The Jackals Read online

  He wanted to reach over and find his carpetbags, pull them closer, but he could not take both hands from his belly.

  For most of the night, he had prayed, but he no longer called to the Lord for help or for saving his life. It did not matter. What mattered . . . the only thing that mattered . . . was Catherine Cooper of El Paso, Texas. Catherine was his latest love. She was pregnant with his son . . . it had to be a son. That son would love him, even if the poor boy would never really know his father.

  Harry Henderson smiled and felt blood run over his lips and onto the cold floor.

  He needed to make things right with Catherine Cooper. That’s all that mattered. God would see that, deep down, Harry Henderson was a good man. God would forget those little dalliances. Fort Worth and Dallas, those women weren’t good women. Prudence over in Sierra Vista, she was more like the Devil’s right-hand man. No, it was Catherine Cooper that Harry Henderson decided was his true love. Maybe because he had not married her yet. She was clean. Now, maybe if he had made it to Mexico and had met some pretty señorita, things might have changed, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  His stomach began burning. He spit out more blood.

  Morning was breaking. Morning. Sweet morning, he thought. Maybe it was a Sunday morning. He had lost track of the days. It was good to die in the morning, especially around dawn. To die at night was kind of frightening. But now, he could see, a new day was coming, and God was welcoming him, brave man that he was, into his kingdom along with the rising of the wonderful, glorious West Texas sun.

  He mouthed Catherine as he heard Gwen Stanhope behind him. She knew he was brave, too.

  “Mister Henderson.”

  She sounded just like Catherine.

  She touched his shoulder. “Are you all right, sir?”

  She had the gentleness of an angel. Just like Catherine.

  Henderson could not resist her pull as she tugged on his shoulder, and he rolled away from the tabletop and onto his back.

  “Oh . . .”

  He heard Catherine Cooper say it, then thought No, no, this was the woman named Gwen Stanhope.

  She covered her mouth, lifted her head, and turned toward the door. “He’s been shot!” she yelled, and tore off part of her sleeve, and pressed it to Harry Henderson’s stomach.

  But he turned toward her and said, “Don’t bother, ma’am.” That was a brave thing to say.

  Behind her, he saw the actor—a good actor, a fine man, but not as heroic as Harry Henderson—who was busy wrapping bandannas and napkins over his bloody foot. The newspaperman was standing, suddenly grinning, but that vanished and he made himself seem sad, or strong, or something.

  Slowly, he backed away as the three jackals he had written about stood over Henderson .

  The man who called himself Matt McCulloch was the first to kneel. McCulloch had been a Texas Ranger. Henderson had heard of him, and at first, had feared that the Ranger was coming to arrest him. Henderson might have hanged for the bank robbery in Sierra Vista, for the murder of Mr. Cox, the president, but now that Henderson knew McCulloch no longer worked for the Rangers, he no longer worried. Besides, Matt McCulloch knew that Harry Henderson was a brave man. And did not even know, most likely, that the bank in Sierra Vista had been robbed.

  The Ranger, the former Ranger, pulled Henderson’s hands from his belly. “Hell,” he whispered.

  He should not be cursing, Harry Henderson thought, but he decided to forgive Matt McCulloch for using profanity in front of a dying, heroic man. God would forgive Matt McCulloch, too.

  The bounty hunter came to the other side of Harry Henderson. Jed Breen had frightened him, too, because bounty hunters sometimes did not like to see men hang. Bringing a man in alive could be burdensome, and a whole lot of trouble, but Henderson realized that it was much, much too early for the board of directors of the Bank of Sierra Vista to have put up a bounty on him. They might, somehow, not have even realized that he had helped the Hawkin Gang pull off that robbery. Maybe they thought the outlaws had taken him hostage.

  That would make me even more heroic. Sort of.

  The bounty hunter was poking a hole through the tabletop.

  “Knothole. What are the odds?” Breen’s head shook, and he turned around and stared down at Harry Henderson. Those eyes had been hard, but they softened.

  Harry Henderson knew Jed Breen—a brave man even if his occupation verged on, well, criminal—respected Harry Henderson, who was dying a hero’s death.

