Coward of the County
1
"What do you think of this, Moe?" Kiley waved the small journal in her hand. It had a bullet hole from a time before they were born.
"It might be legitimate." Moe smiled. "It might be the only thing legitimate at this auction. Do you want to bid on it?"
"Yes." She put the journal back in its protective sheath and handed it back to its keeper. "If it's real, it explains why Kid Kelly wasn't seen for ten years."
"Let's go to the main hall." Moe nodded at the double doors ahead of them. "The auction is going to be starting in a little bit."
"What's our limit?" Kiley led the way toward the wooden barriers.
"We can spend three thousand at the most." Moe put his hands in his pockets. "If we lose, we lose. We can't outbid most of these guys."
"I understand." Kiley pulled off her latex gloves. "Thanks, Moe."
"It's a find we can use to flesh out our timeline." Moe smiled. "It would be great."
The couple went to their seats in the middle of the audience. They ran a museum for old western things. Part of that had led to trying to fill out the life of minor villain Kid Kelly. He had taken to the road at a young age and never looked back.
There was a ten year gap where it had looked like Kelly had died from some unknown hand. He had stopped killing anyone who got in his way at least.
"Thank you for coming." Arthur Steeley took his place at the podium. "We have fifteen items up for bid. Let's start with these spurs."
The auction proceeded smoothly from there. Kiley waited for the diary to come up. It was the only thing of any value as far as she was concerned. They had numerous items in the museum that were of the same quality, or better. The diary was something that could solve part of a mystery that had been bugging her for a long time.
Where had Kelly gone for those ten years? He had fallen off the radar. If they could figure that out, it could explain a lot of things.
The diary came up last out of all the items for sale. Kiley could barely sit in her chair as Steeley called for the first bid. She waved her hand to show she wanted it.
Several other people put in bids around her. She fumed as she raised her hand again. Why didn't those bozos bid on the spurs, or turquoise necklace, or the pile of old wanted posters? She wanted to punch them in their noses.
"Do I hear a call for one thousand?" The auctioneer asked in his calling voice that sounded like the buzzing of bees instead of words. "One thousand to Number 97."
"Oh!" Kiley looked around. "It's that jerk, Cash. He's deliberately running up the price."
"Go all in and see if he matches you." Moe frowned. "We might as well put the limit on what we're going to pay right now."
"Two thousand, five hundred." Kiley called out. Maybe that would be enough to get Cash to back off, and they would still have five hundred for something else at another auction.
"Two thousand, five hundred for Number 55." Steeley looked around. "Any other bids? Going once..."
"Twenty six hundred." Cash smiled as he said it.
"Fish sucker." Kiley glared at the fat man. "I want to rip that stupid mustache off his face. Three thousand."
"Three thousand for Number 55." Steeley looked at Cash for another bid to drive the cost up. "Any other bids? Going once, going twice. Sold to Number 55."
"Stupid Cash." Kiley glared at the other bidder. He gave her a bland expression and a wave. She gave him the finger back.
"He just does that to make you mad." Moe waved at the smile, smiling himself. "You're taking this way too personally."
"He deliberately ran up the price." Kiley crossed her arms while she fumed. "We could have had the thing for a few hundred easily. Now we're out of our acquiring money on one item."
"It happens." Moe stood. "We got it, and it's going on display in our museum. That's all that matters."
"You're taking this pretty well." Kiley got to her feet.
"That's because I know which car is Cash's." Moe smiled. "Let's claim our prize before something happens and we can't."
"Did you do something to Cash's car?" Kiley led the way down the aisle toward where the prizes were guarded.
"No." Moe followed at a more leisurely pace. "That's not my style."
"What did you do, Moe?" Kiley paused to look over her shoulder.
"Nothing." Moe smiled. "Do you think this diary is what we need?"
"I think so." She showed one of the assistants her numbered badge on her shirt. "The diary?"
The man checked his clipboard. He picked up the bagged book, put it in a box, and wrapped it in brown paper. He handed her the box to carry.
"Three thousand dollars." The suit checked the sum against his paperwork.
Moe pulled out his checkbook, filled out a check, and handed it over. He put the checkbook back in his hip pocket.
"Thank you for your business." The assistant smiled before turning away to put the check in a lockbox that held the proceeds for the day.
"Let's get home so you can read your new book." Moe turned to walk to the front door of the auction house.
"A lot of it can't be relevant to what we want to know." Kiley glared at Cash again as they passed. "But anything related to Kelly would be great."
"Where do you think he hid those ten years he avoided the law?" Moe rubbed his nose with a finger.
"I don't know." She shrugged. "He never went back in hiding afterwards. He started roaming and robbing again."
"If your diary has an explanation, we can add it to the display." He held up both hands. "Kid Kelly's Vanishing Act. What do you think?"
"Sounds dramatic for something that might be as simple as he got tired of running and settled down where no one knew him." Kiley almost laughed. "You might as well say the Outlaw No One Could Hold."
"I like that." Moe smiled as he pointed at her. "It has a nicer ring than Vanishing Act."
"There might not be anything we can use in this." Kiley hated to tell him that. Spending three thousand dollars on something that might be worthless stuck in her craw.
"There'll be something we can use even if it's not about Kelly himself." Moe smiled. "A first hand account of life in that time is worth a little something."
"Okay." She frowned as she tried to take his advice to heart. It didn't seem to be working. All she could think of was spending money on something she thought was useless.
She wondered if she should wait so she could kick Cash's butt when she saw him coming out of the auction house. That would help her feel better. She imagined his cries for relief while she was putting heated brands somewhere they weren't supposed to go.
She started smiling at the imaginary torture. She could smell cooking bacon at the thought of it.
"Hello, Moe." Cash's clogged voice cut into her daydream. "Kiley."
"How's it going, Cash?" Moe cut in before Kiley said something along the lines of get bent. "You get anything?"
"A couple of little things." Cash put his hands in his pockets. "What's so important about that diary?"
"We think it might tell us some of what happened to Kid Kelly towards the end of his life." Moe indicated they should walk from the hall so they could split up after collecting their cars.
"Kid Kelly?" Cash paused at the mention of the name before continuing to walk beside the couple. "Don't you get tired of chasing that dead horse?"
"Don't you get tired of talking?" Kiley glared at the older collector. "This will help us if it's true."
