The Butcher of Baxter Pass Read online

  “Burt,” the oldest said. “Be sociable.”

  “Yeah,” the middle one said. “Man’s just doin’ what he thinks is right.”

  “Breakfast is all right,” Jess said. “Take your pick of where you want to eat.” He stared at the young one, the ugly one, the one Jess decided he really did not like. “Then you see to it that you do ride home.”

  “Or what?”

  Jess waited. Even as ugly as that boy was, he couldn’t be that stupid. At last, his eyes landed on the shotgun Jess had casually brought up. When the boy saw that, Jess thumbed back both barrels. Then, Jess smiled.

  “You ain’t Marshal Koenig,” the middle brother said.

  “Nope.”

  “Where’s Kurt?” the oldest one asked.

  “Taking some prisoners to Huntsville.”

  With mention of Huntsville, the middle and older brothers glanced at one another, and the older one even grinned. “We must’ve just missed him,” he said, and chuckled to himself.

  “I’m the sheriff,” Jess said.

  “You ain’t Hank Henley, neither,” the older one said, no longer amused at his private joke.

  The youngest one said nothing. He just stared at the shotgun and kept his hand on the Winchester’s stock.

  “Hank’s dead. I’m Jess Casey. New sheriff.”

  “I’ve heard of you... .” The youngest one had finally regained his voice. Jess studied him a bit, though never taking his eyes completely off the two other gunmen. The ugly one shot a look at his two older brothers. “Chink Dublin said the Tarrant County law was greased lightnin’ with them pistols.”

  Jess didn’t think of himself that way, though he had been lucky in a few ruckuses. And some folks had said he had this instinct, this natural ability when it came to pistol-fighting. Jess, however, would rather swing a loop with a lariat or slap some branding iron on a calf than start shooting at men shooting back at him.

  Chink Dublin, Jess knew, had been convicted of assault with intent to kill in Dallas and sent to Huntsville. So now Jess, although he had suspicioned as much when he first approached the trio, knew for certain that these three brothers were likely fresh out of the state pen. And remembering that telegraph he had received from the Texas Rangers on Friday, he knew who he faced.

  “Like I was saying, Tom ...” He nodded politely at the older brother. “And Neils.” Another greeting at the middle brother. “And even you, Burt.” The pockmarked one glared. “Have your breakfast. Then keep riding. Down Stephenville way, isn’t it? But if you stay for any length of time after breakfast, check your Colts with me or the bartender at whatever watering hole you frequent. All six of them.” His head tilted at the Winchester Burt McNamara still touched. “And keep the rifle in that scabbard.”

  “You that fast, law dog?” Burt asked with a scowl.

  “Don’t have to be too fast to pull two triggers on a scattergun,” Jess said. But, just to show these ex-convicts, these McNamara brothers, that Fort Worth was really a friendly city, he decided to lower the hammers on the shotgun.

  Jess had learned to read people, and these brothers—even the ugly one—looked like they weren’t worried, that they did not want to start a fight that would leave some of them, if not all three, dead.

  He started to back away from the gunmen when the breath whooshed from his lungs. Something had slammed into his back, a mean, vicious, hard punch in the kidneys. Blurred as his vision turned, he saw the shotgun scattering across the warped planks of the station platform and felt himself dropping to his knees. Next, his head rang out in pain and orange and red lightning bolts flashed across his vision.

  Which explained why the three brothers had no longer looked worried.

  Too late he remembered something else that the Texas Ranger had mentioned in the telegram.

  MCNAMARA BROS RELEASED FROM

  HUNTSVILLE STOP PROBABLY WILL

  ARRIVE IN FT WORTH STOP THEN

  RETURN TO ERATH COUNTY STOP

  BROTHER DAN MIGHT MEET THEM

  AT STATION STOP NONE OF THEM

  WORTH SPIT

  Jess’s ears rang, but he figured he could hear the brothers—Burt, at least—cackling. Anticipating another blow, he made himself fall to his right and roll. That was a lucky, and good, anticipation, because if he had not dropped when he had, Dan McNamara likely would have taken his head off with a singletree he must have found on the platform being unloaded for Farwell’s Livery. The momentum from the force of the swing carried Dan, who looked nothing like his other brothers but did resemble those illustrations Jess Casey had seen of gorillas and cave men, past him.

