The only man on the porch who’d not uttered a single word during the entire confrontation went to the ground like a load of brick dropped from the roof of a San Antone whorehouse. I knew without bothering to check that Cullen Pickett was deader than Wild Bill was when his head hit the poker table in Deadwood’s NO. 10 Saloon.
In his whiskey-sodden haste to get outside and pick a fight with a man who appeared to be alone, Priest Pickett had completely forgotten to flip the hammer thong away from his weapon. The sound of my two shots still hung in the air as he panicked and jerked on the uncooperative shooter once, twice, three times.
On the third try, the crazy-eyed varmint’s sweaty fingers slipped from the oiled walnut grips with such force he came nigh on to slapping himself right in the face. Terrified, flusterated, and unnerved, he grabbed at the weapon again and fired a burning shot down his own right leg that chewed a massive hole in the plank porch at his feet. Then, the confused child murderer screeched like a wounded animal, turned on his heel, and went to running like he’d lost his mind. Darted past Glorious Johnson’s hiding spot around the corner.
Standing amidst a roiling cloud of spent black-powder smoke, I levered a third shell into the rifle’s receiver and called out, “He’s yours, Glo.”
With the stock of the Greener pressed to his shoulder, Glo stepped away from his hiding place like a man on a leisurely stroll to Sunday school and yelled, “You can go on and stop runnin’ now, Mr. Pickett.”
Guess Priest made two more steps before a cannon-like wad of tightly grouped buckshot blasted him between the shoulder blades. A gob of lead lifted the fleeing killer out of his boots like a rag doll and dumped him onto his face. A handful of witnesses, who had viewed the action from inside the paltry group of functioning business in Carta Blanca, would later tell anyone who’d listen that it was as if someone had run up beside ole Priest and hit him in the back with a long-handled shovel. The murderous wretch landed in the dirt deader than a brass doorknob on an outhouse. Didn’t even flop.
16
“DAMNATION, GIRL ...”
I SHOVED THREE fresh rounds into the Winchester’s loading gate and watched as a dying Roscoe Pickett dragged himself to Mendoza’s nearest porch pillar and propped one shoulder against it.
Rifle held out with one hand to cover the wounded outlaw, I strolled over to a position a few feet from him and squatted down to where the fading man could see me. Coach gun at the ready, Boz sidled up from his spot behind the now-dead Cullen’s original position.
“Well you sure as hell kilt the bejabbers out of these two, Lucius. Didn’t leave much for me,” Boz mumbled.
Blood poured from the corner of Roscoe’s twitching mouth and oozed from between the fingers clutching the hole in an already drenched chest. “Damn,” he gurgled. “That was fast. Cain’t b-b-believe it. S-shot me s-so quick. Son of a bitch. You done w-w-went and shot me through and th-through. Shit. Hurts like hell on a b-b-burnin’ stick. Prolley done went and kilt me deader’n a rotten stump. God Am-mighty. K-Kilt my brothers, too. D-d-damn you, Dodge.”
“Yes,” I said and nodded. “Yes indeed. Your sorry brothers are both very dead. And you’re headed to Hell with ’em.”
The outlaw groaned, rolled his head from side to side, then gasped, “W-w-well, soon’s I’m gone, you can roll me over, p-p-pull my britches down, bend over, and k-k-kiss my ass, Dodge.”
Rustling movement caused me to twist on the balls of my feet and glance over one shoulder. A step or so away from the bloody carnage of dying and dead men, I spotted Clementine Webb, with one hand rested on the panting Bear’s thick neck. From somewhere the girl had acquired a spanking-new Mexican palm-leaf hat.
“Ask him where the others went,” she said through gritted teeth.
I swung my concentrated attention back to Roscoe. “We already know where they’re going, Clem. Big Jim said he saw them heading out for Del Rio, remember?”
Her voice sounded like broken icicles falling from a frozen roof in Kansas when she snarled, “Where, exactly, Ranger Dodge? Those that kept running must’ve been in a hurry to meet somebody, somewhere, don’t you think? Who were they in such a hurry to see? Where did they intend to meet? How long do we have before they get completely away?”
I flicked a glance at the dying sun, then stared at the ground between my feet for a second and said, “Well, you heard the lady, Pickett. Who’re Murdock and Atwood so hot to meet up with in Del Rio that they would leave you boys here and go on ahead without you?”
A gurgling stream of pinkish-red froth bubbled from between the claw-like fingers clutching at Pickett’s chest. An unglier, darker river dribbled out onto his chin. “Ain’t—ain’t—ain’t tellin’. Ain’t tellin’ you bastards a goddamned thang. Sure, s-s-sure’s hell ain’t got nothin’, nothin’ to say to no runty, s-s-smart-assed split-tail of a girl.”
I felt the crackle of Clementine’s sleeve as it grazed my elbow. It sounded like fresh-fired bullets sizzling past my ear when she hissed, “Well, then, you’re completely useless to me or anyone else, aren’t you?”
From the corner of one eye, I saw the little pistol flash up in the girl’s hand and immediately recognized the weapon as a New Line .32-caliber pocket pistol.
For reasons I could not have explained to God, or anyone else, afterward, the fact that Clementine Webb had the barrel of a loaded weapon pressed to the end of the dying Roscoe Pickett’s nose just didn’t register with me for about half a second. When it finally dawned on me what was about to occur, I made an awkward, squatting lunge at the miniature shooter just as it went off. Burning powder singed my fingers when they wrapped around the weapon’s tiny cylinder.
The little gal’s well-aimed bullet hit the gravely wounded Roscoe right in the mouth. A searing chunk of peanut-sized lead knocked all his front teeth out, carved a tunnel through the soft tissue at the back of his throat, and blasted its way through a spot in his neck just below the skull bone. The bullet shoved most of his shattered teeth out the newly acquired port in his head and splattered the entire hair-covered mess onto the wooden porch prop he leaned against.
I ripped the smoking pistol from Clementine’s grasp, then rolled into the dust on my bony rump. Clumsily, I hopped up with all the red-faced embarrassment and alacrity of a suitor who’s just fallen down a series of steps right in front of a woman he was trying his best to impress.
“Damnation, girl,” I yelped, then flicked a glance at Roscoe Pickett’s shattered teeth, blasted skull, and sagging corpse. I shook my head in total disbelief, then locked Clementine in a narrow, steely gaze and added, “You’ve grown a mighty thick layer of hard bark around your heart since this morning, darlin’.”
The girl’s ferocious, crazed, turquoise gaze flashed from Pickett to me and back again. It sounded damn near unearthly when she snarled, “I thought about what these men did all the way from Devils River to here, Ranger Dodge. He deserved to die. Moreover, he deserved to die by my hand. Truth is, they all deserved to die by my hand.” She ran trembling fingers through her hair, as though clearing away any arguments against her conduct, then added, “It’s biblical, by God. In the Scripture. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Blood for blood.”
I cast a bewildered glance toward heaven. Felt as though she’d somehow confused me into silence. After several seconds, I glanced at the tiny pistol in my hand and snapped, “I told you I’d take care of this. Gave you my word.”
“True,” the girl snapped back. “Just thought you could use a little help bringing this particular part of the dance to a suitable conclusion.”