Texas Iron

Chapter Eighteen

Sam rode back to town and left his horse with the Swede at the livery.

During the ride back he was very alert. There was no telling what Burkett would do. Sam hoped to push the man into taking some kind of obvious action, but he didn’t really expect it to be immediate action. Nevertheless he remained alert for another possible ambush.

As he approached the town he found himself wishing he could just by pass it and keep on going. He had never liked Vengeance Creek. It had always represented a prison for him, a place he thought he would never escape from if he didn’t leave early. That was why he’d left in the first place. He had always regarded Vengeance Creek as a small town that would never grow up, and while he was here he had seen nothing to change his mind. Maybe a lot of people felt that way. Maybe that was why most of them accepted Lincoln Burkett as a savior, and not a conqueror.

Now he was back here and once again he felt imprisoned. There was no way he and his brothers could leave until they found out the truth, but who knew when that would happen—or if? What if they never found out the truth? Would he never be able to leave?

As he rode down the main street to the livery he felt as if the sides of the street were closing in on him, as if everyone on the street was watching—and most of them were. He and Coffin in the same place would have raised the tension of any town, and Vengeance Creek was nodifferent. They were waiting for what they felt was an inevitable explosion.

After leaving the horse at the livery he started back to the Miller house, but then he made a detour to the saloon. Over a beer he thought about Coffin and about the townspeople of Vengeance Creek. If the town was his prison, then the town’s people were his jailers. As curious as he himself was about Coffin and himself, he would have liked to leave the people hanging, deprive them of their entertainment. He wondered if he and Coffin could avoid a showdown.

He thought about Serena, but quickly dispelled her from his thoughts. Long ago he had resigned himself to the fact that there was no woman in his future. A woman would want him to settle down and, convinced as he was that he would someday die a violent death, it would not be fair to a woman to ask her to marry him, anyway. Serena and Evan made a nice couple, but he didn’t think his brother would stay in Vengeance Creek any more than he would when this was all over.

Maybe Jubal…

Jubal still had time to make a life for himself. He was still young enough to change the direction his life was taking. Serena was only four years older than he, so maybe he could make his future here.

In Vengeance Creek?

Sam shook his head, finished his beer, and left the saloon.

Coffin hadn’t tailed Sam McCall to the Burkett house. He had known he was going there, so he stayed far enough behind so that McCall wouldn’t sense him there. He was watching from a distance when McCall faced off against Conners and made him back down in front of all his men. He was still there when McCall came back out after talkingwith Burkett. Coffin watched as Sam rode away, back to town, and then he approached the ranch.

He was riding up to the house when Chuck Conners came out of the house. Conners saw him and stopped short.

“Looking for me?” Coffin asked.

“How did you know?” Conners said. “I was just about to send someone to town to get you.”

“Well, I’m already here,” Coffin said, dismounting. “I had a feeling Burkett would be wanting me.”

“Come on inside,” Conners said.

The foreman called a man over to take Coffin’s horse and then lead the gunmen into the house to Lincoln Burkett’s office.

“Are you back already?” Burkett asked as Conners entered. A split second later he saw Coffin enter behind the foreman and frowned.

“What—”

“He came riding up to the house,” Conners said. “He said he thought you’d be looking for him.”

“That’s all Conners,” Burkett said, and Conners left.

Coffin sat in a chair and kept his eyes on Burkett.

“How did you know?”

“It was McCall come riding out here? I figured he was going to push the play a little.”

“Well, he did.”

“How?”

“He says he’s got some evidence.”

“Where would he get evidence?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then he probably doesn’t have any.”

Burkett rubbed his jaw and said, “I can’t take that chance. I’ve got too much at stake here.”

Coffin didn’t know what Burkett had at stake, and he didn’t care. In fact, he didn’t even know what kind of“evidence” they were talking about. None of that had anything to do with him.

“You want me to take care of McCall?”

“Can you?” Burkett asked. “I mean, can you take him?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Burkett said. “I thought you were the best.”

“Maybe I am,” Coffin said, “and maybe he is. That’s what we’re gonna find out.”

“And what happens if he kills you?” Burkett asked.

“What do I do after that?”

“There are other men with other guns, Burkett,” Coffin said. “Somewhere there’s a man who can take McCall if I don’t. You’ll just have to keep looking.”

Coffin started for the door.

“When will you do it?”

“When the opportunity presents itself,” Coffin said. He turned at the door and looked at his employer. “When the time is right.”

“And when will that be?”

“You’ll know about it when it happens.”

“But I want to watch!” Burkett shouted as Coffin started down the hall.

“I don’t need an audience!” Coffin called back, and kept walking.

Burkett sat back in his chair and fretted. He had sent for Coffin with the understanding that he was the best man for this job. If McCall killed him, who else could do it?

