The dying and the damned.., p.1
The Dying and the Damned (A Breed Western #11), page 1
The Home of Great
Western Fiction
When Matthew Gunn, known to the violent west as Breed, saved two women from certain death, he found he’d landed himself in big trouble. The mother and daughter team were headed for Bandera and paid Breed to come along for the ride. Only one problem: someone didn’t want them to get there.
Several brushes with death later, Breed decided it was time to even the score. And when he got angry, blood and death, torture and murder followed in his wake as surely as night would follow day …
BREED 11: THE DYING AND THE DAMNED
First published by Sphere Books in 1980
Copyright ©James A. Muir 1980
This electronic edition published February 2024
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book / Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Series Editor: Mike Stotter
Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate
Visit www.piccadillypublishing.org to read more about our books.
They do pretty good, but there are some things a man just can’t write around.
This one is for Mizz Sue Fletcher.
Chapter One
AZUL LEVERED THE action of the Winchester and sighted carefully along the barrel.
It was a difficult shot because the woman was struggling so that the two men wrestling with her were in constant movement. One was clutching her around the waist while the other sought to rip her gingham dress loose from her body. The woman was screaming and kicking out, her flailing legs exposing calf-length riding boots and wide expanses of black-stockinged thigh. Her raven-dark hair was tumbled loose from the confining pins, fluttering as she shook her head so that the man holding her was partially blinded by the flying locks. The other was alternately grinning and cursing: enjoying the anticipation of rape, but reluctant to allow the preliminaries to last overlong.
Azul ended his frustration by squeezing the trigger.
The rifle bullet hit the man in the side as he got a grip on the cleavage of the blue dress. It went through his ribs directly above the heart, tearing through that organ to glance off the right-side ribs and deflect upwards to produce a massive exit wound beneath the right arm. The man screamed once, torn sideways by the force of the close-range shot so that he pitched away, ultimately succeeding in ripping the dress clear of the woman’s body. Beneath it, she was naked; the blood that fountained from the dead man’s body splashed over her nubile breasts to induce a shriller scream that was followed by a shocked silence.
The second man let go her waist and reached for the Remington Army model holstered on his right hip. Azul shot him as the hand closed on the butt of the pistol, aiming for the head to avoid the falling woman. The .44-40 slug entered the face as the man turned, ploughing into his right eye and coming out behind his left ear on a massive wash of bloodied bone and sticky grey brain matter. The man twisted and fell down with his mouth open and his hand clenched tight on the pistol.
Azul levered a fresh shell into the breech and waited, ingrained Apache caution dictating that he be sure of his prey before exposing himself.
Neither man moved. Nor was there sign of any others: only the corpses and the two women.
The dark-haired woman lifted up on her knees, simultaneously scrubbing at her blood-drenched breasts and trying to hide them. The older woman turned her face towards the trees, straining against the ropes that bound her to the wagon’s wheel. She was a good twenty years senior, her hair mostly grey, dragged back in a tight bun that emphasized the firm set of her features. Once, she had been beautiful, and the memory lingered on despite the wrinkles and the bruises that decorated her mouth and eyes. She was dressed in black – widow’s weeds – but cut to accentuate the fullness of her figure, the still-young slenderness of her waist. It looked – as best the half-breed could tell – to be an expensive dress.
Her voice was hoarse, as though scoured by shouting, but her blue eyes were clear as she scanned the trees.
‘Thanks! You gonna show yourself?’ Then: ‘Grace! For decency’s sake get yourself covered up!’
The younger woman – Grace – went on sobbing and scrubbing at her body.
Azul came out from the trees, moving warily, his eyes scanning the surrounding hills like a cautious mountain lion moving in on a wounded animal.
The two women saw a tall man, a mane of tangled blond hair falling to his shoulders from beneath a flat-crowned, black Stetson. A shirt that had once been white and was now the color of curdled cream from sweat and wear and washing opened halfway down a muscular chest. A leather vest covered the shirt, a gun belt that held a Colt’s Frontier model on the right hip and a Bowie knife sheathed on the left. The shirt was tucked into buckskin pants, aged by wear, themselves tucked inside knee-high Chiricahua moccasins, the right moccasin showing the wooden handle of a throwing knife that was sheathed against his leg. His eyes were blue, as much Anglo-Saxon as his hair; but his face was Indian: Apache, or a mixture of the two races. Wide cheekbones matched a slightly flattened nose, the square jaw sporting a wide, full-lipped mouth that was now drawn out thin as he waited for danger, easing into a smile only when he was confident of his own safety.
He lowered the hammer of the Winchester and paced across the clearing. The woman called Grace stilled her sobbing, tugging up the remnants of her dress to cover her naked body.
Azul drew the Bowie knife and hacked through the cords binding the older woman to the wheel. She staggered as she came free, then forced herself upright, rubbing at the welts on her wrists.
‘Thanks, mister.’ When she smiled a whole lot of her youth came back to her face. ‘You saved my daughter from a fate worse’n death.’
Azul shrugged. ‘Is there one? What were they doing?’
‘My God!’ The younger woman spoke for the first time. ‘I’d have thought that was obvious even to a half-breed.’
