Chapter Fourteen
“I’m not a trusting man,” Dave Winter said. “Give me your information and I’ll tell you what it’s worth.”
“I can do that, but only if you be Dave Winter,” the stranger said. “If you be somebody else, then I’ll bid you good day and ride on.”
“I’m Winter. What do they call you?”
“Shem Pollard, and this here is my brother Jethro. Me and him, we’re out of the Crockett County canyon country, born and raised.”
“I don’t give a damn where you’re out of,” Winter said. “You two are the sorriest-looking saddle tramps I ever seen this side of the Rio Grande. Don’t you ever bathe?” He shook his head. “Stay the hell downwind of me when I’m drinking my afternoon coffee.”
Bean Gosford said, “How did you know we were here?”
“Beggin’ your pardon, your honor, but we didn’t know you was here,” Shem said. “Oh, we was told that Dave Winter was north of the border again, and when we saw your camp, me and Jethro put two and two together.”
“How much is two and two put together?” Winter said.
Shem looked confused. “I don’t know,” he said.
“I took you for an ignorant son of a bitch,” Winter said. “What information could you possibly have to sell me?”
The man looked sly. “Well, your honor, we seen a purty woman, the purtiest woman in Texas, maybe so.”
“Is that all you have to tell me?” Gosford said. “That you saw a pretty woman.”
“There’s more, Mr. Winter,” Jethro said, like his brother a short, bearded man with lank strands of filthy hair falling over his shoulders. He also smelled like his brother, a cloying stench akin to that of a gut wagon. “We got more to tell.”
“Tell me more,” Winter said. “So far, you ain’t doing so good.”
“The woman was riding on a stage with a shotgun messenger and an outrider,” Shem said. “Now, study on that, Mr. Winter. Why would a stage have two guards unless it was carrying something mighty valuable?”
Despite himself, Winter was interested. “Where was the stage?” he said.
“We last saw it north of the San Saba and headed this way,” Shem said. “When me an’ Jethro was in this country a few years back, there was a stage station on the river owned by a man named Ira Kline. We know, because he ran us off his property, accused us of being trash. Seems to me the stage could be headed there.”
Winter said, “Bean, what do you think?”
“I think you got a choice to make, boss,” Gosford said. “Do we rob a stage or dig for Len Blackburn’s buried treasure?”
“Me and Jethro can help with them things,” Shem interrupted. “We’re good workers and we ain’t afraid to get our hands dirty. An’ we’ll slit a throat, if’n it comes down to a need for some cuttin’. Yes, sir, we cut and backstab just as nice as you please.”
Winter ignored that and said, “Bean, I’m not partial to stage holdups. You mind that time near Nogales when we held up a Butterfield and got into a shooting scrape with the guard and a couple of passengers and when the smoke cleared our haul was a bag of Arbuckle, a nickel watch, and seven dollars and forty-seven cents? You recollect that?”
Gosford smiled. “I should say. I took a load of buckshot in the ass in that damned fight, couldn’t sit a saddle easy for a three-month.”
“Yeah, I remember it, too, and I ain’t likely to ever forget,” Winter said. “All right, here’s what we do. We ride on into Fort Mason and deal with the stage when the time comes, rob it or leave it the hell alone. Looks to me it’s headed for Austin and it’s bound to pass this way.”
“Dave, we’ve learned a lot since the Nogales holdup,” Gosford said. “I reckon we can take it any time we want.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right about that,” Winter said. He threw the dregs of the coffee on the fire and said, “Mount up, boys. We’re headed for old Fort Mason.”
“Mr. Winter, what about us?” Shem Pollard said. “Jethro don’t talk much, but he’s a-wondering as well. Ain’t you, Jethro? Ain’t you a-wondering?”
Jethro gave a slack-mouthed nod. “That’s right, Shem. I’m a-wondering.”
Winter hesitated, his foot in the stirrup. “What the hell are you wondering about?”
