The Butcher of Baxter Pass Read online

  Jess stepped away from the Gatling gun but kept his right hand on the butt of the holstered .44-40. This wouldn’t be over until Burt McNamara had dropped his guns. The kid didn’t move until his big brother put both hands on his shoulders and turned him around to face Tom. Tom said something, but he was whispering, and Jess could only hear the wind and see the icy vapor as Tom spoke softly.

  Relaxing, Jess shot Caroline another look. She smiled at him, but her expression immediately changed, and Jess sensed what was happening, turning toward the Gatling, lifting his left hand just in time to take the full force of the big Centennial Lee Bodeen was swinging.

  Bodeen screamed something that Jess couldn’t quite understand. Foreign? Crazy words? Unintelligible? The wind drowned out most of what Bodeen had yelled.

  Likely, if Jess had not reacted when he did, the fraudulent Texas Ranger would have stove in Jess’s head with the .45-75. Instead, the big weapon broke Jess’s left forearm and sent him toppling over the side of the wagon.

  “You yellow sons-of-bitches!” Bodeen shouted, dropping the Winchester and moving toward the Gatling gun. Jess understood that. “I’ll kill all of you cowards!”

  Landing on his back, the air whooshed out of Jess’s lungs, and he lay stunned, trying to get his breath working again. He could barely see the top of the wagon and make out Major Clarke standing in the box, turning, crying out, “Lee, what in the name of—”

  And that was all, because the Gatling gun barked again, and Major Jedediah Clarke’s body exploded in streaks of crimson as his body flailed about like a fish tossed onto the riverbanks, and then the dead man was flying onto the backs of the team of draft horses the Gatling’s deadly bullets had also cut into pieces.

  Jess realized that if he didn’t move—and quickly—he’d be blown apart himself.

  He rolled underneath the wagon, just managing to see Lee Bodeen’s insane face, and the pistols he held in both hands, as the killer abandoned the Gatling gun—it would have been impossible for Bodeen to hit Jess at that angle with the automatic weapon—and fired twice. Ice stung Jess’s ears as the bullets tore into Main Street.

  Those lungs sucked in freezing air, and Jess turned and saw Caroline Dalton screaming something from the boardwalk. He tried to tell her to get back but couldn’t make his voice work. It didn’t matter, because the daughter of the Butcher understood that if she didn’t move, she’d be dead, too. She dived back behind the City Hall as the Gatling spoke again, tearing apart the wooden planks along the corner of the structure, littering the boardwalk and parts of the street corner with splinters, just as Caroline Dalton reached safety.

  Jess rolled onto his belly, managed to turn around, seeing the bloody bodies of Major Jedediah Clarke and the horses in front of him. He could also see the McNamara boys, still in the middle of the icy street, and Jess grimaced.

  There was absolutely nothing he could do in time to save any of them.

  Neils had reacted the quickest, probably because the gun belt he had dropped remained right at his feet. He dropped, jerked the revolver from the holster, and was bringing it up. Above Jess came the roar of a gunshot, and blood spurted from Neils McNamara’s left shoulder. The ex-convict grimaced, but kept his grip on the revolver as he jerked the trigger.

  The bullet smashed through a window. That’s how much the shoulder wound have spoiled his aim, but it also told Jess that, atop the wagon, Lee Bodeen was shooting one of his revolvers—not the Gatling. Neils turned again, thumbed back the Colt’s hammer. The second round from Bodeen caught the brother in his belly, doubling him over as again he jerked the trigger. That bullet plowed a furrow in the ice, and Neils was kneeling on the street, turning the frozen ground crimson, but not completely down.

  Until Lee Bodeen put a bullet through the brother’s head.

  Through the front spokes of the wagon wheel, Jess saw Tom McNamara shoving Burt down First Street. Tom had managed to jerk the Colt out of his kid brother’s holster and was turning to fire.

  “Tom!” Burt screamed.

  “Get out of here, kid!” his big brother boomed.

  The kid darted, slipping and sliding on the ice, down First, toward Calhoun. Tom was thumbing back the hammer of the Colt, and Jess Casey was moving.

  Back. Toward the rear of the wagon. He came up, and started climbing, getting foot and hand holds in the ornate carvings, using the calliope when he could. His left arm dangled uselessly at his side, burning in agonizing pain from the busted bone.

