The Outlaws of Salty's Notch Read online

  Corrigan swept his six-gun off the desk. It was still inside its holster. That didn’t deter the tall marshal. With the heavy gun-belt loaded with shells flapping loose he thumbed the six-gun’s hammer. His first shot tore through the leather, clipped Breaker’s shoulder and shattered the half-open window. Broken glass caught the sunlight as it tinkled into the street. Breaker, face twisted with pain, stumbled backwards into a chair and fell flat on his back.

  Flint, right hand deadened by Corrigan’s kick, reached awkwardly across with his left hand and dragged out his Colt. It jerked free of leather, but was upside down in his hand. Now it was Corrigan’s turn to grin. With one eye on Breaker he unhurriedly turned his six-gun on the black-clad outlaw. That supreme confidence was his undoing. Flint didn’t waste time bringing his Colt into a firing position. He took one step towards Corrigan and whipped his left arm around in a vicious backhand blow. The Colt connected with Corrigan’s cheekbone with a terrible crack of metal on bone. The marshal’s eyes glazed. Blood streamed from the gash opened by the Colt’s sharp front sight. He lost his grip on the six-gun and wobbled on legs drained of strength.

  A murderous gleam in his eyes, Flint used the recoil from his first blow to deliver a second that opened a bloody gash on the other side of Corrigan’s face. It drove Corrigan backwards and sideways. Already falling, he hit the side of his desk and lay in a crumpled heap on the office’s dirt floor.

  ‘He’s done,’ Breaker growled. He was up off the floor, his hand feeling his shoulder and coming away slick with blood. ‘Get outside. You and Deakin find that hostler’s place, tip the old man out of his cot, get him to bring out three horses.’

  Flint shook his head. ‘You go tell him. I’m not your messenger boy.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Breaker said. ‘OK, so poke your head out the door and call Deakin over.’

  ‘This once,’ Flint said, heading for the door. ‘I’m here to get rich, not take orders.’

  ‘Yeah, well, while we’re establishing rules, next time go easy on the gun-whipping. You hit this feller too hard. We need him on his feet for a while longer. If there’s water in a bowl out back I’ll give him his second wash of the day. He won’t know it, but it’ll be the last of his miserable life.’

  Across the street, the giant Devlin had tied his horse then climbed a few creaking steps and entered into the cool of the general store. He was greeted by the usual store smells of raw kerosene, lye soap, grain stored in sacks, the leather of shiny new waist-belts and boots. A burly man with a florid face was behind the counter. Wire-framed glasses were perched on the end of his nose. He was attending to paperwork.

  He looked up at Devlin’s approach, straightened, smiled a polite welcome with his eyebrows raised in an unspoken query. Devlin wasn’t fooled. With instinct honed by years on the owlhoot trail he’d detected the sudden wariness in the storekeeper’s manner.

  ‘Mornin’ sir,’ Devlin said. ‘What I want is the makings. Couple of sacks of Bull Durham, papers to go with the baccy.’ He dropped a hand to his pocket, jingled coins.

  ‘That’s the way,’ the storekeeper said. ‘Me, I can’t stand a feller who chews then spits, filthy habit, rots teeth, the Lord only knows what it does to a man’s insides. . . .’

  While talking he’d taken half a step backwards and was now bending to reach under the counter. Devlin was highly amused. The tobacco he’d asked for was displayed on shelves against the back wall, so what the hell was this feller doing down there? Devlin, knowing the answer to that question, stepped closer to the counter. The burly man straightened. His eyes had narrowed. The muscles in his jaw were bunched. He brought up both hands, fast. He was holding an ancient sawn-off shotgun.

  ‘Hell fire,’ Devlin said, ‘that’s no way to treat a customer,’ and without pause or effort he launched a looping punch with his massive right fist. It cracked solidly against Mackie’s jaw. His eyes rolled back in his head. The shotgun clattered to the counter, slid to the floor. Mackie stumbled backwards, crashed against the shelves of tobacco and went down in a shower of Bull Durham sacks.

  Shaking his head, Devlin went around the counter. Mackie was out cold, face down. Devlin took hold of the storekeeper’s collar, dragged him the length of the store’s rough dirt floor and dumped him outside on the narrow gallery.

