CHAPTER ELEVEN
A rooster crowed. A dog barked. The sun broke free of clouds hanging low in the eastern horizon, bathing the riders in warming beams as Hec Savage and his Rangers made their way down what passed for a main street in the ramshackle village of Marathon. They rode straight to the tent saloon, the canvas flapping in the wind. The entrance was tied shut, the saloon empty.
Hec Savage nodded at Doc Shaw, who eased from his saddle, wrapping the reins around the hitching rail, which he ducked underneath. Shaw pulled a knife from his jacket pocket, unfolded the blade, and sliced through the canvas ties, although it would have been just as easy to untie them. He slipped inside the saloon. A moment later, he reappeared, shaking his head.
Savage had expected as much.
He turned his horse, and headed toward the Iron Mountain Inn. A blue roan stood in front of the two-story structure, lathered with sweat, ground-reined, shotgun in the scabbard, about half a dozen quail hanging from a string wrapped over the scattergun's stock. As Savage pulled up his mount, a man stepped out of the front door, pulled off a bowler, and wiped sweat from his brow. It was too damned cold to be sweating.
The man came to a stop when he saw the Rangers.
“Morning, Horatius.” Savage gripped the saddle horn, and leaned forward, kicking his boots free of the stirrup, stretching his legs. He smiled.
“Captain.” The old barkeep sounded nervous.
Behind Savage, the other Rangers reined up their mounts.
Savage jerked his thumb toward the quail hanging from the roan. “Pretty good hunting for this time of year. Thought I heard some shots.” He tilted his head toward the eastern clouds. “But the boys said it was likely thunder. Reckon they were wrong.”
The barkeep set his bowler back atop his head. Shuffled his feet. Stared past Savage at the Rangers behind him.
“Where's the whore?” Savage straightened in his saddle.
“What whore?” The beer-jerker had found his voice. Nervous, but at least he had spoken.
“You know damned well who I mean, Horatius.” He pushed back his coattail, and rested his right hand on the butt of the nearest .44. “The one from Terlingua. Linda Kincaid. The one I ordered that son-of-a-bitching Ray Wickes to put on the eastbound Southern Pacific. The one your boss took from my men.”
“I don't knowâ”
“You do know, mister. Don't play me for a fool. You saw our dust, and lit a shuck for here. Look at how lathered your horse is, how sweaty you are. You rode right here to warn thatâ”
Suddenly looking past Horatius, Savage brought his right hand off the Merwin Hulbert to the brim of his hat, which he swept off his head, and bowed slightly as Grace Profit stepped onto the warped boardwalk that ran in front of the hotel. She kept her left hand tight against the top of the range coat she had slipped on over her chemise. Her legs and feet were bare.
“Morning, Grace.” Savage returned his hat, grinning.
“Captain Savage,” she said.
“You're up early,” he said.
She shrugged. “You and your boys were loud enough to wake the dead. If you and the boys are thirsty, I'll have Horatius open up the saloon.”
The barkeep started down the boardwalk, but stopped when Savage barked out, “Not yet.”
The captain's hand returned to the revolver's butt.
“I'll take Linda Kincaid, Grace,” he said.
“She's gone.” Her eyes, normally a rich, deep blue, looked pale, cold, hard. And bloodshot.
Savage grinned.
“We put her on the westbound,” Grace said.
“Then you don't mind us searching your room.”
The words weren't out of Savage's mouth when two men slid from their saddles, and barged past Grace, a blond-mustached man shoving her aside so hard, Grace had to let go of the coat and grip a wooden column to keep from falling down.
“Cutter!” Savage shouted.
The blond Ranger turned in the doorway.
“Apologize to the lady, Cutter.”
Cutter swept his battered porkpie hat off his head. “Sorry, ma'am,” he said before heading inside.
Savage shook his head. “Sorry, Grace. It's hard to get good men anymore.”
She pulled the range coat back over her chemise, her lips tight, wanting to say something, yet not daring to.
