Sidewinders (16 page)

The two men were taken by surprise as the barrels tumbled down on top of them and knocked them to the ground. One of them started to yell in alarm.

Scratch shut him up with a hard kick to the jaw that resulted in the sharp crack of bone breaking. The man writhed on the ground and moaned thickly. Scratch didn't feel a bit bad about breaking the varmint's jaw.

The other man clawed at the gun on his hip as he scrambled up onto one knee. Scratch put a hand on one of the barrels and vaulted over it to crash into the Rafter F man. Both of them went down. Scratch grabbed the wrist of the man's gun hand and smashed it against the ground. The revolver flew out of the man's fingers and slid across the dirt.

It wasn't quite as dark in the alley as it had been under the shed. A little light from the moon and stars penetrated back here, and those rays struck silvery glints from the ivory handle of the gun the man had just dropped. Scratch caught a glimpse of that and recognized it as one of his Remingtons.

“Steal a man's guns, will you?” he grated as he smashed a fist into the man's face.

Scratch hit him twice more, as fast and hard as he could. The man went limp. Scratch had knocked him out.

The man with the broken jaw was still lying on the ground, whimpering. All the fight had been knocked out of him. Scratch scooped up the Remington, reversed it, and struck with the butt, knocking the man unconscious just to be sure he wouldn't cause any more trouble.

Scratch went back to the other man and found his second revolver stuck behind the hombre's belt. He felt a little better about things with the Remingtons filling his hands. He slid the weapons back into their holsters where they belonged.

There was no time to waste. Going by what the two men had been saying as they walked up to the shed, the mob was about ready to start across the creek and head for the jail. If he was going to get Bo out of there, it had to be now.

Scratch ran along the alley, cut through the gap between two buildings, and reached the street that ran between the array of saloons and gambling dens. At the end of that street to his right was the bridge over Bear Creek. He glanced to his left, toward the Southern Belle.

Men began to emerge from the saloon, talking in loud, drunken voices. Scratch caught a couple of words—“killer” and “rope”—and that was enough to tell him that time was up. The lynch mob wasn't waiting for the two men who'd gone to get him.

He raced toward the bridge, staying to the shadows as much as he could in hopes that the mob wouldn't spot him and speed up their assault on the jail. They weren't moving very fast at the moment, he saw when he glanced over his shoulder, probably because some of them were so full of rotgut whiskey that they weren't very steady on their feet.

When he reached the bridge he pounded across the planks. As he turned toward the jail he saw that the medicine show wagon had been moved and was parked in front of the café now, directly across from the marshal's office. Veronique Ballantine sat on the lowered tailgate. When she spotted him, she slid off the gate and called, “M'sieu Scratch! Professor, M'sieu Scratch is here!”

Sarlat stuck his head out the door at the back of the wagon and said, “It's about time! We thought you had abandoned your plan, my friend.”

Scratch stumbled to a halt. He was out of breath from running, and as he tried to drag air into his lungs, he said, “The lynch mob's . . . on its way. They'll be here . . . in a few minutes.”

“We'll have a show ready for them, you can count on that,” Sarlat promised. “Now go! Help your friend!”

Scratch jerked his head in a nod and turned toward the livery stable. He had to get his and Bo's horses ready to ride so they could make their getaway from Bear Creek.

He had just reached the stable when a sudden rataplan of hoofbeats made him pause and look along the street to the south. A group of riders was entering town, and as they passed through a rectangle of light coming from the window of a building, Scratch recognized the man in the lead.

John Creel's rugged face and the white hair under his black Stetson were unmistakable. Just behind him rode Bo's brothers and several of the Star C hands.

The Creels had come to town, but for what reason, Scratch had no idea.

He didn't have a chance to ask them, because at that moment the mob reached the western end of the bridge and spilled into the street, blocking the path of the horsebackers. John Creel had to haul back suddenly on his reins, forcing his companions to do likewise.

Somebody yelled, “Hey, it's that damn murderer's kinfolks!”

“They must've come to bust him outta jail!” another man shouted. “We gotta stop 'em!”

