Chapter Twenty-Four
The sun was halfway across the sky when the four men rode into town. Their hats were pulled low, their holsters loose and their coats thrown back. The sun glinted off the metal in their guns and stirrups. The breath of the men and the horses alike, rose and swirled in the frigid January air.
The streets were surprisingly empty. Even the birds and the horses had fallen silent. Wandering townsfolks saw the four men riding in and they quickly scurried inside for cover.
The men's hard faces and sharp eyes contrasted with their relaxed posture atop their horses. Hooves sunk deep in the mud with every step they took and the horses snorted and shook their heads as if knowing something very important was about to take place here in the quiet town of Windfall.
"I'm gonna have to get a pad for my damn saddle," Jeremiah's voice broke the quiet. "My backside feels like I've been riding on a cactus."
"Since I'm fixing to get shot by someone else, I'll not say the first thing that popped into my head and get myself shot by you too," Marston chuckled.
Pete snorted with laughter despite his nervousness. Pete was full of anger and determination. Anger over what happened to Kaitlyn and determination to see that Vincent never laid another hand on his wife and died for what he'd already done.
The air was vibrating with tension when the four men hopped off their horses and hitched them at the saloon. "Hot damn!" Jeremiah rubbed his hands together. "I love the rush I get when I know I'm gonna kill somebody."
Pete shook his head. "I'm beginning to think I married into a family of crazy asses."
"Welcome to the asylum," Marston replied. "I need to warn you of some things before this goes down."
"Okay," Pete agreed.
"It's every man for himself, Pete. Don't throw yourself in harm's way expecting one of us to come to your rescue and get ourselves killed. We don't die for one another."
"I don't need anyone protecting me, Marston," Pete growled with irritation.
Marston nodded. "Good. Neither does Duke and Jeremiah. Neither do I. Remember that. No playing hero. I don't care if you are a damn lawman."
"You got it," Pete agreed with a tip of his hat. "You don't take any bullets for me and I won't take any for you."
"And then we'll all go home, eat some ham and live happily ever after," Duke chimed in.
"My home is not your home," Marston countered sternly.
Duke shifted his feet. "I was actually hoping to speak to you about that. After we're done killing these bastards of course."
Marston ran his hand over his face and grumbled. "Is it just me or does everybody have something they want to talk to me about these days?"
Jeremiah grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. "I don't ever want to talk to you about things, little brother." He chuckled. "Seems strange to call you little brother when you're a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than I am. You are a big bastard, you know that?"
Marston threw his brother an exasperated glance, shook his head in defeat and laid his hand over his revolver. "Let's go say hello to our friends."
Pete squared his shoulders and followed Marston into the saloon. Duke was behind him and Jeremiah brought up the rear. The saloon was empty other than the six dirty men currently occupying the bar. The bartender glanced up from the glass he was wiping and Marston dismissed him with a nod. He gratefully smiled and made a quick exit.
One of the seated men turned to face them and, while Pete had never met the man, he assumed from his sickly appearance, it was Vincent. "Well hell, boys," Vincent rasped. He clutched the bar for support as his breath wheezed in and out heavily. "We're seeing us a ghost."
Marston grinned. "Hello there, Vincent. You're looking well these days."
"Don't speak to him that way, Marston! You did this to my brother for nothing. You had no right to shoot him that day. He didn't do a damn thing!" Pete knew this man must be Frank and that Jose had been telling the truth when he said the man was loco.
"Other than force a little girl to lay with him?" Marston drawled.
Vincent's face reddened with rage. "She belongs to me!" he shouted and then he broke down in a fit of coughing, gasping for air and nearly falling from his stool.
Frank grabbed his brother's arm to support him. "That girl is mine," Vincent gasped hoarsely when the coughing subsided. "You took her and I'm gonna take her back right after I kill you for what you've done to me."
"That's where you're wrong," Pete assured him, stepping forward. "That girl you're talking about is now a grown woman and she is my woman. You aren't going to be laying a hand on her."
