Town Tamers (10 page)

A
sa braced for a shot and searing pain, but nothing happened.

Noona had the good sense to freeze.

Byron started to raise his rifle but caught himself. “Thought you were dead,” he said.

Asa turned his head.

Bull Cumberland had risen on the elbow of his remaining good arm. The other arm and the shoulder it was attached to had been mangled by buckshot, and all that connected the arm to the shoulder was a shred of flesh. It also looked as if he’d been hit by the rifles. Yet he had life enough to clutch his six-shooter and train it on Asa. A wolfish grin curled his mouth and he snarled, “You’ve done me in, but now I’ll do you.”

Asa forced himself to stay calm. It was rare for anyone to get the drop on him. He was too cautious. It had only ever happened once before. That time, the gunman hadn’t realized he’d emptied his revolver while swapping lead and when he squeezed the trigger, they both heard the click. Asa had resorted to his shotgun to end it.

He couldn’t do that here. He’d have to spin and shoot, and Bull Cumberland, hurt as he was, would nail him.

“Drop your guns,” the man-mountain rumbled. “All three of you.”

Asa let the Winchester clatter at his feet. Noona was clearly loath to do the same with her Spencer, but did. Byron hesitated.

“I’ll kill your pa before you can blink, boy,” Bull Cumberland said. “So help me God.”

Byron held the Colt by the barrel, set the stock down, and let gravity take over.

Bull grunted. “Good.” He stared at the slain and at what was left of his other arm and shook his head. “You have shot us to ribbons.”

“How are you still breathing?” Asa stalled. Judging by the pool of blood there couldn’t be much left in Cumberland’s body.

Bull ignored the question and said bitterly, “But then, you had help, didn’t you?” He glared at Noona and Byron. “The newspapers never said anything about you havin’ helpers.”

“I try not to let that get out,” Asa said.

“So the boy’s your son.”

An icy spike of fear pierced Asa.

“Is the girl his wife?”

“Marry my own brother?” Noona said, and snorted. “I’d sooner slit my throat.”

Bull studied her face, his own so pale, he was the same white as a bedsheet. “They don’t look anything like you, Town Tamer.”

“We’re the fruit of his loins, all right,” Byron said. “More’s the pity.”

“You talk funny, boy.”

“He’s a poet,” Asa said.

“A what?”

“He likes poetry.”

Bull Cumberland did the strangest thing. He laughed. Not a short bark but a deep laugh that ended with him swearing and saying, “Don’t this beat all. Shot to pieces by an old man and a girl and a poet.”

“I’m not that old,” Asa said.

“He had us young,” Noona said.

“Shut the hell up, all of you.” Bull raised his revolver higher. “Time to end you, half-breed. And then the kids.”

Asa clasped his hands and put as much emotion into his voice as he could. “Not them. Please. I’m begging you.”

“Are you, now?” Bull said, and smirked in sadistic pleasure. “Get on your knees, then. If you’re goin’ to beg, do it right.”

“Gladly,” Asa said. He sank down, his hands still clasped, and held them out toward Cumberland. “I’m begging you with all my heart to spare them.”

“I’m glad I lived long enough for this,” Bull said. “Do you want to know why?”

Asa unclasped his hands. “Why?”

“Because I’m goin’ to shoot them first and then shoot you. I want you to see them die. I want to see the look on your face. Then I can go happy.”

“How about if we reverse it?” Asa said.

Under different circumstances, Bull Cumberland’s confusion would have been comical. “Reverse it how?”

“How about if you die first?” Asa said. He flicked his right wrist and the Remington derringer was in his hand. He cocked it as it cleared, and fired.

A hole appeared in the middle of Bull Cumberland’s forehead. His head snapped back and his good arm sagged. His wide eyes fixed on Asa in surprise as life fled them, and his bulk thudded to the earth.

Noona exhaled in relief. “That was close.”

Byron picked up his Colt rifle and came over and stared at Cumberland.

“Nothing to say?” Asa asked.

“Took you long enough,” Byron said.

W
eldon Knox was worried. His men should have been back by mid-morning at the latest. But here it was late afternoon and still no sign of them.

Knox sat in a rocking chair on the front porch of his ranch house and stared to the east. He’d been sitting there for hours. When the screen door creaked he didn’t look over. He knew who it was.

“No sign of them yet?” Esther asked.

“If there was,” Knox said, “do you think I’d still be sitting here?”

“I was only asking,” Esther said timidly.

“Well, don’t.” Knox gestured at the other rocking chair. “Join me.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a command. Esther folded her hands in her lap and perched as if she was ready to take flight if he lifted a hand to strike her. “I can understand you being upset.”

“I doubt that you understand anything about me, woman,” Knox said. “I doubt you understand anything at all.”

“As you say, dear,” Esther said.

“I should think you’d have gotten it through your head by now. You’re female. Women don’t think as deeply as men do. A lot of what goes through my head is beyond you.”

“I do keep forgetting that, yes.”

“Well, don’t. I would rely on you more if you weren’t so female.”

Esther did something she seldom did. She looked him in the eyes. “How do I not be me?”