The men closest to the Creels lunged at them, reaching up with clawing hands to grab them and try to drag them out of their saddles. John Creel barked a curse and kicked out at the men attacking him. In a matter of heartbeats the street was a roiling mass of confusion as the two groups battled.

And if that wasn't enough, at that moment a red rocket rose into the night sky above Bear Creek, trailing sparks along its arching path until it burst in an explosion of garish brilliance that lit up the street.

Scratch saw that the rocket had come from the vicinity of the medicine show wagon and knew that Professor Sarlat had delivered on his promise to provide a distraction that would draw the attention of the whole town.

It probably would have, too, if not for the riot already going on at the foot of the bridge between the lynch mob and the bunch from the Star C.

Scratch turned and plunged into the livery stable, rushing past the startled hostler who wore an expression of amazement on his elderly face. The commotion continued outside as Scratch threw saddles on the two horses and cinched them in place.

“You didn't see me tonight,” he snapped at the hostler. “Got that, amigo?”

The slack-jawed old-timer just stared.

It didn't really matter, thought Scratch. Once things settled down, everybody in town would know who was responsible for breaking Bo out of jail. He was the only one in these parts who would attempt such a brazen thing, and besides, Marshal Haltom would probably recognize him.

That couldn't be helped. Scratch knew he couldn't count on the Creels being able to stop the lynch mob.

He swung up onto his horse and galloped out through the barn's double doors, leading Bo's mount behind him. A glance up the street toward the jail revealed that the rocket hadn't been the only part of the distraction staged by the professor and Veronique. Sarlat was playing his accordion animatedly, and Veronique whirled and capered on the wagon's tailgate.

She wasn't just dancing, though.

She was taking her clothes off while she was doing it.

Scratch only caught a glimpse of what was going on, but that was enough to make him wish he could have sat back and enjoyed the show. As it was, anybody from the lynch mob who broke away from the riot and headed for the jail would no doubt be stopped in their tracks by the sight of Veronique's nearly nude loveliness.

At the corner, Scratch reined the horses into a sharp turn that sent them thundering along the passage between buildings. When they came out at the rear, he turned again, this time toward the back of the jail.

He hoped none of Bo's family was hurt bad in the melee, but at the moment he didn't have time to check on them. As he rode, he took the lasso loose from his saddle and shook out an end of it. He circled the jail and came up alongside the window of Bo's cell.

“Bo!” he called softly but urgently. “Bo, you hear me?”

“What the hell!” Bo exclaimed as he stuck his face up to the little window and grasped the bars. “Scratch, what do you think you're doing? What's going on out there? It sounds like the Battle of San Jacinto all over again!”

“No, but it's in a good cause, just like that ruckus was,” Scratch said as he held out the end of the rope and passed it through the window between the bars. “Grab that and tie it around the bars!”

“No! I'm not going to let you turn yourself into an outlaw—”

“That racket is comin' from a lynch mob, Bo. Your pa and brothers are holdin' 'em back for now, but I don't reckon it'll last. You got to get out of here, or you'll be swingin' from a cottonwood branch before you know it!”

“Pa and the boys came to help me?” Bo asked, sounding surprised.

Scratch didn't actually know why the Creels had shown up in Bear Creek when they did, but he figured Bo might cooperate more if he thought they had come to rescue him.

“That's right,” Scratch said. “And you can't let what they're doin' be all for nothin'.”

Bo made up his mind. He grasped the rope, pulled it farther into the cell, and began looping it around the bars. At the same time, Scratch dallied it around his saddle horn and then leaned over to secure the other end of the rope to the horn on Bo's saddle.

“Ready?” he called tensely.

“Ready!” came Bo's reply.

Scratch turned the horses and urged them away from the jail. The rope snapped taut behind them. Scratch heard it groan as the tension grew tighter and tighter.

Somewhere in the jail, Marshal Haltom yelled, “Hey! Creel! What're you—”

The bars tore out of the window with a crash of masonry, the squeal of nails pulling loose, and the splintering of boards. As Scratch had hoped, some of the wall had come out along with the bars, leaving a hole big enough—maybe—for Bo to clamber through.

“Come on!” he cried as he tore the rope loose from the saddles and let it drop, not caring if he recovered it.

