Killer Clan
by Gary Clifton
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
conclusion
“Let her go, you bastard, or keep on and give me the chance to let the air outta you.”
Elizabeth’s’s voice carried a cold edge Mary had never heard before. Standing in the dimly lit building, the big Colt she pointed, hammer back, at his chest from eight feet, dwarfed her. Above, a flash of lightening briefly illuminated the interior. The ear-splitting crack of heavy thunder rattled the building.
Davy shoved Mary away and turned to Elizabeth. “You ain’t gonna shoot me, you stupid woman. I was thinkin’ back at the bank you was pretty juicy. We’ll be a keeping the both of you for a day or two of fun and games. Now surrender that big old Colt, ’fore I slap hell outta you.”
Stepping boldly toward Elizabeth, he grabbed at the pistol.
Deafening thunder pealed just as Mary pulled the trigger. An expression of shock was frozen on his face, and the blast blew Davy out through the door. Rain pummeled his death stare, still locked in stunned surprise as he sprawled face upwards in the mud.
Charlie, who had apparently been scouting, crashed into the building and clamped his powerful jaws on the man’s throat. Seeing he was late, he retreated, eyes upward to Elizabeth reproachfully.
Elizabeth retrieved the shotgun from the dusty floor and handed it to Mary. “It’s okay, Charlie, this isn’t over yet. You can have the next one.”
As quickly as it had come, the rain passed, although heavy thunder continued.
“Can you get up, Mary?”
Mary struggled to her feet, pulling her blouse together and slipping back into her soggy coat.
Elizabeth peered across the corral. Hoping the thunder had hidden the sound of the pistol. Her heart sank when saw two men emerge from the cabin, hurrying toward the barn. One was carrying a Winchester.
“Trouble coming, Liz.” Mary checked her shotgun.
Elizabeth flattened herself beside the doorway, and raised the Colt, intent on hitting at least one man in the head without firing a shot. Mary stepped behind the white horse, shotgun ready. Both waited, breath stifled as the pair plunged through the door.
The plan was unnecessary. Charlie had the bigger man down, a death grip on his throat in the blink of an eye. No sound was made. The Winchester skidded across the dirt floor.
The second man froze, hands high.
“Let him up, Charlie.” Elizabeth pulled back the hammer on the cumbersome Colt, pointing it in the center of the man’s face. He was fiftyish, with thin graying hair and a scruffy, dirty beard.
“Don’t shoot, lady,” he begged. Elizabeth recognized he was Raspy Voice, who’d robbed her bank hours earlier
Mary stepped into view, pointing her shotgun. She recognized the second, younger man as the nervous kid in the bank robbery. He was eyeing Davy’s body lying in the mud, and he was trembling violently.
Elizabeth, holding the heavy Colt with both hands, spat through clenched teeth, “I’m gonna blow off both your damned heads if you move. Now shout for the rest in the cabin to come quick. Do it, or I pull the trigger. If you’ve harmed my son, I swear to track down every member of your family and send them to Hell.”
“Kid’s okay, lady. Tied to a chair inside,” said Raspy Voice.
“How many inside?” Elizabeth jammed her Colt into his ribs.
The nervous kid, terrified, said, “Lady, Daddy only made us come into Uvalde after your damned husband murdered my brother down on the Rio Grande. Please don’t shoot.”
“Call them down here... now,” Elizabeth demanded as Charlie crept closer to the man.
“Ain’t nobody,” Raspy Voice whined. “Nobody a’tall ’cept the boy.”
Elizabeth pulled back the Colt hammer and said coldly to the nervous kid, “You’re next. Who else is inside?”
He began to cry. “Jes’ the boy we grabbed. Daddy said we’d hold him till we could square up with that Ranger, then let him go.” Mary was no seasoned law officer, but she assume both men would lie when the truth was just as good.
Mary, who had not spoken, pointed the heavy shotgun at both men. “You mean kill him, you useless ass.”
“No,” Raspy Voice, still on the ground, gasped. “We was gonna—”
“Kill an innocent child,” Elizabeth interrupted. “Lie again and I swear, I’ll shoot both of you bastards.”
Using the two men, father and son, as shields, they marched them across the muddy corral to the cabin front door in light rain.
Elizabeth waved the Colt at the older man. “You go in first in case you got a hideout man behind the door.” Her intuition was spot on.
The older man stepped through the door. A shotgun blast blew him back out onto the porch.
Nervous kid screamed. “Don’t shoot, Hiram! You’ve kilt daddy. They got me at gunpoint out here.”
His plea was answered with a second shotgun blast blowing a hole at chest height in the door. No one was hit.
Elizabeth, gambling the shooter had expended both barrels of his shotgun, swallowed hard, mumbled a prayer, and pushed into the cabin. Mary remained behind, covering Nervous Kid with her shotgun.
As she stepped over Raspy Voice’s body and pushed inside, Elizabeth heard Mary say to her prisoner: “On your face and lay quietly, tough man. I don’t need much excuse to blow you in half.” Mary’s spunk was showing.
A huge, filthy, unshaven man was standing behind Tad, who was tied to a chair, and now a partial shield. The man was trying frantically to stuff shells into his shotgun.
Desperately, Elizabeth reached over Tad, struggled back the Colt’s hammer, stuffed the barrel into the big man’s chest, and pulled the trigger. The click of a misfire was terrifyingly loud.
Elizabeth stepped back. The disheveled man’s smile was pure evil through the mass of dirty hair. Dropping his shotgun, he yanked a buck-knife from his belt and held it to Tad’s throat.
“Well, missy, them damned old Colts will do that. Now I’m gonna have some o’ what’s inside them ridin’ britches. You one fine little honey, but if you start killin’, you oughta learn to load your piece. Now lay down that Colt and lose some o’ them duds.” He moved toward her.
