Santa Fe Showdown Read online

  NOWHERE TO RUN, NOWHERE TO HIDE

  The quiet was unnerving. He expected to hear probing shots from the two men, but their rifles were silent. He scrambled to higher ground, traversed the most dangerous stretch, and started looking for the rocks that marked the hiding place of the bushwhackers.

  Lew dropped to his belly when he caught sight of the spot where the two men had lain in ambush. He was quiet, but one or both of them must have seen him, because the stillness exploded with the crackling sound of two rifle shots very close together. The brush above Lew rattled as bullets tore through the leaves. He heard the brittle sound of branches breaking. The two rifles fired again and bullets plowed gouges in the earth just below him. Dirt spattered his face and he rolled downhill a few feet and took up a position behind a small boulder. Bullets spanged against it and he knew the two men had him cold…

  Berkley titles by Jory Sherman

  THE VIGILANTE: SANTA FE SHOWDOWN

  THE VIGILANTE: SIX-GUN LAW

  THE VIGILANTE

  THE DARK LAND

  SUNSET RIDER

  TEXAS DUST

  BLOOD RIVER

  THE SAVAGE GUN

  THE SUNDOWN MAN

  THE VIGILANTE SANTA FE SHOWDOWN

  Jory Sherman

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  THE VIGILANTE: SANTA FE SHOWDOWN

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2007 by Jory Sherman.

  Cover illustration by Bruce Emmett.

  Cover design by Steven Ferlauto.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-2045-0

  BERKLEY®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  For Midge Rosenbaum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  1

  LEW ZANE STARED STRAIGHT INTO THE EYES OF MARSHAL Horatio Blackhawk. Dark black eyes like velvet flint. It was like staring into a pair of gun barrels. He saw the shiny badge on the man’s vest, the way he slouched against the building with his tall, lanky frame, his right hand free and lazing next to his low-slung holster.

  Blackhawk looked at Zane, then touched a finger to the brim of his hat.

  Zane returned the salute.

  Blackhawk smiled.

  And waited.

  “You could arrest me now, take me back to Arkansas,” Lew said. “I’m a wanted man.”

  “You are. And I could.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “I’m thinking about it real hard, Zane.”

  “If you give a damn about justice, you won’t. What’s your name, anyway? Judge Wyman send you?”

  “The name’s Blackhawk. Horatio Blackhawk. No, I work out of Springfield, up in Missouri. But Wyman called for your arrest. I got the case.”

  “You ever meet Wyman?”

  “I met him. Look, Zane, I went over your case pretty thorough-like. I think you got caught up in a gauntlet down there in Carroll County. The people who want you, got blood in their eyes, for sure. But I’m bound to uphold the law.”

  “The law? What law is that?”

  “United States law, son.”

  “If it isn’t any different from Arkansas law, it’s pretty piss poor.”

  “I’m not going to argue the law with you, Zane. I got a warrant for your arrest.”

  “And that makes everything right, according to you. You’re bound to serve it.”

  “Yes.”

  “And take me back to Berryville in irons.”

  “If necessary.”

  Somewhere up the street, a dog barked. A tinker’s cart rolled past, its innards ringing with faint chimes. A mountain jay squawked at the vendor’s horse, dove down close to the animal’s ears, then flapped away to land on a watering trough where it regarded its reflection with a cocked head, then began to preen its feathers with a pointed black stylus of a beak.

  “Do you know why the judge wants me back in his court, Marshal?”

  “That’s the judge’s business. I only serve warrants, carry out the court’s wishes. Look, Zane, I talked to everybody down there, in Osage, Alpena, Green Forest, Berryville. You got two scared women after your hide, Abigail Pope and Sarah Canby. They want to see your neck stretched.”

  “Why would those women be afraid of me?” Lew asked.

  “They think you might come back and kill them, like you killed their sons and husbands, I reckon.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I don’t think you would, but…”

  “Wiley Pope and Fritz Canby murdered my folks. In cold blood. They tried to kill me. I don’t hold their mothers to blame for what they did.”

  “Their fathers tried to kill you, too, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah. They kidnapped Seneca Jones to draw me out, so’s they could put my lights out. Sheriff Colfax was in on it, too.”

  “Those women have a reason to fear you, I gathered, when I asked around Alpena. They hold a big grudge.”

