one twisted voice Read online

  Maybe he wasn’t on steroids after all, or my knee hadn’t been on target last time, because the result here was the absolute opposite. He collapsed down on me, knees folding, and he spewed on the floor over my left shoulder. I got a hot and sticky wash all down my neck, and that kind of galvanised me to get the fucker off me. I grabbed his precious ears, twisting his head with them as if they were handlebars and Gardy went over onto his back. I rolled with him, let go with one hand so I could punch his face to mush. I landed one, two, going for the third when someone grabbed my bicep. Couldn’t help the natural reaction, I glanced up at who it was and got a smack in the teeth for my trouble.

  Toad was back.

  Bad Toad, bad.

  I was going to swarm up, give him some, when I was surprised to hear Gardy shouting, ‘The fuck you doin’? Didn’t you hear what I said?’

  He wasn’t shouting at me.

  To be fair Toad hadn’t been there when Gardy set the rules. But he got the message. Cowed, Toad let go of me and I swung back to Gardy, my fist cocked.

  He laughed through his split lips. ‘Fuckin’ hell, Alec, you’ve learned a thing or two since we last fought.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘How’s about this?’

  Forgot about the punch and dropped my elbow instead. Smashed his head into the floor. Three times I got him just like that, and I could see his eyes rolling in his head. Wasn’t finished though, so I bunched my fist, hit him again, seen his lips split under my knuckles. Rearing back again, I got ready, fist angled at his windpipe. Killer blow now that his throat was an open target.

  Gardy’s arms were by his sides. Not fighting now.

  I pressed the fist on his chest. Not to hold him down but to help mesel up.

  Standing over him, I looked around the crowd. They were like rabid things, all panting, their fingers twitching: the pack mentality about to let loose its fury. I coiled my hands, ready to give them as much as they brought.

  ‘Alec won.’

  I blinked down at Gardy. While I was distracted he could’ve got me in the bollocks or stamped my knee out of joint. He was just lying there, breathing heavily, wearing a whimsical look on his face as if he’d just had the best shag of his life.

  I held out my palm for him, and he took it. I hauled him to his feet. He wouldn’t release my hand and for a second I tensed, waiting for him to try and pull me onto a head butt.

  ‘Take it easy me ol’ mucker,’ he said, his voice kind of John Lennon mixed with the Gallagher brothers. Don’t know what he was going for this time. ‘You beat me, fair and square.’

  He shook hands with me, then let me go. He patted me on the shoulders for all to see. Friends again.

  ‘We were good once,’ he said, touching his swollen ear. ‘Let’s get back to the old days, huh?’

  ‘Can’t Gardy. Not when you’re into this shite.’

  ‘All I’ve done is traded one pile of shit for another, Alec.’

  ‘You’re right there.’ I stood back, massaging my elbow. I looked at my old sergeant. He’d taught me well, made me the bad–arse I’d turned out. He was the one who’d given me the physical tools to defend my family. Couldn’t help but feel he hadn’t been trying his hardest to break my arm. Once over he’d have done it in a second. He winked at me.

  ‘You won, Alec. A deal’s a deal in my book. Billy’s back in the black.’

  I stared at him, mindless of the crowd round us all looking on in dumbfounded silence.

  Gardy turned to his mates. ‘He won. Got it? Now give him the purse.’

  ‘Don’t want the money. Just knowing that Billy’s safe is enough.’

  He winked again, leaned in close to my ear. ‘Take the purse and you can give it to your ol’ pal Gardy when we meet for a drink later.’

  Couldn’t help but grin at the sneaky twat. Made himself a heap of cash, paid off Billy’s debt and got himself a whole lot more. And he’d done it in a way that bought me some respect and didn’t dent any of his. I winked back at him. ‘You’re on. The local, yeah?’

  ‘Got it.’

  Maybe I misjudged him. Maybe he wasn’t as far gone to the dark side as I’d assumed.

  Nah, he was still a bastard.

  I pulled my sweatshirt on. Tucked the Browning into my belt. Picked up the large stack of notes someone had put on the next bin along.

