Authors: Steve Hayes
Emerging from the hotel, Gabriel paused on the boardwalk and looked around. He half-expected to find Sheriff Forbes with his deputies gathered in the street, waiting for him with their scatterguns ready.
But there wasn’t a lawman in sight. No-good gutless bastard, Gabriel thought. He’s goin’ to stay out of sight an’ let Stadtlander do his dirty work for him.
He turned into the sun, pulled his hat low over his eyes and walked back to the livery stable. Oncoming
pedestrians
quickly stepped out of his way and then looked back for a moment, awed by the sight of the infamous gunfighter. With Billy the Kid in his grave, John Wesley Hardin doing time in a Texas prison, and Holliday and the Earp brothers merely a memory at Tombstone, Mesquite Jennings was the last of a vanishing breed.
Gabriel paid no attention to them. But it was two blocks to the livery stable and he couldn’t help hearing their whispers.
‘That’s him!’
‘You sure?’
‘ ’Course I’m sure. That’s Mesquite Jennings, all right.’
‘Can you believe it? Walkin’ down Main Street bold as brass.’
‘Didn’t he use to ride for the Double SS?’
‘Sure. Four, maybe five years ago.’
‘Still be workin’ there most likely, if’n he hadn’t stole Mr Stadtlander’s favorite horse.’
‘I heard there was a noose waitin’ for him every place he went after that.’
‘Still is.’
‘Then what the hell’s he doin’ back here?’
‘Yeah, an’ who’s the woman with him?’
‘Probably some whore he picked up. Like the Kid, he always did have a soft spot for cheap whiskey an’ round-heeled women.’
Controlling an urge to pistol-whip the last speaker, Gabriel crossed the street to Lars Gustafson’s livery. There, pausing outside the big open door, he glanced back to make sure he hadn’t been followed. When he was satisfied he was safe, he entered the stable and paid the club-footed hostler for feeding and watering the horses.
‘What about the roan, Mr Jennings, sir? What you want me to do with her?’
‘Keep her here till Miss Kincaide comes by.’ Gabriel handed the hostler extra money. ‘She may want you to hang onto her for a spell, or sell her. I don’t know. But anythin’ the lady asks you to do, do it, OK? Free of charge an’ with a big friendly smile.’
‘Yessir, Mr Jennings. You can count on me, sir. Anythin’ else, sir?’
‘Those two smokes you got in your pocket – how much?’
‘For you, Mr Jennings – nothin’. No charge at all. Hell, it’s an honor just to know you smoked ’em.’
He watched the tall, rangy gunfighter step into the saddle and ride off.
Mesquite Jennings, he said to himself. I’ll be damned. He whistled softly knowing that one day, when his kids grew up and had young’uns of their own, he’d gather them all around him and tell them the story of the day that he, Thomas Edwin Madden, gave New Mexico’s most famous outlaw since Billy the Kid his last two cigars.
As he rode away from the stable, turned onto Lower Front Street and continued through the poorer section of Santa Rosa, Gabriel looked up and saw three of Mama Rosita’s whores watching him intently from an open window above the Copper Palace.
He didn’t recognize any of them, but he grinned and tipped his hat anyway and was surprised when they didn’t respond. Whores made most of their money from repeat business and ignoring strangers wasn’t smart or customary.
Blaming it on his reputation, he took out one of the hostler’s cheap cigars, bit the end off and stuck it in his mouth. As he went to fire a match on the saddle horn he saw a glint of metal in the alley next to the Copper Palace.
Instinctively, he threw himself sideways, freeing his boots from the stirrups and leaping out of the saddle on the other side of the horse – hearing as he did the
familiar
‘pa-a-anng!’ of a rifle.
A second later he hit the ground. Keeping his
momentum
going by rolling over, he came up on one knee and, gun already in hand, fired twice under the belly of the
Morgan at a figure crouched in the mouth of the alley.
The man dropped his Winchester, stumbled back and collapsed in the dirt.
Gabriel scrambled across the street and dived behind a public water trough.
More gunfire came from across the street. Bullets and shotgun slugs thunked into the trough near his head. As he peered around the side he saw Slade Stadtlander and the younger of the Iverson brothers, Cody, firing at him from the entrance of the Copper Palace.
Gabriel knew Slade was a better shot, but he was
shooting
a six-gun, while Cody was blasting at him with a
scattergun
. The choice was simple. Gabriel waited until he’d fired both barrels, the heavy slugs tearing chunks of wood from the trough, and then stood up and fanned three shots at the bearded Iverson.
Cody took them in the chest. He staggered back as if pushed by a giant hand, dropped his 12-gauge and
crumpled
onto his face.
Shocked by Cody’s death, Slade hastily emptied his .45 at Gabriel, turned and ran back into the saloon.
