War Rider Read online

  “This town,” muttered Pres darkly. “It’s going to hell in a hand basket sure enough.”

  Chapter Six

  The knock at the front door came just as they were finishing their fish supper.

  “It’s someone for you, Ahlen,” his mother called from the hallway once she had answered the door. “Can’t make out who it is,” she whispered to Ahlen as he passed her. “They’re all bundled up.”

  The woman standing there, a shadowy outline in the gloom, certainly was well covered. Shrouded in an enclosing scarf around the head and a long woolen shawl over the shoulders.

  “Ahlen,” the silhouette said in a muffled, plaintive voice.

  “Annie, is that you?” Ahlen asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m ... I’m real sorry to trouble you.” her voice was distraught, catching as she spoke. “I had no where else to go.”

  “What is it? Look, step inside, we’ll talk it through.”

  Annie shuffled nervously in the doorway. “I don’t.... don’t know as I should,” she mumbled.

  “Come on in here,” Ahlen said, briskly taking her arm. “No one’s going to think ill of you in this house.”

  As he pulled her into the lamplight, the scarf fell away from her face and he saw the livid bruises around the swollen lip and forehead.

  “What!” he gasped. “What the hell happened?”

  Her voice quivered. “They beat on me. I don’t know why, I didn’t do anything. Oh, Ahlen, why’d they do that.”

  The others had come into the hallway at the sounds of obvious distress and Mrs. Best brushed Ahlen aside. “Come here, my dear,” she said, enfolding the sobbing girl in her arms. “Now you just come with me and we’ll get you seen to. Lord! I don’t know. Whatever next? You poor thing.”

  Ahlen stayed her a moment. “Who was it, Annie. Tell me who did this?”

  “It was some of those fellows that hang around with that Tyrone. They just set on me in the street as I was making my way home.”

  “Why? Do you know why?”

  She looked at him with tear stained eyes, “One of them said that any of Ty’s girls that called on Ahlen Best was due for a drubbing. And.... and then they said a lot of other crude unmentionables I can’t say here in company.”

  Mrs. Best tutted. “It’s disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. Picking on a young woman, like that. Someone should do something about it.”

  “I fully intend to,” fumed Ahlen, throwing on his jacket.

  “Hold on,” warned Len. “It’s you they want, Ahlen. Don’t you see it? They’re setting you up.”

  “And they’ll have me,” said Ahlen angrily.

  “Ahlen! Ahlen!” called his father. “Go careful, son. Let the law handle it, those boys are born killers.”

  Charlie Bob meanwhile, stood to one side, watching them from the dining room doorway. His eyes darting from the beaten Annie to his furious uncle, chewing his lip thoughtfully as he did so.

  “You already told me, pa,” said Ahlen. “The law sits in Ty’s pocket and those scum are Ty’s men. I ain’t about to wait on Deed Langstrom to do anything.”

  Without another word, Ahlen hurried from the house.

  Pa Best turned to Len. “You’d best round up his friends and go after him before he gets himself busted up real bad,” he said.

  Len nodded agreement and grabbed his hat from the stand and headed for the door.

  “Be careful, dad,” called Charlie Bob nervously.

  Len turned, pleased to hear his son’s caring words. “I will, son. Don’t worry.”

  Ahlen strode on purposefully through the night, his anger giving his steps power as he strode towards the town lights. He held a great many things left over from his days in the war and one of them was this ability to move into instant action. Some had accused him of recklessness, as was certainly the case with his capture of the rebel general, but Ahlen believed it was the instinct that had saved his life on many more trying occasions. He had a goal in mind and was determined to fulfill it with total commitment. Nobody, he believed, should treat a woman in such a bullying and cruel manner, no matter who or what she was.

  He slammed the swing doors to The Rolling Dice wide and searched through the tobacco smoke and over the crowded heads to the far end of the bar. Ahlen knew that would be the gathering place for Tyrone and his cronies and sure enough there they all were. Ahlen bow-waved his large body through the crowd of customers, not caring whom he elbowed aside until he stood before the silent Tyrone.