  Jess couldn’t see Tom McNamara, but he heard the Gatling gun on the wagon’s rooftop. It sickened him.

  His ears rang as the gun erupted in rapid fire. Jess caught a glimpse of Burt McNamara as he ran, bullets now digging past him. The kid lost his hat, hunched over, ran—and through some sort of miracle—cleared the mercantile on the corner.

  The Gatling’s slugs ripped through the building’s plate glass window, reduced the pickle barrel to kindling, and destroyed the bench on the boardwalk. Jess remembered Major Clarke saying that General Dalton’s Gatling was an 1881 model and fed two rows of cartridges housed in a hopper. Already, Jess saw smoking brass casings rolling off the side of the wagon’s top and onto the ice.

  The deafening roar of the gun stopped, and over the echoes reverberating across Fort Worth, Jess heard the demonic cackling of Lee Bodeen.

  That man was insane. No doubt about it.

  Jess knew he couldn’t climb any higher up the wagon. His left arm wouldn’t let him, but that didn’t matter. He had a clear view of Lee Bodeen as the gunman replaced the hoppers of the Gatling gun with new ones containing fresh loads.

  He brought the gun up, but he knew he was too late. Bodeen must have seen him, or heard him—maybe felt his presence. The gunman dropped to his knee as Jess squeezed the trigger.

  Jess knew his shot had missed, and he knew he was a dead man. Because he lost his hold, his feet slipping out and away from the wagon, and he was falling backward, onto the hard ice and hard street. And Lee Bodeen was coming after him.

  To finish the job.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Tuesday, 5:25 p.m.

  His head exploded with pain from the impact with the hard street, but that didn’t feel anywhere near as intense as the screaming sensation that shot through his broken arm.

  Jess saw Lee Bodeen standing on the edge of the circus wagon, guns in each hand. The man was grinning as his fingers tightened on both triggers while Jess tried to bring his own revolver up.

  A bullet roared, and Lee Bodeen sang out in surprise, lost his balance, and slipped backward, banging against the Gatling gun. Jess looked to his right, finding Caroline Dalton standing beside the chewed-up corner of the City Hall, clutching a smoking revolver with both hands.

  “You wench!” Bodeen screamed from atop the wagon.

  “Get back!” Jess yelled, and pulled the trigger. He couldn’t see Bodeen. He just hoped the bullet may give the crazed gunman second thoughts.

  Caroline fired again, her pistol shot echoed by one of Bodeen’s guns. The Butcher’s daughter dropped to her knee, unharmed, and aimed the big revolver, squeezing the trigger. By then, Jess had gotten his legs to work. He moved back, onto the boardwalk, until he had a clear shot at Lee Bodeen.

  As Caroline pulled the trigger yet again, Bodeen turned, saw Jess, and snapped a shot that busted out a windowpane to Jess’s right. He snapped a shot, saw the spark, and heard the ricochet as the bullet whined off the Gatling gun. Bodeen leaped backward, off the wagon’s rooftop, and Jess dropped to his knee, trying to get a clear shot at the killer.

  No good. Bodeen landed, slipped, and came to his feet on a run. Jess moved down the boardwalk toward First Street. Bodeen rushed a shot over his shoulder as he ran in the same direction as Burt McNamara had gone. Caroline fired, her shot well off the mark. Jess came down the boardwalk. Maybe he could have hit Bodeen before he rounded the corner and got out of view, but that would have been nothing short of a scratch shot. He slipped on a patch of ice on the
boardwalk, and while he didn’t lose his feet, his shot dug into the ice, well to the left of Bodeen.

  After that, it didn’t matter. Bodeen was out of view.

  Jess ran after him, just glancing at the bullet-riddled body of Tom McNamara, who lay in a freezing lake of blood on Main Street.

  “Stay here!” Jess yelled at Caroline, who charged down the east side of Main Street toward First.

  She didn’t listen. Jess didn’t argue. They reached the corner at the same time. They charged down First, with Jess shucking out the empty cartridges of his Colt, replacing them with fresh loads he had shoved into the pocket of the Butcher’s blouse. Caroline fired once more, but Bodeen had turned the corner ahead.

  Jess swore. Bodeen had turned southward on Calhoun.

  He stopped at the cooper’s place, and held out his left arm to keep Caroline Dalton from running onto Calhoun Street—and possibly into a bullet from one of Bodeen’s pistols.

