CHAPTER 7
They took the road south out of Fort Smith, which followed the boundary between Arkansas and Indian Territory fairly closely. Bo rode up alongside the wagon seat and asked Brubaker, “How long do you think it'll take to get to Tyler?”
“Five or six days, I expect,” the deputy marshal replied. “If we don't run into any trouble.”
Scratch had come up to flank the wagon on the other side. He grinned and said, “If that's true, then the dinero we're gettin' paid works out to be better than the wages we could make cowboyin'.”
Brubaker grunted.
“You'll earn every penny of it if Gentry and his bunch come after us,” he warned.
The thick wooden walls around the wagon bed had a few small, slitlike windows set high in them to let in some light and air. Obviously those openings permitted the prisoners to hear some of the conversation that was going on outside, too, because Cara LaChance yelled, “You just wait, you damn lawdog! Hank's coming after you, all right! When he catches up to you, you'll wish you'd never been born! He'll take his skinnin' knife to you, and you'll be screaming and begging for him to kill you before he's through with you!”
Cara went on explaining in gory, graphic detail just what Hank Gentry would do with his knife. Brubaker sighed and shook his head.
“Lord, we're gonna have to listen to that all the way to Texas,” he muttered.
“Maybe you could gag her,” Scratch suggested.
“And take a chance on her bitin' me?” Brubaker shook his head again. “That'd be a good way to get hydrophobia.”
“She's like one of those kid's toys that you wind up,” Bo said. “She'll run down after a while.”
His prediction proved to be accurate. A short time later, Cara fell silent for a few miles.
But then the cursing and haranguing started again. Brubaker finally lost his temper and turned to yell through the narrow openings, “Shut up in there! The judge said I had to deliver you to Tyler. He didn't say that you still had to have a tongue in your head when I got you there!”
Scratch looked at the deputy in horror.
“You wouldn't really cut her tongue out, would you?” he asked.
Brubaker shook his head, but he said in a loud, clear voice, “I damn sure might!”
That shut Cara up again. Bo didn't have any real hope that it would last, but he would take all the peace and quiet he could get, even if it was only temporary.
The town had fallen well behind, leaving them to travel through rolling, thickly wooded hills broken up by grassy meadows, plowed fields that were bare of crops at this time of year, and the occasional rocky ridge. From time to time they passed a log cabin with smoke curling from its chimney into the morning air. Droopy-eared hounds bayed at them, and the commotion drew farmers and their families from the cabins to watch the wagon and the two riders go past.
“If anybody's coming after us, they won't have any trouble following our trail,” Bo said.
Brubaker didn't look over at him.
“I know.”
Bo exchanged a glance with Scratch over the top of the enclosed wagon. It seemed to him that Brubaker was being awfully nonchalant about the prospect of a bloodthirsty outlaw gang pursuing them, and Scratch's frown told Bo that his old friend shared that concern.
Brubaker was the boss, though, and since the Texans had taken money to back his play, there was no doubt that they would do so.
It just seemed like they might be riding straight into trouble with their eyes wide open, and Bo didn't cotton to that feeling.
The day warmed as the sun rose higher in the sky, but the air still held a slight chill, even at midday as the wagon approached a low, rambling wooden building beside the road.
A buggy and a farm wagon were parked in front of the building, and several saddle horses were tied up at the hitch racks. Thick billows of white smoke came from the stone chimney.
“Clark's Trading Post,” Brubaker announced. “We'll stop here and let the horses rest for a spell. We'll take the prisoners out one at a time and let 'em go out back to the privy, too.”
He brought the wagon to a stop at the side of the building. Bo and Scratch reined in and dismounted while Brubaker climbed down from the high seat. The Texans drew their Winchesters from saddle sheaths.
“I reckon we'll cover them while you turn them loose?” Bo said.
“I'm not turnin' 'em loose,” Brubaker snapped.
Bo shrugged. “Bad choice of words. While you unlock the chains holding them to the floor.”
“Right.” Brubaker reached into his pocket and brought out the big key that would unfasten the padlocks. “The girl's comin' out first.”
Bo and Scratch worked the levers on their rifles. They stood back, one on each side of the door in the back of the wagon. Brubaker unlocked the padlock on the door and took it off. Then he stepped back quickly and dropped his hand to the butt of his gun, just in case the prisoners had gotten loose somehow and were about to try busting out.
Nothing happened, except that Jim Elam's whiny voice asked, “Where are we? Why have we stopped?”
“We're at Clark's,” Brubaker replied. “I'm gonna take you out one at a time, let you tend to your business, give you some food and somethin' to drink. If you don't give me any trouble, it'll go a hell of a lot easier.”
