White Lightning (30 page)

“Five years? That’s it?” Lee Johnson pushed his empty beer mug back and told the passing bartender, “I’ll need another one of those.”

“Five years,” Slade said, confirming it. “A special deal for his cooperation.”

“Jesus,” Ben Oates muttered. “How much did he give ’em to get off that easy?”

Slade was drinking at the Wildwood, in downtown Enid, following the special hearing where Frank Berringer had filed his guilty plea on charges of malfeasance while in office, dodging other counts that could have seen him caged for twenty years if run consecutively.

“First he gave up an assistant deputy director of the BIA,” Slade said. “Guy name of Morrison. He’s been collecting five percent of everything Rafferty made from shipping liquor to the rez, and he was in for ten percent of any proceeds from the land deal when they had it all in place.”

“Figures,” said Johnson. “There’s not many you can trust in Washington, these days.”

“And he sold out the senator,” Slade said.

“Which one?” Oates asked.

“From Arkansas.”

“Broadbelly, is it?” Johnson asked.

“Broad
bent
,” said Slade, correcting him. “The judge is putting out a warrant for him, propably first thing tomorrow. Bribery, conspiracy, accessory to murder.”

“Think that it’ll stick?” asked Oates.

Slade shrugged and said, “Beats me. I’m done with it, once we get Berringer aboard that prison wagon.”

“And they’re takin’ him
today
?” asked Johnson.

“Judge is in a hurry,” Slade explained. “He thinks somebody may be scared enough to make a move on Berringer and shut him up for good. He’s on his way to Fort Supply, first thing, then off to Leavenworth with army guards.”

“All that over some ’shine,” said Oates.

“And land,” Slade said. “And nineteen people dead so far.”

“Most of ’em had it comin’, though,” said Johnson. Then he raised his mug and made a toast. “To Bill and Luke.”

And Little Wolf,
Slade thought, sipping his beer.

“You’re ridin’ escort on this joker, to the fort?” Oates asked.

Slade nodded. “Me, Ingram, and Sykes. We’ll be there overnight, head back tomorrow.”

“Should be fun,” said Johnson, “since you killed them soldier boys.”

“I’ve thought about that,” Slade admitted.

“Three of you against a couple hundred,” Oates suggested, grinning with a fleck of foam on his top lip. “Could get a little heated.”

“I suppose the colonel over there can keep a lid on his enlisted men,” Slade said. “If not…I guess we’ll see what happens.”

“Well, it’s been nice knowin’ you,” said Johnson, with a wicked smile.

“Thanks for the sympathy,” Slade said.

“Hey, better you than me.”

“Than either one of us,” said Oates.

“You reckon there’ll be any women at the fort?” asked Johnson.

“Couldn’t tell you,” Slade replied. “What difference does it make?”

“Well, Sykes, you know,” said Oates. “Feed him a couple drinks, and he starts tryin’ to impress the ladies. I remember one time—”

“Hate to break this up,” Slade said, “but I should go and get some things packed for the road.”

“Some linament for cuts and bruises, just in case,” said Johnson.

“Toss some splints in, while you’re at it,” Oates suggested.

“Ask for beefsteak if they black your eyes,” Johnson advised.

“Next round’s on me,” Slade said and left a dollar on the bar as he was leaving.

Out into the daylight, Main Street looked normal as he turned toward his hotel. It wouldn’t take long, packing. He’d be ready within twenty minutes, then required to sit around and wait for Berringer, but it was better than another hour in the saloon with Oates and Johnson. Put those two together with some beer, you couldn’t shut them up.

My pals,
he thought and had to smile, despite himself.

Just one more trip related to the case, and he could let it go. Move on to something different.

Or just move on?

Leaving was still an option, but he couldn’t think of anyplace to go, offhand. Something to think about while he was shadowing Frank Berringer to Fort Supply, and maybe ducking soldiers who were spoiling for a fight.

