Stand Up and Die. William W. Johnstone
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at the wanted posters, then at the door that led to the backyard where he might find a one-room jail that currently housed a drunk named Orrin behind a door that didn’t lock.
“You’ll need to haul him off to Purgatory City,” the constable said. “They have a good jail.”
“I know,” Breen said. “I just delivered it a customer a week or so ago.” He looked up at the lawman. “Tom Benteen.”
The constable straightened in appreciation. “Well, that’s fine, just fine. You got one of the Benteen boys and now you got one of the Krugers.” He looked at the unconscious German. “If it is Hans Kruger.”
“It’s not Hans Kruger,” Breen told him. “It’s Otto Kruger.”
“Yes, sir. If you say so, Mr. Breen.”
“Well, hell.” Breen slid off the desk and walked to the line of posters. His head shook. “That means I have to rent a horse to carry this sorry heap all the way to the county seat.”
“Jarvis won’t rent you no horse to go that far,” the constable said. “In a town like Purgatory City, that horse would be likely to get up and stole.”
Breen stared hard at the idiot with a badge and kept talking. “And if I’m splitting the reward with that redhead from your eating house . . .”
“But you said she said she don’t want no reward,” the constable said.
“I know what she said. And I know what’s right. Even a jackal knows what’s right some of the times. She’ll get two hundred and fifty dollars . . . once I get my five hundred.” He smiled at the young idiot and tried another attack. “You know, if she were to get her reward now, before I left, all that money would stay in your good town. You might see the economy grow. All you have to do is—”
“You need to take that prisoner to Purgatory City, Mr. Breen. Get your reward there.”
“Hell.” Breen turned back to the wall and stared at the wanted posters. Suddenly, he smiled. “How much do you think it would cost me to buy a wagon and a team of mules?”
* * *
Breen strode easily into the one place a body could eat in Deep Flood, looked around, and asked the man holding the pitcher of water, “Where’s the redhead?”
“You mean . . . Constance?”
Breen smiled. “If that’s what she’s calling herself.”
“She went home. Had a rough day, you—”
“Where’s home?”
The man hesitated, but Breen looked out the window and shook his head. “Never mind,” he said, and walked outside.
He found the redhead at the Wells Fargo office, though why a town like Deep Flood had a Wells Fargo office was beyond him, and she turned, holding the ticket in her hand.
The clerk looked up and said, “May I help you, sir?”
“No, thanks.” Breen walked over and plucked the ticket from the redhead’s hand. He looked at it and shook his head. “El Paso.” He stared at her. “You know, two hundred and fifty dollars could help you out in Mexico, which I figured is where you’d be going as soon as you got off the El Paso stage. You should have accepted my generosity, Charlotte.”
“My name,” she said, “Is Constance.”
“Is this man bothering you, Miss Pettigrew?”
“No,” Breen answered. “I’m not.” He withdrew the wanted poster from his back pocket, unfolded it, and held it up for her inspection. “Miss Charlotte Platte.” He laughed, shook his head, and showed the Wells Fargo agent the dodger.
“If you took your supper at the place here in town, you might want to see a doctor,” Breen said. “I feel lucky I didn’t eat.”
He stepped back and motioned to the door. “Come along, Charlotte Platte. The law wants you in Precious Metal, Arizona Territory, for poisoning fifteen miners, but killing only eight of them. Five thousand dollars, but that reward will go all to me. I’m still splitting the reward with you for Otto Kruger, though. You can use it for your lawyer or your coffin. Come along, darling. I have a wagon with two mules waiting for us at the constable’s office. I know it’s getting late, but I’d like to get you and Otto in a jail as quickly as I can. It’s supposed to be a full moon, clear skies, and we can be in Purgatory City before daybreak.”
He stepped aside and motioned to the door. “After you, Miss Platte. Or would you rather be called by that other handle they’ve put on you . . . Poison Platte?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
McCulloch looked at the Indian boy, unconscious, and at the dead scalp hunter whose job was to shoot McCulloch in the back. He probably would have succeeded had the Comanche kid not sprung into action. McCulloch’s black danced approximately thirty feet from him, but didn’t seem inclined to run anymore, and the Mexican’s horse had loped after the other scalp hunters. He wouldn’t be able to catch it. The Mexican looked dead, probably was.
McCulloch still had to figure out what to do with the Indian boy. The dead men he’d leave for the vultures and other varmints. But he figured, most likely, this old white-bearded scalp hunter had a horse, probably had hobbled it somewhere behind him.
To let the blood flow a little, McCulloch first loosened the tourniquet he had fashioned around the boy’s arm. After retying the bandana, he rose, walked past the Mexican—indeed, the man was dead, likely burning in hell at that very moment—and eased his way to his skittish horse. Once he had the reins, he cut a wide loop around the dead and the blood, and hobbled his mount in a spot with plenty of grass and no dead bear, dead bandit, scents from the other now-gone scalp hunters and horses, and one badly injured Comanche boy.
The black lifted its head and whinnied. Almost instantly, a answer came from up the hill.
After a quick glance at the kid, still out of this world for the time being, McCulloch figured his best plan was to find that dead man’s horse before his colleagues went after it—if they had such an intention. He found a deer trail and followed it up the hill before the trail slipped through some rocks a man of McCulloch’s size would find a tight squeeze. He took a firm grip on a juniper branch and pulled himself up the steep slope, sending gravel and larger stones rolling down. and inching his way till he made it to the other side of a rock. He rested for a moment, then climbed up the slope. Often, he had to crawl his way on all fours. That told McCulloch there had to be an easier path down than the one he was taking up.
Fifteen minutes later, he found the horse tied to a dead piñon on the other side of the slope. McCulloch admired the view and the horse, a blood bay with an army McClellan saddle. A sash hung around the horse’s neck, and from it hung a few scalps the dead man must have found too important or too pretty to sell for whatever the Mexicans were paying for scalps.
He ripped that off, dug a hole with the heel of his boot, and buried those disgusting trophies.
Matt McCulloch had done a lot of things that disgusted him over his years in the wilds, but he didn’t care much for scalping. In that regard, he had a bit of respect for the Apaches. They didn’t scalp, either. But the Apaches had killed his family, and the Apaches had taken his daughter. Comanches had tried to kill him over the years, but he still had his topknot.
He grabbed the reins to the bay, rubbed his hand over the neck, and started studying the ground until he found the prints of the dead man the Comanche boy had killed. He followed that trail, pulling the horse behind him, and—as he had expected—it was a much easier climb down than it had been up. At least until he reached the end and saw he had a ten foot jump down. Easy for a scalp hunter. That killer had likely just grabbed hold of a juniper root, held on to it as he lowered himself, let go, and dropped silently to the soft grass below.
Getting a horse down might prove harder. McCulloch looked