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  Tanner’s Revenge

  When a gang of outlaws kill Deputy Jack Tanner’s ma and pa, he hunts them down, one by one. The trail leads him deep into the mountains of Mexico, where he encounters the mysterious Queen of Meseta de Plata – boss of the notorious ‘thieves’ town’ – and ultimately confronts the gang’s leader, the evil Amos Payne.

  By the same author

  South to Sonora

  Tanner’s Revenge

  Michael Stewart

  ROBERT HALE

  © Michael Stewart 2018

  First published in Great Britain 2018

  ISBN 978-0-7198-2821-8

  The Crowood Press

  The Stable Block

  Crowood Lane

  Ramsbury

  Marlborough

  Wiltshire SN8 2HR

  www.bhwesterns.com

  Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press

  The right of Michael Stewart to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  For Sarah

  CHAPTER ONE

  When Deputy Jack Tanner heard the shooting he was over at the other end of Main Street, stopping a fistfight between two drunken cowpokes who both figured they were in love with the same saloon girl. So they’d decided to have a fight out there in the street.

  Sheriff Bob Webster had a rule that no guns were allowed in the town. Happily these two fools had been among those who’d deposited their six-guns at the Sheriff’s Office earlier that afternoon, soon as they’d ridden into town, otherwise things could have got a lot deadlier a lot sooner. But as it was, they were having to content themselves with trying to beat the hell out of each other with their fists.

  Another time, Jack might have let them punch themselves senseless, pick up the pieces and let them sober up in the jail back of the Sheriff’s Office. But on this occasion it was only four in the afternoon, and they were disturbing the gentlefolk who were paying the sheriff and deputy to keep the peace. So Jack had to put a stop to the fight, and that was that.

  One of the men was easy to subdue. Jack punched him in the jaw and he lay flat, not moving, just moaning a little.

  The other fellow was bigger and meaner and was two parts muscle, three parts iron. Jack punched him in the jaw, a good punch, best he had, but the man didn’t go down. He just stood there, all six-foot-six of him, looking angrier than ever.

  So Jack punched him in the belly, a blow that would have doubled any other man in two, but he just kept on standing there bellowing oaths and telling Jack what he was going to do when he got his hands on him.

  Jack wondered if the man even knew he was a deputy. He had the tin badge pinned high on his chest, glinting in the Arizona sun, but maybe this man was just too drunk to see it.

  The man lunged at Jack, his stated intent being to break Jack’s ribs in a bear hug. So Jack tried a move he’d seen once on his travels, back when he’d been a sailor, roaming the world. Before the man could get his arms around him, Jack grabbed him by his coat labels, planted his foot in the fellow’s belly and rolled onto his back, sending the man flying through the air above him.

  Jack let go, and a moment later heard the man crash with a heavy thud.

  Jack sprang to his feet, expecting the man to be getting up and preparing to lunge again. Instead he just lay there, moaning.

  His head had struck one of the thick posts supporting the saloon’s porch.

  ‘Nice aim, Deputy,’ said Percy Wallace, owner of the General Store.

  ‘I didn’t even know that post was there,’ said Jack. ‘Help me drag him to the Sheriff’s Office, will you? I sure as hell ain’t going to manage him on my own.’

  Jack Tanner was a little over six foot, broad at the shoulder and strong in the arm, but he figured there were limits.

  They’d grabbed a leg each and were preparing to drag the man the fifty yards or so to the Sheriff’s Office when the shots rang out.

  Jack dropped the leg he’d been holding.

  ‘Sounds like it’s coming from The Pot O’Gold,’ said Wallace.

  There were two saloons in Paradise Flats, one at each end of Main Street. The Pot O’Gold was the smaller establishment, a straightforward drinking den, serving cheap liquor and little else, while The Southern Belle was a much larger concern, with dancing girls and just about anything else a man could want, and an oil painting of a naked woman behind the bar that men came from miles around to see. Maybe one man in five hundred ever noticed there was a riverboat paddling along in the background.