“Creel! Stop or I'll shoot!”

That was the marshal again. Scratch shouted, “Bo, get down!” and unleathered one of the Remingtons. Bo's head disappeared from the ragged opening in the wall. Scratch fired two swift shots through the dark hole. The muzzle flashes lit up the night.

“Now!” he called to Bo.

Bo hauled himself up and through the busted-out window. Scratch caught a glimpse of movement behind his friend and yelled, “Down!” as he pulled the horses aside. Bo dived forward, spilling through the opening, just as Haltom cut loose with the Greener.

Most of the buckshot hit the wall inside the cell. The balls that came through the opening whistled off harmlessly into the night. Scratch fired twice more, aiming high. He wasn't trying to kill the lawman. He just wanted Haltom ducking for cover.

Bo rolled over and came up on his feet. He lunged toward the horses, got a foot in the stirrup, and swung up onto his mount. Scratch tossed him the reins.

“Let's get out of here!”

“Right behind you, partner!” Bo said.

Leaning forward in their saddles to make themselves smaller targets, they kicked their horses into a gallop and raced away from the jail into the darkness.

Bo's pulse hammered in his head. Emotions warred inside him as he rode next to Scratch.

First among them was relief at being out of that jail. Despite his insistence on abiding by the law and trusting in the legal process, he hated being behind bars with every fiber of his being.

He was also gratified that his father and brothers had come to Bear Creek to help him. His father and Hank must have been able to convince Riley and Cooper that he was innocent, or at least that he shouldn't be taken out and strung up from a tree.

But he was worried, too, about what Scratch had given up to help him. They were fugitives now, both of them, and it was possible they might be on the run from the law for the rest of their lives. That was no way for a man to live.

That thought filled Bo with more determination than ever. He would find the real Bear Creek Butcher and clear his name. That was the only chance he and Scratch had to avoid being tagged permanently as outlaws.

They didn't slow their horses until the settlement was a mile behind them. As they pulled the mounts back to a walk, Scratch said, “That was mighty close. Another five minutes and it might've been too late to get you out of there.”

“You were cutting it pretty close, all right,” Bo agreed. “But I didn't really expect you to throw your own life away like this.”

“Aw, hell, Bo, you know better than that. What would you have done if it was me locked up in that jail with a lynch mob comin' up the street?”

Bo had to chuckle, despite the seriousness of the situation.

“Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I would have done the same thing,” he admitted.

“Dang right you would have. We've had each other's back for more'n forty years now. It's too late for a couple of old codgers like us to change our ways.”

“I suppose you're right. Which means you probably know what we're going to do next.”

“Find out who really killed those poor gals?”

“That's right,” Bo said. “And we're going to start by going back to Bear Creek.”

Even in the darkness, Bo could tell that Scratch was staring over at him incredulously. For a long moment, the silver-haired Texan didn't make any reply. Then he finally said, “I must be losin' my hearin' in my old age. I would've swore I just heard you say you want to go back to Bear Creek.”

“That's what I said.”

“The place where damned near the whole town thinks you're a cold-blooded murderer and wants to string you up to the nearest tree? That place?”

“That's where the answers are,” Bo said. “We won't find out who killed those women anywhere else.”

Scratch was quiet again. Bo knew his partner was smart enough to understand that was their only possible course of action. But understanding it didn't mean Scratch had to like it.

“You're right,” Scratch said at last. “I reckon I thought we'd hole up somewhere and let all the trouble die down a mite, then go back and see what we could root out.”

“That's just what they'll expect us to do, at least the ones who don't think we'll keep running all the way to Mexico. The only way we can really take them by surprise is to double back tonight.”

“Whoever killed those gals won't be expectin' that, will they?” Scratch mused.

“That's right.”

Scratch nodded and said, “I'm with you, then. You reckon the marshal's already puttin' together a posse?”

“I'd be shocked if he's not,” Bo said. “He won't have any shortage of volunteers, either. Every man in the mob that almost stormed the jail will be willing to come along.”

“Every man who ain't too drunk to ride, you mean,” Scratch said with a chuckle. “Ned Fontaine primed 'em with plenty of liquid courage ever since that hearin' this morning.”