  “Are you kidding me?” The old sergeant Sean Keegan dropped to a knee and looked over Henderson’s body to the hole in the table. He shook his head and looked into the former bank teller’s eyes.

  Henderson managed to smile. He wanted to say to Sergeant Keegan that everything was all right. But blood kept rising in his throat, spilling over his lips, and he couldn’t say anything at the moment.

  “Should I get him some water?” the woman asked.

  Gwen Stanhope, thought Henderson.

  “Not gut-shot,” Matt McCulloch said.

  Henderson shivered and turned his head. He tried to see the knothole, but gave up and looked again at the men around him.

  So, the bullet that hit him in the stomach had not punched through the top of the rough table. It had gone through a natural hole in the wood.

  Yes, Mr. Breen, what were the odds? Henderson tried to shake his head.

  “You did fine,” the old Army man said, giving Henderson a nod of approval. “Last night, you were brave. Your family will be proud.”

  Harry Henderson shuddered. His legs were cold. He no longer felt his feet. He swallowed blood, coughed, and tried to talk.

  “Easy . . .” Matt McCulloch rested his hand on Henderson’s shoulder. “Don’t talk.”

  “Got . . . to . . .” Harry Henderson managed.

  The former Ranger looked at the bounty hunter, then at the woman and the Army veteran, and moved over, slowly lifting Harry Henderson’s head.

  That somehow eased the burning in Henderson’s belly. He drew in a deep breath and let it out. The rattle of death frightened him, but then he remembered that he was a hero. And when he looked into the eyes of Gwen Stanhope, he saw Catherine Cooper in the house where she lived in El Paso and worked as a dressmaker, alone, unwed, pregnant with his child. He had to make things right for the only woman he ever loved—well the only woman he had loved since Prudence, before she turned into a wretched old hag . . . and before Candace—that was the name of that slender beauty in Dallas, before she turned into a fat sow . . . and, of course, Elizabeth of Fort Worth, but she was lucky that he had married her because how many whores actually ever became honest women. And once Elizabeth had stopped charging . . . well . . . none of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was Catherine Cooper. Maybe she’d name her son Harry. Yeah, that’s what would happen.

  “Water?” he managed.

  McCulloch frowned.

  “Give him some,” the bounty hunter said. “It’s not going to matter.”

  McCulloch nodded, and the woman rose and headed to the bucket.

  “We might need that water,” the newspaper editor said. “I would not waste it on a dead—”

  “Shut the bloody hell up,” Sir Theodore Cannon told Alvin Griffin.

  The dying man heard it and thought, A fine actor and wounded hero, too, though not as brave as Harry Henderson.

  “Who are you to call anyone a jackal, sir, when you deny this poor, brave man a drink of water before his untimely demise?”

  Harry Henderson wanted to smile at the great thespian, but the woman was back with a ladle that dripped water.

  The former Ranger lifted Harry Henderson’s head, and the woman knelt beside him and poured sweet, wonderful water down his parched throat until he coughed, and shivered, and gagged, and almost died.

  “My wife . . .” Harry Henderson never knew that speaking could hurt a body so much. His eyelids closed. His legs were numb all the way to his hips. He knew that he had to hurry.
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  “Ca-Catherine Cooper—” He groaned and felt more blood leak between his lips. “Owns The Dressmaker’s Shop . . . four blocks . . . from . . . the . . . old . . . Cath . . . Cath—” He had to paused. Then, miraculously, his stomach stopped tormenting him, and Harry Henderson knew that God was relieving him of his pain so he could do the right thing. Yeah, Catherine Cooper wasn’t really his wife . . . not yet . . . but that didn’t matter. God knew that they would have married. It would have been a blissful existence. And, well, Juárez was just across the border and Harry Henderson could have gone down there—He shook his head at such awful, prurient thoughts. He had to finish. He could not feel anything beneath his ribs.

  “Catherine Cooper. The Dressmaker’s Shop. Across from Gomez’s Café and just down from the . . . Catholic . . . church.”

  “Your wife?” McCulloch said, and when Henderson nodded and grinned, the onetime Ranger looked at the bounty hunter and the former soldier.

