Journey into Violence Read online

  Irritated, Frank said, “Then maybe one of you pundits can tell me why.”

  “What’s a pundit?” Bowes asked, his browned, lined face puzzled.

  “It means expert,” Lowery said.

  “Or know-it-all,” Frank said. “Let’s ride and see if we can find the rest of the herd.”

  After two hours of searching through sagebrush and piñon under a burning sun, they found several places where cattle had forded the Pecos. Frank waved the others forward across shallow white water and again picked up cow tracks that headed south and due west.

  An hour later, they stumbled on a sight they hadn’t reckoned on. The bodies of three dead Mexicans were already buzzing with fat black flies.

  All were young men who’d crossed the border in search of work. At least that’s what Frank deduced since all three had carried packs on their backs and clothing and scraps of food were scattered around the corpses. A small, framed image of the Madonna of Guadalupe lay near the corpse of the youngest of the three, a boy in his late teens.

  Frank swung out of the saddle and examined the dead men one by one, then he rose to his feet. “They were shot at close range. The oldest has a powder burn around the bullet wound in his chest.”

  “Apaches?” Lowery said.

  Les Bowes shook his head. “White men. Boot tracks all over the place.”

  Lowery walked off a ways.

  “The Mexicans saw faces that they could later identify. That’s why they were murdered,” Frank said. “A bullet can shut a man up real quick.”

  Lowery returned. “Four riders headed”—he chopped down with a bladed hand—“that way. Due north.”

  “How long ago?” Frank said.

  The gambler shook his head. “I’m not that good a tracker.”

  “We’re going after them,” Frank said. “See where the tracks lead us.”

  “I’m not wearing a gun, Cobb,” Lowery said. “If there’s killing to be done count me out. I’m all through with that.”

  Frank turned hard eyes on the man. “Lowery, I think I disliked you less before you got religion.”

  Lowery smiled. “Very good, Frank. Very funny. Maybe I’ll write that in my memoirs.”

  Bowes spat into the dust at his feet. “Yeah, and make sure you write this, sonny. The pen is mightier than the sword except in a swordfight. The rannies we’re going after will shoot you dead as hell in a parson’s parlor whether you’re heeled or not.”

  “It’s a chance I’m willing to take, Bowes,” Lowery said. “Like you, I’m riding for the brand.”

  “Head back to the ranch, Lowery,” Frank said. “If we meet up with those four gunmen, you’d only be a liability and maybe get me or Les killed.”

  “I could draw some of their fire,” Lowery said. “There’s always that, huh?”

  “I told you to go back to the ranch.” Frank’s handsome face was stiff with anger. “Maybe you reckon you’ve already killed more than your fair share or maybe you’re yellow and have always been. Either way, I don’t want you around.”

  Hank Lowery looked as though he’d just been slapped. “That’s a hell of a thing to say to a man.” He turned, mounted his horse, and rode away at a canter. Soon, he was lost in the rippling heat haze.

  Bowes used his fingers to wipe the sweatband of his hat and settled it back on his graying head. “I never seen a man turn coward right before my eyes before. You ride for the brand, you fight for it.”

  “Despite what I said, I don’t think he’s a coward, Les,” Frank said.

  “Then what the hell is he?” Bowes said.

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

  CHAPTER SIX

  Frank Cobb and Les Bowes rode north into the southern edge of the timber country. Frank rode with a wary eye on the terrain around him. The notion that he was riding into gun trouble piled up inside him like thunderheads before a storm. Bowes was unnaturally silent for a talking man and the only sounds were the creak of saddle leather and the soft footfalls of their horses.

  “I know this country,” Bowes said finally. “Tobias Briggs’s place is about a mile ahead of us.”

  “I’ve never been north this far,” Frank said. “It’s a ways off my home range. Who’s Tobias Briggs?”

  “From what folks around here say, Briggs got his start as a slave trader in New Orleans but killed a man and lit a shuck for Texas just ahead of a hanging posse. He worked as an Indian agent for a spell and opened up a trading post. Now that the Apaches are all but gone, he’s turned his place into a hog farm and saloon. You want a woman and rotgut whiskey, Tobias Briggs is your man. They say he also sells opium the Chinese bring in from Fort Worth, but I don’t know about that.”