  The gunfighter smiled. A thin smile whilst the eyes remained as steady and lifeless as stone. Casually he scratched at his chin through his beard.

  “’Evening, mister Best. Can I help you?”

  “You had your boys beat on Annie Caldense,” Ahlen said in a level tone, his body tense and his voice full of warning.

  Tyrone frowned. “Hold on there a moment. Who told you that?”

  “She did.”

  “That a fact?” Tyrone sucked at a tooth and looked around at his compatriots beside him at the bar, all of who were watching Ahlen with equally cold stares. “Any of you boys been beating on whores lately?” Tyrone asked.

  Without waiting for an answer, Tyrone turned again to Ahlen. “I don’t think so,” he said, curling his lip. “Happens a lot, you know, Mister Best. Whores. Getting beaten on. Goes with the occupation.”

  Ahlen did not wait any longer; he curved a deep uppercut at Tyrone’s jaw. It was a massive punch that would have downed any man, but Tyrone had not survived as long as he had by being a slow responder. He moved like quicksilver and backed away out of reach as Ahlen’s bunched fist flew past his face.

  Tyrone’s face froze in anger, it seemed to go pale and drain of blood, the flesh going into a drawn tightening which appeared ghost white under the yellow light of the saloon oil lamps.

  “Get him!” he snarled and obediently his four men leapt forward.

  The big man to Ahlen’s left, moving in with arms spread wide, he received a swinging boot in the midriff and collapsed with a squealing exhalation of air. Another grabbed at Ahlen’s right arm attempting to pull him around and Ahlen swung a left hook that drove into the fellow’s face with a satisfying smack.

  Then Ahlen felt a sharp pain at the back of his head and the world went black. Ahlen knew only the hazy vision of moving boots before his eyes as he dropped to the floor. A cuspidor gleamed dully at eye level and as the dark gathered around the pain in his head he heard Tyrone say distantly, “You see that? Took a swing at me, the damned fool. I’m going to nail his sorry ass to a barn door.”

  **********

  The water hit him full in the face like a slap and Ahlen came slowly back to his senses. Groggily, he raised his head.

  “Look here! He’s back, Tyrone,” said a voice.

  Ahlen shook his ringing head to clear it and a spray of dripping water sprayed from his hair. He was standing unsteadily on his feet with his back to a thick plank wall and by looking past the blurred faces in front of him he could see they were in a livery stable. Lamplight glowed amongst the stalls, and ponies whickered, shuffling amongst the warm smell of hay and ordure.

  Then the pain hit him. Dull and aching in each hand. He tries to move forward and a searing, savage sharp agony that almost brought a scream to his lips ripped through his body and held him back.

  Ly Bedstone stood before him and leaned in until his face was close to Ahlen’s.

  “Told you not to mess with me didn’t I, soldier boy?” he sneered.

  Bedstone stepped back and allowed an empty wooden water bucket and a heavy blacksmith’s hammer to slip from his fingers and drop to the bare ground with a solid sounding thud.

  Ahlen turned his head sideways and saw the sturdy Putnam horseshoe nails that held his arms outstretched at shoulder height to either side. They were driven through each palm and into the timber behind, pinning him to the wall. The torn flesh was blueish white around each ravaged wound and thin trickles of blood that appeared bl
ack in the dim light were dripping down.

  “Time our boy here met us all formally, don’t you think?” It was Tyrone’s voice and Ahlen looked across to where the gunfighter sat casually on a grain barrel, his attention fixed on the cigarette he was rolling. “Ain’t polite not to make introductions.”

  He licked the spill and placed it between his lips, his eyes fixed on the stable floor. “Ly here, you’ve already met. He’s a dab hand with a mallet, as you’ve discovered.”

  Bedstone gave a low chuckle and stepped back a pace, so that he and the three other men were ranged in a semi-circle around Ahlen.

  “Chad Barker likes to use a knife. And he didn’t take to kindly to your boot in his gut.” The fellow Tyrone indicated with a casual nod of his head, raised his hand to encompass the horn handle of a large, broad bladed machete blade resting crosswise in a belt scabbard at his waist. He was a big man, barrel chested with a dense black beard cut short on his chin.

