Gun Work: The Further Exploits of Hayden Tilden (7 page)

Mordecai raised both hands from the table, as though to shush his idiot brothers. Accidentally tipped a half-empty bottle over in the process. Liquid leaked onto the tabletop, then ran over the edge and dribbled onto the dust-covered floor.

From behind us the witless bartender shouted, “Ain't nothin' illegal goin' on here, deputies. These fellers brung all that liquor with 'em. I didn't sell 'em nothin'. Just provided a place to sit, some glasses, a little music, a bit of privacy, and the possibility of some female companionship—long as they showed me they weren't violent.”

“Told you to shut the hell up, mister,” Nate shouted over one shoulder.

Drink slinger wouldn't let it go. “Cain't arrest me for nothin'. Didn't do nothin'. Swear it. 'Sides, I cain't spend no more time in that dungeon of a jail in Fort Smith.”

“Damnation, are you deef as a rotten fence post? Hear me tell you to shut it?” Nate yelled.

Bartender sounded some desperate when he yelped, “Damn near addled my thinker mechanism last stretch I served in that viper's pit. Place is fulla murderers, thieves, and them what has their lock nuts cross threaded. Ain't goin' back there, you hear me. Ain't goin' back.”

Over my own shoulder I said, “We're not here for you, you mouthy son of a bitch. So, why don't you just dance your ignorant self on out into the street and wait till we're finished with these fellers.”

Slower than a five-hundred-pound pig in January, Mordecai Staine pushed out of the chair and brought himself erect. Seat caught on the back of one of his legs and made a squawking sound as it skittered on the rough-cut floor.

Mordecai ceremoniously placed both hands on the buckle of his pistol belt, then said, “Well, we mighta kilt that woman, that's fer damned sure an actual fact, lawdog. But if'n we done the foul deed, it were definitely accidental. As I recall, she just happened to come outta that Van Buren hardware store at the exact wrong moment.” Of a sudden he appeared to lose his train of thought, but then blurted out, “Don't know nothin' 'bout no kid, though.”

To my dismay, could tell that, in spite of hours at the bottle, all three of the Staine boys had begun to sober up. Realization as how bony-fingered Death had waltzed into Black's carrying a shotgun and rifle had begun to settle in on them like the worst kind of bloody nightmare they could think up.

Darius approved of his older brother's version of their murder and outlawry with a sage nod.

Dolphus giggled, did a kind of kid's jig, then set to watching his brothers for the right cue. Vigorously went to nodding as well, as though he'd heard something floating on the dust-laden air the rest of us had missed.

“Yup. Yup. Yup. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Woman 'uz accidental kilt. Patch-assed kid, too. Didn't mean it whence I hit 'im with my pistol barrel. Jus' got in the way. Jus' got in the way. He'n his mammy both. Yup. Yup. Yup. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

“Shut up, you blatherin' idiot,” Darius snapped, then dabbed at his lips with a filthy bandanna.

Dolphus took half a step backward as if someone had slapped him across the face. Puckered up like he might bust out bawling, then said, “Best be a watchin' yer smort mouth, Darius. Mama finds out you gone and call't me an idiot, she'll whup yer stupid ass with one a Papa's razor strops. Laugh myself silly whilst I watch you git blistered, by God.”

Dolphus never took his eyes off us. Didn't bother to look at his brother. “Mama's deader'n a rotten hoe handle, you stupid gob of walking dung. And Papa's been worm dirt for nigh on twenty year. So, shut the hell up. Hard for me to think with you yammerin'.”

In a gesture of apparent peacemaking, Mordecai raised one hand. Couldn't help but notice that he bore the look of a man much put upon. Once his brothers had fallen silent again, barely heard him when he said, “Give it a rest, boys. Gotta take care of these lawdogs first. Let's get to killin' 'em, then you can kill hell outta each other, if'n that's what you want.”

Swear 'fore Jesus, those loony bastards fixed their gazes on me and Nate like three diamondback rattlers that had just cornered a pair of fat field mice. Trust me when I tell you, there's no single thing I can think of to match the feeling that runs up and down your sweaty spine when you find it necessary to acknowledge that desperate, whisky-addled, and perhaps crazy men plan to go down shooting.

“Don't do it, Mort,” I called out. “Best back off a notch. Come on back to Fort Smith with us. It's either that, or all of you'll die where you sit.”

