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  “Yeah, I heard you,” said Rubens. He spat and ran a hand across his lips. “I expect we all know you weren’t lying to him.”

  Bugs’ expression turned sour.

  “What do you mean by that?” he said. He opened and closed his gun hand intently.

  “Every damn thing you think I mean,” said Rubens. He turned away from the young gunman with disregard.

  Bugs pointed at him, frustrated at not being taken seriously.

  “Listen, Rubens, I only put up with your grousing ways because I like you,” he said.

  “Lucky me,” Rubens said without looking back at him.

  “You don’t want to push me too far,” Bugs warned.

  “Push this,” Rubens said, walking away toward Ty Traybo, making a profane gesture over his shoulder toward Bugs Trent.

  Bugs fumed but kept his mouth shut. He clenched his teeth and cursed under his breath.

  Ty Traybo, even in his pained and weakened condition, managed to chuff and shake his lowered head.

  “He got you there, Bugs,” he murmured. “That’s all you can say about it.”

  Bugs lightened up and let out a short laugh himself.

  “Damn it,” he said to Ty. “A smart man don’t stand a chance around this bunch.” He looked off toward Maley. “I hope Wes gets back here real quick. Something about this place gives me the willies.”

  • • •

  In Maley, while the dust still loomed and settled slowly on the streets, buildings and locals, Carter Claypool sat slumped in a straight-backed chair in the town’s sheriff office. His arms hung limp at his sides. Two crude wads of cloth had been stuffed into his shirt, staying the flow of blood from his left shoulder. The wound was clean, not deep, the bullet having skewered through his shoulder muscle and out without hitting bone. His face was reddened and puffed, turning the color of fruit gone bad from the beating he’d taken at the hands of an ill-tempered railroad detective named Artimus Folliard.

  “You might think you’re a tough nut,” Folliard said. “But I’ll get you softened up soon enough.”

  “You’re going to kill him is what you’re going to do,” a stocky cattle broker named Don Stout said to Folliard. “Then he’s going to tell us nothing.”

  Folliard stood back rubbing a bloody handkerchief across his big rawboned knuckles.

  “So what?” he said. “Are you saying that’s a bad thing? These dogs have robbed your bank here. Did you have money in it?”

  “Yes, it so happens I did,” said the broker. Unrelenting under the big detective’s cold stare, he continued. “But look at him. This is murder,” he said, pointing at the badly beaten outlaw. “I’ll have no hand in murder. If we hang him, that’s a whole other thing. He deserves a lynching. But not this. This is inhumane. If we had a sheriff, he’d stop this.”

  “But you’ve got no sheriff. What you’ve got is us, compliments of West Southwestern Security, so you’d best shut up,” Folliard warned. He cut a glance to the tall figure standing in the shadow of a battered gun case. The dark figure nodded his approval above a glowing cigar.

  Stout backed a step and looked around for support from the other gathered townsmen.

  Claypool sat with his bloody head lowered, his eyes almost swollen shut.

  “Bless your kind bones, mister,” he chuckled darkly under his breath.

  “Shut up, thief,” said Folliard, stepping closer to Claypool, doubling his big raw fist. “I’ve still got some for you.”

  “Then give it . . . to me,” Claypool said, weak but defiant. “Nothing I like more . . . than a bad hard beating, properly delivered.”

  “Why, you turd,” said Folliard, grabbing Claypool by his hair and pulling his face up into fist range. He drew back for a hard punch, but stopped himself as the front door opened and three dusty figures carried a limp, mangled body into the small office and threw it to the plank floor.

  One of the three men, Earl Prew, swiped his derby hat from his head and slapped it against his leg. Dust billowed.

  “There’s a dead one for you, Mr. Garand,” he said. “This one is none other than Ty Traybo himself.” He stared straight past the gathered townsmen at the tall figure in the shadows.

  Oh no. . . . Claypool turned his swollen eyes enough to take a look at the badly trampled corpse, its clothes and skin hanging shredded and torn, an eye hanging from its socket, a leg ripped away from the knee down.

  The gathered men parted to let Dallas Garand step forward and stand over the mangled body. He gave the man a harsh glare from under his hat brim.

