Town Tamers Read online

  LAYING DOWN THE LAW

  “Listen to you,” Jake Bass sneered. “Who in hell do you think you are?”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “Mister, you have sand,” Crusty said. “Not much brains but a lot of sand. We’ll give Mr. Knox and Bull your message. And then you’d best be ready for when we come ridin’ in to settle your hash.”

  “You misunderstood,” Asa said. “I didn’t say I want you to deliver the message. I said I need to send one. I’ll hire a boy to ride out to the ranch for me.”

  “Why, when we can do it?” Crusty said.

  “You won’t be able to.”

  “Why in hell not?”

  Asa Delaware always liked this part. He liked the looks on their faces when it sank in. “Because,” he said matter-of-factly, “both of you will be dead.”

  Also by David Robbins

  Thunder Valley

  Blood Feud

  Ride to Valor

  TOWN TAMERS

  DAVID ROBBINS

  SIGNET

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © David Robbins, 2013

  Excerpt from Blood Feud copyright © David Robbins, 2010

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN 978-1-101-63516-2

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Cover

  Laying Down The Law

  Also by David Robbins

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part Two

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Part Three

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Interlude

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Part Four

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Part Five

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Part Six

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Part Seven

  Chapter 84

  Excerpt rom Blood Feud

  To Judy, Joshua, and Shane

  Part One

  1

  Ludlow, Texas

  It was Saturday night, and the Circle K cowhands thundered into town whooping and hollering and firing their pistols, as they always did.

  The few townsfolk foolish enough to be abroad quickly scattered to home and hearth or to the back rooms of their businesses, as they always did.

  This night the Circle K’s ranny, Bull Cumberland, was with them, and he was the first to see the new bartender when he slammed through the batwings of the the Whiskey Mill. New barkeeps weren’t unusual. They tended to suffer a lot of “accidents” and often lit out for healthier climes after only a couple of months.

  Bull hooked his thick thumbs in his gun belt and bellied up to the bar. He pounded it hard enough to be heard a block away and only then noticed that glasses had been set out in a long row. His blow caused them to rattle and jump.

  The young bartender smiled at him and said, “What will it be, Childe Harold?”

  Bull barely heard him over the ruckus his fellow cow nurses were raising as they jangled and clattered in, and he raised a huge hand and bellowed, “Quiet!”

  It was as if the Almighty Himself had spoken. Every puncher stopped cold and fell silent. Several put their hands on their six-shooters.

  Bull looked the new barkeep up and down and gruffly demanded, “What in hell did you just call me?”

  “Not ‘what,’ but ‘who,’” the young man said. “Childe Harold is a name.”

  “Who in hell is he?”

  The young bartender smiled. He was handsomer than most, had broader shoulders than most, and had dark eyes that seemed to sparkle with amusement. He was also clean-shaven and wore a white shirt with a string tie and a spotless apron. “I’d imagine you haven’t read it, then.”

  “Read?” Bull said. “Did you say read?”

  “The poem.”

  “The what?”

  “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. It’s by Lord Byron.”

  Then, to Bull’s astonishment, the young bartender put a hand to his chest and raised his other hand aloft. “‘Childe Harold was hight—but whence his name and lineage long, it suits me not to say. Suffice it that perchance they were of fame, and had been glorious in another day.’”

  “God in heaven,” Bill said.

  “I was quoting from the poem,” the young bartender said. “Isn’t it glorious?”

  Bull looked at the other punches and they were as stupefied as he was. Some of them had their mouths open and a couple had cocked their heads as if they couldn’t qui
te believe what they were seeing.

  “I ask you again,” the young bartender said. “What will it be for you and your fine company?”

  Bull shook his head to get his brain to work and leaned over the bar to study the newcomer much as he might a new kind of snake. “What are you?”

  The young man touched his apron. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  Jake Bass came up next to Bull and let out a snort. “A whistle, is what he is.”

  Old Tom stepped up on the other side and said in wonderment, “Whistle, hell. This feller is educated.”

  “Educated how?” Jake Bass said. “Doesn’t look to me like he knows the hind end of a cow from a fiddle.”