  “I don’t. Carrying a grudge is like toting two hundred pounds of lead on your back.”

  “Good way to look at it, I reckon.” Blackhawk felt in his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He shook one out, put it to his lip
s, and held out the pack to Lew. Lew shook his head. Blackhawk put the pack back in his pocket, withdrew a match. He cocked a boot up and struck the match on the side of the heel. He touched the flame to his cigarette and drew the smoke into his lungs. He let it out slow, as if he had all the time in the world to stand there and chew the fat with a wanted man, a man with a price on his head.

  “You aim to collect the bounty on me?” Lew said.

  “Not eligible. I’m just doing my job.”

  “Do you like what you do?”

  “Most of the time, yes. I don’t like criminals much.”

  Lew said nothing as Blackhawk stood there and smoked as if there were nothing urgent on his mind.

  Memories of his parents bubbled up to the surface in Lew’s mind. He thought of that day in the woods when he had seen them for the last time and then stepped out the door. He had hiked up the road, killed the deer, dressed it out, then gotten the news that his mother and father had been murdered. On his birthday. The sadness of that day welled up in him. He had never wanted revenge for their murders. Two young men his own age, men he knew, had killed them. All he had wanted was justice. But he was thwarted on every side by the Alpena sheriff, the judge in Berryville, almost everyone. Finally, he had gone after Wiley and Fritz himself. The Alpena sheriff had come after him and tried to kill him. He had shot all three men in self-defense. But now there was a bounty on his head, and a warrant for his arrest. He was wanted for murder, although anyone with any brains would know he was innocent.

  “I guess what it boils down to,” Blackhawk said, “is that you can’t go around being a vigilante. That’s what they’re calling you back home in Arkansas.”

  “I’m not a vigilante. I just want justice.”

  “You know what the Mexes say about that.”

  “No,” Lew said.

  “No hay justicia en el mundo.”

  Lew know what it meant. He had picked up some Spanish since coming to Colorado.

  “There is no justice in the world,” Lew said. “The Mexicans are pretty smart, I’d say.”

  “I think they meant there was no justice for them,” Blackhawk said.

  “And none for me.”

  Blackhawk finished his cigarette and ground it out under his boot heel.

  “Maybe you’ll get a fair trial. Get a good lawyer—that’s my advice.”

  “My lawyer helped me get away from that mess back home.”

  “You ever plan to go back one day?”

  “No. There’s nothing there for me anymore.”

  “What about your gal? Seneca Jones.”

  Lew felt a rush of hot blood to his face. He hadn’t thought of Seneca in days. He could hardly remember her face anymore.

  “She’s not my gal.”

  “Oh? She pines for you. I could tell that when I talked to her.”

  “You spoke to Seneca?”

  “I talked to everybody, near ’bouts, in Osage. But that Seneca, she’s a-waitin’ for you, sure enough.”

  “I miss her sometimes. She was a good friend.”

  Blackhawk gave out a short laugh.

  “More than a friend, according to her.”

  Lew felt the redness on his face, like a stain. He touched a hand to his cheek. His skin was hot. But he knew he couldn’t go back there. They’d put him in jail and throw away the key.

  He shook his head.

  “I’m not going back to Osage.”

  “Never? What if you get acquitted at trial?”

  “I don’t aim to go to trial, Marshal.”

  Blackhawk’s attitude changed. His face hardened and a muscle quivered along his jawline.

  “These papers I got says different.”

  “I’m not guilty of anything, Marshal.”

  “These papers…”

  “I know, they say I’m a murderer. The murderers are in the ground, where they belong. That court should have hanged them, but it didn’t.”

  “Like I said, Zane. You get a good lawyer, and you stand a good chance of going free.”

  “If you take me back, Mr. Blackhawk, I doubt I’ll ever get a trial.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I know those people back home. They already showed me their colors. They’ll fix me up in a jailbreak or something and I’ll get a bullet in the back. No one will lift a finger. That’s how it works back home. That’s why I’m not going back. I didn’t want revenge when I went after those boys; I wanted justice. And every time I tried to get some, somebody shoved a gun barrel in my face.”

  “You sound pretty bitter, Zane.”

  “No, I’m not bitter. What’s done is done. I got another life now and I try to stay out of trouble.”

  “You got in a heap of trouble up on the mountain. You don’t look like somebody who runs from trouble. Not to me, you don’t.”