  “And Cole here, Cole Sester, well he don’t mind what he uses. Ain’t that right Cole?”

  Sester nodded, never taking his searching glare away from Ahlen.

  “Likes to make the pain last. So it never goes away. That’s Cole for you.”

  Sester twitched spasmodically, as if the thought alone brought an avid response from him. A tall, thin man with a gaunt skeletal frame, he appeared to Ahlen like a giant insect waiting to pounce.

  “And that there at the end is Manuel. Maybe you’ve heard of him, Manuel Varga? Ladies man is Manuel. They can’t keep their hands off him.” Tyrone offered a rusty chuckle as he snapped a match alight with his thumbnail and held it to his cigarette. “He loves the ladies, does Manuel. He’d like to get real friendly with that little whore friend of yours. As it is, he just patted her about a little.”

  Varga was a mess. A long crooked scar ran down the left side of his ugly face from forehead to jaw and the skin above his right eyes had been ravaged by fire until it formed an ugly purple contusion. His hair was thin and jet black, cut back high from the forehead in a severe straight line as if it had been hacked at with a razor. The Mexican’s bronzed skin gleamed like soft oil in the lamplight and he made no expression at Tyrone’s cynical introduction.

  “And me, well, I’m Tyrone Feeney, but then, we’ve already met, haven’t we?”

  Tyrone eased himself from the barrel, unfolding in single smooth motion. “Now,” he said. “I guess you know that we’re all in the employ of Mister Fells. His special regulators, you might say. It’s our job to see that nothing untoward interferes with his business here in Mistake. Appears to me that you offer a.... how shall I put it, a substantial threat to the smooth running of this place. You coming back, as you have, from the war, being a bold soldier and wearing your hero’s crown, thinking brave thoughts and raising the home flag and such. So this is by way of a warning for you and the rest of the mokes in this town who think they might take a hand in running things.”

  He puffed a thin stream of smoke and jabbed the cigarette end at Ahlen, “You understand how it works, Best? I’m letting you live so you can wander around town with those holes in your hands just to let everybody know who’s boss here and what will happen to anybody who gets above himself. But,” he paused, flicking ash from his cigarette. “You cross me again and believe me, I shall release all the horrors of hell on you and yours.”

  Tyrone stood staring at Ahlen for a long moment in silence, and then he dropped the cigarette and ground it into the ground before turning on his heel and walking away. “Come on, boys,” he said over his shoulder.

  Sester was the last to leave, his disappointment obvious as his face worked. The gaunt pale skin twitching and his hollow eyes burning with a gleam of animosity deep inside them. Then with a tight hiss of released breath he too turned and followed the others outside.

  Ahlen lost sense of time then.

  He had no idea how long he hung there, the pain coming in waves as his heavy arms sagged and pulled at the nails. It vibrated through his whole body and he guessed he blacked out for a while for the next thing he knew, Len was standing in front of him, cursing as he worked at the nail heads with a pair of pincers.

  “Damn it, Ahlen,” he said. “I told you not to go off half cocked like that.”

  Behind him stood Jodie Little Cloud, Pres and Loup all of them wearing worried frowns on their faces.

  “We’d best get him to Doc Barnes as soon as possible,” said Loup.

  “Is that old codger still alive?” Ahlen croaked with a painful little smile.

  “Sure is,” said Loup. “He’s old but he’s still working, he can fix you up.”

  Ahlen groaned as Len levered at the nails.

  “Hell!” said Jodie. “Take it easy, Len, its paining him.”

  “Can’t get the damned things out,” growled Len.

  “Here let me,” said Jodie, stepping up and taking the pincers. Using all the strength of his powerful arms, Jody pulled first one then the other of the machine-made nails free in a single sustained jerk and Ahlen flopped forward into his grip.

  “Thanks, Jodie, you’re a pal,” he mumbled before collapsing in a faint.

