A Good Day to Die Read online

  “Vince might see it different.”

  Some color came into Bliss’s face. “Yeah, well, Pa ain’t here now.”

  “A good thing for you he’s not, otherwise he’d knock some sense into you,” Hutto said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for Vince, too much to let you go off half-cocked and get yourself into bad trouble, Bliss.”

  “I kicked over the traces a long time ago. Now I do what I please. And it pleases me to give this tinhorn what he’s got coming to him.”

  Hutto turned to Damon. “Maybe I can get a straight answer out of you, Bolt. What’s this all about?”

  Bliss Stafford spoke first. “It’s about my girl, Francine. Damon’s trying to keep me from her, keep us apart. That’s why he’s got to die.”

  Hutto looked grave, like a doctor giving a heedless patient bad news. “You’re playing with fire, Bliss. Vince told you to forget about Francine Hayes.”

  “What does Pa know about it? He’s old. I’m young! I got blood in my veins, hot blood, not ice water. Francine belongs to me. She’s mine!” Bliss made a warning gesture with his free hand, dismissing Hutto. “I’m through talking. Slap leather, gambler!”

  “Against a drawn gun?” Damon said lightly, the corners of his lips upturned in a mocking smile. “I think not.”

  Bliss Stafford thought that one over. From his deeply lined brow and fierce frown, it could be seen that thinking was hard work for him. Coming to a decision, he shoved his gun back in the holster. “There! Now we’re even up. The odds good enough for you, now? There’s nothing to stop you from reaching. Why don’t you draw?”

  “It’s too nice a morning for killing,” Damon said.

  “Draw, damn you!”

  Damon tsk-tsked in a tone of real or affected sadness. “You see how it is, Hutto? There’s just no reasoning with the boy.”

  “Boy? Who you calling boy? You see a boy around here, kill him. Because I surely mean to kill you,” Bliss cried.

  “Don’t do it, Bolt,” Hutto said.

  “You’re my witness, Hutto. You and everyone else here. I gave him every out,” Damon said.

  Bliss Stafford shook with rage. “Enough talk! I count to three and then I’m coming up shooting!”

  “You’re making a big mistake, Bliss,” Damon said.

  “One!”

  “Still time to back off and save yourself.”

  “Two!”

  “Shoot and be damned, then.”

  “Three!” Bliss drew his gun, clearing the holster.

  A shot rang out.

  Bliss jerked as a slug tore into his chest. The impact spun him around halfway, his leveled gun unfired.

  Damon’s gun was held hip-high, pointed at Bliss. A puff of gunsmoke hovered around the muzzle.

  Bliss looked surprised. He crossed gazes with Hutto, whose face showed pity mingled with contempt, but no surprise. Bliss toppled, falling sideways into the dirt. A final trembling spasm marked the last of the life leaving him.

  Hurrying west on Trail Street—too late!—came Sheriff Mack Barton and Deputy Clifton Smalls.

  Damon stepped back. Turning, he covered the newcomers with his gun. The lawmen slowed to a halt.

  Barton, in his mid-forties, had a face like the butt end of a smoked ham. A wide straight torso hung down from broad, sloping shoulders; his legs were short and bandy. He wore a dark hat, gray shirt, black string tie, and a thin black vest with a tin star pinned over the right breast.

  A Colt .45 was holstered on the right hip of a well-worn gun belt. He’d stayed alive for a long time by not rushing into things blindly. He was not about to start.

  Deputy Smalls was tall, thin, reedy. Storklike. His gun stayed holstered, too. He took his cue from his boss.

  Wade Hutto hauled from his jacket pocket a handkerchief the size of a dinner napkin and mopped his face with it. He’d sweated plenty during the face-off. “Nice work, Sheriff. You managed to get here too late to stop it.”

  Few dared talk to Barton in that tone, including Hutto, except when he was rattled, as he was now.

  “You got no call to speak to me like that, Wade,” Barton said.

  Hutto had put Barton in as sheriff. For most intents and purposes he was Hutto’s man, but Barton had a stubborn maverick streak that showed itself when he was crowded—he was a real son of Texas. There was no sense in getting on his bad side anytime, but especially with a potential crisis brewing.

  Hutto backed down. “You’re right, of course, Sheriff. I spoke out of turn in the heat of the moment. Sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” Barton said gruffly.

