Blood Bond: Deadly Road to Yuma Page 2

  “Well, it worked,” Matt said. “We weren’t expectin’ trouble, so we walked right into it.”

  Sam didn’t say anything about noticing some odd behavior on the part of the townspeople as they rode in. He had noticed, but it hadn’t done any good. He and Matt had still found themselves staring down the barrels of those shotguns.

  “Is that the way Shade operates?” he asked Sheriff Flagg. “Sending men ahead to scout out the towns he raids, I mean.”

  Flagg nodded. “Yep. A couple o’ strangers ride in, take a look around town, have a drink maybe, then ride back out and tell Shade where the sheriff’s office is, and the bank, and anything else he needs to know. Then, a day later, Shade and his bunch come roarin’ in with all guns a-blazin’ and take over the town. They kill the local star packer and anybody else who tries to stand up to ’em, mistreat the womenfolk, load up all the loot they can get their filthy hands on, and ride out. Sometimes they leave the town burnin’ behind ’em.”

  “Sounds like a bad bunch, all right,” Matt said.

  “Bad don’t even begin to describe ’em.” Flagg shook his head. “And maybe the worst part of it is, Shade used to be a man o’ God.”

  “A preacher?” Matt asked, his eyebrows lifting in surprise.

  “That’s right. He had the callin’ and preached for a while before he turned bad. In fact, I hear tell that when his gang is terrorizin’ a town, he still claims to be doin’ the Lord’s work. Says he has to smite folks and take ever’thing they own so they’ll stop worryin’ about the things o’ this world and start worryin’ about the next.”

  “And while he’s saying that he’s allowing his men to rape and kill and loot?” Sam asked in amazement.

  “Yep. Hell of a note, ain’t it?”

  Matt downed some of his beer. “I can see why you say the hombre’s loco. But you can take my word for it when I tell you that Sam and I don’t have anything to do with him.”

  “Oh, I know that now,” Flagg said with a wave of his hand. “I’ve heard plenty about you two young fellas, but I never heard anybody say that Bodine and Two Wolves are owlhoots.” He emptied his mug down his bearded throat and thumped it back on the table. “These beers are on me, boys. Enjoy your stay in Arrowhead.”

  “We’re obliged,” Sam said.

  Flagg scraped his chair back and stood up. “My office is down the street. Stop by and visit for a spell any time you’re of a mind to.”

  “We’ll do that,” Matt promised.

  When the sheriff was gone, the blood brothers looked at each other across the table.

  “I was afraid he was going to ask us to sign on as deputies,” Sam said.

  Matt nodded. “So was I. And I’ve had enough of wearin’ a badge for a while. That stint as unofficial deputies in Sweet Apple was plenty to suit me.”

  “I agree.” Sam smiled faintly. “Don’t look now, but Amelia is coming back.”

  The blonde was headed toward their table. Matt smiled and said, “I always enjoy the company of an attractive young woman.”

  Amelia moved right past him, though, to stand next to Sam and rest a hand on his buckskin-clad shoulder. “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Two Wolves?” she asked as she leaned toward him.

  Sam looked a little flustered, and Matt didn’t know whether to be annoyed or bust out laughing. He’d thought that Amelia was interested in him, but here she was, making a play for Sam instead.

  “How about it, Sam?” he asked with a grin. “See anything you like?”

  Chapter 3

  The narrow, twisting canyon in the Gila Mountains was choked with brush for much of its length, brush that could claw a man bloody if he wasn’t careful. Nobody would ride up here unless they had a good reason to.

  Ed Callahan had believed that he had a good reason, the best reason of all—gold. He had a nose for the stuff, or so he had always told himself even though he’d never found very much of it in the twenty years he’d spent as a prospector and desert rat.

  The hardships of those years had honed him down to little more than skin and bones. His cheeks were hollow, and his eyes were sunk deep in pits of gristle.

  One of those eyes didn’t see too good anymore. Everything he saw through it looked filmy, like it had one of those thin scarves over it like the dancin’ gals in the big cities used to hide and reveal their fleshy charms at the same time.

