Jailbait Justice Read online

  And, thank Christ, with that he and the rest of the gang dragged themselves and their dead off into the evening shroud.

  I snapped my six-gun back into her holster, and looked down at old Doug. The cough earlier told me he had TB and, by the funny colour he had gone, the sucking rasp he was making and the agonized look on his face, I’d say they had taken out his one good lung.

  Alice had dropped her 20 gauge and had slumped by his side, taken his bluing carcass into her arms and sobbing low and hard into his neck. She knew as well as I did that, although he was alive right at this minute, he was heading nearer the man with the list as every second passed.

  ‘You want me to put him out of his suffering?’ I said, in the softest tone I could. She didn’t answer so I took that as a no.

  Old Doug made one final awful sigh as he passed, looking for all the world like a twisted blue doll in his daughter’s embrace. I had grown accustomed to acting all concerned when people’s loved ones croaked, but to be honest, with all I’d been through, it was all just nuts to me.

  I touched the front of my bandanna and bowed my head. Putting my hand on Alice’s small shoulder I said, ‘Look man, perhaps you’d be better off heading back to your homestead.’

  I was about to make off when she grabbed my hand back, looked at me like a woman possessed, and snarled: ‘You have to take me to Houston, Jezebel.’

  9

  There I was, in the dark, fresh from killing two men, around the back of a dangerous agency. My company was that of a fat mule dumbly eyeing the whole scene, a stone dead father and his spiteful looking daughter, who I had just rescued and who was now telling me what I ought to be doing.

  ‘Now why have I got to take you to Houston, huh sweetheart?’

  ‘Because I can’t make it alone. Look, there really is three thousand in pure gold for you, if you get me there.’

  ‘How do I know this ain’t a set up and you ain’t going to rip me off?’ And I’ll be damned if she didn’t pick her 20 gauge up, level it at yours truly and with confidence anew did say: ‘I guess you don’t.’

  Yeah. Well as you can imagine I was mighty affronted with this threatening behaviour.

  ‘What you going to do? Spend the whole week pointing that bird gun at me?’

  ‘Please, escort me to Houston and you will be set for life. You have my word.’ She lifted the rifle in a peace bearing way and then lowered it completely. I took my hand off of Comeuppance’s handle. It would have been a total waste of bullets anyway and a bit like hitting a worm with a sledgehammer.

  ‘Well I got a proposal for you,’ I said, packing my lip with chew. ‘Let’s bury your daddy, and sleep on it. I’m sure we’ll figure out something by morning.’

  She nodded, all tearful as she still was, and brought her sleeve across her damp face and sniffed.

  We took turns in digging the hole and, I must say, I was totally surprised by Alice’s prowess. While I dug, though, Alice stripped her daddy’s corpse, washed the body with water from her tin canteen and then redressed it with clothes out of the mule’s packs; fancy rags as if we were gonna be taking it out for dinner. I just shook my head, mumbled a disparaging remark and got on with putting my back into my work.

  We wrapped the stiffening corpse in a blanket and dumped it in the hole. It was then that I noticed the Jew star pendent dancing around her otherwise unimpressive chest. Alice stood solemnly by the grave, bowed her head and started to gibber in tongues, bowing her head real quickly as if she was agreeing with some unheard discourse. I took this as my prompt to start chucking dirt on top of the bundled up old dead’un. We made a little mound and silently agreed to look for boarding for the night.

  The hostelry attached to the agency was just that touch above what we thought we could afford, but on a wall opposite, was rows and rows of capsules that was within our budget as long as we shared. At the mouth of the capsule that we had hired off a low-rent looking guy, Alice bowed her head and just stood there looking all dejected. For the love of god what now? I thought.

  I clambered into the capsule, leaving Alice to get her packs off of her mule and tether it up outside. She sure looked empty of joy while she was doing it which was understandable, I suppose, given the circumstances.

