Vengeance Trail (7 page)

“I already told you why! We’re on our way to Texas to find that bastard Johnny Montana!”

“Well, it ain’t like Texas is exactly right around the corner, now is it? What’s an hour more going to make in the difference?
You may be older, Carter, but I’m a grown man and I can make my own decisions. And right now I’m deciding to go on up and
see that lady.” His grin was spread from ear to ear as
he looked up at the woman who was being even more explicit with him, more daring.

Carter cast a furtive glance up at the woman. She had pulled her bodice down and exposed her breasts.

“You like what you see, chere?”

Carter saw that other women on the balconies were acting just as lewd now that they had drawn the attention of the two men
below them.

“Look at ’em all, Carter!” said Lowell, thoroughly absorbed by the lascivious behavior of the women.

Carter could see that short of putting a pistol to his brother’s head, that he wasn’t going to deter the younger man’s desire
or his interest in the chalky-skinned woman who stood practically naked on the balcony.

“Alright! You go on an get it over with, Lowell. But, I’m givin’ you just thirty minutes to get your business taken care of.
I’ll go and see if they sell anything in this town besides
playsure
; things we
need
, like beans and flour and coffee. Come tomorrow morning, you’ll be damned glad one of us kept our attention to the matters
at hand!”

“Fine, Carter, you go and take care of that stuff, I’ll be waitin’ when you get back.” Lowell hardly noticed or cared where
his brother rode off to.

He walked his horse over to a black iron hitch post shaped in the form of a horse’s head, dismounted and tied up.

An ornate wrought-iron gate gave entrance to a cobblestone courtyard that he figured would allow him access to the building
itself.

The courtyard contained a small pond that had gold fish in it and a stone cherub holding a pitcher from which water poured.
Also in the courtyard
were trees with moss hanging from their branches; the smell of dampness hung in the air.

Lowell found a set of stairs, some weak with rot, leading up the side of the building where the woman was. He was careful
in climbing.

She was waiting for him, standing there in the doorway.

As he drew near, he could smell the sweet scent of lilac, could see the perspiration of her skin, the blackness of her hair.

She had large dark eyes that tracked his movements.

“So, you have come to see Danielle, eh, come to taste her charms.” Her speech was strange, exotic, haunting.

“If that’s you, darlin’, then you’re what I come here for.”

“Come in, chere,” she offered, stepping aside to allow him to enter.

He removed his hat and knocked some of the dust from his clothes before sidling past her.

His heartbeat increased.

The room was large and open. He could see where the shuttered doors opened unto the balcony. White limp curtains hung from
the open windows. A brass bed was shoved against one wall, an armoire against another; a steamer trunk with worn leather straps
sat at the foot of the bed.

The room was silent and warm. Pewter sunlight filtered through the open windows and fell across the bare board floor.

She reached for him, reached for the buttons of his shirt.

“Come, lay on the bed, chere,” she whispered. He
found himself becoming lost within her beauty, within the sweetness of her kisses. Time itself became lost.

“Lowell!” He heard his name being called from a distance.

“Lowell!”

He realized that he had dozed, had been lulled by the warmth of the room. He shook off his drowsiness and moved to the balcony
forgetting for the moment that he was naked.

“Goddamn it, Lowell! Put your clothes on and let’s go!”

Carter shifted restlessly in his saddle directly below him, a large grain sack of supplies tied to his saddle horn, his countenance
grim.

“You don’t get down here this minute, boy, I’ll leave you here—I damn well mean it!”

It seemed like no time at all had passed since he first climbed the stairs. He turned, looked sheep-ishly at the woman sitting
on the bed. She smoked a black cheroot. He thought to himself that he could stay here with her forever.

“Sorry, Danielle…that’s Carter down there…I promised I’d be but half an hour…”

She gave him a wan smile but showed no particular interest.

He sat on the side of the bed, dressing as best he could, wanting to hurry, wanting not to.

He had only known one other woman in a carnal way—a neighbor’s daughter back in Autauga County. But, the girl had been fat
and homely and buck-toothed and hadn’t known dip about pleasing a man. Lowell figured that the neighbor girl didn’t count.