"Help you do what?" Cash waved off her look of hatred. "No one knows who he was compared to Wild Bill, Wyatt Earp, or Jeremiah Spade."
"That's why we run a museum, Cash." Kiley shook her head. "That way we can let everyone know who he was. Why did you run up the bids?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Cash put an innocent look on his round face.
"Whatever." Kiley held the box tight, so she wouldn't punch him in his round face.
The group reached the door. Moe held the door open for Kiley and Cash. He turned and headed for where he had left his car. Kiley followed him quietly.
"That's odd." Cash looked around.
"What's odd?" Moe paused in his walk across the lot to look back.
"I was sure I left my car right here in this slot." Cash indicated the open space. "I don't see it anywhere."
"Are you sure?" Moe walked back to look the lot over. Some of the cars were brand new and expensive. Cash's was on the old side with two dents in the side.
"Yes, I am sure." Cash glared at the two of them. "A car doesn't get up and roll away on its own."
"Call the police." Moe checked his watch. "I have to be somewhere else. Are you going to be okay waiting for them on your own?"
"I know you had something to do with this." Cash turned his intense anger on Moe. "I'm going to put your butt in jail."
"For what, Cash?" Moe shrugged. "I was inside with Kiley for the last hour. Plenty of people saw me. I was sitting right in front of you for the auction. When did I have time to steal your car?
"The same goes for me." Kiley smiled quietly. "Matter of fact, I was getting ready to walk over and talk to you about your bids for the diary."
"She was getting ready to kick your butt." Moe laughed. "Why don't you check with the security people? Maybe they saw something. Cameras are on the front of the place."
"Thanks." Cash waddled back to the auction house.
"What did you do?" Kiley looked at the empty slot.
"I reported his car as being abandoned." Moe started for his own car.
"Good job." Kiley smiled.
2
Kiley settled in her chair above the western museum she was trying to build. She pulled a legal pad close and opened the diary's packaging. She read through it slowly, taking notes so she knew where to trace the sources if any was mentioned anywhere else.
The story that emerged was not pretty, and a classic case of pushing the wrong person too far.
Kiley looked at her notes, and the clock on the wall. She didn't have time to trace everything down like she wanted. She would have to start in the morning. The diary looked authentic on the face of it and explained what had happened to Kelly before and after his ten years of retirement.
She put the book back in its protective covering and put it in the museum safe. She made sure to note she needed to have it date checked and have a handwriting expert look at it. Then she could feel good about putting it on display with the rest of the things they had gathered from the Kid's life on the run.
If the Hollis brothers hadn't done what they did, would Kelly have gone back to his riding ways? She could almost see the split in the road in her mind. One fork led to a life of desolation and death which is what happened to Kelly. The other showed a peaceful commitment to life with the one he loved.
She shook her head at her romantic view of things. Something would have come up eventually. Kelly would have handled it better with his wife keeping a calming hand on him. Life was about solving problems and a fugitive on the run would constantly be on the lookout for anything that might upset the apple cart.
Kelly had probably buried people on the ranch that had figured out who he was and threatened to expose his secret. He had just made sure not to be caught when he did the deed.
Kiley checked the museum, as she pulled on her jacket. Everything looked in place. She looked down at the stuffed body of Kelly in its display case. It glared back at her with hatred.
Jeremiah Spade's stuffed body stood in a case across the aisle from Kelly's. The hideous scar on his face gleamed slightly under the overhead lights. It seemed to be smiling quietly at some secret that he had known in life.
"I'll see you in a few hours." Kiley smiled as she opened the door so she could leave fast when she set the alarm. "Have a good night."
She pushed the code in the alarm box and stepped outside. She pushed the door in and locked it with her key. She needed to get some dinner before talking to Moe. He was out checking on some rodeo stuff they might want to add to an extension.
Moe had an eye for things that were authentic. It was a natural gift. He always knew when someone was trying to sell him junk, or something fake.
The trip to Westworld that had helped kickstart their museum had been one of his buying trips. He had noted the wide variety of junk up for auction, and settled on the two stuffed cadavers as the only thing real about the whole thing. He had been the only one to bid on them and then arranged to have them shipped to their building.
That had been enough to get the museum started as they added to their collection.
If only she could get more things from Kelly's life to add to the display. She wanted to get things from his former life before he became an outlaw. No one knew much about his father, or his mother. Apparently he had decided to start robbing people with their deaths.
Why? Why had he done that? That was the question that bothered her despite knowing as much as she did about his life.
He could have stayed a farm hand after the deaths of his parents if he hadn't massacred the men in the saloon and started his criminal ways.
Why?
That was the question in her mind when she made it to Lee's and ordered some lo mein and dumplings. She took the plate to a table with a bottle of water. She could tell people he had done certain things, but not why he had done them.
Had he just been an evil man all along? She didn't believe that, but maybe she was wrong. She had been wrong before about people in her life.
She finished her meal and threw the paper plate and fork in the trash can next to the door. She took the water with her. She had a lot to think about as she headed back to her building. She and Moe had arranged living quarters at the top of the building to save money on rent. She liked the arrangement.
It made her feel like a dragon guarding its treasure trove.
She smiled when she saw the museum ahead. The old place looked out of place in the middle of the residential places on either side of it. She unlocked the door and turned the alarm off. She locked the door behind her before she went upstairs.
She wondered if there were other items like the diary. Maybe the auction people had a clue if there was more to the trove than the diary.
It was too late to chase that. She would have to call them in the morning. Maybe they would put her in contact with the original owner of the thing.
Maybe there were more papers they could use to add to the veracity of the diary. That would be frosting as far as she was concerned. The story in the yellowed pages seemed genuine enough to her mind that all she needed was confirmation.
Maybe some of her friends would know more about the events in the diary from a historical point of view. She would have to put calling them on her to do list.
She took the diary out of the safe and out of its covering. She took it to her desk and started to read it again. The handwriting was simple and done in the black ink of the day. The dates flowed in random chunks of memory as the writer put down his thoughts days and weeks apart from each other.
She paused when she reached the section dealing with hiring on at the Desperaux ranch just outside of Pinewood. This was just as the Desperauxs started out with their ranching.
The intervening years passed quietly with the wranglers building up the herd, taking them to market, and keeping the ranch protected. The writer of the diary, William Arnett, stated he never saw Desperaux pick up a handgun in all that time until his wife died.