  “You think those four killers might have stopped there?” Frank said.

  “Yeah, if they have money to spend. Most times them Mexican peons have a gold peso or two stashed away somewhere.”

  “It’s thin,” Frank said. “I want to know why they scattered the Kerrigan cattle and on whose order. Why would they ride so far off our range?”

  “I told you, Frank. For women and whiskey. Chances are they’ll head out again tomorrow morning and do some more mischief.”

  Frank drew rein and glanced at the sky. “Be dark soon, Les, and we’re needed at the ranch. I don’t think those riders headed this far. I reckon we should get back.”

  Bowles disagreed. “We can take a look at the Briggs place and still be eating Kate’s beans by nightfall. Call it what you want, but I got a feeling in my water that right now them boys are whooping it up.”

  “A mile you say?”

  “Yeah. We’ll come up on a clearing in the pines and Briggs’s place is right in the middle of it.”

  “I think you’re leading me on a wild-goose chase, but I guess it won’t hurt to take a look.”

  Bowes drew his Colt and thumbed a round into the empty chamber that was under the hammer. “We’ll find them there. Four horses leave a wide track and the hog farm is right where they’re headed.”

  “Hell, I didn’t see any tracks,” Frank said.

  Bowes smiled. “Mr. Cobb, that’s because you don’t know how to look.”

  * * *

  The Briggs place consisted of a long, low timber cabin with a slatted door and four small windows facing the hitching rail out front. To the side were a pole corral, a number of outbuildings, and a squeaking waterwheel that turned listlessly in the slight breeze. Hogs and chickens had the run of the yard, including a massive sow that lay on her side and suckled a dozen piglets. Above the door was a crudely lettered sign.

  RYE WHISKEY & WILLING WHORES

  ~ Nothing Less and Nothing More

  Frank’s eyes flicked to the sign but what caught and held his attention were the four cow ponies at the hitching rail. He drew rein and said to Bowes, “Looks like we came to the right place after all.”

  “Looks like,” Bowes said.

  “I want to check the brand on those mounts.” Frank swung out of the saddle and led his mount to the hitching rail where Bowes joined him. “Strange-looking brand. What is that? A bird?”

  “I’ve seen that bird before,” Bowes said. “It’s a raven—the brand of Ezra Raven’s outfit. He’s got a spread to the southwest of here. Raven is one of them big ranchers who wants to be even bigger. He’s got a segundo by the name of Poke Hylle—”

  “Poke Hylle the draw fighter?”

  “I don’t know . . . but it’s unlikely there’s two men in Texas with that name. You heard of him?”

  “If he’s the same Poke Hylle, then, yes, I’ve heard of him. He outdrew and shot Bingley Abbott in Wichita that time and nobody considered Abbott a bargain, including me.”

  “Ol’ Poke is that fast, huh?”

  “One of the fastest there is.”

  “Want to call it a day and ride?” Bowes said, his stare measuring Frank, figuring how much sand the segundo had in him.

  “Hell no.” Frank smiled. “Nobody ever considered me a bargain
, either.”

  * * *

  The saloon consisted of a plank bar resting on empty beer barrels and a couple shelves holding a variety of bottles behind it. A few tables and chairs were the only furnishings. The timber walls were adorned with the heads of long-dead antelope and deer and the place smelled of piss, vomit, ancient sweat, and smoking oil lamps.

  The cathouse was cordoned off from the rest of the room by a series of canvas tarps. It was a dark, dreary place, but Tobias Briggs’s saloon was no better and no worse than thousands of others scattered across the frontier.

  The man himself—tall, lank, and bearded—stood behind the bar and smiled with all the warmth of a cobra at Frank and Bowes as they entered. “Welcome, boys. Make yourself to home and tell me what I can do for you.”

