Читать книгу Massacre at Whiskey Flats - William W. Johnstone - Страница 6

“Sounds like a ruckus brewin’ out there.”

Bo Creel tried to ignore his trail partner’s comment, as well as the elbow that Scratch Morton prodded insistently into his side. The two Texans had spent a long, hot, dusty day in the saddle, and all Bo wanted to concentrate on at the moment was the cold beer in front of him on the bar. Condensation ran down the sides of the mug to form a puddle on the hardwood. It was a moment of delicious anticipation.

But then someone in the street outside, where a commotion had erupted in the past few minutes, shouted, “Somebody find a bucket of tar and some feathers!”

Bo sighed. He was an easygoing hombre, but some things stuck in his craw.

Tarring and feathering some luckless bastard was one of them.

“Think we ought to go see what’s goin’ on?” Scratch prodded.

“Might as well,” Bo said. “You won’t be satisfied until we do.”

He turned toward the batwinged entrance of the Buffalo Bar, casting a look of regret over his shoulder at that mug of cold beer as he did.

The Texans walked side by side, a pair of tough frontiersmen who had wandered the West from the Rio Grande to the Milk River, from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast, for nigh on to forty years now. They had first met as youngsters, back when their homeland was still part of Mexico and General Santa Anna’s army had sent the Texican settlers fleeing in the great exodus known as the Runaway Scrape, in those dark days after the fall of the Alamo.

Bo’s father and Scratch’s pa had both been members of Sam Houston’s ragtag army, and the newfound friends had run away to join up, too, arriving just in time to swap lead with the Mexicans during the Battle of San Jacinto, the clash that had won freedom for Texas and Texans. Scratch had saved Bo’s life that day, the first time among many that each of them had risked his hide for the other, and they had been best friends ever since. Through tragedy and triumph, they had ridden together, and even though they never went looking for trouble, the acrid scent of powder smoke always seemed to follow them.

They were both tall, muscular men, but that was where the resemblance ended. Scratch’s hair had turned silver at an early age, but he was still handsome, with a ready grin that the ladies found quite appealing. He was something of a dandy, too, sporting a cream-colored Stetson and a fringed buckskin jacket over whipcord trousers tucked into high-topped boots. An elaborately tooled leather gunbelt was strapped around his waist, and in its holsters rode twin, long-barreled Remington revolvers with ivory grips on their handles.

Where Scratch had a touch of flamboyance about him, Bo was more restrained and sober, in a dusty black suit with a long coat that made him look a little like a reverend. He wore a white shirt and a string tie, and his flat-crowned black hat rested on thick brown hair with gray threaded through it. Bo carried only one gun, a Colt .45 with well-worn walnut grips.

The faces of both men had been weathered by the long years of wandering…tanned by countless desert suns and seamed by the frigid winds of the high country, living maps of the frontier and all its harsh beauty. Their deep-set eyes, framed by perpetual squints, had witnessed just about everything there was to witness.

In other words, they had been to see the elephant, and more than once at that.

So as they pushed past the curious customers in the Buffalo Bar who had congregated at the entrance and front windows of the saloon, slapped aside the batwings, and stepped out onto the boardwalk, Bo and Scratch didn’t see anything they hadn’t seen before. An angry mob of more than a dozen men clustered in the street, shoving their hapless victim back and forth as they jeered and taunted him about what they were fixing to do to him.

In the fading light of day, Bo and Scratch saw that the man was young, no more than twenty-five or so. He wore a dark suit and a black hat. His duds were fancier and more expensive than Bo’s similar outfit. As one of the members of the mob gave him a hard shove, his hat fell off, revealing a shock of blond hair. He looked scared, Bo thought…as well he might be.

“Here comes Ralston,” one of the men bellowed. He was the biggest man in the crowd, with powerful, slab-muscled shoulders and a prominent gut. “Did you get it?” he called to the four or five men who approached the scene in the middle of the street.

One of them waved something in the air and replied, “Here’s a couple o’ my wife’s feather pillows, and Duncan’s got a bucket o’tar! That’ll fix that four-flusher up mighty fine!”

