Blood Bond 5 (21 page)

Matt didn't have to turn around. The voice belonged to the old mountain man, Ladue.

“This here ol' Sharps will blow your backbone plumb out your belly, Bodine,” Ladue said. “So keep your hands away from them guns.”

“You better keep me alive,” Matt said. “In about an hour, or less, this place will be filled up with hired guns.”

“Sure, all working for us,” the man still squatting on the floor said.

“You don't have that kind of money.”

“They're working on speculation, Matt. For a bigger piece of the pie at the end of the road.”

“That being when Sutton and Carlin are dead, and with you and Ladue laying claim to all their holdings.”

“Right! Of course, we'd have to kill the wives, but that would be no problem. And the kids are already written out of the wills. Clever, right?”

Matt stood very still, saying nothing. Everything was all wrapped up now, tied with a nice, neat bow. He even had a pretty good idea what the two men had planned for him. Matt knew it all now. He had to make a play, but not with that big Sharps pointed at him. Lead from that Sharps could knock a two thousand pound buffalo down.

“Now what?” Matt asked.

Ladue moved slowly around to Matt's right side, staying out of reach. The old man was cautious, knowing Matt's reputation. “Now we wait,” Ladue said.

“Wait for what?”

But Ladue would only smile.

The man on the floor said, “The gunfighters are going to start earning their keep.”

“I get it,” Matt said. “I get to kill as many as possible.”

“By golly!” Ladue said with an evil grin. “Now you know, we never thought of that.”

“I just bet you didn't,” Matt's reply was dry. His eyes touched the rifle leaning against the wall. “Gates' rifle. You hired him and then you killed him, right?”

“No,” Ladue said. “We didn't hire him, and we didn't kill him.”

“The Carlin and Sutton girls hired him to kill their brothers,” the man on the floor said. “Nice kids, aren't they?”

“How do you know all that?”

“Johnny Carlin told J.B. Adams that and J.B. told us,” Ladue said.

“Who killed him?”

“Bacque.”

“On orders from the kids?”

“No. It was personal. They didn't like each other.”

“What do you plan to do with Singer?”

The man on the floor smiled. “Those bodyguards he hired are working for us. That answer your question?”

“A few things still puzzle me.'

“Ask.”

Matt looked at the man on the floor. “How are you going to claim any part of the estate?”

“From a long distance away. Like New York City.”

“So you stay . . . ?”

“Gone and forgotten.

“Slick. I'll give you that much. Very slick. When does Singer get a bullet?”

“All in good time.”

“You mind if I roll a smoke?”

“Go right ahead,” Ladue told him. “It might be your last one.”

Matt slowly rolled and licked and lit. Neither man seemed to notice as he dropped the still burning match to the floor, in the middle of a pile of trash and paper. Within seconds, flames shot up.

Startled, Ladue shifted his eyes to the leaping flames just for an instant. Matt shot him, the slug doubling the man over. Just to be on the safe side, knowing how tough old mountain men were, Matt shot him again, then shifted the muzzle to the man scrambling frantically on his hands and knees across the dirty floor for Gates' rifle. Matt plugged him twice, kicked the rifle out of the way, and stomped out the fire.

He checked on Ladue, and the man was cold dead. Then he knelt down beside the still-alive and newfound brother to Singer, Sutton, and Carlin.

“You don't have long,” he told the man. “If you have anything to say, you better get it said.”

“You still lose,” the man gasped. “The gunfighters are on their way. They'll kill you.”

“No, they won't. Who would pay them?”

Some of the light seemed to leave the man's eyes. He shook his head slowly. “You never did suspect me, though, did you?”

“Of keeping things stirred up, yes. Of being a brother, no.”

“Why in the hell did you have to come along, Bodine?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

The man's eyes rolled back, his head lolled to one side, and he slumped full length and dead to the dirty floor.

 

 

Matt was waiting for the gunfighters when they rode into the ghost town. He held up one hand.

“It's over, boys,” he told them. “You know that Bull and John won't rest until their debt is paid with their kids. Your employers, Ladue and his partner, are dead. In that shack. You want to take a look, help yourselves.”

J.B. Adams and Ben Connors swung down and looked. Both men grunted. They walked back to the horses and mounted up, Ben saying, “I don't hire my guns for free, boys. The paymasters are dead. You want to shoot it out with Bodine for free, you go right ahead, but you're damn fools if you do.” He and J.B. rode off without another look back.