  When I looked back, Gardy and the others had all filed back up the stairs. Probably there’d be a celebratory spliff passed around in the Gods when he got back up there. I felt like it would be good to have a pint with my old friend, without the baggage of all the bullshit that life had served us lately.

  I didn’t go back through the pool hall. Didn’t want another run in with Toad or the perfumed Skank; I was hurting too much. I climbed up on the bonnet of the Ford Escort, boosted mesel over the high wall and into a narrow alley running alongside the hall. Walked out, across the street towards the Spar shop.

  Billy’s Golf was still in the shadows. Some get-away driver, I thought, has he fallen asleep?

  The engine was purring, but that was it. Couldn’t hear any snoring.

  ‘Billy? Billy.’ I shot forward, yanking open the driver’s door. ‘Oh, shit, Billy!’

  He was dead.

  Didn’t need to be a doctor to tell. His head was arched back over the headrest. Mouth open, full to the brim of spew. His left arm was splayed out across the gear stick, sleeve rolled up. Rubber tube hanging loosely round his bicep, bloody smear on his arm, among all the other scabby wounds where he’d jabbed needles. There was a hypodermic syringe lying in the foot-well, a burnt spoon and lighter, all the paraphernalia. To think I’d just fought the battle of my life for things to end this way. What good had I done?

  I stood there. My little cousin, Billy Reid. Seventeen years old, a junkie for the last four. Dead.

  ‘Billy, you stupid dumb fuck.’

  I massaged my elbow. Shook my head. Looked down at the forlorn waste of a young life. Why’d he do that? Obviously he didn’t trust me to make things right. Or he didn’t trust himself. Maybe Gardy wasn’t the only one unhappy with the skin he was in.

  Me neither if the truth was told.

  Only one consolation I could think of: Billy wouldn’t burgle my granny’s house now.

  The day was saved.

  Who dares wins?

  Yeah, right.

  Some fucking hero me.

  Author’s note:

  This story first appeared in print in “Even More Tonto Short Stories” (Tonto Publishers) and in “The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 9” (Robinson).

  TRENCH WARFARE

  Joshua Trench hooked his Winchester repeating rifle over the pommel of his saddle, allowing the barrel to rest across his opposite knee as he surveyed the canyon below him.

  His roan quarter horse whickered gently, shivering like an earth tremor.

  ‘Easy, girl,’ Trench said. ‘We’ll be on our way soon enough.’

  Through the canyon moved a stagecoach, pulled by a team of four horses, all black. The black was travel stained with rust red dirt, matted to the lather of sweat on the horses’ flanks. The driver looked no less travel worn. As Trench looked, the grizzled old driver ran a shaking hand over his brow, beneath the rim of his floppy hat, and dashed away enough perspiration to mark the canyon wall dark. Shoved through the old man’s belt was a Remington pistol. Another man, a hired guard, crouched on top of the stagecoach, hunkering so that a pile of roped down luggage protected him. He held a rifle not unlike Trench’s. There were passengers inside the coach, but from his vantage, Trench couldn’t make them out.

  From further along the canyon, Trench caught a glint. Sunlight reflected from a looking glass, perhaps, or from bared steel. His mouth made a tight slash and he nudged his roan back from the canyon edge, seeking the trail that would allow him to continue tracking the progress of the stagecoach.

  He could no longer see the coach, but he could hear its progress through the snaking canyon, wheels rattling over
loose stones, the snorting of labouring horses, the curses of the driver and his companion.

  The canyon wasn’t a route usually employed by the stagecoach line. It had been forced into taking the alternative route, and judging by the weary team, had been pushed there at a run.

  ‘Fools have run right into a trap,’ Trench muttered under his breath. His roan’s ears twitched at his voice, and he again patted the horse, calmed it.

  This was the Arizona badlands, north of the Gila River. White Mountain and San Carlos Apache roamed the lands to the east, and the ‘wild ones’, the Tonto Apache, a short ride to the north. On a good day, it would have been a miracle for the stagecoach to make its run to Fort McDowell unmolested. But this was not a good day.