“What’d your wife say about you takin’ them pillows, Ralston,” a man called with a jeering tone in his voice, “or did you sneak ’em out without her knowin’?”

“Damn it,” Ralston said. “I’ll have you know I wear the pants in my family!”

“Leave it alone,” snapped the big-gutted man. “We got more important things to deal with, like teaching this no-good swindler a lesson he’ll never forget!”

The mob’s victim spoke up, trying to sound reasonable. But the quaver in his voice betrayed his fear as he said, “Now, Mr. Harding, there’s no need for this to get out of hand. I’m sure if you’ll just let me explain, you’ll see that this is all just a big misunderstanding—”

“Misunderstanding, hell!” the man called Harding bellowed. “You tried to gyp everybody around here out of what they got comin’ to them! You’ll be sorry you ever set foot in these parts, mister!”

It looked to Bo like the gent was already sorry, as well as scared for his life. Most of the time, men who were tarred and feathered survived the painful, humiliating experience, but sometimes they died of the burns inflicted by the hot tar. It was one step short of a lynching, but potentially just as fatal.

Quite a few of the townspeople had gathered on the boardwalks to watch the grim scene being played out in the street. Bo looked over at one of them, a balding man with a prominent Adam’s apple who wore a storekeeper’s apron. The man had a frown of disapproval on his face.

“Who’s the fella with the big belly?” Bo asked the townsman.

“You mean the one running the show, like he runs everything else around here?”

Bo nodded.

“That’s Tom Harding,” the storekeeper went on. “Owns the biggest ranch in these parts, as well as having his fingers in half a dozen businesses here in town.”

“Big skookum he-wolf, is he?” Scratch asked.

“He thinks he is anyway.” The man sighed. “And I reckon he is. He’s got some tough hombres working for him, so most folks just go along with whatever he wants. Simpler that way.”

“And less dangerous,” Bo commented.

The merchant shrugged. “We’re just common folks, mister, not gunhands.”

“What about the law? Don’t you have a marshal?”

“That’s him with the pillows,” the man replied disgustedly. “Marshal Ed Ralston. He hasn’t seen the outside of Harding’s hip pocket since Harding got him appointed to the job.”

Bo and Scratch glanced at each other in the fading light. If they took a hand in this game, they would be going up against not only a wealthy, powerful rancher who fancied himself the lord of his own little kingdom, but also the official forces of law and order, corrupt though they might be.

But it wouldn’t be the first time they had gotten crosswise with the law. In their travels they had always been more concerned with doing what was right, rather than what was necessarily legal.

“What do you think, Bo?” Scratch asked.

Bo’s face was grim as he replied, “I think it’s time we put a stop to this.”

The storekeeper stared at them in amazement. “Are you fellas loco?” he asked. “Going up against Tom Harding is a good way to get yourselves killed! Not only that, but that hombre they’re going to tar and feather really is a crook. He tried to swindle the whole town!”

“Then he ought to be dealt with legally,” Bo said. He took a step down from the boardwalk into the street and started toward the mob.

He didn’t have to look around to make sure that Scratch was with him. He knew that his trail partner would be there.

A couple of Harding’s men had grabbed hold of the swindler’s arms. He writhed in their grasp and tried desperately to pull free, his instincts forcing him to struggle even though it was obvious he couldn’t escape from the ring of angry men that encircled him. He let out a yell as another man approached him carrying a bucket from which tendrils of steam rose. The bucket contained hot tar, ready to be dumped on the luckless victim.

“Hold it!” Harding yelled.

At this apparent last-minute reprieve, the swindler sagged in the grip of the men holding him. “I’ve learned my lesson, Mr. Harding,” he babbled. “I surely have.”

“Strip him first,” Harding ordered harshly, “then put the tar on him.”

The swindler’s face twisted in horror. He cried out and started to struggle again as hands reached for him to tear his clothes off.

That was when Bo said in a loud, clear, powerful voice that carried to everyone on the street, “That’s enough!”