“Me and Carter’s got business to take care of, got to go to Texas. But I’m thinking that as soon as it’s over with, I’d like
to sorta come back this way…” He fell silent, hopeful that she would be happy over the announcement. Instead, she seemed
impatient, moving off the bed toward the balcony, glancing down at the waiting brother, moving back into the room.

“Your friend, he is waiting for you,” she said, blowing smoke rings toward the ceiling.

“Well anyways,” he said, pulling on his last boot, “I can’t say’s I’ve ever known anyone like you…you sure are some
kind of female.”

She moved to the door and held it open for him.

“I never knowed a woman that smoked seegars before,” he said as a final effort to be charming. He kissed her on the cheek.

She closed her eyes and said, “You better go, chere.”

He heard the door close behind him with a sad finality as he descended the stairs.

Carter’s face was flushed with anger and impatience at having had to wait for him.

“I hope you got everything out of your system, Lowell. ’Cause we ain’t stopping to dally anymore!”

The rode west out of town, rode until the air rising up from the nearby bayous turned dank and mysterious. Great white herons
flew up out of swamps that were bordered by stands of moss laden cypress. There were snakes and alligators and death lying
within those swamps. Carter found everything about this country to be strange and offensive.

They rode for a time in silence, the blaze of sun warm upon their faces.

“Well, little brother, how much did that little romp back there cost you?”

Lowell had been lost in thought, the image of the white-skinned woman floating in his mind. The question broke him from his
reverie.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how much did you have to pay her?”

Lowell’s features went from dreamy to confused. He let the question rest in his
mind for a long full moment. Then, it dawned on him, and with a great deal of glee, he answered: “She didn’t charge me anything,
big brother. Didn’t ask for one red cent. I guess maybe she just favored the way I looked.”

Carter suddenly pulled back on the reins of his mount.

“Lowell, you are as green as spring tomatoes. Women like that don’t just give themselves away. Now how much of our money was
it that you spent?”

“Honest, Carter. She never even mentioned money…”

“Check your pockets you dern fool!”

Something heavy passed through Lowell’s mood as he felt through his empty pockets.

“Damn!” he muttered. “My roll’s gone!”

“How’d you let her get at it in the first place?”

“Don’t know…except…it seems I might have dozed off for a spell.”

“That’s all it took. She rolled you blind. Come on!” shouted Carter, wheeling his dun back around toward the town.

“Ah, Carter…” But before the younger brother could protest, the older one had already begun to spur his mount into a
trot.

By the time the pair reached the edge of the city,
the sky had turned a dusty rose in the descending darkness. Gas lights flickered along the street casting tongues of light
unto the wet cobblestones. Twenty minutes earlier, there had been a brief thunderstorm that had left them soaked, the brims
of their hats down over their faces. Now, the heavy air had the added smell of spices emanating from the many open windows
where Cajun food was being prepared.

“Cursed place,” complained Carter. “Nothing but wet and smelly and full of evilness.”

Shadowy figures moved along the boardwalks. The cry of prostitutes still rang down from the balconies, from the darkened doorways,
their numbers increased with the coming of nightfall.

They reined up in front of the tall house with the wrought iron gate leading to the courtyard. Lowell looked up at the now
empty balcony. A stain of yellow light fell on the frame of windows.

“She may not be there, Carter. What’ll we do if she ain’t?”

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes. Let’s go.” Lowell saw his brother shift the revolver on his hip and then dismount.

“What do you plan to do, Carter?”

“I’m planning on getting a damn fool’s money back,” he said as he pushed open the iron gate and stepped into the courtyard.
“You comin’?”

Lowell slid out of his saddle and hurried to catch up.

The heels of their boots, in spite of their effort to move quietly, knocked on the cobblestone.

“Be careful of them steps, Carter, some of them’s rotted.”

The first step wasn’t rotted, but it groaned under

Carter’s bulk. He pulled his pistol and continued to climb.

It seemed like an eternity to Lowell before they reached the top of the stairs. Pausing, Carter leaned his ear to the door.