  “This is a hell of a mess!”

  Damon eased his gun into the holster, hand loitering not too far from the gun butt.

  “Might as well inspect the damage.” Barton and Smalls edged around the body, Hutto joining them. Bliss Stafford lay twisted on the ground, upper body turned faceup. A dark red hole marked his left breast.

  Barton glanced down at the body, making his quick, expert appraisal. “Dead.”

  “Deader’n hell,” Smalls seconded, nodding.

  Hutto turned to Damon. “You went and did it. You couldn’t just wing him. Oh no. You had to kill him. Now it’s Katie-bar-the-door! Oh, there’ll be hell to pay when Vince hears of this. Why didn’t you shoot the gun out of his hand, or just wound him?”

  “Who do you think I am—Bill Hickock?” Damon retorted.

  “You got him right through the heart. I call that pretty fair shooting!”

  Damon shrugged.

  Barton took off his hat, scratched his head. He heaved a great sigh. “What happened?”

  “I was on my way to Lauter’s Tonsorial Parlor for a shave and a haircut when Bliss came gunning for me. I wouldn’t draw, but he fired on me anyhow,” Damon said.

  “What for did he have a mad on?—as if I didn’t know,” Barton said.

  Damon was silent.

  “Things finally came to a head over the Hayes gal,” Hutto volunteered.

  “Francine Hayes,” Barton said.

  “If that’s her name, yes.”

  “Don’t bull me, Wade. You know her name. We all do. Francine Hayes. Lord knows Bliss and Vince have been kicking up a ruckus about her lately. Little slip of a gal got Bliss all tied up in knots so he couldn’t think straight,” Barton said. “Not that he was ever much of one for using his head.”

  “Bliss wanted Miss Hayes to run off and elope with him,” Damon said. “Impossible, of course, even if she was willing—which she wasn’t. Vince would never have stood for it. He even sent his son Clay around to buy her off. Francine was willing about that, but Bliss was having none of it. He threatened to kill his own brother if he tried to interfere. Francine held out, for which Bliss blamed me. He thought if I was out of the way he’d have a clear field.”

  Damon looked around at the various witnesses and rubberneckers hemming in the scene. “You all saw it. Bliss would have it this way. He left me no choice. I had to defend myself.”

  “Mebbe, but that won’t cut no ice with Vince,” Barton said.

  “I can stand it.”

  “You only think you can,” Hutto said.

  Damon looked at him. Hutto was first to break eye contact, looking away.

  “A clearcut case of self-defense, Sheriff. Everybody saw it,” Damon said.

  “How many will swear to it at the inquest, though?” Barton asked. The milling crowd shrank back, sheepish, none meeting the lawman’s eyes. “Anybody?” Barton pressed.

  “I will,” Johnny Cross said, standing at the porch rail.

  Barton stood with fists on hips, looking up at him. “Now why does that not surprise me?”

  Johnny shrugged. He and the sheriff had a history, going back to Johnny’s boyhood days when Barton was deputy.

  “I reckon we still got the right of self-defense in this country. That Stafford fellow was on the prod, spoiling for a fight. Damon did what he had to do. I would’ve done the same, so would any man here. That’s how I’ll t
ell it in court,” Johnny said.

  “Me, too” Luke chimed in.

  “Just a couple of public-spirited citizens, eh?’

  “You know us, Sheriff. Always ready to help out the law,” Johnny said.

  Barton laughed out loud without humor at that one. “You only been back for a month or two so you might not be up to speed yet. What do you know about Vince Stafford and his Ramrod outfit?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “A bad bunch to mess with.”

  “That supposed to make a difference to me?”

  “Not you, you’re too ornery.” Barton turned to Luke. “You got no excuse, though. You’ve been back long enough to know the way of things.”

  “I ain’t worried, Sheriff. I got you to protect me,” Luke said, all innocent-faced.

  “Yeah? Who’s gonna protect me?”

  “Deputy Smalls?” Johnny suggested.

  “You boys don’t give a good damn about nothing, do you? I like your nerve, if nothing else,” Barton said. “It’s your funeral. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Duly noted,” Johnny said cheerfully

  Damon Bolt cleared his throat. “I’m free to go?”

  “Free as air,” Barton said. “If you’re smart you’ll keep going, a long way off from here.”