  “Yes. Catherine Cooper. My name is Harry Cooper.” God would forgive him the lie as he was protecting the reputation of a fine woman who put Sunday dresses on El Paso’s best. “Tell her that Harry sends her his love.” She would understand. She once told him that he was the first man named Harry she had ever known. Harry was a common name, too. Hard to figure.

  His left arm was numb.

  “Tell her I sold the business.” His right arm, about the only part of his body that he could control, other than his mouth, went this way and that. He panicked, coughed violently, and looked around. “My carpetbags!” he cried.

  The sergeant rose. “Griffin. Get this man’s grips.”

  “But—”

  “Now, damn your hide!”

  Harry Henderson twisted this way and that. The bounty hunter and the woman tried to restrain him, but he knew that if those carpetbags were gone—had the Apaches stolen them?—that Catherine would never name her son Harry.

  “Here.” The newspaperman set one grip on Henderson’s thighs.

  Harry Henderson reached over, took the handle, and remembered. “Both . . . of . . . them . . .” he moaned.

  “Damn you, Griffin. Get the other grip.”

  “I couldn’t find it.”

  The sergeant pointed. “It’s right there. Are you blind?”

  “Oh.”

  A moment later, Harry Henderson was clutching the handle of the grip at his side. He couldn’t feel it. He felt nothing except a contentedness. He saw the angels—all resembling Catherine Cooper—dancing in the rafters of Culpepper’s Station.

  “This . . . is the money. Fifty thousand dollars.” He remembered that Billy Hawkin and his mean brother and that other fellow, Callahan or Calloway or Gallagher . . . no Galloway . . . had taken some of the money and spent it in that awful den of inequity in Sierra Vista. May God have mercy on their souls. “Or something slightly less than fifty thousand dollars.”

  The sergeant straightened his head. The woman looked down at the grip on his thighs. The sergeant reached over and pulled the grip to the floor. He opened it. He looked inside. Then he looked into Harry Henderson’s eyes.

  “You’ll get it to my wife?” Harry Henderson asked. Somehow, he managed to turn his head and find the bounty hunter. “Won’t you?”

  Jed Breen wet his lips.

  Harry Henderson looked up at the Ranger. “You’ll see to it?”

  These three brave men deserved a reward, too, Harry Henderson decided, because jackals that they were, they would never see the streets of gold, feel the touch of the Lord, be lifted into the clouds and enjoy the wonders of Heaven.

  “You can take five thousand dollars for yourselves.”

  They were looking at each other.

  “Divided amongst yourselves. Not five thousand each.” That wouldn’t have left Catherine with hardly enough to raise a son bound for Har vard. “Promise me!” Henderson felt nothing from his neck down.

  “Give me your word!” he shouted. At least, it sounded like a shout to him. It might have been a whisper.

  “You’ve got it,” said the bounty hunter.

  “My word,” said the Ranger.

  “All right,” Sergeant Keegan said.

  “You’re good men.” Harry Henderson felt himself slipping. “Good men and true. Tell Catherine that Harry’s dying thoughts were of... Elizabeth. . . .” No, he remembered. Not Elizabeth. That was the wench from Fort Worth. He had meant to say Catherine.

  But before he could correct himself, an arrow slammed between his ribs, piercing his heart, and Harry Henderson’s head was cracking against the hard floor as the Ranger was diving to his side, and everyone else was scattering before the world turned black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The .50-caliber Sharps lay at Jed Breen’s feet. He picked it up, recognized the unmistakable sound of an arrow flying past his head, and the thwack as it struck the back of a chair, the force sending the chair crashing to the floor.

  Breen saw the shadow through the cross cut in the shutter, drew back the hammer of the heavy rifle, and braced the stock against his shoulder. Another arrow slammed into the tabletop, but that one came from the side window. He ignored that and peered through the telescopic scope. He touched the set trigger, heard the click, and when the crosshairs lined up what looked like a bone breastplate, he let out his breath and squeezed the second trigger.

  The Sharps jarred his shoulder. The white smoke slowly raised, and Breen started to reload the Big Fifty while Matt McCulloch sent two rounds from the Winchester carbine at the attacker in the corner.

  “Give them hell, boys!” former sergeant Keegan commanded. “Let’s remember Harry Cox . . . or Henderson. Whatever the hell his name was. Give them hell for Harry, boys. You, too, Stanhope!”

