Hell's Half Acre Read online

  Sprawled on his back, his arms flung wide, there was something familiar about the man. He wore a dull red shirt and a black-and-white cowskin vest. Len Hawley had worn such a vest.

  It was the puncher, all right, and he was dead as he was ever going to be. There was a neat bullet hole between his open eyes and the middle finger of his right hand had been hacked away, leaving a bloody stump.

  Taking a knee beside Hawley he noticed a white band of skin around the base of the dead man’s sun-browned, severed finger. He’d worn a ring there that his killer wanted, and he’d been murdered for it. After a quick search of the body, Jess found nothing, indicating that Hawley had been robbed of whatever money and other valuables he’d carried. The tracks of a heavy horse and a man’s booted feet were everywhere. They could belong only to Scar Moseley, since Hawley had been shot off his paint. Something turned over in Jess’s belly. A man who could shoot like that was nobody to mess with.

  The sun glinted on the silver star pinned to Jess’s shirt, reminding him that for better or for worse he’d made himself a lawman. He had it to do.

  * * *

  Jess Casey wondered if Len Hawley was returning to his ranch when he met up with Scar Moseley. But if he knew about the five-thousand-dollar reward, had he tried to track him? Only Hawley knew the answer to that question and it had died with him.

  Climbing into the saddle, Jess followed Moseley’s trail again, but this time more warily. Hawley’s body had still been warm so Scar might be close, figuring he was safe.

  Ten minutes later Jess smelled smoke. It was faint at first, just a trace in the wind, but as he rode the odor of burning wood grew stronger and with it the unmistakable tang of boiling coffee.

  Jess swung out of the saddle and led his horse into a patch of juniper. He thought of taking his Henry but decided that if there was shooting it would be close-in work and he was increasingly confident about his newfound revolver skill. Besides, he’d never been any great shakes with a long gun.

  Colt in hand he crossed about sixty yards of open ground that ended at the base of a gradual rise. Some twenty feet above his head the rise seemed to top off. More juniper grew on its crest and a thin trail of smoke rose from somewhere among the trees.

  Moving as silently as he could, Jess climbed the rise. It was shallow enough that he reached the top easily. Lying flat on his belly he studied what lay ahead of him. Less than twenty yards away a tall black horse with four white socks was picketed near a clump of bunchgrass. To the left of the horse a man wearing a dark shirt sat with his left side to Jess. Smoke lifted from a small fire in front of him and the man was singing to himself as he studied the small object he turned in his fingers.

  “Come on in,” the man said without turning his head. “I’ve been expecting you, lawman.”

  Jess rose to his feet and said, “You’re under arrest, Scar.”

  Now Moseley turned his head. “Is that a fact?” he said, grinning.

  His belly lurching, Jess moved closer, then stopped and said, “I’m taking you back to Fort Worth, there to be hanged at Mayor Harry Stout’s convenience. Get on your feet.”

  Scar Moseley didn’t move. “Been watching you for quite a spell,” he said. “First saw you when you put your horse into the trees. I was hunting wood at the time. I could have killed you real easy then, but I didn’t. I knew I could do for you later . . . at Scar Moseley’s convenience.”

  Advancing to within twenty-five feet of Moseley, Jess said, “I told you to get on your feet. I won’t tell you again.”

  “You got the drop on me, huh?”

  “Seems like.”

  “Then just don’t shoot,” Scar said. He grinned. “I’ve had a woman today and she relaxed me. Gettin’ shot would spoil my mood, like.”

  “Get up, you damned scum,” Jess said.

  “Sure, lawman, sure,” Moseley said. His dark, heavily browed face was evil. He got to his feet.

  “Slowly now, unbuckle the gun belt, let it drop then step away from it.”

  “Anything you say, cap’n,” Moseley said.

  He went for his gun. His speed was incredible, fast as the snap of a bullwhip. Scar fired.

  Jess felt the bullet thud into his chest and he fired back, way too slow, much too wild. But to his surprise he saw Scar stagger as a scarlet rose blossomed in the middle of his forehead. The man reeled, opened his mouth in shock then fell forward, his face raising flame and ash as it hit the campfire.

  “Are you hit bad?”

