Gunsmoke Night

A Black Horse Extra Book

www.blackhorsewesterns.com

First published 1993 by Robert Hale Ltd

Published 1996 by Ulverscroft Large Print Books Ltd

This new edition published 2023

Copyright © 1993, 2023 by Chap O’Keefe

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. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

1

THE MASSACRE

Coming sundown, a lone rider reined in a handsome black stallion, concealing himself and his mount among the deepening shadows of the cluster of cottonwoods on the slope above and west of the Paynter spread.

He was a bulkily built man, beefy, and his well-cut clothes bespoke power and money. He noted the failing light and tugged a heavy gold watch from his vest, frowning. He flipped open the hinged front cover.

What in damnation's keeping them? he murmured. Apaches most never attack by night. Die in the dark and your spirit might get lost on its way to the happy hunting ground, the heathens reckon!

At that ghoulish observation he chuckled, and it was not a pleasant sound, for this was a man whose mirth sprang other than from the heart.

His humorless eyes swept the Paynter property, appraising. It was a modest enough place. The two main buildings — the ranch-house and the hands' bunkhouse — were timber-built and surrounded by a spruce-pole fence. But beyond ran rich level grassland, and the river that dissected the broad sweep of the valley made a wide, willow-edged loop within the Paynter boundaries.

The evening light gave the whole a certain lush desirability in contrast to the near-bald sides of the mountains that rose somber, stark and remote in the longer, harsher perspective. In truth, the entire Sweetwater Valley was a cattleman's paradise locked in the broken-fanged jaw of a far rim of jagged scarps and summits, now hulking darkly in their night-time hues of purple and black.

The hidden rider's horse snorted and tossed its black mane impatiently, and the man growled, whether in remonstrance or expression of his own feelings made none too clear, before an eerie cry pierced the oncoming nightfall.

The high-pitched ululation was a sinister, frightening sound. Even the hard-faced watcher in the cottonwoods felt the blood curdle in his veins, and he was in a position to imagine the man who was making it, cupping his lips with a hand to produce the distinctive, quavering war cry of the dreaded Apache Indians.

The the saliva gathered in his mouth and he swallowed in greedy anticipation as he saw a line of horsemen sneaking rapidly through the willow-shaded cover of the river bank downstream from the Paynter corral.

There was a score of them on rangy ponies. The golden light was insufficient to show perfect detail but the last rays of the sinking sun glistened off oiled bodies, painted with hideous markings, and struck the bright metal of lances and tomahawks, spears and carbines.

The man lurking in the cottonwood copse grinned appreciatively.

Reckon there ain't nothing them Paynters can do about this 'cept mebbe shoot themselves first to get it over quick! he told himself.

He stuck a black cheroot between his lips, struck a lucifer to light it and settled down to watch the promised slaughter.

Other spines shivered, too, at the sound of the twice-repeated Apache war-cry. In the ranch-house, Betty Paynter's hand trembled so violently as she lit an oil lamp that the taper was abruptly extinguished.

Dave! she screamed.

Her husband jumped to his feet at the table, his dropped cutlery clattering on to his enamel plate. Injuns! he gasped. I don't believe it ... we've had no trouble in this territory since the Army moved 'em into the reservation.

Across the scrubbed board from him the rancher's five-year-old son's big scared eyes shone at him from a face bloodless white. Pa! he blurted. They won't hurt us, will they?

The small family rushed as one to the windows, eyes probing the tricky half-light. Outside, hands alerted by the same dire sounds had rushed into the yard from the bunkhouse and the smaller wash-house and cookhouse that adjoined.

Get back inside, you damn' fools! Dave Paynter bawled. Put up the shutters, get every gun ready and loaded!

Betty needed no more urging than that. She lifted rifles from racks and wall hooks and piled them with boxes of shells on the parlor table while her husband closed shutters and bolted and barred doors.

Paynter's jaw jutted grimly as he squinted through a vertical wall-loop into the quickly gathering dusk, scanning the aspens and willows marking the ridge that sloped down on its other side to the winding creek. The wall-loop, just to the side of the window, hadn't been used like this since the days when the resentful Apache had raided pioneers' newly-established homes.

Paynter levered shells into the breech of his Winchester with nervous fingers.

He made out half a dozen mounted, bare-torsoed silhouettes — braves, shifting through the stillness of the trees with furtive intent. He blasphemed, uncommon for him in front of wife and child.

