Texas Gundown Read online

  A note of desperation entered Birdie’s voice. “But there’s nobody else who can do it.”

  Matt and Sam looked at each other. Sam shrugged and said, “I don’t like the idea that they carried those ladies off like that. It’s like the rape of the Sabine women from Greek mythology. I read about it in Bulfinch.”

  Matt didn’t know where Bulfinch was and didn’t care. He said, “I don’t much cotton to varmints who try to blow me up either.”

  “Then you’ll do it?” Birdie asked.

  “Keep your badges,” Matt said. “We’ll go after the bastards, but we don’t need any tin stars to do it.”

  “We’ll take you up on the offer of some extra horses and guns and ammunition, though,” Sam added. “And enough supplies to keep us going for a while.”

  “Take whatever you need. I’m sure the mayor will agree.”

  “Did anybody see what direction those outlaws headed when they rode out of town?” Matt asked.

  “I was told that they rode south.”

  Matt nodded. “South it is then. Give us an hour or so to get ready, and then we’ll hit the trail.”

  Chapter 6

  The Dutchman’s was a trading post run by a man named Hendrick Van Goort. Situated atop the Cap Rock, the rugged escarpment that meanders through West Texas and separates the Staked Plains from the rest of the Lone Star State, it was a regular stop on the owlhoot trail. Honest folks avoided the place at all costs. The Rangers had tried to raid the trading post more than once and arrest the outlaws they found there, but they’d always come up empty-handed. Van Goort had a network of spies scattered across West Texas, especially in towns such as Sweetwater and Big Spring that were near the Cap Rock. Any time the Rangers rode toward the Dutchman’s, Van Goort’s agents would signal him by means of mirrors. They could pass along a message for miles in a matter of minutes. Van Goort had a watchtower built in one corner of the adobe compound that housed the trading post, and one of his three Indian wives was always up there, scanning the countryside for a warning flash. At night signal fires were used to accomplish the same end.

  Because of that, any wanted men who stopped at the Dutchman’s were long gone by the time any star-packers could ride up to the place. That margin of safety was what drew outlaws to this isolated spot.

  That, and the barrels of whiskey, the crates of guns and ammunition, and the fact that Van Goort was nearly always willing to buy wide-looped cattle or other stolen goods. A steady stream of ill-gotten gains flowed through the trading post. Van Goort was a giant of a man, bald with a bushy blond beard, grossly fat and sloppy at first glance. But underneath the fat were slabs of muscle. The Dutchman could break the back of a strong man with his bare hands, and had been known to do so when he had to establish order at the trading post. Word of his strength and ruthlessness had gotten around. Such information always traveled fast on the lonely trails where hard-bitten men heard the owl hoot at night. So even the most notorious desperadoes were generally on their best behavior when they visited the Dutchman’s.

  Deuce Mallory and his gang had been there before. The guards who worked for Van Goort recognized Mallory and his men when the outlaws rode up to the compound perched on the edge of the escarpment. Heavy wooden gates swung open. Mallory rode in, trailed by the rest of the bunch.

  They still had the women from Buckskin with them. The prisoners were bruised, their clothes were torn, and the dull, vacant-eyed expressions on their faces spoke eloquently of the pain and degradation they had been forced to endure during their captivity.

  Mallory had intended to release the women by now, but he was a shrewd leader who adapted to circumstances. He could tell that the men didn’t want to let them go just yet. He was willing to bend a little on his rule. But they would leave the prisoners here at the Dutchman’s and let Van Goort handle getting them back to their homes. Van Goort would probably even manage to turn a profit on the deal, claiming that he’d had to ransom them from Mallory’s gang when that wasn’t the case at all. He would demand to be reimbursed for his expense by the families of the prisoners before he’d turn them over.

  That was what Mallory figured anyway, so he was a little surprised when Van Goort stepped out onto the porch of the big main building, looked at the women, and scowled in displeasure. The porch had a sod roof, and vines had been planted in it. They’d grown until they hung down in front of the porch, providing some added shade and coolness. Van Goort pushed past the vines, came down the steps, and waddled over to where Mallory and the others had reined their mounts to a halt.