  The two fools who Jack had just quietened down had come out of The Southern Belle. The gunshots had come from the direction of The Pot O’Gold.

  Jack took off at a run towards the other end of the street, met partway by Sheriff Bob Webster, who came running out of his office, carrying his Springfield rifle.

  Jack and Sheriff Bob were fifty yards from The Pot O’Gold, shots still ringing out, when three men came bursting out of the swinging doors of the saloon, untied three of the horses from the hitching rail, and rode off in the direction of the ridge that rose up into the deep blue sky five miles distant.

  Old Casey, who owned The Pot O’Gold, came tottering out, saw Jack and Sheriff Bob and yelled, ‘They just shot Frank Todd!’

  Frank Todd ran the stables. Sixty years old and wide around the middle, harmless till you played poker with him.

  ‘One of ’em accused Frank of cheating,’ said Old Casey. ‘Drew his gun and shot him dead where he sat. Next thing, they were shooting up the place for the hell of it. They must have had their guns hidden inside their coats.’

  ‘Anybody else hurt?’ asked Jack.

  Old Casey shook his head. ‘No. They were just discouraging anybody from trying to tackle them, I guess.’

  A young fellow Jack had seen around a couple of times before, a Double-A ranch hand called Bert Greaves, ran out of the saloon, looked at the horses still tied up at the rail and said, ‘One of ’em stole my horse. The grey mare.’

  The men had been in such a hurry to leave town, one of them had simply taken the closest horse, not caring if it was his or not.

  Which would have settled the matter, even if it hadn’t been settled already.

  ‘Murderers and horse thieves,’ said the sheriff, spitting on the ground.

  ‘Anybody know who they are?’ asked Jack.

  ‘The one who killed Frank Todd is called Wilson,’ said Bert Greaves. ‘He’s got a moustache goes from ear to ear. Another is called Mitchell, a little guy. The other one, I can’t remember his name, if I ever heard it. They turned up at the Double-A a month or so back, looking for work. Pa Dooley was short of hands, so he took ’em on. They never talked much to anybody excepting each other, and that was fine by me, I didn’t like the look of any of ’em.’

  Other men had come out of the saloon by now, some of them Jack knew and some he didn’t, and a couple of them told Jack and Sheriff Bob to take their horses, which saved time.

  So Jack and Sheriff Bob took off across the desert maybe two minutes’ gallop behind the three men, who were now just black dots in the distance.

  Sheriff Bob had been in the U.S. Cavalry, and knew how to ride and shoot that rifl
e of his at the same time, but the distance was too great even for him. He and Jack hoped they’d catch up with the men before they got to the ridge, but that wasn’t to be.

  The ridge wasn’t just one smooth mound of rock, though that’s what it looked like from town. When you got up close you found there were ridges and undulations and crannies. There was a whole load of places to take cover in that ridge.

  By the time the sheriff and deputy were five hundred yards from the ridge, the men had disappeared into the rocks. A cloud of dust kicked up by the horses’ hoofs was still settling, so they knew more or less where they’d gone, but that didn’t help much. Bob and Jack were exposed, and the men they were chasing weren’t.

  Jack felt a rush of air as a bullet zinged past his face, and a moment later the crack of the gunshot reached him.

  ‘This way!’ yelled Sheriff Bob, wheeling his borrowed horse sharp left. Jack followed.

  They rode about a quarter of a mile to where an outcrop of rock hid them from the men shooting at them, Wilson and Mitchell and whoever the other fellow was.

  They dismounted and tethered the horses to the low scrub that sprouted up out of the dirt in places, and scrambled up the ridge.

  The incline wasn’t too tough, and only once did they have to do any real climbing.

  When they got high up they lay flat on a level plateau about twenty feet wide and long, and peered down over the edge to where they figured the cowpokes had been a few minutes earlier.

