[Texas Rangers 05] - Texas Vendetta (22 page)

Big’un smiled grimly as the sheriff walked outside.

“Hell, Oscar, you ain’t comin’ back.”

Scooter Tennyson sat in a rickety chair leaned back against the barn door, dozing in the warmth of the early-fall sun. He dreamed he was fishing in the San Saba River and Bo brought an ax from behind the kitchen tent, telling him to cut more wood.

He awakened with a start, remembering that he was supposed to keep watch while his father slept inside. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he saw two horsemen approaching. He froze in panic for a moment, then rushed into the barn.

“Pa, wake up. Somebody’s comin’.”

Lige Tennyson was quickly on his feet, grabbing for his pistol. He hurried to the barn door. “They’re almost on us. You was supposed to keep watch.”

“I’m sorry, Pa.”

“Sorry don’t fix it.” Lige squinted, then relaxed. “One of them is that deputy I told you about, Big’un Hopper. Reckon he’s come to give me a job like he promised. But I didn’t figure on him bringin’ anybody else.” He started to put away the pistol, then thought better of it. “You stay back out of sight just in case.”

“All right, Pa.”

Lige walked out into the open. He kept the pistol in his hand but lowered it so it would not appear to offer a threat.

Big’un eyed the pistol with suspicion, but his voice sounded jovial enough. “Howdy.”

“How do, yourself.”

The other man spoke. “Do you go by the name of Tennyson?”

“Sometimes. Depends on where I’m at and who I’m talkin’ to. And who am I talkin’ to?”

So quickly that Lige missed the move, Oscar Truscott drew a pistol and pointed it at Lige’s belly. “I am the sheriff of this county. I am placin’ you under arrest for bank robbery and attempted murder. Drop that pistol.”

Lige let the weapon fall to his feet. Confused, he looked at Big’un. “What kind of a trick is this?”

“Not quite the kind it looks like.” Big’un drew his own pistol. Lige saw murder in the man’s eyes and braced himself for a bullet.

Instead of aiming at Lige, Big’un pointed the pistol toward Truscott. The sheriff blinked in confusion.

Big’un said, “Looks like election is comin’ sooner than you thought, Oscar.” He squeezed the trigger. Truscott jerked. His horse jumped as the sheriff slid down over its left side.

Truscott looked up in mortal pain. “For God’s sake, Big’un.”

“God ain’t watchin’, Oscar.” Big’un leaned from the saddle and fired again.

Observing from the barn, Scooter froze in shock.

Lige said, “God amighty. What did you do that for?”

Big’un smiled grimly. “The county is fixin’ to get a new sheriff. A bankrobbin’ fugitive just killed this one.”

Shaken, Lige said, “Me? I ain’t fired a shot.”

“Nobody’ll believe that. He came to arrest you, and you shot him.”

“You bottom-dealin’ son of a bitch.”

“I found out a long time ago that you do what you have to if you want to win.” He raised the pistol to fire.

Scooter hurled a rock almost the size of his fist. It struck Big’un’s horse on the chest. The animal reared and whirled away. Big’un involuntarily squeezed the trigger. The bullet smacked against the side of the barn.

Lige scooped up his own pistol and fired as Big’un struggled to regain control of his mount. Big’un got off one more shot, then spurred hard to move out of range. Lige steadied his pistol and fired once more. He thought he might have grazed Big’un, but he was not certain.

Scooter stepped hesitantly toward the fallen sheriff. He wanted to throw up. The man’s eyes were open. “I think he’s alive, Pa. He’s lookin’ at me.”

“No, son, he’s halfway to either heaven or hell.” Lige bent to close the lawman’s eyes. “Like as not he was a good sheriff, but he sure picked a coyote for a deputy.”

“What’ll we do now, Pa?”

“Only one thing to do. We’ll run like a rabbit.”

“Where to?”

“There ain’t nothin’ but Texas all around us. Soon as that deputy gets to town and tells his story, every badge toter in the state will be huntin’ for us. They’ll shoot us down like hydrophoby dogs.” For a moment Lige drifted toward despair. He blinked away tears. “They won’t stop to ask your age.”

