William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

Barton stood with fists on hips, looking up at him. “Now why does that not surprise me?”

Johnny shrugged. He and the sheriff had a history, going back to Johnny’s boyhood days when Barton was deputy.

“I reckon we still got the right of self-defense in this country. That Stafford fellow was on the prod, spoiling for a fight. Damon did what he had to do. I would’ve done the same, so would any man here. That’s how I’ll tell it in court,” Johnny said.

“Me, too” Luke chimed in.

“Just a couple of public-spirited citizens, eh?’

“You know us, Sheriff. Always ready to help out the law,” Johnny said.

Barton laughed out loud without humor at that one. “You only been back for a month or two so you might not be up to speed yet. What do you know about Vince Stafford and his Ramrod outfit?”

“Not a thing.”

“A bad bunch to mess with.”

“That supposed to make a difference to me?”

“Not you, you’re too ornery.” Barton turned to Luke. “You got no excuse, though. You’ve been back long enough to know the way of things.”

“I ain’t worried, Sheriff. I got you to protect me,” Luke said, all innocent-faced.

“Yeah? Who’s gonna protect me?”

“Deputy Smalls?” Johnny suggested.

“You boys don’t give a good damn about nothing, do you? I like your nerve, if nothing else,” Barton said. “It’s your funeral. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Duly noted,” Johnny said cheerfully

Damon Bolt cleared his throat. “I’m free to go?”

“Free as air,” Barton said. “If you’re smart you’ll keep going, a long way off from here.”

“That’s not my style, Sheriff.”

“No, it wouldn’t be. You’d rather stay and get killed.”

“I’d rather stay,” Damon conceded.

“We won’t argue,” the sheriff said.

“You know where to find me for the inquest.”

“If you’re still alive. Vince Stafford knows where to find you, too.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“He won’t come alone.”

“The undertaker can use the business. Things have been slow around here lately.”

“Laugh while you can, Damon. It won’t be so funny when the lid blows off this town.”

“We’ll see. We through here, Sheriff?”

“For now.”

“I’ll be on my way, then. I’ve got a date with the barber for a shave and a haircut,” Damon said.

“Tell him to make the corpse presentable,” Barton said sourly.

Damon nodded to Johnny and Luke. “Stop by the Spur later. I’ll buy you a drink.”

“It’s a go,” Johnny said. Luke nodded assent.

Damon went up the street to the barbershop and went inside.

“Decent fellow at that,” Wade Hutto said, musing.

“Too bad he’s got to die,” Barton said.

Spectators gathered around the body of Bliss Stafford, gawking, buzzing. Deputy Smalls plucked at Barton’s sleeve. “Somebody’s got to tell Vince.”

“You want to be the one to tell him his pup is dead?” Barton asked.

“No, thanks!”

“He’ll find out soon enough,” Wade Hutto said. “No doubt somebody’s already on the way to the ranch to give him the word.”

“Good news always travels fast,” Barton said sarcastically.

“Careful, somebody might hear you,” Hutto cautioned.

“At this point, who gives a damn?”

“I do,” Hutto said. Gripping Barton’s upper arm, he led him off to one side for a private chat.

“Somebody was bound to burn down Bliss Stafford sooner or later. He was a troublemaker and a damned nuisance,” Barton said.

“Good riddance!” Hutto said heartily.

“Too bad it was the gambler. Some lone hand done it, some drifter, we could step back and wash our hands of it. But it ain’t some nobody, it’s Damon Bolt. He’ll fight.”

“He’s got friends, too. Gun hawks. He’ll make a mouthful for Vince at that. Hard to swallow.”

“I hope he chokes on it,” Barton said feelingly.

“Those Staffords have been getting too big for their britches. Trouble is, the town’s in the way. Hangtown could get pretty badly torn up.”

“No way to stop it. Blood will have blood. Vince won’t rest till he’s taken Damon’s head.”

“It’s a damned shame, Mack. Say what you will about Bolt, he’s a gentleman in his way. Vince makes a show of setting himself up as a rancher, but he’s little better than an outlaw.”

“He’s a dog, a mangy cur. One with the taste of blood in his mouth,” Barton said.

“Why not bring him to heel?” Johnny Cross asked.

Hutto and Barton started. Soft-footed Johnny had come up behind them without their knowing it.

“You shouldn’t go around sneaking up on people. It’s a bad habit,” Barton said, with a show of reasonableness he was far from feeling.

“How much did you hear?” Hutto asked.

“Enough—and that’s plenty. But I don’t go telling tales out of school.” Johnny got to the point. “Stafford’s crowding you? Cut him down to size.”

Hutto looked around to make sure nobody else was within earshot. Luke Pettigrew stood nearby, leaning on his crutch, grinning. But Luke was Johnny’s sideman and knew how to keep his mouth shut, too.

“The Ramrod outfit is a rough bunch,” Hutto said.

“No shortage of gunmen in Hangtown,” Johnny said.

“But they’ve got no quarrel with Stafford.”

“Pay ’em. They’ll fight readily enough. There’s enough hardcases in the Dog Star Saloon alone for a decent-sized war, and you can buy most of ’em for a couple bottles of redeye.”

Hutto sniffed. “What’s Damon Bolt to me, that I should start a range war with the Ramrod to save his neck?”

“Stafford’s spread is on the south fork of the Liberty River. You’re the biggest landowner on South Fork,” Johnny said. “How long before he makes a move on you?”

“He wouldn’t dare!”

“Why not?”

Hutto had no ready answer to that one.

“Why let him pick the time and place? Hit him now before he hits you,” Johnny said, speaking the siren song of the Tempter.

Hutto was not easily swayed. “Your concern for my welfare is touching. What’s in it for you?”

“I like Damon. He’ll fight. Round up enough guns to hit Stafford where he’s not expecting it and you can muss him up pretty good. The way to stop ’em is to bust him up before he gets started.”

“We’d be taking a long chance,” Hutto said, torn, fretful.

“It’s your town,” Johnny said, “but it won’t be for long if you let someody hoorah it whenever he likes.”

“I need time to think things out.”

“Think fast. Move faster.”

“Just itching for a fight, ain’t you?” Barton said.

“Uh-huh,” Johnny said. “That’s what I do.”

THREE

Hangtown was thick with killers, robbers, rustlers, horse thieves, card cheats, drunks, wife beaters, whores, swindlers, pickpockets, and a host of petty crooks and mean-minded individuals. Yet in all this collection of flawed humanity, the consensus ranked Sam Heller pretty much at the bottom of the heap.

Sam Heller was a Yankee.

In Hangtree, Texas, June 1866, a Northerner was in a potentially hazardous position. The landscape teemed with well-armed, unreconstructed Rebels. The Civil War, as the government in Washington, D.C., insisted on labeling the late secessionist conflict, was officially at an end—everywhere but in Texas. A year and more after General Lee had surrendered at Appomatox, all the states of what had been the Confederacy were at peace (however uneasy) with the Union. All but Texas.

The last battle of the war was fought in the Lone Star State at Palmito Hill in May 1865, a month after Lee surrendered at Appomatox. A year later, the powers in Washington were holding that Texas was still in a state of active hostility. The Federal troops garrisoned in Fort Pardee in northwest Hangtree County were as much an occupation force to overawe the local inhabitants as they were a fighting force charged with suppressing hostile Comanches, Kiowas, and Lipan Apaches. The real pains of occupation had not yet even begun.