“Well, see, we’re kinda curious what our telling you about the stage is worth?” Shem said. “We think maybe ten dollars.”
“It’s worth nothing,” Winter said. He swung into the saddle and smiled. “I got other plans for you boys.”
Shem’s bearded face lit up. “We can throw in with you, Mr. Winter? Me and Jethro are salty, mighty salty, the kind of men you need.”
“Nope,” Winter said. “You can’t throw in with me.”
“Then what?” Shem said, looking disappointed.
“The thing is, if I let you fellers go, you’ll know where we’re headed and what we plan to do, and that’s information you could sell to an interested party, like the Texas Rangers as an example.”
Suddenly Shem Pollard felt fear stab at him. “We ain’t the kind to do that, Mr. Winter. We ain’t squealers. You can trust us.”
Winter snorted. “Trust a pair of sorry pieces of trash like you? You’d sell out your own mother to Judge Parker’s hangman if someone paid you twenty dollars.”
He drew his Colt.
“No, Mr. Winter, not that,” Shem said. “It’s Jethro you can’t trust. He’s the squealer, not me.”
“Damn you fer a lying swine, Shem!” Jethro yelled, suddenly talking for his life.
“You shut your trap, Jethro,” Shem said. “I’m telling Mr. Winter how things are with us.”
“I ain’t never squealed to the law, not once,” Jethro said. “And you know it.”
“He’s a damned liar, Mr. Winter,” Shem said. “You want to gun somebody, gun him.”
“Shut your mouth, Shem,” Jethro said. “The hell with you, I’m gonna shut it permanent.”
Jethro scrambled for the gun belted over his old army greatcoat, drew, and fired. At a range of just five feet, Jethro hurried the shot and missed. Shem, unlimbering a Remington with rust freckles on the cylinder and barrel, got his work in, and his bullet smashed into his brother’s right thigh, breaking bone. Jethro screamed, staggered back, and triggered his gun. Click! The hammer fell on a dud round.
Winter roared with laughter and yanked his horse aside. “Watch out, boys!” he yelled. “Give them shootists some room.”
Bean Gosford and the other riders pulled back, grinning, enjoying the fun.
Shem cursed and advanced on Jethro, who was down on one knee, his wounded leg stretched out in front of him. “Damn you, you’ve killed me, Shem!” Jethro said. He pulled the trigger, and this time his old Colt fired, a gut shot that entered an inch below Shem’s navel and should’ve ended the fight. But after the initial shock of receiving what he knew was a death wound, Shem shrieked back his pain and rage and staggered in front of his brother. He pushed the muzzle of the Remington into Jethro’s shooting eye and dropped the hammer. Click! Old, mildewed brass cartridges produced yet another dud.
Winter and his men were laughing so hard at the pathetic gladiators that they had trouble controlling their horses. Then Winter yelled, “Wait . . . hey, boys, what’s this . . . what’s this?”
Shem had dropped his gun and pulled a huge, bone-handled knife. He grabbed Jethro by the hair, cried out as another of his brother’s bullets slammed into him, and then plunged the blade deep into the left side of his brother’s neck. Blood fountained from a terrible wound as Jethro, his eyes wild, let out a thin, bubbling scream and fell on his back, dying hard and in pain when he hit the ground.
“Oh, well done, old fellow,” Winter yelled, applauding Shem as his cohorts clapped and cheered. “You won the fight fair and square.”
Shem staggered back and sat heavily on the ground, silent, his face ashen.
“Let’s go, boys,” Winter said. “Seems like the show is over.”
Shem turned his head, the blue death shadows already gathered in his cheeks and eyes. “Get me to a doctor,” he said. “I’m shot through and through.”
“Hell, he wants a doctor,” Winter said, fighting his restive horse. Then to Shem, “Don’t worry. One will be by directly.”
To the cackle of more merriment and like a flock of ravens taking flight, Winter and his men left that place . . . and Shem Pollard’s dying eyes watched them go.