After that, Desperaux revealed himself as Kid Kelly and went on a killing spree unmatched at the time.
Arnett continued to run the ranch after that. He put aside money in case Kelly came back and wanted to know what he was doing. He thought it was a groundless fear, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Kiley didn't blame the man after what happened in Pinewood.
She made a note to check on anyone named Hollis in the region. That might tell her more about the events of the day.
She thought she had a clear picture of what had happened from the diary. She knew some things from other writers who focused on western history. Everything made sense.
Even with Cash driving up the price, the diary was worth it. It filled in a number of facts that no one knew about Kid Kelly. As a notorious outlaw, no one questioned why he had robbed certain people later in his life.
Now it was clear that he had chased survivors from Pinewood across the country and killed them when he saw them.
How many of his robberies after Pinewood had been real robberies or part of his vendetta? Kiley thought most of the deaths after Pinewood had been part of his vendetta. That was a lot of anger being expressed.
It also kept Kelly on the move across the country looking for the men he wanted to kill. It meant that bounty hunters and lawmen couldn't track him to a specific destination unless they knew he was looking for someone. It explained his random jumps across the map.
Kiley put the journal back in its protection, and then in the safe. She rubbed her eye with a hand as she considered all the information she could add to the picture now that she knew some of the things in the book.
Arnett said it had been a surprise when his boss had revealed his nature to them. He had explained things to the sheriff after the massacre and told him that Desperaux had left him the land before going to town.
Kelly's reputation had been so evil then that no one had tried to take the land from Arnett. Everyone had seen what Kelly had done once. They didn't want a repeat performance.
No one wanted a fiend showing up and burning their place down while they were trying to sleep.
Kiley made a note to try to talk to any descendants of Arnett. Maybe there was other stuff that she could learn about the ranch, and the Kellys. The one thing that bothered her was Arnett didn't know the real name of Mrs. Desperaux, though he mentioned she made sure to have a hand on her husband's arm when they were in town together.
That made it look like she was putting a damper on Kelly's legendary temper with her presence. And when she died, that was all she wrote.
Kiley looked at her list. She had a lot of calls to make in the morning. The first had to be the labs for authentication. Then she could start working on finding out more. Maybe she could dig up more about Pinewood from other historians.
She added a note to check the names of Kelly's later victims, and see if any had a connection to Pinewood in some way. She was sure that was why he had killed them.
She changed for bed and laid down on her couch, blanket wrapped around her. The city sky still allowed the moon to shine in her window part of the time. She watched it as she considered a man who had given up his outlaw ways for a woman, and then took them up again as soon as she died.
Had the Hollis brothers even realized who they were really dealing with before they made their fatal mistake?
She doubted it. Arnett's account made them out as stupid bullies who had deserved what they got.
She found herself agreeing as she dropped off to sleep.
3
I returned home close to sundown. I examined the spread as the horses pulled the wagon toward the rear of the house. Something was wrong.
I had been on the run for a long time, and being settled for ten years had not robbed me of my instinct for trouble. I dropped off the seat of the wagon. I wished Megan had not kept me from carrying a pistol.
She set the rule for that to keep me from shooting people while shopping. She said that giving up old habits had to be the way if we wanted to live in peace. I hadn't really wanted to live in peace, but had gone ahead with it since I really wanted to live with her.
It had been a hard ten years, but it had been worth it. Meg had been great at running things and building up the spread. She kept me out of trouble when the locals thought they could manhandle me because I didn't carry a gun in town. Many a time things would have ended with a dead yokel if she hadn't made sure to keep a gun from my hand.
I had killed so many over the years before I met her, a few more would mean as much to me as which way the wind was blowing.
I circled the house. The back door was open. I wished I was armed then. I crept to the door and listened. I heard groaning from within. I went inside, searching the room before I approached the sound.
Megan lay on the dining room floor. An arrow had been jammed between her ribs. Her clothes had been ripped in places. Blood was everywhere. Her brown eyes stared at the ceiling. Her long brown hair had been chopped to pieces.
"Hollis Brothers." She whispered. "I want you to report them to the sheriff. Don't break..."
I suppose she was going to say my word. I looked down at her. I looked around at the dining room. Things had been smashed on the floor. Water from a basin had mixed with the blood. She wanted me to turn the Hollises over to the sheriff and let the law work.
I looked at her lifeless eyes.
I looked at the dining room again.
I picked up a chair and made sure it was clear of the blood before I sat down on it.
When I became John Paul Desperaux, I gave my word that I would not kill anyone while we were married. She had helped guide me away from putting people in the ground. I would never have lasted ten years without her.
The Hollis family had been a big thorn in my side most of that time. I would have gladly ended them, especially the three brothers, if Megan had allowed me to carry a gun when I ran into them on the street.
I looked around. What was I going to do now?
I decided my first step was to bury Megan. She deserved that at least.
I pulled the arrow out of her. I went to a closet and pulled a blanket out. I wrapped her up from head to toe. I felt disconnected from what I was doing. I sat down again when I was done.
I picked up her body and carried it outside and set it under a small tree that we had finally gotten to grow. I dug a hole under the tree with a shovel from the barn. I placed her down under the lowering sun. I covered her up as carefully as I could with dirt, then rocks I found laying in the yard.
Two pieces of leftover fence wood became a cross with the help of a hammer and nails, and a post hole.
I walked back in the house. I went to the bedroom and pulled out a black coat I had taken from a dead gambler and put it on. It was a little tight, but the weight of years falls on every man.
I went to Megan's office. She kept all the records for the ranch there. I didn't need those. I needed something more personal. I pulled out the two boxes. One held the deed to the land, money, and personal things from our old lives. I signed the land over to Will Arnett, our foreman. I took half the loose money and put it in my pocket. I took the personal things and put them in my coat's breast pocket.
I opened the other box and nodded at the contents.
Megan had taken my pistol from me when we got married. She had stored it in this box and put it away. I pulled it out and checked it. It looked as good as it had when she had put it away. I doubted the gunpowder in the bullets in the box was any good. I would have to fix that before I headed into town.
The weapon was a .44. I decided to go over to the barracks. Some of the men used .44's. They might have spare ammunition for me to use.
I wrote a note for Will. I explained what had happened and what he should do. I told him that he should keep the men away from town. They wouldn't want to be caught up with what I was going to do.