  The local tribes were dangerous enough, Trench concurred, but it weren’t roaming bands of braves that threatened the stagecoach this day. Trench had been tracking the gang that had laid their greedy sights on the coach, and whatever treasures they could steal from it. The Salt River Gang didn’t care who died so long as they got their reward. Plus, stagecoaches weren’t the only viable targets to them.

  Two days ago, over near the border with New Mexico, Trench had come upon a trading post. The vultures had gathered in the sky, black dots wheeling in the smoke from the blazing cabins. Three men, two women, and a girl child had all been murdered. The owner of the trading post, a man of indeterminate age, considering his face had been peeled off by the edge of a blade, had been bound to a wagon wheel and laid out to perish in the sun. His eyes were gone, pecked from his face by crows, and they’d also started their work on the bared meat of his cheeks. Yet the man had still clung to life. Trench knew that the man counted tortuous minutes left in him, but it had been long enough to confirm his murderers. He couldn’t speak, but in him was the fortitude to nod when Trench mentioned Walt Driven and his boys. Trench had shown the dying man the ultimate kindness: he’d pulled out his Bowie from the sheath on his thigh, and inserted the tip between his ribs, then leaned his full weight against it. The man had barely shuddered as he’d died. If he’d lips, Trench thought the man would have smiled at his promise to avenge him and his family.

  Trench had offered the promise easily.

  He had made a similar promise to his own sister a few days earlier.

  Caroline Trench had been enjoying the happiest time in her young life. In love, and anticipating her upcoming wedding to an Alamogordo shopkeeper, she’d been flushed with excitement and naivety. When passing the group of riders in the street, she’d bobbed a curtsey and made pleasant hellos. Some people blamed Caroline for bringing trouble on her, being so open and inviting, could anyone blame the gang for taking her to the stable and having their way with her? The first man to suggest such a theory had ended on his ass in the dust, cradling a busted jaw, and Trench made it known that the next man to slur his sister’s name would lose more than his teeth. The Salt River Gang had repeatedly raped his sister, while the timid towns folk had pretended not to hear her muffled screams. When she finally fell silent, they still turned their faces away. Only after the gang had ridden west had anyone plucked up the courage to go and check on Caroline. Whether through shame, or if she’d been given a helping hand, they discovered the girl hanging from the rafters by a noose roughly tied about her neck. Walt Driven’s boys hadn’t even had the decency to cover her shame, leaving her stripped down to her ripped bodice, her bruised and bleeding womanhood displayed like a trophy in a hunter’s lodge for all to see. Those that turned a blind eye to the gang’s depravity did plenty of looking then.

  The fat, lazy sheriff almost invited a bullet when he argued that Alamogordo was his responsibility, and that no way could he go off gallivanting around the west in search of men they’d no hope of finding, not when he’d a town to protect. Trench had spat on the bastard’s tin star, and at the feet of the men that refused to form a posse. He’d fetched his horse, his guns, and his Bowie. A posse of one had followed the Salt River Gang’s trail.

  He’d been a day behind them at Silver City, where the town morgue boasted a new resident: a man shot down in a ‘fair fight’, after he accused Driven of holding an ace in his sleeve at the poker table. At the trading post, he’d found the slaughtered Virden family, and by then he was only hours behind.

  Now, a few miles north of Swift Trail Junction, he’d found the gang, who were heading one of two ways, either to Tucson or to Phoenix. Though he pitied the stagecoach riders, he was glad that the Salt River Gang couldn’t pass up such an easy target.

  He gigged his steed on.

  The coach was being pushed forward again, the driver hollering and thrashing the reins. Trench stood in his stirrups, peering over the rocky rim and saw two riders following the stagecoach down the canyon, just out of rifle range. He swivelled left, squinting his eyes at the afternoon sun’s rays and again caught the glint of reflected steel. The stagecoach was being pushed inexorably to its doom.

  Trench found a trail off the canyon wall, taking him away from the scene of the ambush, but also allowing him a route to come in behind the men lying in wait. Out of sight and hearing, he spurred his roan, giving the horse its head. All morning the roan had been anticipating this wild run, and it took the bit between its teeth and gave everything it had.