  “This is not Traybo, you damn fool!” he growled. “This is Hubert Staley.”

  “Staley?” Prew said. He and the other two men looked at each other. “But, Mr. Garand, how can you—”

  “Damn it, I can tell it’s Staley by his nuts,” Garand said, pointing down. “Look at them,” he demanded, nodding down at the shredded, half-naked corpse. “I’d recognize them anywhere.”

  But instead of looking down, the three men winced and stared at each other.

  “His nuts, sir?” said Prew, turning to Garand. “I have to say, I have never had either cause or desire to look at Staley’s—”

  “Damn it, not those nuts, you fool!” shouted Garand, cutting him off. He leaned and jerked up a pair of small brass acorns hanging from the corpse’s tattered vest pocket. “These nuts!” He held the small watch fob ornaments out on his palm for the men to see.

  Prew and the others let out a sigh of relief.

  “Mr. Garand, I completely misunderstood,” Prew said, shaking his bowed head.

  “Yes, you ignoramus son of a bitch,” said Garand. “You certainly did.” He pitched the little brass acorns onto the dead man’s bloody-crusted chest and dusted his hands together. “I ought to pistol-whip you all the way to Missouri!”

  Listening, watching, Claypool had also breathed a sigh of relief. Even in his battered condition, he had to stifle a laugh. He held his head lowered to this bloody chest. He would have hated to think he’d gone through all this just to have Ty Traybo trampled to death making a getaway.

  All right, he resolved, taking another deep breath. In all likelihood, he would hang here today. The most he could hope to do for himself would be to answer whatever questions they asked about the Traybos. But you know what? he said to himself. To hell with them. He wasn’t telling them anything. That wasn’t his style. He could take a beating; he didn’t care. If he was going to die anyway, what difference did it make? As he considered his situation, he glanced down at the dust-covered butt of the Colt standing in the dead man’s holster. There was a whole other way to die.

  “Whoa, what have we here?” said Folliard, stepping forward, noting Claypool’s interest in Staley’s holstered Colt. He stooped and picked up the Colt and wagged it in Claypool’s face. “I believe you would like to grab this and shoot holes in all of us,” he said, taunting the helpless outlaw.

  “Good observation, Detective Folliard,” said Garand, stepping in beside him. “You’ve been showing me something this whole expedition. I expect I’ll be putting a longer title behind your name when we get these rowdy boys stuck under the dirt.”

  “Obliged, Mr. Garand. And it will be my pleasure to stick them there,” Folliard said, staring hard down at Claypool.

  Claypool tilted his bowed head and squinted up through purple, swollen eyes.

  “Folliard,” he said in a pained and gravelly voice, “your face reminds me . . . of the red wet end of a donkey’s—” His words stopped short as the big detective backhanded him across his already battered face.

  Even the onlooking townsmen winced as Claypool’s face flew sideways, then bobbed and fell to his chest.

  “I dare you to . . . do it again,” he mumbled defiantly.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Folliard, drawing back for another swing. “I predict we�
��ll see some teeth spilled here today.”

  But he stopped as a hush fell over the townsmen with the slow creak of the opening front door.

  “Holy God,” Don Stout said in a whisper.

  In the doorway stood the young town doctor, Dayton Bernard, a rope tied around his neck, the tip of a shotgun stuck against the back of his head. Behind him was Wes Traybo, his right hand steadying the shotgun and holding the bight of rope.

  Chapter 5

  A tense silence fell over the small office. The townsmen and detectives froze in place. Folliard swallowed a tight knot in his throat, standing beside the wooden chair where Claypool sat, battered and bloody. Garand stood with his fists clenched at his sides, fighting the urge to yank a long-barreled Colt from behind his duster and start firing. Wes Traybo gained the edge on everybody, but he also knew how quick he could lose it if he wasn’t careful how he played it.

  “Everybody who wants this doctor to live raise your hands,” he said, taking a consensus. As hands were raised, he looked all around counting, then said, “Looks like the hands have it, Doc. Good thing you haven’t overcharged anybody lately.”

  “I—I don’t overcharge, sir,” the doctor said in a frightened but indignant voice.

