Vengeance Creek Read online

  Joe Samuels sat up and stared at Shaye. “You can’t pin them killings on me!”

  “Sure I can,” Shaye said, “especially if you don’t cooperate.”

  Samuels thought about that for a while.

  “You know,” Shaye said, thinking this might clinch him, “one of the people who worked in the bank and is now dead was the mayor’s daughter. Needless to say, he’s real upset. He just wants somebody to pay.”

  The man looked at Shaye. “Samuels,” he said, “Joe Samuels.”

  “That’s your name?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And who were you working for? Ben Cardwell?”

  “I guess,” Samuels said. “See, we were all recruited by Simon Jacks, and he works with Cardwell.

  “Jacks,” Shaye said, frowning. “I know that name.”

  “You should,” Samuels said, “if you’re any kind of lawman. He’s got a rep.”

  “What about this other fella, Davis?”

  “Davis?” Samuels frowned. “That sonofabitch.”

  “He got away, you know.”

  “He was supposed to hold the horses,” Samuels said. “I’d like to know what happened to that bastard!”

  “And what about Cardwell and Jacks?” Shaye asked. “What was the plan?”

  “Cardwell and Jacks were supposed to go into the bank, we was supposed to keep people away—especially law.”

  “So what went wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” the man said. “There were shots from inside and then you and your deputies came running over. We had to keep you pinned down.”

  “But you were pinned down too,” Shaye said. “Didn’t that occur to any of you?”

  Samuels frowned.

  “How was someone supposed to bring the horses over?” Shaye asked. “How were Cardwell and Jacks supposed to come out the front with the money?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?” the man asked testily. “I don’t plan jobs, I just follow orders.”

  “Well,” Shaye said, “sounds to me like you and your compadres were supposed to get caught while Cardwell and Jacks went out the back way.”

  Samuels frowned.

  “See,” Shaye said slowly, “they got out the back after killin’ everybody, and you were supposed to get caught out front—caught or killed, probably.”

  It slowly dawned on Joe Samuels, who whispered, “Sonofabitch.” He looked at Shaye. “They set us up!” He said it as if he’d just thought of it himself.

  “And now that they’re gone, and everyone else is dead, you’re the one who’s gonna go down for it—all of it.”

  “Hey, no, wait…”

  Shaye had started to turn around, as if to leave. “What?” he asked.

  Samuels got up and came to the front of the cell. He grabbed hold of the bars and his knuckles went white.

  “Whataya wanna know?”

  “Do you have any idea where Cardwell and Jacks would go after they left here?”

  “No,” Samuels said. “Jacks never said.”

  “Well, do you know where Cardwell or Jacks are from?” Shaye asked. “Maybe they’d go back home.”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about Cardwell,” Samuels said, “but Jacks used to talk at night….” He trailed off and stopped, a crafty look coming into his eyes.

  Shaye waited, because he thought he knew what was coming.

  “What do I gotta do to walk away from this?” he asked suddenly.

  “Mr. Samuels,” Shaye said, then, “or can I call you Joe?”

  “Joe’s fine.”

  “Joe,” Shaye said, “to tell you the truth, I don’t see any way you’re walkin’ away from this.”

  Samuels looked crestfallen. “Then I don’t know why I should help you.”

  “Because if you don’t,” Shaye said, “Cardwell and Jacks—and maybe even Davis—are gonna walk away from it…with all that money.”

  27

  James questioned people in the area around the bank while Thomas went to the hotel where Cardwell had stayed, and spoke not only to the owner of the livery, but people who worked in that area. The brothers joined up in the center of town, across the street from the building where the mayor had his office.

  They compared notes and realized that they had a few things to tell their father, and that they probably shouldn’t waste any time telling it.

  “The posse,” Thomas said, as if James had reminded him. “How many men did you get?”

  “None,” James said.

  “That’s what I got.”

  “I can’t believe this town is just like Epitaph.”

  “Pa tried to explain it to us after we left Texas,” Thomas said. “People hire someone to uphold the law, they think that’s it, they’re done. Why should they lift a finger when somebody’s getting paid to do it?”

  “It’s their money that was taken from the bank,” James said. “You’d think they’d want to do somethin’ about gettin’ it back.”

  “And all those dead people,” Thomas said. “Their neighbors.”

  “I never seen anything like that before,” James said. “How could a man do that, just butcher a bunch of helpless people?”

  “It was quiet,” Thomas said. “They probably didn’t want any more shots comin’ from the bank.”

  “You know, I don’t care about the money,” James said. “I just want to bring them back to hang for all them killin’s.”

  Thomas knew his brother was more upset about Nancy Timmerman than any of those other people. He was just thankful that James had never gotten up the courage to actually start a relationship with the girl. If he had been courting Nancy Timmerman, he’d now be totally devastated by her death.

  “James, I think you should stay here.”

  “Why?”

  “Pa’s gonna need you,” Thomas said. “He’s not gonna be able to get around—”

  “I’m comin’ with you, Thomas,” James said, cutting his brother off, “and there’s no way you can stop me.”