Must be a bunch of renegades, he opined, and sent off three rapid snap-shots cracking in their direction.

At that the raiders broke cover. More fire sped in the direction of the pounding hoofbeats, winging from the bunkhouse which Paynter's five crew and a Chinese cook had chosen for their refuge. But the slugs were apparently wasted.

The attackers, a string of advancing shadows, wheeled wraith-like around the fenced cluster of buildings, unerringly seeking out the defenders' blind spots as though the place was known to them.

After the raiders' sudden advance, a tense silence descended, except for the ever-present whirr of the cicadas.

Have we scared them off, pa? Paynter's small boy asked anxiously.

Merciful heaven, what are they going to do to us? his mother sobbed wretchedly.

They were to know soon enough. Their tormentors had no intention of tasting the Paynters' lead. There were more cunning ways to achieve their ends. The first the ranchers knew about them was a whistling in the air and a thud on the roof shingles. It was followed almost immediately by a singeing smell.

Fire arrows, by God! Paynter snapped grimly. The varmints mean to smoke us out!

Betty screamed as two more projectiles crashed into the ranch-house and an ominous flickering lit up the yard outside, sending grotesque patterns leaping across the darkened walls inside.

Within the first minute acrid smoke started to seep into the room and Paynter knew they had to get out quickly or be roasted alive amid the burning timbers of their doomed home.

Paynter rushed to unbar the door as his son started to cough and cry. C'mon, Betty, we'll have to take our only chance and run for it!

They'll cut us down, Betty choked. The swirling black smoke caught in her throat and harshened the words.

Yeah, they aim to do that for sure. But I'll try an' give you and the kid covering fire. Head for the stables an' take the bay gelding. Don't wait to saddle up — ride out bareback as fast as y'can!

The minute Paynter had the door open, the abrupt access of draft whipped the smoldering house timbers into blazing fury and the trio were forced to make their exit in an unprotected bunch. Before Paynter himself could fire a shot, a carbine flashed and roared in the gloom and he was hit full in the chest.

He gave a brief groan of pain, clutched at his reddening shirt, sank down to his knees, then collapsed in an inert heap.

His wife screamed piteously, but the boy whom she had by the hand dragged her forward in his terror, as though instinctively knowing that to dally would seal their fates, too.

They plunged across the yard into billowing clouds of smoke and confusion as the bunkhouse shared the same treatment as the ranch-house, bursting into a fireball. More shots were fired. Curses and shrill cries were rent from the hapless ranch-hands.

Her skirts lifted almost to her knees and her hair in disarray, streaming loose almost to her waist, Betty Paynter fled for her life.

Suddenly two half-naked marauders came for Betty and the child, cutting off their path to the stables. The woman gasped and twisted in a frantic bid to escape, but a hand like a claw fastened and wound itself into her long hair.

Run, Johnny, run! she urged desperately as the boy's hand was wrenched from her grasp.

She was flung in an undignified heap to the dust of the yard, horrified and revolted by knowing what was to be her lot. Coarse glee punctuated the grunts of her assailants as they ripped off the braided sleeves and bodice, and the full, long pleated skirt of her gray dress. Then they tore at her feminine underthings till her soft flesh was exposed to the chill of the air and the abrasion of the dirt.

The tears were blinding her eyes and the sobs of terror rasping in her throat. But mercifully they were hasty in their lust. It was only as naked flesh invasively joined hers that she realized the incredible truth, giving a second import to the ghastly groan that wrenched itself from her ravished body.

Almost at once the panting man on top of her, recognizing what she knew, seized up his discarded gun and blasted an instantly fatal shot point-blank into her shuddering breast.

The watcher in the stand of cottonwood saw it all. From his elevated vantage point between the old gray trunks he observed the scuttling figures, foreshortened by the height. The animal passion rose in him as he saw the fleeing woman stripped and violated; his palms were gripping moistly on the stallion's reins when that single shot ended her life.

Between his cruel lips the cheroot was damp and forgotten until it burned low and died. Then he spat out the butt and rode down, smiling crookedly, to meet the departing victors from the scene of the carnage.

Only one person was allowed to escape the slaying of the Paynters and their crew. And he, though he could not know it, was not spared out of any feelings of mercy, but out of cold calculation.

On orphaned little Johnny Paynter — when he could finally summon the