  “Of course you don’t,” Wes said, pushing the doctor forward a step. To the others he said, “Everybody stand tight and nobody will have to die here. I come to get my man.” He gestured toward Claypool.

  “You’re one of the Traybos,” Garand said in a scornful tone.

  “I already knew that,” Wes said sharply. He saw Carter Claypool reach out and lift a big Starr conversion revolver from Folliard’s holster. The badly beaten outlaw stood up on wobbly legs beside the detective, raising the Starr to Folliard’s chest as he steadied himself on his feet.

  “My, oh my, Detective,” he whispered to Folliard through swollen lips. “Look at what a spot you’re in.”

  Folliard clenched his teeth and stared down woodenly at the dusty plank floor.

  “I expect you’ll kill me now, with my own damn gun,” he murmured in a shaky voice.

  “Good guess,” Claypool said, cocking the hammer on the big, heavy Starr.

  Wes Traybo looked at the wound in Claypool’s left shoulder. “Are you able to ride out of here, amigo?”

  “More than able, and ready,” Claypool managed to say, keeping his swollen eyes on Folliard’s lowered face. “I just need to kill this skunk first.”

  “Then kill him. Let’s get going,” said Traybo. He looked around at the frozen, frightened faces. “Nobody move,” he demanded.

  “On your knees, rail bull,” Claypool said to Folliard, jamming him with his own pistol barrel.

  “Oh no, oh my God, no,” Folliard said as realization set in. Even as he sank slowly to his knees, he said to Claypool in a trembling voice, “Please, mister, I was only doing my job.”

  “I know,” said Claypool. “So am I.” He put the tip of the barrel against the detective’s trembling forehead. “So long, turd,” he said.

  Folliard’s eyes flew open wide in terror as he watched the battered outlaw pull the Starr’s trigger. The whole room gasped as the hammer fell. But Claypool, even with his senses and reflexes dulled from the beating, caught the falling gun hammer with his thumb at the last split second. A wicked smile drew across his swollen lips. He saw urine crawl down the detective’s trouser leg in a widening dark stream. Folliard shuddered in relief and closed his eyes.

  Wes Traybo and Claypool gave each other a look. Then Claypool swung the Starr wide and laid a vicious swipe across the detective’s jaw. Folliard flew backward onto the plank floor and didn’t move. A puff of breath sent two broken, bloody teeth rolling from inside his mouth.

  Claypool said to the knocked-out detective, “There’s those teeth you predicted.”

  Traybo watched as Claypool stepped over to where his gun belt lay coiled like some strange metal and leather reptile. His short-barreled Colt stood in a cut-down slim-jim holster. Beside the gun belt sat the canvas sack of bank money he’d been carrying. He looped the gun belt over his wounded shoulder, hefted the money sack over it, revealing no sign of the pain it caused him, and carried Folliard’s Starr cocked and ready toward the door. On his way to the door, with his gun in his hand, he grabbed a battered bowler hat from a townsman’s head and put it on.

  “You’ll not get away with this,” Garand said in a tight, angry voice. He gestured a nod toward the doctor. “If anything happens to that poor wretch, we’ll hunt you down and hang you on the spot.”

  Traybo gave a tug on the rope and shotgun in his hand.

  “Come on, poor wretch,” he said to Dr. Bernard. “The quicker we get where we’re going, the sooner we’ll set you free.” He looked at Claypool. “About ready, pard?” he asked, ignoring Claypool’s wound and his battered condition.

  “Waiting on you,” Claypool said through his swollen lips.

  Traybo looked at the faces as he backed out the door with the doctor, Claypool covering him.

  “We get a half hour start,” he called out. “Anybody comes out this door before that, you’ll be playing fast and loose with this doctor’s life.”

  Claypool backed out onto the dusty boardwalk be-hind his leader, dust still looming heavily in the air.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked Traybo over his shoulder, checking both ways along the street of the disheveled town.

  “I came back for the money,” said Traybo. “Why else?”