  Thomas decided to leave the point alone. Maybe James would listen to their father after he calmed down a bit.

  “One man,” Thomas told his father, “took two horses from the livery just before the shootin’ started.”

  “Only two?” Shaye asked.

  “That don’t make sense,” James said. “There was…at least six bank robbers, maybe more.”

  “There were eight,” Shaye said, “but at least six of them were not supposed to leave town.”

  He related to them the conversation he had with Joe Samuels while they were away.

  “So we’re only gonna be lookin’ for two men?” James asked.

  “Maybe three,” Shaye said. “We don’t know what happened to this fella Davis.”

  “Maybe we do,” Thomas said. “One horse was stolen earlier today. Fella didn’t even know it was missin’ until I started askin’ questions.”

  “Okay,” Shaye said, “so Davis brought two horses from the livery, thinkin’ that they’re meant for him and Cardwell, when they’re really meant for Cardwell and Jacks.”

  “Jacks,” Thomas said. “That name sounds familiar.”

  “Yeah, I thought so too,” Shaye said. He was seated behind his desk again, sitting lopsided to keep pressure off his hip. “Apparently he’s got a rep, although as what I don’t rightly know yet.”

  “Okay, okay,” James said, “so we’re lookin’ for three men.”

  “Looks that way,” Shaye said.

  “Pa,” Thomas said, “I was tellin’ James I think he should stay behind to help you.”

  “First of all, did you even get a posse together?”

  Both young men looked away, and Thomas said, “Well, no.”

  “So it may just be you and James, Thomas,” Shaye said. “You’re gonna need each other, and you might even have to split up to follow separate trails.”

  James gave his brother a meaningful look, and Thomas simply shrugged.

  “Don’t worry,” Sh
aye said. “I can get you a couple of other men to ride with you.”

  “Who?” Thomas asked.

  “You’ll see,” Shaye said. “For now I want you both to do something. One of you go back to the livery, and the other go and talk to the man whose horse was stolen.”

  “I talked to them already—”

  “Do those horses have any identifying marks, or anything that would make make their gait identifiable? Any markings in their hooves? Any—”

  “Okay, okay,” Thomas said. “I get it. I didn’t ask the right questions.”

  “Well,” Shaye said, “go ask them!”

  28

  There was a time, Shaye knew, when posses were not so hard to put together. He knew this from personal experience, since in his youth he had been on the other end many times. As the gunman “Shay Daniels,” he had been chased through Missouri and Kansas by posses more times than he could count.

  He’d been thinking about those days ever since the bank robbery. It was odd, but sometimes he thought things happened just so he would never forget those days long passed.

  But he’d been up against it in Epitaph, and now, apparently, it was to be the same in Vengeance Creek. He couldn’t sit a horse, but he wasn’t about to send his sons out there alone. It may have been only Cardwell and Jacks now, but who knew how many men they’d surround themselves with by the time Thomas and James tracked them down?

  He thought there were a couple of men in town he could draft into service, but he knew he would have to get out of the office and go find them. The doctor had sewed him up, wrapped him tight, and suggested—strongly—that he stay off his feet for at least a few days. But that wasn’t going to happen.

  He stood up, strapped on his gun, and limped from the office.

  Thomas and James decided to stick together rather than split their tasks, so they went to the livery first.

  “Horses,” the liveryman, Ron Hill, said with a shrug. He gestured with the scarred hand of a man who had been around horses for more than twenty years. “Two horses. They weren’t mine, so I didn’t pay that much attention to them.”

  “What do you mean, they weren’t yours?” Thomas asked. “Did they ride them in?”

  “No,” Hill said.

  “Did they leave them behind?”

  “Not here.”

  “Mr. Hill,” Thomas said, “you have to answer my questions a little more clearly that that.”

  “They didn’t buy the horses from me. They bought them somewhere else, then brought them in here.”

  “Do you know where they bought them?”

  “No.”

  “Which man brought them to you?”

  “The same man who came and got them.”

  That would be Davis, Thomas thought.

  “So you can’t tell us if there was anything distinctive about them?” James asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “But you’re supposed to know horses.”

  “I know my horses,” Hill said. “If they had taken any of the animals from my corral in the back, I could answer your questions.”

  “Where are the horses the other men rode in on?” Thomas asked.

  “In my corral.”

  “Can you show us the stalls the horses were in before the man came and got them?”

  “That I can do.”

  “And then we’d like to see the horses that belonged to the dead men.”

  “No problem,” Hill said. “Come this way.”

  It took Shaye three times as long as it usually did to walk the distance from the sheriff’s office to the store that housed the gunsmith shop. People had come back onto the streets now that the shooting was over, but they avoided his eyes and stepped out of his way. At least they had the decency to be ashamed of the fact that they had been hiding during the robbery.

  When he reached the shop, he stopped outside and peered in through the window. He knew from experience how some people liked to leave their past where it belonged—in the past. He fell into that category, and so did the man inside the gunsmith shop. As far as he knew, he was the only person in town who knew that the gunsmith, Ralph Cory, had once gone by a totally different name.

  And he was ashamed of what he was about to do.

