a rickety front porch constructed of rough-cut, never-planed boards laid directly atop the parched, dusty ground. A number of shaggy, white-faced curs lazed around in the ever-shrinking rectangle of moving shade provided by the veranda’s overhang.
Scattered here and there, empty whiskey barrels of various sizes stood beneath the scruffy porch like a milling group of tipsy loafers seeking a spot of shelter from the sun. The largest of the metal-bound casks sat atop its own separate elevated platform. The container supported one end of a V-shaped, wooden gutter. The wishfully crude setup was for catching whatever sparse rainwater might someday drip from the roof’s front edge and rotting corners.
A pair of six-over-six glass-paned windows, located on either side of the front entrance, provided the only possibility for occupants to see outside. Above the chaotic porch’s pitched roof, a near-indecipherable sign informed the prospective imbiber that he was about to enter MENDOZA’S CANTINA DE CARTA BLANCA.
A wispy dust devil swept along the street all the way up from the river. The miniature cyclone paused between Boston’s livery and the saloon, then blew itself out as it twisted east and disappeared over the low hills that placed the dying west Texas village in a bowl-like earthen cavity.
I nodded, and my partners heeled it for their assigned spots at either end of Mendoza’s rude porch. “Careful, boys,” I softly hissed at their backs, “Don’t let your attention stray. Wait for my call. Try not to shoot me or each other.”
I stood in the swirling dust and waited until both my friends were properly stationed and had signaled their readiness. Then I strolled to a spot twenty or thirty feet distant from the liquor locker’s front entrance.
Mendoza’s only obvious method of egress and exit stood wide-open. It sported but one half of a weather- beaten batwing door that dangled from a single, bent, springloaded brass hinge.
After a quick glance at each of my partners, I held the Winchester’s stock against one hip, touched the trigger with my thumb, and fired off a single shot. The weapon’s thunderous report echoed off the surrounding hills. It ricocheted around a bit, then escaped west, back across the river, like a frightened animal fleeing from larger predators.
One-handed, I levered a fresh round in, then laid the gun across my left arm. Cupped my right hand to my mouth and yelled out, “This is Texas Ranger Lucius Dodge. You Pickett boys best come on out right now. We’ve got things to talk about.”
Didn’t take long to get the easily predictable results. No more than ten seconds had passed when inquisitive faces oozed up out of the interior darkness of the blasted entryway, then bobbled around behind the busted batwing like carnival balloons tethered to a string.
The decrepit cafe door squawked open, pushed to one side by a disembodied arm.
I recognized the first of the murderous Pickett bunch to slither out onto the porch as Priest. Tall, lank, and gaunt, the scowling killer dressed himself in the garb typical of most working cowboys—sombrero, faded cotton shirt, brightly colored neck scarf, high-waisted pants, shotgun chaps, riding boots, and massive, silver-plated Mexican spurs. His elaborate pair of horse rakers sported rowels the size of a grown man’s palm. He drunkenly crabbed-walked to one side of the porch.
Behind him came Roscoe, then Cullen. Although separated by one to three years, the men could have easily been mistaken for a set of stubble-chinned, grim-faced, rheumy-eyed triplets. As the dodgy, dangerous trio spread from one end of the veranda to the other, all the skinny dogs, hairless tails tucked between their legs, cautiously rose and slunk out of harm’s reach.
Priest edged his way to my left. He reached the farthest porch pillar and leaned a bony shoulder against it. The gunny had picked a spot not five feet from where Glo hid with his back pressed against one of the wooden doors that made up the cantina’s strangest wall.
The squint-eyed thug propped a booted foot atop one of the empty barrels. He hoisted an open, half-filled bottle to twisted, snarling lips. A goodly amount of the nose paint missed its target and ran from the corners of his mouth and down his neck.
He wiped his ragged chin across the sleeve of a bib-front shirt that appeared to have once been bright yellow. The lethal skunk cast a nervous, tight glance at his elder brother Roscoe, who had stepped off the watering hole’s rough porch and now stood in the street less than twenty feet from me.
Hat pulled low over mean, beady eyes, a smoldering hand-rolled ciga-reet dangling from the corner of a cruel mouth, Cullen Pickett leaned against the most distant prop on the opposite end of the porch from brother Priest. The man was totally unaware that Boz Tatum stood behind him, a buckshot-charged coach gun leveled at his murderous guts.
