Chapter 50
“Toole,” Conn growled.
“That’s right,” Toole chuckled, “and you know what this is, poking you in the back?”
“Yeah, I know what it is,” Conn said bitterly, angry at himself for letting Toole get the drop on him.
But even as the flames of anger leapt higher, he tamped them down. In this moment, anger was a luxury he could not afford.
He had to keep his head now. His life counted on it.
Toole had him dead to rights. His only hope now was for Toole to make a mistake. Conn had to be ready for that moment in case it came.
The other men jumped with surprise. The one in the yellow slicker said, “Where did he come from?”
“This alley right here,” Toole said. “He was fixing to blow you two away. But I got him.”
The men got up and came over.
“Nice and slow now, crouch down and put that scattergun on the ground,” Toole ordered.
Conn did as he was told.
Now, the three murderers were laughing.
“I thought it was something, killing a pair of twins,” Toole chuckled. “This is like killing three twins.”
The dumb one chortled. He had a weird laugh, kind of muffled and wheezing.
Watching this one’s eyes, Conn had a feeling the guy didn’t even know why he was laughing.
The guy just kept making that weird sound and looking back and forth between Conn and Toole, who had stepped around in front and was keeping his distance with a revolver trained on Conn’s stomach.
“Dog,” Toole said, “get that scattergun. I ain’t taking chances with this one. Look how much he hates us.”
“We should hang him,” the one in the yellow slicker suggested, a weird light burning in his eyes. Staring at Conn, he licked his lips. “Just like we did the other one. Only this time, we should stretch it out. Make it last.”
“I want to talk to him first,” Toole said. Then to Conn, he said, “Hear that, boy? You answer some questions, maybe I won’t even let Duncan have fun with you.”
“What do you want to know?” Conn said.
Duncan flicked his wrist and let go with a line of rough sisal rope. The loop fell over Conn’s head to his shoulders then snapped tight around his throat.
Instantly, his hands went to the rope, meaning to keep it from choking him.
“Drop your hands, Sullivan,” Toole said, “or I’ll shoot you through the guts. Duncan, quit tugging on that thing. Let him talk.”
The tension came out of the rope. Duncan threw the other end over a branch of a nearby oak.
“Where’s Turpin?” Toole demanded.
“Dead,” Conn said.
“Dead? Dead how?”
“He had the misfortune to walk into the saloon where I was hunting you boys.”
“You shot him?”
“Yeah but not like you think. I gave him a chance.”
“That was stupid,” Toole laughed. “He was fast.”
“I was faster.”
“Yeah, well, that won’t do you any good now. Get your hands up high, buddy. Don’t try anything, or I’ll put some holes through you.”
Conn lifted his hands, knowing Toole meant it. The man couldn’t miss at this range.
“Dog,” Toole said, “pluck that shooting iron out of its holster.”
Dog pulled his gun.
“Not yours, dummy,” Toole said. “His.”
Dog dropped his own gun back in its holster and came over and took Conn’s Remington.
“How did you get out of the mine?” Toole said.
“Dug out.”
“How?”
“Like you might figure. One rock at a time.”
“Sheffield’s dead?”
“Yes, you killed him.”
“Good. I never liked Sheffield. He thought he was better than everyone else. Walked around with that sour look on his face all the time.”
“Bill Sheffield was ten times the man you’ll ever be,” Conn said.
This made Toole laugh. “You’re a sassy one, aren’t you? I got half a mind to have some fun with you.”
“Let’s tie him up and cut his tongue out,” Duncan proposed, that weird light burning in his eyes again.
“Pipe down, Duncan. I’m not talking about that. I’m saying I got half a mind to put the knuckles to him like I did his brother.”
“You mean tie him up and beat him like you did the other?” Duncan chuckled. “That was good. I got a few licks in myself.”
Conn struggled against his anger. He’d known they had beaten his brother half to death before hanging him, and now they were laughing about it.
But he also sensed Toole toeing a line here, standing right at the brink of that mistake Conn had hoped he might make.
“I wouldn’t need him to be tied,” Toole said.
“Maybe,” Duncan said doubtfully, “but why risk it? He’s a biggun, Henry. And tall, too.”
Dog nodded in agreement. “Tall.”
Toole’s eyes flashed with rage. “Who cares how tall he is?” he snapped. “I’m twice the man he is!”
And suddenly, Conn understood.
He’d seen men like this before. When you’re tall, you cross their paths and learn to watch out for them.
A small percentage of short men hate anyone taller than them. And the taller you are, the more they hate you.
They see others’ height as an offense to their lack of stature and feel the need to start a fight with the tallest man in the saloon.
Conn had dealt with it a few times as a kid, then a few times more drifting from place to place as an adult.
It had always been a hassle.
But now, suddenly, he knew it was his only possible lifeline. So he gave a good tug.
“Better listen to them, Henry,” Conn said with a grin. “Little fella like you wouldn’t stand a chance against a tall man like me. I mean, I’m a real man, and it’s like you never grew up. It wouldn’t even be fair. Be like me fighting a little kid.”
He scored a direct hit.
Toole screeched with anger, and for just a second, Conn thought maybe he’d pushed too hard and the man was going to unload the six-shooter into his guts.
But then Toole shoved the six-shooter into his holster and unbuckled the gunbelt and handed it to Duncan, who giggled, still holding the rope tight.
“Want me to lift him up on his tiptoes?” Duncan said.
“No!” Toole shouted, his scarred face crimson with rage. “Let it go slack.”
“Slack?” Duncan said. “He might slip out.”