He could hear laughter inside—a man’s and a woman’s laughter. He turned and whispered in a hoarse breath: “They’re here, Lowell.
You had better pull your piece.”

“Carter…” Lowell’s voice broke with apprehension. “Carter, it ain’t hardly worth it, shooting someone over money. It
wasn’t all that much…not more than seventy dollars.”

“Shut your yap!” demanded the older brother through clenched teeth. The laughter in the room suddenly stopped. For a long
moment, silence shrouded the house—inside and out. A mist of fog was beginning to claim the land and its buildings.

“Who’s out there?” demanded a man’s voice from within the room.

“I come to see the lady!” shouted Carter.

“The lady is bizee. Come back tomorrow, eh?” came the thickly accented voice from within.

Carter stepped back just far enough to raise a heavy boot and brought it hard against the door, rattling it nearly off its
hinges; a second kick knocked it open.

Lowell and Carter Biggs found themselves facing a naked couple entwined on the bed.

“I guess she’s home,” said Carter, sarcastically to his brother.

The man on the bed cried out, as though he had
been wounded. He scrambled to retrieve some respectability among the bedding. A second movement coming through the door behind
them drew everyone’s attention.

Framed there in the busted doorway stood a lithe, little man with dark slick hair, hawkish nose, and dressed like a dandy
clear down to the powder gray spats he wore.

“You have interrupted my bezniss, mon ami,” he said, pointing a nickel-plated derringer at them.

The man of the bed leapt to his feet with a scream.

“What is the meaning of this—am I being robbed?”

Carter shifted his gaze from the dandy to the naked man.

“You are,” he said to the frightened toad. “But not by us—by him! You ain’t the first chicken to get plucked by these two
today!”

The man dropped to knees upon the bed. Bringing his hands together in prayerful gesture, he pleaded: “Please…I only come
for a leetle plaisir…I beg you not to shoot me, monsieur!”

The man’s demonstrative plea was just enough to divert the attention of the gunman.

Carter snapped his arm straight upwards and in the same instant pulled the trigger on the revolver he had been holding in
his hand. The explosion rocked the room. The bullet struck the dandy high in the chest, slightly right of center, and knocked
him backwards against the door jamb. The derringer clattered to the floor.

The naked man flounced on the bed, his every sound a wail, a plea for mercy. “Oh please…please, mon ami…do not kill
me also!”

The woman had sprung from the bed like a panther. Her own screams joining those of the hysterical paramour. Too late Carter
saw the dirk clutched in her hand. Lowell, who stood still staring at the dying man, felt something like the blow of a fist
strike him between the shoulder blades.

The knife plunged in to the hilt, the blade breaking off into bone.

Carter swung the barrel of the pistol around. For one brief second, the woman stared into the large black hole of the barrel.

The second explosion sounded louder than the first. The bullet tore a neat hole through the woman’s forehead and flung her
backwards onto the bed. Her blood covered the naked man, causing him to topple over into a faint.

A movement by the door caused Carter’s attention to be drawn there again. The dandy was still alive, still trying to crawl
further into the room.

Carter felt the sliding tug of his brother as Lowell dropped to his knees, his breath labored.

“Carter, what’s happened to me?” His eyes were searching those of his sibling for an answer.

“Come on, little brother. We’ve got to get the hell out of here!” Carter, using his full strength, lifted Lowell to his feet.
When he did so, he felt the warm stickiness of Lowell’s life blood spill over his hands.

Carter stared into the ashen face of his only kin and wondered if he would even make it out of the room alive. With the mighty
bulk of one arm, he practically carried the wounded man toward the doorway.

The dandy had gotten as far as balancing himself on his hands and knees. Carter paused long enough
to pat the pockets of the man’s jacket and vest. Feeling a lump, he reached into a vest pocked and retrieved a handful of
paper money.

The dandy’s eyes cowered within his pained face.

As a final angry gesture, Carter pushed the man over with his boot. “I guess your robbing days are over,” he said, continuing
to carry Lowell toward the doorway.