A Good Day to Die Read online

  Mrs. Frye devoutly wished the fight with the Comanches would not come to such close quarters, but ... it might.

  Morrissey stood behind the bar, beefy forearms resting on the countertop. Monk the bouncer stood opposite him, tossing back drinks as though trying to make up for those hours spent earlier on the roof keeping watch under the the hot sun. Wiley Crabbe was there, too, soaking up free drinks.

  Morrissey doled them out sparingly. A Dog Star boozehound like Wiley could soak up a lot of hooch if not kept on a tight rein.

  Flint Ryan and Luke Pettigrew sat at a nearby table, yarning back and forth between sips of whiskey. Charley Bronco sat with his back to the wall, his chair tilted back with two legs raised into the air. With his hat covering his eyes and hands folded in his lap, he was sleeping, or maybe just resting his eyes.

  Creed Teece was in his room, asleep. Passing by his door earlier, Mrs. Frye had heard him snoring away. Trust that bloodless cuss to be able to sleep even though a Comanche attack was imminent. He didn’t have a nerve in his body. She envied him that ability. Maybe that’s why he was so good at the gunman’s trade.

  Johnny Cross was nowhere to be seen, but Mrs. Frye knew where he was. She’d seen him going upstairs with Francine.

  “Good night, men,” she said, waving a hand in parting to the group around the bar. They bid her good night. How many will be alive this time tomorrow night? Will I?

  To hell with it. She went upstairs, the revolver in a slitted side pocket of her skirt banging against her leg as she climbed the steps. She crossed the mezzanine to her room on the west side of the second floor. A night owl who slept by day, she needed a room free from morning’s intrusive sunlight.

  She glanced down the hall at Francine’s closed door, her mercenary soul irked by the thought of one of her girls giving it away for free. Still, special times called for special circumstances.

  Johnny Cross had already earned his keep during the shootout with Wyck Joslyn, Stingaree, and the Fromes Boys. Doubtless he’d prove his worth many more times before sundown tomorrow. He was proving it with Francine, if the muffled squeals and gasping outcries coming from behind her door were any indication.

  “Ah, youth,” Mrs. Frye murmured, a cynical half smile on her face. She opened her room door, letting in the hallway light so she could see what she was doing as she struck a match and lit the oil lamp atop her bedside night table.

  She went back to the door, closing it, turning the key and locking it, leaving the key in the keyhole. Her room was clean and austere, with few decorations or creature comforts beyond a soft-mattressed bed.

  Reaching into her skirt pocket, she took out her gun and set it on the bed. A short-barreled .44 revolver, the big-caliber six-gun had man-stopping power in every round. A lot of gun, but she knew how to use it ... and had.

  Sitting on the side of the bed, she untied the knotted laces of her ankle boots and took off the footwear. She removed her blouse and skirt, hanging them up. Underneath she wore a thin white cotton shift that covered her from shoulders to ankles. She peeled off dark knee-length stockings, rolled them up, and set them aside. Her body was good, supple, with high firm breasts, flat belly, lean hips and long rounded thighs tapering to slim ankles and small, narrow feet. It was a comfort to know that if the Spur burned down to the ground she still had something to sell to make a living.

  She went to a chest of drawers standing against one of the side walls. Opening the top drawer, she reached to the rear of it, taking a cigar box out from under some folded lingerie and setting it down atop the cabinet.

  Her image glimmered and shifted in the oval mirror mounted on an H-shaped frame on top of the dresser. She was long-faced, more than a little horse-faced, but compensating for that were bright bold eyes, high cheekbones, and a ripe red slash of a mouth. A network of thin-lined wrinkles showed at the corners of her eyes, and a pair of vertical grooves ran from nostrils to chin, bracketing her mouth.

  She unpinned her hair, freeing it so that it fell loose to her slim, smooth shoulders. Her mouth curved upward in an inward, secret smile. She looked as though she might have been getting ready for a visit from a lover. In a sense, she was.

  Crossing to the bed, she set the cigar box down on the night table. It was warm in the room. She went to a window in the rear wall, parting the curtains and raising the window six inches, letting in the cool night air. Below lay only a bare wall. Not even the most agile Comanche could scale the wall to the window.

