Brothers blood, p.1
Brother's Blood, page 1
Brother’s Blood
Philip McCormac
Wordwooze Publishing
wordwooze.com
© 2019 by Philip McCormac
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without written permission from the author or publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission is punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover by Margaret Loftin-Whiting
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
The jailhouse had an air of dereliction and neglect. A dilapidated desk leaned at an angle. One of the legs had been broken, and a thick block of wood had been used to prop up the desk to make it level. Faded and out-of-date wanted notices hung on the walls. Dust had gathered on all exposed surfaces, and spiders had worked unimpeded to festoon every corner, crevice, and shelf with their lacework.
The door of the jail opened, and a young man entered. He had a round, bland face with slightly bulging eyes, giving him a somewhat surprised look. A deputy’s badge hung on his vest, and he wore a holstered six-gun. His nervousness was evident as he caressed the butt of his weapon. He took off his hat and rubbed a hand over his balding scalp. As he registered the empty office something akin to panic touched his expression.
“Damn Marshal Conway,” he muttered, “never goddamn here when he’s wanted.”
He stood for a moment undecided, looking around the room as if the marshal would suddenly materialise. Reluctantly he was turning to leave when something prompted him to walk to the rear of the jail and peer into the cells.
“Joel!” he exclaimed.
There was a note of relief in his voice as he saw the recumbent figure lying asleep in one of the cells.
“Joel,” he called again and entered the cell.
Nervously he reached out and tapped the sleeping man on the shoulder. One eye opened and regarded the deputy for a moment before closing again.
“Thank God I’ve found you, Joel. We got trouble.”
“Trouble, Craig? Can’t Marshal Conway handle it?”
“Joel, I can’t find the marshal. I thought he would be here at the office. Joel, you will help, won’t you?”
Joel opened his eyes and stared up at the deputy.
“Spit it out, Craig,” he said wearily. “What trouble you talking about?”
“One of them Double Diamond cowpokes is causing ructions down at Peg’s place.”
Slowly Joel rose up from the bunk, swung his legs to the floor, and rested on the edge while he put his hands to his head and groaned.
“Damn licker Peg serves. I’m sure he cuts it with kerosene, or coon’s blood, or something. I swear I ain’t gonna drink no more of his damn rotgut.”
He reached beneath the bunk and came up with a boot.
“Tell me, then, Craig. Tell me what the hell kinda trouble is going on that you can’t handle on your own. You’re a deputy for God’s sake, just same as me. We get the same goddamn lousy pay which makes us sorta equal. And yet you show up here an’ disturb my beauty sleep to help you kick some goddamn drunken cowboy’s ass.”
“Jeez, Joel, I know it ain’t right to bother you. I came to fetch Conway, but he ain’t nowhere to be found. It’s a Cross Ten cowpoke gone crazy with one of the girls down at Peg’s place. He’s barricaded himself in the room with her. Claims he’ll kill her ’less he’s allowed to ride back out to the Cross Ten.”
While Joel pulled on his boots and stomped inside to the office, Craig brought the deputy up-to-date on the happenings down at the Silver City Saloon.
Doggone Hubbard, so called, as that was his favourite expletive, was barricaded in one of the upstairs rooms with Jelly Janice. Jelly was a whore who worked for Pegleg Patterson, the owner of the Silver City Saloon.
Something set Doggone off, and he beat up the woman. Jelly’s screams had brought Pegleg to the bedroom. He beat a hasty retreat when the drunken cowboy blasted a hole in the door with his six-shooter.
Pleading, and cajoling, and promising that he could have as much whiskey as he could drink if he would release the injured whore had not tempted the malefactor out of his refuge. Now the cowboy was barricaded in the room with the woman, and Deputy Joel McKeagh was being summoned to deal with the situation.
“Where the hell is Marshal Conway?”
“Joel, your guess is good as mine.”
Joel swore. “Where the hell that goddamn Conway gets to sure is a mystery. He’s never here when we need him. We end up doing his dirty work for him.”
“Joel, there’s no one better than you when it comes to sorting out trouble. I ain’t no good at this sorta thing.”
Joel shot his fellow officer a sour glance.
“It don’t help my wages none doing Marshal Conway’s job,” he grumbled.
“You reckon Conway has a woman he’s mooning with somewhere?” Craig speculated. “Is that why he ain’t never here?”
“Hell if I know. I just wish he’d show up more frequent. I run this damn law office almost single-handed.”
Joel strapped on his gun belt.
“Come on.”
The two lawmen walked to the Silver City Saloon several buildings away in the same block.
“Joel,” Deputy Bridgewater said, just before his companion pushed open the door of the saloon, “try not to kill anyone this time.”
The deputy got a rancorous look from his fellow lawman before he stepped inside the saloon.
“Thank God you’re here, Joel. That crazy son of a bitch has gone and beat up on one of my girls. He’s locked himself in the room with her.”