Cara laughed. “Easier for you, maybe.”
“Easier for you, too,” Brubaker told her. “Unless you enjoy goin' all day with nothin' to eat or drink and like pissin' in your pants.”
She cursed at him. The deputy sighed and said to Bo and Scratch, “This is gonna get mighty old.”
He reached forward, grasped the handle on the door, and pulled it open. All three prisoners flinched away from the midday light that spilled through the door. It had to be painfully bright to their eyes after spending the morning inside the dim, shadowy wagon bed.
“You first, Cara,” Brubaker said.
“Why, ain't you the little gentleman?” She screeched with laughter. “And I do mean little.”
Lowe joined in with some rumbling laughter of his own, and Elam snickered. Brubaker ignored them. He stood on the steps leading up to the open door and reached in to unlock the padlock holding Cara's chains to the ring on the floor. Then he backed off and drew his gun.
“You're not gonna take any of these other chains off me?”
“Not hardly.”
“I need my hands free. I can't take care of my business with my arms chained behind my back!”
“You'll just have to make do,” Brubaker told her stubbornly.
“Why, damn youâ”
“Shut up now, or you can just stay in the wagon.”
Bo could see the hatred seething inside Cara. It seemed to light her up, like she was on fire inside. But she didn't say anything else.
Instead she climbed awkwardly out of the wagon with the chain that had fastened her to the floor now dangling awkwardly from her other chains, weighing her down. Between that and the shackles on her ankles, there was no way she could run. She could barely shuffle along.
“Creel, you come with me,” Brubaker said. “Morton, stay here and keep an eye on the other two. If either of them does anything suspicious ... shoot him.”
Scratch said, “I reckon ol' Bigfoot Southwick wouldn't like it if he didn't get to hang all three of 'em.”
“I don't care what Judge Southwick likes or doesn't like. I'd rather bury a prisoner than have one escape.” Brubaker jerked his head at Bo. “Come on, Creel.”
Bo and the deputy followed Cara as she inched her way along the side of the building. An outhouse sat behind the trading post, at the edge of some trees. That was their destination. It took quite a while to reach it.
When they did, Cara said again, “I tell you, I got to have my hands loose. I got to pull my dress up. My God, Brubaker, ain't you got no decency to you at all?”
“You're a fine one to talk about decency,” Brubaker said. “I seem to remember Gentry and his gang burnin' down a farmhouse with the family that lived there still inside it. You were there.”
Cara giggled. “One time when we passed through those parts before, that damn Cherokee sodbuster sent word to the law. He tried to turn us in. We barely got away. Hank swore then that the redskin would pay, him and his squaw and all their brats.”
“Go on and get in there, if you're goin' to,” Brubaker ordered.
Cara shuffled into the two-holer.
“Ain't you even gonna close the door and give a lady some privacy?” she demanded.
“I would if there was a lady here.”
“I can't ... Son of a ... Brubaker, this ain't gonna work!”
The deputy heaved a sigh.
“Creel, use the barrel of your rifle to lift her skirt some,” he said.
Bo was too old to be easily embarrassed, but he felt his face warming now. He said, “I'll give you the rifle, and I'll cover her with my Colt.”
“All right, blast it.” Brubaker holstered his revolver and practically snatched the Winchester from Bo's hands. Bo moved back a step and drew his Colt.
Brubaker reached into the outhouse and used the rifle barrel to hoist Cara's dress enough that she could sit down on one of the holes. Bo wanted to avert his eyes, but he didn't. Maybe he and Scratch should have thought about Judge Parker's offer a little longer before they agreed to help Brubaker deliver the prisoners, he told himself. He was about as uncomfortable as he had been in a long time.
After a while Cara said, “All right, I'm done.”
“Stand up and come on out, then,” Brubaker told her.
“You're a miserable excuse for a human bein'.”
“Leastways I never killed any innocent folks, like you and your butcherin' crew.”
She laughed again as she stood up and started to come out of the privy.
“Hank and the boys will butcher you, all right,” she said. “Lay you wide open and show you your own innards. How's that gonna feel to you, lawman?”
“If I was you,” Brubaker said, “I'd worry more about what it's gonna feel like when that trapdoor drops out from under you and that hang rope tightens around your neckâ”
“Marshal,” Bo said. He didn't want to listen to the two of them fussing at each other anymore.
Besides, three men had just stepped out the back door of the trading post, and every instinct in Bo's body was suddenly warning him that they were trouble.