  “You heard him the same as me,” Old Tom said. “Ain’t it plain? He’s got more book learnin’ than all of us put together.”

  “Is that so?” Bull said.

  “One of those,” Jake Bass said.

  Crusty joined them, his cheek bulging with chaw, and said simply, “Hell.”

  The young bartender took a full bottle from a shelf and held it for all of them to see. “Who wants some ambrosia of the gods?”

  “You shouldn’t ought to talk like that,” Bull told him.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Do you have a handle, sonny?”

  “Who doesn’t? In fact, I bear the same name as the man who wrote the poem. To my great delight and pleasure, I am proud to bear the moniker of Byron.”

  “God, how you talk,” Jake Bass said.

  “Well, By-ron,” Bull said, practically making two words of it as he hitched at his gun belt. “I reckon you haven’t long to live.”

  2

  Usually when Bull Cumberland threatened someone they had the good sense to show fear. But the young bartender went on smiling as if it were of no account that he was the lone mouse in a room full of angry cats.

  “Let me have him,” Jake Bass said. “The only thing I hate more than a gent who thinks he knows everything is redskins.”

  “I don’t know everything,” Byron said, “but I do know my namesake. I’ve been reading him since I was knee-high to a calf.”

  “Don’t think you can talk cows and save yourself,” Crusty said.

  Jake Bass slowly drew his Colt and pointed it at Byron. “How about I start with his ears? Then a finger or three. Then we can make him dance and I’ll work on the toes.”

  To Bull’s surprise, Byron ignored Jake and turned to him.

  “That’s why I thought of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage when I saw you.”

  “What?” Bull said, and was annoyed at himself for saying it so much. To his consternation, the young barkeep touched his chest again and raised his hand.

  “‘Sudden he stops—his eye is fixed—away—Away, thou heedless boy! Prepare the spear.’”

  Jake Bass cocked his Colt. “I’ve listened to enough of this.”

  “Wait,” Bull said. “What was that about a spear?”

  “‘Now is thy time, to perish, or display the skill that may yet check his mad career!’” Byron quoted. “‘With well-timed croupe the nimble coursers veer. On foams the Bull, but not unscathed he goes; streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear.’”

  “Did you say Bull?” Bull said.

  Byron nodded. “You can see why I thought of you, can’t you?”

  Bull couldn’t see any such thing but he didn’t want to admit it.

  “Mr. Tandy told me about the Circle K when he hired me,” Byron went on. “He said you’re the cocks of the walk in these parts.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Crusty said.

  Byron went on addressing Bull. “He described you and said I’m to treat you special. That you’re to be respected. That what you say goes.”

  “George Tandy said all that?” Bull said.

  “And more.”

  “Can I shoot his ear off or not?” Jake Bass asked.

  “Not,” Bull said.

  “Why in hell can’t I?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “Damn it. Look at him. Standin’ there all dandified and spoutin’ that stuff.”

  “Holster your smoke wagon.”

  Jake’s jaw muscles twitched. He glared at Byron, glanced at Bull, and reluctantly let down the hammer on his revolver and thrust it into his holster. “If this don’t beat all,” he grumbled.

  Bull held out his hand to Byron. “You get to go on breathin’, boy.”

  Crusty spit into the dented spittoon caked brown with misses and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I don’t like it nohow.”

  “You buckin’ me?” Bull asked.

  “Not so long as I’m in my right mind,” Crusty replied. “But a saloon ain’t no place for Nancy talk.”

  “I sort of like it,” Bull said.

  Old Tom shook his head. “Just when I reckon I’ve heard everything.”

  Byron began filling glasses, tilting the bottle expertly and not spilling so much as a drop. He went down the row so fast that the cowhands were impressed. Righting the bottle with a flourish, he announced, “Wet your throats and let the fun commence.”

  In no time the saloon filled with raucous laughter, ribald jokes, and the tinkle of poker chips. Everyone forgot about the new bartender. They paid him no mind when he mentioned that he was going into the back room for more bottles.

  Byron whistled as he went down the hall and opened a door.

  A small man in a rust-colored suit perched on a stool in a corner gave a start. His bald pate was sprinkled with sweat, and he anxiously said, “I didn’t hear shots.”

