Trackdown (9781101619384) (27 page)

“Would you lock a man up for getting rough with a saloon floozy?” Gentry broke in. “From what I hear, that Virgie ain’t no better.”

Lord, Lord, the man was just tryin’ to get somebody killed with talk like that, Mordecai thought. Gentry was about to succeed, too, because Shelton ripped out a curse and grabbed for the gun he had put back in his pocket.

Mordecai moved fast, gripping Shelton’s wrist before the man could pull the weapon free. From the corner of his eye he saw Burk Gentry and the other men reaching for their own guns.

The sharp crack of a shot came from somewhere else and made everyone stop what they were doing.

Mordecai looked over and saw Judge Dunaway waddling toward them. The beefy-faced lawyer and justice of the peace held a Winchester ’66. He worked the rifle’s lever as he approached.

“You hold your fire, Burkhart Gentry, and tell those boys with you to do the same!” Dunaway bellowed. “I do most of my work with a gavel, but I can still handle a rifle if I have to.”

“By God, Dunaway, you stay out of this!”

The judge shook his head.

“No, sir, I won’t. I can’t. I’m the justice of the peace in this town, and that makes me every bit as much of a peace
officer as Deputy Flint there. You try to interfere with the law and you’ll be in more trouble than you know what to do with.”

Gentry scowled darkly at the judge.

“You reckon you and this crippled old man can outshoot all of us?”

“I’m pretty damn sure I can kill
you
before anybody can stop me,” Dunaway said. “What happens after that I don’t much care.”

Dunaway had surprised Mordecai by stepping in like this. He wouldn’t have taken the judge for such a hell-raiser. But like Walter Shelton, everybody had sides of themselves that took folks by surprise, he thought.

That was confirmed when Roy Fleming approached from the other direction and said, “If you harm anyone, Burk, I’ll see to it that you answer for your crimes. I’ll call in the army if I have to. We’ve fought hard to bring law and order to Redemption, and you’re not going to bull in here and run roughshod over people like it was the old days again.”

“You’re takin’ their side against me and my sons, Fleming?” Gentry roared.

“If I have to,” Fleming replied calmly.

“The best thing you can do, Gentry,” the judge said, “is to turn around and ride out of here. Let the law run its course.”

“You mean I should leave my son behind bars when he didn’t do anything wrong?”

Shelton started to bluster again. Mordecai silenced him with a look. He had already taken the man’s gun away again.

“Everybody just settle down, damn it,” Dunaway said. “I’m going to have a meeting with Mayor Fleming and Deputy Flint right now, and we’ll deal with the matter.”

For a moment, Mordecai thought Gentry was going to continue to argue. But then the rancher drew in a deep breath and let it out in a gusty sigh.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll go down to Smoot’s and wait a while. But you’d better come up with the right decision in this
meetin’
of yours, or you’ll have more trouble than you know what to do with. You got my word on that!”

Gentry turned his horse and rode slowly toward the saloon.
His men followed him, each of them giving Mordecai a cold, narrow-eyed look of hate as they rode past.

Once they were gone, Dunaway and Fleming came up to Mordecai. The mayor was pale and sweating, despite the coolness of the morning.

“This is bad,” he said. “I knew it would be as soon as I heard what had happened.”

“I’m going to be part of this meeting,” Shelton declared.

Dunaway shook his head.

“Sorry, Walt, but that wouldn’t be right, any more than it would be to let Burk Gentry sit in on it.”

“Legal proceedings are supposed to be open to the public,” Shelton insisted.

“This isn’t a trial or even a formal hearing,” the judge said. “It’s just some fellows sitting down and trying to figure out what the hell they need to do next.”

“I can tell you what you need to do. Put that animal on trial, convict him, and sentence him to twenty years in prison. Either that or hang him.”

Dunaway ignored that and told Shelton, “Go home. I expect both your wife and your daughter could use you there.”

Shelton glared for a moment longer, then said, “All right. But while I hate to agree with Burkhart Gentry about anything…you’d better make the right decision, Kermit.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No,” Shelton said. “A promise.”

If there was anything at all fortunate about this most recent development, Bill thought wildly, it was that the two men coming up the passage to take their turn on guard duty hadn’t brought a lantern or a torch with them. They must know the hideout so well that they didn’t need light to find their way around.

He pressed himself harder against the wall and thrust his arm across Overstreet’s chest to hold him back, too. With luck, Chico and T. J. would walk right past them without knowing they were there. That luck might not be forthcoming, though, as Overstreet’s fair hair would make him easier to spot. Bill’s long brown hair blended in more with the rock wall.

All they could do was try, Bill told himself. He held his breath as the two outlaws came closer.

The blended smell of whiskey, tobacco, and unwashed flesh drifted through the air. The men were practically on top of them now.

“Everything quiet back at the cabins?” one of the first two outlaws asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“No trouble between Hannah and that blond girl?”

Eden, Bill thought. The man was talking about Eden.

But who was Hannah? The outlaws must have another woman with them, he reasoned, and not a prisoner, either, from the sound of it.

Well, it wasn’t unheard of for a woman to ride with outlaws, he supposed, although it sure wasn’t common. Bill didn’t know why this Hannah, whoever she was, would have any trouble with Eden.

He found out the next moment, as the four men continued their conversation. Their talking among themselves was a good thing, because they were paying attention to that and not as much to their surroundings. Chico and T. J. started to walk right past the spot where Bill and Overstreet were standing. Bill made himself as narrow as he could to give them more room.