Savage passed the time by reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out the cross he had taken off the Rurale. He admired it for a moment, then shoved it back, and came out with his sack of Bull Durham. He kept his eyes on Grace as he spread the flakes onto the paper, and deftly rolled the cigarette, licking it, sticking it in his mouth, finding a lucifer and striking it against the revolver's butt.
From inside came the chimes of spurs and pounding of boots on stairs. A moment later, Taw Cutter and Joe Newton stepped back onto the boardwalk. Cutter held a blanket in his arms.
“She wasn't up there, Captain,” Newton said, “but somebody had been sleeping on her sofa.” Cutter held up the blanket.
“That would be me,” Grace said.
“Bed had been slept in, too.”
“So I got up to read, got comfortable on the sofa, pulled up a blanket. You know how I love to read, Hec.”
“You're the best-read woman between Austin and Tucson, I warrant.” Savage pulled deeply on the cigarette.
“Yeah.” Cutter dropped the blanket at his feet, and held up a badly torn, bloodstained dress. “But I also found this in her trash can.”
Savage flicked the cigarette toward Grace. “What about that, Grace?” he asked.
“What of it? You know that woman was here. I never denied that. I gave her one of my dresses, took that filth off her. Which is more than you did, Hec Savage.” She looked past him. “More than any of you bastards thought to do.”
Joe Newton dropped his eyes. Even Savage's shoulders slouched. Only Taw Cutter chuckled.
“I asked my maid to . . .” Savage shook his head. “Hell, it don't matter. Where is she, Grace?”
“I told you. I put her on the westbound.”
He smiled a cold, chilling smile, and shook his head. “No, Grace.” He tilted his head toward the rising sun. “See that black smoke off in the distance. That's the westbound. Making good time. Lieutenant Wickes told me he put the boys, living and dead, on the eastbound yesterday at noon. Then he left that whore with you. Westbound ain't due until today, and there she is. Right on time, for once.” Shaking his head, he let out a sigh. “You used to be a much better liar, Grace.”
She stepped to the edge of the boardwalk, looking past Savage at the men in the saddles. She wet her lips. “Where is Lieutenant Wickes?”
No one answered.
Savage turned in the saddle, looked up and down the street. Marathon was coming to life. A Mexican peon led a burro loaded with firewood down the street, sombrero in his hand, walking nervously toward the gathering of men. Across the street. a merchant stood in front of the mercantile, holding a ring of keys in his trembling left hand. Another Mexican, a woman in a muslin dress, stood in the doorway of her jacal, kneading dough. In the tents beyond the hotel, railroad hands were brewing coffee and frying bacon. Slowly, Savage's eyes turned back to Grace. Without looking away from her, he asked, “Doc, how far you make that train?”
“Couple miles, I reckon.”
Savage nodded. “You want to give up that whore, Grace?”
“She went on the westbound,” she said.
“Not yet, she ain't.”
“It was a special run.”
He smiled. “Nice try, ma'am. I'm afraid I got to shut down your saloon, Grace.”
“For what?”
“Serving bad whiskey.”
“Same whiskey I've been serving here for better than three years.”
“Yeah.” He drew the .44 and shot the bartender in the left leg, just above his kneecap.
Grace staggered back, bringing both hands to her open mouth, as Horatius grabbed his leg, screaming, and toppled off the boardwalk and into the dust. His horse danced away, started to run, but Doc Shaw grabbed the reins and held the blue roan tight. The railroad workers bolted out of their tents, rounding the corner, a couple of them wielding sledgehammers and one thumbing back the hammer of an old cap-and-ball Navy Colt. Rangers Eliot Thompson and Bucky Bragg wheeled their horses, Thompson pulling out a Remington revolver while Bragg tapped his peso star and said, “Stand easy, boys. We're the law.”
“Go back to your breakfast, gents,” Hec Savage said, still staring at Grace Profit.