Pegleg Patterson was a man of considerable bulk with a greying beard stained yellow from tobacco. He had a peaked cap perched on top of a pale, scrofulous scalp. The peg that gave him his name replaced one of his missing lower limbs. He was wont to claim he lost the original leg to a shark in the South China Seas, and no one knew enough to contradict him. It made for a good story and lent the saloon owner the legendary status of heroic swashbuckler.
“Any other way outta there?”
“There’s a window, but ’less he’s a horsefly he’s gonna bust a leg jumping from there.”
“Well, if that cowboy’s drunk enough, he might do just that. Send one of your men around back to watch that window.”
The saloon was crowded with curious onlookers, eager not to miss out on the excitement.
“Go to it, Joel. Arrest that goddamn cowboy.”
“Drunken son of a bitch. Ain’t right he go beating on that gal. She is only doing her job.”
Some of Hubbard’s cowboy friends were gathered there, also.
“Go easy on ole Doggone, Deputy. Sure, he’s drunk. Don’t rightly know what he’s doing.”
This last remark stopped McKeagh as he approached the stairs leading to the upper rooms.
“That so, cowboy! Then you go up and tell him to give himself up.”
“Hell, Sheriff, there ain’t no harm in Doggone. More ’an likely he caught that whore going through his pockets. He’s pushed her around a bit is all.”
“Like I say, you go on up there, and tell him to come on out with his hands held high and no weapons.”
The cowboys backed away, their concern seeping away at the prospect of having to accost the drunken cowhand. Joel turned to his fellow deputy.
“Craig, I want you to come upstairs with me.”
Deputy Joel McKeagh slowly mounted the stairs. Climbing behind him was the increasingly nervous looking Deputy Craig Bridgewater.
Chapter 2
Joel spotted the door with the splintered bullet hole. It was the fourth along the landing.
“Wait here,” the lawman instructed his partner in a low voice. “When I give the signal, you walk back down the stairs. Clatter your feet as you go. Then wait for me downstairs.”
Deputy Joel McKeagh hunkered down to one side of the damaged door. He took out his Colt and, holding it by the barrel, reached over and hammered on the door with the butt.
“Doggone, this here is Deputy McKeagh. Can you hear me?”
From inside the room he could hear a woman sobbing. Sliding his weapon back in the holster, Joel pulled out the makings and began the process of building a smoke. He was taking his time, carefully working with strong, capable fingers at the task. At last he held up the finished article for critical examination before pulling a Lucifer and scratching it against the door. The sound of the match scraping on the wood set off a response from the bedroom.
“Doggone, McKeagh, don’t you try coming in here.”
“Why would I wanna do that, Doggone? It’s you that’s gotta come out.”
“I ain’t going to no doggone jail for beating up on no doggone whore.”
“Tell you what, Doggone, you send out that there whore and let me see how bad she’s hurt,” McKeagh said. Then in a louder voice. “Jelly, how are you?”
“I’m bleeding, Joel. He used his gun to beat me. I’m hurt bad.”
“Shut your doggone trash mouth. I’ll do any doggone talking.”
“Doggone, let her go,” Joel said in a resigned voice.
“I know your rep, McKeagh. You’ll doggone shoot me down as soon as I poke my doggone head round that doggone door.”
“Doggone, what the hell’s your right name? I’m tired of all this doggone shit.”
“My name! Why the hell you wanna know that?”
Privately McKeagh thought it would look better on the cowboy’s tombstone, but that’s not what he said out loud.
“Your ma and pa musta give you a proper Christian name.”
The cowboy spent some time thinking about this. It was a while before he answered.
“Augustine.”
“Right. Augustine, or Gus, or Gussie, or whatever you wanna be called, come on out. I gotta thirst to attend to, and I’m a mite hungry, also. I don’t wanna miss out on supper. Tell you what, Gus. I’ll go downstairs and have a drink at the bar. You come on down in your own time and belly up to the bar with me. I’ll buy the first drink, but I expect you to dig deep, also. I ain’t buying all the drinks. A deputy’s pay don’t run much to that sort of socialising.”
Joel got up from his squatting position and walked along the landing. He nodded to the deputy waiting nervously at the head of the stairs. Craig Bridgewater, looking mighty relieved, clattered noisily down the stairs.
Joel tiptoed along the landing and, carefully opening one of the doors, stepped inside. He held his cigarette well inside the room as he smoked. Patiently he waited.
Nothing happened for ten minutes. In that time Joel finished his smoke but did not attempt another. He heard the squeaking of a doorknob turning and drew his Colt. There was the creaking of hinges and then silence. Joel waited. He could hear Janice sobbing.
“What do you see?” a voice hissed.
“Nothing. There’s no one there.”
The injured woman still spoke in that clumsy manner as if her mouth was not working properly.
“You doggone sure, you doggone bitch?”
She must have had a slap then, for she squealed in pain.
“There’s nobody!”
Joel kept very still, listening intently.
“Deputy Joel, I’m coming out now. Any doggone funny business and I’ll blow this doggone whore’s doggone head off.”