A twisted, weird, bloodthirsty grin etched its way across each of the Staine boys' unwashed, unshaven faces at the exact same instant. Struck me as likely their fierce glowers of shared insanity was the last thing that poor woman saw just before she and her child died in a dusty Van Buren street.

An obviously half-brained Dolphus actually smiled at me as though someone had just handed him a bowlful of ice-cold, seedless, cubed watermelon. Not certain the man had any idea what was about to go down though. Instant later, the finger of Mordecai's right hand twitched. His convulsive movement sent the level of lethal tension in the room right through the canvas roof like a July 4th whizbang.

As if agreed on by some unknowable method of communication that Nate and I didn't have the perverted power to hear, Mordecai made a grab for the brace of Remington .44-40s dangling from his paunchy waist.

Split second later, his stupid brother Darius did the same.

The gape-mouthed, brain-numbed Dolphus appeared oblivious to what was happening. Of a sudden, the scene started moving amazingly fast and damned slow at the same time.

Dolphus continued to grin like the village idiot when I touched off the round that caught Mordecai dead center. Bullet bored through the big bone in the man's chest, blasted out his back, and splattered a gob of blood and bone the size of a three-pound cannonball all over the wall behind him.

Amazed hell out me that, in spite of the death-dealing blow, ole Mort still managed to keep himself upright, get his strong-side pistol barrel free of the lip of its holster, and fire at least two wild shots into the top of the table. Then, the man began to collapse in on himself like a newspaper house sitting out in a rainstorm.

Knew full well that Mordecai Staine was on the way to being dead when he started sagging. Quickly turned my attention on Darius. Jacked another round into the Winchester about the same instant Nate cut loose with both barrels of that amputated ten-gauge popper of his.

My partner held the monstrous blaster hip high. His carefully placed discharge sent a murderous cloud of heavy-gauge, buzzing buckshot pellets that slapped into Darius just above his pistol belt. Same bedsheet sized veil of gray death nailed the drooping Mordecai right in the top of his anvil-thick head. Canvas and pine wall behind those two boys rattled and shook like a field of dry corn in a cyclone as those pieces of shot not stopped by their bodies flew past and sizzled through cloth and wood.

Bottles atop the Staine brothers' table shattered and flew into thousands of glittering shards that sliced into all three of those skunks like tiny, flying, glass knives. Blistering curtain of lead hit them in a wave, as if they'd been swarmed by a nest of teased hornets. Darius and the near-dead Mordecai let out individual screeches of shocked pain that hit the ear as though they'd all come from a single man.

Instantaneous spray of blood, bone, rendered flesh, and chewed-up clothing filled the air in a misted spray of gory steam. Unnerving blast knocked the brothers backward, into a wooden section of the wall, as if God himself had reached down from Heaven and slapped the hell out of them. Their limp bodies bounced off the sap-dripping pine boards and dropped to the floor, one atop the other, in a gore-stained heap.

Thunderous report from Nate's weapon ran ahead of a shock wave of roiling dust that wafted across the joint's filthy floor. Powdery grit swelled and rose up all around us in the manner of water on a storm-tossed lake. Only took about half a second for the inside of Black's roadhouse to assume something akin to the look and smell of a place where a herd of buffalo had stampeded through.

Staggered, clearly stunned and amazed by the unfolding events, and bleeding from numerous minor wounds caused by the flying glass, a wide-eyed Dolphus Staine stared at his fallen brothers in stunned wonderment. After several seconds of gaping at the corpses, he glanced down at the blood leaking onto his shirt front and sleeves, then turned on me.

“Whachu lawmen's went and done? You done went an' kilt my brothers, that's what. Got Ammighty, that's what, fer sure. Well, by God I'm gonna . . .”

Surprised hell out of me then, and still amazes me today, how quick with a pistol that half-brained son of a bitch was. I saw the weapon flash into his hand. And though I didn't want it, he forced me to drop the hammer on a round that hit him in the right elbow, as he brought the shooter up to fire. Man yelped like a kicked dog.

Levered another hot round into the Winchester's receiver, as Dolphus's weapon fell to the floor and bounced near his foot.