  After Frank let his eyes grow accustomed to the gloom, he saw four men sitting at a table with a bottle of rotgut and glasses between them. A hefty woman with bleached blond hair stood behind one of the men and massaged his shoulders. The man grunted every now and then and rolled his head back and forth. A second woman, as plump as the first, stood and watched the fall of the cards as the four visitors played poker. Under her blouse, her breasts were as large as flour sacks and an old black top hat with a bullet hole in the crown rested on top of her frizzy yellow curls. Looking worn and tired, the two women studied Frank and Bowes with bold, disinterested eyes.

  One of the men at the table stared at Bowes, dismissed him, and let his eyes remain on Frank for a long moment. Then he shifted slightly in his chair and adjusted the lie of his gun belt.

  His spurs chiming, Frank stepped to the bar and Briggs, a man with eyes the color of swamp mud, said, “What’s your pleasure, big feller?”

  “Two of whatever you have that passes as whiskey.” Frank waited until Briggs filled glasses from a bottle with no label, then said, “Came across three dead Mexicans south of here. They’d been shot.”

  Briggs pretended shock. “Well, do tell. Probably tried to lift somebody’s cattle and got caught in the act. Well, don’t you worry none, mister, I don’t allow their kind in here.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Frank saw the men at the table lift their heads and take notice. Their conversation died into silence and the man who’d been getting massaged slapped the woman’s hands away then turned and stared hard at him and Bowes.

  “Well, as you say, they were probably rustlers.” Frank laid fifty cents on the bar and watched as Briggs dropped the coins into a tin box he picked up from the shelf behind him. Before the man could put the box back, Frank reached out with the speed of a striking rattler and grabbed it from his hands.

  Briggs was shocked. “Hey, what the hell—”

  Frank opened the box lid and spilled its contents onto the bar. As coins rang onto the floor, he picked up a couple silver pesos. He held them up where Briggs could see them. “I thought you told me Mexicans weren’t allowed into this fine establishment.”

  “They’re not,” Briggs said, his eyes sliding to the men at the table.

  “Then who paid for their whiskey with pesos?”

  “Feller who came in earlier,” Briggs said.

  “What kind of feller? Describe him. I want to know what he looks like.”

  “Big man . . . no, wait. He was short . . .” Briggs’s tongue got tangled in his mouth and he said nothing more.

  But a voice from the table spoke for him. “I paid with the pesos.” A man’s chair scraped back on the rough floor as he got to his feet. “Briggs is right. Them greasers were rustlers and they got what they deserved.”

  “Shot in the back and robbed?” Frank said. “They deserved that?”

  “Why the hell do you care?” the man said. “You some kind of Mex lover? Or some kind of lawman maybe?”

  “Neither. What I care about is that the Kerrigan ranch cattle are scattered all over the range and it could take weeks to round them up,” Frank said.

  “What’s that to me?” The man wore two Colts—a revolver in a holster and another tucked into his waistband—which was unusual at that time in the West.

  Frank pegged him for a professional gun hand and not a tyro trying to act tough.

  Neither was the youngster with carrion eater’s eyes and a low-slung Remington who stepped next to him and said, “I’m siding you, Poke.”

  “I think the men who drifted the Kerrigan herd all over God’s creation also killed and robbed the Mexicans,” Frank said. “And I think those men are standing right in front of me.”

  “And I reckon you’re a damn liar.” Poke Hylle went for his gun and learned in that instant that though he’d been faster than Bingley Abbott, he was nowhere near as sudden as the man facing him.

  Frank’s bullet took out the center of the tobacco tag hanging over Hylle’s shirt pocket. The gunman was stunned, horrified, and made ashen-faced by the hit. He staggered back a step, making no attempt to bring up his gun. Standing his ground beside Hylle, it was obvious that the dead-eyed youngster had never encountered a draw fighter before. He took up a duelist’s stance, right arm extended in front of him at eye level, but never got a chance to trigger a shot. A gunfight is measured in split seconds, and the young man died knowing that he was way too slow. When Frank’s bullet hit him in the center of his chest, the youngster’s dreadful bellow came from the terror in his belly. Knowing the man was dead on his feet, Frank again concentrated on Hylle. Game as they come and a hard man to kill, Hylle fired, missed, and fired again. His second bullet tugged at the collar of Frank’s shirt. No mercy in him, Frank got his work in coolly and accurately and scored two more body hits. Hylle went down hard, blood in his mouth

  “Frank!” Bowes’s voice. Behind him.