  “Mallory,” the Dutchman said. “What are you doing with those women?”

  Mallory thumbed his hat back on his thatch of bristly, copper-colored hair. He grinned and said, “They wanted to come with us when we rode through a place called Buckskin, up north of here.”

  Van Goort’s scowl didn’t go away. “Yes, I can see how pleased they are to be accompanying you,” he said. “I thought you knew better than this, Mallory.”

  The outlaw leaned forward in the saddle. His left hand rested easily on the horn, but his right didn’t stray far from the butt of the holstered Colt. “You got a rule against bringing women to your place, Van Goort?”

  “Kidnapped women, yes! Men will tolerate many things—robbery, dealing in stolen goods, even murder—but molesting decent women is not done!”

  Mallory lowered his voice and said, “Then you’ll be happy to hear that I’m going to leave them with you when we ride out. You can send ’em right back where they came from. Hell, you’ll even be a hero for rescuing them from us.”

  He saw the light of avarice flare up in the Dutchman’s pale blue eyes. Van Goort just hadn’t thought it through before now. Slowly, he nodded. “I suppose I could make this gesture. Out of the goodness of my heart, you understand.”

  “And the fact that I’ve got more than two dozen men to your handful of guards,” Mallory pointed out with a smirk.

  Van Goort’s pale face was never tanned or even sunburned, despite the fierce West Texas sun. But it flushed in anger sometimes, as it did now.

  “You know the rules now, Mallory. In the future, no more female captives.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Mallory drawled. “Now, do I tell my men to dismount so they can go in and partake of your hospitality—or do we turn around and ride out?”

  Van Goort hesitated, but only for a second. Then he waved a ham-like hand at the trading post and said, “Enter, my friends, and make yourself at home.”

  * * *

  That evening, Mallory sat at a table in the big barroom area of the trading post with Steve Larrabee, Gus Brody, Jacob Pine, and Carl Henderson. The four other men were the only surviving members of Mallory’s original gang and the ones he trusted to help him keep the rest of their wild bunch in line. They had put away a considerable amount of tequila already. Upstairs, some of the other outlaws were availing themselves of the services of the whores who worked here at the Dutchman’s. Others were bidding a not-so-sweet farewell to the women who had been carried off from Buckskin.

  Brody gave voice to the thought that was on all of their minds. “What next, Deuce? I know you said we were headin’ for Mexico, but there’s a lot of territory between here and there. The boys are liable to want to make another raid before we get there.”

  Mallory tipped up the bottle and splashed more tequila in his glass. He took a sip of the fiery stuff and said, “I was thinking the same thing. We want to have plenty of money when we hit the Rio Grande. Mexico’s a poor country. Might be pretty slim pickings on the other side of the Rio.”

  The outlaws gathered around the table grinned in satisfaction at Mallory’s answer. “That’s what we were thinkin’, Boss,” Larrabee said.

  “You got some town in mind already?” Pine asked.

  Before Mallory could answer, a commotion broke out at the top of the stairs.

  Two men lurched into view, swinging brutal punches at each other. Mallory looked up with a frown and
recognized them as Dave Ash and Mel Warren, two members of his gang. There was no telling what might have started the fight. Put a bunch of liquored-up outlaws under the same roof and let them cut loose, and there were bound to be ruckuses.

  Mallory figured to just let Ash and Warren pound on each other until they got tired of it, but then Warren landed a lucky blow and sent Ash flying head over heels down the stairs. It was a hard, out-of-control tumble, and halfway down a sharp crack sounded. Ash screamed and clutched at his leg as he landed in a sprawled heap at the foot of the stairs.

  Mallory came to his feet and muttered, “What the hell’s happened now?”

  He strode toward Ash, but before he could reach the injured man, Mel Warren rushed down the stairs, drawing his gun as he came. “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!” he howled. His face was twisted in furious hate.

  Ash was still screaming and unable to defend himself. Mallory saw now that Ash’s left leg was bent at an unnatural angle. The white, jagged, bloody end of a broken bone stuck out of his calf.

