William Johnstone - Texas Bloodshed

Lowe was next, chained into place on the middle of the bench. He didn’t say anything, but his expression made it clear that he would have been glad to tear all the guards limb from limb with his bare hands.

While Lowe was being put into the wagon, Cara LaChance looked up at the Texans where they sat on their horses. Her baleful gaze fastened on Scratch. She said, “I should’ve cut you when I had the chance.”

“It weren’t for lack of tryin’ on your part, miss,” Scratch pointed out.

“Shut up,” Brubaker told Cara. “Prisoners don’t talk.”

“Go to hell!” she spat at him.

Brubaker looked like he wanted to slap her. Bo was glad when he didn’t. He didn’t hold with hitting women, even murderous hellcats like Cara LaChance, unless it was absolutely necessary. He knew from Scratch’s frown that his old friend felt the same way, despite what Cara had tried to do to him.

When the time came for Cara to climb into the wagon, she refused to do it. A couple of guards moved in to take hold of her and lift her into the vehicle. She fought furiously against them, despite the irons on her. She screamed, cursed, spat, and writhed like a snake. Curses as colorful and vile as anything a teamster or bullwhacker could come up with spilled from her mouth in a steady stream.

“Lord, it’s like she’s got a devil inside her,” Scratch muttered as he and Bo watched the spectacle. “Say, I’ve heard stories about folks bein’, what do you call it, possessed like that. You don’t think—”

“No, I don’t,” Bo said. “That’s not possession we’re seeing, it’s pure meanness.”

The officers finally got Cara inside the wagon and locked down. By then her loud, profane carrying-on had drawn the attention of quite a crowd. Bo looked over the citizens of Fort Smith who had gathered in front of the courthouse to watch the outlaws being loaded into the wagon, and he wondered if any of them were connected to Hank Gentry, Cara’s lover and the leader of the owlhoot band to which she and the other two prisoners belonged.

It would have been smarter to sneak the prisoners out in the dead of night, Bo thought, and keep their destination a secret. That way there would have been a better chance of getting them to Tyler without Gentry coming after them.

That wasn’t the way Parker had handled the matter, though, and Bo speculated that some of that could have been because of the judge’s dissatisfaction with the situation. Parker would have preferred to put the outlaws on trial here and carry out the inevitable sentence on his own gallows. But that wasn’t what was going to happen.

Brubaker checked the irons on all three prisoners, then climbed out of the wagon, slammed the door closed, and fastened it with another massive padlock.

“Satisfied?” Bo asked.

“They’re not gettin’ loose this time,” Brubaker said. “And that’s for certain sure. All three of ’em got stripped down to the skin and searched this mornin’, and they’re chained up in there so good they couldn’t get to anything to help ’em get loose, even if they had it.”

“What about when the gal has to tend to her private needs?” Scratch asked.

“She’ll have to take care of that with one of us holdin’ a gun on her.” Brubaker held up a hand to forestall any protests. “I don’t like it any better than you gents do, so don’t try pullin’ any of that Texas gallantry on me. I’m takin’ no chances, and if you don’t like it, you’re free to go on your way since you ain’t taken the judge’s money yet.”

“We’ll stick,” Bo told him. “This isn’t a one-man job, Marshal.”

Brubaker glanced at the sky and frowned.

“I figured we’d be on the road by now,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll let the judge know we’re ready to pull out.”

A few minutes later, Parker came out of the courthouse, followed by Brubaker. The judge looked at the wagon and nodded as if he could see through the sides and approved of how the prisoners were chained up. Cara must have gotten tired or lost her voice, because she had finally stopped screaming obscenities.

Parker came over to Bo and Scratch.

“Gentlemen, I believe I promised you forty dollars apiece,” he said. “I’ll pay you as soon as you’ve been sworn in.”

“Do we have to wear badges?” Scratch asked. “We don’t much cotton to wearin’ badges. Every time we’ve helped out the law, we’ve done it sort of unofficial-like.”

“No badges,” Parker said, “but if you want the two double eagles I have for each of you, you’ll have to be sworn in and sign a receipt.”

“Let’s get on with it, Your Honor,” Bo suggested. “I think Marshal Brubaker wants to get started.”

Brubaker just snorted and didn’t say anything.

The formalities were soon over with, and two double eagles apiece rested in the Texans’ pockets.

“You’re now legally appointed representatives of the United States government, gentlemen,” Parker told them. “Conduct yourselves accordingly.”

“We’ll bear that in mind, Your Honor,” Bo said.

“And we’ll try not to be an embarrassment to the gov’ment,” Scratch added.

Brubaker climbed to the wagon seat and unwrapped the reins from the brake lever.

“Are we ready now?” he asked impatiently. “The sun’s comin’ up. We’re burnin’ daylight.”

Bo nodded and said, “Ready whenever you are, Marshal.”

Brubaker slapped the reins against the backs of the mules hitched to the wagon. He backed and turned the team and started away from the courthouse. Bo and Scratch fell in behind the vehicle.

Behind them, Judge Parker called, “Good luck, gentlemen!”

“He’s sayin’ something under his breath about how we’re gonna need it, ain’t he?” Scratch asked quietly as they rode along the flagstone drive behind the wagon.

“More than likely,” Bo agreed.

CHAPTER 7

They took the road south out of Fort Smith, which followed the boundary between Arkansas and Indian Territory fairly closely. Bo rode up alongside the wagon seat and asked Brubaker, “How long do you think it’ll take to get to Tyler?”

“Five or six days, I expect,” the deputy marshal replied. “If we don’t run into any trouble.”

Scratch had come up to flank the wagon on the other side. He grinned and said, “If that’s true, then the dinero we’re gettin’ paid works out to be better than the wages we could make cowboyin’.”

Brubaker grunted.

“You’ll earn every penny of it if Gentry and his bunch come after us,” he warned.

The thick wooden walls around the wagon bed had a few small, slitlike windows set high in them to let in some light and air. Obviously those openings permitted the prisoners to hear some of the conversation that was going on outside, too, because Cara LaChance yelled, “You just wait, you damn lawdog! Hank’s coming after you, all right! When he catches up to you, you’ll wish you’d never been born! He’ll take his skinnin’ knife to you, and you’ll be screaming and begging for him to kill you before he’s through with you!”

Cara went on explaining in gory, graphic detail just what Hank Gentry would do with his knife. Brubaker sighed and shook his head.

“Lord, we’re gonna have to listen to that all the way to Texas,” he muttered.

“Maybe you could gag her,” Scratch suggested.

“And take a chance on her bitin’ me?” Brubaker shook his head again. “That’d be a good way to get hydrophobia.”

“She’s like one of those kid’s toys that you wind up,” Bo said. “She’ll run down after a while.”

His prediction proved to be accurate. A short time later, Cara fell silent for a few miles.

But then the cursing and haranguing started again. Brubaker finally lost his temper and turned to yell through the narrow openings, “Shut up in there! The judge said I had to deliver you to Tyler. He didn’t say that you still had to have a tongue in your head when I got you there!”