  Neither of us was big so we fitted in with no difficulty but it was awful snug with her baggage. The capsule was actually damned cosy and it sure was a lot cleaner than I was expecting. There was a little light on the ceiling within a narrow but long bedded area with shelves and cubbies along the walls. Once Alice had heaved her bony ass inside we shut the door, which was basically a large circular window with an edge of wood that formed a portal. It sure was tempting to keep the blind open and watch the fall of Sodom being re-enacted around the grounds of the agency but, what with two tired girls alone in here, I didn’t figure it would be a good idea. I pulled the blind down all the way.

  Without asking Alice began to unpack and make our bedding and she arranged the packs in such a way as they didn’t cause a fuss. Not a bad little homemaker really. But it was not all fun, fun, fun, oh no. ’Cos it was then that she really got into snivelling and whimpering over her dead daddy.

  ‘What about you Jezebel, you got folks?’ she snivelled, just as I was about to drop off, be damned.

  ‘Here,’ I said, ignoring her and pulling forth a quart of rye from my duster pocket, ‘drink some of this, it’ll help.’ Knock her out, I hoped. I was damned if I was going to go into all that now. Us both sobbing and wailing in chorus was a scene too foul for me stomach.

  She took it cautiously, looked at it like it was something bad, brought it shakily to her lips and took a swig. I don’t need to tell you she broke out in a fit of coughing and spluttering.

  ‘There you go,’ I said, getting snug in the corner of the capsule and packing my lip with chew.

  She looked at me like she wanted more than that from me. She’s gonna find herself out of luck, I thought. I gestured at her to take another gulp of the firewater. Now she just looked at me like a child told to do a chore and slowly took a sip, sneered and coughed.

  ‘Pass it here, would ya?’ I took a healthy swig, and turned away as she seemed to search for conversation. I swigged from the bottle again and pulled stuff out of my bag trying to find the books I had brought. There was a book on dinosaurs, a pocket dictionary of the unexplained and a collection of old westerns; but the light in the capsule was pretty weak. It looked like I was out of luck in case she got any more boring. What the hell, I’ll try and go for some conversation, I thought. The quiet sniffling was like a kind of torture.

  ‘What’s in Houston?’ I blurted out, after much consideration.

  Well, that certainly stopped her snivelling a spell. A new darkness seemed to descend upon her features. She pulled her knees up to her chest and looked as solemn as I guess she could.

  ‘My dad, my mom, my two sisters and me had some land out of Hobbs, New Mexico. We raised some crops, maize mainly. Did OK,’ She started. Well that reminiscing seemed to cheer her up a smidge; I sure hoped it’d last.

  ‘Sisters? Were they much like you?’

  ‘Much prettier, one older, one younger.’

  ‘Hell, I bet you caused trouble for the local boys,’ I said, spiting chew juice into my kerchief.

  ‘Sure did,’ she replied, with half a laugh but her dark mood soon returned. ‘Then some men turned up one day. Real mean bastards. Said they were from the new government in Houston and they were claiming the land.’

  ‘Holy… all the way in New Mexico? I knew about that kind of trouble but not all the way up there.’

  ‘Yeah well, ever hear of Old Man Elliot?’

  The name caused me to spit up the whole plug of chew right where I was intending to be sleeping. I wiped thick brown drool from my chops. ‘Yeah, who ain’t?’

  ‘He was the man leading this posse.’

  I looked over the rim of the rye bottle at her, took a swig and gulped hard. ‘How’d you and your daddy survive?’<
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  ‘We were out in town trading some of our maize for supplies. When we got back Elliot and his boys were still working on my momma and sisters. My dad grabbed hold of me and put his hand over my mouth and dragged me under the props of our shack before we were seen.’ She tensed up, her whole body going stiff and ridged. ‘From were I was I could see the whole thing.’

  ‘He sure is a god damned devil, that Elliot.’

  ‘I just don’t understand the violence of what they did. I – I – really don’t, they smashed my mom’s head to m-mush, removed my older sister’s head and… like, played with it and…’

  ‘Listen sweetheart, you ain’t doing yourself any good by pondering those memories.’

  I looked over at her and, by god, if she weren’t shaking with rage.

