Hard Ride to Wichita (11 page)

Before leaving Stormy's later that afternoon, Luke and Red had another drink. They passed it off as a way to bring them good luck for the venture they'd decided to undertake, but both of them knew they needed the extra dose of firewater to steel themselves for what lay ahead. Luke wasn't about to turn back for any reason whatsoever because he was too invested in the outcome and Red just wasn't cut from the cloth of a quitter. They tipped back their drinks, slammed their glasses down, and, better or worse, good idea or not, marched outside.

After heading down the street and turning a corner, they were close enough to see the place that Luke had been searching for. Pointing to a shabby carriage house next to a cluttered lot, Luke said, “That's the place where our man is keeping his horse.”

“What's his name again?” Red asked.

“Carlo Procci.”

“He an Italian?”

“I guess,” Luke snapped. “What's that matter?”

“I don't know. Just asking.” Dropping to a knee, Red ground his hands into a pile of mud and smeared some onto his face.

Watching him with a mixture of confusion and disgust, Luke asked, “What are you doing?”

“I'm gonna go in and say I'm a friend of his or some angry fella looking for him. I haven't decided which. Either way, I can't go in smelling like all that lilac water Rose rubbed on me. They'll think I'm a dandy.”

“Nobody would have mistaken you for a dandy,” Luke scoffed. “A ranch hand who wandered in to get his toes curled, maybe, but not a dandy.”

“You want to do your own scouting? Just let me do this my way.”

Luke took a step back and raised his hands, allowing his friend to approach the stable without another word.

As he headed toward the stable, Red patted his belt to feel the Smith & Wesson still tucked where it always was. Although he'd fired the pistol plenty of times and knew it as well as he knew his own hand, the gun's presence wasn't inspiring the normal amount of confidence. Fortunately someone was already emerging from the stable so Red didn't have to think about whether or not he was ready for a confrontation.

“What can I do for you?” asked a lanky man in dirty brown pants and a dusty blue shirt. “Since you don't have a horse with you, perhaps you're interested in buying one? I got a few for sale.”

“I don't want to buy nothing,” Red snarled with a bit more ferocity than the words required. “I'm looking for someone.”

“I don't know what I can do about—”

“He's a customer of yours,” Red cut in. “Carlo Procci. You know him?”

“I do know him.”

Pulling his shirt from where it had been hastily tucked into his waistband, Red made sure the skinny fellow could see the Smith & Wesson as he said, “Tell me where to find him!”

The other man hopped back as if he'd just found himself at the wrong end of a cannon. His eyes grew wide and his hands shot out to either side. “No need for that! He's inside. Just go and see for yourself. I wasn't about to make any trouble. Go on inside!”

“That's right. You ain't gonna cause any trouble. That includes you going and fetching anyone else, you hear?”

“I don't know your business with that man inside and I don't wanna know.”

“You don't wanna get no law either,” Red warned.

The other man shook his head so vigorously that it seemed close to rattling off his shoulders. “There ain't no trouble. I got no reason to stand in your way.”

Now that the other man had proven so easy to shove around, Red didn't quite know what to do with him. “All right, then,” he said while trying to maintain the same intensity he'd had a moment ago. “Sorry about the cross words.”

Now the other man was confused. He squinted at Red and lowered his hands. “Ummm . . . you're sorry?”

“Just go.”

“You want me to go now?”

Too irritated with himself to say another word, Red grumbled angrily and stormed into the stable. As long as the skinny fellow didn't follow him, he didn't much care what he did.

The stable was much longer than it was wide, which meant it was considerably larger than he'd first thought. Sunlight shone in through several large holes in the roof. Dust trickled down from various loose boards overhead as well as from a loft that seemed barely sound enough to hold the few bales of hay being stored there. The straw on the floor was so matted that most of it was stuck to the boards. Of the five stalls sectioned off by low walls, three had functioning gates and only one of those was occupied by a horse.