  Then he straightened, flexed his muscles, and looked expectantly across at the jail.

  The lingering smell of cigarette smoke on the saloon’s gallery warned Rodriguez that someone was up and about. Ignoring Breaker’s warning, he loosened his six-gun. Then he pushed through the half-closed door into an interior that was dark enough to convince a man he’d gone blind. But that was the contrast between the dazzling outside sunlight and the deep shadows in a room without windows. It took but a few seconds for Rodriguez’s eyes to adjust.

  A man was leaning against the bar, watching him. He was tall, gaunt. A smouldering cigarette drooped from his lips. He slapped a wet cloth noisily down on the crude wooden bar, picked up a shiny pick helve and walked towards Rodriguez.

  ‘I know you,’ he said.

  Rodriguez raised an eyebrow. ‘That is most strange. I have not seen you before in my life, and I am a man who remembers most things very easily.’

  ‘Correction,’ the tall man said. ‘I don’t know you, but I saw you ride through town a couple of days ago. Figured you for an outlaw. Wondered where you were heading.’

  Rodriguez grinned. ‘Then this is your lucky day, mi amigo. You are about to find out.’

  ‘You telling, or showing?’

  ‘With words, I am not too good.’

  ‘That’s not the impression I get.’ The saloonist stepped closer, waggled the helve. ‘And I’m choosy about where I go, and who I go with.’

  ‘But also I think you are curious.’ Rodriguez saw the instant narrowing of the man’s eyes. ‘You wish to know what is about to happen to your tired, dirty town. If you are genuinely curious, then going with me will provide the answer.’

  ‘There’s a man upstairs who’d like to be in on this. You look hot. Buy yourself a drink, I’ll go fetch him—’

  He broke off. With uncanny speed Rodriguez had drawn his six-gun and rammed it up under the tall man’s chin. He thrust with strength, forcing Paulson’s head back. With great deliberation, watching Paulson’s eyes, he cocked the weapon.

  ‘Let your useless piece of wood fall to the floor,’ Rodriguez said. ‘Then, without being foolish, without for example making any noise that might alert that man you mentioned, walk towards the door. I will be behind you. If you make one wrong move, I will blow a big hole in the back of your head out of which your brains will leak. But that will not concern you, for you will indeed be very dead.’

  The five men rode out of town retracing their earlier route, but now they were eight. The hostler called Shorty had directed Deakin to the horses belonging to the marshal, Mackie and Paulson. Then he had spat wetly in the dust of his barn and told the outlaw if he wanted them saddled he could damn well go right ahead and do it himself.

  Deakin was dripping with sweat when he led the three horses down the street to the jail. Bushwhack Jack Breaker had been waiting impatiently. Now he brought out the marshal, who had shakily donned his shirt. Already it was soaked with blood. Rodriguez came across the street from the saloon, Paulson walking nonchalantly ahead of him with the cigarette still drooping from his thin lips. From the general store, Devlin led a dazed storekeeper who stumbled as he walked and had blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

  Flint noted that with interest.

  ‘Guess I’m not the only one who hits hard. Maybe there’s a lesson for you there, Breaker.’

  ‘Shut up. Get these men mounted, and let’s get out of here.’

  And so, within minutes, the three men Breaker considered were those he needed out of the way were in the saddle and the eight men jogged down the centre of the wide street and on out of town. And again it was the loquacious Rodriguez who opened his mouth to comment.


  ‘Hey, Breaker,’ he said, ‘maybe you were right after all. In and out, an hour total – and the only ones saw us are these three fellers here.’

  ‘You believe that,’ Breaker said, ‘then you’re not only the youngest Mex I ever hitched up with, you’re not only the most treacherous, double-crossing back-stabbing Mex I ever met, you’re also the dumbest – and believe me, kid, that’s saying something.’

  Chapter Four

  Paladin was scratching his head and yawning as he clumped down the saloon’s steep, narrow back stairs. They led into the kitchen, and halfway down he was already sniffing for the smell of frying ham and eggs, listening for the mouth-watering sizzle but hearing nothing.