  Jess stuck out one of his boots and watched the big brute—seven inches over six feet tall, and Dan wore moccasins—cry out in a high-pitched yelp as he fell onto his face. He came up spouting curses and spitting blood, looking for this slippery little cuss who had just made him look foolish in front of his brothers.

  First, Jess shot a glance at the three ex-cons, but they had moved away from their horses and stood grinning, watching the fight. By then, Dan McNamara was up, lunging toward Jess. For a man that size, he moved like a prairie rattlesnake. And punched like a mule.

  Jess moved with the blow, stepped to his right and under the big cuss’s left. He jabbed a right into Dan McNamara’s side, but that was like hitting that Baldwin locomotive that was hissing and moaning. Or was that sound coming from Jess? He sent a hard right into the big man’s kidneys as McNamara went past him, and that didn’t even hurt anything ... but Jess’s right hand.

  “Stomp him till he ain’t nothin’ but a puddle of grease!” Burt McNamara called out.

  He could reach for his Colt, Jess told himself. No, that wasn’t fair. Besides, as soon as his hand touched that walnut grip, Tom, Neils, and Burt would fill him full of holes. So he swung and missed and fell when Dan McNamara punched but did not miss.

  Jess spit out blood as he sat on his buttocks. He blinked, shook his head, and watched the six-foot-seven monster grin.

  “I’m a-gonna stomp you till you ain’t nothin’ but a puddle of grease,” Dan McNamara said.

  Apparently, McNamara wasn’t much when it came to original thinking.

  He let the big man come toward him, and then Jess showed that he could move like a rattler, too. His hands found the singletree and he swung it like a scythe, catching Dan McNamara right on the knees, and down Goliath toppled.

  The hell with fighting fair! Jeff had decided, and he palmed his Colt, lightning fast, slammed the barrel against the big man’s head, and heard him fall like a cottonwood tree crashing to the ground.

  Next he turned, thumbing back the hammer, waiting to start the ball with the other brothers.

  Jess blinked away blood and pain and wondered why in blazes Burt, Neils, and Tom McNamara had done nothing. Folks called them clannish. Fight one, you had to fight them all. With guns, knives, fists, blacksnake whips.... One McNamara, Jess figured, was aplenty in a go at fisticuffs.

  He had expected bullets to be singing, but all he heard was the ringing in his ears and the mechanical groans of the Baldwin at the depot.

  Aiming the .44-40 in the general direction of the freight car and the three other McNamara brothers, Jess waited for his vision to clear and breath to return to his lungs.

  Tom, Neils, and Burt McNamara stood in front of their horses, hands raised above their heads. Standing in front of them, covering all three with the Parker shotgun Jess had dropped, stood Hoot Newton, who looked relatively sober.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Monday, 8:45 a.m.

  He dropped the McNamara boys’ gun rigs and the Winchester carbine on the bench by the office door, before he staggered to the washbasin, to work on his face. Hadn’t lost any teeth. That was a good sign.

  “Where’s that ... burp ... whiskey, Jess?”

  Jess reached for a towel and gestured. “Big drawer,” he said, “Desk.” He never realized how three words could bring so much pain. Jess tested his jaw while Hoot Newton stagg
ered over toward the desk and pulled on a drawer. Jess returned to his face, testing his nose, which was bleeding but not busted, his ears—he still had both of those—and running his fingers gently through his hair. Just a few knots and none larger than a Texas pecan.

  Hoot Newton sat in the chair and took a long pull on the bottle of rye. Jess dabbed a few cuts and moved to the stove for some coffee, then decided he had better sweeten it with the rye before Hoot Newton emptied the bottle. With coffee in his hand, he collapsed in his rocker and took a sip of pleasurable brew.

  “Thanks for your help, Newt,” he said.

  “Hoot.”

  It took a moment before Jess realized his mistake. He took another sip, wondered if Dan McNamara might have damaged his brain.

  “Hoot. Right. Thanks.”

  Hoot Newton burped a nasty, smelly burp.