  Jess turned and looked into the handsome, concerned face of Kurt Koenig. The big man held a smoking Colt in his hand.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Jess said. He dropped to his knees. “He hit me in the chest.”

  “Let’s take a look,” Koenig said. Then he grinned. “When I bought that star for Hank Henley the jeweler told me the silver was so thick it could turn a bullet. He was right.”

  Koenig worked on the star for a few moments then pulled out a flattened bullet from its center. “Hold out your hand,” he said. He dropped the lead into Jess’s open palm and said, “You can show that to your grandkids. Make up lies about it.”

  Jess’s chest hurt, as though he’d been hit by a sledgehammer, but he was otherwise unhurt. “Did I kill him?” he said.

  “Hell no, I did,” Koenig said. “I reckon your bullet is still traveling.”

  “Koenig, you saved my life,” Jess said. “Damn you to hell.”

  The big man was taken aback, his face shocked. He said nothing.

  “I don’t want to be beholden to you, Koenig. I don’t want to be beholden to you for anything,” Jess said.

  “Seems like you already are,” Koenig said, his face stiff.

  He stepped to the campfire, grabbed Scar Moseley’s body by the back of the shirt and pulled the dead man’s head out of the flames. Scar’s face was blackened, just like Effie Clark’s face had been. Koenig effortlessly dragged the man aside then stopped to pick up something. He studied it for a while then showed it to Jess. It was a silver band with a small oval stone.

  “Yours?” Koenig said.

  “It belongs to a dead cowboy,” Jess said. “Moseley killed him for it.”

  Koenig said, “The dead man was Lonesome Len Hawley. He was a top hand for Abe Cameron and his Triple-T.”

  “I know his name,” Jess said. “He came into town then reported the death of the Clark family.”

  “And went after Scar for the five thousand on his head? If he did it was a bad move. Well, now the reward is mine, but I’ll remember you come bonus time, Jess.” Koenig tossed the ring into the brush. “Cheap trash,” he said.

  “I don’t want the reward and I don’t want your bonus, Koenig,” Jess said. “I plan to do my job.”

  The big man smiled and nodded. “Seems fair. Just don’t plan too far ahead, huh?”

  Without another word, Koenig stepped away. He saddled Scar’s horse and then draped the dead man over its back. Scar’s hanging hair moved in the wind like a mourning curtain and blood from his shattered head ticked on the grass.

  Koenig mounted his own horse then gathered up the reins of the dead man’s black. “Coffee’s on the bile, Jess, get yourself some and bide awhile. I don’t want to see you on my back trail.”

  “I’m no back shooter, Koenig,” Jess said. “But don’t underestimate me.”

  The big man smiled, his teeth very white. “I don’t underestimate any man who’s on the prod,” he said. “Especially a broken-down puncher with a chip on his shoulder.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “How are you feeling, Nate?” Zeus said. A towering giant of a man, he leaned over the bed and stared down at the little man’s battered face.

  Nate Levy opened his eyes and sighed. “Oy, oy, oy, I’m dying and he’s asking me conundrums.”

  Zeus grinned. “Nate, you’ll never die unless you’re tied down.”

  “What’s the weather like?”

  “Hot.”

  “Then why is this hotel ro
om cold?”

  “Because you’ve got no blood, Nate. You lost it all in the alley.”

  “How’s that sheriff feller?”

  “I saw him ride out of town this morning,” Zeus said.

  “He should keep on going. Fort Worth is no place for an honorable man. Besides coffee what did you bring me? What’s in the poke?”

  “A bacon and sourdough bread sandwich and a piece of apple pie. Hungry?”

  “Why should I be hungry?” Nate said. “Am I lying in this bed near death and have had nothing to eat for days? And I’m a Jew. Can I eat pork?”

  “It’s bacon, Nate.”

  “I can smell it. But you’re right, bacon isn’t pork. I remember my mother saying to me, ‘Nathanial, never eat pork because it’s not kosher. But bacon, like shellfish, is all right in moderation.’ Pass the poke.”

  “The pork poke,” Zeus said, smiling. “The bacon bag.”

  “Damned impertinence,” Nate said. “Now don’t get uppity on me, boy.”

  As the little man ate ravenously, Zeus stepped to the window, his attention immediately caught by events in the street.

  “Kurt Koenig’s bringing in a dead man,” he said.