Red stepped inside wearing a terse expression. His arms were at his sides, and his right hand was close enough to the Smith & Wesson to draw it the moment he thought it was needed. So far, the only distressing thing he encountered within the stable was the stench.

“Hello?” he called out.

There was no reply.

Cautiously moving forward, Red glanced back and forth at what was on either side. He saw the usual assortment of tools, feed bags, harnesses, and such that could be found in any stable and not much else. One trough was filled with water that would have made a swamp look like a crystal-clear stream. One stall must have been rented recently because it was almost fit for an animal to use. Midway through, he came upon the occupied stall. The light gray horse inside was chewing lazily on its feed and barely took notice of Red with its large, dark eyes. Its coarse mane was a mix of gray and black. After taking stock of Red, it snuffed and got back to its chewing.

Red's eyes were drawn to the saddlebags piled in one corner of the stall. Before he had a chance to wonder about why those bags had been left there, he spotted a man lying propped against the wall beside them. He was mostly covered by a blanket meant for the horse. Enough straw and dirt had either fallen onto him or been kicked onto him that he would have been easy to miss by an unaware passerby.

“Hey,” Red barked.

For a moment, Red thought the man half-buried in the straw was dead. Not only wasn't he moving, but his entire body was twisted at such a strange angle that it seemed most likely he'd been tossed there like so much refuse. When Red tried to push open the gate to get inside, it rattled noisily on its hinges. He pulled the rusted latch and eventually had to kick the gate before it would swing aside for him. Only then did the man in the stall behave like anything more than a corpse.

“Wha . . . ?” the man groaned.

Red stood just inside the stall. “Are you Carlo Procci?”

After making one attempt to lift his head, the man on the floor grunted and shifted beneath the blanket. His upper body was still skewed at a different angle than his head, and the one hand protruding from beneath the straw was balled up so tightly that it was hard to tell if it was his right or left.

“I'm talkin' to you!” Red said as he stomped forward. “You'd best answer me.”

“Or what?” the man asked in a haggard voice.

“Or . . . there'll be hell to pay!”

The man shifted some more until he was more or less lying on his back. Using the exposed hand, which now could be seen as his left, he pushed his hat back away from his face so he could get a less obstructed view of the other person in the stall with him. His nose was long, angular, and had been broken at least twice throughout his thirty-some years. Thin eyebrows and high cheekbones framed a pair of clouded blue eyes. The rest of his face was covered in thick layers of greasy whiskers that were too scattered and wild to be considered a proper beard. After looking at Red for all of two seconds, he let out a gurgling belch and set his head back down.

“Did you hear me?” Red asked.

“I'd be deaf if I hadn't.”

“Are you Carlo Procci?”

“If I say yes, will you let me get back to sleep?”

Red stood his ground and watched the man get situated on the floor. So far, his scouting plan hadn't only backfired, but left him painted in a corner and unsure as to whether or not the man in the stall was answering his question or just trying to get some peace and quiet. “Is this Carlo Procci's horse?” Red asked.

“Yeah.”

“What would you say if I took it?”

“He drinks more water than a fish and doesn't like the rain,” the man replied.

Red walked over to the horse, who barely acknowledged him as he reached out to take hold of its mane. Since his actions weren't sparking much of anything from either of the other souls in that stall, Red let go of the coarse, wiry hair and moved back through the gate. From there, he went all the way to the rear of the stable to examine the other stalls.

Unless there was another man hidden even better than the first one he'd stumbled across, it seemed that the one sharing the stall with the gray horse was the only other person in there. Red went back outside to find the skinny fellow right where he'd left him.

“You say Carlo Procci is in there?” Red asked.

Suddenly looking as if he was regretting staying put, the stable man said, “That's right.”

“Scraggly-looking man with a gray horse?”

“Yessir. He paid extra to bunk down in that stall with his horse. I suppose he couldn't afford no room at a hotel.”

Red glanced back inside the stable as if someone else might appear, shrugged, and walked away.

“You conduct your business with him?” the skinny man asked.

“We'll see about that.”

“So,” Luke said as soon as Red was close enough to hear him, “was his horse in there?”