I dumped the bullets out of the gunbelt before strapping on the belt. I walked over to the barracks. I did a quick lookaround and found a box of bullets in the right caliber. I opened it and filled the slots in the gunbelt. I filled the pistol and spun the cylinder. I listened to the clicking until it stopped.
I dumped the rest of the bullets into my coat pockets. I grabbed a rifle and a box of bullets for that. I loaded the rifle and put it in a boot built in a saddle. I let the horses from the wagon loose in the corral. I saddled and harnessed a fresh mount and turned its head toward town.
I left the supplies where they waited for someone to unload them. It wasn't my problem any more. Will would handle it. He had the experience and brains to keep the place going now that the dream was dead.
I had promised not to kill anyone while Megan was alive. It had been hard, but I had kept my word for ten years.
I made another promise to myself as I rode into town. I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
This promise would be so much easier for a man like myself to keep.
The Hollis Brothers didn't know what they had called up in their stupidity.
They thought they were the rulers of all they surveyed. They had never run into someone like me. I had put my temper aside for Megan. I had kept it bottled away from us for the most part. Now I was turning it loose on other human beings.
Megan would be unhappy, but I felt that I could live with that in the amount of time I had left. Once everyone knew who I really was, it was only a matter of time before every bounty hunter and lawman came looking for me.
It would be too late for the Hollis family.
It had been a long time since I had handled a pistol. I hoped that I could shoot as well as I could before I got married. I pointed the horse at the local saloon. If the Hollises weren't there, I would try the hotel next.
If I couldn't find them in either place, then I would start asking questions until someone pointed me in the right direction.
Then the bodies would fall.
I stepped into the Night Wind and looked around. Everyone looked at me. No one stopped talking, but I wondered how many had seen the pistol tied down to my leg. I closed the doors when I spotted one of the brothers. He sat down at a table with his kin.
I made sure to lock the bolt on the door. If anyone got behind me, I didn't want them to be able to run out without some kind of trouble.
"Hey look!" Matt Hollis pointed at me from their table. "It's Despukeo."
I smiled at him. Maybe he noticed the pistol I wore. Maybe it was my face. I don't know. He started to stand up, hands reaching down. I shot him in the gut before he could halfway make his move. Everyone stopped what they were doing to turn to look at what I had done.
"You keep reaching for whatever you have under the bar, Joe." I waggled the pistol at him. "And you'll get what he got. Why don't you come out from behind there?"
The bartender took the hint and walked down to the end of the bar and stepped out in the open. I didn't have a particular grudge against him since I hadn't frequented the place.
"You killed my brother!" Mark Hollis screamed. Tears drifted down his face.
"So?" I looked at the odds in the room. I only had five more bullets in the old pistol. I should have borrowed one from the hands before I came to town. "There are three things I am going to tell you people so we can be clear on what's about to happen.
"I made a promise to my wife, Megan Reilly Kelly, Ellen Desperaux to you people, that as long as she was alive I would never hurt a soul. I would take steps to minimize things. It was her way of keeping me on the straight and narrow.
"My name isn't John Paul Desperaux. It's Devlin Kelly."
A lot of the older men shrank back at that. My reputation was still strong enough to scare grown men who had heard the talk across the region.
"Ellen died today." I saw the wave go across the crowd. It was the same wave in a crowd when they realized they were in a room with a dangerous animal that had been unchained. "So I'm here to kill every Hollis and Bar X rider I see. Anyone who wants to live might want to start for the back door."
Men jumped up to run from me. Some of them were Bar X hands. That was all right. I could hunt them down later. I already had the three men I really wanted to kill right there, and one of them was barely hanging on.
Some of them, including Mark Hollis, turned to face me with hands reaching for weapons. I guess my reputation didn't stand so great with them. I had been hiding for ten years.
I shot the five bullets out as fast as a man could while using fleeing bystanders as cover. Mark Hollis went down with a hole in his face. That was all I cared about at the moment.
I dipped a hand in a jacket pocket while emptying the revolver with the other. I reloaded as bullets flew by me. Glass broke behind me as I moved in front of the windows.
I shot two more of the Bar X riders as they tried to get behind the bar for cover. A woman screamed somewhere. I looked around. The patrons had made a mad dash for the back door like I wanted. Joe crouched down in front of the bar, arms over his head. Glass and alcohol and some blood stained his white shirt.
"You better get out of here too, Joe." I told him. "This will be a story you can tell your grandkids."
"Are you really Kid Kelly?" He looked at me as if I was going to gun him down right there.
"Yes." I picked up a .44 off the floor. "Get moving. One more won't mean a thing."
I watched him leave. He made sure to keep an eye on me. Then I was alone with the dead and the dying.
I walked over to the two Hollis brothers. I didn't see a third. I wondered if he had been upstairs with a woman when I came through. I liberated a dead man's gunbelt for the extra gun and decided to look upstairs. He might be up there, or fled out a window. I wouldn't know until I looked.
I made sure to grab the shotgun from behind the bar. It might come in handy. I walked up the wooden stairs. The smell of burned gunpowder drifted from my clothes. It was an old friend come to call after a long absence.
Where was the last Hollis brother?
4
I stopped beside the first door and banged on it with my fist.
"If you want to live, better come out with your hands empty." I made sure to shout loud enough that people in the other rooms could hear me. "I don't care how many get hurt until I get what I want."
No one offered to surrender. I listened. I heard shuffling from room one, but no one was coming to the door. I shook my head. They might be trying the windows.
"Last warning." I called out. I took aim with the shotgun. "Then I'm coming in."
Room three opened up. One of the saloon girls came out with her hands over her head. I waved her to head down the stairs while I waited. The man she had been servicing came out right behind her. He had a pistol in hand instead of raised hands.
I suppose he thought I wouldn't shoot through a woman to get him. Any other man might not have, but killing a woman is just as good as killing as man as far as I was concerned.
I did let the shotgun swing down in my left and drew a pistol with the right. I fired before he could. I saw a tuft of her curly black hair split as the bullet passed her head. Then he went down. His pistol fired in the railing.
"Better run if you want to live." I told the woman who was easily my age with gray strands mixed with the dark as I stepped forward and shot number three again to make sure he wouldn't get back up.
"Desperaux?" She took one look at my face before she headed down the steps.
"Not anymore." I pushed her on her way as I wandered what the other residents in the two remaining rooms thought of their chances.