  “Warren!” Mallory snapped. “Drop it!”

  Warren was too drunk and angry to pay any attention. He had cleared leather and his gun was swinging in line to blast slugs down into Ash’s body.

  Mallory’s hand flickered. His Colt appeared in his fingers as if by magic. He’d been drinking, but was far from drunk. He tipped the barrel up and fired from the hip. Flame lanced from the revolver’s muzzle, bright in the smoky, shadowy gloom of the trading post.

  The slug ripped through Warren’s left shoulder and flung him backward. He landed on the stairs and slid down several steps before coming to a stop. Rolling onto his side, he curled up in a ball and clutched his wounded shoulder as he groaned in pain. He had dropped his gun without firing a shot. That was how fast Mallory’s draw had been.

  “Stop your bellyaching,” Mallory told the wounded man. “You’re lucky I didn’t just kill you. What the hell were you thinking, Mel? Fighting among ourselves is fine, but we don’t shoot each other.”

  The other members of Mallory’s inner circle had come up behind him. Brody chuckled and said, “That looked like some pretty slick shootin’ to me, Deuce.”

  “Ash is a good man. I couldn’t let Mel just kill him.” Mallory felt a flash of irritation at having to explain his actions. He had never liked being forced to explain himself, even as a boy. And he wasn’t going to do it now. He turned away and barked at the Dutchman, who stood behind the bar, “Have somebody look after those two. They won’t be able to ride for a while, so they’ll have to stay here while they’re healing up.”

  Van Goort nodded. “Yah. But it will cost you extra, Mallory.”

  Mallory shrugged. “I’ll take it out of their share of the loot.” He jerked his head toward the table and said to his lieutenants, “Come on. Let’s get back to planning where we’re going from here.”

  The five outlaws sat down and poured fresh drinks while a couple of Van Goort’s men came in and carried first Ash and then Warren off through a curtained doorway into a back room somewhere. Mallory was in a foul mood now. Losing men in a raid was one thing, but to lose two men to their own drunken stupidity was infuriating.

  He tried to get his mind off what had happened by saying, “I have a place in mind where we can strike next. There’s a town right on the Rio Grande, about halfway between the Big Bend and El Paso. We’ll hit it and ride out, and practically as soon as we leave town we’ll be across the river in Mexico.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Larrabee said. “What’s the name of this place, Boss?”

  Mallory found himself smiling. “From what I’ve heard, it’s a lot rougher than it sounds. It’s called Sweet Apple.”

  * * *

  Far to the east of the Dutchman’s—far, far to the east, in the wilds of Trenton, New Jersey—Seymour Standish said, “Oh, dear. Oh, my heavens.” He hoped he wasn’t going to pass out, right here in the offices of the company his late father had founded.

  Rebecca Jimmerson laughed and said, “For God’s sake, Seymour, you act like you’ve never seen a woman smoking a cigarette before.”

  “I . . . I haven’t,” Seymour stammered. He pushed his spectacles up on his nose. “It’s shocking. Scandalous!”

  Rebecca took another puff on the cigarette and then sidled closer to Seymour. He was all too aware of the way her long, honey-blond hair hung down her back. Of the rosy glow of her cheeks and the sweet red lips that made him think of strawberries. Those lips were curved in a mischievous smile now as she said, “Well, if you think that a girl sneaking a smoke every now and then is so scandalous, I’d better not tell you what else I’ve been known to do. It might be too much for your delicate little sensibilities.”

  Seymour’s face felt as hot as if the sun was shining directly on it . . . even though, in point of fact, he didn’t see the sun all that much, spending most of his days inside as he did. The only time he got out was when he had to make a sales call on behalf of Standish Dry Goods, Inc. And he hated that because—there was no denying it—he was quite possibly the worst salesman in the history of the company. Perhaps even the worst salesman in the history of dry goods. Rebecca was standing much too close to him. True, he was fond of her. He had been known to stare at her a bit too intently when she didn’t know he was looking, and he was utterly ashamed of himself for some of the thoughts that went through his head at those moments. Thoughts of walking along a shade-dappled path with her on a warm spring day, perhaps even reaching over, if he dared, and slipping his hand into hers for a moment. . . . He was smitten with her, but he told himself it was a pure, chaste affection, the sort best indulged from afar. Certainly not from a distance of a foot or so. Why, he could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheek! Her tobacco-laden breath . . .