On the ground, Horatius reached for the boardwalk, missed, fell back into the sand, dragged himself up, and put both hands on his bleeding leg. Tears streamed down his sand-covered face, his eyes tight with pain, but he managed to spit out a few curses at Savage before he let out a little whimper, and fell back on his side.
Lowering her hands, summoning up her resolve, Grace started for the beer-jerker, but Savage stopped her. “I'll take care of him, Grace.” He nodded at Cutter and Newton. “Take him behind the depot.” Finally, Savage holstered the Merwin Hulbert. “Put his legs on the rail.”
Grace stared, incredulous. “You can't be serious, Hec.”
“Oh, I am, Grace. Indeed I am.” He kicked his horse back a few steps, tugged on the reins, and led the way to the depot.
Horatius wailed in agony when the two Rangers grabbed him with rough hands, and dragged him through the dirt, off the road, across the empty lot toward the railroad tracks. Grace hurried off the boardwalk, screaming for them to stop, but they kept right on. She whirled, seeking help from the railroad men, but the last of them hung his head, and walked back to the tents. Across the street, Rodney Kipperman, who ran the mercantile, hurriedly opened the door, slammed it shut, and pulled down the shade. Even the Mexican woman had returned inside the jacal, and the old man with the load of wood stood, mouth open, crossing himself.
“Damn you, Savage,” Grace cried, but had to step out of the way of Doc Savage as he led the other Rangers after the captain. “You can't do this. What kind of men are you?”
The last two Rangers pulled the mounts of Newton and Cutter behind them. One of them had taken the dead quail and was wrapping the string around his saddle horn.
She remembered Horatius's shotgun. He had let her shoot it a couple of times, a double-barrel made in London, so light, she doubted it weighed more than five pounds. Likely loaded with only birdshot, it wouldn't kill anyone unless she got really close, and really lucky, but it was all she could think of. She turned, took a step, stopped. Behind her Horatius yelled, cursed, and cried.
The William Moore & Grey 12-gauge lay in the street, the blue roan a few rods away. The Damascus barrels lay beside the boardwalk, the stock near the watering trough. She hadn't even heard the Rangers bust it apart.
Upstairs, if those Rangers who had searched her room hadn't found it, she had a .38-caliber Colt Lightning, which would kill a man. She bolted onto the boardwalk, grabbed the doorknob, when the westbound's whistle let out a shrill scream. She stepped back, saw the thick black smoke from the locomotive, knowing she'd never reach that pistol in time. Instead, she turned, leaped off the boardwalk, ran across the lot in her bare feet, tails of her range coat whipping behind her, leaping over patches of prickly pear, stubbing her toe on a rock. She knew she was crying. She didn't care.
“Savage! Savage! No!” she yelled. She stumbled near the depot's platform, letting the sight sink in, still not certain she believed it, then charged down the slight embankment toward the tracks, only to be stopped by Doc Shaw's hands. She fought him, but he gripped her around the waist, held her tight, and pulled her into the shade, up onto the platform.
Kneeling, Cutter and Newton held Horatius at his shoulders, pinning him to the dirt, both legs on the railroad tracks, his right one soaked with blood, his left kicking frantically. The bartender frothed like a rabid dog, his eyes wide. The two Rangers kept glancing down the tracks, inching away from the rails, making sure they wouldn't get hit when the big Baldwin locomotive pulled up to the depot.
“Savage! Hec! Don't!” She looked for the captain, found him on his gray horse, telling a couple of his men to ride out a ways toward the oncoming train.
“Let that engineer see your badges,” Savage ordered them. “Don't show him any guns, just your badges. That way he'll know we're not holdup men, just lawmen doing our job.”
“Your job?” Grace stamped at Doc Shaw's feet, but the Ranger merely chuckled. “You crazy son of a bitch,” she snapped.
Savage turned his horse, and nudged the gray to the edge of the depot's platform. “Hell, Grace, I'm doing Horatius a favor. If my bullet hit bone, that leg of his'll have to come off. Wheels of that train will do the job a lot faster, cleaner, than some old hack with a surgical saw.”