  But Ed could still see well enough to know that he was in a whole heap of trouble. He swallowed hard as he stared down the barrel of the gun that was no more than four inches from the tip of his nose.

  “What are you doin’ up here, old man?” asked the rough-looking hombre who’d stepped out of the brush and pointed the gun at Ed. “You some sort o’ damn spy?”

  Ed’s mouth had gone too dry for him to talk. He tried to work up some spit. After a couple of seconds, he managed to say, “N-no, sir. I ain’t no spy. I’m just doin’ a little prospectin’.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the supplies on the pack mule he’d been leading. “You can see for yourself. Just take a look at my outfit.”

  The man squinted past him at the mule. “Yeah, that looks like the sort o’ shit a prospector’d have, all right. I never heard o’ anybody findin’ gold in these mountains, though.”

  “I…I’m gonna be the first,” Ed declared. “Got me a hunch there’s a fine vein up here just waitin’ for me to find it.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s too damn bad. You found more’n you bargained for, old man.” The hardcase stepped back and motioned with the Colt in his hand. “Come on. You’re goin’ with me.”

  “Wh-where are we goin’?” Ed asked as he tightened his grip on the mule’s reins and started walking along the canyon.

  “Never you mind. You’ll see in a minute.”

  And so he did as they rounded a bend and Ed saw that the canyon widened out a little. There was a spring flowing out of the rocks on one side, and near it a crude corral made of ropes and poles cut from saplings. Tents were pitched here and there, and bedrolls were also spread out in the open.

  A fire burned near the spring. Ed had thought he smelled wood smoke a few minutes earlier as he’d worked his way up the canyon, but then the smell had faded and he’d decided not to worry about it. Hadn’t been any ’Pache trouble around here for a while.

  The men camping here weren’t Apaches, Ed saw as he looked around, although a couple of them appeared to be Mexicans. The rest were white, and every bit as ugly and rough-looking as the gent who’d brought him here at gunpoint.

  Oh, shit, Ed thought. They were outlaws. He had stumbled right into the hideout of a bunch of owlhoots.

  The man who pushed aside the entrance flap of one of the tents and came out into the fading, late afternoon light didn’t look like an outlaw, though. He wore a long black coat and a white shirt and a string tie. He was clean-shaven, with long, thick brown hair and a slightly lantern-jawed face. He smiled as he strode toward Ed.

  “Welcome, brother,” he said. “What brings you here to our humble but temporary home?”

  The gunman behind Ed prodded him in the back with the Colt. “Answer the rev’rend.’

  Reverend? The fella did look a mite like a preacher, Ed thought.

  “I’m, uh, prospectin’ for gold,” he said. “Didn’t mean to intrude—”

  “Nonsense,” the preacher said. “One of my fellow strugglers in this world could never intrude. We’re glad to have you.”

  Ed wanted to relax. The fella had a way of putting a man at ease. But it was hard to relax too much while he was still surrounded by gun-hung hombres who looked like they’d as soon fill him with lead as spit.

  “Obliged for the hospitality,” Ed managed to say. “Name’s Ed Callahan.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Brother Ed. I’m Joshua Shade.”

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit. The words roared through Ed’s brain, and it was all he could do not to yell them out loud.

  He had heard of Joshua Shade. Everybody in this part of
the territory had heard of the crazy owlhoot leader. Hell, probably everybody in the whole territory had heard of him. He and his men had been on a killing spree for months.

  Shade was still smiling. He said, “I see you’ve heard of me, Brother Ed.”

  Ed’s tongue felt as big and floppy and dry as a saddle blanket in his mouth. He struggled to say, “N-no, sorry, Mr. Shade, I n-never heard nothin’ about you.”

  “Reverend Shade,” the man corrected gently.

  “Sorry. I mean Rev’rend Shade. But I still d-don’t know who you are.”

  Shade came closer, reached out, and put a big hand on Ed’s shoulder. “Are you a God-fearing man, Brother Ed?”

  “Y-yeah,” Ed husked. “I like to think I am.”