I decided that I couldn't wait on them anymore. They had heard the shots. They weren't going to come out on their own. I needed to go in after them.
I thumbed two fresh shells in the pistol and holstered it. I stepped out of the way of either door facing me. I took aim with the shotgun and blasted the door to room two with both barrels. I dropped the long gun as the door blasted against the inner wall as the knob flew out of its fitting.
No one cried out. Maybe I had wasted the shot on the wrong door.
I listened. I didn't hear anyone moving now. I would have to go in and look at the room before concentrating on number one.
Maybe room number two had jumped out the window.
I looked around three first. No one remained in the simple bedroom. I went to the window. A crowd was on the street. One man ran away from the saloon. He looked back once. I frowned as Mike Hollis ran for the livery stable.
I opened the window. Bullets started digging into the wood. I guessed no one wanted me to leave the saloon. Sooner, or later, they might even rush the place to get me.
No matter, I still had to clear room number one before I went outside after Hollis. It didn't take a Pinkerton to realize where he was going.
That was fine. I had planned to talk to his father when I was done with him anyway. I went out and listened to the door of number one. I could hear sounds. I wasn't sure what would happen when I opened the door.
I didn't have any time left to think about that part of things. I kicked the door open and stepped out of the way. Bullets blazed through the opening. A woman seemed to be screaming. I stepped inside, pistol drawn. The guy had dumped the bed over as a shield. He crouched behind it in his long johns.
Another of the saloon girls hid behind a dresser. She crouched down as much as possible to present less of a target.
The cowboy was trying to reload his pistol from the looks of things. I crossed the room and pointed my own loaded gun at his face. I didn't recognize him.
"Who do you work for, stupid?" I waved the woman out. She picked up her dress and fled to the door. "Don't make me shoot your ugly face."
"I work for Sammy Kine down at the Double K." He held up his hands to ward off any future bullets coming his way.
"Get out of here." I took his shooter from his hand first in case he got ideas. "Tell Sammy to mind his own business if he knows what's good for him."
"Sir?" He looked at me in amazement. His scrunched in face didn't carry the emotion well.
"I said get out of here if you want to live." I waved him out of the room. "Best start moving before you get lynched."
He grabbed his hat and shirt and pulled those on over his longjohns before grabbing his boots and heading for the door. Hopefully he was smart enough to put them on away from the Night Wind.
I went to the window and looked outside. The older bar woman pointed at the windows. She seemed to be explaining what had happened to her. The men pushed by, heading for the locked doors in the front of the saloon. Some of them would be going around back to box me in.
I could probably kill a bunch of them before they got me, or I ran out of bullets. I didn't want to unless they got in my way. I still wanted to talk to the last brother.
I headed downstairs. The cowboy had opened the door. He rushed outside. They didn't shoot him. That was good.
It was time to arrange a distraction before the mob got enough nerve to get themselves killed.
I went to the bar and a few of the fuller bottles off the shelf and put them on the counter. I started making wicks with a shirt from a dead man. He didn't need it anymore. I waited quietly, pulling a lamp close by. It was lit already and burning oil in the bottom of the bowl.
Too bad about the Night Wind. My first time inside it and I already planned to burn the place down to the ground.
Megan was right. I couldn't go anywhere without supervision.
I fixed ten bottles before I took the lamp and threw it on the kitchen floor. I fed more strips of clothing to the fire to help it catch and start burning the floor.
"Kelly!" The sheriff had been called. He stood out of the way of the windows. I conceded that was a good move on his part. "This is Sheriff White. Come out with your hands up, or we'll come in and get you."
I carried the ten bottles up the stairs to room three. Eventually someone would see the smoke coming from the back of the place. Then they would either rush in to get me so they could put the fire out, or let the place burn down and try to put it out before it set the rest of the town on fire when they were sure I wasn't coming out with a gun in hand.
I wasn't going to give them much of a choice about letting me go.
I smashed out the rest of the window and then lit up the wick in the first bottle. Bullets responded to the smashing glass. I thought I heard White tell them to quit shooting until they had a target.
I went to the side of the window and looked out. I decided to throw the bottle on the diner next to the saloon. That should stir things up.
I don't know if the bottle broke like I planned, or not. I did hear an uproar. Setting fire to the town had not been on my mind when I arrived to talk to the Hollis brothers, but I could do that with little regret.
Before I had met Megan, I had killed so many that I felt it was as easy as crushing a bug under my boot. Going back to the rage had made things just as easy as they had been then.
Killing the whole town didn't mean a thing as long as I got to the Bar X.
I decided to throw another bottle on the diner in the hopes of diverting some of the crowd away from the saloon.
I lit the second one's wick and took stock. Some of the men were trying to get people out of the diner. A bucket brigade had formed. They were trying to throw water high on the wall to put the growing flame out.
I threw the second out at the diner before anyone could shoot at me. I ducked back as bullets swarmed the window. One knocked the hat off my head, but missed me. I picked up my hat, and the eight remainder of my ammo.
I walked down to room one to see if there was something I could burn down on that side of the saloon.
I looked out the window of room one. The crowd seemed concentrated on my former stronghold. At least none of them seemed ready to try to get me where I stood. Smoke came from the diner. I doubted they would be able to put the fire out. They might be able to save the rest of the town though.
I lit three more wicks and threw the bottles on the hardware store next to the saloon. I watched as they broke open like burning eggs on the shingles. The crowd surged toward putting those flames out.
I went back to room three. I needed to get out of the Night Wind and head out to the Bar X before anyone noticed I was gone.
The three rooms that belonged to the saloon all opened on the front of the place. They didn't have a balcony like fancier places. They just opened on the porch that covered the sidewalk.
The crowd had divided into three sections. One worked on putting out the diner. One worked on the hardware store. The third waited for me to come out the front door with guns blazing.
I crept out the window and eased to the side of the porch. The bucket brigade passed water below me. None of them looked up. I hopped over the small gap as quietly as I could. None heard me as far as I could tell. I crept down and hopped to a balcony in front of a room for the hotel.
I pushed the window doors open. Someone was reading at the desk provided by the hotel. He looked up at me with a blue eye and a brown eye.
"Excuse me." I went to the door and stepped out in the hall. All I needed to do now was get a horse and get out of town.
I didn't hear the man raising the alarm. This might be a bit of luck on my part. I walked down to the steps and then to the lobby. Nobody was at the desk. I decided to cut through the back of the building and out the back door.