  She suddenly gave a disgusted shake of her head and moved back, as if she had been waiting for something and was disappointed that it hadn’t happened. She asked, “Did you want something, Seymour?”

  He took a deep breath. He was on firmer footing now that there was business to discuss. Not by much, but at least a little firmer.

  “I got a note that said my uncle wanted to see me.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. I forgot.” Rebecca worked as Cornelius Standish’s secretary.

  That was something else a bit scandalous, having a woman as a secretary. Evidently it was becoming more common, but it seemed wrong to Seymour anyway. “I’ll let him know that you’re here.”

  She went over to the door leading into the private office of the president of Standish Dry Goods, tapped on it, and disappeared inside for a moment. When she came out, she told Seymour, “You can go on in. He’s ready for you.”

  “Thank you.” As Seymour walked past her, he dared to pause and whisper, “I won’t say anything to Uncle Cornelius about the, the, you know . . .” He held his fingers to his lips and acted like he was puffing on an imaginary cigarette.

  Rebecca just rolled her eyes and turned away.

  Seymour squared his shoulders, which wasn’t as easy as it sounded since they tended to slump naturally. He stepped into his uncle’s office and closed the door behind him. It was a big room with lots of dark wood and was dominated by a large desk. His uncle sat behind that desk, and even though it had been several months since his father’s death, Seymour still felt a little jolt when he looked at Cornelius. He felt the same jolt, the same sense of loss, every time he stepped into this office and realized once again that Benjamin Standish was gone.

  Seymour pushed his glasses up on his nose and said, “You, ah, wanted to see me, sir?”

  Cornelius was sixty years old, beefy rather than slender like Seymour, with close-cropped white hair and a face like an angry hawk. He was the older brother, and Seymour had always suspected that it grated on his uncle to work for the younger, more successful Benjamin. Since Benjamin’s wife, Seymour’s mother, had passed away some years earlier, upon Benjamin’s death the dry goods company had been split between his son Seymour and his brother Co
rnelius. The will made it clear that Cornelius was to be in charge of the company, however. Benjamin had loved his son, of course, but he hadn’t allowed that love to blind him to the fact that Seymour would have run the business into the ground in no time. Some people were cut out to be in charge, and some just weren’t. Seymour fell into the latter category.

  Cornelius shoved some papers around on his desk—the desk that used to belong to his brother—and said, “Yes, Seymour, I’ve been thinking. The company’s doing well, but we need to expand.”

  Seymour nodded. “That makes sense. As long as we’re not too aggressive about it. Father always said that a company gets in trouble when it tries to grow too fast.”

  Cornelius scowled. He didn’t like having his late brother’s words thrown in his face, and Seymour knew that. He told himself that he should be more discreet in his comments.

  “You know we have salesmen in the Midwestern states and in most of the Western states and territories.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “But one area in which our sales force is lacking is the western part of Texas.”

  Seymour frowned in thought. “Do people out there really need dry goods, sir?”

  Cornelius’s bony hand slapped down hard on the desk. “Do they need dry goods? Of course they need dry goods! Everybody needs dry goods!”

  Seymour nodded some more and hurried to say, “Yes, of course they do. Of course.”

  “That’s why I’m sending you out there. To establish a foothold in that territory.

  Virgin territory, so to speak.”

  Seymour’s eyes widened in amazement. “You’re . . . you’re sending me to . . . to Texas?”

  “That’s right.”

  Seymour felt sweat breaking out all over his body. “But . . . but Texas is the frontier. The wild frontier.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure all those stories about the place are exaggerated. Anyway, the town I’m sending you to is very civilized. How could it be anything else with the name that it has?”