  ‘Well I was snatched up by my dad, we grabbed my mule and my dog, both were up by the corral away from the shack see, and we high tailed it out of there.’

  I played with the flap of one of her leather mule satchels. ‘Why did you come here, though, surely north would have been safer?’

  ‘I ain’t sure about north being any safer but we were just stopping down here on our way to Houston. We had hired a ride on a wagon but only had the funds to get as far as Austin.’

  ‘OK, but like I asked in the first place, what’s in Houston?’

  ‘Old Man Elliot, and his posse, I believe.’

  ‘What you gonna do, ask him to apologise?’

  ‘No, I’m going to avenge my momma and my siblings.’

  At this I laughed, ‘What, with that there bird-gun? You better hope he ain’t awake and wearing a thick overcoat.’

  My laugh was more than half-nervous and I was aware I was sitting with my legs drawn up to my chest ,just like her.

  ‘Besides,’ she added, with no hint of emotion, ‘Elliot’s base near Houston is just across town from where my daddy’s old business associate is looking after his gold. So, it works out pretty convenient for us both.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I said, taking another gulp of the whiskey.

  10

  Stories of Old Man Elliot were like rabid javelinas; nasty, stinking and plentiful. Well that’s putting it lightly; many was the folk from California to Tennessee who claimed he was the worst bastard that ever lived.

  I had never seen him myself but legend had it that he was around and already a grown man in the old world. Which would make him fucking old, by the way, and probably one of the few people who knew when exactly the old world was and the new one began. And, more importantly, knew what exactly happened in the purgatory period.

  He was supposed to always be dressed real smart with a wide-brimmed hat, spectacles and a massive .460 Magnum on his hip.

  The story about him that I remembered most clearly was an old one about him and his posse harassing a family down in San Antonio. It was a big family with grandfolk right down to grandkids with cousins in between. Just ordinary folk scratching a living in the dirt the best they could. But they were pretty tough, too, and barricaded themselves in their homesteads real good when he showed up.

  Try as he might Elliot could not get at these people, whose land he had been paid to obtain by some rich bastards from up north. Elliot even got one of his boys took out, which made him crazy-horse mad by all accounts.

  He dispatched some of his boys to get as much liquor as they could: bottles and bottles of 1 bit whiskey from which they made firebombs. Well they went ahead and bombed the place and they shot anyone who tried to brave the flames and burning wood and make a break for it. Every man, woman and child.

  This was before my time but, had I been there, I’m sure I would have put a stop to it even if I died trying. I don’t go after trouble but it’s different when the crime’s committed right in front of you.

  ‘Well, I’m hoping that three grand in gold will also get you to consider lending me a hand,’ said Alice, dragging me back to the here and now.

  ‘Who, me? You want me to go against Old Man Elliot and his gang with just you and that rusty old bird gun of yours, huh? I wouldn’t live long enough to spend a bit of that dough.’

  To my surprise she snatched the rye from me and took another healthy swig and blurted out, all pink-eyed, ‘Well, looks like I’ll have to get myself to Houston, kill Elliot and spend all that money by myself.’

  I snatched the drink back from her and took a good swig myself.

  ‘How about this for crazy? You come with me up into Austin, stay around my place and let me talk you out of getting yourself butchered. Because, trust me, even if by some miracle you make it all the way to Houston alive, which you won’t, and get to Elliot, that is where your story’ll end and you can keep your damned money, and besides there’s something you ought to know.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘They plan on hanging me in Houston.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, but they are.’

  Oh, she did not look happy glaring at the floor as she was after that, but this’un needed help to get off this road to damnation.

  ‘You only need take me as far as the city limits,’ she finally said, with tears leaking out of her big, brown doe eyes.

  ‘Look, will you at least sleep on it?’ I asked, touching her leg to get her attention. ‘If you still want to go to Houston in the morning then I will take you, I promise. But will you consider what I said about staying with me in Austin?’ She looked at me and nodded. In a last ditch attempt, I was hoping that if I tried adopting a nice demeanour she’d respond well to it and, low and behold, it sure looked like my plan had paid off. Fuck going all the way to Houston to get me either hung or killed by some mean old bastard and his .460. And sending someone else off to such a pitiful end was, like I said, just not in my nature.