Scooter’s alarm intensified. He remembered seeing his father cry only once, when Scooter’s mother had died.

Lige said, “I done you a bad wrong, son, bringin’ you into this kind of a mess. Best thing I can do now is to send you back to your Ranger friends, where I found you.”

“I don’t know if I could find my way. I’m stayin’ with you, Pa.”

Lige’s eyes were bleak. “When bullets get to flyin’ they don’t care who they hit. Man or boy, a bullet can’t tell the difference.”

“How far do you reckon it is up to the Cherokee country?”

“A long ways. There’s probably fifty sheriffs between here and the Red River. That don’t even count Rangers and town constables.”

“We can travel in the dark of the night and hide durin’ the daytime.”

“That’s the only thing to do. We’d better saddle up and get gone before that four-flusher comes back with a posse fired up to kill us both.”

From the corner of his eye Scooter sensed a movement. Turning, he shouted, “Look out, Pa. He’s comin’ back.”

A bullet thumped against the barn. Big’un had reversed direction and spurred toward them, firing as he came.

Cursing, Lige leveled his pistol. “Down, boy. Flat on the ground.” He took two shots at the deputy.

Dropping to his knees, Scooter felt something strike his hip. It burned like a hot poker.

One of Lige’s bullets grazed Big’un’s horse. The animal squealed and broke into pitching. Big’un grabbed the saddlehorn and held on with both hands. He dropped the pistol. The bridle reins went flopping.

Lige tried to get him in his sights, but the horse’s frenzied bucking made it impossible. Big’un managed to get hold of the reins and bring his mount under a measure of control. He turned toward town. The animal alternated between running and pitching. Lige took one more shot, but it was an empty gesture.

He said, “Get up, son. We got to go.”

Scooter moaned. “Somethin’s wrong, Pa. I can’t get up.”

Lige dropped to one knee, eyes fearful. “My God, he hit you.”

Scooter looked down at his hip. He saw the blood and felt nausea wash over him. Though Lige was skinny as a log rail, he picked up his son and carried him to the old house’s back porch as though he weighed nothing at all. “Slip them britches down, son. Let me take a look.”

Scooter’s hands were trembling. He could barely manipulate his belt buckle.

Lige asked, “Does it hurt bad?”

“It’s startin’ to. Mostly it burns.”

Lige felt around the wound, then wiped his bloody fingers on one leg of his trousers. “Looks like the bullet went plumb through. Might’ve nicked the bone, though. I need to take you to a doctor.”

“You can’t go to town. Folks there would kill you in a minute.”

“At least I’ve got to stop the bleedin’. Then we have to make a lot of tracks. You think you can ride?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you ought to leave me here.”

“And have that deputy kill you to shut your mouth? That’s the reason he turned around and came back, hopin’ to finish us both so we couldn’t tell what we seen here.”

“Would anybody believe us?”

“Not likely, but he can’t take the chance. He’s got to kill us.”

He fetched a half-empty whiskey bottle from his blanket roll in the barn. “This is goin’ to burn like the fires of hell. Holler if it helps.”

Scooter hollered, but it did not help.

Misery in his eyes, Lige said, “Somewhere we’ll find somebody who can help you. Till then, you’ve got to hang on, boy.”

Big’un had a dozen men with him, all Hoppers or Hopper kin. Approaching the farmhouse, Deputy Harp asked, “Hadn’t we better go in slow and careful?”

Big’un kept his horse in a stiff trot. “That outlaw will be miles away from here by now. But we’ll pick up his trail and ride him down like a lobo wolf, soon as we do right by poor old Oscar.”

A wagon trailed a couple of hundred yards behind. It would take the sheriff’s body back to town for proper services and burial.

Old Oscar ought to be grateful to me, Big’un thought, rubbing his sore arm where Lige’s bullet had grazed it. I’ve made a hero out of him. Every Hopper woman in town will cry at his funeral, and some that aren’t even kin.

Harp said, “Reckon why that robber picked this place to hide out?”

Big’un replied, “Like as not them Landons put him up to it. Probably had him hired to kill some of us and keep their own hands clean. But me and Oscar flushed him before he had time to do any such of a thing.”

