Seven Days to Hell Page 4

  He should have come in silent as a cloud shadow, stealthy as a Comanche. But he’d liked the idea of taking Spud Barker in broad daylight in his own town and busting up his bodyguards. The reality was even sweeter.

  Dealing out justice to those who deserved it was a heady experience, rich, intoxicating. A man—lawman, especially—could get to liking it too well and that was dangerous. One could grow careless and wrongheaded, character flaws that could bring on a violent and untimely end.

  A vital lesson for Sam Heller to remember if he wanted to stay alive to bag his prey of killers, corrupters, and conquerors who believed themselves to be beyond the law . . .

  A gray-white haze of gunsmoke now hung in the air, swirling and eddying around Sam as he went to the alley mouth to eye the streets of Weatherford.

  He cautiously ducked down and peeked around the corner of the left-hand side of the alley facing the street, looking north toward the Sunrise Café. No bushwhackers in sight. He repeated the process on the right-hand side of the alley: All clear, or so it seemed.

  People were there if you knew how to look, Weatherford townsfolk who’d come to see the show of violence, then scrambled for cover when the action got hot.

  A hand drew back the curtain of a second-floor window to look out, letting it fall when the hand’s owner had seen enough.

  Pale ghostly ovals that were faces floated into view behind smeary windowpanes looking out into the street to see if the killing had stopped or if there was more on tap.

  Hunched figures bent almost double ran scrambling for the cover of recessed doorways, side passages, or alcoves with shadows thick enough to hide a man. Others flattened their backs against walls. A couple of tow-headed kids hid under a boardwalk sidewalk.

  Somewhere in the middle ground an unseen dog barked, mindlessly yip-yip-yipping away. Even the dogs know to keep their distance, Sam thought.

  He’d scanned the street east of the alley but what about west?

  Sam went to the opposite end of the alley. He’d been caught napping once this morning and had no intentions of falling for the same trick twice.

  The alley’s west end opened on unfenced yards, vacant lots, and sprawling empty fields behind the backs of the rows of buildings lining the west side of the street.

  Sam had tethered his horse Dusty to a short scraggly mesquite tree behind the block where the café stood. He was more than a little relieved to see that the steel-gray stallion was still there, browsing tufts of green grass.

  Dusty lifted up his head and looked at Sam for a moment, then went back to his grazing.

  Sam looked west. The town ended here. Beyond the patchwork of lots and fields lay endless prairies.

  Stretching west across the vast sprawling flat lay the Hangtree Trail, a dirt road running straight as a ruler across the plains under the Big Sky.

  In Weatherford they called it the Weatherford Trail.

  Sam Heller toted up the day’s score so far, not counting the ones he’d manhandled, like Terrill and Driscoll. He’d cleaned up on all six members of the Chuck Ramsey gang, Chuck Ramsey included; plus Birnam, Latrobe, and Palenky.

  Nine dead.

  Yet he still hadn’t succeeded in obtaining his main objective; namely, getting a line on Loman Vard’s whereabouts.

  First things first, though. Sam went to Haze Birnam and turned him over on his back, exposing the knife that lay buried deep in his chest. Sam bent down to retrieve it.

  He gripped the handle and pulled but the knife fought him, not wanting to come out. Sam stepped on the dead man’s shoulder and chest for better leverage. A hard tug and the Green River came free.

  Sam wiped the blade clean on a fold of Birnam’s shirt and returned it to its belt sheath. Then he went to see about Spud Barker.

  Spud had bled a fair amount; he wallowed in a puddle of the red stuff. “I’m hit, I’m hit!” he gasped, sobbing. “I’ve been shot in the back!” he wailed.

  “Serves you right for trying to run away,” Sam said.

  Spud had been hit in the back, though . . . so to speak. There was something funny about that wound but if Spud was unaware of it Sam was in no hurry to enlighten him; he might be able to work it in his favor.

  Spud Barker lay prone on the ground, head tilted upward to keep his face out of the dirt. He blubbered away, fat oily tears leaking from his eyes. His face was wet with the stuff, mixing with the dirt on his face to form a kind of gray-brown clay paste.