“Marshal Haltom would have done his best to keep them from lynching me, but after that jailbreak I doubt if he'll be so worried about my welfare.”

“You mean if they spot us, they'll be shootin' to kill,” Scratch said.

“That's right.”

“Well, we'll just have to make sure they don't spot us.” Scratch looked around. They were in thickly wooded hills west of town. “Why don't we cut back to the north? They probably won't expect us to go that way. We can hit the Bastrop road and come back in from that direction.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Bo said.

“What'll we do when we get there?”

Bo thought about that for a moment before he said, “I want to talk to Barney Dunn.”

“The bartender?”

“He's the one who identified me in court.”

“And he sounded mighty sincere about it, too,” Scratch pointed out. “Even if we got our hands on him and forced him to change his story, nobody would believe it now.”

“I don't want him to change his story. I just don't think he's told all of it yet.”

“I talked to him, Bo. He seemed pretty convinced that the fella he saw that night looked like you.”

“Maybe he saw something else important and doesn't even realize it. Somehow, he's got to have the answers we're looking for.”

“We'll talk to him, then,” Scratch agreed, but he sounded a little dubious about the hope that it would do any good.

Steering by the stars, they turned and headed north. The path they followed wound through the hills. They stuck mostly to the trees, since the shadows were black and thick underneath the branches and made it less likely that a posse or anyone else would spot them.

“If the marshal was smart,” Scratch said, “he'd wait until mornin' to set out. Nobody but a Comanche or an Apache can track worth a damn at night.”

“Haltom's smart enough,” Bo said. “But emotions are running too high in town right now. Even if he knows he'd be more likely to find us by waiting until morning, he'll come after us tonight. The mob wouldn't have it any different, and the marshal's on the same side as them now.”

“Everybody's out to get Bo Creel, eh?”

“That's about the size of it,” Bo agreed with a dry fatalism in his voice. “I don't think I have any friends left back there in Bear Creek.”

“That's not true. Lauralee still believes you're innocent, and she claims some of the other folks do, too. There's just not enough of 'em to make themselves heard over the bunch that's yellin' for your head.”

“And there are my pa and my brothers, too,” Bo mused.

“Bo . . . there's somethin' I reckon I ought to tell you.”

Scratch sounded troubled by whatever was on his mind, so Bo said, “Go ahead. I'm listening.”

“I didn't send for John and your brothers. I reckon it was just pure luck they showed up when they did. Maybe they did come into town to help you, like you thought. I just don't know, one way or the other.”

Bo had to think about that for a moment. Finally he said, “Well, I guess we'll probably find out sooner or later, if we live long enough. In the meantime, I'll just be glad that they rode in right then.”

“Nothin' wrong with that,” Scratch agreed.

After a while they came to a road that headed northwest and southeast. Both men knew it was the road running from Bastrop to Bear Creek. They turned back to the southeast, toward the settlement.

No one else appeared to be abroad in these parts tonight. The road was deserted except for the two riders. They kept their eyes and ears open, knowing that if they encountered anyone else they would need to get off the road and into the trees in hopes that they wouldn't be seen.

“Bo, I've been thinkin',” Scratch said quietly. “About the Bear Creek Butcher.”

“What about him?”

“Well, we know he ain't you—”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Bo said, smiling in the darkness.

Scratch went on, “And right now, there really ain't no tellin' who he really is. But no matter who he turns out to be . . . why in blazes would anybody do what he did? Why strangle those gals and then chop 'em up like that?”

“The obvious answer is because he's loco.”

“How could anybody be that crazy?”

Bo shook his head and said, “We don't really have any way of knowing that, either. Something goes wrong inside, in somebody's heart or brain or both, and they turn poison mean. They just want to hurt other people. We've run into hombres who were kill-crazy before.”

“Yeah, but they were usually outlaws. They were after loot, and they'd gun down anybody who got in their way. Those saloon girls didn't have anything to steal except their lives.”

“I guess that was enough for the Butcher,” Bo said.

Scratch's questions made him think, though. Sure, anybody who saw the results of the Butcher's actions would think he was a madman. That was the only reasonable conclusion to draw.