‘Grace! You still that tongue!’ The older woman’s voice cut like a whip’s lash through the sudden silence. ‘This gentleman saved us both. You acknowledge that fact and thank him. Now!’
Suddenly, the girl turned to face Azul, and he saw that she was even better looking at close range, her black hair framing an oval of sun-tanned face in which were set large green eyes and a generous, sensual mouth that, even devoid of lipstick, was red; enticing.
‘Sorry, Momma.’ She stood up, holding the dress tight against her full body. ‘Sorry, mister. And thanks.’
‘Pleasure,’ grunted Azul. ‘At least for some.’
He ducked his head at the two bodies and the older woman moved fast to answer his unspoken question.
‘They jumped us and killed our driver.’ She pointed past the restive six-mule team to where a crumbled body stretched on the winter grass. The grass was bright red all around the corpse. ‘They was fixing to rape my daughter, then kill us both. It was real lucky you came along.’
Azul nodded without speaking.
‘Fact is,’ the woman continued, ‘we’re headed for Wyoming. My brother’s got some land on the Montana side and we was going to join him. My name’s Hope Walls, by the way. That’s my daughter, Grace.’
‘Ladies.’ Azul touched his hat. ‘What you aim to do now?’
‘Carry on.’ Hope Walls’s face set in determined lines. ‘My husband got killed a few months back and since then we’ve been planning this trip.’
Azul’s knowledge of geography was sketchy, limited to what his white father had been able to teach him, but he felt sure that Wyoming was a long way northwards. He knew that they were now in Apacheria – a part designated the New Mexico Territory by the white men – and that Wyoming was many miles distant. Beyond that, his knowledge was vague.
‘How will you get there?’ he asked. ‘Now your driver’s dead?’
‘We got a map,’ said Hope Walls. ‘And I’ve handled a team before.’
‘Handling a team’s not the same as handling men,’ murmured the half-breed. ‘You just saw that.’
‘We’ve got guns.’ Grace Walls moved past him, both arms wrapped across her bosom. ‘We can look after ourselves.’
‘Yeah,’ Azul grunted. ‘Sure you can.’
Grace blushed, trying to climb over the tailboard of the wagon and hold her dress in place at the same time. It was a hopeless task, and as she finally managed to clamber across the upright board, her dress fell away, revealing the firm mounds of her bosom.
‘He’s got a point,’ said her mother. ‘We need a man along to handle things like this.’
She turned to stare at Azul.
‘I’ll pay you five hundred dollars if you’re the man. Two hundred right now and the rest when we reach where we’re headed.’
Azul cradled the Winchester, thinking about it. He had money in his saddlebags from the killing of the Nillson gangi, but he was still posted around the Border so a sojourn in the north wouldn’t hurt overmuc
‘All right.’
‘Good.’ Hope Walls stuck her hand out. ‘You got a deal. Wait until Grace gets herself dressed again and I’ll fetch the money out.’
‘Sure.’ Azul turned away, going back amongst the trees to bring his horse out from where he had left the animal when he first heard the screaming.
He led the big grey stallion into the clearing and tethered the part-Arab to the wagon. Then he walked over to the driver’s body and turned the corpse on its back. The man had been shot three times, twice in the chest and once in the face. Whatever he had looked like before, he was now unrecognizable: just a pot-bellied hunk of meat for the coyotes and the buzzards. Azul went to check the other bodies. The man who had been holding Grace wore a gun belt with cartridges slotted along its length. They were of a caliber that fitted the half-breed’s rifle, so he emptied them into his hat and stowed them in his saddlebags. The other man wore a .36 caliber Colt, a conversion of the old Navy model, the shells useless to Azul. Their pockets revealed little more than a few dollars – which he folded and tucked inside his vest – and the kind of personal mementos men carry with them: a faded picture of a half-naked woman; a tag from a San Antonio brothel; a letter from someone called Agatha, exhorting her son to lead a good life. The letter was old, faded by sun and much reading, the folds fraying into holes at the corners.
The men had left their horses to the side of the clearing. Both carried sheathed Winchesters on the saddles and boxes of cartridges in the bags. Azul transferred the carbines to the wagon along with the shells, then went back to rummage through the saddlebags. He found an array of dirty underwear, a pair of clean shirts, some dried food and a letter.
The letter carried no date or name, only the message:
They will head for Bandera.
If you can halt their journey
I would pay you the agreed
sum on delivery.
It was unsigned.
Azul crumpled it and thrust it back inside the saddlebag.
Grace Walls emerged from the wagon clad in a pink dress. She shrieked. ‘My God! Momma! He’s looting them! He’s robbing the bodies!’
The half-breed unhitched the two horses and walked them over to tether them behind the wagon. One was a handsome roan stallion, the other a piebald gelding. He smiled at Grace.
‘Should I leave them there? Let the coyotes take them? Or let them starve to death?’
‘God!’ Grace shuddered. ‘That’s like robbing a grave.’
‘I never done that,’ murmured Azul, ‘but I never seen the point of leaving dead men stuff living folks might use.’
‘But you’re stealing from the dead.’