Slowly, the others followed. In a matter of only a few seconds, Matt Bodine stood alone in the weedy street of the old Idaho ghost town called Big Ugly. He fetched his horse and his saddlebags and sat on the boardwalk under part of an awning and ate his sandwiches, drinking coffee he'd found in the shack.

The gunfighters had headed back toward town, most of them hanging their guns on the saddlehorn to show they were peaceful and were provisioning up and moving on. Those that still held hostile feelings toward the townspeople would head elsewhere. It wouldn't be long before someone would ride out to check on Matt.

Just about an hour before dusk, Doc Blaine and several other townspeople and a couple of the smaller ranch owners rode out.

“J.B. Adams says it's over,” Doc Blaine said. “At least as far as he's concerned. He and about six more rode east. J.B., Ben Connors, Dick Yandle, Burl Golden, and a few I didn't know. They said there would always be another day. The others are camped outside of town. I don't know what they're up to.”

“Bull and John?” Matt asked.

“They can't find their kids. But they did tangle with the scum the kids had hired. Van put those that survived the shootout in jail. They're right behind us.

“No idea where the kids are?”

“No. Bull thinks they've left the country. I hope so. I hope they never come back.”

“Singer?”

“He's alone now. His bodyguards left with J.B. and the others. That is one frightened man, Matt. He's sure that either Bull or John will kill him.”

“I'm not. Although one or the other might give him a good butt-whipping.”

“So it's over, now?” a rancher asked.

Matt shook his head. “No. Not with the Carlin and Sutton kids still out there full of hate, and those gunslicks still hanging around. It isn't over. But it's getting there.”

Matt had built a small fire and had moved the coffee pot from the shack outside. He had rounded up several cups, although many Western men carried a battered tin cup with them.

“Coffee's fresh and hot,” Matt said. “Help yourselves.” He looked up as hoofbeats sounded. John Carlin and Bull Sutton rode into the old ghost town, several of their hands with them.

“This was a crazy stunt, boy!” Bull said, stepping down. “You against seventeen or eighteen gunslicks. I ought to take a belt to your backside.” He grinned. “But I'm afraid you might take it away from me and use it on my own butt.”

A few weeks back, the man would not have been a big enough person to have said the latter.

“Of course, you would certainly richly deserve that,” John kidded him, and both men laughed. They were growing closer each day.

Van Dixon rode up and swung down. He was the first to notice Wilbur Gates' fancy rifle leaning up against one of the remaining awning support posts. “Where'd you get that, Matt?”

Matt jerked his thumb toward the shack. “Off of the mastermind of this whole sorry, bloody mess.”

Doc Blaine, Van Dixon, Bull, and John, stepped carefully up on the rotting boards, and Blaine pushed open the warped door. The men looked in, looked back at Matt, and shook their heads. Doc closed the door, and the men walked back to the fire and the coffee pot, for with the gathering of shadows, the air was growing cool. No one spoke until those who wanted coffee had their cups filled and were sitting or squatting around the fire.

“I don't know the whole story, but they told me a lot of it,” Matt said. He then told the men everything he had learned at gunpoint in the cabin.

“So there were four brothers,” Van was the first to speak. “But who was the man we buried?”

“Some drifter, probably,” Matt said. “For sure, we'll never know.”

“Did those two in yonder have a hand in turning our kids against us?” John asked.

Matt shook his head. “I can't answer that, John. I just don't know. You'll probably never know. Not unless your kids have a change of heart and level with you.”

Bull snorted. “Not much chance of that happening, Matt. The girls are gone. All of them except Connie. And I say good riddance.” The rancher did not volunteer any information as to where the girls had gone, and Matt did not ask.

The men drank their coffee and stowed away the cups. Matt carefully put out the fire. “Somebody round up the horses of the dead men,” John said. “We'll tie them across their saddles and head on back.”

The men carried out Ladue and put him belly down across his saddle and tied him down snug. Then the body of Ralph Masters, editor and owner of
The Express
was carried out and tossed across the saddle and his hands tied firmly to his feet under the horse's belly.

“He shot that drifter in the face with a shotgun?” Van asked, looking at the body of the newspaper man.

“I guess so,” Matt said. “I never got a chance to ask them. Or maybe Ladue killed him. They probably gave the man some of Ralph's clothing—clothes that all the townspeople had seen him wearing many times—and then killed him.”