Gabriel crossed the street, reloading as he walked. He was pissed at himself. Before he’d holed up in Mexico he would never have been caught off-guard like that; he would have expected word of his presence to have spread to every saloon and whorehouse in Santa Rosa – and, as a result, would have anticipated someone to come gunning for him. Either some punk kid gunslinger, anxious to make a fast reputation for himself, or maybe a bounty hunter; or even one of Sheriff Forbes’s deputies, who were known to be backshooters.
Instead, he’d grown complacent and had narrowly escaped being shot down in broad daylight. Well, he
promised himself grimly, it sure as hell wouldn’t happen again.
He mounted the boardwalk and paused at the entrance to the venerable old saloon and gambling palace. Then he stepped to one side and peered over the batwing doors.
Inside, everyone was trying to look normal as they either stood drinking at the long half-moon bar or played poker or faro in the casino in back.
A little too normal, Gabriel thought. He glanced up at the balcony leading to the whores’ rooms, and saw a couple of cowboys talking to a straw-haired woman who looked fat and sweaty in red satin.
Deciding not to risk falling into a trap, Gabriel walked to the alley and knelt beside the man he’d shot earlier. As he rolled him over with his boot, he saw it was the older Iverson, Mace.
His eyelids fluttered and Gabriel realized he was still alive. Kneeling, he put his lips against Mace’s ear and
whispered
:
‘This is for Cally….’ and shot him in the forehead.
The booming echo of the shot was still reverberating in the alley when Gabriel heard the sound of a horse
galloping
away. He ran to the end of the alley and peered over the fence – in time to see Slade riding off in the direction of the Double SS.
So, Gabriel thought as he ejected the spent shells and reloaded the Peacemaker. It’s all going to end at the same place it started.
With the hubbub of Santa Rosa fading behind him, Gabriel picked up the trail leading out to the Double SS and kicked the stallion into a mile-consuming lope. The Morgan was more co-operative than he’d expected it to be after the spurring he’d given it in San Dimas, and leery of its penchant for payback he kept a watchful eye on its behavior as they rode across the hot open wasteland.
In a way it was a blessing, he thought. Having to worry about being bucked off gave him something to think of besides the trouble he knew was waiting for him at Stadtlander’s.
It was an hour’s ride to the high, arched, signature
gateway
that warned everyone they were entering Double SS land; and then another twenty minute climb up to the crest of the flat-topped knoll on which stood the rancher’s impressive, Western-style mansion.
Stadtlander had chosen to build his home atop the grassy knoll for two reasons: at first, in the early days, so he could see his enemies coming; and later, when with Gabriel’s help he’d forced out all the other ranchers and
could afford to replace the original modest, single-story ranch house with a fancy three-story mansion, to let the rest of the world see how rich and important he’d become.
Now, as Gabriel nudged the Morgan up the long grassy incline, he knew a dozen or more unfriendly pairs of eyes were watching him. But he felt perfectly safe. Stadtlander was many things, most of them bad, but he was no
backshooter
or bushwhacker. Unlike his sly, mealy-mouthed son, Slade, if the Old Man was going to kill you he wanted to look you in the eyes as he pulled the trigger.
As Gabriel rode slowly uphill, his gaze fixed ahead on the familiar ranch house and various outer buildings surrounding it, he felt a sense of coming home. Mixed emotions came with the feeling. Despite his deep-rooted anger at Stadtlander for wrongfully branding him a
horse-thief
and destroying any chance he had of a normal future, Gabriel felt a strange, warm attachment for the irascible, gruff rancher.
He knew he owed him a lot.
Since that bleak wintry morning almost ten years ago, with the ground frosted rock-hard and covered in patches with snow, when as a raw, quick-tempered youth ‘Gabe’ had hired on as a hand at the Double SS, he had felt he belonged there.
It didn’t take long before other people felt the same way. The fact that he could sign his name rather just make a mark, like most of the semi-illiterate hands, set him apart. It also brought him to Stadtlander’s attention.
‘I hear you can read’n write, boy?’ the short, powerfully built rancher said to him a few days after he’d been hired.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I also hear you got a mighty quick temper – that true?’ Gabriel shrugged.
‘Speak up, boy. When I ask you a question I expect an answer.’
‘I stand up for m’self, sir, that’s all.’
Stadtlander studied him, a hand-rolled smoke
protruding
from under his brown, droopy, gunfighter’s mustache.
‘I got no quarrel with that,’ he said gruffly. ‘But I checked around, an’ accordin’ to Sheriff Forbes and his deputies it goes a mite further than that. Seems, they think you’re carryin’ a chip and just itchin’ for someone to try an’ knock it off.’
