Howard Hopkins - The Lone Ranger - Vendetta

Her gaze shifted to the other men in the room, five of them, four others having been sent out to keep an eye on things and make sure no brave soul took the gawdamned stupid notion to try to call in the county law. There was only one man attached to justice she wanted riding in here—and that man wore a mask.

The men sat around a small table near the window, playing poker, dirty sunlight spilling across the cards.

The room was grimy, sparsely furnished with a bed with a brass frame and worn mattress, a night table atop which sat a kerosene lamp and a bureau holding a porcelain pitcher and wash basin.

“Get out,” she said, rising from the hardbacked chair and shucking her hat. She tossed it onto a bedpost.

“What?” one of the men said, looking up from his cards.

“I said, get out, all of you. Don’t come back for an hour. Entertain yourselves with some of the whores.”

The men looked at each other, then tossed their cards to the table and stood. They knew better than to question her orders when she took to these moods.

‘“Cept you,” she said, looking to the youngest of the outlaws. He was the only one with a lick of good looks.

A glint of worry sparked in his eyes and one of the other men uttered a vicious knowing chuckle on his way out.

After they’d left, she unbuckled her gunbelt, tossed it onto a chair. The remaining outlaw shifted feet, eyes roving.

She gave him the smile of a snake about to swallow a mouse.

“Relax, Matthews. You’ll enjoy it more.”

“Enjoy what?” he asked, voice low.

She uttered a vapid laugh. “Enjoy putting your pecker to use…” She unbuttoned the top three buttons of her shirt, and the young outlaw stared, something akin to panic on his face.

“Hit me,” she said.

“What?”

“Hit me, you stupid sonofabitch. I like it rough. Butch always gave it to me rough.”

Matthews hesitated, then his hand came up, striking her full across the face.

She laughed, the sound riddled with mockery. “That the best you got, peckerwood?” With her nails, she raked his face and the outlaw let out a startled sound. “Harder!”

He obliged, anger in his eyes and trickles of blood leaking from the scratches on his cheek. His fist crashed into her jaw. She went backwards and down, ended up sitting against the bed, one arm draped up on the edge of the mattress. Blood snaked from the corner of her mouth. She swiped at it with the back of her hand and her dazed ice-green eyes looked up at the young outlaw.

“Now that’s more like it, cowboy…”

She damn near killed the young outlaw in the next half hour, she reckoned. The young ones never quite expected what was coming, how insatiable in her cravings she could be. The scratches on his face had been merely a prelude. By the time she finished he looked like he’d tangled with a gawdamn mountain cat.

She lay beside him on the bed, tangled in a worn sheet, figuring on going again, despite the fact the peckerwood looked damn near wore out, when the door burst open.

Trent stood on the threshold, shock sweeping across his ruddy face as his gaze locked on the two figures on the mattress.

“Jesus Christ, Trent,” she said, swinging her leg out of bed, turning her back to him. The young outlaw scrambled for his clothing and quickly dressed.

“Well?” she asked, finding her own clothes and beginning to dress. Trent seemed transfixed not on the sight of her body, but on the map of scars marring her back. Beatings, some terrible and some pleasurable, had put them there. She suspected Trent wasn’t the kind for a woman anyhow, and the thought of that sickened her, which was saying something, a-cause not much could anymore.

As she strapped on her gunbelt, Trent finally found his voice. The younger outlaw she’d just finished with stood near the night stand, shifting feet and staring at the floor.

“Cooper… he came into town and went to the telegraph office. Sent a telegram.”

Her ice-green eyes narrowed on him. “What did he send and who did he sent it to?”

“I don’t know.” Trent’s voice came with a sudden hitch.

Her face hardened. Gawdamn, he was useless. “You don’t know?” Her voice dropped and death swelled in her eyes. “Didn’t it gawdamn occur to you to get a copy of the slip after he left?”

Trent’s face reddened. “Don’t see how it matters none. Don’t see how any of it does.”

Defiance. Plain and infuriating in his tone.

“I’m right sick of you questioning my motives all the time, not to mention your stupidity, you sorry sonofabitch.”

Trent’s face went from red to purple. Anger flashed in his eyes. “And I’m right sick of you wastin’ our time on nothin’. You’re jest a woman, for chrissakes. You got no call leadin’ this gang.”

She stood stock still for a moment, openly surprised the spineless fool had come out with it. She almost laughed, except she could not have any of her men speaking to her that way. What kind of an example would it set?

Trent never had the chance to draw. Her Smith & Wesson was out of its holster and belching flame and gray smoke before he could blink. He flew backwards across the hall, crashed into the opposite wall and landed on his belly on the floor, a bullet in his heart.

She holstered the gun, glanced at the young outlaw, whose face was white with shock. These men were hard; she was harder.

“Get rid of him. Now.”

She left the room, giving Trent’s head a kick as she departed.

Five minutes later, she entered the telegraph office. A smallish man with a green visor came half out of his seat. Her gun was out and aimed, stopping him before he could say a word. Thunder filled the little room and he tumbled backward over his chair and landed hard on his back, unmoving.

She holstered her gun, then went to a pile of slips stabbed onto a spindle, searched through them until she located the one she wanted, the one sent by Trace Cooper.

A low laugh came from her lips. “Jesus, you really did figure it out, didn’t you, Cooper?” The recipient’s name stopped her short: Dan Reid. It was addressed to Dan Reid. But Dan Reid was dead. That was one body she had seen.

A relative, perhaps? A son?

“Sonofabitch…” she muttered. This was better than she could have hoped for. She hadn’t known how long it might take to lure the Ranger here by striking at possible links, but happenstance had provided her with a direct line to him—and to the sole surviving Reid relative. She would have to pay him a visit once her work here was done.

It was turning out to be a good day, indeed.

8

A bullet whined past the Lone Ranger’s ear as he dashed for the icehouse now a mere twenty-five feet away. He returned fire, pelting the window frame with silver, but it did little to deter the man inside.

Another shot followed, but the Ranger had already doubled, hurled himself forward. Lead shrieked through empty air where the Masked Man had been an instant before.

He tucked himself into a ball as he went down, landed on a shoulder and rolled. In nearly the same move he sprang up again, triggering another shot at the window.

Ten feet.

His breath beat out and his heart quickened. A few more steps and he’d reach the icehouse. Within the hacienda the rifle went silent. Behind the half-mask, the Ranger’s eyes narrowed. He reached the corner of the icehouse, flattened himself against its wall.

Breathing rapid, he chanced a look around the corner, eyes probing the window from which the man had been shooting.

Nothing. No sign of movement. Was the shooter waiting for him to expose himself to fire again? It seemed unlikely, given the frantic shots to this point.

“You there!” he yelled. “In the house! I’m a friend.”