  Jess could have arrested Dan McNamara, but figured he might as well leave well enough alone, especially since he had confiscated the brothers’ weapons and recommended that they grab breakfast at Tio Julio’s Café and pick up their hardware on their way out of town. Let the law in Stephenville worry about the McNamara brothers. As soon as they were out of Fort Worth, Jess might be able to catch up on his sleep.

  They had roused McNamara and had been soaking his head in a water trough while Jess and Hoot Newton had gone to the telegraph office, briefly, and then moseyed back to the jail on Belknap.

  Hoot Newton set the bottle, now empty, on the edge of the table. “Thought you said you was gettin’ another bottle.”

  Jess closed his eyes. “Later. Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

  “Robert E. Lee’s birthday,” Hoot said.

  Robert E. Lee, the South’s greatest hero, the general who had almost won independence for the Confederacy. How long had Lee been dead? Jess couldn’t remember, but he seemed to recall that the old gray fox had died within five or six years of the surrender. Twenty years. Was he born on January 20? No, Hoot started his drinking on the nineteenth? Did Jess really care?

  Jess opened his eyes. “Did you fight in the Rebellion, Hoot?”

  The big old ox stared at Jess dumbly.

  “Huh?”

  “Did you fight? In the Civil ... in the War Between the States?” Hoot was a good deal older than Jess, old enough to likely have served. Maybe not smart enough, but then again Hoot Newton might have had a few moments of coherence thirty years back, before he had started beating the tarnation out of cowboys and railroaders and drummers and muleskinners and freighters and lawmen and soldiers and blacksmiths and wheelwrights and coopers and miners and even a few professional boxers.

  Hoot sniffed, looked at the empty bottle, wiped some drool from his chin, and nodded.

  “Second ... no ... Ford’s ... uh ... Mounted ... um ... Cav’ry.”

  Jess’s eyes widened, and he lowered the cup of rye-flavored coffee without taking another sip. “Rip Ford?”

  The old cowboy had to think, before recognition and pride came to his dull eyes, and he nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  Jess knew about Rip Ford. Anyone who had spent any time in Texas knew about Colonel John S. “Rip” Ford, who ranked right alongside Sam Houston and those heroes at the Alamo when it came to legendary Texans. Ford hailed from South Carolina, came to Texas as a young man just months after San Jacinto, but these days was living down in South Texas, which is where he had spent most of his life. He had fought in the Mexican War, ridden with the early Texas Rangers—back when they were fighting Comanches and Mexican bandits and not tracking down felons—served in the Texas Senate, had even been a newspaperman. And during the War Between the States, he had fought any Yankee who dared try to invade the Lone Star State. The Second Texas Mounted Rifles was his command, later to become the Second Texas Cavalry. Those old boys had whipped the Yankees at the Battle of Palmito Ranch down around Brownsville. In May of 1865. The last battle of the Civil War, a month after Bobby Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox.

  If Hoot Newton had ridden with Rip Ford, then he must’ve been some type of man thirty years ago. By thunder, Jess thought, Hoot was still a man to ride the river with. If Hoot hadn’t wandered after Jess hoping to get some more whiskey, Jess would undoubtedly be lying in a pine box at the undertaker’s while Mayor Stout argued with him about who’d have to foot the bill.

  The door opened—the blast of wind felt a bit warmer now that the sun was up—and Clint Stowe walked inside, holding another flimsy piece of cheap yellow paper but not shaking it as if it were burning this time.

  “Here’s your answer, Marshal.” The bald man—with gaiters on the right feet this go-round—came inside. He still wore his hat and his coat, so this message wasn’t so important, at least, to Clint or the mayor or anyone else the blabbermouth might want to tell. Jess took the slip and tipped the old Southerner, thinking that Clint had followed instructions and had not told half the population of Fort Worth what the telegram said.

  As soon as the McNamara brothers had wandered off, Jess had sent another wire back east to Dallas. He had instructed Clint Stowe not to dillydally when Constable Paul Parkin answered ... if Parkin answered.

  Well, the Dallas lawman had. Jess read the wire.

  NEVER SAID I PUT THE BUTCHER ON A TRAIN STOP

  With a curse, Jess figured he could hear Paul Parkin laughing all the way across the Trinity River in ugly, miserable, mean Dallas.

  “You got any whiskey?”

  Crumpling the yellow paper, Jess shot a glance at Hoot Newton, who sat staring like a pathetic hound dog at the telegraph operator.