  Sam hunkered down beside him, eyeing the wound, inspecting the damage but not too closely and most definitely not laying a hand on it. His carefully composed expression was solemn as a church usher’s. He gripped Spud’s shoulder, shaking it to get the other’s attention. Spud Barker’s nerves were strained so taut that he cried out at Sam’s touch.

  “Spud—Spud!”

  “H-help me, Heller, help me . . .”

  “Nothing I can do for you, you’re way beyond my help. You need a doctor—quick!”

  “Oww-wow! I can’t bear to look at the wound—is it bad?”

  “Bad,” Sam echoed, “bad.”

  “Heavens above, you’ve done for me! This is all your fault!” Spud’s tone was accusatory, tinged with hysteria.

  “Palenky shot you, not me,” Sam said. “If you’d have told me where Vard is earlier I’d have been on my way and you wouldn’t have gotten shot at all.”

  “You used me as a shield, you dirty bas—”

  Here between choking sobs, Spud Barker launched into some derogatory remarks about Sam and his parentage.

  “Tsk-tsk,” Sam said, “you don’t want to meet your Maker using language like that.”

  “Am I—am I going to d-die?” Spud asked, his voice a whispery, breathless hush.

  “You might pull through if you get to a doctor in time, before you bleed out.”

  “What are you waiting for, you damned fool?! Get me to Doc Gisborne. He’s got an office here in town . . . I’ll tell you how to get there. He’ll patch me up; it’s not too late yet!”

  “First things first, Spud: Where’s Loman Vard? Tell me where he is and I’ll get you to the doctor in double-quick time. But don’t wait too long—each heartbeat is pumping out more of your lifeblood.”

  Spud Barker took a deep breath before taking the plunge. “All right: Vard’s out on the road east of town with most of the gang.”

  He blurted out the revelation panting, breathless, as if he’d run a marathon.

  “Why?” Sam asked.

  “A Special job.”

  “Special job.” Those were code words among the gang for a paid killing, Sam knew—murder for hire.

  “Vard brought along twelve of the boys,” Spud went on.

  “Twelve? What’s he doing, hiring on for a range war?” Sam said.

  Spud shook his head. “A Special job, I told you,” he said, voice prickly with irritability.

  “How many is he supposed to kill?”

  “One man. One,” Spud said, holding up a lone index finger by way of underlining his point.

  “Who’s the target, General Phil Sheridan?” Sam made no attempt to hide his disbelief.

  Sheridan was a Union Army war hero now serving as Superintendent of the Western District, otherwise known as Texas. Simply put he was the commanding officer in charge of the postwar Federal military occupation of Texas.

  As such he was the most powerful, most hated, and best guarded man in the state.

  “Don’t waste time while I’m bleeding to death. It would take a lot more, a hell of a lot more than even the likes of Loman Vard and twelve Weatherford pistol-fighters to get Sheridan.”

  “It’s about as serious as whatever cock-and-bull story you’re cooking up, Spud. Don’t waste what precious time you’ve got left telling any tall tales.”

  “That’s the hell of it. The truth is so utterly fantastic that nobody will believe a word of it. But I know it’s true because of all the money that’s flying around the deal,” Spud Barker said, greed temporarily banish
ing fear from his face.

  “Here’s the naked truth: Vard and the twelve are set east of town, laying in wait for one man—just one—and he’s not even a full-grown man at all but some punk kid who’s not even got his full growth yet, a Texas young gun named Bill Longley,” Spud said with the air of a stage magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

  “Bill Longley?” Sam Heller said the name out loud, trying it on for size, finding that it rang no bells. “Never heard of him. If you’re trying to pull a fast one—”

  “Wait! Just wait, hear me out. I never heard of him, either, but somebody has, somebody who’s paying Vard big money to make sure Longley doesn’t reach Hangtree. Now what do you think of that?”

  “You’ve got my interest, Spud. Keep talking.”

  “Vard got a telegram the other day. It was from Clinchfield, Texas. Don’t know it, huh? Me, neither, so I looked it up. Clinchfield is the capital and county seat of Moraine County on the Blacksnake River.