  When the door to his shop opened, Ralph Cory looked up and saw the sheriff limping into his place of business. He knew that meant one of two things. Either the sheriff needed a gun repaired or he’d been recognized.

  Not again, he thought. He actually liked this town, after having been in Vengeance Creek for six months, and people were actually beginning to pay him to do what he liked to do. But this had happened a couple times before. Someone would recognize him, tell the local law, and then he’d be asked to leave.

  Well, not this time. Six months. This was the longest he’d spent in one place in quite some time, and his shop was beginning to shape up the way he liked it. He was a businessman, a gunsmith, and that’s all he was. If the local law accused him of being anything but—well, he was going to fight back this time.

  If they wanted him out of Vengeance Creek, they were going to have to carry him out.

  29

  “Mr. Cory,” Shaye greeted the gunsmith.

  “Sheriff. What can I do for you today?”

  Shaye closed the door tightly behind him, then turned and limped to the counter. Cory knew that the man had sustained a injury to his hip. He could tell by the way he walked and held himself, but he did not comment on it.

  “I suppose you heard the commotion earlier today,” Shaye said. “Heard that the bank was robbed?”

  “I heard that you and your sons killed yourselves four bank robbers.”

  “That’s right,” Shaye said, “and we’ve got one in jail—but three got away, including the two who murdered everyone inside the bank.”

  “A terrible thing.”

  “Yes,” Shaye said, “it was awful. One of the people killed was the mayor’s daughter.”

  “I’m sorry for his loss.”

  “Yeah, I am too.”

  Cory could see the pain etched on the sheriff’s face, and despite himself, he grabbed a chair from behind his counter and carried it around to the front.

  “You better sit,” he said. “I’ll put the closed sign in the window. I have a feeling you and I are in for a long talk.”

  “Thanks for the chair,” Shaye said, and lowered himself painfully into it. “Not that long a talk, though,” he said over his shoulder.

  Cory came back around to his side of the counter. From beneath it he took two shot glasses and a half-filled bottle of whiskey. He poured two drinks, then stoppered the bottle and put it back. He pushed one of the glasses over to Shaye.

  “Thanks,” the lawman said.

  They both tossed back their drinks, then looked at each other.

  “My sons are about to ride out after the remaining bank robbers,” Shaye told Cory. “They tried to get up a posse, but everybody turned them down. I can’t let them go out there alone, without guidance.”

  “They’re grown men,” Cory said.

  “They’re not ready,” Shaye said, “and I can’t go with them. This injury keeps me from sittin’ a horse.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “I’d like you to go with them,” Shaye said. “You see, I know who you really are.”

  Cory thought about having another drink, but rejected the idea. That wasn’t the answer.

  “So if I don’t agree to go you’ll reveal to the town who I really am?” he asked.

  “No,” Shaye said. “I admit, that was my plan, to threaten you that way. I mean, right up until I got to the door. But not now.”

  “So what is your plan?”

  “This is it,” Shaye said. “Just to ask you to go with them.”

  “You want me to babysit your sons?”

  “They’re fine young men,” Shaye said. “They can take care of themselves, especially Thomas. He’s very good with a gun. Someday he’ll be be
tter than me, maybe even better than you ever were.”

  “But…”

  “But they don’t track,” Shaye said, “and you do. It’s what you used to do.”

  “A dozen or so years ago,” Cory reminded him.

  “Trackin’ isn’t somethin’ you forget how to do, is it?”

  “I’m not wanted anywhere, you know,” Cory said. “I was never a criminal.”

  “I know you weren’t,” Shaye said. “Just a man with a reputation who decided to change his life.”

  “When did you spot me?” Cory asked.

  “As soon as you rode into town.”

  “And you never said a word? Let me settle here?”

  “Why not?” Shaye said. “I know what it’s like to want to leave a name behind you.”

  For a few moments Cory studied the man seated before him.

  “You’re askin’ me to do this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not threatenin’.”

  “No.”

  “You could, you know,” Cory said.

  “I have the feelin’ this has happened to you before.”

  “Many times.”

  “Would you give in this time, again? Give up your business?” Shaye asked.

  “No. When you walked in, I had the feeling it was going to happen all over again, and I wasn’t going to give in this time. But this…this is…different.”

  Shaye shifted his weight in the wooden chair, which creaked beneath him.

  “Look, Mister…Cory, I’m sorry that I’m askin’ this of you, but I don’t see that I have a choice.”

  “So it would be me and your two boys?”

  “One other man,” Shaye said.

  “How will you convince him?” Cory asked. “Does he also have an old life behind him?”

  “No,” Shaye said, “but he owes me for this one.”

  Cory hesitated, then said, “I’ll have to think it over.”

  “That’s fair,” Shaye said, “but my boys are gonna have to leave tonight, before dusk. If they wait until mornin’, the men they’re chasin’ will have too big a head start.”

  “Give me…an hour.”

  “Fine.”

  Shaye struggled to his feet, walked to the door. He opened it, considered turning the sign back around to read “Open,” but had a feeling the shop was going to stay closed.