  Trench entered the canyon at its western end, a couple of hundred yards behind the men swarming from among the boulders. There were eight of them in all, including the two horsemen that rode in faster to block any retreat of the stagecoach team. Men aimed rifles and six guns at the driver and guard, two others grabbed at the traces of the team, holding them secure.

  Trench dismounted, tying off his reins to a clump of sagebrush, and left his roan out of harm’s way. He began a slow walk towards where the Salt River Gang was unaware of his coming. The two on horseback arrived at the scene and dismounted, adding strength to the ambush.

  Trench could see Walt Driven, a tall man, square about the shoulders, rangy and tough. Scum.

  Driven was holding his six-shooter loose in his grip as he ordered the driver and guard to drop their weapons. When they did, and held up their empty hands, he shot them both in the gut and laughed as they fell to the stark earth moaning in agony. He stood over the men, then took out his dick and pissed on them. It seemed that Driven was all about bringing ultimate shame to his victims. It made more sense now why he’d string up a virgin girl like that, leaving her violation exposed for all to see.

  After the men had done enough groaning and crying to suit him, Driven buttoned up and then shot them again: this time in the skull while his men whooped and hollered rebel yells.

  Trench would have preferred to save the stagecoach men, but what was done was done. He’d just have to avenge them.

  One of the gang was up on the coach, throwing down the luggage. Trunks burst open, spilling clothing and trinkets on the canyon floor. Men kicked through them. Driven approached the left side door and yanked it open. He jerked his head, ordering those inside to get out. Generally it was rich people who could afford to journey by carriage, and Trench was unsurprised to see a fat easterner stumble out, his bowler falling off, even as he went to his knees beside Driven. The rangy gang leader kicked the man in the ass, sending him face first into the dirt. Two of his boys grabbed the easterner, dragged him away then tossed him over on his back. They snatched his gold watch and chain, a silver drinking flask, a pouch of coins from inside the man’s coat. One of the robbers tried to take a ring from the man’s pudgy fingers, and when the easterner tried to withdraw his hand, he made the ultimate mistake. One of the gang stamped on his throat, while the other pulled out a blade and cut both ring and finger from the man’s hand.

  Driven ignored the tableau played out behind him.

  He was grinning at someone else inside the coach.

  He tucked his gun into his waistband, held out a hand.

  A hundred yards out, Trench’s gut clenched when he saw Driven lead a young woman from the stagecoach by her hand. He was feigning civility
and manners, and it could only last so long. The young woman wasn’t much older than Caroline, as pretty in her way, and was destined to meet a similar end. Trench, even this far out could see the lascivious sheen on the faces of all eight men who began to move in on her, the other trinkets forgotten now.

  Trench began jogging, his long coat flaring out on the wind of his passage. He swooped towards the gang like one of the vultures that had circled the trading post yesterday. Pinions spread, weapons primed to rend and tear.

  At a run he levered his repeating rifle, fired.

  The bullet took the back of the head off the ring stealer.

  He levered, fired.

  Another man fell, clutching at his chest.

  Fifty yards out, and only then did the Salt River Gang understand that they hadn’t been the only ones laying an ambush.

  Driven grabbed the girl, pulled her into his arms and rammed his pistol under her chin. He backed away, trying to find cover among the boulders. His remaining five pals scattered, two seeking concealment behind the stagecoach. The other three crouched where they could, lifting guns.

  Trench came to a halt, his Winchester at his shoulder. Lead scorched the air around him, cut dirt from the trail at his feet. He didn’t flinch. He fired. Once, twice, three times, and each time a man fell. They didn’t die quietly, or quickly, but in tremendous pain.

  Driven cursed loudly as his men dropped squirming in the dust.

  ‘Another shot, mister, and this whore dies!’ he yelled, pulling back the hammer on his pistol with an audible click.

  Trench continued forward, his rifle wedged tightly to his shoulder.

  Near the front of the stagecoach two men crouched in the gap between the wheels. One of them had a bead on him. Trench squeezed the trigger and shot a bloody hole through the man’s shin. The robber fell, screaming, clutching at his leg.