  Chapter Seven

  “He’s lucky,” said Doc Barnes, shaking his white haired head. “Nails went between the metacarpals of both hands. So no bones broken. Seems to have missed the arteries and nerves too, so its mostly muscle damage. As long as infection doesn’t set in I’ll think he’ll be okay. It’ll take a while to heal; there might be some loss of articulation. It depends.”

  The gathered family standing around the bedside all breathed a sigh of relief at the diagnosis.

  “You always were a headstrong boy, Ahlen,” said Doc Barnes, snapping shut his medicine bag. “What can you have been thinking going up against those men unarmed? Why they outnumbered you five to one.”

  “I was riled, I guess,” said Ahlen, lying propped up on pillows and looking at his heavily bandaged hands. “I don’t like what they’re doing to this town.”

  “None of us do,” agreed the doctor. “But it needs more than one man to bring down Ty Fells and his gang.”

  “Maybe,” said Ahlen.

  “Now, son,” butted in his father. “Don’t go thinking like that. I know how your mind works, you won’t let this lie will you?”

  “How can I leave it, pa? Look what they did to both me and to Annie, it ain’t right.”

  “Better that,” his father said pointing at the bandages. “Than a marker over your grave in the cemetery.”

  Ahlen said nothing, not wanting to argue, but he shook his head doubtfully.

  “Well,” said his mother firmly. “Right now you’re going to rest up and get well. That’s my orders. Pa, will you show the Doc out? I’m going to cook up some healing broth for this son of ours.” She ushered the men out, muttering to herself. “I just don’t know, boy comes back from the war without a scratch on him and he ain’t five minutes in town before he’s in the wars again. Beats all, it really does.”

  Ahlen smiled across at Len over her maternal concern. Len leant against the doorjamb with Charlie Bob in the shadows behind him.

  “You can laugh,” said Len. “You’re going to need some help now, with your hands all busted up. Guess this is where you find out who your true friends really are.”

  “What do you mean?” said Ahlen with a frown. “I know who my buddies are.”

  “Wait until you go down to that privy in the morning, see who wants to step up and wipe you off. That’ll be the real test.”

  “Why, Len,” grinned Ahlen. “I always knew we was the best of friends.”

  “Don’t you count on it. Friendship can only go so far,” he said, turning away with a dark look and ushering Charlie Bob before him. Charlie Bob turned and glanced over his shoulder as they moved down the corridor.

  “Get well soon, Uncle Ahlen,” he said.

  “I’ll try, Charlie Bob.” Ahlen was pleased to see the change taking place in the boy. His attitude had lightened i
t seemed and some of the arrogance dropped away.

  A figure looked around the doorway interrupting his thoughts.

  “Mind if I come in?”

  It was Annie Caldense.

  “Sure, Annie,” said Ahlen, looking at her battered face, some of the swelling had receded and the purple bruises were yellowing now. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Me? Oh, I’m okay. It’s you I’m worried about. That was a fool thing to do, Ahlen. I never meant you to go out there and take those men on.”

  “Not to worry, Annie. You were all beat up and I was real angry at what they did. Guess neither of us was thinking straight.”

  “Well, I wanted to thank you for taking my side in it,” she said, looking at him a little wistfully. “I appreciate it.”

  Ahlen shook his head dismissively. “What are you still doing here, anyway?” he asked. “I would have thought you’d have gone home to that boy of yours hours ago.”

  “You ma’s been real kind. She’s letting me stay a while. Says I can bring Petey over too. She thinks it’ll be safer for us if we’re here. Charlie Bob’s given up his room to us, he’s going to bunk in with his dad.”

  Ahlen nodded in approval. “That’s a good thought,” he said.

  “I can nurse you now,” she said coyly. “Until you’re well.”

  “Look forward to it,” he smiled.

  “We’ll catch up on old times,” she added brightly.

  “Sure.”

  “What a couple of wounded heroes we both must look,” said Annie, catching sight of herself in the window reflection.

  “Well,” he said softly. “You certainly look a darn sight better than I do.”

  “You think so?” she said with a slight smile on her lips. “With me the color of a beetroot and you with a pair of bandaged mitts.”

  “They’ll get better,” he reassured. “Maybe then we can hold hands like we used to.”