Forty Times a Killer by William W. Johnstone Page B

wedge.”
    â€œSorry,” Dillard said. “You’ll be less likely to make a dash for it, John Wesley.”
    â€œAt least give him another damned blanket,” I said.
    Nobody paid me the least mind.
    Stakes gathered up the mustang’s lead rope then swung into the saddle.
    Jim Smalley followed suit, slid the Henry rifle from under his knee and laid it across the saddle horn. “Let’s ride. We’re burning daylight and we need to put two hundred miles of git between us and Longview.”
    I mounted, and then Alan Dillard did something that surprised me.
    He stepped off the boardwalk and slipped ajar into my coat pocket. “Pickles. For the trail.”
    I was dumfounded, but managed to nod and mumble my thanks before I kicked my horse into motion and followed the others.
    Since Alan Dillard drops out of my narrative here, let me mention that he didn’t live to scratch a gray head. He died of jungle fever on Samoa in 1889 while working as a civilian contractor for the U.S. Navy. It is interesting to note that Dillard passed away in the parlor of the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island , who was living in the island nation at that time.
    We camped that evening under a disused railroad trestle, the temperature surprisingly cool after the heat of the day. Around us lay a world of broken ground, treeless hills and patches of thorny cactus. The moon rose fat and fair, its pale light banished by the crimson glow of our campfire.
    After a hearty supper of strong coffee, salt pork, and sourdough bread, we sat around the fire and I wondered where Wes had hidden the Colt I’d given him.
    Only later did I discover that he’d tied it under his arm and then covered the big revolver with his shirt and coat.
    Stakes had untied Wes’s legs, and it caused considerable merriment in Jim Smalley. “Here now, Hardin,” he said, staring at Wes over the rim of his coffee cup. “How far do you think you’d get if you stood up and made a break for it?”
    Before Wes could make any kind of answer, Stakes grinned and said, “One step, Jim. I’d gun him for sure.”
    â€œWell, E.T., I think I’d let him run for a spell and then go after him. Make it a chase, like.”
    Stakes nodded. “It would be good sport.”
    â€œI won’t run,” Wes said. “All I ever did was try to obey the law. I’m in great fear that the kin of the men I killed in fair fights will lay for us on the trail and try to do for me.”
    â€œDon’t worry about that,” Smalley said. “We’ll protect you, young feller. I mean, we want to watch you hang in Waco, hear that snap! when your neck gets broke.”
    Stakes cackled. “Hell, Jim, it won’t be like that.” He made a pantomime of a hanging man, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he made horrible strangling sounds.
    Then he smiled. “They don’t break necks in Waco. It’s too quick and robs the folks of a show.”
    â€œI say, Hardin,” Smalley said, “when you’re standing there on the gallows, piss and crap running down your legs, and the hangman asks if you’ve got any last words, here’s what you say. ‘Fancy whores and strong drink led me to this pass, but I had a good mother.’”
    Stakes grinned. “You’re right, Jim. The women love that.”
    â€œI don’t want to hang,” Wes said, his voice a scared whine. Then, I swear, he squeezed out a single tear that trickled down his cheek like a raindrop. “This will break my poor mother’s heart.”
    â€œAw, that’s a shame, ain’t it, E.T.?” Smalley said. “Even this piece of garbage, the lowest of the low, has a mother.”
    â€œPlease don’t let them hang me,” Wes pleaded, his red-eyes fixed on Stakes. “I’m so afraid, Mr. Stakes.”
    â€œSure, sure, kid,” the lawman said.