  “What?” She caught her breath.

  “He’s heading toward the opera house,” Jess said, and cautiously peered around the corner.

  “I don’t ... understand.”

  Jess did. At least, he thought he understood, because now he remembered exactly what Lee Bodeen had shouted before knocking him off the wagon, before he killed Major Clarke and two of the McNamara brothers with that Gatling gun.

  “Bodeen yelled, ‘Sic semper tyrannis’ just before he started this ball,” Jess told her.

  That Latin phrase was becoming popular in Fort Worth. One of the McNamara boys had shouted the same thing before taking a shot at Jess, mistaking him for Gary Custer, in the opera house earlier.

  “All right.” Caroline looked over Jess’s shoulder. The street appeared clear. “Like John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre.”

  “Bodeen’s Southern. He wants to kill your father, too.”

  Her head shook. “If he wanted to do that, he had plenty of chances before.”

  Which did trouble Jess a bit, but he thought he had that problem solved, too. “Yeah, but he’s a gunfighter. He wants style. Wants to be remembered.” Jess stepped onto the boardwalk and walked cautiously down Calhoun, making sure to keep his body in front of Caroline Dalton’s.

  He shook his head, as the images of the dead bodies on Main Street flashed through his mind. Lee Bodeen would be remembered all right.

  “He’s mad,” Caroline said, understanding. “Completely mad.”

  “As a hatter,” Jess said.

  “Father!” She started, but Jess blocked her path.

  “Bodeen knows he has to take care of us first.”

  He studied both corners on Third and Calhoun and kept the Colt cocked.

  “What about the other one?” Caroline asked. “The McNamara boy?”

  Jess shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Panic filled her voice. “I have to get to Father,” she said.

  “I know.” He stopped. The opera house lay three blocks away. No throngs crowded the theater. In fact, no one dared show his or her face in Fort Worth.

  Darkness began covering the streets like a shroud.

  He reached a water trough. “Get down,” he said, and when Caroline Dalton didn’t follow his orders quickly enough, he snapped at her, “Now, damn it.”

  This time, she obeyed.

  “I don’t know where he is. Or where Burt is.” He cringed at the pain shooting up and down his left arm. “But I’m going to see if I can’t draw Bodeen’s fire. With luck, he’ll go after me. Then you take off fast as you can and find your father.”

  He didn’t like that, but he couldn’t see any other options. Besides, Amanda Wilson was waiting with the Butcher of Baxter Pass, and Lee Bodeen would kill her along with General Dalton.

  Jess wet his lips and stepped off the boardwalk. Ice crunched beneath his boots. He drew in a deep breath, let it out, and broke into a sprint, hoping he wouldn’t slip and break his neck on the ice, moving cattycorner across the street.

  He saw the flash of Bodeen’s revolver. Felt the bullet whistle behind him and snapped a shot in the general direction. Bodeen had taken cover at the wagon yard on the eastern side of Calhoun. Jess practically flew the last few yards and slammed his back against the wall of an abandoned old shanty just as Bodeen’s next bullet splintered the old rotten wood.

  Jess looked at the water trough across the street, praying that Caroline Dalton would have the good sense to stay put.

  He thumbed back the hammer on the Colt and yelled, “Bodeen! You couldn’t hit the back side of a barn if it were two inches from your pistol barrel.”

  The next bullet tore through the shanty, showering the top of Jess’s hat with splinters and almost tearing Jess’s head off. Dropping to his knees, he came around the corner of the dilapidated building, pulled the trigger, and ducked back. “Come on, you Southern trash!”

  Stumbling backward, he heard the roar of Bodeen’s pistol, followed by the crazed man’s curse. Bodeen would be coming now, and Jess had to lead the gunman away from Caroline Dalton, away from the Fort Worth Opera House, away from Calhoun Street and the Butcher of Baxter Pass. He raced down the boardwalk, reached Jones Street, and dived past the rain barrel at the corner of the Masonic Lodge.

  Barely. A bullet from one of Bodeen’s pistols tore off the heel of his left boot.

  There were no boardwalks on Jones. Jess landed on the frozen ground, came up on his hands and knees, and crawled until he could scramble to his feet. Running with one heel shot off, on ice for that matter, was awkward, but he saw the livery on the eastern side of the street and raced for it, hearing Bodeen’s boots pounding the street behind him.

