The Wicked Die Twice Read online

  The other two were still laughing, as well.

  Pecos shucked his big Russian from the holster on his right hip, cocked the hammer, and aimed the heavy, top-break piece at Wade. “Because you fools done left your gun rigs inside the barn. I can see ’em in yonder, hangin’ over a saddle tree.”

  “Fellas,” Slash said, sliding both of his own stag-butted Colt .44s from their holsters, one positioned for the cross-draw on his left hip, the other thonged low on his right thigh, “did you really think we were gonna just climb down out of these saddles and disarm ourselves so you could wallop the crap out of us?”

  He aimed one revolver at Wendell Powell, the other at Gaylord Thomas. He clicked both hammers back at the same time and narrowed his eyes with menace.

  The three deputies had stopped laughing. Suddenly, they were sober as judges, their eyes quickly acquiring skeptical casts. They looked at the cocked revolvers aimed at them, and then at the no-nonsense faces of the men aiming them, and then at each other.

  The skeptical casts to their eyes turned to apprehension.

  “Now I think I know why ole Bleed-Em-So hired us on,” Slash said. “His so-called bona fide lawmen are so stupid they probably can’t find their backsides with both hands.”

  Wade stepped forward, bunching his face angrily and waving an angry finger at Pecos and Slash. “Put those pistols down, you fools. For better or worse, we’re on the same side!”

  Pecos said, “You take one more step toward this horse, Deputy Wade, and I’m gonna blow a hole through your chest big enough to drive a freight train through.”

  Wade’s brows furled as he stared at the big hogleg in the big ex-owlhoot’s right hand. “You wouldn’t do it,” the bald-headed federal challenged Pecos. Glancing at Slash, he gave a coyote grin and said, “Neither would you, Slash. Maybe a few years back, sure. But now that you’re workin’ on this side of the law—pshaw!”

  “You can take a rat out of the well,” Slash growled, his cold gaze on Wade, flaring one nostril, “but you can’t take the well out of the rat. Once you get a taste for federal blood, it never quite goes away.”

  “All it takes is a little nudge,” Pecos added in his own soft, menacingly resonate voice.

  Wendell Powell shifted his feet nervously, working his lips together. He cursed and glanced at the other two bona fides. “I’ll be hanged if they don’t mean it.”

  “You’d best get to work, fellas,” Slash said. “Pull that wagon on out here and hitch two horses to it. Live to see another day. You don’t do it, you’ll die howlin’. Me an’ Pecos will plant your own guns on you, make it look like you ambushed us.”

  “You were all riled up over Bleed-Em-So bringin’ us on the federal payroll after all your years chasin’ us that you just couldn’t live with it, so you decided to turn us toe down. But since you’re dumber an’ slower, havin’ fed at the public trough for way too long, we savvied the double-cross and got the drop.”

  The big, gray-blond cutthroat grinned and half turned his head toward Slash, saying, “Damn, we got it figured so well, Slash, I say we just go ahead an’ do it. Let’s turn these federals into sieves. I been waitin’ to do it for years!”

  He threw his head back and gave a wild, bizarre-sounding whoop.

  “Hold on!” Gaylord Thomas held out his open hands. “Hold on! Just hold on!”

  “Cold-blooded, kill-crazy devils,” Wade gritted out through his teeth, spittle frothing his lips. “Same way you were ten, twenty years ago. An’ ole Bleed-Em-So brought you into the fold.” He gave his head a frustrated shake.

  “It’s such a nice, cozy fold, too,” Slash said with a caustic grunt. “You boys best get to work. We wanted to be on the Bozeman Trail by now, headed to Dry Fork. We’re burnin’ good daylight. Go ahead an’ drag that big rig out here and get ’er hitched, or you won’t see sundown, so help me God!”

  CHAPTER 6

  Slash and Pecos grinned at each other while sitting their horses in front of the barn, keeping their cocked revolvers aimed at the low-down dirty lawmen as those very same lawmen pulled and pushed the jail wagon out of the barn and into the hay-strewn yard fronting it.

  Doing so, and then roping a couple of horses in the corral to the barn’s right, they muttered angrily amongst themselves and cast Slash and Pecos frequent, darkly furious and worried glances. Cursing at each other, as though blaming each other for their embarrassing predicament, they led two stout geldings out of the corral and hitched them to the federal jail wagon, which appeared to be an old Conestoga outfitted with an iron-banded cage over its old wooden bed.