“That’s simple. You listen to me and do as I tell you and when an idea of your own pops into your head, you ignore it.”

“That does sound simple.”

“Honestly,” Knox said. He reached into an inside pocket and brought out his pipe and tobacco. “I can use a smoke.”

“For your nerves?”

“Just to smoke. I don’t have a problem with my nerves, thank you very much.”

“I do. I’m worried sick. Mrs. Livingstone was telling me that this Asa Delaware is bad medicine.”

“What would she know?”

“She’s a friend. She wouldn’t make things up.”

Knox tore his gaze off the road that cut across his land to end at the miles-distant Ludlow. “Did I hear you right? You’ve struck up a friendship with the
cook
?”

“Why not?” Esther said defensively. “She’s a person like you and me.”

“Don’t lump me in with the help,” Knox said. “I have half a mind to fire her.”

“What? Why?”

“Hirelings should know their place.”

Esther squirmed in her rocking chair. “What gives you the right to put on airs?”

Knox turned toward her. “Did you just sass me?”

“No.”

“You certainly did. I heard you. You talked back to me.”

“I never would, Weldon.”

“When this is over I think I’ll take out the switch,” Knox said, and had the satisfaction of seeing stark fear grip her.

“Not that. Please.”

“You need to be reminded every now and then of your proper place.”

Esther was quiet a while and then said softly, “I never expected this when I married you. You were nice when you courted me. You never once let on that—” She stopped.

“Finish it.”

“No.”

“I will by-God beat you black and blue if you don’t.”

“Very well. You never once let on that you’d treat me as you do and beat me as you do.” Esther sadly gazed out over their ranch and gave a mild start.

“What?” Knox asked, looking in the same direction. “Do you see Bull and the rest?”

“No. I thought I saw—” A peculiar expression came over her and Esther said, “I’m not sure what I saw.”

“Females,” Knox spat.

Esther clasped her small fingers and unclasped them and remarked, “I remember hearing you menfolk talk once.”

“Just once?” Knox said sarcastically.

“You were in the kitchen. Bull Cumberland and that awful Jake Bass and Old Tom and you.”

“We talk a lot,” Knox said.

“It was about riding the high-lines, as Bull Cumberland called it, and how he always had to be on the lookout for lawmen and hostiles and whatnot.”

“I’m sure there’s a point to this.”

“He mentioned how he watched for flashes of light. He said the sun shining off a rifle barrel always gave his enemies away. Do you think that’s true?”

“Of course it is.”

“Did you send all the men into town?”

Knox had his full attention on the road and was annoyed by her babble. “Listen to your chatter. You bounce around all over the place.”

“Did you?”

“Some of the men are out on the range with the herd.”

“Can you think of any reason they would point a rifle at us?”

Knox turned his head. “Have you been drinking? I know you sneak a nip now and then.”

“Every day,” Esther said. “It helps get me through the nightmare of being married to you.”

Knox couldn’t credit his ears. “Do you
want
to be beat worse than ever?”

“What I want, what I pray,” Esther said, “is for that flash to mean what I think it means. Foolish of me, I know. I don’t believe in miracles.”

“What flash?”

Esther jumped at the loud
thwack
that preceded by a heartbeat the crack of a far-off shot. Her husband’s head smacked against the rocker and some of his hair and bits of bone and gobs of brain splattered the wall. She sat perfectly still as the husk that had just a few seconds ago been the man she’d said “I do” to oozed out of the rocker onto the porch.

“My word,” was all Esther said.

She looked toward where she had seen the flash and was taken aback when a rider appeared. She gripped the chair arms to rise and was shocked to realize the gender of the rider and sank back down.

“My word,” she said again.

An attractive young woman with raven hair on a fine bay and a rifle across her saddle came as casually as you please up to the porch. “How do you do,” she said.

“My word,” Esther replied.

“You’re not in hysterics, are you?”

“Why would I be?”

The young woman nodded at Weldon.

“Oh, him,” Esther said. She stood and stepped to the rail. “How about if I invite you in for tea or coffee?”

“I just shot your husband.”

“And I thank you for that.”

The young woman studied Esther and then said, “I should head back.”

Esther pointed at the body. “For twenty-seven years I’ve been married to that man, and not once in all that time did he let me have a female friend over.”

“Is that a fact?”

“I would be ever so pleased if you would visit for a bit. And don’t you worry. I’ll never tell a soul that I saw you here. I’m Esther Weldon, by the way, but I imagine you already know that.”

The young woman considered a few moments, then said, “I’m Noona Carter.” She seemed to catch herself. “Sorry. Noona Delaware.”

“You’re kin to that Town Tamer?”

“He’s my pa.”

“Which is it? Carter or Delaware?”

“It’s complicated,” Noona said.

“I have all day,” Esther said, and a slow smile brightened her haggard face. “I can do as I please now.”

“The short of it is that Carter is the family name, but given what we do for a living, our enemies might track us down if they know who we really are. So Pa picked a name he hates just for town taming.”

“I think I see.”

