Die by the Gun Read online

  “Doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.” He touched the cut again and shuddered in pain. Sewing up the wound struck him as a good idea. In order to do that, they had to camp for a spell.

  Ten minutes later Charles joined them. They kept riding north and finally saw Johnston ahead of them. He slowed and let them catch up. The group was back together, without too much damage done. Johnston had a few cuts. A knife wound along his calf showed he’d let an Indian get too close to him.

  “Blood’s filled up my boot,” he said, pressing his hand down on the leaking wound. “Walking’s going to be a chore for a while.”

  Means saw how Johnston sized up the others’ wounds. The look of expectation on the man’s face didn’t set well with him. He planned something, and it wasn’t going to be acceptable.

  “Let’s pitch camp. The Comanches won’t come for us, not this soon, anyway,” Quick Willy said. “We did enough damage they’ll be licking their wounds for a while.”

  He rode down into an arroyo that provided some protection if he was wrong about the Indians’ determination. Being lower than any attackers wasn’t a smart move, but being able to shoot over the banks made for a better defense than being out in the open.

  Within fifteen minutes, Frank had a small fire started. Means leaned back and pulled free his bloody shirt. As he had thought, the wound was hardly a scratch, but it bled furiously when he probed it. He used a burning twig from the fire to cauterize the wound. Sewing it up would have taken too long.

  “You’re gonna have one fine-lookin’ scar there, Quick Willy. Somethin’ to brag on to all the wimmen.” Charles looked down with some admiration. He touched his own wound. “All I got for my trouble’s a hole in my shoulder. That ain’t gonna scar up good at all.”

  “Too bad the arrow didn’t go through your damned skull,” Means growled. He forced himself to sit up with his back against the dirt embankment.

  Charles frowned, trying to figure out what his boss meant. Frank wore a disgusted look but said nothing. Arizona Johnston was another matter. The man limped over and towered above him.

  “There’s no point in keeping after Mackenzie,” he said without preamble. “Admit it. We’re on a hunt that’s going to see us all killed.”

  “You let him go.” Quick Willy worked his way to his feet. The pain subsided as he stood and stretched. “He came for you, and you let him slip through your fingers.”

  “If you didn’t notice, he was in front of a tornado of Comanches. I got off one shot at him, then I was fighting the Indians for my life.”

  “Which way did Mackenzie go? Back to join the others driving that herd? We can sneak in there tonight and find him. I want to grab him and be gone by sunrise.”

  “You’re a fool. Let this one go, Means. Sometimes it’s easy as pie. Other times, nothing will ever go right. This is one of those times. We fought off the Indians. Do we have to fight off a couple dozen drovers, too?”

  “So you want to give up?”

  Johnston looked away. When he spoke again, it was to the Huffman brothers.

  “You see how it is. Come with me. There’re plenty of wanted men out there that aren’t half as hard to find and take in for a reward. We work together real good.”

  “You trying to take my men, Johnston?”

  “No, Means. I don’t care if they come with me or not. But if they’ve got a lick of sense, they’ll ride out, too. I’ve had it with you getting us into jams where we have to shoot our way out and not have anything to show for it but our own spilled blood.” Arizona Johnston took a step. There was a liquid squishing sound from his boot as he moved.

  “Go on. Clear out,” Quick Willy said.

  Johnston turned to mount his horse. Means drew his gun, cocked, aimed, and fired in one smooth motion. The bullet hit Johnston in the back of the skull. He fell forward into the sandy arroyo bottom. Means saw how the blood drained out of the man’s boot and formed a puddle around it. If Means hadn’t put him out of his misery, he would have died from blood loss.

  “Bury him,” he said. “No need to make the grave too deep.”

  “The coyotes will dig ’im up if we don’t go down far enough,” Charles said. He was a little wide-eyed with surprise from the sudden violence.

  Means snorted.

  “I hope they enjoy the meal.” With that he sank back to the ground, hand pressed into the charred wound on his side. His brain spun in wild circles as he tried to figure out how to track down Dewey Mackenzie and bring him to the same justice he had just dished out to Arizona Johnston.