CHAPTER 8
Out in front of the trading post, Scratch stood alertly, holding his Winchester and watching the two men inside the wagon.
“It just ain't fair, the way you fellas are treatin' us,” Jim Elam complained.
Scratch said, “From what I've heard of your checkered career, son, bein' fair ain't something you've ever worried about much. It ain't fair to rob people of money and property they've worked hard for.”
“Hell, the gub'mint does it all the time, don't they?”
“That don't make it right,” Scratch said.
In his rumbling voice, Dayton Lowe said, “If you ain't tough enough to hang on to what you got, you don't deserve to have it.”
“Well, there might be somethin' to that, but this here is what you call a civilized society. We ain't barbarians.”
Lowe glared at him and said, “A man's either a barbarian inside ... or he's fodder for them that are.”
Scratch sighed. Danged if he knew why he was standing around arguing philosophy with a couple of outlaws and mad dog killers. He didn't say anything else, and after a few minutes, Elam said, “I wish them other two would hurry up and get back with Cara. I need to visit that outhouse.”
“They'll be here when they can,” Scratch said. Voices drew his attention. He stepped back and saw that a couple of roughly dressed men armed with six-shooters had come out of the trading post. They stood on the front porch, talking.
Scratch tensed. He didn't know Hank Gentry or any of the other members of Gentry's gang by sight. It was possible these were two of the owlhoots, and they might be planning on trying to free Elam and Lowe.
Instead, one of them took a silver flask from under his jacket and unscrewed the cap. He lifted it to his lips and took a healthy swig of whatever was inside, then offered the flask to his companion.
“Whoo-eee,” the first man said. He wiped the back of his free hand across his mouth. “That'll sure warm you up on a cold day. Try it, cuz.”
Scratch could see a faint resemblance between the men now, so he could believe that they were cousins. Not that it was any of his business, he reminded himself, as long as they didn't bother him or the prisoners.
The second man took a long drink from the flask, belched, and handed it back to the first man.
“You're right, that's prime corn,” he said.
The first man nipped at the flask again, then capped it and put it away. The two of them came down the steps, a little unsteady on their feet.
Just a pair of country boys who were drunk already, even though the sun was directly overhead, Scratch thought.
But at the same time, he continued to be wary. They could be putting on an act. They headed toward a couple of horses tied at the hitch rack, and Scratch hoped they would just mount up and ride away.
Instead, the first man hesitated and looked over at him. He nudged his companion with an elbow, then came toward Scratch with a leering grin on his face.
“You belong to a medicine show, old man?” he asked.
“What makes you say that?” Scratch said.
“Them fancy clothes you got on. Or is there a circus comin' and I just ain't heard about it yet?”
“You boys better just move on,” Scratch advised.
The second man stumbled after the first. He waved a hand toward the wagon and asked, “What's in there that you're guardin'? You got a bear or somethin' locked up in that wagon?”
“I'll bet it's one o' them tigers,” the first man said.
“Or maybe some whores,” the second man suggested. “Fella dressed that fancy could be a whoremonger.”
Scratch was getting annoyed by these fools.
“Go finish gettin' snockered somewheres else,” he told them. “Leave a man to do his job, why don't you?”
Suddenly, from inside the wagon, Jim Elam cried, “Help us, boys! Get us loose! Kill this old man and we'll make it worth your while!”
Alarm bells had never stopped going off inside Scratch's head, so he wasn't surprised when the two strangers dropped the pretense of being drunk and swept back their coats to claw at the holstered revolvers on their hips.
Â
Â
Bo barely had time to exclaim, “Brubaker, look out!” before three men on the back porch had their guns drawn. He didn't know who they wereâmembers of Hank Gentry's gang, come to rescue their friends, more than likelyâbut it didn't matter.
Any time a man slapped leather, Bo left off wondering and commenced shooting instead.
The man on the end at Bo's right was the fastest of the three. He had his gun out of its holster, and flame was spitting from its muzzle by the time Bo brought his rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.
The Winchester cracked. The slug that flew from its barrel punched into the gunman's chest and flung him back against the wall behind him. Before the man could even fall, Bo had already worked the rifle's lever and swung the barrel toward the second man.
He had heard that first bullet whistle past his head and thud into the outhouse wall behind him, and he didn't want to give the other two a chance to have better aim. He fired again before the second man could get off a shot and drilled him cleanly through the body.
But before Bo could fire again, Cara LaChance managed to throw herself forward, despite the chains burdening her. She rammed a shoulder into Brubaker's back. The deputy had whirled around to meet the threat of the three gunmen, and turning his back on her was a mistake.
