Sidewinders#2 Massacre At Whiskey Flats Read online

  SIDEWINDERS:

  MASSACRE AT

  WHISKEY FLATS

  SIDEWINDERS:

  MASSACRE AT

  WHISKEY FLATS

  William W. Johnstone

  with J. A. Johnstone

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  He who would avoid trouble

  should learn to recognize it

  when it walks up and introduces itself.

  —Ling Yuan, ancient Chinese warrior-philosopher

  Howdy. I’m Scratch, he’s Bo.

  —Scratch Morton

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 1

  “Sounds like a ruckus brewin’ out there.”

  Bo Creel tried to ignore his trail partner’s comment, as well as the elbow that Scratch Morton prodded insistently into his side. The two Texans had spent a long, hot, dusty day in the saddle, and all Bo wanted to concentrate on at the moment was the cold beer in front of him on the bar. Condensation ran down the sides of the mug to form a puddle on the hardwood. It was a moment of delicious anticipation.

  But then someone in the street outside, where a commotion had erupted in the past few minutes, shouted, “Somebody find a bucket of tar and some feathers!”

  Bo sighed. He was an easygoing hombre, but some things stuck in his craw.

  Tarring and feathering some luckless bastard was one of them.

  “Think we ought to go see what’s goin’ on?” Scratch prodded.

  “Might as well,” Bo said. “You won’t be satisfied until we do.”

  He turned toward the batwinged entrance of the Buffalo Bar, casting a look of regret over his shoulder at that mug of cold beer as he did.

  The Texans walked side by side, a pair of tough frontiersmen who had wandered the West from the Rio Grande to the Milk River, from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast, for nigh on to forty years now. They had first met as youngsters, back when their homeland was still part of Mexico and General Santa Anna’s army had sent the Texican settlers fleeing in the great exodus known as the Runaway Scrape, in those dark days after the fall of the Alamo.

  Bo’s father and Scratch’s pa had both been members of Sam Houston’s ragtag army, and the newfound friends had run away to join up, too, arriving just in time to swap lead with the Mexicans during the Battle of San Jacinto, the clash that had won freedom for Texas and Texans. Scratch had saved Bo’s life that day, the first time among many that each of them had risked his hide for the other, and they had been best friends ever since. Through tragedy and triumph, they had ridden together, and even though they never went looking for trouble, the acrid scent of powder smoke always seemed to follow them.

  They were both tall, muscular men, but that was where the resemblance ended. Scratch’s hair had turned silver at an early age, but he was still handsome, with a ready grin that the ladies found quite appealing. He was something of a dandy, too, sporting a cream-colored Stetson and a fringed buckskin jacket over whipcord trousers tucked into high-topped boots. An elaborately tooled leather gunbelt was strapped around his waist, and in its holsters rode twin, long-barreled Remington revolvers with ivory grips on their handles.

  Where Scratch had a touch of flamboyance about him, Bo was more restrained and sober, in a dusty black suit with a long coat that made him look a little like a reverend. He wore a white shirt and a string tie, and his flat-crowned black hat rested on thick brown hair with gray threaded through it. Bo carried only one gun, a Colt .45 with well-worn walnut grips.

  The faces of both men had been weathered by the long years of wandering…tanned by countless desert suns and seamed by the frigid winds of the high country, living maps of the frontier and all its harsh beauty. Their deep-set eyes, framed by perpetual squints, had witnessed just about everything there was to witness.

  In other words, they had been to see the elephant, and more than once at that.

  So as they pushed past the curious customers in the Buffalo Bar who had congregated at the entrance and front windows of the saloon, slapped aside the batwings, and stepped out onto the boardwalk, Bo and Scratch didn’t see anything they hadn’t seen before. An angry mob of more than a dozen men clustered in the street, shoving their hapless victim back and forth as they jeered and taunted him about what they were fixing to do to him.

  In the fading light of day, Bo and Scratch saw that the man was young, no more than twenty-five or so. He wore a dark suit and a black hat. His duds were fancier and more expensive than Bo’s similar outfit. As one of the members of the mob gave him a hard shove, his hat fell off, revealing a shock of blond hair. He looked scared, Bo thought…as well he might be.

  “Here comes Ralston,” one of the men bellowed. He was the biggest man in the crowd, with powerful, slab-muscled shoulders and a prominent gut. “Did you get it?” he called to the four or five men who approached the scene in the middle of the street.

  One of them waved something in the air and replied, “Here’s a couple o’ my wife’s feather pillows, and Duncan’s got a bucket o’tar! That’ll fix that four-flusher up mighty fine!”

  “What’d your wife say about you takin’ them pillows, Ralston,” a man called with a jeering tone in his voice, “or did you sneak ’em out without her knowin’?”

  “Damn it,” Ralston said. “I’ll have you know I wear the pants in my family!”