Everyone was out front trying to save the diner. Maybe only a token guard would be out on the back street.
I passed through the kitchen, glad not to have to shoot people I liked. I stepped out on the back street. No one challenged me. I turned and walked away from the fire, planning to circle to the livery and get a horse.
All I had to do was stay out of sight until I got the horse, and ride out of town. How many of the Bar X hands were still in town? I would have to come back for them eventually.
I walked down to the end of the street, looked at the crowd fighting the two fires I had lit, then crossed the main street. I turned the corner and started walking back toward the livery stable. Hollis had a headstart that I would have to ride like the devil to overcome.
I paused when I reached the stable. No one seemed to be around. I stepped inside and looked around. Horses were in stalls around the inside of the building. I picked one of the six at random and put a halter on it. I grabbed a saddle and slung it and a pad on the gelding. I cinched the thing and mounted.
When Oliver Stern, the owner of the place, came back, he would know what I had done. The alarm would go up. The posse would ride out to the Bar X to stop me.
I needed to be done with my business before then.
I rode out of the stable and pointed the horse toward the Bar X. I frowned at the thought I should have brought the rest of my fire starters. I shrugged. Nothing I could do about it now.
I was always real good at killing people. It was easier than not in my opinion. Putting a man down for talking too much improved the world.
I let the horse trot in the direction I wanted to go. I kept my eyes scanning in front of me. I wanted to be sure that Hollis wasn't waiting for me to ride along.
If he was brave like his brothers, he might try to ambush me. The dark made it ideal for him to hold a spot against me. How many others would be riding out to his ranch at this time of night? Maybe stragglers from his ranch hands would be on the road with me.
What would Hollis tell his family about what happened? I suppose that I would be the villain in the piece. I felt good about that. I had been a villain most of my life. Returning to my roots felt good.
Hiding out as a rancher had been good as long as I had Megan. Now that she was gone, all my old instincts were urging me on.
I wondered what White was doing right now. The fires I had set couldn't still be burning. The crowd would be looking for me soon.
I planned to be done with my business before they caught up with me.
I rode on.
I passed the first two ranches, and dismounted at the sign of the Bar X. I tied the horse to the sign post and started up toward the ranch house and bunkhouse. My hand gripped my pistol for easy use as I walked.
I tried to stay in the shadows as I walked. Hollis had some dogs. Would they be roaming loose, or up at the house with their master? If they came for me, they were dead. People who dealt with the Hollis family had told me of the viciousness of their dogs.
That was nothing a bullet wouldn't fix.
I had shot plenty of animals in my day to go along with the men and women.
I walked up, trying to decide which building I should deal with first. I decided on the bunk house. Getting rid of the ranch hands would alert the family, but I wouldn't have to worry about getting shot in the back.
I walked over to the bunk house and opened the door. Only one man paid attention to me standing there in the gambler's black coat. He reached for a pistol hanging in a holster on a peg of his bunk. I shot him first.
The rest of the men reached for their weapons. They seemed incredibly slow to me. Gunpowder burned into a cloud as I emptied both of my revolvers into them. I reloaded and shot the wounded to make sure before reloading again.
A face looked out the window of the main house. It drew back before I could put a bullet in it. Now they knew I was there and in earnest.
5
I waited beside the bunk house, reloaded pistols in hand. I wanted them to come out of the main house and face me. I doubted they would do that. I had already killed a number of men, and shown I was ready to kill more.
How could I speed this along before help from town arrived? The fires would be put out. Men would come looking for me. I had to kill the Hollises before I was pinned down on their ranch.
I wondered if they were stupid enough to think I would make a deal to let most of them live while I only took the one I said I wanted.
I doubted that Hollis would believe that after what I had just done to his hands.
I counted to myself, holding my temper back. My natural inclination was to rush the door and kill everyone I saw. They would be waiting for that.
I decided that I needed to flush out the family and house help. I didn't have time to wait in the darkness. Eventually things would turn and I would have to flee a posse over what I had done.
How was I going to get them out where I could deal with them?
I decided that lit lanterns would help me get what I wanted.
I walked back into the bunk house. Lanterns hung from hooks around the room. Most of them were half full. I took them from their places and carried them around the back of the place. No one seemed brave enough to come out and challenge me.
I lit the lamps one by one. I looked around the corner. The house appeared to not have changed. I wondered if the family had emptied their house when the remaining brother had arrived to warn them about what I had done to the other two.
If they had ran, they left their hands in the lurch about what was going on. That wasn't an example of employee care I would have followed if Megan was helping me along.
I wouldn't have been much of a rancher without her.
I took the lamps in hand. I hoped my plan worked. I wanted to kill all of the Hollis family. Burning their place down wouldn't do me a lot of good if they had lit out.
Bullets started kicking around me. Streaks of flame showed a starting point at the windows of the house. I smiled. They had waited for me to show myself so they could shoot at me.
That was good thinking. It was too bad they were such poor shots that they missed me by inches as I came forward.
I threw the lit lanterns against the house while firing back with my revolver. I didn't try to hit anything. They had wooden cover, darkness to hide in, and more ammunition to waste shooting at a moving target. All I had was freedom to move, and no one else to get in my way while I shot it out with them.
The lanterns spilled oil and fire on the wall and part of the porch. It was too small to do any good. I needed to add something to it if I wanted it to grow.
More bullets whizzed by as I retreated to a tree between the house and bunk house. I wondered if I had killed all the hands when I arrived. There might be more on the range the Hollises owned.
I couldn't worry about them. I had guns shooting at me that I had to deal with before I could think about what was going to come at me from the dark. It was time to shorten the odds.
I waited for the next shot to be fired, watching the house. The point of flame came from a window above the porch. I fired into the window in hopes of hitting someone. No one fell to the ground.
I must have missed. I didn't usually do that.
Maybe I should go inside and kill anyone I saw. That had to be easier than waiting behind a tree.
I smiled. Patience had never been my strong suit. I watched the flames expand across the porch. How long would the family stay holed up with the fire eating away at their cover.
I counted to a hundred before I ran from the tree to another tree closer to the house. More bullets went by, but I ignored them. I was going to have to go in since they were trying to wait me out. The fire just wasn't spreading enough.
I took aim at the windows of the house. Some of them had already been opened for shooting. Which one should I use?