  “Is it the sheriff?” Nate said, his jaws suddenly still.

  “No. Some ranny dressed in black with long hair.”

  “Don’t know him,” Nate said, going back to his food.

  “Me, neither,” Zeus said.

  “Well, Koenig’s always shooting somebody,” Nate said.

  Zeus said, “I’m going to see what happened. Do you need anything, boss?”

  “Yeah, a new body. You got one of those? Oy, oy, oy, the damned bacon’s given me dyspepsia. I told you I shouldn’t eat pork.”

  * * *

  Zeus, dressed in a gray suit that bulged over his huge arms and a plug hat of the same color, stepped onto the hotel porch and almost knocked into Dr. Sun.

  The little physician touched the brim of his bowler and said, “Well met, Zeus. I’m on my way to check on my patient. How is he?”

  “He ate bacon and now he has dyspepsia,” Zeus said. His face was the color of polished mahogany, split by a toothy smile.

  “I told him he could have the white of an egg and nothing more,” Dr. Sun said. “He’s not smoking cigars, is he?”

  “Not while I was there, Doc,” Zeus said.

  “Then let him cope with indigestion for a while. It will serve him right. Now step over there and join me on the bench.”

  Zeus crossed the porch and sat and the little physician joined him and for awhile Dr. Sun gazed into the waning day and said nothing.

  “I saw Kurt Koenig bring in a dead man,” Zeus said. His hands rested on his thighs, the knuckles the size of walnuts and deeply scarred.

  “Yes, the bandit Scar Moseley. He’s quite dead.”

  “Koenig plug him?”

  “Yes, he did. Which brings me to the reason I wish to talk to you, my gigantic friend.”

  “Then talk away, Doc,” Zeus said. “I’ve got cauliflower ears but I still hear pretty good.”

  “What do you think of our new sheriff?” Dr. Sun said.

  “Well, I guess he saved my life, Doc. I owe him.”

  “One day he will go up against Kurt Koenig and his cohorts. We must assist him in every way we can.”

  “I’m a pugilist,” Zeus said. “I know nothing about guns.”

  “And I am a swordsman,” Dr. Sun said. He smiled. “One of my hidden talents.”

  “Fists and swords against Colts won’t take us far, Doc. Well, maybe as far as the graveyard.”

  “As I said, we must do what we can. Will you support me?”

  Zeus had no time to answer as a fracas that had just broken out at the Silver Garter across the street attracted his attention.

  A sturdy man wearing an ill-fitting store-bought suit charged through the saloon’s open doors. He had a woman by the arm and dragged her into the street. Then he turned and roared to someone still inside, “You leave my damn wife alone, Dickson.”

  Tall and as elegantly dressed as a gambler, the man called Dickson appeared, a nickel-plated Colt in his hand. “Be damned to ye for a scoundrel, Ed Manion, Ella has had enough of your abuse,” he yelled. “She’s living with me now.”

  “No, Alan, he’ll kill you!” Ella, her hair in disarray, fled to Dickson and threw herself into his arms.

  Manion drew a British Bulldog revolver from under his coat and called, “Ella, you step aside, for I intend to kill that adulterer.”

  Frantic now, the woman stepped in front of Dickson and spread her arms wide. “No!” she shrieked. “Don’t shoot my Alan. I love him.”

  “Then damn you, too,” Manion said. He fired. His bullet hit Ella in the stomach and she dropped to the ground without a sound.

  Dickson, his face black with anger, stepped back and took up a duelist’s stance, right arm extended, revolver at eye level, left foot behind the right heel, his left arm held stiffly behind him, ending in a tight fist. He fired.

  Manion took the hit high in his left shoulder, and a red rose blossomed on his suit coat as his collarbone shattered. But determined to see it through, he stood his ground and shot back. The. 44 round hit the shin of Dickson’s right leg and the elegant man dropped to one knee, cursing. He returned Manion’s fire, shot once, missed, shot again. The second round was aimed true and Manion was hit again.