  “That’s not my style, Sheriff.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be. You’d rather stay and get killed.”

  “I’d rather stay,” Damon conceded.

  “We won’t argue,” the sheriff said.

  “You know where to find me for the inquest.”

  “If you’re still alive. Vince Stafford knows where to find you, too.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “He won’t come alone.”

  “The undertaker can use the business. Things have been slow around here lately.”

  “Laugh while you can, Damon. It won’t be so funny when the lid blows off this town.”

  “We’ll see. We through here, Sheriff?”

  “For now.”

  “I’ll be on my way, then. I’ve got a date with the barber for a shave and a haircut,” Damon said.

  “Tell him to make the corpse presentable,” Barton said sourly.

  Damon nodded to Johnny and Luke. “Stop by the Spur later. I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “It’s a go,” Johnny said. Luke nodded assent.

  Damon went up the street to the barbershop and went inside.

  “Decent fellow at that,” Wade Hutto said, musing.

  “Too bad he’s got to die,” Barton said.

  Spectators gathered around the body of Bliss Stafford, gawking, buzzing. Deputy Smalls plucked at Barton’s sleeve. “Somebody’s got to tell Vince.”

  “You want to be the one to tell him his pup is dead?” Barton asked.

  “No, thanks!”

  “He’ll find out soon enough,” Wade Hutto said. “No doubt somebody’s already on the way to the ranch to give him the word.”

  “Good news always travels fast,” Barton said sarcastically.

  “Careful, somebody might hear you,” Hutto cautioned.

  “At this point, who gives a damn?”

  “I do,” Hutto said. Gripping Barton’s upper arm, he led him off to one side for a private chat.

  “Somebody was bound to burn down Bliss Stafford sooner or later. He was a troublemaker and a damned nuisance,” Barton said.

  “Good riddance!” Hutto said heartily.

  “Too bad it was the gambler. Some lone hand done it, some drifter, we could step back and wash our hands of it. But it ain’t some nobody, it’s Damon Bolt. He’ll fight.”

  “He’s got friends, too. Gun hawks. He’ll make a mouthful for Vince at that. Hard to swallow.”

  “I hope he chokes on it,” Barton said feelingly.

  “Those Staffords have been getting too big for their britches. Trouble is, the town’s in the way. Hangtown could get pretty badly torn up.”

  “No way to stop it. Blood will have blood. Vince won’t rest till he’s taken Damon’s head.”

  “It’s a damned shame, Mack. Say what you will about Bolt, he’s a gentleman in his way. Vince makes a show of setting himself up as a rancher, but he’s little better than an outlaw.”

  “He’s a dog, a mangy cur. One with the taste of blood in his mouth,” Barton said.

  “Why not bring him to heel?” Johnny Cross asked.

  Hutto and Barton started. Soft-footed Johnny had come up behind them without their knowing it.

  “You shouldn’t go around sneaking up on people. It’s a bad habit,” Barton said, with a show of reasonableness he was far from feeling.

  “How much did you hear?” Hutto asked.

  “Enough—and that’s plenty. But I don’t go telling tales out of school.” Johnny got to the point. “Stafford’s crowding you? Cut him down to size.”

  Hutto looked around to make sure nobody else was within earshot. Luke Pettigrew stood nearby, leaning on his crutch, grinning. But Luke was Johnny’s sideman and knew how to keep his mouth shut, too.

  “The Ramrod outfit is a rough bunch,” Hutto said.

  “No shortage of gunmen in Hangtown,” Johnny said.

  “But they’ve got no quarrel with Stafford.”

  “Pay ’em. They’ll fight readily enough. There’s enough hardcases in the Dog Star Saloon alone for a decent-sized war, and you can buy most of ’em for a couple bottles of redeye.”

  Hutto sniffed. “What’s Damon Bolt to me, that I should start a range war with the Ramrod to save his neck?”

  “Stafford’s spread is on the south fork of the Liberty River. You’re the biggest landowner on South Fork,” Johnny said. “How long before he makes a move on you?”

  “He wouldn’t dare!”

  “Why not?”

  Hutto had no ready answer to that one.

  “Why let him pick the time and place? Hit him now before he hits you,” Johnny said, speaking the siren song of the Tempter.