  “Leave it alone,” snapped the big-gutted man. “We got more important things to deal with, like teaching this no-good swindler a lesson he’ll never forget!”

  The mob’s victim spoke up, trying to sound reasonable. But the quaver in his voice betrayed his fear as he said, “Now, Mr. Harding, there’s no need for this to get out of hand. I’m sure if you’ll just let me explain, you’ll see that this is all just a big misunderstanding—”

  “Misunderstanding, hell!” the man called Harding bellowed. “You tried to gyp everybody around here out of what they got comin’ to them! You’ll be sorry you ever set foot in these parts, mister!”

  It looked to Bo like the gent was already sorry, as well as scared for his life. Most of the time, men who were tarred and feathered survived the painful, humiliating experience, but sometimes they died of the burns inflicted by the hot tar. It was one step short of a lynching, but potentially just as fatal.

  Quite a few of the townspeople had gathered on the boardwalks to watch the grim scene being played out in the street. Bo looked over at one of them, a balding man with a prominent Adam’s apple who wore a storekeeper’s apron. The man had a frown of disapproval on his face.

  “Who’s the fella with the big belly?” Bo asked the townsman.

  “You mean the one running the show, like he runs everything else around here?”

  Bo nodded.

  “That’s Tom Harding,” the storekeeper went on. “Owns the biggest ranch in the
se parts, as well as having his fingers in half a dozen businesses here in town.”

  “Big skookum he-wolf, is he?” Scratch asked.

  “He thinks he is anyway.” The man sighed. “And I reckon he is. He’s got some tough hombres working for him, so most folks just go along with whatever he wants. Simpler that way.”

  “And less dangerous,” Bo commented.

  The merchant shrugged. “We’re just common folks, mister, not gunhands.”

  “What about the law? Don’t you have a marshal?”

  “That’s him with the pillows,” the man replied disgustedly. “Marshal Ed Ralston. He hasn’t seen the outside of Harding’s hip pocket since Harding got him appointed to the job.”

  Bo and Scratch glanced at each other in the fading light. If they took a hand in this game, they would be going up against not only a wealthy, powerful rancher who fancied himself the lord of his own little kingdom, but also the official forces of law and order, corrupt though they might be.

  But it wouldn’t be the first time they had gotten crosswise with the law. In their travels they had always been more concerned with doing what was right, rather than what was necessarily legal.

  “What do you think, Bo?” Scratch asked.

  Bo’s face was grim as he replied, “I think it’s time we put a stop to this.”

  The storekeeper stared at them in amazement. “Are you fellas loco?” he asked. “Going up against Tom Harding is a good way to get yourselves killed! Not only that, but that hombre they’re going to tar and feather really is a crook. He tried to swindle the whole town!”

  “Then he ought to be dealt with legally,” Bo said. He took a step down from the boardwalk into the street and started toward the mob.

  He didn’t have to look around to make sure that Scratch was with him. He knew that his trail partner would be there.

  A couple of Harding’s men had grabbed hold of the swindler’s arms. He writhed in their grasp and tried desperately to pull free, his instincts forcing him to struggle even though it was obvious he couldn’t escape from the ring of angry men that encircled him. He let out a yell as another man approached him carrying a bucket from which tendrils of steam rose. The bucket contained hot tar, ready to be dumped on the luckless victim.

  “Hold it!” Harding yelled.

  At this apparent last-minute reprieve, the swindler sagged in the grip of the men holding him. “I’ve learned my lesson, Mr. Harding,” he babbled. “I surely have.”

  “Strip him first,” Harding ordered harshly, “then put the tar on him.”

  The swindler’s face twisted in horror. He cried out and started to struggle again as hands reached for him to tear his clothes off.

  That was when Bo said in a loud, clear, powerful voice that carried to everyone on the street, “That’s enough!”

  CHAPTER 2

  Everyone froze for a second, from Tom Harding to the man who struggled in the grip of Harding’s cronies. Then the rancher turned to glare at Bo and Scratch, who stood about ten feet away, apparently as casual as if they’d been out just enjoying the evening air.

  “What the hell did you say, mister?” Harding demanded furiously.

  “I said that’s enough,” Bo repeated coolly and calmly. “Let that man go.”

  Harding took a step toward the Texans, his prominent belly preceding him. “I think you’re mixed up, hombre,” he said. “I give the orders around here.”

  “The way I understand it, you’re not the law.” Bo pointed at Ralston, who still stood there looking a little ludicrous as he clutched a pair of feather pillows. “He is. If this man has committed a crime, he ought to be arrested and held in jail for trial.”

  Harding sneered. “The circuit judge isn’t due through here for three weeks yet. We’re just saving him some work. We can take care of things like this ourselves. Isn’t that right, Marshal?”