"And just who the hell are you?" Frank sneered. "I know Duke and Jeremiah but you're a new face—and what a hell of a face it is!" Frank whistled. "Son, just who the hell did you piss off?"
"Somebody a hell of a lot tougher than you," Pete stated coldly. He'd never been a tough talker but knowing he was defending Kaitlyn made him feel a lot braver than he was.
"We're gonna finish this...today," Vincent growled.
"Yes we are," Marston agreed. "Let's take this outside, boys. I'd hate to see some of these bottles busted and good whiskey wasted."
Pete watched Marston, Duke and Jeremiah turn their backs on the men and leave the saloon and he was quick to follow suit, though he expected to feel a bullet slam into his back at any moment.
The two groups of men faced off on the street. Marston, Duke, Jeremiah and Pete stood shoulder to shoulder and faced Frank, Vincent and their men standing ten yards away.
"We can't lose," Marston reminded the men beside him with a whisper.
"So, scarface," Vincent sneered. "You've had Kaitlyn, have you? Is she still as good.. as I.. remember?"
Pete saw red. He strode forward, his boots slipped and slid in the mud and his breath came in angry bursts. Finally he stopped, seven feet from Vincent. He took a wide-legged stance.
His eyes honed in on Vincent alone, ignoring the men around him. Pete's lips curved in a slow, icy smile and he saw Vincent's eyes shift. Pete was currently doing his best Marston impression but he had something Marston didn't have. A horrendous, scar that disfigured one entire side of his face.
"You still have good memories of what my wife was like in bed, do you?" Pete asked.
Vincent chuckled. "She was... a hellcat. She damn near... bit my tongue.. off when.. I stuck.. it.. in her pretty mouth."
Pete nodded. "I'm glad you have your memories, Vincent. You can take them to hell with you."
Pete drew his revolver and fired a shot directly into Vincent's pale, sneering face. The street fell silent as the echo of revolver fire resounded off the nearby buildings.
Vincent's body fell backward into the mud, his wheezing breaths no longer filling the air. He glanced Frank's way when he heard the unmistakable sound metal scraping leather. "You killed my brother!" Frank yelled.
Pete ran as guns were pulled all around him. Gunshots filed the air as he slipped and slid his way behind a watering trough and bullets thumped against the wood.
Pete glanced over the scarred wood to see a body lying next to Vincent's in the street. Everyone else had run for cover. Pete could see Duke inside the mercantile. The man had busted out the window and was firing shots at Frank who was taking cover behind a post at the saloon.
Pete scrambled to his feet when he saw two of the men who had been riding with Frank and Vincent run into the livery. He stayed low and ran around the back of the building. Pete had no idea where Marston or Jeremiah were but he wasn't going to let these two men get away.
As long as any of the bastards were still breathing, Kaitlyn would never be completely safe.
"I hope you know that you royally messed this up," Jeremiah voice came from behind him. Pete put his back against the rough boards and saw Jeremiah slipping out the back of the saloon toward him.
The two men stood shoulder to shoulder and reloaded their weapons. "What are you talking about?" Pete demanded.
"We have a system, Duke, Marston and I. A system in which we pull our guns, fire off a few shots, kill everyone, put our guns away and go about our day. Thanks to you, everyone is scattered and we stand a good chance of getting bullets in our back."
"Why don't you jump my ass after we kill the two men in the livery?"
Jeremiah grinned. Pete went to the small window and glanced inside, ducking quickly when he saw the man leaning against the wall just on the other side.
"There's one right there," Pete whispered, pointing to the boards in front of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah chuckled. "Not for long."
Gunshots were still ringing out on the street, making it clear that Duke or Marston or both were still alive and fighting. Pete watched as Jeremiah slid his sawed off, double barrel, ten gauge shotgun from his back and readied both barrels.
Pete nodded Jeremiah's way when he glanced back through the window and saw the man was still standing there watching the door. Jeremiah smiled and pulled both triggers.
The blast deafened Pete and blasted a hole cleanly through the wood. Splinters went flying as the wall disappeared and the man inside slumped to the floor with much of torso missing.