  CHAPTER 11

  “What do you think, Mac? Can we get across it?” Hiram Flowers asked as he stared across the wide expanse of the Pecos River.

  This was the point along the Goodnight-Loving Trail Flowers worried about the most. Fording the river was dangerous at the best of times. Now it appeared swollen and several feet higher than the last time he and Zeke Sullivan had come this way with a herd.

  When Mac didn’t reply, he glanced over at the young man. For someone so young, Mac carried the weight of the world on his broad shoulders. Flowers wished Desmond Sullivan had the same dedication. Mac did the work of three men. He drove the chuckwagon and fixed meals, he scouted, and from what Flowers had seen, he wasn’t half bad at being a drover, though he denied it. The only thing he was piss poor at was singing to the herd at night. He couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, and if he knew more than two songs, he kept it hidden real good.

  “Mac?”

  “Sorry, I was thinking.”

  “Think how long it’ll take to get across this stretch of water. You reckon scouting some more will help us?”

  “We can find a shallower crossing,” Mac said. “If not shallower, since this is a fast-moving river, maybe a spot that’s not quite so far. I can’t throw a rock hard enough to land on the other bank.”

  “It’s too late in the day to begin fording,” Flowers said, as much to himself as to Mackenzie. “We bed down for the night, then cross at first light.”

  “Sounds like a good idea. It’ll give the men a chance to rest up, too. And get a good enough meal. I can take my time.” Mac looked hard at him. “Are you going to eat?”

  “Not hungry,” Flowers said. His belly rumbled, as if putting that to the lie. He knew that food—even Mac’s, which was tasty going down—caused a minor earthquake deep in his gut. He hadn’t been puking lately, but the unsettled feeling kept him from aggravating it into full-blown rebellion by eating a full meal.

  “I can see what’s in the medicinal stores. Mostly, I brought along medicine for the trots and the reverse. Doesn’t do a man good to have every meal he’s ever eaten all packed up tight inside.”

  “Not my problem. Either of them.”

  “My ma used to whip up a medicine to soothe upset stomachs. Me and my brother Jacob used to eat anything that didn’t run away from us fast enough. Once, I double-dirty-dog dared him to eat a bug. He did. He won the bet but was sick for a week.” Mac chuckled. “That meant I got his dessert for a week, and that was in the autumn when Ma had a whole basket of peaches.” He smacked his lips. “That peach cobbler was the best.”

  “I’d eat some peach cobbler.” Just saying it brought back memories Flowers tried to keep tamped down. Mercedes Sullivan had a cook and a housekeeper, but she did most of her own cooking. The sensation of smelling a pie cooling on the windowsill had been the moment Flowers realized how much he loved her.

  That memory caused his belly to rebel. He let out a belch, wiped his mouth, and said, “Fix the men whatever they want tonight. Get the chuckwagon ready to cross. Have Desmond help.”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about him.”

  Flowers sighed. Being trail boss shouldn’t require more than getting the herd to market. Dealing with a young snot carrying a chip on his shoulder wasn’t high on his list of things to do when he faced a dangerous river crossing.

  “What’s the problem?” He knew what Mac was going to say. That didn’t make
it any easier to hear.

  “He’s been drinking the whiskey I keep for medicinal purposes. He takes a swig or two, then fills the bottle back up with water so it’s still full to the same level. That cuts the whiskey left, making it almost useless to kill the pain for the men who need it.”

  “You sure it’s him? There’s more’n one riding for us with a taste for rotgut.”

  “I smell it on his breath. He has to know, but he doesn’t give two hoots. There’s not a whale of a lot I can do since I’m not his boss.”

  “He doesn’t think I am, either.” Flowers sighed as he looked across the river. Tree trunks the size of a large wagon raced past, carried all the way from New Mexico. This year the Pecos ran high and fast. He found himself wishing he was not only on the other bank but in Fort Sumner with a pocketful of cash from selling the herd to the Army. He was getting too old for the trail.

  “I know the deal you made. It was either Desmond or Miz Sullivan coming with us. You made the right choice, but—”

  “Don’t give me no ‘buts,’ Mac. I’ll talk to him. I’ll send him home with his tail between his legs, if I have to.”