Roscoe, oldest and widely proclaimed by those who knew the family as the most dangerous of the slavering pack of human animals, rocked in the stifling afternoon breezes. He pushed the leading edge of his broad-brimmed, palm-leaf sombrero away from sun-tortured eyes.
“Just be goddamned. Truly is you, ain’t it, Dodge,” he said. “Heard you’d been outta circulation for a spell now. Hell, at first, we all thought you ’uz dead. Fact is, figure as how damned near everyone in this part of Texas thought you ’uz dead. Know we all hoped so leastways.”
Wind-dried lips curled off my teeth in a tight grin. “Sure do hate to disappoint a man like you, Roscoe. But you’ve gone and thrown your saddle on the wrong horse. I’m still very much alive, as you can readily see.”
The leader of the Pickett bunch let out a honking, derisive grunt, glanced at each of his lesser brothers, chuckled, then said, “Truth is I’m gladder’n hell you’re still with us, Dodge. Cause that’s gonna give me a chance to polish up my reputation by killin’ the hell out of you myself.”
Then, the stupid bastard made quite a production of rolling up his right shirtsleeve. He cut a quick glance down at the bone-gripped pistol pressed against his left hip and said, “See this here silver-plated, scroll-engraved, Colt layin’ ’cross my belly, Ranger Lucius ‘By God’ Dodge? Well, I’m gonna snatch ’er out shortly and blast the hell outta you, you irritatin’, badge-totin’ son of a bitch. Gonna use yer perforated hide for a flour sifter when I’m done.”
I snorted back at him, then said, “That a fact?”
“Damned right. Natural fact. Been hearin’ all kinda stories and tall tales ’bout you and that Winchester of yours for several years now. How fast and deadly you were with it and all. Never believed any a them silly-assed fables myself. Ain’t no man alive can crank one a them long guns fast as I can draw and fire. Jus’ been bidin’ my time, waitin’ for a chance like this to come my way.”
“Looking to put more notches on your gun, Roscoe?” I offered.
“Never pass up a chance to rub out law bringers like you, Dodge. And, bless my britches, if you don’t stroll right up here askin’ fer me to come on out here and give me the pleasure of killin’ yuh.”
I let his more-than-stupid comment pass without replying.
Several seconds of silence flew by, then he said, “You know, when me and the brothers looked out the door just now, Dodge, swear I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Thought to myself, well, son of a bitch, this must be your lucky day, Roscoe. Truth is, you can’t even begin to imagine how much I’m gonna enjoy puttin’ four or five smokin’ holes in your law-bringin’ ass.”
Squiggly shadows had got unnaturally long when I swung the Winchester around with one hand. Leveled the muzzle up on the man’s chest as I steadied the weapon by grasping the forearm. “Best throw all your pistols in the dirt right now, boys. Give yourselves up, so I can take you to Del Rio for trial and suitable hanging. Any of you go and do anything stupid and all three of you’ll end up under ground just like those poor folks you murdered out on Devils River earlier this morning.”
Priest Pickett’s foot slipped off the barrel top. The heavily booted appendage hit the plank porch with a resounding thump and the amber-colored liquor bottle slid from the man’s already questionable grip. The container bounced on the crude pile of wobbly boards beneath his feet, sprayed alcohol from the jug’s open top and peppered one leg all the way from the mule-ear pulls of the gunman’s stove-pipe boot to his waist. A wild-eyed look swept over the gunny’s acne-ravaged, pockmarked face.
“Hellfire and damnation, Roscoe. Did you hear what that son of a bitch just said?” Priest yelped.
Brother Roscoe’s arrogant demeanor changed in less than half the time it would take to blow out a kerosene lamp. His head cocked to one side, hand hovering over his cross-draw weapon, the leader of the Pickett boys glared at me from one bloodshot eye. “Shut your drunken, stupid mouth, Priest,” he snapped. Then to me, he growled, “What the hell ’er you talkin’ ’bout, Dodge? We don’t know nuthin’ ’bout no killings over on Devils River.”
I shot him another slight grin. “You’re a lying stack of walking horse dung, Roscoe. We tracked you boys all