Gabriel shrugged again.
‘I’m not responsible for how folks think, Mr Stadtlander. I mind my own business an’ I expect others to do the same.’
‘An’ when they don’t, you’re happy to teach ’em some manners, that it? Don’t answer that,’ Stadtlander added wryly. ‘I don’t possess the sweetest disposition myself so I know all about learnin’ people manners. But what I do want to know, boy, is if that iron on your hip is for show or to back up what your fists can’t handle.’
‘So far,’ Gabriel replied, ‘I ain’t found nobody these fists can’t handle.’
Stadtlander chuckled. ‘Modest son-of-a-buck, aren’t you?’ As he spoke he suddenly went for his gun. His draw wouldn’t have scared Hickok or Clay Allison but it was still plenty fast – which is why he was surprised to find himself staring at the old Walker Colt held by the youngster in front of him.
‘That modest enough for you, Mr Stadlander?’
For a second Stadtlander didn’t respond; then he laughed, loud and hearty, and lifted his hand from his still-holstered six-gun.
‘I like a man who can best me,’ he said. ‘Just so he’s
workin’ for me an’ not agin me.’ He waited for Gabriel to holster his gun and then drove his fist, with all his might, into the youth’s jaw.
Gabriel went sprawling and lay there, flat on his back on the cowhide rug, stunned.
‘Next time you point a pistol at me, son,’ Stadtlander said without rancor, ‘be ready to shoot it.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ Gabriel promised, groggily getting to his feet. ‘Don’t think I won’t.’
Now, as Gabriel rode past the outer corrals and on between the barn and two bunkhouses, he thought about his promise and gripped the butt of his Peacemaker as if to remind himself not to be caught off-guard again.
Meanwhile the Morgan, as if aware that it had returned to familiar surroundings, pricked it ears and snorted uneasily.
‘Easy,’ Gabriel told it softly. ‘Don’t sunfish on me now, horse.’
Ahead, a war party of some twenty armed ranch hands waited for him in front of the mansion. Behind them, standing on the top step of a wide veranda that ran all the way around the big square house, was Stadtlander’s son, Slade.
‘He’s here, Pa,’ Gabriel heard him call out.
Gabriel rode closer, now trapped in the giant shadow cast by the mansion.
The front door opened and out limped Stillman J. Stadlander.
Thinner than Gabriel remembered, the seventy-
one-year
-old rancher’s thick, wavy brown hair had turned all white and his square, jut-jawed face was now deeply lined, especially around the eyes and down-turned mouth. He’d also become stoop-shouldered and was plagued by gout,
needing a cane to help him walk.
But as he stood beside his son on the top step, Gabriel barely noticed any of those things: it was the old man’s eyes that grabbed his attention. Once burning with fire and defiance, they now looked dim and sad as if years of sorrow and disillusionment had finally worn him down.
But despite his appearance, Gabriel knew he was still tougher than most men.
The cowhands parted as Gabriel drew near, allowing him to ride up to the front steps. They then closed ranks again, forming a half-circle behind him, rifles held ready.
Gabriel reined up the Morgan and remained in the saddle as he confronted father and son.
‘See you finally brought my horse back,’ Stadtlander said making no attempt to greet him.
Gabriel smiled mirthlessly. ‘Just wanted him to see what he was missin’.’
Stung by his sarcasm, Stadtlander thrust his jaw out belligerently. ‘An’ you, boy, look about you, see what you gave up too.’
‘Not gave up, was took from.’
‘Aces’n eights,’ Stadtlander said with a hint of regret. ‘Two pair beats a pair every time. How well I remember.’
Slade cut in angrily. ‘Don’t waste your breath on him, Pa. Just say the word an’ I’ll get a rope. Show him what we do to backshooters.’
Stadtlander impatiently motioned for him to be quiet and then turned back to Gabriel.
‘You know me, Gabe. I’ve never hung anybody without first lettin’ him have his say. So speak your piece. Tell me true how it played out between you’n the Iversons.’
‘You haven’t seen their bodies?’
‘Ain’t been off the ranch in nigh on a week.’
‘Then I reckon you don’t know your son’s a damn’ liar.’
There was silence. The cowhands looked expectantly at Slade.
Seething, he inched his hand toward his six-gun. But, as always, fear of Gabriel stopped him from drawing.
‘You ain’t baitin’ me into a fight,’ he told Gabriel. ‘I’m gonna have too much fun watchin’ you swing.’
Embarrassed for him, the cowhands looked at their feet.
Stadtlander scowled contemptuously at Slade and then told Gabriel: ‘I’m still waitin’ to hear your side.’
Keeping an eye on Slade, Gabriel described how Cory, Mace and Slade had ambushed him outside the Copper Palace.