To this very instant, I couldn't testify in one of Judge Parker's court trials as to where the second handgun came from. Heard Nate yell out a warning, but I'm not sure whether I blinked when Dolphus pulled the weapon from a holster at his back, and I just flat missed it, or maybe, at the time, I had it figured as how he was done and didn't pay strict enough attention, or what. But he for damned sure came up with another pistol from somewhere. Ripped off a blue whistler that hissed so close to my ear I could feel the heat and smell the bullet as it zipped past, kept going, and punched a hole in the wall behind me.

Still trying my level best just to cripple the lamebrain when my second slug caught him in the left hip just above his pants pocket. Heavy chunk of lead knocked the man around on his heels like a drunken ballet dancer. He ricocheted off the wall. Then, still half twirling, half stumbling, he managed to rip off another shot my direction. Behind me, at almost the exact same instant, I heard Nate yelp, and a sound like someone had hit a handful of the keys on the piano with a closed fist.

Off balance, and about to go to one knee, Dolphus fired a third time. Sent a slug into the boards not two inches in front of my right foot. Geyser of stinging splinters flew up and caught me in the thigh. That's when I had to completely give up on any chance of taking him alive.

Brought the rifle to my shoulder. Snapped off a final shot. Bullet hit the crazed bastard above the right eye. It bored through his skull, knocked his hat off, and flung a glob of brain matter on the wall atop the gory mess already put there by Nate's blasting of his brothers.

Dolphus went limp. Dropped like a hundred-pound sack of seed thrown from a freight wagon. Made a final, odd, wheezing sound, rolled onto one side, and, I swear before Jesus, still managed to thumb off a final, closing, wild shot that blew the toe off his own foot.

Then, an ear ringing silence fell around me as if someone had tossed a winter blanket over the entirety of Black's scabrous roadhouse. Acrid-tasting, spent, black powder hung in the air along with the sickly sweet, coppery smell and taste of freely flowing blood. Squinted into the roiling cloud of gun smoke. With one hand, I kept the Winchester leveled on the pile of wasted humanity in the corner. With the other, reached down and pawed at the stinging leg wound.

Still picking at my prickly, splintery injury when I heard Nate say, “Cain't damned believe it, Tilden. That bug nutty son of a bitch put a hole in me.”

Jerked my head around and saw my friend sitting in the middle of the floor, back propped against the piano. Legs outstretched, it appeared as though he'd gone down hard. A clawlike hand covered an oozing wound in his right side, just above his pistol belt.

Hobbled over to him, knelt down, stiff-legged, and laid the Winchester on the floor. “Got to let me get a look at your new vent, Nate,” I said, then pulled his grasping, blood-dripping fingers aside.

He grinned, then said, “Don't think she's all that bad, Hayden. But she's damn sure leakin' right smart and burns like the dickens.”

Jerked the tail of his shirt out of his pants. Puckered, black-rimmed hole in the fleshy part of the boy's side was as big around as my thumb. Pulled him toward me and yanked the shirt up in the back. Pleased to find that the bullet had gone all the way through. Knew he'd be fine soon as I saw what had transpired. Have to admit, though, he was lucky, real damned lucky.

Patted his shoulder and said, “Well, you can talk with God tonight and thank him, Nate. Bullet doesn't appear to have hit anything important. Couple inches lower, though, you would've spent the rest of your life on a cane. We'll know for sure by tomorrow morning just how bad it really is. Gonna be sore as hell no matter what, but I think you'll most likely survive. Still and all, probably ought to get your bony behind back to civilization and to a doctor quick as we can.”

He grunted and nodded as though heavily drugged.

“Need to plug this ugly sucker up first, Nate. Best flush it out with some whiskey 'fore we go and do that though.”

Used the rifle as a crutch. Yanked myself erect. Hobbled back to the Staine boys' bullet- and shot-riddled table. Single, half-filled bottle of hundred-fifty-proof scamper juice had managed to survive all the gunfire. Can't imagine how half a dozen of Nate's buckshot pellets hadn't rendered it to smithereens, but as often happens during catastrophic gun work, something as delicate as a whiskey bottle had managed to survive the deadly onslaught.

Leg had begun to hurt pretty good when I limped my way back over to where a wild-eyed, bloody-fisted Nate Swords still sat. Groaned when I knelt, then pushed him onto his back. Grabbed a dirty pillow off the piano bench and stuffed it beneath his head.