  “Then you know that by lying you’re breaking one of the Lord’s commandments.”

  “I ain’t lyin’. I—”

  Shade’s hand tightened painfully on the old prospector’s shoulder. “Don’t make your sin worse by denying it, brother.”

  Ed choked back a sob and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry. The Lord will forgive you and welcome you into His house. He has many mansions in heaven for us all, you know.”

  “Y-yeah, I…I heard a p-preacher say that once.”

  “And today you’ll know the truth of it for yourself.”

  Ed’s eyes widened in horror. “Today?” he croaked.

  “Unless you’re lying again, in which case I’m sure the Devil will have a…warm…welcome for you.”

  Shade looked at the man standing behind Ed and nodded.

  Ed just had time to think that he’d already met the Devil before he yelled, “Wait! Oh, God, wait!”

  Shade raised a hand, and the man behind Ed paused in whatever he’d been about to do.

  “Why should we wait in carrying out the Lord’s judgment, Brother Ed?” Shade asked.

  Ed thought fast, remembering everything he had heard about Joshua Shade. He said, “If you l-let me live, I…I can help you.”

  “What can you possibly do for us, brother?”

  “I remember…I remember hearin’ how you like to send a man into a town before you…”

  Ed couldn’t bring himself to say it. He was too scared.

  Shade smiled. “Before we deliver the word of the Lord unto them?” he asked.

  “Y-yeah. That’s what I mean. But folks know that about you now. They’ve figured it out. There’s a settlement not far from here, but if you send some of your men there, folks’ll be suspicious of ’em. Folks watch ever’ stranger now mighty close.”

  Shade was beginning to look interested. “Go on,” he urged.

  “I can do it for you,” Ed said. “They know me there. They think I’m just a harmless old coot.” He let out a hollow cackle. “And up to now that’s all I been, I reckon. But now I can help you, Rev’rend. I can help you do the Lord’s work.”

  What he was doing was dooming a lot of innocent folks, Ed thought…but he was also saving his own life. A fella had to do what he could to save his own life, didn’t he, even if it meant that other folks got hurt?

  A smile spread across Shade’s face. “I’ve always said that the Lord provides a solution to every problem, if only we open our hearts and our eyes and are prepared to see it.” He rested his hand on Ed’s shoulder again. “And now He has sent you to us, Brother Ed. Praise the Lord.”

  “Praise the Lord,” Ed agreed in a weak, croaking voice.

  Shade gestured to his men with his other hand. “Go on about your business, brothers. I’ll talk to our new friend here.” He steered Ed toward the tent from which he had emerged a few minutes earlier. “What’s the name of this settlement you mentioned, Brother Ed?”

  “It…it’s called Arrowhead.”

  “Arrowhead,” Shade repeated, rolling the name on his tongue. “Named after a weapon of the heathen redskins. It sounds to me as if the people there really need a visit from the messengers of the Lord…”

  Ed hoped that Shade couldn’t feel the tiny shudder that went through him at the sound of the evil in the man’s voice.

  Yeah, he had already met the Devil…

  And the Devil’s name was Joshua Shade.

  Chapter 4

  Amelia was persistent, and Sam Two Wolves was as human as the next fella. By evening, she had worn down his resistance and talked him into taking her back to one of the little rooms behind the Ten Grand.

  That left Matt to take care of putting their horses up at the livery stable and renting a couple of rooms for them at the local hotel, which was one of only two two-story buildings in town, the other being the bank, which was built solidly out of red brick.

  Matt didn’t mind tending to those chores. Sam would have done the same if the situation had been reversed. In fact, he had done the same many times when it was reversed, which it usually was.

  When he was finished with that, he wandered back to the Ten Grand. No sign of Sam and Amelia in the barroom, so he figured they were still occupied out back. Matt went over to the bar and nodded to the portly bartender, Archie Cochran, whose acquaintance he and Sam had made during the afternoon.

  “Give me a beer, Archie,” Matt told him. He dropped a coin on the hardwood to pay for it. He and Sam weren’t short of money, only supplies, and if they needed to, they could have more dinero wired to them the next time they came to a settlement that had a telegraph office.