  Manion, his blood up, sought to close the distance. He staggered across the muddy street and at a range of just ten paces Dickson shot him again. Losing his balance and nearly falling, he cursed Dickson for a lowlife and fired again, a clean miss. Dickson, yelling obscenities, tried to stand but he tumbled and fell on his back into the street. But an instant later he raised his Colt and he and Manion fired at the same time, separated by just three feet of open ground. That exchange did great execution and both gunmen received mortal wounds. Manion took a hit to the chest and dropped to his knees, and Dickson, gut-shot, fell on his left side. The local newspaper later said that Ed Manion yelled, “Oh, I am slain.” And that Alan Dickson uttered, “Yes, take that, you vile fiend.”

  But Zeus and Dr. Sun witnessed the gunfight and told the reporter that both men dropped without a sound. This was the truth of what happened—but it did not make good copy.

  Dr. Sun was already on his feet and about to enter the smoke-streaked scene when the last act of the drama played out, dropping the curtain on a frontier Romeo and Juliet.

  Ella dragged herself off the porch, leaving behind her a trail of blood like the track of a snail, and crawled to her lover. She took his gory hand in hers and said, “Alan, I think he killed the baby.”

  “Ella . . . Ella . . .” Dickson whispered, but then death took him and he said no more.

  Dr. Sun stepped toward Ella, but the woman did something that shocked him and stopped him in his tracks. She grabbed Dickson’s fallen Colt, aimed at her kneeling husband, who was gushing blood from his mouth, and fired. The bullet tore a great hole in Manion’s chest and he whispered, “Ella,” then collapsed flat on his face.

  The woman then dropped the gun and was still alive when Dr. Sun kneeled beside her and gently cradled her head in his arm.

  “The baby?” Ella said. Her lips were as white as parchment.

  Dr. Sun said, “The baby will be fine and so will you.”

  Ella smiled and then died and joined the baby within her.

  Dr. Sun rose to his feet just as Kurt Koenig stepped outside the Silver Garter. He glanced at the bodies in the street then smiled. “So they finally had it out over Ella.”

  “Shot it out, Mr. Koenig,” a small man with a red-veined face said. “Manion killed his own wife.”

  Koenig looked over at Dr. Sun. “They all dead?”

  “Yes, all four of them,” the physician said.

  “I only count three,” Koenig said.

  Dr. Sun said, “Ella was with child.”

  “Too bad,” Koenig said. “And too bad the shooting woke me
from a sound nap.” He turned to the red-veined man and spun him a silver dollar. “Rube, go bring Big Sal. Tell her to clean this mess off my doorstep.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Koenig.”

  Koenig looked over Dr. Sun’s shoulder and said, “Ready to fight again, Zeus?”

  The big fighter nodded. “I’m always ready.”

  “Good. Tell your manager to come see me. I got a pug coming in from Chicago who’ll give you a contest. He’s a black boy like you. They say he has a killer left.”

  “I look forward to meeting the gentleman,” Zeus said.

  “Then so be it,” Koenig said. He stepped back inside.

  “Well?” Dr. Sun said after the man was gone.

  “All the help we can give him,” Zeus said.

  “I thought you might say that, black boy,” Dr. Sun said.

  And both men grinned.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The day was shading into the night and the lamps were lit in Hell’s Half Acre as Jess Casey brought in Len Hawley’s body.

  A couple of belligerent young punchers recognized the dead man and went immediately on the prod.

  “Here, what happened to Len?” a freckled towhead asked as he grabbed Jess’s reins. “He has friends in this town.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Jess said. “Now take your goddamned hands off my horse or I’ll shoot them off.”

  Jess was all played out, his nerves as taught as fence wire, and the puncher recognized it. He dropped the reins as though they were red-hot. “Just askin’, mister,” he said. “No offense intended.”

  Slightly ashamed for his outburst, Jess said, “He was killed by Scar Moseley for the ring he wore. Look at his left hand.”

  Both the young cowboys studied the stump of Hawley’s finger and then the towhead, looking slightly sick, said, “I didn’t know Scar was still around these parts. Did you do fer him?”

  “No. Kurt Koenig did,” Jess said. “Shot him between the eyes.”

  The puncher grinned. “Good ol’ Kurt.”

  “Yeah,” Jess said. “Good ol’ Kurt.” Then, “Now, will you give me the road?”

  “Wait,” the towhead said. He had pale blue eyes. “Len would want to be laid to rest on the Triple-T. We’ll take him home.”