“Sooner or later Hannah will raise a ruckus about that girl,” one of the men said. “She ain’t blind. She can see the same thing that the rest of us see. Caleb grabbed her because he wants her in his bed. He don’t give a damn about usin’ her as a hostage.”

“No, he just wants to use her,” the other newcomer said.

That brought laughter from all four of them.

“Yeah, but as long as Caleb’s moonin’ over her, the rest of us can’t have any sport with her,” one of the outlaws said. “That don’t hardly seem fair.”

“Only if we go along with what Caleb says.”

“What do you mean by that, Chico?”

“Nothing,” the owlhoot called Chico replied, but it was clear from the tone of his voice that he did mean something.

“You’re just upset because the two of you had that tussle the other night. Hell, I don’t blame you. Although it
did
look like you were flirtin’ a mite with that gal.”

“I just don’t like the way Caleb thinks he can lord it over all of—damn it!” Chico let out the exclamation as he stumbled over something on the rough floor of the passage. His shoulder bumped hard against Bill’s chest. “Sorry, Andy.
Didn’t mean to run into you. Or was that you I ran into, Russ? Can’t see a damned thing in here.”

“You didn’t run into me,” one of the guards said.

“Or me, either,” the other one added.

“Then who—”

Chico was right in front of Bill, who heard the rustle of cloth as the outlaw swung sharply toward him. Sensing that, Bill didn’t wait. He thrust out hard with the knife in his hand and felt the blade sink deep into yielding flesh.

At the same time he reached out with his other hand at what he hoped would be Chico’s throat. His fingers closed around it and clamped down hard, cutting off any sound. Chico struggled, but his efforts were feeble, telling Bill that his knife had done some serious damage. He grimaced in the darkness as he heaved Chico around and rushed with him at the spot where he judged the two guards to be.

“What the hell!” one of them said. “Chico, what are you—”

Bill, Chico, and the two guards all came together with a crashing impact in the darkness.

Overstreet and the fourth man were still behind him somewhere. Bill didn’t have time to worry about them now. He stumbled, trying to hang on to his balance as he ripped the knife out of Chico’s body and slashed through the shadows with it. The blade met resistance and ripped through it. Bill felt something hot gush over his hand and hoped it was blood.

A blow swung every bit as blindly as his own smashed into the side of his head and staggered him. It felt like a gun barrel had clipped him. If the blow hadn’t been a glancing one, it might have crushed his skull. As it was, he reeled to the side, unable to control himself for a second.

“Somebody’s out here! Grab ’em!”

Yelling was a mistake. Bill caught his balance and lunged at the sound of the voice, chopping desperately with the knife. A man screamed, but only for a second before a grotesque gurgle cut off the sound.

Bill’s legs tangled with somebody else’s legs. He couldn’t
stay on his feet. As he fell, he grappled with the man and jabbed again and again with the knife. Bill’s hand felt like it was covered with blood now. The knife handle was slippery with it.

He hit the ground and rolled to the side. No guns had gone off, and except for that brief scream, there hadn’t been any cries loud enough to be heard back in the hideout. It was possible everyone was asleep and hadn’t noticed the scream. That’s what Bill was praying for.

“Marshal!” That urgent whisper came from Overstreet. “Bill! You still alive?”

Bill was, but for all he knew some of the outlaws were alive, too, and Overstreet had just told them where he was. Bill listened intently for the sounds of a new struggle.

He didn’t hear anything, so after a minute or so he risked a whisper of his own.

“Jesse?”

Bill heard a sigh of relief.

“I thought one of those hombres might’ve got you. No need to worry about mine. I got my hands on his neck and choked the life out of him.”

Bill knew he was going to have to risk a light. That was going to make him a target, so he wiped off his knife as best he could on his trousers and sheathed it. He pulled his gun and used his other hand to dig a match out of his shirt pocket. Holding the lucifer out at his side at arm’s length, he raised the revolver and rested his thumb on the hammer, ready to fire. Then he snapped the match to life and squinted against the sudden glare.

The bloody corpses of three outlaws were crumpled on the rocky ground around him. It was easy to pick out which one was Chico, because that body had only a single stab wound to the chest. Another man’s belly was ripped open so that his guts had spilled out over his hands as he tried to stuff them back in. That was the lucky swipe, Bill thought. And the final man’s face was hacked to pieces so that he didn’t hardly look human anymore, plus his shirt was sodden with blood from stab wounds.

Overstreet let out a low whistle of awe.

“You really went to town on those fellas, Bill. Looks like a damned butcher shop in here.”

“Yeah, well, we’re mighty damned lucky that we’re not the ones who got butchered,” Bill said. He holstered his gun, dropped the match, and ground it out under his foot. “You can find your way back to the other end of this bottleneck,” he went on. “Josiah and the rest of the posse ought to be waiting there.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Thought I’d go do a little scouting, see what the layout is inside the bowl. I’ll meet you at that end of the passage.”

“Don’t get yourself in trouble before I get back with the rest of the fellas,” Overstreet cautioned.

“I don’t intend to,” Bill said.

But worry gnawed at the back of his brain. From the sound of the things those outlaws had been saying, Eden hadn’t been molested by the gang so far. But she was still in the hands of Caleb Tatum, and Tatum clearly wanted her.

Now that the outlaw leader thought he was safe in his den, how long would he wait to satisfy that desire?