Hell's Bounty Read online

  “Undertaker,” said Double Shot.

  “That fits.”

  “The other is some kind of Indian. Or half-breed. Shit, he might be a Mexican. None of them sort last around here long enough for us to learn their names.”

  The man leaned his back into the bar and studied the Indian. He had a crooked nose and a scar on his cheek that didn’t look as if it got there from shaving. He wore a brown derby that was a size too small. It was pushed back on his head at a jaunty angle. A shotgun, the barrel almost completely sawed off, rested in a makeshift holster against his leg. The man at the bar smiled slightly, and then glanced at the sleeping man at the other table. The bartender saw him do that, said, “And that ain’t nobody.”

  “Nobody?”

  “Not anymore.”

  The man nodded slightly, finished his second drink, left some coins on the counter, and had the bartender pour a third. As the bartender was filling his glass, the kid came over. He looked at the man’s revolvers, said, “Nice guns.”

  “My mother gave them to me.”

  The kid considered this, smirked. “Kind of an odd gift from a mother, don’t you think?”

  “You don’t know my mother.”

  Double Shot said, “Kid, sit down, take a load off, let me bring you a drink.”

  “You shut up, bar keep,” the kid said.

  “Have it your way,” Double Shot said, and grabbed a rag and went down the length of the bar wiping.

  “Is that a stick of dynamite?” the kid asked the man.

  “No.”

  “Mother give you that too?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The kid gave the man a sour look, pushed back his coat to give a good show of his revolvers. He tapped the butts of the pistols with his fingers.

  “You’re funnin’ me, Mister. Ought not do that. These guns are special orders. Took months just to get here. I don’t wear them just for show.”

  “No shit?”

  “You making sport of me, fella?”

  “That’s too much work.”

  “I’m fast, smart mouth. Real fast. I don’t want to have to kill you.”

  “Only thing you’re going to kill is time. Take a walk, kid.”

  The kid’s right hand moved to draw his revolver, and he moved fast. But the man drew the kid’s left revolver from his holster before the kid could clear the other, used the revolver’s barrel like a club against the kid’s head.

  The kid dropped to the floor like a dead bird, his hat flying off.

  The man laid the revolver on the bar. He looked at the bartender, pointed to his glass. “One more time.”

  (4)

  When the drink was poured, the man put another stack of coins on the bar, strolled over to the card table carrying his drink. He said, “Name’s Smith. Can I get a hand in this game?”

  Quill tossed his head toward the kid on the floor.

  “I think you bent the barrel on his special ordered pistol.”

  Smith didn’t respond.

  “Kind of a dangerous place to be carrying that dynamite, ain’t it?”

  “What dynamite?”

  “That’s funny, Smith,” Quill said. “But not that funny.”

  “It’s no never mind to me,” Smith said.

  “It ain’t you we’re worried about,” the undertaker said. “Wouldn’t take much for us all to go up.”

  “Guess you’ll just have to be nervous,” Smith said.

  Quill grinned at Smith. “Hell, it ain’t no never mind to me either.”

  Smith looked at the Indian. He hadn’t even looked up from his cards. Smith said, “You the nervous type.”

  “Not so you could tell it,” the Indian said.

  “This here is McBride, but we just call him Undertaker. Chief here is Bull. I’m Trumbo Quill. I kind of keep things together around here.”

  “He means he runs the town and the rest of us no goods let him,” Bull said.

  “Something like that,” Quill said. “You want to go shit, I tell you when and where and what to use to wipe your ass.”

  “Don’t think I’ll be here long enough to have to ask that permission,” Smith said.

  “As for me,” Bull said, “I’m just passing through.”

  “Yeah,” Quill said, “for three months now you been passing through.”

  “I like the cards and I like the way you run the town because you been good enough not to run me,” Bull said.

  Quill pushed his hat back, yelled at the bar, “Tell Payday to come out and bring a bottle of whisky.”

  “I’ll get it,” Double Shot said.

  “I don’t want you go get it,” Quill said. “I want something good to look at. Have Payday bring it. And now.”