  “I wouldn’t have come back for you,” Claypool said, stepping down to the hitch rail and swinging the sack of money up over his horse’s damp, mud-streaked withers. He stopped for a second, recognizing the horse to be his own sweat-streaked dun. “It’s Charlie Smith!” he said to the dun, looking the horse over quickly. “And no worse for the wear.” The horse sawed its head and chuffed a hot breath in his face.

  “I come across him a mile out,” said Wes Traybo. “Figured you’d be glad to see him.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Claypool said earnestly, climbing up into his saddle. He patted the dun’s damp withers. “Still,” he said, catching himself, “I wouldn’t have come back for you. I mean it.”

  “I know you wouldn’t, you stingy bastard,” said Traybo, shoving the young doctor up into a buckboard wagon he’d acquired on his way into town. He’d reined his horse to the rear of the wagon. “I’m trying to set a good example here.”

  “A good example. Hear that, Charlie Smith?” Claypool said to his horse through swollen lips. He leveled the stolen bowler atop his head, backing the dun into the street. “How’s Ty?” he asked Wes, turning the horse as Traybo swung the wagon around beside him.

  “He’ll do,” said Wes, “if this doctor’s any good.” He slapped the reins to the buckboard horse’s back and put the wagon forward, eyes watching from inside the sheriff’s office as they rode away. “Are you any good, Doc?”

  “I’m the best,” the young doctor said, confident, but not cocky.

  “That’s good to hear,” said Wes Traybo. “You better not be lying to me.”

  Claypool, looking back over his shoulder toward the sheriff’s office, saw stray cattle milling here and there; a long-horned steer licked a wet tongue on its reflection in a storefront window. Along the street townsfolk stared at them from behind cover, not sure what to do, seeing the shotgun to the side of their young doctor’s head.

  “We’re stopping by the saloon on our way out,” Wes said sidelong to Claypool. “The mercantile too.”

  Claypool turned to him in his saddle.

  “You come here to shop?” he asked, bemused, holding his eyes open as far as his swollen purple lids would allow.

  Traybo loosened the rope in his hand and lowered the shotgun an inch, resting the barrel on Dr. Bernard’s shoulder. He gave the guarded trace of a grin, staring ahead along the dusty street.

>   “Sort of,” he said.

  • • •

  Rubens stood up from his guard spot behind a stand of rock when he spotted Wes Traybo and the young doctor on the buckboard, Carter Claypool riding along beside them. On the other side of the buckboard, he spotted Wes’ horse, a dark-haired young woman in the saddle, her skirt drawn up over her thighs to accommodate herself.

  “Looks like your brother has brought half the damn town back with him,” he said to Ty Traybo, who sat slumped back against the rock, Bugs Trent sitting beside him, keeping a close eye on him.

  “Hear that, Ty?” said Bugs. “Wes is back, and he’s brought half the town with him.”

  “That’s . . . my brother for you,” Ty said, weak, sweating, drifting in and out of consciousness. He sat up straighter with Bugs’ help and looked out toward the approaching riders.

  Bugs raised the blood-soaked bandanna from the nasty shoulder wound, eyed the wound, then lowered the cloth back into place.

  “Everything’s going to be all right now,” he said quietly. But his voice didn’t sound convincing.

  “Damn right it will, Ty,” Rubens said, stepping over to them as the wagon rolled up closer. He gave Bugs a doubtful look and shook his head.

  “I know,” Bugs said, returning the look.

  Rubens turned and stepped forward as the buckboard rolled up and slid to a halt a few yards away.

  Claypool and the young woman stopped their horses and stepped down from their saddles. Seeing the doctor stand up in the buckboard and pick up a black medicine satchel and loop its strap over his shoulder, Rubens chuckled and shook his head.

  “You sure did bring back a doctor,” he said, reaching a hand up to help the doctor down. But the doctor ignored his hand and jumped to the ground and walked straight over to Ty Traybo.

  Rubens looked Claypool up and down. “Afternoon, Carter,” he said to the battered outlaw. “Looks like somebody caught you stealing chickens again.”

  “While I was there, I figured I might just as well bring Carter back too,” said Wes, stepping down and gathering an armful of goods from the wagon bed. He turned and pitched a bottle of rye to Rubens.