  “Carol Smith wanted justice, too. I helped her get some, maybe.”

  “The vigilante again.”

  “Look, Blackhawk, if you were not a lawman and you were in a town where there was no law, what would you do?”

  “I don’t know. I reckon I’d send for the law.”

  “What if there was no law to come? What if you were a decent man and the town was full of lawbreakers? What if you saw injustice at every corner? Would you just stand by and let the criminals take over the town?”

  “No, I don’t reckon I would.”

  “When there is no law, you have to be the law.”

  “That what you say about all this back in Alpena?”

  “The law turned the other way. My folks were plumb murdered. I went to the law and the sheriff up there told me to bury my folks and go on about my business.”

  “That doesn’t give you the right…”

  “Yes it does. When there is no law, Blackhawk, and something’s not right, you have to become the law. That’s what I did. Plain and simple.”

  “You became a vigilante. Judge, jury, and executioner.”

  “It might look that way, unless you were in it. Like a whirlwind out on the plains. Kind of pretty to watch, and funny, sometimes—but if you’re in the middle of it, getting whipped to death by wind, rocks, sticks, and sand, it’s pure hell.”

  “Did you kill Jeff Stevens?” Blackhawk asked, point blank.

  “What?”

  “Somebody says you killed Stevens and robbed him.”

  “That somebody is a liar.”

  “I didn’t think it was true. But you got more problems than just me, Zane.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. Trouble seems to follow me.”

  “Bolivar has caught up with you, in case you didn’t know.”

  “Bolivar?”

  “You know, where Carol is from. She and her father, Jeff Stevens. Both from Bolivar.”

  “I know that.”

  “Carol’s a married woman. And like you, she’s got a price on her head.”

  “I don’t get you, Marshal.”

  “Her husband, Wayne Smith, took out a big insurance policy on the lady and their kids.”

  “And?”

  “I think he wants to hang you and get rid of his wife and kids, live off the insurance money.”

  “How do you know all this?” Lew asked.

  “I talked to Wayne Smith yesterday.”

  “He’s here in Pueblo?”

  “Looking for you, Zane.”

  “I heard he was a criminal himself. Stole some money back in Bolivar.”

  “True. I think he’s got his sights set on Santa Fe. What he told me, anyway.”

  “Why don’t you arrest him?”

  “I’m considering it.”

  “Looks like you’ve got a full plate, Mr. Blackhawk.”

  Just then, both men stiffened as they heard a woman scream from inside the Fountain Hotel. Then they heard a gunshot, followed by two more. A man inside the hotel yelled something.

  “Carol,” Lew said.

  Blackhawk drew his pistol and dashed inside the hotel before Lew could
move. He heard more noises inside.

  “Stop him,” a man yelled.

  Lew drew his revolver and dashed through the door. He saw Blackhawk taking the stairs two steps at a time. The clerk stared at him, wild-eyed, as he ran up the stairs. There was another shot, and a man staggered toward Lew and fell at his feet, mortally wounded.

  Lew heard the crash of breaking glass and thumps on the back roof. Down the hall, he saw a man scramble through a window and disappear. Blackhawk lay on the floor in front of an open door, dead or unconscious, Lew didn’t know which.

  Lew ran to the window and looked out in time to see a man on the roof turn and look at him. The man had a gun in his hand and he pointed it straight at Lew.

  Lew ducked just as the man squeezed the trigger. But he saw the sheriff’s badge on his shirt and knew, instantly, who it was. When he raised up his head again, he saw the man fly off the roof and heard him hit the ground with a thud.

  Lew turned and walked back to where Blackhawk lay still in front of the open doorway.

  He bent down and put a finger beneath the marshal’s ear. There was a pulse. There was also a bump on the side of his head, swelling to a rosy egg. Blackhawk was out cold.

  There was a silence now that issued from inside the room with the open door.

  Lew stepped inside, his hands suddenly clammy.

  He held his Colt at the ready, crouching to stay low.

  There was blood everywhere—on the floor, the walls. The children were on the bed, sprawled there like broken dolls, their heads twisted as if they had tried to get away. They were covered with blood, and neither was breathing.

  On the other side of the bed, Lew found Carol. She had her shotgun clutched in one hand, lying by her side. She hadn’t had the chance to fire it.

  There was a dark hole in her chest, blood all around it. A bullet hole.