Red crossed the street to where Luke was standing and took a look over his shoulder as if to make sure the stable was still there. “I guess so.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means I asked where to find Carlo Procci and was told he was inside.”

“That was your big plan?” Luke asked. “Ask if he was there? Anyone could have done that.”

“Then you should have done it yourself!”

“So, what did you find out? You think he'll be a problem?”

“Nah,” Red told him. “If that's Carlo Procci in there, he won't be any problem at all. He ain't much more than a vagrant sleeping in a dirty horse stall.”

“
If
that's Carlo Procci? You're not even sure?”

“I was just supposed to go in and scout. That's what I did. Far as I know, that's Carlo Procci and his horse in there.” Red stepped aside and swept his arms toward the stable. “You want to proceed with the rest of the job you took for no good reason? Be my guest.”

Rather than start fighting about why he'd taken Stormy up on her offer again, Luke walked past him and headed straight for the stable. After a few more steps, he could hear his friend keeping pace behind him.

By the time he'd made it to the stable, Luke had worked up quite a head of steam. Red was only chuckling under his breath behind him, which got under his skin to no end. The skinny fellow who was touching up the paint of a sign advertising the stable's daily rates saw them coming and immediately became nervous.

“Excuse me,” Luke said in a choppy, impatient tone. “You know a man named Carlo Procci?”

The skinny fellow started to say something, but choked it down again. He then glanced over to Red and closed his mouth tight. Looking back to Luke, the fellow set down his can of paint, placed his brush on top of it, turned around, and walked away.

Luke pulled open the narrow door built close to the larger twin doors at the front of the stable. Wincing as he was hit by the smell of manure that needed to be cleaned out and moldy hay that needed to be swept away, he looked to his friend and asked, “Where is he?”

“In the stall with the horse,” Red replied.

Before asking which stall that was, Luke saw there was only one with a horse in it and walked over to it. The gate to that stall was still ajar after Red had been there, and the gray horse on the other side of it didn't seem the least bit interested in taking a run for its freedom. The man who'd been lying on the floor had since kicked off his blanket and was sitting with his back against the wall and his long, lanky legs bent so his feet were flat against the ground.

“Are you Carlo Procci?” Luke asked.

“Why's everyone so damn interested in me today?” the man grunted.

“Are you or aren't you?”

The man snapped his eyes up toward both young men and said, “I'm him. What do you want that's so important I can't finish the sleep I started?”

“You owe Miss Stormy some money.”

“Miss Stormy, huh?” Carlo chided. “Did she send you over here promising a discount to put a scare into me? Go on back and tell her you did just fine. I'm petrified.”

“Whatever her real name is, you know who I'm talking about. She's the one that owns the cathouse down the street.”

“Hard to miss that place,” Carlo said.

“You owe her some money,” Luke continued. “And I'm here to collect.”

Placing his hands on his knees, Carlo looked back and forth between the two young men. “You're the best she could find?”

Luke nodded. “We're bounty hunters.”

That brought Carlo to his feet in a rush. It wasn't a scramble to pull himself up, but more of a flicker of motion that ended with him standing at his full height before either Red or Luke could do much about it. Although he was still filthy, Carlo didn't seem nearly as scattered as he had a moment ago. Instead of the tired vagrant Red had found sleeping with his horse, Procci was an armed man who stood several inches taller than both of the younger men.

It took a moment for Luke to digest the fact that Carlo was on his feet. The fact that Carlo wore a gun strapped around his waist sank in a moment later.

“How much money do I owe Miss Stormy?” Carlo asked in a tone that made the last two words sound like a lewd joke.

“Five hundred dollars.”

“What's your cut? Ten percent? Twenty?”

“Twenty,” Luke replied.

“Guess it stands to reason,” Carlo said. “You get what you pay for.”

Tired of being regarded as if he was something better suited to drink from one of the dirty troughs in another stall, Red pulled himself up by his bootstraps and said, “It don't make one bit of difference what you think of us.”