  A woman with the face of an angel, eyes as blue as a summer sky, hair the color of a brush fire, and a body that would make Jesus break the Holy Grail, came out of the back of the saloon, pushed through the beaded curtain, carrying a deck of cards and a bottle of whisky. She was wearing a fluffy white dress with blood red flowers stitched into it, had on knee high, laced, black boots. When she moved she swayed and the men watched her sway; their beady blood-shots followed her ass like a dog following a meat wagon.

  Payday put the bottle next to Quill and gave the cards to McBride, the undertaker. She looked at Smith. She showed him she had all her teeth and that they were white as sugar cubes.

  The Undertaker opened the deck and began to shuffle the cards.

  Payday said to Smith, “Bring you a bottle, mister?”

  “Bring me anything that don’t kill me, Red,” Smith said.

  “People here call me Payday, not Red.”

  “That’s cause they all give it up for her either in the bar or in the bed,” Bull said. “She looks top notch, but she’s low dollar.”

  Payday glared at Bull and went away. After a moment, she came back with a bottle of whisky. She put it on the table next to Smith. Smith looked at his bottle, and then he looked at Quill, and got it. The bottle Payday placed for Quill was set in such a way—behind his card hand and to the side—that Smith could see Quill’s cards in the bottle’s reflection. When Smith looked up, he saw Payday was looking at what he was looking at. She said, “I got a feeling today is your lucky goddamn day.”

  “Could be,” Smith said, and pulled a cigar from his vest pocket.

  “You ain’t gonna light that, are you?” Undertaker asked.

  “Yep,” Smith said, and produced a match and struck it on his belt buckle, inches from the stick of dynamite. He puffed gently and blew smoke out of his mouth without removing the cigar.

  “I think I might fold and go outside,” Undertaker said.

  “Go where you want to go,” Smith said.

  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, Undertaker,” Quill said. “Once you’re in a game, you’re in. You can fold, you want, but you’ll stay sit.”

  Undertaker turned his eyes toward his cards, dipped his head so that the narrow brim of the stovepipe hid his eyes.

  Quill twisted his mouth a moment, said, “These damn cards are no better than before.” He started to pour a whisky.

  Payday said, “I’ll do it. That’s one thing I’m paid for.”

  She took the bottle and dotted his glass with whisky and set the bottle back in the exact same place. Smith watched as the reflection from the cards jumped and floated in the bobbing whisky, and then the whisky went still and so did the reflection. Quill wasn’t bluffing. His hand wasn’t any good.

  Quill said, “Think I’ll fold, take Payday in the back and dip my wick.”

  “Not today,” Payday said.

  Quill turned in his chair and glared at Payday. “I don’t care if you’re runnin’ the red river or just ain’t in the mood. I say we ride a little, we ride.”

  “I can turn down anyone’s dollar I take a mind to,” Payday said. “And you’re a filthy pig and I’m turning yours down.”

  “I never said anything about paying you,” Quill said.

  Th
e fat-assed whore with the missing teeth at the next table said, “I’ll do you, Quill. On the house.” She got out of the buckskinned man’s lap and moved toward him.

  Quill said, “I don’t fuck goats.”

  This stopped the fat whore as surely as a punch in the head. She went back and sat down in a chair at the table with the buckskinners. She didn’t look at Quill. She didn’t look at the men at the table. The buckskin-dressed man whose lap she had been sitting in tried to encourage her with a smile, but his scattering of teeth didn’t warm her. She continued to stay where she was.

  Quill stood up, grabbed Payday’s arm, “Come on,” he said.

  “Let go of me, you pig.”

  Quill didn’t let go.

  Payday shot a glance at Smith. He looked at her, but there was nothing in his face that gave her comfort. She looked at the undertaker. He picked up his cards and shuffled them in his hands with a sound like startled quail flying from a bush. His skin turned red.

  She didn’t bother looking at Bull.

  Quill pulled her across the floor and through the beaded curtain, and just before they went through, she reached for his gun, and almost had it when Quill grabbed her hand and pushed it aside, said, “No you don’t. I know what you can do with that and you ain’t gonna do nothin’.”

