CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Big John Waters showed up at noon, an hour after the mist lifted. He was accompanied by just four riders.
“Cousin Billy Joe came down with a bloody flux and we had to leave him in Lordsburg,” Waters said, talking to Davis Salt. “The Baxter twins never showed, and Boone Carter got hisself shot by a deputy sheriff up Las Cruces way and ain’t expected to live.” Waters shook his great nail keg of a head. “Hard times, Davis.”
“The Baxter boys are a loss,” Salt said, showing his disappointment.
“Yeah, especially Micah. Best with the iron I’ve ever seen.”
Waters’ gaze moved to Seth Koenig, who was sitting cross-legged, shoveling salt pork and beans into his mouth. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”
Without getting up, Seth extended his hand, chewing. “Seth Koenig. Pleased to meet you.”
Waters, well over six feet tall with a great sagging belly that overhung his gunbelt, took Seth’s hand. He immediately dropped it as though he’d just been stung. His florid face puzzled, the big man said, “You any kin to Blade Koenig, owns the Hellfire spread?” He rubbed his right palm on his pant leg.
“He’s my pa, or was,” Seth said, again talking around a mouthful of food. “He’s dead.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Waters said. “How did it come about?”
“His ticker gave up on him.”
Seth ignored Salt’s bemused look as Waters said, “Hell, I thought men like Blade never died.”
“Men like Blade die like any other men,” Seth said.
“Then please accept my sympathy for your loss,” Waters said.
Koenig shrugged and said nothing, all his concentration on his plate.
“Coffee’s on the bile, John,” Davis said. “You and your boys help yourself.”
Waters waited until his four men, a tough-looking bunch with vague, inbred faces, poured coffee before he took his. He kept fussing with his right hand as though it was sticky. When he finally settled, he sat beside Davis, tried his smoking hot coffee, and then said, “What’s the job, Davis?”
“It’s big,” Seth said. “A lot of money and land at stake.”
Waters shot Seth an annoyed look, as though he’d talked out of turn.
“Yeah, John, it’s big,” Davis said. “We’re going to get us a ranch.”
With the back of his hand Waters wiped coffee from his mustache. “I need more than that, Davis. I ain’t a man that’s into ranching.”
“The ranch belongs to a woman by the name of Kate Kerrigan, and we’re going to take it away from her,” Salt said.
“I’ve heard the name. Biggest ranch in Texas, I heard.”
“One of the biggest, for sure,” Salt said.
“What are we up against?”
“Punchers, maybe a gun or two. I don’t know.”
“How many punchers?”
“Winter is cracking down and most of the hands will have been paid off,” Salt said. “A big outfit like that might keep on ten, tops. We can take it.”
Waters looked around him. “How many we got?”
Salt nodded in Seth’s direction. “With him and me, twenty-seven. And you and your boys make thirty-two. We’re all gun-handy and we’ll be up against waddies who ain’t.”
“Yeah, that’s enough, I guess,” Waters said. “Davis, you said the money will be good. How good?”
Salt again nodded to Seth. “Ask him.”
“Plenty,” Seth said. “You won’t be underpaid.”
“Davis?” Waters said.
“I’ll see you all right, John.”
“Then it’s settled,” Waters said, knowing Salt was a man who stood behind his word. He said to Seth, “Where are the Hellfire hands?”
“There are none.”
“How come?”
“They walked out on me.”
Waters took a closer look at Seth Koenig. Tall, as big as his pa and just as handsome. Arrogant, probably as fast as Blade with a gun, but his face had a shuttered expression as though he harbored dark secrets. Waters recalled the young man’s handshake—cold, stiff, like taking the mitt of a three-day-old corpse. He decided right there and then he didn’t like Seth Koenig.
“How come the hands walked out on you, young feller?” Waters said. “I know they set store by your pa.”
“But not me.” Seth lifted cold eyes to the tall man’s face. “By nature, are you a questioning man, Waters?”
“No, not as a rule.”
“Then shut your trap. Do your job and you’ll get paid. That’s all you need to know.”
“I’ll do my job. I was killing men before you were born.”
“Good. Then you’ll know what to do when we hit the Kerrigan ranch. A word of warning, Waters. The redheaded woman is mine and I don’t want her harmed.”
“What redheaded woman?”
“The widow Kerrigan.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“See you do.”
Waters looked at Salt. “Davis, I don’t like the company you keep.”
Salt shrugged, staring at Seth. “I don’t like him either, but he’s the one with the money, John.”
* * *
John Waters insisted that he and his men be given time to rest up that day and ride for the Kerrigan ranch at first light the following morning. Seth objected, but Davis Salt overruled him and that’s where the matter stood as the day shaded into evening and the first stars appeared.
But trouble flares easily among a gathering of rough and armed men when the whiskey bottle makes the rounds and voices grow loud and tempers short.
A man called Ray Ward, one of the Waters riders, lit the fuse. Small, with a pale, pinched face and vacant gray eyes, he sidled up to Seth Koenig and grinned. He asked about the redheaded woman, how big were her breasts and, once the battle was won, if she’d be willing to take on all comers.
Seth, already seething at the lack of respect shown him by Salt and Waters, was on the prod, and Ward’s question was ill-timed.
