THE DODGE CITY MASSACRE (A Jess Williams Novel.) (25 page)

             
“The only reason you’re going to get to live another day or so, is because I want you to take a message out to your boss,” said Jess. “After that, if you have a lick of sense in that worthless body of yours, you’ll quit on Manny; because if I ever lay eyes on you again, I’ll shoot you on sight,” said Jess.

             
“Yes sir, Mr. Williams. What is the message you want me to take back to Mr. Welch?” asked Hamm, his hands still in the air.

             
Jess grinned. “Tell him his next deal will be with the devil—and soon.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

              Jess walked back over to the bar and picked up his drink after he replaced the three spent cartridges from his pistol. He looked at John who had a funny look on his face.

             
“What?” Jess asked.

             
“You didn’t even give me a chance to help you out with those two,” said John.

             
“I didn’t need any help,” replied Jess. “I’d go through their pockets if I were you though.”

             
“Why?”

             
“Well, if Manny did in fact send them out to kill Mr. Tillman this morning, I’d bet that he paid both of them a nice bonus to keep their mouths shut about it,” replied Jess.

             
John walked over to the two dead bodies and he found over one thousand dollars between the two of them. “Damn, they must have done it since the only man I know who keeps that kind of money in their pockets is you. This money had to come from Manny. Too bad they didn’t get to spend much of it.”

             
John started to split up the money, but Jess told him to keep it for himself and to make sure that he gave fifty dollars of it to Dottie Brown to make up for her loss in business due to the two of them eating their meals at her place. Justin and Connor walked in to see what the shooting was all about and saw two dead bodies lying on the floor. They both recognized the two as the men Ellie Tillman claimed killed her husband.

             
“Well, looks like you two just made some more money because there is a two hundred dollar bounty on each of these two,” said Justin. “I’ll ask the town council if I can go ahead and file a claim on your behalf for the bounty.”

             
“That would be mighty nice of you,” replied Jess.

             
Jess invited the two men to have a few drinks with him and John. The undertaker came over to get the bodies and he smiled at Jess as if to say thanks for all the extra business.

Hamm rode straight back to the Welch ranch.
He got off his horse and ran into Manny Welch’s office and stood in the doorway. “Mr. Welch, I have a message for you.”

             
“What is the message and who is it from?” asked Welch.

             
“The message was your next deal will be with the devil—and soon, and the message was from Jess Williams. Also, I quit right now; and I’m heading out as far from here as I can get,” replied Hamm, who walked straight out, got on his horse and rode out.

XXX

              Heath Durrand, Lee Thomas and Hank Cullom rode out of the little town with no name that they had been in. They rode for several hours and stopped for a break to come up with a plan on how to ambush Jess Williams and John Bodine. Cullom collected some firewood and Durrand got out some beans and salt pork to cook up after the fire was hot. Cullom took care of the horses. Once the coffee was ready, Durrand put a skillet on the coals and started cooking the beans and salt pork.

             
“Well, Heath,” said Lee Thomas, “How do you think we should go about killing those two bounty hunters? They won’t go down easy, that’s for sure.”

             
“I know,” replied Durrand. “I’ve been thinking all day about how to do it. We can’t face them fair, because that’ll just get us dead for sure. I say we sneak into town after dark and find out which saloon they’re in. Then we position ourselves in three different spots and just open fire on them with Winchesters until we kill them. One of us should be on a rooftop and two of us should be hiding between buildings.”

             
“Alright, that sounds like as good a plan as any,” replied Thomas. “What do you think about it Cullom?”

             
“Sounds fine by me and I’ll take the rooftop unless someone else wants it,” replied Cullom.

             
“Okay you take the rooftop and me and Thomas here will get into positions so that we can shoot at them from two different angles,” replied Durrand. “I say we make camp about two miles outside of town tonight and then go after them.”

             
“Alright, now that that’s settled, start spooning out them beans ‘cause I’m starving,” said Thomas.

             
“You’re always starving,” Durrand retorted. They finished up their meal, cleaned up the mess and headed for Dodge City.

XXX

              Jess and John stayed at The Hanging Tree Saloon for a few more hours and then went back to Dottie’s Eats and ordered supper. John went into the kitchen and gave Dottie Brown fifty dollars, which she accepted, but not after refusing it several times. They were eating some fried chicken when Mattie came over to their table and replaced their pot of coffee with a freshly brewed one.

             
“Well, I saw Taylor Hamm riding out of here like a scared rabbit a few hours ago,” said Mattie. “I suppose the other two are probably dead since I heard some gunshots just before that.”

             
“Yeah,” replied Jess, “Manny Welch has two less hired guns on his payroll.”

             
“It seems like you’re saving Mr. Welch a lot of money,” replied John. “You’ve whittled his bunch of men down to probably only three or four.”

             
“Well, he better spend what he has fast because he ain’t got much time left,” Jess stated. “Besides, you’ve taken out a few of them yourself.” John smiled at that.

             
“You mean you’re going to kill Mr. Welch too?” asked Mattie, a surprised look on her face.

             
“I warned him and I always make good on my promises,” replied Jess.

             
“Mr. Williams, if I were a man, I sure wouldn’t want to be on your bad side,” replied Mattie as she walked over to another table.

