Texas Iron Page 4

  “So don’t you worry, either,” Jubal said. “I ain’t seen my big brother in years, and I don’t expect to.”

  “Let’s go,” the deputy said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll keep my hand on my gun anyway.”

  Jubal stood up and said, “As if that would help you against Sam McCall.”

  The deputy took Jubal out to the office, where the sheriff was waiting. Sheriff Ernie Watt had been hired personally by Seth Folk and Darby Flanagan, and was firmly in the Folk/Flanagan pocket. When Flanagan and Folk said to hang somebody, he hanged them. That was what he was paid to do.

  “You ready, McCall?” Watt asked.

  “Who’s ready to be hanged?”

  “Well, ready or not…” Watt said, and tied his hands behind him. “Let’s go.”

  Both the sheriff and the deputy walked behind him as they pushed him out the door. In the center of the square stood the scaffold. Only that morning, at first light, he had heard them testing the trapdoor with sandbags. The first sound of the door opening had jerked him awake. After that the sounds merely made him wince. Even when the sounds stopped, he was still able to hear them in his head.

  He wondered now if he’d be able to hear the sound of the door opening beneath his feet.

  Sam and Evan McCall stood together on the fringe of the crowd. They had arrived early that morning, the morning of the hanging.

  “As usual,” Evan had said to Sam, “your timing is impeccable.”

  “Whatever that means,” Sam said.

  Now they searched the crowd, trying to match the descriptions they had obtained for Darby Flanagan and Seth Folk.

  “We’re makin’ a mistake,” Sam said, suddenly.

  “How?”

  “If you owned the county, would you stand out here among the…the rabble to watch a hangin’?”

  “You’re right.”

  From that point on they elevated their sights, and then they saw them. On a balcony, above a sign that said “Flanagan House Hotel,” they saw a fat, bearded man who matched the description of Darby Flanagan. Standing next to him was a tall, beautiful, redheaded woman.

  “At least little brother has good taste in ladies,” Evan said.

  There was another man with them, a tall, white-haired man wearing a derby hat and a black suit. He matched the description of Seth Folk.

  “Here’s what we have to do…” Sam said, and Evan listened, because this was Sam’s kind of situation.

  Jubal frowned at the intense sunlight. From his cell he’d only been able to get patches of light on the floor. Now the sun beat down mercilessly on his head and shoulders. Sweat rolled down his face and dripped off his chin. It might have been the perspiration of fear, but no one would ever know that. He was grateful for the heat.

  When they reached the stairway to the scaffold he stopped.

  “Keep goin’,” Watt said, giving him a push. Jubal stumbled, then started up the steps.

  At the top Watt swung him around to face the hotel, and for the first time since his arrest Jubal saw Erin Flanagan. Jesus, she was beautiful. Even in the fix he was in he couldn’t help but react to her beauty.

  They stood that way for what seemed like a long time, and then Jubal saw her father, Darby, nod his head. That seemed to be the signal.

  The sheriff brought the noose over and placed it around Jubal’s neck. Jubal was still looking at Erin, but suddenly his attention was attracted by something behind her, and he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  In a hail of glass, small shards that reflected the sun like dozens of tiny fire flies, Sam McCall burst through the window behind her.…

  Sam McCall had made his way easily up the stairs to the room with the balcony. The security had been lax because Flanagan and Folk never expected anyone to try and stop the hanging.

  He entered the room and saw the backs of the people on the balcony. As he approached the window, beyond them, he could see Jubal on the scaffold. The sheriff was putting the noose around his neck.

  Sam ran the rest of the way and hurled himself through the window. His momentum carried him into Seth Folk, knocking the man over the railing. McCall slipped his left arm around the throat of the fat man, Darby Flanagan, and pressed the barrel of the gun to the man’s head. He was taller than Flanagan and had no problem holding the man fast.

  “That’s enough!” he shouted.

  Everyone froze, including the sheriff on the scaffold.

  “Tell the sheriff to let him go.”

  “Who are you?” Flanagan demanded. “You’ll never get away with this.”