He heard someone else in the outside hall and left the office to see who it was. He was just in time to see his son heading for the front door.

“John!”

John Burkett stopped, his shoulders slumped.

“Where are you going?”

“To town,” John replied without turning.

“I don’t think that’s wise.”

“Why not?”

“It might not be safe.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Take someone with you, then.”

John opened the door and said, “I’ll be fine, Pa.”

John Burkett’s ego was still stinging from the last time he had taken someone to town with him. They had seen him humiliated.

“John, you’re not intending to go after McCall, are you?”

John Burkett turned and looked at his father.

“Not Sam McCall, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said, “but I want the other one, the one they call Jubal.”

“Well, don’t do anything rash,” Lincoln Burkett said. “Wait until after…”

“After what?”

Burkett didn’t answer.

John Burkett took his hand off the doorknob. He left the door open but stepped back into the entry hall.

“Have you done it?” he asked. “Have you sent Coffin after Sam McCall?”

Lincoln Burkett hesitated a moment, then said, “Yes.”

“Well, it’s about time,” John Burkett said. “When’s he going to do it?”

“Soon.”

“Today?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Well, hell, I wanna be there when he does it,” the younger Burkett said. “That might be the perfect time for me to take out the other one, Jubal.”

“And what about the middle one?” the father asked. “Evan?”

“He’s a gambler, not a gunman,” the son said. “I’m not worried about him.”

“He stopped you once.”

“He had the drop on me, Pa,” John Burkett said. “That won’t happen again.”

“John—” Burkett said, but this time his son walked out and closed the door behind him.

Burkett decided to give his son a head start and then have Conners send some men after him. None of this would be worth the effort if John got killed. He was trying to build a future here for his only son. If the boy would only realize that…

When Sam reached the Miller house no one answered the door. He found each of his brothers in their hotel rooms, which was just as well. He didn’t want Serena to hear about his conversation with Burkett.

He found Evan first, and then they went to Jubal’s room. They stayed there while he told his story.

“I don’t know that I like this, Sam,” Evan said. “It’s not as if you weren’t a big enough target already, but you just about painted a bull’s-eye on your back this time.”

“Well,” he said, “with the two of you to watch my back, I haven’t got much to worry about, have I?”

“That’s for sure,” Jubal said enthusiastically. “You can count on us to watch your back, Sam.”

“Thanks, Jube.” Sam frowned then. “Aren’t one of you supposed to be with Serena?”

“She’s at her father’s store, helping out,” Evan said. “I’m supposed to meet her there soon.”

“Oh.”

“Sam,” Evan said, “you know that the biggest threat to you isn’t going to come from behind you.”

“I know that.”

“You mean Coffin?” Jubal asked.

“That’s right,” Evan said.

“We all could take care of Coffin,” Jubal said to Evan.

“We all could bushwack him the way Burkett’s men tried to bushwack Sam.”

“I don’t like bushwackers,” Sam said, “I don’t care who they’re bushwacking.”

“I don’t mean kill him,” Jubal said. “We can just cut him out of action for a while.”

“Jube may have a point here, Sam,” Evan said.

“No,” Sam said, “I’ll take care of Coffin.”

“Or he’ll take care of you,” Evan said.

Sam looked at his brothers and said, “It’s gonna happen sometime.”

“Are you resigned to that?” Evan asked.

“I am.”

Evan stared at Sam for a few moments and then said, “Maybe I don’t understand you any more than Serena does.”

“Maybe not,” Sam said, “but if you had a big poker game you wouldn’t let me play in your place, would you?”

“That’s not the same,” Evan said. “I wouldn’t be playing for my life.”

Sam shrugged and said, “That’s the nature of the way we both ended up living our lives. The stakes in my life are slightly higher than in yours.”

It was agreed that Evan would go and meet Serena as planned while Sam and Jubal rode out to the section of the ranch where their father had liked to hunt.

As they rode out there Jubal said, “Pa never took me hunting.”

“We took you with us sometimes,” Sam said, “but you were too small to remember.”

“Really? What did you hunt?”

“Jackrabbit, mostly,” Sam said. “Once in a while we’d get us a buck. Once we all came across cougar sign and tracked the animal to its lair.”

“Who got it?”

“Pa did, on the dead run. He was the best shot I ever saw with a rifle.”

“Still?”

“Hell, yes, still.”

“Better than you?”

“He was always a better rifle shot than me.”

“Better than some of your friends?”

“Friends?”

“Hickok, Ben Thompson, Bat Masterson.”

“What makes you think those fellas were friends of mine?”

“I read…guess I shouldn’t believe everything I read, huh?”