The gunman liked his chances of surviving, but that didn’t matter to the men who paid his salary. He had a job to do, and they expected him to follow through on it, regardless of the risk involved. They weren’t the kind of people you could cheat and walk away from it, unless you planned to spend the rest of what life you had left watching your back.

He’d chosen a rooftop across from the federal courthouse, secure in the knowledge that few—if any—people check the high ground while they’re strolling through a town, eyeing shop windows, meeting friends along the way, or simply tending to their normal business. No one thinks about the sky above unless it’s thundering or raining on their heads.

His weapon was a Winchester Model 1886 rifle, chambered for powerful .45-70 Government rounds whose 300-grain bullets traveled at 1,600 feet per second, striking with 1,700 foot-pounds of destructive energy. The gunman had those figures memorized, since killing was his business and he always used the most efficient tool for any given job.

Today, he would be firing from a range of fifty yards, with gravity to help him put his rounds on target. One should do it, but he’d have the time for two shots, anyway, before the pigeon’s escorts worked out where the fire was coming from. There’d never been a man he couldn’t kill with two
shots. Most took only one—or on occasion, when he had to do it quietly, a blade between the ribs.

Getting away when he was done would be a challenge, but the gunman had taken precautions. He had a fast horse tied behind the building that would serve him as a sniper’s roost, and his pockets were filled with spare rounds for his rifle. Aside from the long gun, he carried two pistols—a Colt M1892 Army and Navy revolver chambered for .38 Long Colt rounds, and a brand-new weapon made by Hugo Borchardt in Germany. The Borchardt C-93 was a peculiar-looking gun, described in its brochure as “self-loading,” and carried eight rounds of 7.65-millimeter ammunition—equivalent to .32 caliber—in a detachable butt-loaded box magazine. A practiced hand could empty those eight rounds within two seconds flat, and nothing in their way was safe.

And if all else failed, he also carried six half sticks of dynamite with two-inch fuses.

It all came down to waiting now, watching the courthouse and the street below until the marshals made their move. He’d have one chance to nail his target from the roof, and failing that…what? Flee the town and hope that he could meet the prison wagon on its way to Fort Supply? Or later, on the road to Leavenworth with half a dozen soldiers riding escort?

No.

He had one chance to do it right and get away. Maybe. Between the money he’d been offered for the killing and the fear or what would surely happen to him if he failed, the gunman had no choice. Do this, and he would be a hero to the men who mattered, all the way from Little Rock to Washington, DC. Fail and he would barely be a memory.

The gunman checked his pocket watch and saw that it
was nearly one o’clock. As if on cue, the prison wagon made its creaking way along Main Street, two horses pulling it, a deputy of middle age atop the driver’s seat, the metal cage behind him empty for the moment.

Not for long.

It stopped before the courthouse, driver waiting, and another pair of marshals came outside to have a look around. Armed as they were, they must expect a problem—or at least suspect that someone might attempt to shut their captive’s mouth for good.

And they were right.

The gunman raised his Winchester, its wood and metal warm from basking in the sun, and eased its hammer back.

Slade led Frank Berringer out of his basement cell with shackles and manacles clanking, walking slowly to accommodate the prisoner’s shuffling gait. Although he’d been rushed through the process of arraignment, plea, and sentencing, Berringer had the look of someone who had been in custody for weeks. Forlorn, with shoulders slumped, feet dragging even more than ankle chains required, he struggled up the concrete steps with Slade beside him and emerged into bright daylight like a blind cave dweller.

“I suppose you’re happy now,” he said to Slade, as they began to cross the courtyard, on their way to Main Street and the wagon that would transport Berringer to Leavenworth, two hundred fifty miles away.

“Happy? How do you figure that?” asked Slade.

“To see me like this. Humbled and disgraced.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Slade responded. “You disgraced yourself. It wasn’t something done to you.”

“And so justice is served!” Berringer sneered at the idea.

“Think so?” Slade asked. “I would’ve said that called for hanging.”