“But why did they kill the poor sot?” Bull asked. “That wasn't necessary. Their plan would have worked without killing some drifter.”

Matt shook his head. “I don't know all the answers, Bull. I wish I did. Maybe they were running scared. When Sam and I started sticking our noses into the trouble, we certainly stirred up a hornet's nest. Ralph asked me why in the hell we had to come along.”

“What'd you tell him?” Van asked.

“I said we were just lucky, I guess.”

All the men stood for a moment and looked at the lashed-down bodies. John finally broke the silence. “Lucky for us. Masters' luck just ran out.”

The citizens of Crossville lined the streetlamp-lit boardwalks as the men rode in single file. They were all, men and women, heavily armed, and they stood silent as the men reined in and swung down. The undertaker and his helper removed the bodies and toted them off.

“Matt?” Bull spoke softly in the night. “You don't think it's over, do you?”

“No. J. B. and Ben and a few like him, well, this is a job of work. Nothing personal. Men like Yok and Phillip Bacque and Ramblin' Ed, this cuts against the grain. They've got to call me out to save face. But it won't be here. I'm going to stock up in the morning and head on back down to Big Ugly. I'll wait for them there.”

“You'll have men with you, Matt,” Doc Blaine spoke over the saddle of Matt's horse. “That's firm, and we'll brook no arguments on the matter.”

“Who do you have in mind?” Matt asked, thinking that he already knew the answer.

Bull said, “Me. John. And Doc Blaine. And in case you didn't know—and I'm sure you don't, only a few of us do—Doc Blaine was one of Mosby's Raiders during the War Between the States.”

The doctor was clearly startled. “How in the hell did you find that out?”

The rancher smiled. “I snooped around, sawbones. Me and John will send word back to the wives that we're stayin' in town. We'll provision up in the morning and head out. That suit you, Doc?”

“I'll be ready.”

“I'm going to see Sam and bring him up to date, then I'll meet you all over at the hotel for a steak,” Matt said.

“See you in a few minutes.”

“I wish I was going with you,” Sam said, when Matt told him of his plans.

“I wish you were, too. When this is over, Sam, let's you and me think about heading back home and settling down.”

“I think it's time, brother. Of course, that is no guarantee that we'll stay there twelve months out of the year.”

Matt laughed, and he and Sam shot the breeze instead of other people for a few minutes. Doc Blaine's nurse came in and shooed Matt out, giving him just enough time to say hello to Tom, who had just awakened.

“Sam will fill you in, Tom,” Matt told him. “This mess is just about over.”

“Suits the hell out of me,” Tom said, then yawned.

An hour later, his belly full of steak and potatoes and apple pie, Matt rolled into bed and didn't wake up until five the next morning, with Bull Sutton hammering on the hotel room door.

After breakfast, the men provisioned and headed out to the old town of Big Ugly. They rode heavily armed and with their jaws set in determination. Bull and John knew well that their sons might show up with the gunfighters. Both men had resigned themselves to that.

Both John and Bull had left word for Miles Singer. Should he be in town when they got back, they would hang him. Miles went panting and flapping to the wounded Tom Riley.

“If they don't hang you,” Tom told him, “I will.”

Singer was packed and gone by eight o'clock that morning. Shortly before ten o'clock, Paul Stewart, Simon Green, Dick Laurin, and a gunfighter called Buck came riding into town.

“They're waiting for you down at the ghost town,” Van told the quartet. “You know where Big Ugly is?”

“We know,” Paul said.

“We'll have us a beer and wait for our friends,” Buck said.

“Yeah,” Van drawled. “I figured you'd all have to ride down there in a bunch.”

The gunhands had noticed on their way in that everybody in town was armed—heavily. They turned their backs to Van and entered the Red Dog.

Les King, Willie Durham, Farmer John, and Sam Hawkins came in a few minutes later.

Van pointed them to the saloon. “Your mouth broke?” Les King asked the deputy.

“No. And neither is this sawed-off ten-gauge,” Van told him. “Now shut your goddamn trap, punk. And carry it over there to the saloon and fill it full of rotgut courage so's you can face real men.”

None of the four liked that, but they offered no rebuttal.

Ned Kerry, Paul Brown, and Big Dan Parker came in next.

Van pointed to the saloon.