Several times Slade tried to interrupt, but always his father waved him silent.
When Gabriel was finished, Stadtlander eyed his son suspiciously.
‘You told me he came up behind Cory an’ Mace in the alley beside the Copper Palace.’
‘He did, Pa. I swear. Sneaked up an’ shot ’em ’fore they even knew he was there. Ask anyone. They’ll say how it happened.’
‘If that’s true,’ Gabriel said quietly, ‘then maybe you can explain how the entry wounds are in their chests, not their backs.’
The last three words were addressed to Stadtlander, who looked disgustedly at his son.
‘You tellin’ me fish stories, boy?’
‘No, Pa. I ain’t. Honest. Am I, boys?’ he said to the men gathered before him. ‘Some of you were in town this mornin’. Tell him how it happened.’
The men hesitated and shifted uncomfortably on their
feet. Stadtlander glared at them. Under his steely-eyed gaze they all wilted and quickly looked away.
Enraged, Stadtlander grabbed Slade by the shirt front and shook him.
‘Damn you, you snivelin’ pup! Ain’t you ever gonna quit lyin’ to me?’
‘Pa, don’t ride me like that in front of—’
Stadtlander backhanded him across the mouth.
‘Bite your tongue, boy! ’Fore I take a whip to you!’ He pushed his son roughly away. ‘You’re mighty tough when it comes to bullyin’ whores an’ folks who can’t fight back—’
‘Pa, I’m warnin’ you—’
‘Come up against a real man an’ most likely you’d piss your pants.’
Pushed to a fury, Slade reached for his six-gun.
But Stadtlander was too fast for him. Knocking the gun from Slade’s hand, he slapped him, kept slapping him, hard vicious blows that spun his head from side to side until the men couldn’t watch any more.
‘That’s enough,’ Gabriel said at last.
Stadtlander went to slap his dazed son again, then stopped and looked around as if suddenly realizing where he was and what he was doing. As he rage subsided he shoved his son aside, saying:
‘All mouth, that’s what you are, boy. Kind of snake who spends his life whistlin’ ’round gravestones.’
‘Pa—’
‘Gutless to the bone. Always have been. Why, even your ma, God rest her soul, knew that. That’s why she protected you – why I’m protectin’ you now.’
‘From what?’ Slade whined. ‘I didn’t do nothin’ to need no protectin’.’
‘Except rape an’ kill a decent woman,’ Gabriel said grimly. He kept his eyes on both father and son as he spoke, ready to shoot whichever man drew first.
Stadtlander turned to him. ‘So
that’s
why you’re here? I been tryin’ to figure out your reason ever since I heard you was back.’
‘Well, now you know,’ Gabriel said. ‘So you can quit actin’ surprised.’
‘What I know,’ Stadtlander said, ‘is you’ve made a long ride for nothin’. My boy’s innocent.’
‘Quit wastin’ time, Pa,’ Slade said picking up his gun. ‘Let me get a—’
‘Button it,’ Stadtlander told him angrily. Then to Gabriel: ‘All you got to do is read Sheriff Forbes’s written statement: says clear as day there wasn’t any reason to accuse Slade or the Iversons of rape or murder since they were right here, at the ranch, playin’—’
‘Five-card stud, yeah I heard,’ Gabriel said. ‘But we both know that’s a day’s ride from the truth.’
‘Pa, ain’t you heard enough?’ Slade said. ‘Let me go get a rope.’
Stadtlander looked at him with withering disgust.
‘Are you loco as well as a liar?’
‘Pa, cut it out! Quit proddin’ me.’
‘Or what – you’ll kill me? That’ll be the day.’ Stadtlander turned to Gabriel. ‘See what I’ve raised? Boy’s got squirrel fur for brains. Don’t even know when death’s starin’ him in the face.’
He glared at his son as if hoping he had the guts to shoot him. But Slade never moved.
‘Hell’s fire, boy,’ Stadtlander barked at him, ‘don’t you get it? I’m all you got. I move aside or let you take one step toward a rope an’ the next voice you’ll hear will be a
minister
readin’ over your grave. You want that, boy? Huh? You want him to shoot you? ’Cause if you do, just say the word an’ I’ll order the men back to work an’ let you two make your play. I didn’t think so,’ he said when Slade looked away. ‘Well, maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you do have some brains after all.’ Turning back to Gabriel he added: ‘Come inside. I’ll build you a drink.’
‘I’d sooner not—’
‘I ain’t askin’ you, dammit, I’m tellin’ you. Let’s talk this over like men. You owe me that, Gabe, at least.’ Without waiting for a reply, he stormed indoors.
Gabriel, his eyes never leaving Slade, slowly stepped from the saddle and followed him.