death. I don't think you're one tenth of the man Jimmy was.”