B.W. shook the bed. “You Cletus Brown?” he said and the man turned his head toward them, opened one eye.
“Go away,” he said and dropped his head back on the bed and closed his eyes.
B.W. and Rance looked at each other and Rance made a lifting motion and B.W. nodded. They put their guns away, grabbed the mattress, picked it up and flipped it over. The woman crawled out from under the bed, wrapped a sheet around her and ran out of the room without saying a word. Cletus crawled out on his hands and knees, picked up his pants, pulled himself up on a chair and sat down. He was trying to put his pants on over his boots.
“That would be easier if you take the boots off first,” Rance said.
“Who the hell are you?”
“We found your wife and daughter after an Indian attack. They managed to survive by hiding in the cellar. The Indians took your stock and most everything else.”
“Oh my god,” he said, dropped his pants on the floor, put his head in his hands. “You bring ‘em here?”
“Yes. Get dressed, they’re waitin’ for you at Ma’s Café,” Rance said.
“Not anymore,” a woman’s voice said from behind them. They turned to the door and April was standing there, holding the carbine. “It’s true. You did do it, and left me and May to die.”
“I was drunk. I don’t remember what I did.”
“So long, Cletus.” She aimed the carbine at him but B.W. pushed the barrel up just as she pulled the triggers and she shot a hole in the ceiling, debris falling on the bed. Cletus scampered under the bed, his boots sticking out.
“Give me the gun,” Rance said. “He ain’t worth killin’ over.”
She started to cry and he took the carbine from her.
“Cletus Brown, you can go to hell. I’m goin’ back to Virginia,” she said, looking at Cletus’ boots. She wiped her eyes and hurried out the door.
“You can come out now,” B.W. said. “The big bad wolf is gone, you sorry sonofabitch.”
The bed came flying up in the air, Cletus stood up wild-eyed, slobbering like a mad dog and made a lunge for the carbine. B.W. kicked him away and slammed the barrel of his Colt hard against his head.
Blood flew out of a big gash on his head and he staggered backwards and fell on the overturned bed.
B.W. picked up the carbine, opened the window and threw it outside.
Cletus moaned and sat up, wiping the blood from his head with a sheet.
“Stay away from April and May or we’ll kill you. You understand?” B.W. said.
“Who are you?” Cletus asked, dabbing at the blood on his forehead with the sheet.
“Don’t matter. Do what we said.” Rance said and they walked out.
They bought her and May a stage ticket bound for Roanoke, Virginia and gave her twenty dollars of Jake’s money.
May kept goading Tommy right up to the time the stage pulled out, telling him she could beat him up.
Tommy had pretty well ignored her, and nothing infuriates a female more then to be ignored at any age.
After April and May left, Rance, B.W. and Tommy ate at Ma’s, watered and fed their horses, gave the livery owner an extra buck and rode out of town to get more ground between them and the marshal.
12
They got up at daybreak and saddled their horses. Tommy fixed some flapjacks.
“Hope that lady and her daughter make it back to Virginia okay,” B.W. said.
“That crazy kid of hers needs a spanking,” Tommy said. “Wantin’ to fight me.”
“You did the right thing, Tommy, we don’t hit girls,” Rance said.
“Well that didn’t matter to the men my mama saw. A lot of them would beat the hell out of her for no good reason.”
“I’ll do the cussin’, Tommy,” B.W. said.
“Those kind are not men, Tommy , they’re scum,” Rance said.
“Do you know who shot your mama?” B.W. asked.
“I think so,” Tommy said. “I was washing glasses at the bar when I heard a shot and my mama screaming. I ran up the stairs and a man ran out of our room, shovin’ me and runnin’ down the stairs. I noticed he had pearl-handled pistols and fancy boots as he ran past me. I followed him out of the saloon. He jumped on a bay horse and rode out of town as fast as he could go. When I got back to our room my mama was dead. The sheriff never even went after him.”
“What kind of fancy boots?“ Rance asked.
“They were red and black with a longhorn cow on them. I can still see them.”
“Sounds like Texas longhorns,” Rance said.
“Sure does,” B.W. said. “They have cows in Texas, Tommy, that have longer horns than anywhere else. He may have been from Texas.”
“Nobody had ever seen him before,” Tommy said.
“That may be why,” B.W. said.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’ B.W.?” Rance said.
“Yeah, could be. Your mama say anything ‘bout trouble ‘fore she was killed?” he asked Tommy
“No, nothing.”
“Anything else?” Rance said.
“Just that we was goin’ back to Texas to get what was ours and my papa might not like it.”
“Guess we’ll have to be on the lookout for those boots when we get to Texas,” B.W. said. “May be a thousand pair or one, if they was custom made.”
“If we can get there in one piece,” Rance said.
“How would the marshal know where we’re going if Miss Julie don’t tell him?” Tommy said.
“She won’t, but men like that are trained to know,” Rance said. “Pretty sure he’s figured it out by bnow. If we can find a cattle train going to Texas, we could get there a lot quicker. Maybe on one of your daddy’s trains.”
As they rode on, dark clouds