  * * *

  “Arrows,” Jed Breen said after the Indians had withdrawn.

  “Yeah.” Keegan nodded. “Which means Holy Shirt won his argument, thanks to that bomb you made up. Must’ve hurt those red devils pretty good. Other buck, the one pushing for rifles and such, must be shamed.”

  “For now.” Matt McCulloch fed cartridges into his Winchester carbine. “But Apaches can be like red-blooded stallions. Fickle. Gentle and obedient one minute. Bucking you to heaven the next.”

  “I never knew any Apache to be gentle and obedient,” Keegan said.

  McCulloch grinned and leaned his carbine against the wall. “Who wants coffee?”

  Outside, the Apache drums began.

  “What does that mean?” Gwen Stanhope asked.

  “Probably asking the gods to show them the way to kill us,” Keegan answered. “Bullets or arrows. Holy Shirt’s way or gunfire.”

  * * *

  Outside, the drums beat on.

  Inside Culpepper’s Station, they’d turned one of the tables over, pulled up the chairs, benches, and kegs, and were sipping coffee.

  “They’re still beating those damned drums,” Gwen Stanhope said.

  “As long as they’re beating drums, dancing and singing, and praying,” Breen said, “they’re not trying to kill us. You got to look at the bright side of things, Gwen.”

  Her head shook, but she grinned at the bounty hunter and lifted the cup of coffee to her lips.

  Alvin J. Griffin IV sidled up beside Sean Keegan. “Fifty thousand dollars.” The newspaper editor whistled.

  “I don’t recall asking you to sit next to me, jackass,” Keegan said.

  Griffin grinned. “Well, hear me out, Sergeant. Fifty thousand is a lot of money. And what’s this crap about Henderson having a wife? A wife named Cooper. He’s Henderson. Did you hear about a bank robbery in Sierra Vista?”

  “Make your point,” Keegan said.

  Griffin rose. “Hear me out, folks. I don’t think the late Harry Henderson owned anything to sell. I think that money came from the Hawkin Gang’s bank robbery in Sierra Vista. The telegraph came to Purgatory City just before I got on this stagecoach. What I think, what I know, is that there are five of us, and fifty thousand dollars. Spli
t five ways, that gives us ten grand each.”

  “There are six of us,” Sir Theodore Cannon said.

  “The woman’s bound for the gallows,” Griffin said.

  “Chances are she won’t hang, and none of us will be alive to spend that loot,” Breen said.

  “Ten thousand dollars ought to give us a reason to fight like hell,” Griffin said, “and get out of this pickle. Maybe the Indians will give up. After that excellent and deadly bomb you gave us, Breen.”

  Keegan finished his coffee, rose, and walked away from Griffin.

  “You’ve got gall,” Matt McCulloch said as he pushed his cup away.

  “If we all get out of here alive, I’d be willing to give Gwen Stanhope a cut, too. I’m not greedy.”

  “You’re greedy,” Keegan said. “And you’re a real snake in the grass.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars,” the editor said.

  McCulloch busied himself wiping the barrel of his revolver with his bandanna. Without looking up from his chore, he said, “You tend to forget one thing, Griffin.”

  “Such as?”

  “I gave my word to Mr. Henderson that I’d get his money to his widow in El Paso. Catherine Cooper.”

  The editor laughed. “But he has no wife.”

  “Maybe so. But I gave my word.”

  “You’re—” Griffin stopped when McCulloch looked up over his Colt. The editor turned to Breen.

  “Not many outlaws in Texas or anywhere bring that much reward. Isn’t that right, Jed?”

  The bounty hunter shook his head. “It’s a right tidy sum. But you tend to forget, Mr. Honest Newspaper Editor, that I also told Henderson I’d see this job done. If I live.”

  “You told—”

  “I told a dying man I’d do something. My ma and my pa brought me up that you never, ever, go back on a word.”

  “Your word—”

  Breen looked up, and those eyes silenced the newspaper editor, who quickly turned back to Sean Keegan.

  “Ten thousand dollars, Sergeant, and with the power of my newspaper, I could have your rank restored. Maybe even a promotion. First Sergeant. Sergeant Major. How would you like to be an officer, Keegan? The power of the press is stronger than—”