  Quill shoved her through the curtain and followed. A moment later there was a sound of a struggle, then a grunt. This was followed by, “You little whore,” and then there was the sound of Quill forcing her upstairs, and then the floor creaked, and then there was a yelp and the sound of a struggle, and then something hit the floor.

  A moment later, the struggle started all over again. Bull said, “I reckon he’s havin’ seconds.”

  The sleeping man at the nearby table hadn’t flexed a muscle and now he was snoring.

  (5)

  The fat saloon girl came over and said to Smith. “You look like a nice man. Won’t you help her?”

  “I’m not nice,” Smith said. “Leave me out of it. I learned a long time ago to mind my own business.”

  The saloon girl looked around the room in desperation. No takers. She went back and sat down and cried almost silently. Upstairs, the screams increased and so did the blows. Finally, Bull said, “I’m gonna get in line, see if there’s anything left.”

  “Not today,” Smith said.

  “What?”

  Smith reached inside his coat and took out a rolled piece of paper, put it on the table and unrolled it, smoothed it with his palm. It was a crude drawing of Bull. It was a wanted poster. Smith tapped his finger against it, said, “That’s you.”

  “That could be any Indian with a bowler hat,” Bull said.

  “That’s you. It even says Bull. How many Bulls are there that look like you and wear a bowler hat?”

  Bull grinned. “I look a lot better in person, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, but there’s the smell.”

  “I get lonely on the plains. The smell attracts buffalo, and you know what they say; ‘it’s all pink on the inside.’”

  “And this says Wanted Dead or Alive.”

  Bull pushed his chair back, stood up and said, “Well, it won’t be alive.”

  “I prefer it that way. Less stops for pee breaks.”

  “You got to make me dead first.”

  Bull flipped open his coat to give him freer access to the holstered sawed-off. The buckskinners and the saloon girl at the table behind them moved away quickly. Gun like that could take out a room.

  Bull grinned and gently touched the sawed off stock of the shotgun. “I ain’t no punk kid.”

  Before the words were fully out of his mouth, Smith drew.

  No one really saw it.

  There was a blur and there was a noise, and the next thing they realized, the back of Bull’s head was decorating the wall and Bull was lying on the floor in a heap, pissing himself. The echo of the shot hung in the air.

  The sleeping man at the nearby table still hadn’t moved a muscle and he was still snoring.

  Smith glanced at Undertaker.

  “Okay with me,” said Undertaker holding up his hands, “it’s good business.”

  “You don’t get this one,” Smith said. “Reward money.”

  “Just saying I understand commerce when I see it, mine or someone else’s.”

  Smith put the revolver away and folded up his wanted poster and put it inside his coat pocket. Upstairs Quill yelled, “I’ll cut your face off, whore.”

  “She needs help, you know,” Undertaker said, lifting his head to the upper floor.

  “Then go help her.”

  Smith grabbed Bull by one of his heels and pulled him across the floor and through the bat wings. Double Shot came out behind him.

  “Someone ought to help that girl.”

  “You got a bone in your leg,” Smith said. “You can walk. Go help her you want to.”

  Double Shot looked down at the board walk.

  Smith tossed Bull over the horse next to his at the hitching post.

  “Mister,” Double Shot said, “that ain’t Bull’s horse. That one belongs to Quill.”

  “Tell him life is full of all manner of little disappointments.”

  Smith got on his horse while holding the reins of the other, started trotting down the street, Quill’s horse in tow, carrying Bull’s body.

  (6)

  Inside the saloon the beaded curtain parted, and out stumbled Payday. She had her hand over the side of her face covering her eye. Blood leaked through her fingers. Her hair was loose and cascaded across her back and shoulders and across her cheek like lava flowing. At first glance, it looked as if the red flowers on her dress had multiplied, but they were not in the shapes of flowers, they were crimson splotches and some of them were spreading. She staggered. She turned. Her hand slipped down from her face. There was a lot of blood and a lot of wound. She collapsed to the floor with a loud thud.

  The fat saloon girl jumped up and ran over to the sleeping man and grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Doc, for God’s sake, wake up. Payday’s been hurt.”

  Doc didn’t move.