  “That’d mean your job.”

  Hiram Flowers shrugged. That might be for the best. The Circle Arrow was a fine ranch, and the Sullivan family the best he ever worked for. Zeke had been a decent man, and Mercedes, well, he tormented himself over her. She was too fine a woman to ever team up with a lowlife cowboy like him. Removing himself from all that frustration might be a good thing and give his belly a chance to settle down.

  He drew in a deep breath and let it out fast so that his nostrils flared. He repeated it and felt even more responsibility crushing down on him.

  “We might try crossing now. Most of the herd’d get across before it was too dark.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Mac said. “You want to split the herd like that? Having a bunch on this side and the rest across the river? Why would you divvy them up like that?”

  “You don’t smell it, do you? The storm?”

  “The sky’s clear. There are some clouds, but they’re not rain clouds.”

  Flowers pointed to the south.

  “The storm’s movin’ in on us from the Gulf of Mexico. Have you ever seen the gulf, Mac?”

  “Not really. As close as I ever got was New Orleans.”

  The way the young man turned cautious warned Flowers not to press him on the subject. What he knew of Mac’s background could be chiseled on the head of a pin. He’d just mentioned a brother and before he told of how his ma and pa died of typhus. The S&W hanging at his side had belonged to his pa. Other than that, all Mac had spoken of were his experiences on a cattle drive up the Shawnee Trail. Even then he had been tight-lipped about it. Flowers wondered what had happened and who had died.

  It wasn’t his place to pry. Not when he had problems of his own.

  “The air tastes different, smells different. Everything changes, if you pay attention.”

  “Well, Mister Flowers, I’ll try to pay more attention, but right now I need to see if Desmond has left any liquor at all and what I need to do to whip up a good meal for the crew.”

  “Are they really going to have a bullwhip contest?” Flowers had to ask. He’d never approve of such a thing since it always came down to one man trying to snap a rock off another’s shoulder or head, missing, taking off an ear or eye, and then the fights started.

  Still, the men were expert with their twelve-foot whips. Using those to crack over horned heads moved the cattle easier than yelling at the beeves all day. He had seen the best of his cowboys crack straw from the lips of their friends, usually without taking off a nose in the process.

  “If they are, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. They know what you think of such foolishness.”

  “You ought to be a politician, Mac. You can give an answer without answering. Get on back to camp. I might just stop in and sample some of your vittles.” He rubbed his belly. The pain wasn’t too bad at all at the moment. Tempting fate with a decent steak would fortify him for the crossing in the morning.

  “I’ll fix a good meal especially for you. Don’t disappoint me by letting it go to waste.”

  “What? Are we married? Are you nagging me? You’re not that good at it. Get along, now.” Flowers leaned over and smacked Mac’s horse on the rump. It took off like a rocket, leaving him alone on the bank to stare across the river. If wishes were all it took, they’d already be across.

  But he had to do more than wish. Another deep breath confirmed his suspicion that a big storm was on the way. They had to cross before it hit or be pinned down for several days. The sooner they got to Fort Sumner, the sooner he could push on up to Santa Fe and then return to the Circle Arrow.

  Hiram Flowers snapped the reins and got his horse walking around the perimeter of the herd so he could estimate how long it’d take to cross the river.

  * * *

  The steak set well in his belly. When Flowers crawled out of his blankets before dawn the next morning and rubbed vigorously on his stomach, he expected the burning sensation inside to return. It didn’t.

  “Dang, Mac, you do serve a good meal,” he said, even though the cook wasn’t around at the moment. “Sorry I doubted you and ever tried to keep that drunkard Cassidy.”

  Keeping the wastrel around as long as he had had resulted in big trouble among the cowboys, but he had done it out of need. His sister’s boy should have straightened up when he got a job. Instead, he used the money he earned to get drunker and drunker. That had never set well with Mercedes Sullivan and her temperance ways, but she had let him keep the boozehound on.

  That made Flowers wonder why. She never meddled in how he ran the ranch, but everything about Cassidy went against her heartfelt beliefs. He had never been comfortable with her business associates, much less her social circle. He was a hired hand, not a ranch owner.

