to bring this black devil over here for me to work on. Peon’s sittin’ out front waitin’ for me to finish so’s he can return this monster to its owner soon’s I’m done.”
Rubbed the back of an aching, sunburned neck, then said, “Could you call the man back here so I can talk to him?”
Boston swiveled at the waist and yelled, “Gustavo. Gustavo Morales.
Barefoot and stooped, a white-haired Mexican, sombrero held against his wizened chest like a shield, shuffled up to a spot near Boston and stopped. “
Boston grinned, shook his sweaty pate, waved my direction, then said, “This gentleman’s a Texas Ranger. Wants to ask you some questions.”
Gustavo Morales’s black eyes widened. Lines of worry creased the old man’s forehead when he said,
Pushed the still-dripping hat to the back of my head with one finger. “No need to be afraid, Senor Morales. Simply want you to tell me where the men who sent you here are sitting in Mendoza’s Cantina. As I remember there’s only room enough for four tables inside the joint. So, are they up by the front door, in the middle of the room, or in back near the bar?”
Morales’s darting glance flicked from face to face until it reached the angelic visage of Clementine Webb. Of a sudden, the ancient peon stopped twisting his hat and appeared to relax a bit. As if unable to comprehend the reasons for her presence, he continued to stare at the girl as he said, “Near the bar, senor
Boz slapped his good leg with his reins and said, “Be foolish to go in there after ’em, Dodge. Mendoza’s joint is way too cramped for a six-man gunfight. A one-eyed, three-fingered jasper who couldn’t hit a washtub with a shotgun could get lucky. Kill the whole bunch of us in such confined circumstances.”
“Ain’t dat duh truth,” Glo chimed in.
Big Jim Boston ran a hand beneath his leather apron and scratched a tub-sized belly. He said, “Sure you boys have a good reason to be talkin’ ’bout gunfights, killin’, getting’ killed, and such. Mind tellin’ me why you’re after these men?”
I knifed a sidelong glance at Clementine Webb, then said, “Tracked them all the way here from over on Devils River not far from the ranch, Jim. They helped murder this child’s entire family in a stand of cottonwoods where Three Mile Creek dribbles into the river.”
“Jee-zus. Sorry to hear that,” Boston muttered.
“Yeah, well, we’d like to get one of them alive. But I’d be willing to bet they’ll go down shooting. Sons a bitches will fight rather than let us take them in for the most brutal killings any of us have come across in years. Those fellers have an absolutely certain date with a bullet or a piece of short hemp and a long drop.”
Boston stared at Clementine with renewed interest. “Right sorry to hear about your loss, young lady,” he said.
Clementine pulled the dog closer and silently stared at the ground as though she didn’t care for the topic of discussion.
“Gonna have to call ’em out onto Mendoza’s porch, or maybe into the street, if we can figure a way to get ’em to come that far,” I said.
I turned on my heel, strode to my animal, and slipped the Winchester from its scabbard. As though I’d somehow mysteriously lit a hidden fuse, Boz and Glo hotfooted it to their own animals. They quickly armed themselves with their big-barreled blasters, too. In a flurry of activity, the three of us retrieved additional ammunition. Once again, we went through the process of making certain our weapons were ready and in working order. When finally satisfied with the condition of their hardware, Boz and Glo looked to me for instructions.
“Okay, here’s how it’ll go down,” I said. “We’ll spread out. Since we know from past experience that Mendoza’s doesn’t have a back exit, we’ll approach the front in a three-pronged assault. I’ll go at the front door head on. Boz, you move up to the veranda on my right. Glo, you take the left. Want you boys to get around behind ’em by moving to the corners of the cantina’s front facade where they can’t see you. Then stay out of sight until I need you.”
Boz and Glo nodded.
“Once we’re set, I’ll call ’em out. Maybe the Pickett boys are drunk enough by now to think I’m alone. If they get to figuring the three of them can take me without much effort, be willing to bet they’ll come out onto the porch. Once they’re all outside we’ll have ’em in a crossfire. Right where we want ’em.”
“Then what?” Boz said.
“Well, if I need you boys to move out where they can see you, I’ll call for you to step on out and show yourselves. Should it prove necessary for you to have to make the move, get well situated as quickly as possible. Given where you’re gonna be standing, gotta stay sharp. Sure as the devil don’t want you shooting across the porch with those shoulder cannons of yours and accidentally hitting one another.”
Big Jim Boston danced from foot to foot like a trained bear in a traveling circus. He nervously rubbed both hands up and down on the sides of his leather apron. “Well, none of this sounds good. What ’er you intendin’ to do here, Dodge?”
The rifle made a loud mechanical racking noise when I levered a shell into the Winchester’s receiver and left the hammer back.
The harsh, metallic click of the rifle’s lever slapping against the stock’s grip jerked Clementine Webb’s head up. An eerie unearthliness crept into the girl’s voice when she hissed, “He intends to kill them all. Don’t you, Ranger Dodge?”
I refused to look at the girl. Boz and Glo in tow, I strode past Big Jim and headed through the wide-open barn’s back door and, from there, toward the front entrance. “We’ll see,” I said.
Then, over one shoulder, I called out, “You stay here, Clem. Keep the dog with you. Don’t let him get to wandering around till the shooting’s over. Anyone bothers you, just snap your fingers and tell Bear to go get ’em.”
15
“. . . USE YER PERFORATED HIDE FOR A FLOUR SIFTER . . .”
LINED UP NEAR elbow to elbow, we drew to a halt outside Boston’s front entrance near a decrepit rail fence that surrounded the livery’s horse-poor corral. East of the empty enclosure stood the ramshackle grocery and mercantile business of Eldritch Smoot. Men’s and women’s ready-made clothing, draped over wooden hangers, nearly covered the boardwalk outside Smoot’s street-facing windows.
Beneath the fading shirts and dresses were a number of rickety tables beset with mounds of tarnished pots, pans, galvanized washtubs, and discolored bolts of cloth. The floorboards of the store’s raised veranda were littered, here and there, with piles of ancient, dust covered, army-surplus McClellan saddles. Above the shabby concern’s open door, a weather-scarred sign invited shoppers inside by boasting the availability of guns, boots and shoes, dry goods and clothing, hats and caps.
Boz, me, and Glo cast darting glances toward Smoot’s. We eyeballed each nook and cranny of Carta Blanca’s main thoroughfare, then carefully gave Mendoza’s one more final going-over.
We viewed the rough cantina at something of an angle that made it somewhat problematic for us to see the entire front facade all at one time. Off to our left, the slap-dash, westernmost side of the saloon ran away from us and toward the low hill the joint’s back wall abutted.
The place appeared to have grown up in bits and pieces, like a patch of unwanted ragweed. Half the establishment’s front facade, on the most distant side of the entrance, was constructed of crumbling, adobe bricks. The remainder of the shanty-like affair seemed to have been built from discarded scraps of wind-aged lumber taken from the remains of other long-gone houses, businesses, and saloons.
The most easily viewable exterior side of the structure was nothing more than a jumbled series of weathered, paint-blistered, wooden doors nailed one edge atop the other like shake shingles. A sloped roof covered