The impact sent Brubaker stumbling into Bo just as the Texan squeezed the Winchester's trigger a third time. Being jostled like that threw off his aim. His shot went over the head of the third man, who sprayed lead at them as fast as he could jerk the trigger of his revolver.
Bo flung himself forward on the ground as slugs whipped through the air above him. From the corner of his left eye, he saw that Cara had bellied down, too, to make herself a smaller target while the bullets flew. Brubaker had dropped to his knees. Bo spotted blood on the deputy's face.
There was no time to see how badly Brubaker was hurt. Bo heard shots blasting in front of the trading post, too, and knew that Scratch was probably in danger, but he couldn't go to his trail partner's aid right now, either.
The third gunman back here still had to be dealt with. From his prone position, Bo fired again. Not surprisingly, the shot went a little low. It clipped the third man's thigh. Blood flew, and the slug's impact was enough to spin the man halfway around and drop him to one knee as the wounded leg went out from under him. He dropped the gun he had emptied by now and used that hand to grab a porch post and steady himself while he yanked another pistol from behind his belt.
He and Bo fired at the same time. The gunman's bullet smacked into the ground about five feet in front of the Texan, kicking dirt into his face and momentarily blinding him.
Bo had already sent a slug ripping through the gunman's neck, though. The man rocked back as crimson gore fountained from his ruined throat. His gun roared again, but it had sagged toward the ground right in front of the rear porch. His fingers slipped off the porch post, and he pitched forward to land on the ground, where the blood welling from his throat quickly formed a dark red puddle in the dirt.
Blinking rapidly to clear his vision, Bo shoved himself to his feet and levered another round into the Winchester's chamber. He was fairly confident that all three gunmen were dead, but he kept them covered anyway as he glanced over toward Brubaker. The deputy had collapsed, and he was either dead or passed out.
And Cara LaChance was trying to crawl away, dragging her chains after her.
Â
Â
The two men in front of the trading post had made a mistake by getting as close to Scratch as they had. As they went for their guns, the silver-haired Texan lunged forward and rammed his Winchester's barrel into the belly of the nearest man as hard as he could.
That brutal blow made the man double over, retching, and he forgot all about trying to draw his gun. The next instant, the butt of Scratch's rifle slammed into the side of his head and sent him sprawling on the ground at his companion's feet.
The second man had to dart aside to avoid tripping over the man Scratch had knocked down, and that slowed his draw by a split second. That was long enough for Scratch to swing the Winchester toward him and fire.
The heavy bullet smashed into the man's chest and knocked him backward. His finger jerked the trigger of his gun just as he cleared leather. The shot tore downward through his own boot, probably blowing off a toe or two.
That injury was the least of the man's concerns. He pressed his free hand to his chest as he tried to stay on his feet and struggled to lift his gun. Blood bubbled over and between his fingers. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he went down in a slow, twisting collapse.
The first man had regained his senses enough to draw his gun and fire up from the ground at Scratch, who jerked aside just in time to avoid the two slugs as the man triggered twice. Both shots went through the open door of the wagon and drew frightened shouts from Elam and Lowe.
Scratch hoped the stray bullets hadn't hit either of the prisoners, but he didn't have time to worry about them. He swung his leg in a kick that sent the gun spinning from the hand of the man who had just tried to kill him.
Scratch stepped back quickly and leveled the rifle at the man on the ground.
“All right, mister, get up,” he ordered. “But don't try anything else or I'll ventilate you.”
The man was still pale from the pain and shock of being hit in the belly by Scratch's rifle and then getting clouted on the head. He groaned and then gasped, “You ... you killed Cousin Bob!”
“You're lucky you ain't dead, too,” Scratch told him. “Now get up.”
During the ruckus, he had heard shots coming from behind the trading post, quite a few of them, in fact, and he was worried about Bo. Obviously the two who had played drunk and tried to get the drop on him that way hadn't been acting alone. Their partners had gone after Bo and Brubaker.
The shooting had stopped now, and Scratch wanted to go see if his old friend was all right. First, though, he had to do something with this varmint.
A horrified cry erupted from inside the wagon. Jim Elam screamed, “Oh, my God! Dayton's hit! There's blood all over the place! Somebody help him!”
Instinctively, Scratch turned in that direction, just for the barest instant.
That was long enough for the man on the ground to surge to his feet and lunge at Scratch, the midday sunlight winking off the long, heavy blade of a Bowie knife he had drawn from under his shirt. He swung the knife up, aiming to plant the cold steel in Scratch's belly.