  “The name’s Sam McCall, Flanagan, and that’s my brother down there.”

  “McCall—” Flanagan started, but Sam tightened his arm on the man’s windpipe, causing him to choke, and then eased the pressure. As fat men will, Flanagan was sweating profusely, and Sam could smell the sour scent of him.

  “Tell the sheriff to let him go.”

  “No,” Flanagan said.

  “Your friend is lyin’ on the ground, Flanagan. You want to be next?”

  He felt the big man shake, and then heard the rumble of laughter that rose up out of him.

  “It was time to dissolve the partnership, anyway. I think I’ll change the name to Flanagan County.”

  “You’re as good as dead, Flanagan.”

  “And then you will be, too, McCall,” Flanagan said. “It sounds like a mexican standoff, to me.”

  On the scaffold, and on the street, everyone was watching the tableau, waiting for it to be resolved.

  Sam McCall did some fast thinking. It didn’t look as if Darby Flanagan was not afraid for his life. Sam was going to have to try another tack. He turned his head to his left and saw Erin Flanagan watching him. Up close her beauty was stunning, and she was presently rather excited by the turn of events, her nostrils flaring, her white teeth biting her lush lower lip.

  Abruptly, Sam pushed the fat man away from him, took a step to his left, and pressed the barrel of his gun against Erin Flanagan’s head. As an afterthought, he slid his left arm around her chest, feeling the firmness of her breasts.

  She was sweating, but her scent was hardly as offensive as her father’s.

  “Now tell him to let Jubal go.”

  Flanagan studied Sam for a few moments, obviously trying to figure out how willing the man was to shoot a woman if he didn’t get his way.

  “I think you’re bluffing,” the fat man finally said.

  “That’s my little brother down there, Flanagan,” McCall said. “My family against your family. Where do you think my concerns lie?”

  Flanagan chewed on the end of his mustache while he tried to make up his mind.

  “Come on, Flanagan,” Sam said, “it’s gettin’ hotter and hotter out here.” To bring his point across, Sam cocked the hammer on his gun. He felt Erin flinch.

  “Father…” she said in a tiny voice, and that seemed to make Flanagan’s mind up for him.

  “All right,” the fat man said to Sam McCall, “all right, don’t hurt her.”

  “Tell ’em!” Sam said.

  “Sheriff!” Flanagan shouted. “Let him go.”

  There was a moan of disappointment from the crowd, but they fell silent when Sam pointed his gun into the air and fired it. Erin Flanagan closed her eyes and screamed, and Darby Flanagan started, jumping almost a foot and shaking the balcony.

  “You heard the man,” Sam shouted into the silence, “let him go.”

  Sheriff Watt hurriedly untied Jubal McCall’s hands, and Jubal removed the noose from his neck himself.

  At the sound of horses the onlookers turned and looked down the street. Evan McCall was riding toward them, trailing two horses behind him, and it was clear he wasn’t about to stop for anyone. Men and women scattered, lest they be trampled, and Evan rode right up to thescaffold with the horses. Sam’s shot had served not only to silence everyone, but to signal Evan to come with the horses.

  “Jubal!” Evan shouted, and tossed his brother a rifle. Jubal c
aught the weapon and covered the sheriff while he removed the man’s gun and tucked it into his belt.

  “Watt, tell your deputy to drop his gun. He’s about to get himself killed,” Jubal said.

  “Drop the gun, Willie.”

  “But sheriff—”

  “Drop it, damn you!”

  Reluctantly the deputy slid his gun from his holster and dropped it.

  “Kick it under the scaffold,” Jubal instructed, and the man did so.

  “If there are any heroes in the crowd,” Sam called out, “I’d advise you to think twice.”

  Sam turned Erin around to face him and kissed her fully on the mouth. He held her tightly to him, her breasts flattened against his chest. Startled, she was just beginning to return the kiss when he broke away.

  “Ma’am, it’s been a pleasure.”