  ‘I can’t see them,’ said Sheriff Bob.

  ‘I can see their horses,’ said Jack.

  Bob looked the way Jack was looking, and now he could see the horses too. The horses – two chestnuts and the grey mare they’d stolen from Bert Greaves – were in a natural corral formed out of the rocks.

  ‘I figure they ain’t got rifles,’ said Bob. ‘When they took that shot at us just now, it sounded like a pistol. I got my Springfield, so that means we have one advantage. Accuracy and distance. My rifle against their six-guns.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jack. ‘But a rifle’s no good if you can’t see anything to shoot at.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Bob. ‘But we have another advantage. They’re dumb and we’re not. The Wilson fellow is dumb because he shot a man for no good reason, and the others are dumb for shooting up the saloon and riding away alongside him. If those other two had stayed put, they’d be back in town right now, telling everybody they didn’t really know Wilson that well, and how they never would have figured he’d go loco like that. But as it is, they’re aiding a fugitive.’

  Jack nodded. ‘I see that. But I still don’t see it gets us anywhere.’

  The sheriff laid down his rifle and took out his revolver. He pointed it at the sky and fired off two shots.

  And just as Jack was about to ask the sheriff why he’d just wasted two bullets like that, a voice came up out of the rocks, below them to the left. ‘Wilson? That you? Did you get ’em?’

  And a second voice, from somewhere down to the right of them yelled, ‘Not me. Hey, Prentiss! Was that you?’

  And then a third voice boomed up at them from below, somewhere near the horses, shouting, ‘Not me.’

  Sheriff Bob winked at Jack. ‘See? I told you they was dumb. Now we know where they are.’

  Jack said, ‘Which one do we go for first?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  They went for Wilson first. He was the one who’d killed Frank Todd. They made their way down the side of the ridge, using the rocks as cover.

  Jack saw him before Sheriff Bob did.

  Wilson was crouched between rocks, jerking around, trying to look in every direction at once, a nickel-plated six-gun in his hand. Like Bert Greaves said, Wilson had a big moustache that sprouted out of his upper lip and ran from ear to ear. He was a little below them, and about twenty feet away.

  Sheriff Bob was aiming his Springfield at Wilson’s head when Wilson saw him and ducked. ‘You’re gonna have to come and get me,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Bob.

  Wilson’s head and body were hidden from view, but he’d left one foot exposed. So Bob shot it with his Springfield, and after the bullet had hit it, there wasn’t much of the foot left. Wilson fell to the ground, screaming and staring wide-eyed at the mess at the end of his leg.

  ‘Now what do you say?’ asked Bob. ‘You still want to fight it out?’

  Wilson swore and pointed his gun at Bob, so Bob shot him dead, plumb between the eyes.

  Bob shouted, ‘Your friend Wilson is dead. You other two fellows want to join him?’

  There wasn’t any reply, but a few seconds later they heard the sound of horses galloping off across the desert. And when they got down to where the horses were, they found that the horse they’d left was Bert Greaves’ grey mare.

  Sheriff Bob said, ‘I guess we could ride out across the desert after ’em, but I’ve had enough excitement for one day. We could go back to town, send their descriptions by wire to Tucson, let ’em go to the expense of having all those wanted posters printed. “Wanted For Shooting Up A Saloon”, something like that.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘Sounds OK by me. Of course, one of those men might have been the horse thief.’

  Bob said, ‘Yeah, but if it ever came to trial, they’d just say Wilson took it, and he ain’t around to say different . . . I reckon we’ve earned our pay. We’ve shot a killer dead, and Bob Greaves will get his horse back.’

  So they collected their horses and led Bob Greaves’ grey mare back to town.

  Two days after that, Jack found out his ma and pa were dead.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jack.’ Sheriff Bob handed him the telegram.