“You heard me,” Toole said and cracked his knuckles. “Go on, Sullivan. Slip free there, big talker. Dog, you keep that pistol trained on him. He tries anything funny, pulls a knife or something, plug him low down, you hear me?”
Dog nodded, pointing the gun at Conn, who dipped his head, freeing his neck from the dreaded rope.
Toole shuffled forward and raised his fists like a boxer. “Now, you’re mincemeat, Sullivan. I was a prize fighter. I whipped the American champion. They didn’t give me the title, but everyone knew I whipped him.”
“Sure you did,” Conn laughed. He’d never been a boxer, but he’d been in a lot of fights, and he knew the best fighters stayed calm. Anger made them stupid. “Come to think of it, I beat him, too. Twice!”
Toole came rushing forward, just as Conn had hoped he would.
Conn threw a blistering right, meaning to take the short man’s head off.
But he struck only air.
Toole dipped under the punch, slipped inside, and hammered Conn’s body with both fists.
Conn’s ribs exploded with pain. His breath left him, and one of Toole’s fists rushed upward and clipped his jaw, filling his head with sparks.
He staggered back.
Toole could fight.
But so could Conn.
And as Toole rushed again, Conn adjusted, snapping a left jab as he sidestepped the rush. The left barely grazed Toole’s chin, but the right hand that followed pounded into his cheek and sent him reeling.
Conn rushed forward, winging punches as he chased the retreating man. Because that was another thing he’d learned over his many fights: once you had an advantage, you kept rolling until you eliminated the threat.
His punches were wide and hard, not at all like a boxer’s punches, but they were fast, too, and though Toole slipped the first few with seeming ease, Conn’s relentless attack paid off when a looping hook caught the prizefighter in the ear.
The blow froze Toole, and the right that followed smashed into his face, flattening his nose into a bloody mess.
Conn didn’t pause to admire his work. He kept wailing away, putting his full strength into every punch—left, right, left, right, left, right—landing a thundering barrage that battered Toole’s ugly face, making it uglier still as Conn’s knuckles opened cuts and swelled eyes and broke bones.
At that moment, Conn had no plan for how to escape. In fact, he’d forgotten his dire situation. He was solely focused on one goal: destroying the man who had killed his brother.
He grunted, digging deep, and connected with a slashing right that smashed into Toole’s temple and sent him sprawling.
“Gonna kill you!” Toole whimpered, crawling away, and Conn realized with grim satisfaction that Toole was crying.
He started after him, meaning to stomp the life out of the weeping murderer, but Dog hollered wordlessly, putting the gun on him again, ready to shoot.
Conn paused as Toole struggled to his feet and went to Duncan and yanked his gun from its belt.
Conn hesitated, looking for a way out.
Leap to one side? Charge Dog?
Either action would get him killed.
Duncan gave another weird, sadistic giggle. “I told you not to mess with him, Henry.”
“Shut up!” Toole hollered and fired his weapon.
Duncan cried out and fell onto his backside. He lowered his hands to the blood pouring out of his abdomen and lifted them and stared at his bloody palms, mesmerized… and grinning.
Toole fired again, executing Duncan with a bullet to the forehead.
It was a shocking turn of events, and yet Conn wasn’t really surprised. He felt supreme contempt for these men. They were utter savages whose only power was their capricious and audacious use of violence.
Otherwise, they were weak and undisciplined fools. When they didn’t have someone to fight, they fought among themselves. There was no camaraderie between them, no loyalty, let alone anything like friendship or respect or love. These men didn’t even know the meaning of such words.
Dog, distracted by the abrupt killing, stared stupidly at Toole.
Conn rushed him.
Before he could reach him, however, Dog jerked around, lifted the gun, and snapped off a shot.
Not at Conn, though.
In that same instant, another firearm bellowed behind him.
Dog fell back, shot in the throat.
Conn kept moving. He ran in a crouch and snatched Dog’s gun off the ground then tucked his shoulder and rolled as Toole’s gun barked again.
Conn came out of the defensive roll into a crouch and lifted the weapon.
Mayfield lay on the ground, one arm reaching for the sky, his badge gleaming softly in the last light of the dying day.
Toole, his face a mask of blood, had gunned the marshal down, and was now turning his weapon on Conn.
They fired as one.
Conn’s leg jerked, struck by hot lead, and he fell to the side.
Lying on his shoulder, he drew back the hammer again and put his sights on Toole once more.
The man was already down.
Conn shot him again anyway just to be certain.
The heap that had been Henry Toole, murderer, jerked a little with the impact of the big bullet but did not cry out or beg for mercy.
Henry Toole was stone-cold dead.
As were Dog and Duncan.
Conn checked his wounded leg. The bullet had passed cleanly through the calf, poking a hole through both sides of his boot. It hurt like the blazes, but Conn reckoned it wouldn’t slow him down too bad.
He tore away a section of his shirt and wrapped it above the wound to slow the bleeding then tore away another piece and winced as he held it to the exit wound, wanting to stop the worst of the flow.
He’d have to get to a doctor and get it cleaned up or else it would get infected and kill him.
And he couldn’t let that happen.
Because he still had a pair of men to put in the ground.
Nine down, two to go.
“Sullivan?” U.S. Marshal Clayton Mayfield groaned from where he lay just this side of the alley.
“Yeah,” Conn said.
“You get him?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Not yet,” Mayfield said. His voice was weak and stretched thin with pain. “I’m hit hard, though. I reckon I will die unless you do something.”
“If I come over there, don’t shoot me,” Conn said, struggling to his feet.
Mayfield laughed then groaned at the pain again. “I won’t shoot you. Not today, anyway.”