  West of the window, Hangtown was dark, not a light burning. It occurred to her that she made a good target, outlined against the window’s yellow rectangle. Closing the curtains, she went to the bed and sat down. Moving the .44 to the night table, out of the way, she opened the cigar box lid.

  Inside was a small spirit alcohol lamp, a pair of golden needles not unlike knitting needles, an equally slim pipe tipped at one end by a thimble-sized bowl, and a plum-sized block of some gummy, blackish-brown substance wrapped in wax paper—Chandu, the Black Smoke.

  Opium.

  She took out the items, laying them out on the night table, her hands shaking slightly. Striking a match, she lit the spirit lamp’s rope wick. It burned with a low blue flame.

  Unwrapping the lump of opium, she used a golden needle to extract a pea-sized chunk of the stuff, spearing it on the tip. Using the flame of the spirit lamp, she set it alight, then blew it out. Thin lines of rich, aromatic smoke rose from it, the scent sending a wave of dizziness through her.

  She placed the piece in the pipe bowl, hands trembling as she raised it to her lips. She took a puff, filling her lungs, holding it. She felt light-headed. She smoked some more, feeling as if she were in a train that had started moving, leaving the station. The Black Smoke was starting to come on. A cloud of purple-gray fog descended on her mind and senses, muffling them, taking her away.

  She’d picked up the habit years ago, in her early days of whoredom. It was the one lover who never failed to satisfy. And it was always there for her—as long as she could pay for it. Run out of money and it would run out, too, like any faithless lover of mere flesh and blood.

  Her eyes glazed, heavy-lidded; her mouth softened. The light from the globe lamp was too bright, hurting her eyes. She turned the light down low, muting it into soft sweet shadows where shapes lurked, half-seen faces, images, and dreams.

  Cares and fears fell away from her, sloughed off like a snake shedding its skin. Let the world go to hell, eternity beckoned in the seductive coils of spiraling strands of Black Smoke.

  Several rooms down the hall and behind a door, Johnny Cross sought a different brand of release, grappling in sweet sweaty love-play with Francine Hayes. Francine, with her angel face and figure of passion, glowed naked in all the glory of her smooth, flawless ivory skin.

  She writhed under Johnny, wanton and knowing, her buttocks tightly clenched and quivering as she lifted her hips off the mattress to meet his surging downstrokes. She was good, a hell of a ride, and he’d had some of the best in his young, full life. He gave as good as he got ... or better.

  Bedsprings creaked and squealed, the posts of the brass-railed headstead hammering rhythmically against the wall, chipping the paint and cracking the plaster. Francine’s face contorted in an ageless mask of intense concentration. Her open mouth panting, she moaned.

  Her legs were lifted and bent at the knees, hugging Johnny’s sweat-slick flanks as he rode her on home to glory. Pelvis working, gyrating, and meeting his thrusts, she went over the edge, taking him with her.

  At the climax, her mouth was close to his ear, her voice a breathless whisper that spoke louder than a shriek. “Save me, Johnny, save me. Don’t let them kill me. Oh God, oh God. Save me!”

  Frantic, but choice. That’s Francine, Johnny thought. Hell, I’d have saved her anyhow, but this sure seals the deal.

  NINETEEN

  “Do you know the Truce of God, amigo?” Latigo asked.

  “No,” Sam said, “can’t say as I do.”


  At midnight on the cloudy night, the moon was playing peek-a-boo with the clouds. Bright silver moonlight alternated with ghostly silver-black gloom. A farmer’s old saw Sam had oft heard repeated during boyhood days in southwest Minnesota maintained that for the best crop yields, some planting was done by moonlight. He and Latigo were doing some planting of their own on the far west edge of Hangtown, sowing seeds of destruction to reap a crop of pure hell.

  It was an idea he’d had, to lay out a special welcome mat for Red Hand. Surprise package, so to speak. He’d pitched it earlier to Hutto and Barton and through them to the Cattleman Crowd. The town powers had bought his idea.