Bob Coody, Ramblin' Ed Clark, and Bill Lowry were the next to come riding in. They didn't have to ask directions. They reined up and walked into the saloon.

Jennings, Norman, and Chuck came in, followed by Yok Zapata and Phillip Bacque. Proctor came in alone, followed by Donner, Nyeburn, Chase Martin, and Blue Anderson.

“Twenty-four,” Sam said from his bed by the window. “And if the Sutton-Carlin brood throws in with that bunch, that'll make it thirty-one to four. That, Tom, is pretty crappy odds.”

“I can drive a buggy with one hand if you can stand the ride,” Tom offered.

“I know where our clothes are hidden. All freshly laundered, too.”

“What are we waiting for?”

“You're not leavin' me out of this,” Nate Perry yelled from behind the partition. “My gun arm ain't busted.”

“All right, Nate. Get out of bed and come on.”

“Get my leg out of this harness!” Parley hollered. “I'm goin', too.”

“No way, boy,” Tom told him. “You stay here in case Van needs some help. We'll roll your bed by this window and leave you a rifle.”

A young boy walked by the clinic, and Tom tapped on the window glass, startling the lad. “Eddie, you go down to the livery and tell Ron I said to hitch us up a two-seater buggy, fill the back end with hay, and bring it behind the clinic. Quickly. Move, boy!”

“Bobby Dumas and Paul Mitchell ridin' in,” Nate said. “Old ghost town is gonna be crowded.”

Doc Blaine had taped Sam's ribs tight, so as long as he didn't make any sudden moves, he was relatively free of pain.

The wounded deputies hobbled, gimped, and limped out to the rear of Blaine's office, while the nurse hollered and squalled at them, threatening dire consequences, and got into the buggy, Sam in the hay-filled back. Tom clucked at the horses, and they headed for Big Ugly.

The gunhands, gathered at the Red Dog and bellied up to the bar, did not see their departure.

At the ghost town, the men made ready.

“No telling how many they'll be,” Matt said. “So we'd better play this by ear. As outnumbered as we'll be, this is not going to be face to face and draw. I can't imagine the gunhands even thinking it will be. We've all stashed spare pistols in the buildings. So just as soon as we see them coming, we'll head for our spots and let them open the ball.”

“Who the hell is that comin'?” John asked.

“It's a buggy,” Bull said.

“Something tells me I know who it is,” Doc Blaine said.

“You crazy fools!” Bull yelled, as the buggy came to a halt.

“Howdy, boys,” Tom said. “Matt, you hide the buggy and team with your horses, and the rest of you help us down from here and get us into place. I don't think we've got much time.”

“Twenty-six the last count,” Sam said, as Matt helped him down from the hay-filled rear of the buggy. “No sign of any of your kids,” Sam added, looking at the ranchers.

“They'll be along,” Bull said grimly. “You can bet they've had somebody watching the town.”

“Let's get set,” Tom suggested.

At the extreme south end of the town was what used to be the dry goods store. Sam was placed there. Bull took the saloon. John chose the old falling down bank building. Tom was placed in the old saddle shop, almost directly across from Sam. Nate took a building catty-cornered from the bank. Blaine chose the old apothecary shop.

“And you, Matt?” Bull questioned.

“I'm going to wander. I think I can be more effective that way. But I'll stay on the west side of town to avoid any confusion. As long as I can,” he added.

The men shook hands and took up positions.

The sons of John Carlin and Bull Sutton and those few ne'er-do-wells who rode with them, met the gang of gunfighters about midway between Crossville and Big Ugly. Hugh Sutton said, “You might have to wait a few months for your money,” he told the hired guns, “but I'll pay you all handsomely for the deaths of Bull and John.”

“Sounds good to me,” Farmer John said. “Let's ride.”

“Here they come!” Matt shouted from the loft of the old livery stable at the north end of town. “I'd guess a good thirty-five of them.”

“Any of our kids with them?” John shouted, being closest to Matt's temporary location.

“I think so, Bull! Yes! I can make out Johnny and Hugh.”

“Sorry, selfish, greedy little crap-heads,” John muttered, and jacked back the hammers to his guns.

The gang reined up several hundred yards from the silent old town.

“They're waitin' in ambush,” Ramblin' Ed Clark said, after a moment's staring at the town. “We go ridin' in there hell bent for leather, and they'll blow half of us out of the saddle first thing.”

