Howard Hopkins - The Lone Ranger - Vendetta

“They’ll try again. Be ready for them next time and keep your gawdamn eyes open.”

Parker shifted feet, his face tight. “There’s something else…”

“What?” she said, voice snapping like a whip.

“Matthews is dead, too. Found him shot in the alley next to the saloon. The Injun got him. One of the bar-gals came screeching out of the alley. I grabbed her, made her talk. She said an Injun saved her after Matthews started hittin’ her.”

She turned back to the window, fury running through her veins like wildfire. This was unacceptable. She was down to six men and had gotten nothing out of Cooper. One of her men had almost ruined her entire plan an hour ago and another was no longer alive for her to take her frustration out on.

“Kill her…” she said, voice icy.

“Ma’am?” Parker said, blinking.

“Kill that bargirl Matthews had. Fact, kill everybody in the saloon. The Ranger will learn his actions have consequences, severe ones.”

“Everybody?” Parker said.

“Everybody.”

16

The Lone Ranger arose with the dawn, his night a restless one, sleep coming in snatches filled with blood-splashed nightmares. Too much death had surrounded him throughout his mission. It seemed to follow him, stalk him. And the longer the leader of this gang was allowed to remain at large, taunting him, the more innocent blood he would feel responsible for. He had to stop him… him? What had the barkeep said last night?

He looked over at Tonto, who had set a blue enameled pot of Arbuckle’s to brewing. With the morning light they could risk a small campfire.

“The ‘keep last night,” the Ranger said. “I’ve been over what he said in my mind a hundred times, searching for something that might lead me to the identity of this gang leader. He said Ain’t a man’, when I was asked who the leader was.”

Tonto nodded, taking two tin cups from his saddle bag, then lifting the coffee pot from the fire. “The outlaw in the alley used the word, ‘she’. This leader… appears be a woman.”

“If it is, it still brings me no closer to a name.”

“Perhaps this woman was associated with Cavendish, somehow. She operates in much the same way.”

The Ranger considered it. It made sense. But as far as he knew Cavendish had no relatives left alive.

“Time’s run out. If Cooper is still alive he won’t last much longer and if she sticks to pattern she’ll go after you, then Dan, and soon.”

“If they were using the saloon as a headquarters they will have likely abandoned it after last night and gone into hiding. Moved Cooper.” Tonto poured two cups of coffee, handed one to the Ranger.

The Ranger nodded. “Unless they didn’t need him anymore…” He took a sip of the coffee, letting its bitter warmth flow down his throat. “They lost two men, though we don’t know how many are left. They’ll be more careful. It’s time to have a talk with that fake marshal. He’s an open lead to the gang.”

“Assuming he will even return to his office, now.” Tonto paused. “I will search the saloon upstairs. Perhaps they left something behind.”

The Ranger gave his friend a disapproving glance. He didn’t like the idea of Tonto going alone, not when he was most likely the woman’s next target. He knew the Indian could take care of himself, but a twinge of dread cinched his belly.

“If one of them should still be there…”

Tonto gave him a grim smile. “All the better. Or perhaps the bargirl from last night will talk if they are gone.”

“I won’t waste much time with the marshal if he is there, and join you at the saloon.”

#

The Marshal looked nervous as he snuck through the back door of his office, too nervous to notice the lock had been jimmied. He went to a blue enameled coffee pot on a small table, poured cold coffee into a tin cup and gulped it down. A visible shudder traveled through his frame.

A wonder crossed the Lone Ranger’s mind. Why was the man back in the office after last night? Was the gang leader, whoever she was, that cocky he and Tonto would not try to question the man, or was there another reason? He thought of Tonto sneaking into the saloon and the apprehension stalking his nerves increased. Something was wrong, as it had been on that day he and five other men had ridden into Bryant’s Gap. And he had a notion he was playing right into it.

The marshal didn’t move for a moment, then poured himself another cup. After, he pulled a flask from his pocket and added the contents to the coffee.

The Ranger watched him from a hardbacked chair just beyond the shaft of dusty early-morning light streaming in through the large front window, an ivory-handled .45 in his hand.

“I’m the one you should be afraid of…” he said, voice hard.

“Jesus!” The fake lawdog started, the cup jumping out of his hand and landing with a clink on the floorboards. He whirled, hand going for his gun.

“Don’t!” the Ranger said, coming out of the chair, gun leveled on the man. The lawdog apparently thought better of trying to draw, glanced at his bandaged hand. “Unbuckle your belt, let it drop.”

The man hesitated and the Ranger gestured with his gun. Fingers going to his belt, the marshal undid the buckle; the belt along with his holstered Smith & Wesson fell to the floor.

“Over there.” The Ranger indicated one of the cells in a bank of three at the rear of the office.

The marshal moved to the first cell, paused. “What do you want?”

“Who do you work for? Who is she?” The Ranger’s voice came hard as tension built further within him. He glanced towards the window, in the direction of the saloon. Was he wasting time here?

“I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’,” the marshal said, voice shaking.

“Maybe you don’t have to. Because I’m asking myself, why are you here after last night? Why would your leader, who has planned so carefully to this point, leave you out in the open?”

The marshal shifted feet and a tick fired near his blackened eye. “What do you mean?”

The Ranger’s eyes narrowed behind the half-mask, searching the man for the slightest betrayal of his mission. “Your leader… she’s got the brains I think she does, she would figure out I’d go after the most obvious link to her gang. You’re the sacrificial lamb, aren’t you, Marshal?”

The marshal started again, his eyes betraying his thoughts. He’d been sent to detain the Ranger and didn’t like the job one bit.

“Get in the cell,” the Ranger said, gesturing again with his gun. He had a choice. Stay and try to get answers from this man as to where the gang was located or get to the saloon and Tonto before whatever plan the leader had in mind went into operation.

No. No choice, really. No choice at all.

The Ranger backed to the wall, where a peg held a key ring, keeping his gun on the fake lawman as he did so. Keys in hand, the Ranger went to the door, locked it, then tossed the key ring across the room where the man would never be able to get to it.

Holstering his gun, he went out the back door, a sense of urgency quickening his steps and his heart as he headed for the saloon.

#

Though he had said nothing to Kemosabe, Tonto knew if the gang allowed the marshal to return to his office after last night’s events, the man would say nothing about the identity of the gang leader. The fake lawman would be frightened of the Ranger, but Kemosabe’s reputation for not killing would hurt him in this instance, because the gang leader had no such limitations and would certainly kill the man in cold blood if he told anything.

The Indian slipped along the back of the saloon, early morning sunlight chasing away shadows and heating the day. A quick look into the alley told him both bodies had been removed, but the crates were hopelessly smashed. He would have to use the outside staircase.