  The saloon girl shook him harder. “Quill’s done messed her up bad.”

  Doc stirred, causing the whisky bottle he had been clutching to fall and hit the floor. He said, “What now?”

  “Payday. She’s been hurt by Quill. Doc. Come on. You got to help.”

  Doc got up and steadied his hand on the back of the chair for support. The saloon girl picked up his black bag, started pushing Doc toward Payday. At that moment, Quill came through the beaded curtain buttoning up his pants. He took a look at Payday on the floor, went over to the bar and saw that Double Shot was standing just outside of the bat wings. “Hey, Double Shot. Get your ass in here. I need a drink.”

  Double Shot rushed inside, said, “Mister Quill.”

  “Shut up,” Quill said. He turned and put his back against the bar. The doctor was on his knees beside the unconscious Payday, looking her over. Quill said, “Fix her up so she lives, we’ll put a bag over her head and give her away free to sell beer.”

  “Mr. Quill,” Double Shot said.

  “What, goddamnit!”

  “The stranger… He killed Bull and put him on your horse and took off.”

  Quill whirled to look at Double Shot. “What?”

  “That’s right, took your horse.”

  “Damnit. Why didn’t you tell me, you asshole? Hand me that Winchester from under the bar, the long barrel one.”

  Double Shot bent down and got it and gave it to Quill.

  The doctor, still wobbling, looked up and saw Quill, said, “What happened? What did you do, Quill?”

  “I was you,” Quill said, moving toward the swinging doors, “I wouldn’t concern myself with it.”

  Quill ran outside and looked up the street and cocked the Winchester. He saw Smith not too far away, in no hurry, trotting along on his horse, leading Quill’s horse with Bull lying across it. Bull was dripping blo
od onto the sandy street. Quill raised the Winchester and fired.

  The shot hit Smith’s horse smooth in the ass, a blue whistler that went in deep and killed the beast. As it fell, quivering, it tossed Smith into the dirt. Smith, tumbled and rolled to his feet, and when he came up, he had both pistols in his hands, his cigar still clenched in his teeth. Quill’s horse sprinted wildly away, tearing down the street, heading for the unknown, Bull on board.

  Smith sauntered up the street, back toward the saloon, holding both pistols, puffing at his cigar, the smoke trailing behind him. “I liked that horse,” he said to no one in particular.

  Smith saw Quill raising the Winchester again, and snapped off a shot. It hit the saloon wall next to Quill, frayed the wood there, knocking splinters back into Quill’s cheek. Another shot cracked the wood, and Quill ducked back inside the saloon faster than a jack rabbit diving down a hole.

  A moment passed, no longer than the time it would take a cricket to jump, and Quill came out again, aimed the Winchester at Smith and fired. Smith winced slightly and his cigar went from one side of his mouth to the other, but his teeth saved it. Smith fired again, and this time his shot was good. It hit Quill in the side, low. Quill went to one knee, raised the rifle and shot back. The bullet plucked at Smith’s shirt collar, tore on through, went spinning down the street and fell into the dust.

  Smith put his pistols in their holsters with a slick spinning move, pulled the stick of dynamite out of his belt and touched the wick to the tip of his cigar. There was a hissss like an angry snake as the dynamite lit. Smith was close now, and Quill was firing steadily, but there wasn’t a good aim in the bunch. The shots fluttered around Smith’s head and body like bees.

  Smith pulled the dynamite back to throw it, and as he did he noticed something too late. The wick. The goddamn wick.

  “Too short,” Smith said aloud, with no more surprise than if he had discovered a fly on his dinner plate. Before he could throw it, the dynamite went off, and when it did, the blast was so vicious it set the saddle bag of dynamite on the dead horse behind him off, and then there was one hell of an explosion. Smith and horsemeat went in all directions. The remains of his revolvers clattered against the buildings on either side of the street, and his clothes were coasted on the wind. Blood and bones splattered and stuck to the clapboard sidings. Windows blew out of businesses, dust stirred up and whirled about like a little tornado. A concho came down on the boardwalk in front of the saloon. Most of the saddle that had been on Smith’s horse went sliding up to the livery.