  Rik Paulson knew what time Paladin rolled out of bed – could probably set his battered turnip watch by that regularity – and when Paladin came down he would be preparing breakfast for both of them with ash from his dangling cigarette threatening to fall into the frying pan of hot food and speckle egg yolks with grey.

  Not today. Paladin took in the kitchen’s emptiness, then walked through frowning. He absently brushed a handle and set the empty black pan spinning and wobbling as he passed the stove, listened to the ringing clatter of metal on metal, pushed through into the saloon’s bar, and stopped.

  The smell of cigarette smoke. Not stale, not the smell of the cigar stub Shorty Long invariably crushed under his boot before walking out at midnight with his limping gait exaggerated by drink. So it was smoke from Paulson’s cigarette. The saloon-keeper was up – but where the hell was he?

  There was a wet cloth on the bar. Cleaning the drink-ringed surface was a morning chore – but it was unfinished, perhaps not even started, because some of last night’s glasses were still standing empty and stained. Puzzled, Paladin went on through and out on to the gallery, wincing as the heat of the sun hit him and almost took his breath away.

  Across the street, an empty rocking chair. Well, that signified nothing. It was afternoon when Brad Corrigan sat outside rocking and snoozing. But he was a stickler for closing doors. This morning the jail’s door, Paladin noted, was wide open – and that was unheard of. However, he mused, for five Texan outlaws to ride through La Belle Commune on successive days was also unprecedented.

  As Paladin walked thoughtfully down the steps and set off across the street he had the disturbing conviction that the coming of five outlaws, and an unexpectedly open door, were in some way connected.

  Inside the jail office Paladin got the eerie feeling that he was in a room empty because of tragedy – and with a shattered window he noted somewhat belatedly. Foreboding piling on foreboding he thought, moving slowly about the room, skirting the desk, poking his head and shoulders briefly through the inner door leading to the building’s only cell and seeing nothing to raise hackles.

  But back in the room and this time using his eyes he saw clear evidence of violence.

  The desk had been pushed out of position. It was a heavy, solid oak piece of furniture. Something had banged against it with considerable force, sliding it across the dirt floor; the movement was marked by grooves. Then, in the space between the desk’s front and the open window, the floor was stained with spots of blood. A crumpled white towel lay close to the stains. When Paladin picked it up he could feel the damp, smell the soap the marshal always used for his morning’s ablutions.

  The front door banged against the wall.

  Paladin swung around, his right hand slapping his hip. But there was no holster there, no six-gun. His hand brushed only the worn cloth of his pants, and a rueful smile twisted his lips as his heart hammered.

  ‘Didn’t hear you come in, Emma.’

  ‘I know. And don’t for goodness sake give that to me,’ she said, her eyes on the towel. ‘The last thing I want is for you to see me shed tears.’

  Paladin dropped the damp cloth on a chair.

  ‘Why would you shed tears? Do you know something about what’s happened here?’

  Emma Bowman-Laing moved into the room gliding silently on worn sandals hidden by her long cotton frock. Her hands were restless. First she fiddled with a wisp of grey hair that had escaped the tortoiseshell combs she wore that morning. Then, as if aware that she was revealing her agitation, she flattened her palms on the thin cloth covering her thighs.

  She shook her head. ‘I know nothing about what happened in here, but I saw five men ride into town. When they rode out again, not thirty minutes later, they were eight.’

  ‘Ah.’ Paladin nodded slowly. ‘Five plus three: Corrigan, Mackie, Paulson.’

  ‘Taken, against their will.’ Her stare was scathing. ‘Alec Mackie was there, looking dazed. Brad didn’t look . . . didn’t look himself. And his face was bloodied.’ There was a catch in her voice. She struggled for composure. ‘And Rik Paulson, I saw him, and he was looking very angry indeed.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ Paladin said. ‘He didn’t get around to frying his breakfast or mine, and a hungry man—’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’

  ‘I’m making light of a situation that we know nothing about,’ Paladin said. ‘Giving way to panic won’t help—’

  ‘How dare you! It seemed to me when I saw those riders that there was only one man left in town I could turn to. If you define that as panic then maybe I should have looked elsewhere. Tell me, Paladin, do you think I might be better off talking to Shorty Long? He’s a cantankerous, gimpy sonofabitch, but by God he’s got guts.’