He could see the wagon now, Dutch Ingram on the driver’s seat, Fred Sykes holding the door open in back. Berringer started to reply, mouth opening, but then it kept on going, yawning into something from a nightmare as his skull exploded, spraying blood and tissue in a warm, wet cloud. Some of it spattered Slade, smearing the right side of his face, before his ears picked up the crack of gunfire from somewhere across the street.

You never hear the shot…

For Berringer, at least, the old saying was true. Slade let the nearly headless body drop, focused on spotting where the rifleman had fired from. He could see a puff of smoke just dissipating at the cornice of a rooftop catty-corner from the courthouse. The Hotel Deluxe, four stories tall, with a commanding view of Main Street, a figure barely glimpsed up there, just ducking out of sight.

Slade called a warning out to Sykes and Ingram, as he ran toward the hotel. “Sniper! Top of the Deluxe! Get help and cut him off! We need him breathing!”

It became a blur from there, Slade running with his pistol drawn and people watching from the sidewalks, some faces that he recognized, distorted now by shock at what they’d witnessed seconds earlier. He didn’t bother shouting at them to find cover. It was clear the rifleman had come to do a job and wasn’t on a mindless shooting spree.

Halfway across Main Street, still watching the hotel’s rooftop, Slade saw a small object detach itself and tumble toward him, trailing smoke. It barely registered until the cut-down stick of dynamite touched down and detonated, smoke and dust enveloping the street scene as a thunderclap hammered Slade’s eardrums, slamming him to earth.

He struggled to his feet again, Colt still in hand, and almost got his balance back before a second charge exploded within twenty feet of him. There was no shrapnel from the blast, just dirt and grit that peppered Slade and briefly blinded him, some of it sticking to the fresh blood on his face and giving him the aspect of a scarecrow dipped in mud.

Ears ringing, sleeving filth out of his eyes, Slade stumble-jogged to the hotel and paused a moment at the entrance to an alleyway beside it. If the rifleman was still above him, tossing dynamite into the street, it meant he hadn’t climbed down yet. Slade had a chance to catch him if he didn’t stall too long or let his sudden dizziness betray him.

Mouthing a curse he couldn’t hear, Slade started down the alley, wishing that he had his shotgun. It would be a neat trick, taking Berringer’s assassin without killing him—but that was not to say Slade couldn’t
wound
him if he had to, trusting Dr. Abernathy to repair whatever damage might be suffered in the process. All he needed was a captive fit to talk, say who had sent him, fix his boss up with a necktie party.

As for Berringer…well, it was justice of a sort. Slade wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over his passing.

Not unless he let the killer slip away.

The rifleman was in a hurry, but he didn’t panic. He’d already caused enough confusion on the street below to buy himself some time. The quickest member of the team escorting Berringer was likely down and out, a double blast of dynamite enough to stun him if it hadn’t shaken loose his brains.

And it was time to go, before the other lawmen managed to get organized, call reinforcements, block his exit from
the prairie town. Anxiety was foreign to his makeup, but he felt the sense of urgency that made him run across the hotel’s flat rooftop, hanging his rifle on its sling across his shoulder as he started down a wooden ladder mounted to the wall.

His horse whickered below him, as if urging him to hurry. Rung by rung, he clambered down the ladder, hoping no civilian with a gun and misplaced strain of heroism would attempt to stop him when he reached the ground. The money he’d been paid covered one death, and while the shooter had no qualms about raising the toll, he didn’t kill for free if it could be avoided.

Anyway, another shot would draw pursuers to him like a swarm of flies to dung.

His left foot came to rest on solid ground, immediately followed by his right. He started for his stallion and had nearly reached it when a hoarse and winded voice behind him ordered, “Stop right there!”

He couldn’t clear the rifle fast enough to aim and fire it, so he pulled the Colt instead, spinning around and triggering a shot when it had barely cleared its holster. The revolver’s double-action trigger saved a crucial second for him, and he didn’t bother aiming. Barely even saw his target, truth be told, before the first slug cleared his pistol’s muzzle.