  The cage had a rear door.

  An American flag ran up from just behind the driver’s box, on the wagon’s left side, to billow out in the breeze just above the cage. Along the low wooden side panels running the length of the wagon below the cage, official-looking black letters announced: U.S MARSHALS.

  While the three so-called bona fide federals adjusted the horses’ hames and harnesses, as well as the straps and buckles, Slash glanced over at Pecos and grinned even more deviously than before.

  Pecos arched a curious brow at him.

  Slash swung his right leg over his saddle horn and dropped lithely to the ground. He walked into the barn and gathered up the three gun rigs from off the saddle tree, slinging all three over both shoulders. The three so-called bona fides were busy with the harnesses, so they didn’t see what Slash was doing.

  Slash walked out of the barn, grinning up at Pecos, who only frowned curiously at him.

  Chuckling under his breath, Slash walked over to one of the two-hole privies standing in the brush, a scrawny hawthorn shrub twisting between them, about fifty feet from the barn. He grinned at Pecos as he stepped inside the privy, his shoulders draped with the three bona fides’ gun rigs. He came out a few seconds later without the gear.

  Pecos stared at him dubiously from his buckskin’s back.

  Slash brushed his hands together, chuckling, and walked back over to his horse. The three bona fides hadn’t seen him go into the privy. They were still working on the harness straps and buckles.

  “Nice work, gentlemen,” Slash said, leading his Appaloosa over to the back of the wagon. He tied the reins to a bar at the rear of the cage. Pecos walked his buckskin over, swung down from the saddle, and tied his reins to another bar at the rear of the cage.

  “Much obliged, fellas,” Pecos said.

  He and Slash, having holstered their revolvers now that the three bona fides had finished slaving for them, transferred their saddlebags and war bags, which they’d filled with trail supplies back in Camp Collins, under the jail wagon’s front seat.

  The three bona fides stepped away from the two horses they’d hitched to the wagon. The lawmen were sweating in the midday sun. They still looked a mite on the sour side, but George Wade gave a devilish grin as he said, “You two enjoy your ride up to Dry Fork, now, hear? It’s gonna be a whole lot more peaceful than your ride back to Cheyenne . . . with Talon Chaney, Hell-Raisin’ Frank Beecher, and Gabriel Black Pot ridin’ in that cage behind ya there.”

  He grinned at the iron-banded cage.

  “Hmmm,” Pecos said, climbing up into the driver’s box, over the wagon’s left front wheel. “Don’t believe I’ve ever heard of them three gents.”

  He sat down on the leather-padded seat and untied the reins from the brake handle as the three bona fides stood side by side and several feet apart, discussing the three former outlaws with customary disdain and mockery. “None too sociable, are they?” Pecos asked.

  The three lawmen glanced at each other, chuckling like overgrown schoolboys with a dirty secret.

  “No,” Powell said, snorting. “None too sociable.”

  “Nope,” chimed in Gaylord Thomas, wagging his head and brushing a streak of sweat from his freckled left cheek. “No, them three I wouldn’t invite home to supper. You two have a good time haulin’ their nasty hides back to Cheyenne. A real good time!”

  “In fact, if you make
it in one piece, and don’t get skinned alive and dumped along the trail between here an’ Dry Fork, we’ll buy you a drink and a bowl of chili,” added Wade, giving the shoulder of Wendell Powell a comradely slap.

  “We’re gonna hold you to that, George!” Slash assured the men from where he sat on the driver’s seat beside Pecos. He pinched his hat brim to the three lawmen as Pecos disengaged the break and slapped the ribbons over the backs of the two stout geldings in the traces.

  “Bye, now!” Pecos said with a smile.

  But when he glanced at Slash, he wasn’t smiling at all. Neither was Slash. Slash had thought this was going to be a nice ride in the sun. He thought he’d do a little dreamy fishing on the North Platte. Now, he was beginning to wonder.

  Talon Chaney.

  Hell-Raisin’ Frank Beecher.

  Gabriel Black Pot.

  Hmmm.