  Sam and Latigo were laying the groundwork to make it happen. They were not the only agents of the plan. Others were at work in other parts of Hangtown, carrying out similar preparations.

  Moonlight or shadow, which is best, Sam wondered. Moonlight meant he could see better, but he could also be seen. Shadow hid him, but also hid others who were lurking.

  Comanches, it was said, didn’t attack at night. Not true. They preferred not to attack at night, but they weren’t ones to pass up an opportunity no matter what the hour, day or night.

  Sam and Latigo labored on the flat below the church and Boot Hill. With them were two horses, and a mule laden down with sacks full of hardware: bundled sticks of dynamite, wooden stakes, digging implements, and strips of cloth.

  We’ve got our necks stuck out a country mile, thought Sam.

  Two men in the church tower were keeping watch for Comanches, but Sam preferred to trust his own perceptions. Not that he trusted them so well.

  A breeze was blowing from the west, making the night air cool and fresh. Latigo held the horses’ reins and the mule’s lead rope. Sam was down on one knee beside a shallow hole on the ground. A wooden stake had been hammered partway into the hardpacked clay. A narrow band of cloth twelve inches long was knotted around the top of the stake. In the moonlight the cloth was gray; its true color was red.

  Sam placed a bundle of dynamite in the hole, laying it on its side, lengthwise. Rising, he took up a spade, sticking the blade into a pile of dirt that had been excavated from the hole. Carefully—very carefully, for all the sticks of dynamite were fitted with blasting caps—he sprinkled the dirt over the bundled explosives.

  The dirt mound disappeared quickly as he refilled the shallow hole. Using a leafy branch he’d broken off a bush, he evened off the dirt on top of the hole to disguise the marks of digging. Only the stake with the strip of cloth tied to it marked the spot where the dynamite had been buried.

  Five more such banded stakes were studded at regular intervals across the broad apron of ground fronting the rise to the church.

  Sam put the spade and the leafy branch in one of the burlap sacks slung across the mule’s back. He rubbed his palms together, wiping the dust from them. “That’ll do it for here,” he said, low-voiced.

  He and Latigo mounted up, Latigo holding the mule’s lead rope. They started forward. The mule balked, staying in place. Latigo tugged on the rope several times, but the mule wouldn’t budge. Leaning over in the saddle so his mouth was close to the mule’s long ears, Latigo spoke softly to him in Spanish. The mule began moving in the desired direction.

  “What’d you say to him?” Sam asked.

  “I tell him I leave him for the Comanche,” Latigo said. “Nothing they like better than roast mule meat.”

  They followed the dirt road up the rise, through the gap between the two knolls and down the other side, riding toward Hangtown. “A couple more here should do it.” Sam halted.

  He and Latigo climbed down and dug two holes on the down slope, one a man’s length below the crest, the other at the base. As before, bundles of dynamite went in the holes and were covered with dirt. Banded stakes marked out each hole. They talked as they worked, their voices hushed.

  “Do you know the Truce of God, amigo?” Latigo asked again.

  “No, can’t say I do. What is it?”

  “In Mexico, in the swamps around Vera Cruz on the coast, they say that when there is a great flood all the animals in the jungle flee to higher ground. Trapped all together, the creatures do not follow their natural way. El Tigre, the jaguar, falls not on the sheep to kill and eat it. The snake preys not on the rabbit, nor the fox on the chicken. All are at peace with each other until the waters go down. This is the Truce of God.”

  “Tell me, Latigo, have you ever seen this Truce of God?”

  “In flood—no, for I have lived most of my life here on the plains of Tejas, where the floods are not so much. But with my own eyes I have seen something like it, during prairie fires. When animals flee the fire, none attacks the other.”

  “Because they all fear being eaten by the flames.”

  “So it is with the folk of Hangtown, no? Fear of the Comanche is stronger than their hate for each other.”

  “It’s a truce, mebbe, but not of God. The Lord and Hangtown are pretty far apart,” Sam said.

  “Quien sabe, amigo. Who knows?”

  “Well, that’s the way to bet it.”