  “There you go, Mr. Bodine,” Archie said as he placed the mug in front of Matt.

  “I see Sam’s not back yet.”

  Archie smiled. “Amelia’s a mighty inventive gal when she wants to be. She can come up with all sorts of pleasant ways for a gent to pass some time.”

  “I’ll bet.” Matt took a drink of the cool beer. “What’s the best place around here to get something to eat?”

  “Got a jar of pickled eggs down at the end of the bar,” Archie suggested.

  Matt frowned and shook his head. “I was thinkin’ of something a little more substantial, like a steak maybe.”

  “Try Hernando’s, right down the street.”

  “Mexican place?”

  “Hernando’s a Mex, but he cooks American. Good, too. You got to watch him, though, ’cause every now and then he’ll slip in some chili peppers.” Archie rubbed a palm over his aproned chest. “Can’t take ’em myself. They make me feel like I’m on fire inside.”

  “I like spicy food myself. We’ll give it a try when Sam gets back.”

  Archie chuckled. “He’ll probably have worked up an appetite by then, that’s for sure.”

  Matt just smiled, shook his head, and sipped his beer. From the corner of his eye, he saw a man push the batwings aside and enter the saloon.

  It was a matter of habit for Matt to watch everything that went on around him. A matter of survival, too, because there were varmints in the world who held grudges against him and Sam, as well as ambitious hombres who might want to make a name for themselves as the man who killed Matt Bodine…even if it took shooting him in the back.

  Didn’t take him but a second, though, to size up this newcomer to the Ten Grand and realize that the old-timer was no threat.

  He was a scarecrow of a man, scrawny and dressed in ragged, dirty clothes and a shapeless old felt hat. When he came up to the bar, Matt got a look at his face and saw that one eye had some sort of film over it. He felt a twinge of pity for the old man.

  Archie Cochran didn’t look all that sympathetic as he went over to the newcomer and asked curtly, “What’ll it be, Ed?”

  “Can I…can I have a beer?”

  “You got any money?”

  “I do.” The man reached into the pocket of his stained, torn corduroy trousers and pulled out a coin. “I got enough, see?”

  Archie took the coin and said, “All right. That’ll buy you a beer. One beer.”

  He drew it and set the mug in front of the old-timer called Ed, who licked his lips in anticipation.

  Archie’s mood seemed to grow a bit
more friendly as he said, “Haven’t seen you around for a while.”

  “I been busy. Lookin’ for gold, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. Doesn’t look like you’ve hit a bonanza yet.”

  “Oh, you never know, you never know,” Ed said. He picked up the mug and drained half of the beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his turkey neck as he swallowed.

  When he lowered the mug, foam covered his upper lip. He set the mug on the bar and gave a long sigh of satisfaction.

  Then he glanced over at Matt, nodded, and said, “Howdy.”

  “Howdy yourself, old-timer,” Matt replied. He didn’t introduce himself.

  Ed turned back to the bartender. “Anythin’ interestin’ goin’ on here in town, Archie?”

  “Not much. We had a little excitement earlier this afternoon when Matt there and his partner rode into town. Cyrus Flagg saw ’em coming and got worried they might be part of Joshua Shade’s gang, scouting the town for that bunch of owlhoots. Turned out they weren’t, though.”

  Ed glanced at Matt. “Is that so? The sheriff’s worried about Shade, is he?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?” Archie asked with a snort. “After all the hell those varmints have raised, anybody with any sense would be worried. That’s why Cyrus says we got to take precautions.”

  “What sort o’ precautions?”

  “Oh, you know, like watching out for strangers and posting lookouts.”

  “Lookouts?” Ed repeated.

  This was the first Matt had heard of that, too.

  “Yeah, he just decided on that a little while ago, after Matt and Sam rode in. Figured it might be a good idea to post some fellas on the roof of the hotel and the bank so they can keep a watch around the town all the time. That way, we’ll spot anybody who’s headed this direction.”