  As Pecos put the wagon up through the empty lot beside the courthouse, heading for the main street, Hank Covington stepped out from the courthouse’s front corner. The lawman looked at Slash and Pecos and then at the three sweaty deputy U.S. marshals milling around outside the barn.

  The sheriff turned back to Slash and Pecos, scowling, looking positively crestfallen. He was deeply puzzled why the two ex-cutthroats appeared to be in such good health. He’d known good and well who the former outlaws were going to run into back at the courthouse barn. He’d been quiet as a church mouse, but he’d probably been cutting up like a drunk Irishman inside.

  Until now.

  “See ya later, Sheriff!” Slash yelled with a wave. “We’ll tell the chief marshal you said howdy!”

  “It was nice talkin’ to ya, Sheriff,” Pecos said, grinning. “Let’s do it again real soon.”

  Covington just stood scowling at them.

  “Hey!” one of the three bona fides shouted behind the jail wagon. “Where’s our guns?”

  * * *

  At the same time, seventy miles north, in Dry Fork, Town Marshal Glenn Larsen stared through the cell door bars at Talon Chaney and said, “Get back. Now, Chaney!”

  He felt a little chagrined at the tremble he heard in his voice.

  Chaney was squeezing the bars of his cell door in his large,beefy hands. On the back of his left hand was the tattooed silhouette of a buxom naked woman. Chaney gritted his teeth as he squeezed the bars so hard that the knuckles of his darkly tanned hands were nearly white.

  “Just a second, Marshal,” Chaney said in a voice pinched with strain. “Just tryin’ to see if there’s any give in these bars.”

  Larsen glanced at his deputy, Henry Two Whistles, who sat near Chaney’s cell in a Windsor chair, between the row of four cells running along the rear wall of the small stone jailhouse and Larsen’s desk abutting the front wall. Holding his double-barreled shotgun across his bony thighs, the old deputy drew a deep breath, glowering at the savage outlaw.

  Turning back to Chaney, Larsen yelled, “Knock it off! Take your hands down off those bars, Chaney!”

  “Just give me one more second,” Chaney said again in his strained voice.

  “Chaney, dammit, if you want this coffee, remove your hands from the bars and step back away from the door!”

  “All right, all right!” Chaney dropped his hands from the bars and grinned sneeringly through the cell door at Larsen. His big, broad face was still red from exertion. “I think I found me some give in that iron, Marshal. You might want to look into it. I got me a feelin’ that iron is purty old. How long has this old jailhouse been here, anyways? I’m guessin’ for the past thirty years or so . . . ?”

  “Step back away from the door,” Larsen ordered the man in a voice of strained patience. He held a fresh, smoking cup of black coffee in his left hand, the key for Chaney’s cell in his right hand. Both hands trembled slightly. He didn’t think it was noticeable. Not to anyone except himself, that was.

  Knowing his own fear was humiliating enough.

  Chaney raised his hands and thick, muscular arms in supplication and took three steps straight back away from the cell door. “All right, all right, Marshal. I’m just sayin’, if you get the wrong prisoner in here, I mean one who really wants out of this cell—well, you might have a problem. I think a fella strong as myself could pry them welds loose. Them welds is old and weak. You pry one loose and then they’re all gonna go, and . . . you got trouble.”

  The tattooed outlaw with close-cropped brown hair shrugged. His square, severely featured head could have been crudely chipped out of solid granite. Chaney grinned, eyes slitting devilishly, as he glanced around at the three other cells on his right—two of which were occupied by none other than his two partners in savagery—Hell-Raisin’ Frank Beecher and Gabriel Black Pot.

  “I don’t know if you’re safe,” Chaney said in a soft, menacing voice to Larsen. “You might want to look into all this old iron in these cells. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

  “Keep that Parker on him, Henry,” Larsen said out of the corner of his mouth as he slowly turned the key in Chaney’s door. He so much as flinches, you empty both barrels into him.”

  “Don’t worry, Marshal,” Two Whistles said, aiming the double-barreled barn blaster straight out over his right knee. “I got you covered. Don’t you worry about nothin’.” He lifted his leathery, brick-red left cheek in a sly grin, though Larsen knew that the old man was as afraid of these three devils as he himself was.