McKeagh did not answer. He took off his hat and let it drop to the floor inside the room. His Colt was held loosely against his chest. There was another prolonged pause broken by a pained cry.
“Doggone stay still, you doggone bitch!” a voice hissed.
McKeagh could hear shuffling noises and the stifled sobs of Jelly. Still he waited.
“Deputy McKeagh, you still gonna buy me that doggone drink?” Doggone called.
Joel stepped out from his place of concealment. Jelly was out on the landing, her face covered in blood. Crimson streaks decorated large, naked, pendulous breasts. Doggone Hubbard had a meaty arm around her neck. In his other hand was a Colt, and he was waving the barrel around in the air in the expectation of someone jumping him.
The cowboy caught the movement along the landing and turned his head. He tried to swing the woman so she was between the lawman and him. Joel had his Colt levelled.
“Drop the gun, Augustine.”
“Doggone!”
Even as he yelled, the cowboy was bringing his gun round to bear on the lawman. He squeezed off a shot. Joel was showered with plaster.
“Drop the gun, Gus!” Joel yelled.
The woman screamed and wriggled about, throwing Doggone off balance. His next shot went somewhere down the corridor. But by now he had the woman held between him and the lawman. Only the cowboy’s head was visible as he peered round the woman and sighted his Colt on the deputy.
Joel squeezed the trigger. The bloodshot eye that Doggone Hubbard was using to peer at him disappeared. The slug took out the back of the cowboy’s head and embedded in the doorframe along with remnants of brain and fragments of bone. Hubbard slid back inside the room he had just vacated, his Colt falling to the landing. Jelly screamed some more as she collapsed onto the landing. Holstering his pistol, Deputy McKeagh walked to the head of the stairs.
“Okay, Peg, get some of your boys up here to clear up this mess. Miss Janice needs a doctor.”
Carefully he stepped over the sprawled body of the man he had just slain and entered the bedroom. From the crumbled bed he gathered a blanket and took it back outside. Peg had mounted the stairs along with a couple of barkeeps. Joel bent and placed the blanket over the naked, weeping woman.
“Come along, Jelly. It’s all over now,” he said gently, as he took the woman by the shoulders.
The injured woman was too distraught to make any coherent reply. Pegleg directed the men to take her to another room. They had to support the woman, one on each side.
“When you got her settled, come and carry this piece of meat out the back,” the saloon owner instructed his men before turning his attention back to the lawman. “Joel McKeagh, I sailed the seven seas and met some tough characters on my trips, but you are one dangerous hombre.”
Joel smiled grimly. “Get the lady a sawbones. That cowboy beat up on her pretty bad. Her face is a mess. I figure he broke her jaw. Anyways, I need a drink.”
“On the house, Joel.”
Pegleg stomped downstairs and led the way to the bar. Men crowded around Joel, congratulating him for his well-executed rescue. The lawman ignored most of them and waited for Pegleg to get behind the bar to serve him.
“Best bourbon, Joel. My very own private bottle,” Peg assured Joel, as he poured two generous glasses.
“What the hell do you serve me when I ain’t rescuing your gals?” Joel complained.
He downed the drink and waited as the warm glow began its slow progress through his insides.
There was a disturbance on the stairs as the body of Doggone was carried down. Joel did not turn around, even though it seemed as if everyone else in the saloon were crowding forward to get a look at the dead cowboy. Craig Bridgewater took charge and accompanied the men carrying the body outside and directed them to the morgue.
Joel watched in the large barroom mirror as the dead man’s friends filed past him and out the front door. He counted seven. All had grim, set faces. They did not look in his direction.
Chapter 3
Joel leaned across the bar and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Peg, you still keep that scattergun under the bar?”
The saloon owner looked sharply at the young lawman.
“I sent it around the back with Tommy when you told me to watch the window. I think he left it by the back door. You expect trouble?”
“Let’s just say it’s a wise man as shakes out his slicker when he sees rain clouds on the horizon.”
“You want any help?”
Joel drained his glass.
“Thanks for the drink, Peg. I’ll just go out the back and pick up that scattergun on the way.”
When he came up the side alley from the rear of the saloon, Joel saw the men waiting for him. They were grouped on the opposite side of the street watching the front of the saloon. He counted the cowboys. Five. There had been seven when they left the saloon. McKeagh speculated on the whereabouts of the missing cowboys.
Two of them were either hiding somewhere else or had chickened out. He scanned both sides of the street for some indication of where the other two might be. There were too many alleys and doorways where a man could stand unseen. He gave up searching.
A wagon was coming down the main drag. Joel waited until it was opposite his position and, bending low, ran out onto the road and kept pace with the wagon until he was well past the waiting cowboys. Leaving the cover of the vehicle, he crossed the street to be on the same side as the group of cowboys. Then he began stalking.
The deputy carefully moved along the street from doorway to alleyway to doorway, keeping his movements confined to moments when the cowboys’ attention was concentrated elsewhere. The deputy did not get far before he froze against the side of a building. A head had suddenly poked out from the next alley he was heading for.