  Jack had been walking around the town in the noonday sun, checking nobody was causing any trouble or breaking any laws. Nobody was. Paradise Flats was a peaceful town mostly, except when the cowpokes came in and drank too much and got to fighting. So he’d headed back to the Sheriff’s Office, thinking he’d get himself a cup of coffee, chew the fat. The last thing he expected was that Bob would be waiting for him, the telegram in his hand, a grim look in his eyes and say, ‘You better sit.’

  So Jack had sat on the nearest chair, and Bob had said, ‘Got this telegram while you were out. I got to break you some bad news, boy. Your ma and pa are dead. I’m sorry, Jack.’

  He handed Jack the telegram and walked down the short corridor to the cells, though he didn’t have any particular reason to do so, other than to leave Jack alone for a minute or two. Bob wouldn’t have wanted any other man to see him cry, so figured Jack wouldn’t want it either.

  After a couple minutes had gone by, Bob cleared his throat loudly, warning Jack he was coming back. Then he said, ‘You better get over there for the funeral. Take as long as you need. I reckon I’ll manage fine till you come back.’

  Jack stood and nodded, murmured ‘Thanks,’ because he couldn’t trust himself to say more than that, then he folded the telegram and put it in his shirt pocket.

  It was a day’s ride to Dry Rock, the town near his ma and pa’s place, where he’d grown up, and Jack didn’t get there till the afternoon of the next day.

  At seventeen years of age, a full decade ago now, Jack had decided to see some of the world. His ma and pa were ranchers, and though ranching was in Jack’s blood, and he had no particular objection to it as a line of work, he’d wanted to have himself some adventures before he settled down and spent the rest of his life counting steers.

  He’d gone to sea, even travelled as far as Europe, been a gaucho down in South America and a lumberjack up in Canada, and now he was a deputy in Paradise Flats. The last time he’d been to the ranch had been four months ago, and now that his folks were dead he suddenly wished he’d visited more often.

  Xalvador, who’d already been an old man when Jack was a boy, came out of the door of the ranch house when he heard Jack’s horse. Jack dismounted and Xalvador hugged him.

  ‘Señor Jack! My heart breaks for you!’ The old man’s tears spilled from his eyes a
nd ran down the deep grooves time and hard work had cut into his tanned cheeks.

  They stood there for a moment, then Jack said, ‘Where are they?’

  Xalvador nodded to the house. ‘In there. I didn’t want to bury them till you came, but I had to keep them out of the sun.’

  Jack took off his Stetson and went inside.

  His ma and pa were laid out on the big table in the middle of the main room, in coffins Xalvador had made, their bodies covered with bedsheets.

  Jack drew the sheet down from the body on the left.

  His pa’s face looked shrunken, the lines on his face all smoothed out, his mouth open a little. His hands were on his chest, one on top of the other, and there were silver dollars over his eyes.

  ‘You did this?’ Jack asked Xalvador. ‘You put silver dollars on his eyes?’

  ‘Sí. To pay the ferryman to take him from this world to the next.’

  ‘On my ma’s eyes too?’

  ‘Sí.’

  ‘I’ll repay you,’ Jack said.

  ‘No, señor,’ said Xalvador firmly. ‘You will not.’

  So Jack, who knew an immovable object when he saw one, left it at that.

  ‘ ’Bye, Pa,’ said Jack, and replaced the sheet. Then he drew the second sheet back. His ma had had the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen. He wanted to take the silver dollars off her eyes and look at them one more time, but then he thought he’d better not. They wouldn’t be the same eyes any more. Better to remember them as they were.

  Jack kissed his ma on the forehead and said, ‘ ’Bye, Ma.’ He was about to draw the sheet back up to cover her when he noticed something was wrong.

  Xalvador had placed his ma’s left hand on top of her right, and where there should have been rings, there were none.

  ‘Where are Ma’s rings?’ he asked. ‘Her gold wedding band, and the ruby ring Pa gave her that used to be his ma’s. They’ve gone.’