  I lay down, got as comfortable as I could and tugged Comeuppance from the holster on my hip. I had a little examine of her, as I often do on relatively clear-headed nights. She was a perfectly maintained single-action Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum. Although her blue steel finish showed many signs of wear, she shone as if brand new.

  Her cylinder was fluteless and her name was engraved along her seven-and-a half inch barrel with old-fashioned tooling. I had galvanised the frame to help deal with recoil and make her steady, and I had had her polished walnut handle slimmed right down to suit my smaller than average hands. Part of the Ruger Phoenix logo on the handle had worn right down making it only partially recognisable but, that was OK, she was a very old gal.

  I held the handle flat in the palm of my right hand and her barrel flat in the palm of my left. She always felt so reassuringly heavy whenever I handled her. I didn’t need anything else in life other than my old .44. I shoved her under my pillow, keeping my hand on her; old school, and slowly closed my eyes.

  Two seconds later they shot open again when I heard the Jewish princess start snoring like a drunk Irish; plus she was kicking out an awful heat. All of a sudden the cosiness of the little capsule started to feel like a stifling, stank filled hovel. With my head swimming in whiskey I resigned myself to a long and uncomfortable night.

  11

  When I woke, I felt like shit again and was hit with that old where the fuck am I, routine for about two minutes.

  In the cold light of day and woozy with hangover the capsule felt like being stuck in a wooden sock. The next thing I noticed was that Alice was gone.

  Oh dear, never mind, I thought as I slowly began to squeeze myself from my bedding. I was feeling a lot less caring and considerate with that head on me.

  If I thought I felt bad that was nothing to how I felt when I realised that Comeuppance was no longer in my hand. I felt around frantically for her, literally slamming the palms of my hand around the floor of the capsule. The bitch’s bags were gone, leaving just me, my one sack, my bedding. Yeah, my Marlin carbine was gone too. It was damn obvious my guns had been swiped and, as far as I could see, there was only one possible culprit. By god, I was fairly weak with panic and m
y breathing was more laboured than was comfortable.

  I frantically got my shit together, making an awful mess of my bedding as I tried to roll it up, and launched myself out of the porthole. When my boots hit the dirt I was snarling and spitting venom. The only weapon I now had to my name was the Bowie in my belt. I drew it, gaining attention from some roughnecks gathering outside the hostelry in the early morning sun.

  I didn’t exactly know where I was going but my basic hope was to catch up with Alice and gut her from mouth to cunt before she had time to draw. Wouldn’t be no thing really. I’d seen her with a gun in her hand before and she was as useful as tits on a boar hog.

  Then, I shit you not, I only saw her ambling towards me as bold as brass, dragging that fat mule, and be damned if she wasn’t smiling dumbly at me as if we were about to exchange pleasantries.

  At first I had to laugh to myself. But it was a mean laugh full of spite and wrath. I couldn’t stop myself roaring, ‘You fucking bitch. Where’s my guns?’ handing the drop right to her.

  ‘Right here,’ she said, her itty-bitty voice just about carrying its way the thirty yards between us. She pointed at Comeuppance stuffed carelessly in her belt where she was sure to be getting some of that fine patina worn off. It looked damned ridiculous on her, too.

  ‘What’s the matter with you… bitch?’ she had the nerve to ask. Her voice was way nearer as, by then, I had stomped fifteen yards without even taking a proper breath.

  She looked at me like somehow I was in the wrong as I came upon her, waved my knife in her face and snatched Comeuppance from her belt. I checked the cylinder and saw she was just short of the two bullets I spent the night before.

  ‘Why the hell did you try and make off with my guns, huh?’

  ‘After what you said about my old bird gun last night and, considering those men that shot my daddy could still be about, I thought I could do with some better protectin’ so I borrowed yours.’ She wiped some goo from her face with her sleeve. She’d probably spent the morning boo-hooing over her dead daddy.