  “Huh? Uh ... no... .” Clint pocketed his nickel and hurried out the door. The telegram went toward the wastebasket but missed. Jess didn’t bother picking it up.

  Instead, he sipped more coffee.

  Hoot Newton yawned, and Jess hooked a thumb at the door behind him.

  “There’s a few empty bunks back yonder,” he said. “Some shut-eye would make you feel better.”

  The big lunk’s eyes hardened. “You arrestin’ me?”

  Jess smiled. “I sleep back there myself.” When there happened to be an empty bunk, which wasn’t often, especially during the cattle season.

  “And you’ll have some rye waitin’ for me when I wakes up?”

  Jess nodded. He could use a bracer himself.

  The big man started to rise and stopped. Jess tried to guess how much Hoot had had to drink, which reminded him of something else.

  “You got any money on you, Hoot?”

  “You need a grubstake, Jess?”

  Jess grinned. If only ... Enough money to buy that ranch somewhere. Hire a smithy to make his brand, the J-C. Slap it on some longhorns. Register it with the state. Yep, that was a dream.

  What Jess figured he might need, however, at least from Hoot Newton, was enough to pay Bennie the barkeep at the White Elephant and maybe settle everything without having to face a judge. He could have arrested Hoot for disturbing the peace—and Jess did collect a percentage of any fines issued. In fact, that was his plan once he had gotten the drunken old cuss in the jail. But after Hoot had stopped the McNamara brothers from taking a hand in his little set-to with big Dan McNamara, he wasn’t about to lock up Hoot Newton. Hell, they’d ridden together.

  Hoot was fishing in his vest pockets. There was a rabbit’s foot. What looked like a token to one of the bawdy houses. Tobacco. An arrowhead. He deposited a few more items, including some coins, on the desk, and this time pushed himself to his feet.

  “Old ... Overholt ...” The big man staggered toward the door that led to the cells. “Remember.”

  “As soon as you’re awake,” he said. Considering the amount of booze that cowhand had consumed, Jess figured he might have until Wednesday to fetch a fresh bottle.

  The door shut, and moments later came the squeaking of a cell door being opened or maybe closed. Followed by the roaring snores that the door and the distance did not muffle.

  Jess fingered the items Hoot had deposited
on the desk. Eight cents. Plus one tarnished peso. Well, maybe Jess could cover the damages himself.

  Suddenly Jess decided Hoot Newton had the right idea. After placing the empty mug on the desk, he positioned himself perfectly in the rocking chair, propped his feet up, ankles crossed, stuck that pillow behind his head, and pulled his hat down over his eyes, which he closed, and tried to think pleasant thoughts.

  Which were immediately interrupted by the muffled sound of gunshots from—where else?—Hell’s Half Acre.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Monday, 8:50 a.m.

  It sure beat the slop they served behind the red-brick walls of the Texas State Pen down in hot, humid, miserable Huntsville. Or even the peanuts, crackers, and coffee they’d managed to live on during the train rides from Huntsville to Fort Worth.

  Greasy enchiladas smothered in chili, refried beans, honest-to-goodness rice, fresh tortillas, and real coffee, not the watered-down crud the railroads and the prison cooks had served. Best of all, there was beer. Maybe not cold—after all, a grimy ramshackle shack like this café probably didn’t have an icebox—but this was winter, so who needed an ice-cold lager?

  Three of the McNamara brothers wolfed down the Mexican chow and the beer. Big Dan McNamara merely held his throbbing head. At least, Tom McNamara figured, Big Dan didn’t throw up all over the warped table and ruin the first decent chow they’d eaten in five years.

  “Hey, señorita!” Burt snapped his finger, then banged the empty mug on the table, which caused Dan to groan and move his elbows off the table, as he leaned back in the chair and squeezed his eyelids tight. “How ’bout some more beer, sweetie pie!”

  It was not a request but more of a demand.

  Neils McNamara set his fork and knife on the empty plate and looked across the table at his kid brother. “Best go easy on that, Burt,” he said. “That’s six already.”

  “And it ain’t ...” Tom glanced at the wall on the clock hanging between two calendars, one for this year, one six years old. “... even nine this morn.”