  Ralston swallowed hard and bobbed his head in a nod. “That’s right,” he said. “You fellas are strangers here. You better just go on your way.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Bo said. “We’ll ride out…but we’re taking that man with us.”

  Harding stared at him in disbelief for a second before he roared, “Do you know who I am, you old son of a bitch?”

  “Reckon I do,” Scratch drawled. “You’re a big bag o’ hot air just achin’ to be popped.”

  Harding gawked, then his face contorted in fury. “Jenkins!” he called. “Thomas! Show these old geezers what happens when somebody butts into my business!”

  Two hard-faced, gun-hung hombres stepped forward from the mob. “You want us to kill them, Boss?” one of them asked.

  Harding hesitated. Even a man as powerful in the community as he was couldn’t order cold-blooded murder in front of this many witnesses. He growled, “Of course not. Just bust ’em up so they hurt for the next week.”

  “Our pleasure, Mr. Harding,” the other man said with a cold grin. “Nothin’ I like better’n beatin’ on some sanctimonious old fart. Learned that from my pa, I did.”

  The two men advanced on Bo and Scratch while the rest of the mob looked on in rapt attention. The townspeople on the boardwalks watched nervously, too. The storekeeper Bo had spoken to earlier ventured, “This ain’t right, Harding.”

  “Shut up, Gus,” Harding snapped. “Don’t forget, the bank I own a half interest in still has a lien on your store.”

  The merchant grimaced, half in anger and half in fear, but didn’t say anything else.

  The two hardcases were almost within reach of Bo and Scratch now. One of them sneered and said, “Say your prayers, old-timers.” Then he lunged at Bo and swung a fist at the Texan’s head in a swift, brutal blow.

  But Bo suddenly wasn’t there anymore, and the punch whipped harmlessly through the empty air where he’d been. Bo had weaved forward and to the right with seemingly effortless ease, and as his opponent stumbled forward, thrown off balance by the missed blow, Bo hooked a hard left into the man’s gut. His fist sank almost wrist-deep. The hardcase gasped in pain as his breath puffed out of him and he doubled over. That put him in perfect position for the roundhouse right that Bo brought around and crashed into his jaw.

  At the same time, the other man tried to grapple with Scratch, only to find himself sailing through the air as Scratch grabbed his arm, twisted around in a sharp pivot, and flung the man over his hip. The hardcase had time to yelp once in surprise before he came crashing down on his back in the street.

  “An old Injun taught me that move nigh on to thirty years ago,” Scratch said with a grin into the stunned silence. “Injuns love to rassle.”

  The man Bo had belted in the jaw had collapsed, too, but he was stunned only for a couple of seconds. Then he started to surge back to his feet, clawing at his gun as he shouted, “I’ll kill you for that, you old buzzard!”

  Bo’s hand seemed to flicker faster than the eye could follow as he brushed aside the long black coat and palmed the Colt from its simple black holster. The hardcase’s gun hadn’t finished clearing leather when he found himself staring down the muzzle of Bo’s .45.

  “Better let it go, son,” Bo advised softly. “I’d purely hate to have to kill you, because then your amigos would probably try to kill me and there’d be guns going off all up and down this street and innocent folks might get hurt. But you’d never know about that, because you’d already be dead.”

  “Son of a bitch!” somebody on the boardwalk said in the hush that followed Bo’s draw and his quiet words. “That old-timer must be as fast with a gun as Matt Bodine!”

  Bo didn’t smile, but amusement appeared in his eyes for a second. As a matter of fact, he had met the famous Matt Bodine, along with Bodine’s blood brother Sam Two Wolves, and he knew he wasn’t as slick on the draw as either of those two young hell-raisers. Bodine was in a class almost by himself, matched in gun-speed and prowess only by a few others such as Smoke Jensen, Ben Thompson, and Louis Longmont.

  But truth to tell, Bo an
d Scratch were fast enough to hold their own in most corpse-and-cartridge sessions, as they had been forced to prove on countless occasions.

  The gunman who worked for Tom Harding stared at Bo’s Colt in disbelief that he had been outdrawn. A muscle in the man’s jaw twitched as he warred against the impulse to complete his draw. He had to know that if he did that, he would die, plain and simple.

  After a second, his fingers opened and allowed his revolver to slide back down into its holster.

  “Take it easy, old-timer,” he said hoarsely. “That gun’s liable to go off.”

  “Not unless I want it to,” Bo said.

  Scratch unlimbered his Remingtons just in case. A fighting light gleamed in his eyes. Just like Bo, he was ready to go down with guns a-blazin’ if it came to that. He grinned directly at Tom Harding, and the message was obvious. If any shooting started, Scratch aimed to ventilate the cattle baron first and foremost.

  “What the hell!” someone in the mob suddenly exclaimed. “That crook’s gone!”

  Harding swung around, rage darkening his face. “What?” he bellowed. “Gone, you say?”