  Paladin’s lips were twitching. Emma Bowman-Laing, using strong language? Another first, on a day rich in precedents.

  He sighed, dragged a hand across his face.

  ‘I apologize. My old friends, the men who make this town, have been by taken by hard men who used violence. You say Brad’s face was bloodied, and it’s clear that blood was spilled here, in this office.’

  ‘They crossed the bridge over Petit Creek,’ Bowman-Laing said. ‘You know what I saw on my evening ride a couple of weeks ago: a man, that man with the blue roan, on the balcony of my old house. Drawing the obvious conclusion, that’s where Brad and the others have been taken. There, or the hunting lodge in the woods, perhaps . . .’ She trailed off, frowning.

  ‘But why? Not why there, but why anywhere? What the hell is going on in La Belle Commune?’

  ‘Go and find out,’ Bowman-Laing said bluntly.

  ‘There are five of them, all outlaws. If I go, I need the cover of darkness.’

  ‘For those friends of yours, that could be too late.’

  ‘If I’m the only man you could turn to, I’ll be little use dead.’

  Bowman-Laing pursed her lips, moved restlessly. She picked up the damp towel, pressed it to her lips, then folded it neatly and placed it on the corner of the desk.

  ‘I heard a name.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those ruffians, those outlaws, they were talking when they rode past my house. There’s a young Mexican, greasy hair and a fancy sombrero.’ She looked hard at Paladin. ‘He was in high spirits, called across to that lean man with the black hat and the moustache – the one on the blue roan who was last to arrive, do you remember him?’

  ‘I didn’t see him all that clearly,’ Paladin said, wondering where this was leading.

  ‘No,’ Bowman-Laing said acidly, ‘I shouldn’t expect too much, should I?’

  ‘Go on,’ Paladin said impatiently.

  ‘The young Mexican spoke quite clearly. The moustachioed outlaw’s name is Breaker.’ She raised an eyebrow, looked knowingly at Paladin. ‘Tell me, does that mean anything to a man who, Brad once told me, hunted wanted killers for bounty all across Texas?’

  Paladin felt his stomach tighten, the muscles across his back clench. His mouth dry, he said, ‘A man called Breaker shot me in the back, then tried to finish me off by drowning. He, or one of his men, tossed me into the Red.’

  ‘And Petit Creek runs close to the house,’ Bowman-Laing said. ‘On my nightly rides I cross the bridge on the trail out of town, take
some thoughtful time on what used to be my property and come back by way of the old bridge put across the creek by my granddaddy.’

  ‘Very old,’ Paladin said, ‘and very shaky. One of these days that bridge will give and dump you in the creek.’

  ‘The water there, like the Red,’ she said, her eyes bleak, ‘is quite deep.’

  Paladin nodded. ‘Yesterday you said that men like those who rode through town don’t take prisoners. That was your judgement, and it’s close to the truth. If this is the same Breaker and he’s the honcho like me and Brad figured, unless someone gets to them mighty fast our three friends are as good as dead.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘The problem I am aware of,’ young Rodriguez said, ‘is that by removing those men from town we have taken prisoners who must be guarded constantly. However, as it is the town of La Belle Commune we were supposed to be guarding, I see that there is considerable disruption to your plans. Lock-down is impossible in the situation you have created.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Breaker said.

  ‘You’re talking through your backside, Kid,’ Flint said. ‘I can tell you now the problem you’re aware of will be short-lived.’

  At that a light sparked in Breaker’s dark eyes, and he nodded. ‘Nightfall puts an end to it, over and done with.’

  They were again gathered on the lawn in front of the antebellum mansion. But tonight it was just Breaker, Flint and the kid sitting smoking around the camp-fire. Devlin, Lomax and Deakin were inside the house, playing cards outside the locked door of a windowless back room that had once been a larder.

  Rodriguez had spread his hands in an eloquent gesture of confusion.

  ‘All right,’ Breaker said, ‘we could have plugged all three of ’em in town. But I asked for them to be taken quietly because three men gunned down in their place of work would’ve brought people tumbling out of their beds. I didn’t want that, wouldn’t have done us any good. That shot fired by Corrigan was inside, muffled, went unheard. We were in and out, nobody the wiser.’