  Jubal kept the crowd covered while Evan brought Sam’s horse closer to the hotel. Sam stepped over the railing and dropped down into his saddle. That done, he covered the crowd with Evan while Jubal descended from the scaffold and mounted up.

  “Let’s go,” Sam said, and the McCall brothers spurred their horses into a full gallop before someone decided to go ahead and play hero.

  They rode hard for several hours and then stopped and checked their back trail. Even a hastily formed posse would have been left far behind, and they took a moment to catch their breaths and rest their horses.

  “Not that I ain’t glad to see you fellas,” Jubal said, “but just how did you manage to ride into Prosper right on time?”

  “We were looking for you,” Evan said.

  “When we heard that some young fool was about to get himself hanged,” Sam chimed in, “we figured it had to be you.”

  “Well, thanks…I think,” Jubal said. “Now maybe you can tell me why were you lookin’ for me. Time for a family reunion all of a sudden?”

  “Sort of,” Sam said, and handed Jubal the telegram. Sam and Evan waited silently while their younger brother read the news.

  “What the hell—” Jubal said, looking up at both of them.

  “That’s what we intend to find out,” Sam said. “Are you with us, little brother?”

  “You know I am, Sam,” Jubal said, handing the telegram back. “We’re all gonna be wanted in Wyoming after this, you know. I think old Seth Folk was killed when he fell off that balcony.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Sam said, “but that’s something we can worry about after we find out what happened in Vengeance Creek. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Jubal said, and they both looked at Evan.

  “Well,” Evan McCall said to his brothers, “sitting here isn’t getting it done, is it?”

  Part Two

  Vengeance Creek

  Chapter Five

  Dude Miller stared out the front window of his store at the dusty main street of Vengeance Creek, Texas. It had been two months since he had sent all those telegrams, hoping that one of them would find their way into the hands of Sam McCall. Each day Dude spent a few hours watching the street, waiting for the tall figure of McCall to ride down Main Street, with or without his brothers. Dude had the feeling that if Sam McCall did come back to Vengeance Creek, it would definitely be in the company of his two brothers, Evan and Jubal.

  Although the McCall boys were spread far and wide through the west—and sometimes the east—dude Miller knew that their sense of family would remain intact. Up until their deaths Joshua McCall and his wife remained proud of all three of their sons, speaking of them often to anyone who would listen.

  The boys all decided to travel, led by the exploits of older brother Sam. Soon after Sam left Vengeance Creek, Evan followed, to make his own name. Later, when he was old enough, Jubal followed in the footsteps of his brothers—or tried to. Jubal was not the man Sam or Evan was; he had spent too much time in their shadows, trying to be like them, to develop his own personality. Perhaps by this time he had.

  Dude Miller’d had several motives for sending the telegrams. For one, he did not believe that the real solution to the deaths of the McCalls had been found. Second, he was curious about what had become of the McCall boys.

  Sam, of course, had become the stuff of legend, and Dude wondered just how much of it was true. He had heard less of Evan and nothing of Jubal over the years. He had known them all as boys, and he’d known none of them as men—and he wanted to.

  Miller’s business was on the order of a general store, except that he carried a wider array of goods. For that reason he was often interrupted from his reverie about the McCalls to service a customer. The time he spent looking out the window, however, did eventually add up to hours.

  Looking out the window now he saw Lincoln Burkett step from the bank. Over the past nine months Burkett had become the most powerful man in Vengeance Creek. Just before the deaths of the McCalls he had purchased Joshua McCall’s ranch. Knowing how much it meant to the McCalls to keep the ranch so that their sons would have a home to come back to, Dude Miller had been suspicious of the sale ever since. He had been unable, however, to wrest the truth from Joshua McCall about the reason for the sale. A month later, the McCalls were dead, under what Miller considered suspicious circumstances. The powers that were in Vengeance Creek, however, led by Lincoln Burkett, had come to their decision fairly quickly, and there had been no investigation into the matter.

  That would change when Sam and his brothers arrived.

  And they would arrive.

  Eventually.