“I know those fellas, for sure,” Sam said. “Knew Hickok real well, although we never did like each other all that much. Man shouldn’t die the way he did, though, at the hands of a backshootin’ coward.”

“Is that how you expect to die, Sam?”

Sam looked over at his little brother.

“I expect to die from a bullet, Jube. I prefer that it not come from behind, though. I pray it doesn’t.”

“What’s it like?” Jubal asked.

“What?”

“Not being afraid to die,” Jubal said. “When I was up on that scaffold I was so scared I coulda shit, except they woulda liked that.”

“What makes you think I ain’t afraid to die?”

“The way you talk about it.”

“I expect it, Jube,” Sam said. “I expect there ain’t a whole lot I can do about it. That don’t mean I ain’t afraid of it.”

“I thought you wasn’t afraid of nothing” Jubal said.

Sam laughed.

“It’s no shame bein’ afraid, Jubal,” Sam said. “A man who says he’s never been afraid is either a fool or a liar. If you were afraid up on that scaffold, that’s only natural.

Hell, when I saw you up there with that rope around your neck I was plenty afraid.”

“Why’s that?” Jubal asked.

“You’re my brother.”

“Yeah, but we don’t really know each other, Sam,” Jubal said. “In fact, we’re almost strangers—or we were before this started.”

“That don’t make no never mind, Jube,” Sam said.

“You’re still my brother. Fact that we ain’t seen each other in years don’t change that.”

“Guess I ain’t never had the chance to tell you I was proud to be your brother,” Jubal said. “Anytime I ever heard anyone talking about you I always wanted to tell them you was my brother.”

“You didn’t?”

“Naw. For one thing I didn’t figure they’d believe me. Later, I started to figure that maybe I was proud of you for the wrong reasons. Still, from what I seen of you since you and Evan got me off that scaffold, I’m right proud to call both of you my brothers.”

“Well, we feel the same, Jube,” Sam said, slapping his brother on the back.

“Maybe we should stay in closer touch after this is over,” Jubal said.

“Maybe we should” Sam agreed.

But they both knew that wouldn’t likely happen. When this was over the three of them would go their own ways—at least Sam and Evan would. Sam was over forty, Evan closing in on it, they were set in their ways. Jubal might very well leave Vengeance Creek with one of them, but Sam would make damned sure it wasn’t him. He didn’t need Jubal around when the lead started flying his way. He didn’t want his brother around when that last piece of lead found its way to his heart. He’d be much better off with Evan, maybe even learning to play cards.

There was more money in gambling than there was in gunplay, that was for damned sure.

When they finally reached the part of the ranch Sam wanted he reined in.

“We used to hunt this section here, for a few miles around.”

Jubal looked around. It was mostly flat land, rocks, and clay, some Joshua trees, and black chaparral.

“If he wanted to leave us a note, where would he leave it?” he asked. “We can’t be turning over every rock and looking under every bush.”

“It would be someplace where the sun and the rain couldn’t get at it,” Sam said.

“Also somewhere an animal wouldn’t get at it.”

“A hole, maybe,” Sam said.

“A chuck hole? Nah…” Jubal said.

“Let’s ride,” Sam said. “Maybe somethin’ll come to us.”

So they rode.

After a couple of hours they reined in and dismounted near a water hole. While the horses drank their fill they each took a drink and topped off their canteens, doused their heads, and wet their bandanas, tying them around their necks.

“We likely to run into anybody around here?” Jubal asked.

“No,” Sam said. “Most of this clay is buckshot land, not good for much of anything. Might not even be that many jackrabbits around here any more.”

“What about cougars?”

“Maybe,” Sam said. “The big cats know how to survive.

There’s water, and there’s rattlers, and an occasional rabbit, I guess…”

Sam’s voice trailed off suddenly, and Jubal noticed a funny look in his eyes.

“What is it?” Jubal asked. “You just thought of something, didn’t you?”

“Cougars,” Sam said.

“What about them?”

“A cougar’s lair is usually a sort of cave, the inside of a rock formation.”

“Ain’t no mountains around here, Sam.”

“No, but there’s that lair Pa and I tracked that cat to,” Sam said. “Pa would know that I’d remember that.”

“You think that’s where he left us a message? In a cougar’s lair?”

“It’s as good an idea as any,” Sam said.

“Do you remember where it was?”

“Gimme a minute,” Sam said, looking around. He wasn’t really looking around, though, as much as he was looking inside himself.

“I think I’ve got an idea,” Sam said. “Let’s mount up and try it.”

“I’m game,” Jubal said, “but what do we do if that cat is there when we get there?”

Sam grinned and mounted up.

“We’ll do just what Pa did,” Sam said. “I just hope I’m almost as good a shot as he was.”