But maybe there was something more to it than that, Bo mused. Some motivation nobody had seen yet. Determining whether or not that was true might go a long way toward helping them figure out who the murderer really was.

Eventually lights came into view up ahead. The two Texans reined to a halt.

“That'll be the settlement,” Scratch said. “We don't want to ride right down the street to the bridge. We'd better go ahead and cross over the creek so we can come up behind the saloons.”

Bo nodded in agreement.

“We ought to be pretty close to Dogleg Ford. You think we can find it in the dark?”

“Sure we can. Hell, we ought to know every foot of this country, as much as we traipsed all over it when we were kids.”

True to Scratch's prediction, they located Dogleg Ford without much trouble. Where the creek took the sharp bend that gave the ford its name, it shallowed down over a gravel bed that provided solid footing for the horses. Bo and Scratch rode across with their mounts' hooves kicking up small splashes in the water.

When they were on the eastern bank, they followed the stream south, not stopping until they were about a quarter of a mile from the cluster of lights that marked the location of the saloons. Bo and Scratch sat their saddles under a cottonwood tree that threw a lot of shadows from its spreading branches.

“Can't just waltz in there and grab Dunn,” Scratch commented quietly. “There'll still be too many folks around for that.”

“The saloon will close around midnight,” Bo said. “We'll wait until then and slip up on foot to see where he goes. You don't happen to know where he lives, do you?”

“Nope, and I never thought to ask Lauralee about it.”

“That's all right. We'll wait until we get him alone somewhere, then grab him and ask some questions. He's got to have seen something else, maybe even something he's forgotten about, that will give us a clue.”

And if they couldn't come up with anything by questioning the bartender, thought Bo, then he and Scratch would just have to dodge the law long enough to get confirmation from Judge Parker and Marshal Brubaker that they were nowhere near Bear Creek when the killings took place. Whether or not that would get them off the hook for the jailbreak, Bo didn't know. He suspected they would wind up having to pay for the damage to the jail, at the very least.

But paying a fine was a far cry from swinging from a cottonwood branch at the end of a hang rope.

Having to wait for the Southern Belle to close gave their horses a chance to rest. While they were doing that, Scratch told Bo about the things he had been doing, including the way he'd been knocked out and captured by some of the Rafter F hands.

“Sounds like Fontaine will do just about anything to gain an advantage over the Star C,” Bo commented.

“Yeah, and those hombres had a personal grudge against me, too,” Scratch said. He told Bo about Professor Sarlat and Veronique and how he had stepped in when the Rafter F punchers were harassing the couple from the medicine show.

The silver-haired Texan licked his lips and said, “I sure wish I had a bottle of that elixir right about now. It's mighty potent stuff, Bo.”

“You know it's bound to be mostly alcohol,” Bo pointed out.

“Oh, it's got booze in it, I reckon, but it's a lot more than that.”

“Yeah, opium, maybe.”

“You'll see,” Scratch insisted. “When this mess is cleared up, I'll get a bottle and you can try it. Then you'll understand what I'm talkin' about.”

Bo said, “I have to admit, I'm looking forward to meeting the two of them. The professor sounds like a character, and that girl Veronique . . . well, you make her sound pretty interesting.”

“Oh, she's interestin', all right,” Scratch said. “Interestin' enough to plumb take your breath away.” He explained about the rocket and the impromptu striptease that had followed it. “Those two know how to catch an hombre's eye, that's for sure.”

“By those two, you mean the professor and the girl?”

Scratch thought about it for a moment and replied, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

The faint tinkling of piano music drifted through the night air from several of the saloons. It tapered off as the hour grew late. Some of the lamps were blown out.

“Come on,” Bo said. “We need to get closer.”

They led their horses and approached the row of saloons on foot. Scratch led the way to the back of the shed where he had been held prisoner earlier in the day.

“We can leave the horses here,” Scratch whispered. “Nobody'll have any reason to bother 'em.”

Bo agreed with that plan. They tied their reins to one of the posts that held up the shed's rear wall and were about to cross the alley so they could slip through the thick shadows next to the saloon when the back door opened. Bo and Scratch drew back, crouching next to the shed.