  “You see me, don’t you?” Whistling, Byron moved to a shelf and selected a couple of bottles of Monongahela. “You should go home, Mr. Tandy. Try to relax and get some sleep.”

  “How can I, with what we’ve done? If they find out—” Tandy stopped and his throat bobbed.

  “They won’t,” Byron assured him and flashed another of his smiles. “The Circle K outfit doesn’t know it yet, but hell is coming to call.”

  3

  Along about midnight, things turned ugly.

  By then the punchers had guzzled a river of liquor, those who had money to lose at poker had lost it, and the jokes and the boasts had worn thin.

  Old Tom started things by saying to no one in particular, “Well, this has gotten dull.”

  Crusty missed a spittoon and wiped his mouth with his other sleeve. “Watchin’ grass grow would be more excitin’.”

  “It’s Tandy’s fault,” Jake Bass said. “He should hire a new dove. Hell, he should hire five or six.”

  “You shot the last one,” Old Tom reminded him.

  “Only in the leg,” Jake Bass said. “And only because she poked fun at me.”

  “What did she say, again?” Crusty said and scratched his chin as if he was trying to remember. “Now I recollect. She said your pecker was the size of a pencil.”

  Many of the cowboys laughed but not Jake Bass. He reared out of his chair with his hand poised over his Colt. “On your feet, you son of a bitch. I’ll blow out your wick for that.”

  Crusty was drunk enough that he put his hands on the table to stand.

  “No,” Bull Cumberland said from over at the bar.

  Jake Bass swore a mean streak, then snapped, “Why are you buttin’ in? You heard him insult me.”

  His back to the room, Bull raised his glass and swallowed before he answered. “Lavender wouldn’t have called you a pencil, except you were smackin’ her for refusin’ to take you to bed, and she got mad.”

  “She was a dove, damn it.”

  “Not all doves sell themselves,” Bull remarked. “And she had the right to say no if she wanted.”

  “Why are you takin’ her side all of a sudden?” Jake Bass asked. “You’ve been pickin’ on me all night. You wouldn’t let
me shoot that no-account poet, and now this.”

  Bull set down his glass and turned. His right hand was close to a Smith & Wesson he wore high on his hip and when he spoke, his voice had a timbre that caused every man in the place to stiffen. “You’re commencin’ to rile me.”

  Old Tom quickly said, “He don’t mean nothin’, Bull. He’s had too much to drink, is all.”

  “We all have,” Tyree Lucas said.

  Bull moved a couple of steps to one side so no one was between him and Jake Bass. “I’m waitin’,” he said.

  Jake Bass looked around him, apparently expecting someone to say something. When no one did, he elevated his arms out from his sides and offered a sickly grin. “Tom is right. I didn’t mean nothin’.”

  “Your problem, Jake, is that you let your mouth get ahead of your brain.”

  “I do,” Jake agreed. “I truly do.”

  “You’re always ready to sharpen your horns at the drop of a feather, and you drop the feather.”

  “I am,” Jake said. “I surely am.”

  “One of these days you’re goin’ to sharpen them at the wrong time and someone will put windows in your skull.” Bull’s mouth split in an icy smile. “Maybe me. Maybe here and now.”

  “I have a notion,” Old Tom piped up. “Why don’t we tree the town and have us some fun?”

  “Tree the town?” Crusty repeated. “You don’t tree towns, you old goat. You tree law dogs.”

  “Same thing,” Old Tom insisted.

  All eyes swung to Bull Cumberland, who hadn’t taken his off of Jake Bass. Now he did, to gaze thoughtfully at the batwings.

  In the act of wiping a glass, Byron said, “Most folks are in bed by now. You’d wake them up.”

  “So?” Bull Cumberland said.

  Old Tom, Crusty, and several others stood up, and Old Tom said, “Let’s do ’er. Let’s rouse ’em and pass out some booze and have us a frolic.”

  “Let’s,” Bull Cumberland said.

  Just like that, the saloon emptied. Yipping and laughing and unlimbering their hardware, the punchers bustled out into the night and spread up and down the main street.

  Bull went out last, taking his time. He paused at the batwings to say, “Bring me a couple of bottles.”