  “The Blacksnake’s on the East Texas Gulf Coast. Swamp country, a part of Texas that’s more like the Louisiana bayous than anything else. During the war it was a kind of no-man’s land or neutral zone where Southerners traded contraband cotton for much-needed medical supplies, firearms, ammunition, and such. There was a big luxury trade in tobacco, brandy, perfume, that sort of thing.

  “It’s still a smuggler’s paradise for luxury goods with no customs duties or excise taxes. No local state or federal taxes. Where there’s smugglers there’s money, big money. You with me so far, Heller?”

  “So far, Spud. So?”

  “So Vard got a telegram from Clinchfield few days ago. It was one of his Specials. Again—you know what that means.”

  “Murder for hire,” Sam said.

  Spud Barker nodded. “That’s Vard’s business and his alone. I don’t touch it. He wouldn’t let me get in on it even if I wanted to, which I don’t. I don’t fancy a date with the hangman. I knew it was a Special because it was in code, a lot of double talk about Aunt Hattie taking a boat from Shreveport at such and such a time, and can Uncle Lester meet her at Water Oak, and what kind of trunks she’ll be carrying, and so on.

  “It’s a coded message offering a contract for murder. I don’t know the code but Vard and his associates do. It’s sent out over the regular telegraph wire. That’s how I know the message was from Clinchfield, because that part’s not in code. The rest I picked up from Vard and the gang. This was a rush job and they were in a big hurry to get it done, so they weren’t too particular about talking it up and making the arrangements and all. From what I got this Longley kid is in a big hurry to get to Hangtree for some reason or another. Something almighty important, a matter of life and death.” Spud took a slow, shallow breath.

  “The client in Clinchfield is equally determined that this Bill Longley never reaches Hangtree. He hired Vard to make sure that the kid doesn’t get there, ever. Longley’s supposed to be passing through Weatherford on his way to Hangtree sometime today. Longley’s coming from the east along the Hangtree Trail through Weatherford. Vard and the boys made up a welcoming committee to take Longley outside of town.”

  “They’ll kill him,” Sam said.

  “That’s right. There you have it. You want Vard, you’ll find him laying for Longley on the trail east of town. Vard and the boys, all twelve of them. Even a bad hombre like you might have your hands full tacking Vard and his twelve best guns.” Spud laughed, a low mean dirty laugh.

  “Of course, I guess a sharpshooter with your skills could pick off Vard from a long way off. Whatever you’re going to do, I don’t want to know about it. They hang accomplices to murder, too. Vard’s not well liked but he’s a power in this town and whoever takes him is going to have a whole heap of instant enemies. That’s your lookout, Heller. I’ve done my bit. Now you do your part. Get me to Doc Gisborne’s quick and don’t spare the horses because I’m feeling mighty poorly.”

  Spud Barker passed a hand over his face, voice going all quavery. “I feel weak—must be from loss of blood . . . Lord’s sake, Heller, get me to the doc while there’s still time! I spilled to you, keep your end of the bargain—”

  Sam made ready to take his leave. “Thanks, Spud. Getting information out of you is like pulling teeth, but I think I got what I need to know. I can find Vard from what you gave me, I reckon. If not—you’ll see me soon and next time it won’t go so easy on you.”

  Storm clouds gathered on Spud Barker’s face. Sam started to walk away.

  Spud Barker became agitated. “Hey, wait!—where are you going? You can’t walk out on me now! You said you’d get me to Doc Gisborne—Y-you can’t leave me here to die!”

  “I’m not,” Sam said.

  “B-but you’re walking away!”

  “I’m leaving, Spud, but you ain’t dying.”

  “I will if I don’t get to a doctor!”

  “I exaggerated a bit when I said you were hurt bad. You were hit all right but no place fatal. The bullet tagged you in the caboose.”

  “Huh?—Wha?” Spud Barker did a double take, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or infuriated. What he did was look confused. On him it looked natural.

  “In plain English, you got shot in the ass. I reckon there was no missing a target that big. It’s a flesh wound and you’re bleeding like a stuck pig, but you’ll live,” Sam said.

  “You wouldn’t lie to a dying man . . . ?” Spud said falteringly.