  Frank swung around in time to see Bowes trigger a shot at Tobias Briggs. The tall man was in the process of bringing a shotgun to bear, but Bowes’s bullet hit him just under the left ear. A man can’t stand and make his fight after a wound like that, and Bowes pumped two more bullets in Briggs as he fell.

  The two Raven punchers who remained made a hasty stampede for the door, but Frank shot down the first one. Unable to stop, the second tripped over his fallen companion and stretched his length on the floor. The man immediately rolled onto his back and held his hands up. His face terrified, he yelled, “Don’t shoot! I’m not in this fight!”

  “Get on your feet,” Frank said. “Drop the gun belt and stand over there by the far wall.”

  The scared puncher did as he was told and Frank looked around the smoke-drifted room at the mayhem he and Bowes had wrought in the space of just a few seconds. Four men were down. Three of them were dead and the dying Briggs was groaning his death dirge.

  “There was hell to pay, wasn’t there?” Les Bowes said, staring at Briggs. “I never killed a man before.”

  “He called it. Wouldn’t let it trouble you. Just hope that you never have to kill another one.” Frank punched the empties out of his Colt, reloaded from his cartridge belt, and lifted his eyes to the man standing against the wall. “You’re coming with us.”

  “Whatever you say, mister. I ain’t no gunman.”

  “You got a name, cowboy?” Bowes said.

  “I don’t mind putting it out,” the puncher said. “Name’s Lou Standish, from the Sabine River country.”

  Frank motioned to the body of one of the men he’d killed. “I heard the name Poke mentioned. Would he be Poke Hylle?”

  “He would,” Standish said.

  Frank nodded. “He was fast on the draw and shoot. And he was game.”

  “Not fast enough it seems, beggin’ your pardon,” Standish said.

  The whore with the top hat stepped close to Frank. She glanced down at Briggs. “Is he dead yet?”

  “Seems like,” Frank said.

  “Never trust a wolf like Tobias Briggs to be dead until he’s skun,” the woman said.

  “Especially that one, Flossie.” The other woman stared at the man. “He’s got more lives than a cat.”

  Flossie hiked up h
er dress and pulled a Colt .41 cloverleaf revolver from her garter. She bent over, shoved the muzzle into Briggs’s temple, and pulled the trigger. In the ringing silence after the racket of the shot, her voice was loud. “Now he’s skun.”

  She moved behind the bar, found a whiskey bottle and a glass, poured herself a shot and downed it, then poured another. Taking a knee beside Briggs, she poured the whiskey into the dead man’s open mouth. “Drink that in hell, Tobias,” she said as amber liquid trickled down the man’s ashen chin.

  When the woman rose to her feet, Frank said, “Not one to hold a grudge, are you, ma’am?”

  “You know what that piece of human filth did to Flossie? You know what he did to me?” the other woman said. “Tobias Briggs was a monster and we’ve both got the scars to prove it.”

  “Flora, save your breath,” Flossie said. “He’s a man and he won’t understand.”

  “My mother worked the line to keep me fed and put clothes on my back,” Frank said. “I think I understand. The day I turned fourteen she killed herself.”

  Les Bowes glanced out the window. “Shading into dark, Frank. What do we do with the dead men?”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Flossie said. “We’ve buried the dead out of here before.”

  “Ladies, there are four saddled horses outside,” Frank said. “They’re yours. Get the hell away from here and sell them somewhere. God knows you deserve it.”

  “What’s your name, mister?” Flossie said.

  “Frank Cobb.”

  “Thank you, Frank Cobb. Ain’t nobody ever gave us anything like that before.”

  “There’s a first time for everything, I guess,” Frank said.

  “Hell, I need my hoss,” Lou Standish said.

  “No, you don’t,” Frank said. “You’re walking.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “He’s half dead, Frank,” Kate Kerrigan said. “How far did you walk him?”

  “A fair piece, Kate, most of it in the dark. I guess he regrets getting his boots sewn on a narrow Texas last, huh?”

  “He won’t need any kind of last ever again. I reckon his feet are worn down to nubbins.”