  “Easy, old man,” Chaney said, glaring at Two Whistles. “Don’t let that gut-shredder go off by accident, now, hear?” He smiled again. If the devil smiled, that smile would be the twin to Talon Chaney’s smile. “If it was to go off, you might hit the young marshal here by mistake.”

  “Shut up, Chaney,” Larsen said as, staring cautiously through the bars at the thick-set, muscular outlaw, he slowly opened the door. Fear weighed heavy in him. The hinges squawked, giving Larsen a start, making his heart quicken.

  Chaney sensed the young lawman’s terror, and grinned his seedy grin.

  Larsen slid the door open just far enough to stick the coffee cup through it, which he did as he bent his legs, crouching, and set the cup on the floor. He withdrew his hand, then quickly slammed the door closed. Just as quickly he turned the key in the lock, throwing the bolt home. As he did, he couldn’t help looking at the welds at the bar joints. He knew it was what Chaney had wanted him to do, but he couldn’t help it.

  Suddenly, there didn’t appear to be a whole lot of quality iron holding these three mad dogs at bay. The bars of the cells looked as insignificant as party bunting.

  The killers must have read his mind. All three were laughing at him through the steam rising from their coffee cups.

  “That’s right, young Marshal, sir,” said Gabriel Black Pot, standing in the next cell to the lawman’s left, Chaney’s right. “Them bars can’t hold us. Nope, they sure can’t. We’ll be out of here soon.” He grinned as he lifted his chin and slitted his black eyes with open mockery. “Very soon!”

  “And when we get out,” said Hell-Raisin’ Frank Beecher, standing at the door of his own cell, which was the one just beyond Black Pot, holding his steaming coffee cup in both hands, “we’re gonna talk to you about what you did to us the other day.”

  Larsen knew the oddly effeminate killer—a tall, lean, shaggy-headed man missing the end of his nose and his entire left ear—was referring to Larsen and Henry leading all three killers to the jail from Carlisle’s place, naked, wearing only handcuffs.

  The three men had stumbled through the dusty streets, still half-drunk and badly hungover. They hadn’t said much then. But they’d said plenty when they’d woken up in their respective cells and remembered the humiliation of half the town having come out of the shops and houses—men and women of all ages, including some children who’d been walking late to school—to stare and mutter amongst themselves and for small groups of men to break out in jeering laughter.

  Several dogs had barked at the naked, bleary-eyed trio. One had run up behind Black Pot
and nipped the half-breed in his left calf, making him jump, stumble, and fall.

  Larsen had not intended to humiliate the three killers. Now he regretted that it had played out the way it had. At the time, however, he’d seen no other way. After he’d gotten the handcuffs on all three while the three had slept in the whores’ crib upstairs at Carlisle’s, he certainly hadn’t been about to uncuff them so they could dress. There was no way they could have gotten dressed wearing the cuffs, so there had been nothing else he could have done.

  Given the killers’ reputations and all the guns in the room, he’d had no choice but to cuff them then and there.

  If they’d been anything less than what they were—three cold-blooded killers who had been murdering and raping and stealing to their hearts’ content all over northern Wyoming and southern Montana for the past several years—he would have let them dress before leading them off to jail. As it was, all he’d wanted to do was to get them as quickly over to the jail as he could, and the only way he could have done that was just what he’d done—lead them naked through the streets of Dry Fork.

  What he hadn’t counted on was half the town coming out to watch and jeer.

  That had been unfortunate. He’d thought the citizens of Dry Fork above such shenanigans. Or, if not above it, at least smart enough to not tease coiled rattlesnakes, which was what these men were. But they’d watched and they’d laughed, and there’d been nothing that Larsen and Two Whistles could have done to stop it, for their attention had been on the killers. So now here they were with three very angry, cold-blooded killers bound and determined to get free of their cells and murder not only Larsen and Two Whistles but the whole damn town of Dry Fork.

  Larsen just hoped—no, he prayed—that that jail wagon got up here from Denver soon. He wouldn’t rest, much less sleep, before Dry Fork was free of these devils.

  “We won’t just be talkin’ about what you did, young marshal,” Black Pot assured Larsen, pressing his big, round, brown, hawk-nosed face up close against his cell door, “we’ll be showin’ what happens when you embarrass me an’ my friends . . . in front of the whole town, no less!”