"Well don't just stand there, sheriff! Get around and front and drop that other man before he gets away," Jeremiah ordered before blowing on the smoking barrels of his gun.
Pete nodded and slipped around the front of the livery, staying slow and cursing the bullets that thumped the wood and nearly hit him. He quickly darted into the door and cried out when a bullet tore through his arm.
His eyes narrowed, Pete saw a flash of movement behind a stack of lumber toward the back. Pete took cover behind a bale of hay and glanced at his arm. The wound was only a graze but it burned like the devil.
"Are you hurt, scarface?" the man called out. "Did I get ya good?"
Pete feigned weakness. "Yeah..." he called out hoarsely. "Yeah, you got me good."
He heard boots on the floor and knew the man was coming to finish him off. Pete closed his eyes, silently counted to three and then raised up with his rifle and fired a shot.
Blood poured from the hole in the man's chest as he fell to his knees. He frowned up at Pete, blood dripping from his mouth, before falling face first on the dusty floor.
Pete sighed. He hated killing people. A sound behind him had Pete turning and one of the other unaccounted men stood there. A gun was trained on Pete.
Pete aimed his rifle at the man's chest and the two remained in a stand-off. "This wasn't supposed to be about some girl," the man muttered, licking his sweat-slicked lip. "This was supposed to be about paying Marston back for what he did to Vincent. Vincent was a good man. He taught me to read, you know, and he taught me how to draw a gun and how to look out for myself. He was the closest thing to a pa I had and you just killed him out on that street. You're a coward who killed a dying man."
"I'd kill Vincent again," Pete assured him. "He raped my wife when she was only an eleven year old girl. That man was a monster."
"He paid for her services," the man countered.
Pete was about to pull the trigger on the rifle in his hands when Marston's big frame appeared in the door behind the other man and blocked out the light. The man began to turn but Marston swung the heavy board in his hands and it caught the man in the side of the head.
His head twisted around with a sickening crack of bone. The man instantly crumpled to the floor with blood pouring from his ears, nose and mouth.
Marston tossed the board away and chuckled. "Reckon we oughta pay him for his services?"
Pete couldn't help but laugh. "You whacked him with lumber."
Marston shrugged. "My revolver was empty and I was coming in here to reload it. I saw you having a bit of trouble so I grabbed the closest thing."
Pete smiled. They had done it. There could only be one man left from Vincent's side and with all four of them still alive and kicking, Frank wouldn't stand a chance.
"I thought this would be harder than it was," Pete announced.
"You should have had more faith in us," Marston winked. "That was quite the tough guy move you pulled on Vincent in the street."
Pete sighed. "I didn't put much thought into it."
"Regrets?" Marston asked.
Pete nodded. "I should have made him suffer more."
Marston laughed and patted Pete on the back. "You might just be okay, lawman."
"I'm hit!" Duke's voice suddenly yelled from outside. "Frank is still alive. He ran but I'm hit."
Marston and Pete ran from the livery and stood on the boardwalk. Jeremiah was already across the street and rushing into the mercantile to tend to Duke.
"You killed my brother."
Pete turned slowly and saw Frank coming around the side of the livery with his gun drawn. Pete knew that with his arm injured, he wouldn't be able to draw fast enough to take Frank down before he pulled the trigger.
It dawned on Pete then that he was going to die. He was never going to see his wife again. He would never feel her kiss or her touch. He would never know what it would have been like to make love with her and have her slender body move against his. Pete would never be the pa he'd dreamt of being. He and Kaitlyn would never have a cabin full of beautiful girls and awkward boys.
He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. Death was okay. He had saved Kaitlyn. He had killed the man who had hurt her most and Pete knew he had made a difference in her life during the time he'd been there. And Pete also knew that Kaitlyn would always know how much he had loved her. There would be no doubts in her mind about that.
"I'm gonna kill you now," Frank stated as tears streamed down his dirty face. The gun blast that followed deafened Pete to every other sound.