Nate Coffin's Revenge Read Free Page B

here in town like this.”
    Culpepper, furrowed lines of concern etched into a haggard face, heaved his bulk out of a dilapidated camp chair, and moved around to our side of a Civil War campaign table, dented and scarred by time and heavy use.
    He clapped iron-fingered hands on my shoulder and Boz’s. “Know you boys won’t ever mention it to my wife, but Mattie Osborn’s an old friend. We go way back. All the way to the time before Fort Worth amounted to much more’n a bump in the west Texas wind. You’re the best men I’ve got. Never fail to do whatever’s necessary. Know you’ll bring Caldwell back, if you can, or kill him, if you have to. Whichever way it falls out, want you to find the murderin’ skunk, and make sure he don’t never kill another woman.”
    ’Course, we promised we would. Chased Caldwell through the briars and brambles all around Abilene. Running gun battle that covered every foot of five miles developed once we finally spotted him. Hunt ended when we cornered his sorry self in a stand of timber along a rugged, unnamed, snag-filled arroyo, a bit south of the Colorado River. Efforts at persuading the murdering skunk to consider surrender, with an abundance of hot lead and heated threats, failed. Buster wasn’t havin’ none of it.
    He’d managed to hide behind an enormous fallen cottonwood lodged in the creek bank after his horse pulled up lame. Burrowed himself in like an Alabama tick and yelled, “You fellers best go on back to Fort Worth. Swear I’ll kill anyone what gets too close. ’Specially you law-bringin’ Ranger sons of bitches.”
    Threw out a thick blanket and got comfortable. Laid on my back behind a sizable chunk of rock, and rolled myself a smoke. Pitched a shot or two over my shoulder every so often, just to give ole Buster something to think about. Boz did his best Comanche tiptoe to flank the murderin’ weasel.
    Took a puff, blew a nice smoke ring toward heaven, and yelled back, “Might as well give it up, Buster. We don’t want to kill you, you son of a bitch, but we will if you force it.”
    Dolphus Twiggens still occupied a blood-saturated spot in my mind, but from all I’d seen, Caldwell appeared less than half that horse killer’s size. And besides, he couldn’t shoot worth a sack full of horse apples.
    Sounded mighty nervous when he yelped, “Ain’t afeard of you Ranger bastards. Don’t mean nothin’ to me. Kill your sorry asses as quick as any other man. Come on in here and git some, if’n you’ve got the cojones. ”
    Like a graveyard-haunting ghost, Boz had vanished into the thickets. I knew he’d be on Buster like ugly on an armadillo so fast the poor waddie wouldn’t know what happened. Tatum had all the most deadly qualities of a combination Comanche, rattlesnake, and panther once he got on a badman’s odiferous scent.
    Figured it best to keep our quarry’s attention. Wanted to draw him back my direction when I said, “Not after you for killin’ men, Buster. You went and tried to cut that poor Goldie Starr’s head clean off in the Acre. Still call that murder here in Texas. Gotta take you back to Fort Worth. You’re gonna hang for that ’un.”
    Sounded upset, red-faced, and slobbery when he hollered back, “Hell, she warn’t nothin’ more’n a dirty-legged whore, Ranger. Who cares ’bout dirty-legged whores? Probably done the world a favor when I kilt that diseased bitch.”
    “Me and Boz Tatum care, Buster. State of Texas, Texas Rangers, and the good citizens of Fort Worth.”
    “Horseshit. Cain’t believe anyone’d actually arrest and hang me for an act that borders on true community service. Way I’ve got it figured, a man should be on salary for such beneficial efforts on behalf of the public’s health and welfare.”
    Sad to say it, but Buster’s brutal assessment of the demi-monde’s situation in the Acre amounted to a fairly accurate appraisal of how most of the drovers traveling north to the Kansas railheads felt on