Noona raised her reins. “I’m sorry I can’t stay, ma’am. My pa wanted to be sure it was over. He expects me back, or he’ll get worried and come after me.”

“Good day to you, then. And thank you, young lady. You have made me happier than you can possibly know.”

“It’s nice to make someone smile for once. Usually killing someone doesn’t do that.” Noona wheeled her bay. “Adios.”

Esther stood and watched until the attractive young woman dwindled in the distance. “What a sweet girl,” she said. She started toward the screen door but stopped to look at the body. “I was wrong, Weldon. Miracles do happen. Good riddance to you, you piece of shit.”

Humming to herself, Esther went inside.

T
he town council met in what they called their Municipal Chambers, a room above the general store with a high platform for the council members and chairs for everyone else.

Asa Delaware sat in the front row with Byron and Noona at his elbows. The Winchester was propped against his chair.

George Tandy rapped with a gavel and announced, “This meeting is now in session.”

Over a dozen townsfolk had turned out. The other hundred or so couldn’t be bothered.

“Now, then,” Tandy said. “Our first order of business is to extend our appreciation to Mr. Asa Delaware for the splendid job he did cleaning up our town.”

“I’d appreciate the other half of my fee,” Asa said.

Thaddeus Falk wagged a bony finger at him. “You’re lucky we’re paying you another red cent, the mess you made. A mess, I might add, we had to clean up ourselves.”

“It’s your town,” Asa said.

“Show a little respect,” Horace Wadpole said.

“I show as much as I’m given.”

Wadpole turned red and opened his mouth to respond, but just then Asa picked up the Winchester shotgun and set it in his lap. Wadpole closed his mouth and glowered.

“As for your money,” George Tandy said, “the treasurer will pay you when this meeting is adjourned.” He gazed at the townspeople. “Our second order of business is a new marshal. We intend to put out the word that we’re seeking a new lawman and expect to interview qualified applicants over the next month or two.”

“The sooner we have a new marshal, the safer everyone will feel,” Falk said.

“That leaves the last item on our agenda,” Tandy said. “We’d intended to call Weldon Knox before this body and inform him that as soon as we have our new marshal, we would have him arrested on a variety of charges. But as all of you have probably heard, he committed suicide. We sent a man out to the Circle K with our demand for him to appear, and his wife informed our messenger that he shot himself after he heard that his desperados had met the fate they deserved.”

Asa Delaware looked at Noona.

“So with that out of the way, and due to the long hours we’ve been putting in, we’ll cut this meeting short and adjourn unless someone has something pressing they must bring to our attention.”

No one did.

Tandy rapped the gavel, and the council rose and filed out. The townspeople trailed after them. Several smiled at the town tamers, and an older man came over to Asa and said, “I’d like to shake your hand.”

Last to go was the treasurer, after giving Asa a poke with the five hundred dollars. Asa never took a bank draft or a check. It had to be real money. Jingling it, he stuck it in an inside pocket of his slicker.

“‘The dragons are dead, the slayers have triumphed,’” Byron quoted.

“You slayed your share,” Asa said.

“Don’t remind me.”

Noona changed the subject by asking, “Why do you reckon the widow did that—lie about Knox shooting himself?”

“I don’t rightly know,” Asa said.

“She knew it was me. She was right there. She talked to me.”

“You told us,” Asa said.

“She took it so calmly. I’ve never seen the like.”

“Live to my age and you’ll see a lot of strange things,” Asa predicted. “People are always full of surprises.”

“Coming from you,” Byron said, “that’s almost profound.”

“Keep goading me,” Asa said.

“What will you do? Hit me?”

“I’ve never struck you in your life, boy, and you know it. You don’t hurt family, ever.”

“You turned my sister and me into killers before we were mature enough to realize what you’d done.”

“Keep me out of this,” Noona said.

“I taught you to be town tamers,” Asa said to Byron. “That’s not hurt.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Pa,” Byron said, “I’m hurting like hell.”

“What hurts is that you’d like to live in the clouds with your poems and you hate being brought down to earth.”

“You are damn right I hate it.”

Asa rounded on him. “Watch your tone around your sister. If you took some pride in your work, you’d be better off.”

Byron laughed. “First, it’s not work. It’s killing. And second, you’re a fine one to talk about pride. You don’t even use your real name.”

“And you know why.”

“So the kin and friends of those we exterminate can’t come after us. But that’s only part of it.”

“How so?”

“You could have picked any fake name. But you chose Delaware. And the reason you did is to rub your Indian half in the faces of those who hate Indians.”

“I’ve never been a cheek-turner, boy,” Asa said. “If some folks are going to hate me for something I’m not, I’m going to hate them right back.”

“Your whole life has become about hate.”

“That’s going too far,” Asa said, “and we’re done talking about it.” He shouldered the Winchester and strode out.

“Must you goad him so?” Noona said.

“I’m sorry, sis,” Byron said. “I can’t seem to help myself.”

“Did you ever stop to think that he can’t, either?”

Byron appeared shocked. He was slow to answer with, “No, I didn’t.” He stared at the empty doorway. “Hell,” he said.