“Now lower your hands and walk inside. You’re going to tell your boss that the boy’s been found. Say it wrong and you won’t know what happens this night.”
The house consisted of four rooms: a living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms. Pine floors were freshly swept; Checker had been here several times, as had Bartlett. The house had the feel of a woman’s care, even though Gardner had been a widower for nearly six years. Framed pictures of the family sat atop a cabinet in the corner, along with a kerosene lamp. The stone fireplace was the centerpiece of the main room; a small fire was mostly ashes.
Emmett Gardner stood near the fireplace, his face hard and drawn. Hands at his sides, both clenched into fists. A blooded gash on the side of his head spoke silently of an earlier attempt to fight back. On the other side of the fireplace a white-faced boy of fourteen stood. Beside him an ugly brown dog waited for instructions.
Sitting at a large brown sofa that was pushed against the north wall was a half-breed gunman drinking coffee. His wide, moon eyes never left the old rancher. The half-breed grinned a mouthful of missing teeth, bright against his skin, in response to a joke only he knew. A torn spot on the side of the sofa looked as though someone had tried to sew it together unsuccessfully. The half-breed’s face was a constant smirk. It pleased Checker to see that the sofa-seated gunman wasn’t holding a gun. A rifle lay at his feet; a holstered handgun was barely visible under his worn Navajo coat. Checker knew the gunman. Luke Dimitry. Some said he had killed twenty men.
At an adjacent table, a large, pig-faced man in a three-piece suit sat in one of the four unmatched wooden chairs. His hat brim was pinned to its crown in the style favored by some Civil War officers. He was holding two gold-plated revolvers with ivory handles, both aimed at the old rancher. His eyebrows were plucked clean like a Cheyenne warrior’s, giving him an even more sinister appearance.
Checker guessed this was Sil Jaudon, the transplanted Frenchman who led Lady Holt’s gang, according to Ranger reports. Jaudon had supposedly come from New Orleans, where he had been involved in a number of killings.
“Quoi?” Jaudon’s guns swung toward their entrance, barely missing the blue flower vase, filled with dried wildflowers, in the middle of the table
“B-boss, h-he found the b-boy,” the yellow-haired gunman announced stiffly as they entered and motioned toward Checker and the boy behind him.
Wagging its tail, the dog trotted across the room to greet Hans.
Jaudon’s face became a smile and the guns returned to their position of aiming at Emmett. “Bien! Bien! Ah, now we vill see how tough this old rooster is.”
The tall Ranger stepped forward from the shadows, pushing the guard to the side, and swung his Winchester toward Jaudon.
“Drop your guns. Do it now.” Checker pointed at Jaudon, then spoke to the gunman in the sofa. “Dimitry, don’t move. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“S-sorry, boss. He got the drop on me. He’s a R-Ranger,” the guard said, his shoulders slumping in shame.
Grinning savagely, Sil Jaudon kept his revolvers directed at the old rancher. “Salut. Ranger. If vous shoot, mon guns, they vill go off. An’ mon boys’ll know vous are here. Both beaucoup bad. For vous.”
“I’ve taken lead before, Checker,” Emmett growled, and straightened his shoulders.
Checker raised his gun to fire. “A shot to the head usually stops such a reaction. Let’s find out.”
Jaudon hesitated, as if waiting for something or someone.
Emmett waved his arm toward the kitchen. “There’s another o’ them bastards outside the back door.”
“He’s got a rifle,” Andrew, the fourteen-year-old son, volunteered, pointing in the same direction.
Bartlett and Rikor stepped through the small kitchen into the main room, almost on cue. In front of them was a disarmed gunman with eyebrows that sought to live together. His pockmarked face was more yellow than tan and he wore a long red silk scarf around his neck; its silk ends dangled near his belt.
“There isn’t any more,” Bartlett said. “Wilson’s down, too. But you already knew that, didn’t you, Frenchie.”
“You all right, Pa?” Rikor asked, and knelt to pat the dog. “How about you, Andrew?” He looked down at the animal. “And you, Hammer, how are you?”
“I be fine, son. Jes’ fine. Now. So’s Hammer.”
“Yeah,” Andrew said, then hurried to hold his father.
Shaking his head, Jaudon muttered something in French, released the hammers on his guns, and laid them on the table. His hands slowly rose; the movement caused his ample belly to shake like waves on a lake.
“You learn well. Might make it through the night if you stay that smart,” Checker growled. “Now get rid of that other gun. Behind your back.”
His face blossoming into an eddy of angry wrinkles, Jaudon slowly withdrew the third weapon and laid it alongside the other two. The gun was a match to the first two. Checker had seen its shape in Jaudon’s coat when the fat man moved.
“You, unbuckle that belt and shove it to the floor.” Checker motioned with his rifle toward the seated half-breed. “Then get rid of that pistol in your boot. Do it real slow. I’m getting really tired of this.”
Nervously, the seated half-breed released the gun belt and holstered revolver and shoved it off the sofa as if it were contaminated. He reached down to his boot, looked up, and slowly withdrew a double-action Webley Bulldog pocket gun. His eyes flirted with shooting.
“Ah, lad, ever have your belly turned apart by one of these?” Bartlett said, his eyes squinting at the man as he motioned with his shotgun.
Jerking, the half-breed, Luke Dimitry, dropped the weapon and raised his hands.
Hans ran for his father and the gray-haired rancher held both boys tightly. “You’ve been real brave, sons. Real proud o’ ya.”
“Thanks, Pa. I was scared, though,” Andrew said, shaking his head.
“I was…a little,” Hans added, looking away.
“That’s what brave men do, boys. They do the ri’t thang even when they’re scar’t.” The old rancher’s wrinkled face became boyish as he looked at the two Rangers. “I knew ya Ranger boys would come. I knew’d it. These sonvabitches snuck up on me. Sorry to say. Got my youngest when he was in the barn. I couldn’t…”
Jaudon coughed and explained, his eyes glowing from hate, “Vous do not have ze chance, monsieur. Mon men are everywhere out there. But I vill let vous go. Vous are ze lawmen. No quarrel I have with vous.” He motioned with his head. “Only want this ol’ man. Sacre bleu, he has been rustling our beef—an’ the other ranchers, too.” He grinned again; his mouth twitching at the right corner. “All Madame Holt wants—is justice. Oui, justice.”
“That’s a goddamn lie—an’ ya knows it, Jaudon,” Emmett growled. “He kills an’ steals for that witch. Give me a gun, boys, an’ I’ll settle this crap, once an’ for all.”
Jaudon’s face was white, the corner of his mouth trembling.
Stepping away from his sons, Emmett rushed toward the fat man and spat. Brown liquid slammed into the outlaw leader’s face and rushed down his cheeks and mouth.
“Damn vous!” Jaudon wiped at his stained face. “I vill kill vous. I vill kill vous with mon hands bare.”