“Damned shame your horse went to pitchin’ when you tried to protect Oscar. You could’ve finished that killer then and there.”

Nobody had questioned Big’un’s account about Tennyson shooting Truscott in cold blood and about Big’un’s horse going into a panic at a critical moment. Horses were like that. “Don’t worry, we’ll get him sooner or later. But everybody better remember, we’re up against a murderer who won’t stop at nothin’. He won’t give any mercy, and he’s got no mercy comin’ to him. Shoot to kill.”

“What about the boy?”

“Just remember that he put a bullet in Oscar too. He’s already ruined for life, travelin’ with an outlaw daddy. He’s probably carryin’ the trace of a noose around his neck.” He had heard it said that anyone destined to hang bore a faint birthmark that foretold his fate. Perhaps it was the mark of Cain that Big’un had heard preachers talk about. He had looked for it on his own throat and had been relieved not to find it.

Truscott lay where Big’un had left him except that he had been rolled over onto his back, his arms folded across his chest and his hat covering his face.

Harp said, “Odd, ain’t it, that an outlaw would do such a thing for a sheriff?” He lifted the hat to look at Truscott’s face. “Looks natural, Oscar does, like he’s just asleep. You reckon he felt any pain?”

Big’un remembered the pleading look in Truscott’s eyes before the second shot. “I doubt he ever knew what hit him, it happened so fast.” Nevertheless, the memory made him shiver. He turned in the saddle to hide the emotion from the posse members. “Where the hell is that wagon?”

Harp stepped up close to the house. He said, “Did Oscar ever reach the porch?”

Big’un replied, “No, he fell right where he is now.”

“Then you must’ve hit somebody. There’s blood up here.”

The stain had soaked into the dry old wood. Big’un studied it and felt a quick uplift. Maybe he had shot the old reprobate after all. He hoped it was a fatal wound. The boy would soon be caught, wandering around by himself. Given any kind of chance, Big’un would see to it that he did not live long enough to testify about what had really happened.

One of the men had circled the house. He shouted, “I’ve found their trail.”

Big’un rode out to look. The tracks headed north. “Funny they’d go that way. Was I them, I’d head for Mexico.”

Harp suggested, “Maybe they figure on some of the Landons helpin’ them. We ought to wipe out the whole damned litter, or at least run them out of the county.”

Big’un was surprised at how well this whole affair had played into his hands. “But the first thing we got to do is catch these killers. Afterward we can deal with Jayce Landon. We’ll do what we had figured to do when we had him in our jail.”

“We don’t know where the Rangers took him.”

“There’s still one Ranger in town, the one called Brackett. He’ll know.”

“He won’t tell.”

“Yes, he will. One way or another, he will.”

Sergeant Holloway had returned to the San Saba River camp. Rusty sent the captain a brief wire explaining the situation and requesting permission for him and Andy to guard Jayce until the circuit judge reached town. The captain wired back advising that additional ranger help would be sent if requested. Tom Blessing decided not to ask for it.

“Got to save the taxpayers’ money where we can,” he said. “Lots of them think we’re stealin’ it or throwin’ it away on luxuries.”

Andy smiled. If the courthouse or jail contained any luxuries, he had failed to see them. The place begged for a coat of paint, and a piece of cardboard had been tacked up where a windowpane was missing.

Flora was on her long daily visit to her husband. She responded to Tom’s comment. “Jayce’d feel better if you would ask the captain to send brother Dick.”

Rusty frowned. “Dick would take it hard, watchin’ Jayce tried for murder. We all know what the outcome’ll be.”

She said, “Havin’ him here would be a comfort to Jayce. I’d feel better too.”

Rusty gave in. “It’s against my better judgment, but I’ll wire the captain.”

When Flora left, Andy told Rusty, “Somebody said Jayce and Dick both courted Flora.”

“It’s a shame she made the wrong choice.”

“When Jayce is gone she’ll have a second chance. Maybe she’ll take it.”

Rusty observed him quizzically “I knew that Farley Brackett was some taken with her, but I didn’t know you were too. She’s ten years too old for you.”

Andy’s face warmed. “It’s not that way at all. It’s just that she’s got a lot of gumption. You have to admire that.”