‘Beats stealing from the living.’
‘He’s right.’ Hope Walls pushed her daughter aside and climbed down from the tailgate. ‘Those guns might be useful to us. And don’t forget what those men tried to do to you. Taking their horses is just a fair exchange.’
Grace shuddered some more but held her mouth tight shut.
Azul grinned and said, ‘The horses should fetch about twenty-five dollars each. Reckon the saddles are worth twice that. We’ll split the difference when we reach Bandera.’ Abruptly, he realized that was the town named in the letter. He tugged it out and passed it to Hope.
‘That mean anything to you, ma’am?’
Hope Walls shook her head. ‘No. Nothing at all. I can’t imagine what it means.’
Azul shrugged and hitched his own horse alongside the others. Then he climbed into the seat of the wagon and whooped the mules up from their grazing, heading towards Bandera.
They reached Bandera in the late afternoon, just as the sun began to hide itself behind the distant bulk of the Mogollons. Grace stayed silent throughout the ride, though her mother explained the purpose of their journey.
She had been married to a man called Jeremiah Walls who ran a small silver mine just south of the Border. When her husband got killed in a fight over a hand of poker, she had sold up her interest in the mine and sent word to her brother, Joshua, in Wyoming. Joshua had apparently begun business as a trader and then built a whole town around his post. The town was called – aptly – Jericho, and Joshua owned most of it. He had promised Hope and her daughter a home there, so they had stacked whatever they felt worth keeping on to the wagon and headed north.
Azul accepted the story for want of reasons to question it, though something about it sounded wrong.
He forgot his doubts as they entered Bandera.
The town was little more than a straggle of adobe shacks and wooden houses spread along a dusty trail. A windmill swung lazily at one end of the street, pumping a trickle of oily water into a catch tank; a church stood at the other end. In between there was a saloon, a livery stable, a dry goods store, a hardware store, and a stage office. That was all.
Azul pointed at the stage office and said, ‘Might be easier if you went north with Wells Fargo.’
Hope Walls looked at her daughter and then shook her head. ‘No. All we own is in this wagon. We’re not leaving it.’
‘Your decision, ma’am.’ Azul eased the mules to a halt outside the saloon. ‘I’ll go check if they got rooms for you.’
He climbed down and walked into the saloon. It was small and dark and dirty, the light dim even though the setting sun was shining full on the windows. Apart from the barkeep, only three men were inside. Two looked like cowhands eking out their last few dollars over a bottle of whiskey; the other was a gambler, idly shuffling cards across a baize- topped table.
Azul went up to the bar and asked for beer. It came in a glass mug, tepid and half froth. The half-breed looked at the bartender. The bartender looked back. Azul asked for a spoon, and then scooped the foam clear of the liquid, shoving the mug back across the counter.
‘Now give me a beer I can drink.’
‘We don’t generally serve ‘breeds.’ The barkeep ignored the glass. ‘You’re lucky to get anythin’ at all.’
Azul nodded. ‘I didn’t know that. I guess there’s an apology due.’
‘Yeah.’ The barkeep grinned, sucking in his gut and trying hard to transfer the weight to his chest. ‘1 guess there is.’
‘From you,’ said Azul. Quietly.
‘What the hell you talkin’ about?’ The barkeep was around fifty, his hair thin under its layer of pomade, his face pale around watery brown eyes. ‘If business were better you wouldn’t even get in here.’
‘Trouble is,’ said Azul, ‘that I’m in.’
He lifted the mug and flung the contents in the man’s face. The beer splashed into the barkeep’s eyes. Ran down his flabby cheeks to mingle with the wax holding his mustache in place. It was a very fine mustache: a compensation for the lack of hair on his head. It was grown long and waxed into curls on either side of his mouth, the twisted points curving back almost to his nostrils. The beer washed the wax out so that the curls flattened, turning the mustache downwards.
The bartender gasped and dropped his hands under the counter.
Azul reached forwards with his left hand, grabbing a fistful of shirtfront to drag the man forwards across the bar. At the same time he brought his right hand forwards. It was still holding the empty mug.
The glass shattered against the barkeep’s face, shards of glass mashing into his cheeks and lips. His sallow face was suddenly dark with spilling blood, and his shout became a high-pitched scream of pain. Azul twisted the mug, grinding the shattered fragments of glass deep into the pain-racked face. He let go of the man’s shirt as the bloody mouth opened to spill a column of vomit over the bar. The bartender fell back, both hands pressed tight against his face. Then screamed again as his probing fingers drove the pieces of the broken mug deeper into his flesh.
Azul dropped the mug and turned to face the other drinkers. Instinctively, his right hand moved towards the Colt on his hip. No one moved. The gambler just went on shuffling his deck and the two cowboys went back to their drinking. Azul reached over the bar, fumbling round until he located the familiar contours of a shotgun. He lifted the weapon clear: it was a Meteor twin-barrel, cut down to around nine inches. He broke the ugly weapon open and thumbed the shells clear. Then tossed it over to the far wall. He threw the shells in the opposite direction. Then spun round, drawing his Colt as the batwing doors opened.