Seth’s answer was short and to the point. “Shut your filthy mouth. Go anywhere near my woman and I’ll kill you.” His words were shouted and attracted everyone’s attention.
Ward was just drunk enough to be belligerent. He’d killed four men, but with a rifle at a distance. He’d never been in a spitting-distance revolver fight.
“Damn you, when I see a woman I want, I take her,” Ward said. “And if I want your redheaded woman, I’ll take her, too.”
“You’ll keep your dirty paws off her,” Seth said.
From somewhere in the gloom, John Waters said, “Back off, Ray. It’s a big ranch. There’ll be women for everybody.”
“The hell there will be.” Ward stared at Seth, grinning, pushing it. “I want this boy’s redheaded woman.”
Waters stepped out of the shadows and said, “Ray, sit down. Have another drink.”
“I don’t want a drink,” Ward said. Then to Seth, “You’ve been there, and you know I want some of what you had, huh?”
Seth, not angry but eager to kill and prove himself to Salt, made a rapid mental calculation. Thirty-two men in camp . . . well they could take the Kerrigan ranch with a couple less.
“You’re a lying piece of trash.” He smiled as his hand flashed to his Colt and he pulled the trigger.
Ray Ward staggered back. His face shocked and unbelieving, he stared at the bullet hole in his chest. He knew he was dead on his feet and he told Seth so. “Damn you. You’ve killed me.”
Seth ignored the man. Big John Waters stood in place, frozen, stunned by what had happened, the sudden eruption of mindless violence. He showed no sign of making a play.
“You don’t like my company, Waters?” Seth said. “Well here’s a ticket that will take you the hell away from me.” He triggered two fast shots into the big man.
Waters took a step back and had time to utter a roar of resentment and outrage before he hit the ground. A bullet tugged at Seth’s sleeve. Waters’ remaining men, all three close kin to him and each other, were firing. Out of the corner of his eyes Seth saw Salt on his feet, his Colt bucking in his hand. One of Waters’ men went down, then a second. Seth slammed a shot into the third, and the man shrieked and fell.
“You damned idiot!” Salt yelled at Seth. His pocked face black with anger, he quickly crossed the distance between them and unloaded a tremendous right hook to Seth’s chin.
Suddenly the sky cartwheeled around him, and Seth’s legs buckled. He fought for balance but the shifting ground under his feet suddenly gave way and he crashed onto his back, his Colt thudding into the dirt beside him.
“You damned fool!” Salt yelled, thunder in his eyes. “You’re a mad dog killer, damn you. Why did you shoot Waters? He wasn’t going to draw down on you on account of trash like Ray Ward.”
Seth Koenig tried to grab hold of his reeling thoughts. “Wha . . . wha . . .”
“One of you men, take his revolver and Winchester,” Salt said.
Finally, Seth found his tongue. “You hit me.”
“Yeah, I did,” Salt said, still dangerously angry. “You’re lucky I didn’t put a bullet in you. I saved your worthless life, Koenig, but we’ve got five men gone, good men we needed.”
Seth sat up, put his hurting head in his hands and then looked up at Salt from between his palms. “We didn’t need them. They were riffraff, spawned by sisters who couldn’t outrun their brothers. Paying those white trash would’ve been a waste of good money.”
“Money. Right now, money is all that’s keeping you alive, Koenig,” Salt said. “If there wasn’t money in it for me, you’d be dead right now.”
“Yeah, it’s all about money and the power it brings, but you can’t touch a penny of it unless I say so.”
A gunman with a crafty face had been listening. His Texas spurs chimed as he stepped over a dead man and walked closer to Seth. “You keep talking about Blade’s money, Koenig. How much money? We need dollars and cents.”
This brought a chorus of agreement from some of the other gunmen.
“All right. Have you ever seen a hundred thousand dollars in one place at one time?” Seth said.
“Can’t say as I have,” the gunman said.
“You ever seen two hundred thousand dollars?”
“Nope.” The gunman’s cunning blue eyes had taken on a sheen of greed.
“How about three hundred thousand?”
The man shook his head.
Seth said, “Four hundred thousand? No, you ain’t never seen that either.” He got to his feet. “Mister, when this undertaking is done and I own the Kerrigan ranch, I’ll put five hundred thousand dollars on a table and tell you boys to dig in and grab your share. And Salt, that also goes for you. Hell, it goes for you double.”
His announcement was greeted with whoops of joy from most, skepticism from a few, among them Davis Salt.
Jaw muscles bunched, his ruined face a grotesque, angry mask, Salt said, “Koenig, if you’re lying to me about the money, I swear, I’ll kill you.”
“You calling me a liar?”
“If the money isn’t there and in the amount you claim, yeah, I’ll call you a liar to your face and then I’ll put a bullet in your belly.”
Seth hesitated. He had no gun, but he wouldn’t have braced Salt anyhow. The man was too fast on the draw and shoot, way too dangerous.
“Right after our business is done, the money will be there and you can count it,” Seth said. But you won’t live to spend it, you scar-faced son of a bitch, because you’ll be dead. A fast draw can’t shade a bullet in the back.
“Koenig, I hope for your sake you’re right,” Salt said.
“What about my guns?”
“You’ll get them back before we attack,” Salt said. “We ride for the Kerrigan ranch tomorrow at first light.”