  “You’ll survive—as long as your brains don’t leak out. See for yourself if you’re not too much of a yellowbelly to take a look,” Sam invited.

  “Can it be true?” Spud Barker heaved and squirmed, grunting and groaning with each move. He managed at last to raise himself up on his elbows and, under visible strain, looked back over a shoulder.

  There was indeed an ugly blue-red bullet hole piercing his pants and his right buttock, his one and only wound.

  “It’s true!”

  “Uh-huh,” Sam agreed without enthusiasm, “and I sure don’t envy the doctor with the task of patching you up back there, but that’s his lookout. And now enough of this disagreeable subject. We’re done, Spud,” Sam said with a tone of finality. He started walking away.

  Spud wasn’t listening. He flopped back down in the dirt, laughing and crying at the same time. “I’m going to live!”

  “Not if Vard gets to you before I get to him,” Sam Heller said over his shoulder. It took a few seconds to sink in but when it did it got a reaction.

  “What did you say?” Spud Barker demanded, startled. “Hey, wait a minute! Come back here, you! Hey wait, wait!”

  Sam went to the back of the alley. He paused at the west end of the alley mouth, hesitant to step clear of its shelter and cross the field.

  He wanted to make sure no danger lurked in that seemingly innocuous crazy quilt of unfenced backyards with clotheslines stretched out bare of washing, vegetable gardens that had yet to show signs of life, weedy fields, and wide expanses of hard-packed turf flats.

  Weatherford had that effect on him. Sinister. It was the kind of town where you expected to find a hostile Indian lurking behind a seedy vine-covered trellis or a disorderly vagrant peering intently into someone’s window.

  Or maybe that was just how Sam Heller saw it, having narrowly escaped three guns trying to kill him.

  He still had the mule’s leg in hand. If trouble showed he didn’t want to waste time drawing the weapon from its rig.

  * * *

  Dusty was no longer browsing tender green shoots on the tops of nearby bushes. The animal stood facing the back of the Sunrise Café, gazing intently at it. His ears were standing straight up at the top of his head, their pointed tips quivering and swept back.

  A window stood at shoulder height to one side of the back door. It was open. The window shade was pulled down. Sam thought he remembered its being raised when he came out before. He’d noted then that the window needed washing and was too dirty to see through.

  Sam sto
od, watched, waited. His line of vision was such that he could see the window but he could not be seen by anyone at the window inside.

  At such moments as these he had the terrible patience of the hunter.

  The window shade rustled as if being disturbed from inside. Was that a shotgun muzzle he saw nosing its way past the shade?

  Sam turned and went back the way he came, through the alley toward the street.

  He passed Spud Barker now sitting on the edge of the boardwalk sidewalk, perched so his weight was on his unwounded buttock.

  A number of people clustered around him, eager to hear his story of the violent clash that had left three dead.

  When they saw Sam they all fell silent.

  “As you were,” Sam snapped in passing as he climbed the stairs to the boardwalk sidewalk, closing on the Sunrise Café. Its owner and proprietor, Mikey Costaine, and two of his staffers stood in front of the building, eyeing the damage to the window.

  The helpers ducked back inside when they saw Sam Heller coming but not Costaine, a feisty bantamweight with a rooster-tail haircut.

  He stepped in front of Sam, barring his way. Veins stood out on his red face, his neck was corded, and his hands were clenched at his sides. He was unarmed and seemingly unfazed by the sight of the mule’s leg being toted by Sam, held barrel-down at his side.

  “Hold it, you!” Costaine demanded. Sam had already come to a stop to avoid having to run down the man.

  “Who’s going to pay for the damage?” Costaine said, indicating the empty frame where the window had been. He jabbed the air in front of Sam’s chest with a pointing finger, saying, “You, that’s who! You’re the one who threw Spud Barker out the window. Do you know the trouble I went to getting those glass panes freighted in by overland delivery? What it costs to have the grid framework built and installed? Do you?”

  Sam reached into his vest pocket and pulled out the billroll he’d taken earlier from Spud and handed it to the surprised Costaine. “This should cover it.”

  Costaine opened the roll of bills, thumbing through the greenbacks, their number and denomination smoothing out some of the hard lines in his face.