  Sam brushed over the filled-in holes with the leafy branch, smoothing out the dirt. He and Latigo got on their horses and Sam rode up the side of the hill to the church, careful to stay off the road for fear that an iron-shod hoof could set off one of the tricky, touchy blasting caps.

  He tilted his head back, looking up. High atop the bell tower, the outlines of the two watchmen formed a deeper darkness against the night sky. Sam whistled to get their attention. “All done. Keep off the road!”

  “We will,” a sentry replied.

  “Be sure to warn the replacements, when they come to relieve you.”

  “When’s that gonna be? We been here since before sundown.”

  “I’ll tell Barton.”

  “See that you do,” the watchman said.

  “Tell him to get his ass up here, see how he likes it,” the other said.

  Sam had nothing to say to that. He rode downhill, joining Latigo. They started into town, walking their horses east where the dirt road became Trail Street.

  “A good trick, that dynamite,” Latigo said, “if the Comanche come this way.”

  “If they don’t, the other approaches to Four Corners are planted, too. We’ll get ’em coming or going.”

  “Is it that you like Hangtown so well or hate the Comanche so much?”

  “I like living. If we beat Red Hand here, we live. If not ...”

  Red Hand was wary of mysterious activities his scouts had observed going on around town in the hour before midnight. The Texans were up to something. Groups of two prowled around the edges of Four Corners for reasons unknown. His men were unable to get close enough to determine what exactly it was they were doing.

  He would give the Texans something to think about during the long hours of the night watch. He sent in a band of skirmishers to start trouble on the west side of town, shooting it up to draw the whites’ attention to that sector. A classic piece of misdirection.

  The moon came out from behind a cloud, shafting silver rays. Sam and Latigo continued on Trail Street.

  “What now?” Latigo asked.

  “We get something to eat and drink, mebbe catch a few hours of shut-eye, and wait for sunup.”

  They neared the Alamo Bar. Strange to see the Alamo dark—shuttered and locked up, Sam thought. Ordinarily it would just be hitting its stride, riotous and ablaze with light. But it was black and silent as a tomb, as was the rest of Hangtown outside Four Corners, itself dimly lit with few figures showing.

  Something burst out of the north sidestreet, streaking overhead. Great wings beat the air as an owl soared up and out of sight. A big one, its flapping wings sounded like a blanket being shaken out.

  Startled, Sam’s horse upreared, forelegs leaving the ground. He clung to the animal to keep from being thrown. Unseen objects whipped past him in the dark, scorching the air with the speed of their passage.

  Arrows!

&nb
sp; The thud of a shaft striking flesh meant Latigo was hit.

  Shadowy forms shifted in the dimness deeper in the side street.

  Sam stopped fighting to hold on and threw himself off the horse, opposite from where the Comanche arrows had come. He hit the ground hard, breaking the fall as best he could as he rolled on his shoulders. It gave him a jolt, stunning him for a moment before he continued rolling to avoid being trampled by his horse as it ran away.

  The mule brayed, breaking free and running down Trail Street, too.

  Latigo was still in the saddle, hunched forward, with an arrow sticking out of his chest. Grabbing his gun, he fired at the ambushers. Red lines slanted from his gun barrel toward figures huddled in the shadows.

  A strangled cry, abruptly choked off, showed that at least one shot had scored.

  A bowstring twanged as another arrow was loosed, taking Latigo in the torso. He tilted sideways, firing a shot into the air as he fell off his horse.

  A Comanche darted out of the street, tomahawk in hand. Shrieking a war cry, he charged Sam who lay sprawling on his back in the street.

  With no time to get the mule’s-leg loose, Sam drew the Navy Colt stuck in his belt, firing up at the brave standing above him with war hatchet held high for a skull-splitting downstroke. He pumped several rounds into the center of the Indian. Muzzle flashes from the Colt underlit the brave’s face, highlighting stark death-mask agony. The Comanche collapsed.

  Rifle fire tore out of the darkness, flying high and harmlessly over Sam. Pushing the dead man away, Sam rolled over. Raising himself on his elbows, he returned fire, tagging a brave who shrieked, spun and fell, the rifle falling from his hands.