A kid stuck a shotgun through one of the windows I was watching. I dropped the hammer on him. He fell out of sight. The shotgun dropped on the porch.
I heard some screaming but I was already trotting to the window where the kid had been. He might have been the only guard. How long would it be before they realized I was coming for them?
I grabbed the shotgun and stuck it in the window. I pulled the first trigger. I turned it to my right and pulled the second. Then I dropped it because I didn't have shells to reload it.
I pulled my pistols and emptied them into the room. I wanted to make sure that I was clearing the space before I entered. I stepped inside and reloaded as I went to a corner behind a chair.
Bodies lay on the floor. Some of them moaned. I shot them again. I didn't want them recovering and trying to shoot me in the back while I was cleaning out the house.
Maybe they should thought about clearing the younger kin out before giving them a gun. They might still be alive.
Maybe Hollis thought I would hesitate to shoot a kid. That had been a wrong estimation of my character.
I decided to go to my right. Then I could work around until I had the whole house cleared out. Then I could make sure the family was done.
I heard crying behind a door as I made my move. I shot through the door. I didn't have time to yank it open and possibly get ambushed. The crying stopped. That was good enough for the moment.
I moved into a large dining room. The table had been placed against the window. Hollis and some nephews stood there, looking out at the bunk house. A woman with a rifle faced me at the door to the next room. She started shooting and screaming. I stopped that with a bullet.
Hollis turned, faster than the boys, but not by much.
It was far too late for all of them. I had two guns out, both almost fully loaded. I was a good shot with either hand. And I had nothing to lose. By the time they thought about aiming a gun at me, I had shot all of them at least once. I made sure to shoot the boys again to make sure they were dead before I approached Hollis.
His hand scrabbled for his fallen gun, but he couldn't move to grab it and use it. My bullet had hit him in the gut and he was bleeding out as I watched. I kicked the pistol away so he knew he didn't have any more chances.
"Where's your boy, Hollis?" I kept an eye on things, dumping out empties and reloading. No one else seemed to want to rush the dining room.
I planned to search the rest of the house next. It didn't matter if he told me or not. It would just make things easier for me.
"I'm not telling you anything, you murderer." Hollis pressed on the wound in his gut. I suppose he thought that would keep his guts intact until a doc could do something for him.
"Your boys shouldn't have killed my wife." I held the pistol so he could look at it. "How does it feel to know all of yours will be just as gone as mine?"
He started to snarl something but I put a hole in his head first.
I decided to search the rest of the house. Maybe I had been wrong. Hollis might have just kept riding and left his pa and family to take my hatred. It would fit a coward like him.
I decided to make sure first. I didn't want to chase phantoms in the dark when he could be hiding in the house. Then I would start looking for him out on the range. Where would he go since he knew I would follow.
I was never going to let him live knowing that I had given up looking for him. I wanted him to be looking over his shoulder all the rest of his life until I caught up with him.
And I would catch up with him. I would find him and burn him down. There was nothing going to stop me from doing that.
I went through the house as quickly as possible. Resistance had been snuffed out with the two rooms that I had encountered the Hollis family in. I checked the closet I had shot into earlier and found blood running toward the window. So there had been someone in there, and I had hit them but not killed them.
Maybe that was my missing son.
I snorted. He had abandoned his family instead of trying to get even with me. I suppose I wasn't surprised. I had already killed a bunch of people. Sticking around and taking a chance wouldn't have helped him if he missed.
I stepped out the window and headed out in the night. The house would burn down eventually. It cast light behind me as I walked along. I skirted to the side to step out of the backlighting as I crossed the yard.
I didn't want to give him a free chance at me when I couldn't see him. I wanted to see his face when I finally caught up with him. I wanted him to know how I felt and what I intended to do. I wanted him to know why he should have left me alone instead of thinking I would never do anything to him.
Meg had been the calm one. She had kept me on the ground, looking at things. She had been better than me in every way.
My mother said a pistol was the devil's right hand. I had ignored her when I started this long road I was on. Tonight I had taken the devil's hand gladly and without a care. I had used it in a way that old Nick would have approved. I'll have to ask him when we finally see each other.
I walked down into the grass toward the road. Which way would Hollis go? Which way would I go if I was shot and didn't know what was what?
I turned toward town. I saw a man running down the road. He stumbled and fell. I took aim and shot him in the leg before he could get farther.
I walked forward, ready for him to do anything. I wanted him to fight back. I doubted he would from the way he was crying.
I kicked him in the side. He rolled over. One hand brought up a pistol. I shot him in the arm before he could pull the trigger. That had been a good trick. I had seen others try to pull it off.
"How's it going, Hollis?" I kicked the pistol away. "You looking shot there."
"Take me to a doctor." He reached for my boot with his good arm. "Please. I need a doctor."
"Too bad." I shot him in the gut. "I ain't getting one for you."
Epilogue
"This looks really good, Kiley." Moe inspected the expanded display case dominated by Kid Kelly's stuffed corpse. "I found something you might want to add to the diary."
"Hold on, Moe." Kiley squinted at the letters she held in her hands. "We got something from the Hero Museum in Reagan City. I wonder what it is."
"Isn't that where you sent that destroyed handgun we found?" He searched his memory. "Brennan's handgun that Jeremiah Spade destroyed."
"That's right." Kiley nodded. "We didn't have a use for it, and it was melted. How were we going to prove that the pistol was a magical blaster? It was better to let Snow have it and see what he could do with it."
"What did he send you?" Moe circled around to read over her shoulder.
"It's a photograph of Jeremiah Spade after he mustered out of the army." Kiley stared at the photo. Spade stood in front of a little store, rifle over his shoulders, scar running up the side of his face.
His preserved corpse stood across from Kelly's, glass eyes glaring at a man he would have loved to hunt down for the bounty.
"Snow said he found this through one of his contacts." Kiley almost hopped around in place. "He thought of us because we sent him Brennan's gun. He said we should have it."
"That's awesome." Moe smiled. "We don't have a lot of things we can display with Spade."
"For someone so famous, he seems to have done everything he could to fade into the background." Kiley took the photo and placed it in a small plastic box. She put the box at the foot of the bigger display case. "It is a good thing for us that everyone wrote what they could back then so we could track his life as much as we have."
"What about Kelly and his missing ten years?" Moe gestured at the notorious bandit. "Did you find out anything about his wife?"