“Good, because I sure don't think you're bounty hunters.”

“All that matters is that we're here,” Red told him. “And that you owe a lady some money.”

“Lady?” Carlo sneered. “Have you met Stormy?”

“Yes,” Luke said sternly.

Carlo eased his hat back far enough to scratch beneath it. “I suppose she conducts herself a lot better than some of the dogs in heat that work for her. There's a piece of work named Rose who makes a rough stretch of road look like a primrose path.”

Red's brow furrowed and he took half a step forward. “What did you say?” he growled.

Grinning, Carlo said, “And she insists on dousing her boys with lilac water. The kind of stuff that still stinks to high heaven no matter how much mud gets on you afterward.”

Luke extended an arm to keep his friend from going any farther. “We're just here for the money. Hand over what you owe.”

“Or what?” Carlo asked. “There'll be hell to pay?”

“Something like that.”

As the three of them squared off, the air within the stable became still. All was quiet apart from the rattle of a wagon passing on the street outside and the gray horse's occasional shift from one hoof to another. Luke's guns were within easy reach, but he suddenly wasn't eager to draw them. It was plain to see that Carlo Procci wasn't to be taken lightly. Beneath the layers of filth and rumpled clothes was a coiled snake, tensed and ready to strike. Although Luke felt the need to tread lightly, he could tell Red wasn't thinking so clearly.

Sure enough, Red made a grab for his Smith & Wesson. Carlo lunged forward to take hold of Red's wrist so he could force him to pull the pistol from where it had been kept and point it away. Either out of surprise or desperation, Red pulled his trigger. The shot cracked through the air, sending a .22-caliber round whistling past Carlo's head to knock another hole into the wall behind him. Without reacting much to the shot that had just been fired, Carlo twisted Red's hand until he had to drop the pistol and then caught it before it hit the floor.

“This all you brought?” Carlo scoffed as he tossed the Smith & Wesson into the hay where he'd been sleeping. “Sorriest excuse for a bounty hunter I've ever seen.”

Luke cussed under his breath and drew one of the pistols holstered at his side. Before he could clear leather, Carlo's leg came up and his boot thumped into Luke's gut. If he hadn't already been tensed, Luke wouldn't have been able to breathe. As it was, he still felt a good portion of the wind spout from his lungs as he was knocked a step back.

“You still think this is worth a hundred dollars?” Carlo asked. “That's only fifty for each of you.”

Neither of the younger men responded with words. Luke struggled to catch his breath and regain his footing while Red lowered his shoulder and charged at Carlo like a bull.

Carlo was grinning from ear to ear as he turned toward Red and opened his arms as if to wrap him up in a warm welcome. He grunted as Red plowed into him and forced his back to a wall. After they'd come to a stop, Carlo pushed against both of Red's shoulders to gain enough room to bring his knee up into Red's chest. Although he wheezed after taking the blow, Red responded with renewed vigor as he grabbed Carlo's legs and pulled them out from under him. Both of them toppled to the floor and started fighting to gain the upper hand.

“I got him, Luke!” Red said as he placed his forearm across Carlo's neck and leaned down on it. “You get the money!”

“You sure?” Luke asked.

“Just get it!”

Luke had drawn one of the pistols from its holster and was surprised to see it wasn't the Colt. In his haste to arm himself, he'd skinned one of the pistols taken from Scott. The gun felt uncomfortable in his grasp, which was what troubled him about taking it in the first place. If he needed to use a weapon to defend himself, he knew better than to take his chances with one that wasn't familiar. Rather than waste time in switching guns, he went over to the saddlebags piled near the tethered horse.

The other two were making plenty of noise but didn't seem to be making much headway. As soon as one appeared to be coming out on top, the other would sneak in a quick punch or squirm in such a way that gave him a fleeting advantage. Red was just about to be tossed onto his back when he planted one foot squarely in place and pushed off to put some extra power behind the fist he slammed into Carlo's side. Carlo let out a strained moan and curled into a ball.

“Red!” Luke shouted. “Catch!”