  He snorted at that as he swung up into the saddle and rode out to check the river again. Without being too stuck on himself, he considered himself, Hiram Flowers, trail boss, to be a better man than Desmond Sullivan. He had a code of honor he followed as surely as Mercedes believed demon rum was evil.

  A yawn almost cracked his jaw. He had set out only half the night riders on the herd that he usually posted, telling the rest to get a good night’s sleep to prepare for the river crossing in the morning. He had told Mac to have breakfast ready an hour before sunrise so everyone would be tending the herd when the first light poked above the eastern horizon.

  From the way the Pecos was swollen and flowing so fast, it might take most of the day getting across. He wanted every second of that to be in sunlight. And he wanted them across before the storm hit. Another sniff at the air convinced him he was right about the coming storm. The only question was when it would arrive.

  His horse left sucking hoofprints in the muddy riverbank as Flowers tried to find the exact right spot to cross. Unless he took another couple of days scouting both directions along the Pecos, he wasn’t going to find a better place than this. He shook his head sadly. This year that meant no single spot was better than any other due to the flooding.

  Getting across fast mattered. If the river flooded any more than it already was, fording might become impossible for days or even a week. Urging his horse up a low rise, he had a decent vantage point to look out over the herd. He caught his breath when he saw thousands of horns dancing with blue fox fire in the darkness. Tiny, fuzzy patches formed along the ten-foot spans and crept to the very tips. There the fox fire shimmered and sometimes jumped from one horn tip to another, causing the steers to complain restively. He had seen this curious fairyland display before.

  It always meant an electrical storm was on its way. In this part of Texas that might well mean a tornado. From the feelings he had in his gut and increasingly in his aching joints, his bet lay on a thunderstorm rushing up from the Gulf of Mexico. More than once while he worked a ranch down near Corpus Christi, this sensation had built in him. A
storm always followed within a day or two. The fox fire glimmering along the cattle horns lent more credence to his belief that they were in for a gully washer.

  He cocked his head to one side, heard the beeves beginning to stir, and knew dawn was on its way. Not wasting any time, he rode down into camp, saw Mac was already serving up breakfast, and smiled. That boy was always on top of his work and helped out when needed with everyone else’s chores. He started to tell Mac to get a horse and help with the herd crossing the river, then realized that would leave Desmond to ferry the chuckwagon over the Pecos. Losing the chuckwagon would be a catastrophe for the drive. Better for Mac to use his expertise driving the wagon.

  But then a different thought came to Flowers. He rode to where Mac was serving the last of the food.

  “Take Desmond with you when you cross,” the trail boss said. “He can help. You have the floats ready?”

  “All ready, Mister Flowers.” Mac seemed to want to say something else.

  “Spit it out. What’s eatin’ you?”

  “I’d be fine getting the chuckwagon across on my own. I don’t need Desmond to help out.”

  “Take him.” Flowers spoke with such force that it left no question of his intention. Mac might resent being a wet nurse, but the cowboys couldn’t afford to be distracted once the cattle entered the water.

  Flowers rode around, made sure the crew was ready. Facing east, he waited for the first pink and gray fingers of a new day to claw at the sky.

  “Get ’em movin’!” Flowers ordered when the time was right. “The sooner we get across the river, the sooner we can take another rest.”

  The promise of the opposite bank being as far as they had to go for the day spurred the cowboys to action. Some unlimbered their whips and sent them snaking out to crack above the lead steers’ heads. This caused a ripple throughout the herd, a shrug, a stirring, then they began to move.

  Flowers wheeled his mount around and led the way to the river. When the horse stopped, the water sloshing around its hooves, the morning light burned warm and inviting on Flowers’s back. He took his time watching the river flow to be sure they weren’t going to swim the cattle into submerged trees or other debris. As far as he could tell, submerged sandbars here and there provided the only impediment to crossing. With luck the cattle could rest on those sandbars before finishing their crossing, but he had to be sure they didn’t get bogged down in mud. Suction on those sandbars could hold even a twelve-hundred-pound bull until it drowned.