"I found some things, and I called over to Pinewood to check on a couple named Desperaux." Kiley shrugged. "I'm waiting on a call back from them."
"Checking to see if they were married in the county is a good idea, but I doubt they were." Moe peered at the stuffed gunfighter. "They probably weren't married by a preacher."
"What makes you say that?" Kiley put the rest of the opened mail on a glass case covering some vintage firearms from the Old West.
"I think they settled in Pinewood to make a fresh start from somewhere else." He pulled at his lip as he talked. "They said they were married and their name was Desperaux, but they were in hiding. Maybe Kelly had some seed money for the start of a ranch, and that's how things started for them until she died."
"That makes sense." She nodded. "Arnett said in his diary that while his boss never carried a gun, he had a bad temper that his wife kept in check. When they went to town, they usually went together so she could keep an eye on him."
"So the day she died was the first time she had let him go to town by himself as far as their hands could remember." Moe stopped pulling on his lip. "And she gets killed."
"Not only that, but Kelly seemed to blame a family on a rival ranch." She held out her hands in a what can you do gesture. "He went to town first, then he went out to their ranch. The newspapers I found said that the army was called out to stop him. They didn't as far as I could see."
"Of course they didn't." Moe shook his head. "By the time the army could field a unit, he was probably half the state away."
"I don't have any proof, but I think he continued to kill the ranch hands from the Bar X." Kiley grimaced. "The newspapers of the time after he was active again talk about how he would run into men who seemed to know him and they would try to get away before he could shoot them."
"It makes sense." He smiled. "Kelly probably loved his wife beyond anything else. He spent ten years doing her bidding without killing her. That says as much right there."
"But who was she?" Kiley frowned at him. Kelly would have killed her if he didn't love her. They both agreed on that truth. "Arnett just calls her Mrs. Desperaux even when the sheriff comes up to talk with him about what happened in town. He wrote about it in his diary."
"None of their hands knew." Moe nodded. "It fits with them meeting somewhere else and settling in Pinewood to stay under the radar. She might have been wanted at one point herself."
"We still have more questions than we have answers." She groaned. "How do we update what we have when we don't understand it?"
"A picture is worth a thousand words, and we do have a picture." Moe reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small folder the size of a closed map. He opened the folder to reveal a picture of a group of people standing and sitting on a porch.
"What is this?" Kiley took the folder. She stared at the picture. "This man sitting in front could be Kelly. The woman?"
"The supposed wife." Moe pointed to a man standing at the end of the line. "This is Arnett."
"How do you know that?" Kiley squinted at him. "How did you get this?"
"I went back to the auction house to look around for anything that hadn't been sold. We kind of left when we blew through our budget, but I thought maybe some of the others had did the same thing." Moe smiled. "The picture was supposed to go with another item, but it had been dropped. The staff kept it until I showed up and they gave it to me for display in our museum until the rightful owner could be found and notified of his loss."
"So we have this on loan until the real owner can be found." Kiley smiled. "The woman is our mysterious Mrs. Desperaux."
"Now all we have to do is find out her real name from this picture and the small amount of guesswork we have already done about Kelly." Moe smiled even more. "Good luck with that."
"We can do it." Kiley opened the display case and put the picture and the folder as its stand in the artifacts case they maintained for Kelly. "We didn't even know Kelly was married before we found the diary and now we know he had retired for ten years, and had a happy life with this woman."
"We might even find he had a kid down the road." Moe laughed. "Then we can look back and say there goes a career criminal."
"I doubt he had kids." Kiley shut the display case. "They didn't have any on the ranch according to Arnett. He assumed they wanted some, but one of them was incapable."
"They both could have been incapable, or they decided they didn't want any kids because of their status. If John Law knocked on their door, they would have had to drag a kid into their fugitive lifestyle." Moe shrugged. "I don't see them doing that. She seems too smart to have a kid when they might have to run at any minute."
"I can't see Kelly wanting to be a dad." Kiley made a lip compression at the thought. "All the reports we have about him are that he moved around and had a bad temper. If he did have a kid, I don't think it was planned."
"So he might have had an unknown number of one night stands, but it was more likely that he didn't have the time until he met this woman and quit killing people." Moe nodded. "It makes sense."
"We don't know either way." She shrugged. "No one was going to come forward and try to claim one of their babies was his while he was active. That would have been a bad call in my opinion."
"Especially if they were lying, or just plain wrong." He nodded. "Kelly would have killed the mother and child both."
"I have to agree there." Kelly had killed people for looking at him too long in some accounts of his adventures.
There was no telling what he would do to someone trying to get rich off of his notoriety.
One legend said that he sent a letter to writers of penny dreadfuls and told them to quit writing about him. When they didn't, he tracked them down and shot some of them until the company stopped.
Kiley didn't believe that for a moment.
She thought Kelly would have tracked down the owners and shot them first. That was how he liked to do things.
Whatever actually happened, the stories did stop being published about him. He became a footnote in history while others became more famous.
Kiley wondered if the reason would surface while she was looking for something else. Was it another woman taking the place of his first wife, or was he slowing down and wanted privacy after a life of roaming and banditry? Arnett's diary had answered a lot of questions, but had raised more.
She might never get answers for those questions however long she searched for them. What was the end of the road for her personally? When did she stop looking to fill in the blank spaces?
She looked at the display cases around her. She smiled slightly. She decided that she would never stop looking for the history her museum represented. They would have to chain her down in a home before she ever gave up her calling.
And she was fine with that outcome if they thought she could be taken that easily.
She would break her cane over some orderly's head before she let that happen.
"There's an auction in a couple of months." She started walking to the stairs leading to their quarters. "Want to go and see if there is something interesting?"
"We'll have to save for it." Moe followed. "We blew a lot of our petty cash on the diary."
"I think somewhere down the road that diary will be the key to everything." Kiley thought about possible food they might have. It might be a mac and beans night.
It was fast and easy to fill up on when they didn't have anything else to cook. It was the usual meal when she spent too much money on their expeditions.
At least Moe didn't rub it in when they were broke and scrambling to pay the rent. His advertising of the museum did get them some steady guests that liked to walk around and ask questions.
He liked showing off the things they had brought in to show what people did during the old west. And no one else had the things they did about Kid Kelly, or Jeremiah Scar.
She doubted the old gunfighters would have approved being on display. One day they would be moved off the main floor and buried again. The museum needed them until that could happen.