Red looked toward his friend as Scott's second pistol sailed toward him. Although he was quick enough to catch the gun before it cracked him in the face, Red needed a moment to get a proper grip. By the time his finger had found the trigger, Carlo was on his feet.

Procci might have looked unruly before, but now he was a battered, bloody savage covered in sweat and glaring at Luke with wild eyes. Instead of diving for cover or even drawing his own pistol, he rushed straight at Red as if the gun in the younger man's hand were a toy. “Come on now,” Carlo said through gritted teeth as he slapped the gun aside. The pistol barked loudly and sent a round through the neighboring stall. “You've got to do better than that!”

Red was quick to pull his gun back, but not fast enough to track Carlo as he surged forward and to one side. When he pulled his trigger again, Red's bullet sailed through empty air.

“Some bounty hunter,” Carlo said as he flicked a powerful jab into Red's stomach.

Even though the punch landed in a spot that had been tenderized earlier in the fight, Red swung his hand in a chopping blow that knocked the pistol against the side of Carlo's head. Staggering like a drunk, Carlo moved out of Red's reach and then turned around. Red fired one more time, snapping Carlo's head back.

Red's breath caught in his throat when he saw a bit of blood fly through the air. Carlo remained upright for a second before his knees buckled and he fell onto the horse blanket lying on the floor behind him. “I . . . got him,” Red said between labored breaths.

“Is he dead?” Luke asked.

Without turning his eyes away from the fallen man, Red said, “Just find that money. I'll have a look.”

Red's gun hand was steady as he approached Carlo. His eyes burned with a mixture of sweat trickling from his brow and grit from the gun smoke in the air that stuck to his face. His heart was pounding hard enough to make his breath jumpy and irregular.

So far, Carlo hadn't moved. He lay on his side with his limbs splayed like a dog that was taking a nap. A small amount of blood was smeared on the floor near his head, and there was surely plenty more beneath it. Red shifted his focus down to the man's chest to look for a sign of life. “He ain't dead. Looks like he should be comin' to soon.”

The door swung open and smacked against the front wall of the stable. “What's going on in here?” the skinny man from outside asked. “What's the shooting about?”

Red turned to tell the skinny fellow to get lost, only to find him brandishing a shotgun. Both barrels were pointed at the stall where everyone and his horse were gathered.

“Leave us be!” Carlo said as he pulled himself up off the floor.

The skinny fellow brought the shotgun to his shoulder and took a few steps closer. “This is my place and I'm through with being shoved around by everyone that comes along. You men get out or—”

Propping himself up on one arm, Carlo lifted his other arm to point a gun toward the stable's entrance. He fired a shot that burned a path well above the skinny fellow's head before saying, “Go on and git!”

The skinny fellow turned tail and went.

Bending his arm so his pistol was now aimed at the roof, Carlo grunted, “I'm through with being threatened by ultimatums from lesser men.”

“Who're you callin' a lesser man?” Red demanded.

Slowly, Carlo shifted his gaze toward him. Smoke still curled from the barrel of his gun to form a crooked halo near his head. “Don't test me, boy. Leastways, don't test me any more than you've already . . . aw, just help me up, will you?”

Red looked over to Luke, who was now sifting through the second saddlebag in the pile. Since he didn't get anything helpful from him, he pointed the gun in his hand down at Carlo and thumbed back the hammer. “Put your gun away first,” he said.

“Sure, sure,” Carlo muttered while stuffing the pistol back into its holster.

“No, I mean drop the gun. Toss it away.”

Carlo sighed, removed the gun gingerly, and threw it toward Red's boots.

Even though he'd been the one to make the request, Red didn't seem to know quite what to do now that it had been obeyed. Carlo extended his hand toward him, but Red took a step back and straightened his gun arm. “On second thought, help yourself up,” he said.

“Finally thinking before you act,” Carlo said as he climbed to his feet. “That's a step in the right direction.”

“Mister, you don't know anything about me or what direction I need to go. Luke, did you find what you're looking for?”