Elizabeth concluded he was either drunk or too stupid to consider she might not be alone. She whipped her pocket pistol from her jacket and put a round in the man’s forehead. Eyes silver-dollar wide in shock, he toppled like a giant felled oak, jarring the whole cabin as he hit the floor, dead.
“This little one doesn’t misfire, mister. Welcome to Hell.”
Charlie, who’d been busy helping Mary guard the prisoner outside, charged through the door and piled into the man as he hit the floor. Sensing this man was as dead the one in the barn, Charlie retreated. He’d missed another chance to retaliate against his enemies.
Elizabeth used the dead man’s buck-knife to cut Tad loose. She led him out onto the porch. Then she quickly searched the small room. There were no other occupants. The bank’s money, still in the sack, had been tossed beneath a table.
Tad’s mother was not surprised that, although his eyes were red, the boy had stopped crying in typical Brannigan family behavior.
Outside, Mary was still standing over the young, nervous kid, who was lying spread-eagled, face down in the mud. Charlie was lurking nearby, hoping for one chance at the men who had kidnapped his playmate, Tad.
Filled with a terrible rage, Elizabeth pressed her pocket pistol against the young man’s head and spat, “You lied to us. Can you give two reasons why I shouldn’t blow your head off?”
“Oh, mother of God, spare me, ma’am. I ain’t but seventeen.”
Elizabeth lowered her pistol and said thoughtfully, “Seventeen. That’s an adult in Texas. My husband says they make wives outta pretty boys like you up at Huntsville Prison. Mary, don’t shoot this one. Tie him up good with that rope hanging on the fence there.”
Liz went and found a slab of bacon inside the cabin. She fried up enough to feed everyone except the prisoner.
While Mary was guarding the bound Nervous Kid, Elizabeth saddled the white horse inside the barn and another plug mare from the corral. The prisoner led while Mary and Charlie guarded him on foot. Elizabeth followed on the white horse, with the second animal tethered to her saddle horn. She had tied the flour sack of bank money behind her saddle and was cradling Tad in front of her.
The young prisoner wailed, “Whut about Daddy and Davey and Uncle Hiram? You can’t jes’ leave ’em.”
Mary prodded him in the back with her shotgun. “I opened the hog fence around back. Those bodies will start to mortify soon. The hogs will have plenty to eat until we can send somebody up here. Move. The sun’s going down and we didn’t bring any camping gear. We must make Uvalde in the dark. You stumble, and I give you both barrels, understand?”
Elizabeth leaned close to Mary. “You suppose I’ll be criticized for using profanity, Mary?”
“I did, too, Liz. I believe your soul is safe, considering the circumstances.”
“My God, Mary, I’ve killed two men. I’ll speak to the pastor.”
“Liz, if he was worth a nickel, he would have come along and helped. Consider shooting his ass instead of confessing your business.”
Despite the heavy rain, Charlie easily backtracked. In the darkness, they found Buck and the black mare where they had left them. They loaded the whole caravan horseback, and Charlie managed to find the main road through the buckbrush and eventually Uvalde at daybreak. Elizabeth and Mary, with Charlie’s solid backup, turned their prisoner over to the county jailer.
* * *
A crowd had gathered in front of Conchita’s Bakery. Still in her forbidden riding britches, Elizabeth was standing on a wooden box and addressing the crowd. She explained that, no thanks to them, Tad was unharmed. She added that the bandits had been nesters living within fifteen miles of Uvalde, and that two bandits plus another man, had been killed during capture. She did not include that she had shot two of the dead, herself.
“If some of you ‘men’ would ride up there, the corral is full of cattle, undoubtedly rustled from our neighbors. And the hogs seem well fed.” She smiled at the hog comment.
“I would like to take the opportunity to point out that many of you men are cowards and must have your own reasons. I hereby announce that I will run for County Commissioner in the spring election and solemnly promise to form a Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office. By God, if I have to appoint myself as sheriff, I swear not to shirk my duty as a citizen of Uvalde County, Texas.”
Mary, wet and bedraggled, standing nearby, smiled at the normally taciturn Elizabeth’s belligerent tone. Killing a pair of outlaws had bolstered her intensity.
* * *
Nearly four hundred miles to the north, a bone-tired troop of Rangers and drafted citizens, including Brannigan and Bear, were riding into Ft. Belknap at about the time Elizabeth was declaring for public office. An army corporal approached them and handed up a telegraph.
It bore full details from Wilbur Sundae, the Uvalde telegraph operator, describing the bank robbery and Tad’s kidnapping and his successful, miraculous rescue by Mary and Elizabeth. Brannigan read several times the part where Wilbur explained that Elizabeth and Mary had killed two robbers, recovered the stolen money, and returned with a prisoner.
Since Brannigan and Bear’s outfit had killed or captured the group of marauders the night before, consisting of ten white men and one renegade Comanche, they were free to return home.
As they approached the train, Brannigan re-read the telegram. “Bear, you really think Elizabeth or Mary could kill and capture bank robbers... and rescue little Tad? ”
“Surely not, Henry Paul. Wilbur must have misspoken. Strong men from the community musta done the hard part.”
“It sure says here Elizabeth and Mary killed two, captured one... and that Elizabeth is gonna run for political office.”
“She’s hinted at that, before. Maybe the world really is goin’ to hell, Henry Paul.”
“Sure is changin’, I fear,” he said, genuinely mystified. “Maybe folks will vote for Liz ’cuz they’re afraid she’ll ride out and shoot ’em, if’n they don’t.”
The train whistle drowned out his comment.
Copyright © 2018 by Gary Clifton