  Hutto was not easily swayed. “Your concern for my welfare is touching. What’s in it for you?”

  “I like Damon. He’ll fight. Round up enough guns to hit Stafford where he’s not expecting it and you can muss him up pretty good. The way to stop ’em is to bust him up before he gets started.”

  “We’d be taking a long chance,” Hutto said, torn, fretful.

  “It’s your town,” Johnny said, “but it won’t be for long if you let someody hoorah it whenever he likes.”

  “I need time to think things out.”

  “Think fast. Move faster.”

  “Just itching for a fight, ain’t you?” Barton said.

  “Uh-huh,” Johnny said. “That’s what I do.”

  THREE

  Hangtown was thick with killers, robbers, rustlers, horse thieves, card cheats, drunks, wife beaters, whores, swindlers, pickpockets, and a host of petty crooks and mean-minded individuals. Yet in all this collection of flawed humanity, the consensus ranked Sam Heller pretty much at the bottom of the heap.

  Sam Heller was a Yankee.

  In Hangtree, Texas, June 1866, a Northerner was in a potentially hazardous position. The landscape teemed with well-armed, unreconstructed Rebels. The Civil War, as the government in Washington, D.C., insisted on labeling the late secessionist conflict, was officially at an end—everywhere but in Texas. A year and more after General Lee had surrendered at Appomatox, all the states of what had been the Confederacy were at peace (however uneasy) with the Union. All but Texas.

  The last battle of the war was fought in the Lone Star State at Palmito Hill in May 1865, a month after Lee surrendered at Appomatox. A year later, the powers in Washington were holding that Texas was still in a state of active hostility. The Federal troops garrisoned in Fort Pardee in northwest Hangtree County were as much an occupation force to overawe the local inhabitants as they were a fighting force charged with suppressing hostile Comanches, Kiowas, and Lipan Apaches. The real pains of occupation had not yet even begun.
>
  A Yankee stranger in Hangtown, Sam Heller was little better than an outcast, a pariah. A dead shot and relentless foeman who kept coming until an opponent was beaten or dead, Sam had won grudging respect from sullen and resentful neighbors. A respect borne largely of fear, but no less real for that. He was known as a man not to be trifled with, best left alone.

  Sam was on good terms with Captain Ted Harrison, commanding officer at Fort Pardee. On several occasions, he had interceded with Army brass to mitigate some of the rigors of Hangtree’s status as occupied territory. It had won him few friends.

  On this fine Saturday morning in late June, he’d saddled his sure-footed steel-dust stallion at first light and rode out, following the long slanting slope into the highlands. Riding the hill country alone, he climbed to the summit of the Upland Plateau, topping the rim of the elevated landform covering much of north central Texas. Part of it cut diagonally southwest across Hangtree County, dividing it in two. North of the line was highlands, well-wooded hilly country. South lay vast, grassy plains.

  Most of the population of the county lived on the flat, the ranch lands of Long Valley, watered by the North and South Forks of the Liberty River. The twin forks joined east of Hangtown, flowing southeast across the state.

  The uplands were more sparsely settled. Some—not many—ranches and farms could be found there, most sited within ten miles or less of the plateau’s south rim. It was wild country, well-wooded timber broken up by hills and ravines.

  At midday, Sam trailed south, a fine, fresh-killed buck deer slung across the back of his horse. He’d had good hunting that morning.

  In his full adult prime, Sam was a rugged, raw-boned Titan, six feet two inches tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and long-limbed. He looked like a Viking on horseback, with a lion’s mane of shaggy yellow hair and dark blue gunsight eyes. He wore a battered slouch hat, a green and brown checked shirt, brown denims, and boots.

  An unusual sidearm hung in a custom-made holster at his right hip, a sawed-off Winchester Model 1866 rifle called a mule’s-leg. Even cut down at the barrel and stock, it was still as long as his thighbone.

  A pair of bandoliers loaded with spare cartridges was worn across his chest in an X. A Navy Colt .36 revolver was stuck in the top of his belt on his left side, worn butt out for a cross-belly draw. A Green River Bowie–type knife hung in a sheath at his left hip. Tied to the left-hand side of the saddle by rawhide thongs lashed to metal rings piercing the leather was a long, flat wooden box with a suitcase grip at one end. Its contents were a welcome equalizer to a man alone.