             
After supper, Jess and John walked over to The Long Branch Saloon. There were several men in the saloon. Jess scanned the room for any threats and finding none, he walked up to the bar and ordered some good whiskey.

             
“I heard you dispatched two more of Welch’s men earlier,” said Whipple as he poured two glasses of good whiskey.

             
“Yes I did. They were the two men who killed Howard Tillman this morning. I warned Manny that he was not to try to force out any of the other local ranchers, but I guess he must have forgot about it,” replied Jess.

             
“Well, no one in this town is going to miss either of those two. The Tillman’s were right nice folks. They never bothered anyone. They stayed to themselves and worked their herd and they were doing pretty well until Manny Welch moved in for the kill,” said Wipple.

             
“The other ranchers around here won’t have to worry about Manny Welch for much longer,” said Jess.

             
Logan went to serving a few more men who came into the saloon. Jess and John slowly sipped the fine whiskey and waited to see if any of Welch’s hired guns came in as well as anyone else who might have a bounty on their heads. John Bodine was trying to figure out how much they had made in total since they had come to Dodge City, but when he looked up at Jess he could tell that Jess wasn’t listening to one word he had said, and the look in Jess’ eyes told him exactly why.

             
Jess was carefully watching a man who had walked into the bar and slowly looked around until his eyes locked on Jess’ and that’s when he recognized Jess. The man was Milburn Chaney, although Jess didn’t know it yet. Milburn ordered a glass of whiskey from the barkeep. He downed it and had Whipple pour him another glass. The other men at the bar knew something was up so they moved away and sat at tables as if they were ready to watch the show. It was almost as if you could smell it in the air. The saloon went deadly silent. Chaney said nothing for all of fifteen minutes. He had several more shots of whiskey and finally turned to look at Jess directly.

             
“So, are you really that Jess Williams fellow?” asked Chaney.

             
“Yes, and I’m really getting tired of hearing those word over and over again,” replied Jess.

             
“So I’m not the first one who has tried to collect the ten thousand dollars on your head?”

             
“No, several have already tried and every one of them have died, just like you will. I’m not even going to ask you to walk away because if your dumb enough to do this, you’re too dumb to live as far as I’m concerned,” replied Jess.

             
Chaney had been drinking to get up the courage to face off with Jess, but the insult was enough to get his goat. “You calling me dumb?” asked Chaney.

             
“Yes, and I’m done talking so if you ain’t going to walk out of here and forget about this, get on with it,” demanded Jess.

             
Chaney went for his gun, but all he felt the two slugs from Jess’ pistol hit his chest before he even got it out. He fell straight forward onto the saloon floor, dead before he hit it.

             
“You know what, Jess,” said John, “I’ve seen you draw that pistol dozens of times and I am still amazed by it no matter how many times I see it. It just ain’t natural for any man to be that damn fast.”

             
“I know one thing for certain,” replied Jess.

             
“What’s that?” asked Bodine.

             
“As soon as I finish up with Manny Welch, I’m going to see me a banker in New York City—and he ain’t going to like it much neither.”

XXX

              Heath Durrand, Lee Thomas and Hank Cullom had snuck into town unnoticed a few hours after dark. Cullom had peeked into the window of The Hanging Tree Saloon and didn’t see Jess or John. Then he went to The Long Branch Saloon, where he spotted Jess and John at the bar drinking and it was before the shootout between Jess and Milburn Chaney took place.

             
Cullom went back to Durrand and Thomas and informed them as to where he had found Jess and John and they took up their positions. Cullom climbed up on the rooftop of the building across from The Long Branch Saloon and Durrand and Thomas took up positions behind the corners of two buildings across from the saloon and eight buildings apart. All three of them watched as a man walked into the saloon and then they heard two gun shots about fifteen minutes later. Shortly after that, they watched as the undertaker came and retrieved a dead body.

             
Jess and John finished up their drinks and walked out of the saloon and as soon as they stepped onto the boardwalk, three shots rang out, one from a rooftop and two more from each end of the street.

CHAPTER THIRTY

              One of the three slugs fired from the three Winchesters hit John on the top of his left shoulder. The second slug hit the top of the door just inches above Jess’ head and the third one splintered the wooden edge around the door just inches from Jess’ left side. Jess had seen the flash from the barrel of the Winchester that Cullom was using on the rooftop and Jess still had the hammer strap on his pistol so he grabbed his Pa’s pistol from the front of his holster and put a slug into Cullom. Jess saw him fall backwards, but he didn’t know if he was dead or not. Both John and Jess quickly ran back into the bar and the barkeep knew what was happening so he pointed in the direction of the back door. Jess kicked the screen door open to see if it would draw any gun fire, but it didn’t. They slowly walked outside and kept their backs to the wall. He whispered to John. “How bad are you hit?”

             
“The bullet clipped the top of my left shoulder. It hurts like hell, but it ain’t enough to slow me down any,” replied John. “Are you hit?”

             
“No, but it sure was close. I thought I was going to have to buy another hat,” replied Jess, still whispering.

             
“Should we split up or stay together?” asked John.

             
“We keep to our plan and stay together. I suggest that we take turns moving around the backs of these buildings. Let’s stay no more than twenty or thirty feet apart. That way, if one of us draws any fire, the other one can spot where it came from and then we can return fire,” said Jess.