“Stash the horses and go in on foot,” Phillip Bacque said, dismounting. “Take your rifles and stuff your pockets with cartridges.”

“Split up into four groups about the same size,” Simon Green suggested. “We'll start workin' our way around the town and at my yell, we'll attack.”

“Hell, there ain't but four of them,” Ross Sutton said, disgust in his voice. “Let's just ride and shoot it out. It won't take long.”

“Go ahead,” Yok Zapata said, glancing at the young man. “That way we can see where the men are waiting in ambush. We will say nice words over your grave.”

Ross didn't think much of that idea at all. He shut his mouth and kept it closed.

In the ghost town, the men waited patiently. They all knew that if they kept their heads about them and didn't jump the gun, they could cut the odds down by a full one-fourth at the first volley.

The outlaws, gunfighters, and disgruntled sons fanned out, slowly circling the town. The seven in the town waited. A few of the seven could have dropped some of those stalking them. But they waited until more showed themselves. In the distance, a horse whinnied and stamped its foot. Birds sang and soared in the sky.

Blue Anderson stepped into the rear of the old apothecary shop, and Doc Blaine had no choice in the matter. He turned and filled the hired gun's belly full of his own special prescription for outlawism. Blue staggered out the space where the door used to be and fell to the ground, his guns falling from his fingers and his eyes wide and staring at the sky. Doc waited.

Before the echo of the shot had faded, Matt drilled a man through the brisket and set him on the ground on his butt, hollering in pain.

John Carlin lifted his Greener and blew a hole in Proctor big enough to stick a telegraph pole through. Proctor was lifted off his boots by the hideous killing blast and was dead before he hit the ground.

Sam Hawkins jumped into the dusty, cobwebby saddle shop and peered into the murk, his eyes not adjusting from the bright light outside.

“You looking for someone special?” Tom said.

Hawkins spun around, and Tom gave him two .45 rounds, one in the belly and the other in the chest. Hawkins did a little dance step to the tune of his guns falling and rattling to the floor, and then he followed them down into the dust. He drummed his boots on the floor in a final exit and then lay still.

Marcel Carlin jumped into the old dry goods store and spotted Sam Two Wolves. “Goddamn breed!” he yelled, and started blasting away in the gloom. He didn't hit a thing. Sam coolly turned and leveled a .44 and drilled the young man in the shoulder, the slug breaking the shoulder and knocking the youngest Carlin outside. He lost one gun when he hit the ground, and crawled away, blubbering and cussing.

Paul Stewart took a chance and tried to run across the weedy street, both pistols blazing and blasting. Four pistols barked. The hired gun danced and jerked his way into death and collapsed in the dirt. His guns went off as he hit the ground, sending up a shower of dirt and pebbles.

Marcel crawled across the alleyway and under the building occupied by Nate. Nate heard the scratching and waited, staring down through a hole in the rotting floor. Marcel stuck a gun up through the hole, and Nate blew the gun out of the young man's hand, taking a couple of fingers with the smashed pistol. Marcel hollered and shrieked and scurried like a big rat out from under the building. He crawled out behind a dilapidated old outhouse and wrapped a handkerchief around his ruined right hand. He wished he'd never listened to his brothers. He wished he was back home. He wished he'd never plotted and schemed to kill his mother and father. He heard a buzzing and froze in horror. Then he felt the hot lash of fangs. He screamed and lifted his left hand. A big rattler was holding onto the fleshy part of his hand, the fangs somehow caught. Marcel jumped up and went running and screaming across the meadow toward his horse, his heart pumping wildly. He made about two hundred yards before he collapsed face down amid the wild flowers. He shrieked and wailed but no one heard him over the roar of gunfire. It took him a few minutes to die. They were not pleasant moments. But Marcel had never been a very pleasant young man. The huge rattler, as big around as an average man's forearm, bit Marcel a few more times in the face, just for good measure. Marcel had fallen on the snake's tail. Pissed the rattler off something fierce.

“You damn greasy Injun!” Nyeburn roared, locating Sam's position and vividly remembering the thorough butt-whipping Sam had laid on him inside and outside of Singer's office. “I'll kill you.”

He came running toward the old store from the south side, ducking and dodging and running from tree to bush. Sam waited. Nyeburn stepped in a hole and went sprawling, losing both guns and bashing his head against a stump, knocking himself unconscious and putting himself out for the duration.