  Jess made it. A bullet whined through the open doorway. A horse whinnied and began kicking its stall. Jess landed in the hay, felt dust sting his eyes, and came to his feet.

  “Who’s the damned coward?” Bodeen yelled from outside. “Who’s the traitor to the South? That’s you, Casey! And I’m gonna put you under before I kill that old Butcher.”

  Jess moved down the darkened livery, quickly, hoping to lure Bodeen in. He found an empty stall, leaped into it, and peered through the wooden slats. It was fairly dark now, and night was falling quickly. No one had the guts to start lighting the streetlamps, and it wouldn’t matter on Jones Street, anyway. There were no streetlamps here.

  Yet a few buildings had lanterns still burning inside, and Jess could make out the grayness of the open door, the silhouette of the bales of hay stacked near the beginning of the stalls.

  He tried to control his breathing. Tried to forget the pain shooting through his busted arm.

  “You’re gutless, Casey!” Bodeen barked from outside, the sound coming from Jess’s right, unless the wind played tricks on him. “You run. You run like the Yankees did at Manassas. Well, I’m gonna track you down, you blue-belly-loving coward. I’m gonna kill you.”

  “Come on, Bodeen!” Jess called out.

  He had done his job. By now, Caroline Dalton had to be at the opera house. Yet he frowned again, remembering Burt McNamara. That boy could be anywhere. He could have run out of town at a high lope. Could have gone to check on his dead brothers. Or he could have decided to kill the Butcher of Baxter Pass, too.

  “Let’s finish this, Bodeen!” he yelled. He couldn’t wait here any longer. He had to make sure the Butcher ... and Caroline ... and Doc Wilson were all right.

  “Come on out!” Bodeen laughed. His voice seemed a bit farther away now. “I’ll hold my fire till you’re ready.”

  Like hell, Jess thought, but he guessed what Bodeen was doing, and an idea quickly popped into Jess’s head. He came out of the stall, shoving the Colt—still cocked—into his holster, and slipping off the coat. He had to bite down on his lips to keep from crying out as he pulled his busted arm through the left sleeve and kept moving to those shadowy hay bales. He placed the coat on the top bale, let it hang down, and made sure the right sleeve dropped clear of the hay. He found a hat, likely the liveryman’s, and put it atop the hay j
ust over his coat.

  Backing up, Jess studied the dummy he had created. It probably would not work.

  Then again, in this darkness, it just might. A horse snorted. At least the other animal had quit kicking the stall. Jess kept backing up to the stall where he had first taken shelter. He looked at the hay bales holding his hat and coat.

  Next he turned. The open door to the livery drew air from the opening to the corral that faced the Grove Street side, to the east. He saw nothing but blackness out there, although he could hear the hoofs of horses as they wandered about in the dark, and another noise struck him. One of the animals had started drinking water. Again, he turned and looked at the hay bales. Maybe it looked like a man standing there. Maybe.

  Could it work? Would it work? Was there any chance?

  He would find out soon enough. Jess slipped back inside the stall and drew the Colt from the holster.

  Time became stubborn, unmoving. The wind howled. A mule in a nearby stall began to urinate. The nerves in Jess’s broken arm screamed out in agony.

  Yet he waited. He had to be patient.

  Bodeen hadn’t yelled anything for a while now, and Jess figured he was making his way around the livery, into the corral. The killer had planned on sneaking in the back way. At least, that’s what Jess hoped Bodeen had thought up. Listening as the wind roared through the livery from the open door and out into the corral, Jess felt his heart hammering against his chest.

  A new sound struck instantly, and Jess could not help but shiver. The sleet had started again, ice coming down with fierce intensity, pelting the rooftop, bounding off the street, startling the horses in the corral.

  Jess heard the animals moving inside. He made out a big draft animal as it moved down the aisle toward the hay bales.

  No.... That could ruin everything. The animal went past, but Jess couldn’t see if it had knocked his coat or hat off the hay. Another horse turned and stopped, snorting. Horses had much better eyesight than humans in the dark, and Jess knew this quarter horse wondered what in blazes a man was doing in its stall. The animal pawed the hay-covered floor, but snorted again, and went on inside, walking past Jess for the bucket of water in the corner.