  Lincoln Burkett stepped from the bank and took a moment to slip his wallet into his jacket pocket. As he did so he looked across the street and saw Dude Miller watching him from the window of his store. Burkett frowned, staring back at the man, but that did not deter Miller, who stared back boldly.

  Dude Miller was one of the few people in VengeanceCreek who resisted what Lincoln Burkett could do for this town. The man didn’t realize that the more powerful Burkett became, the more he could do for the town, and the faster the town would grow.

  Burkett knew that Miller was one of those people who worried about how to get there, while Lincoln Burkett merely worried about getting there, period. That was why Dude Miller would always be a storekeeper, and why Lincoln Burkett would eventually become one of the most powerful people in Texas—and maybe in the whole damned country.

  Burkett stepped down from the boardwalk in front of the bank and started walking toward the saloon, where he was to meet his son, John.

  Lincoln Burkett was a big man, still robust enough at sixty-three to give the town whores a ride or two. It was to his everlasting consternation that his twenty-two-year-old son seemed to be most interested in those same whores than in following in his father’s wake.

  John Burkett was Lincoln Burkett’s only child, a child who came along late in life to Burkett and his wife. The birth had been very hard on the forty-year-old Virginia Burkett. She had survived it, but had never been the same after it, and eventually died when the boy was four. At that time the Burketts had a ranch in the Dakotas, and Lincoln had too much to do building his empire to spend much time with his son. The task of raising the boy had fallen to a governess, and too late Burkett realized his error. A boy raised solely by a woman would have a woman’s values. When the boy was fourteen Burkett dismissed the governess and took charge of the boy himself. Unfortunately, in his efforts to make up for his earlier error, he rode the boy too hard, and ended up with a defiant young man who resisted his father’s ideas of what constituted manhood.

  The Burketts eventually were forced by circumstances to leave the Dakotas’through no fault of their own, of course—and had come to Texas. Here, Burkett hoped to build himself a more lasting empire. He also hoped that his son, in this new environment, would come around and realize where his future lay.

  So far, all the boy was interested in was what lay between the thighs of the whores in the town cathouse.

  Of late, though, Burkett had decided that he could reverse that by buying the cathouse, and that
was the deal he had just completed in the bank.

  Of course, the madame, Louise Simon, had resisted his offers to buy, but he had finally made her an offer she found impossible to resist: sell, or be burned out.

  Burkett magnanimously allowed the woman to retain ten percent of the business, and was also allowing her to continue to run it, on the condition that she turn John Burkett away each time he tried to make use of the establishment.

  To aide her in this he had hired two bouncers who ostensibly worked for Louise, keeping her girls safe.

  Lincoln Burkett smiled. He wished he could be on hand the first time young John met those bouncers.

  That night Dude Miller locked up early and walked to the home of his friend Ed Collins. There was a bite in the air and he pulled the collar of his topcoat close around his neck.

  Miller and Collins were trying to find more people to oppose Lincoln Burkett and his attempt to own everything he could see. They had some supporters, but not enough to make a difference. Burkett seemed to have won over the people who counted in Vengeance Creek, including the mayor and the president of the bank. Three months ago a new sheriff had been appointed, and it wasthe opinion of both Miller and Collins that the man had been handpicked by Lincoln Burkett.

  When Ed Collins admitted Dude Miller to his house he offered his friend a drink, and Miller accepted.

  “Have you had dinner?” Collins asked.

  “Serena is waiting dinner for me, I’m sure.”

  “She’s a good girl, your daughter,” Collins said, handing Miller a glass of sherry. “I wish Ada and I had been able to have children.”

  Miller and Collins were roughly the same age, early sixties, and had been widowed within the past ten years. Both men sorely missed their wives, but Miller had his daughter, Serena, to keep him company. At twenty-eight she was the spitting image of her mother, a true beauty. Collins envied Miller unabashedly, and Miller felt sorry for Collins. All he had was his gunsmith shop, and he spent as much time there as possible.

  Sitting together on the sofa Collins asked, “So, how do we stand?”

  “As we did yesterday, last week, and last month,” Miller said.