by Lyle Brandt
Parsons maneuvered to the far end of the warehouse, stopped his team with ample room to turn around when they were done, then hopped down from the driver’s seat. Ryder joined him and focused on the task at hand, already thinking forward to the next free time he’d have, and what he’d tell Director Wood in his next cryptic telegram.
So far, he had received no answers from the capital and had not banked on any. If and when Wood moved against the Marley gang, Ryder supposed that it would take him by surprise. He only hoped that there would be warning enough to let him come out of the final scrape alive.
11
After going through the same half-hour routine to lose observers, Ryder made his way back to the Western Union office, where he wrote Director Wood another telegram. This one simply stated two words:
CARGO RECEIVED
Then Ryder revised the telegram to include for the first time the address of his boardinghouse. He did not expect an answer from the capital, but wanted Wood to know where he’d been staying if the play went wrong somehow.
And why?
He couldn’t answer that specifically. Perhaps as a lifeline to the world outside of Galveston, although he knew it likely wouldn’t do him any good. If Marley saw through his deception, Ryder guessed that he would simply disappear—or else be found some morning in a gutter, with his throat cut or a bullet in his head.
Or maybe both.
With that depressing thought in mind, he went to find a barbershop that offered baths. His afternoon of labor on the wharf and at Tidewater Storage had left him feeling grimy and fatigued. The place he found rented tubs for a dime per half hour and Ryder went for the works, adding a shave and haircut to make it an even six bits. He enjoyed the hot water, just soaking and thinking, but kept his Colt close on a plain wooden chair.
Just in case.
From the barbershop, he went in search of supper, settling on a restaurant that specialized in seafood. Ryder ordered something called a crawfish pie, with fresh bread on the side and strong black coffee. He was pleasantly surprised by the concoction he received—a kind of stew baked in a pie crust—and was quick to clean his plate.
Too quick, in fact, for his appointed meeting with the gang at Awful Annie’s after nightfall. That afternoon, Ryder had asked whether they ever tried a different place, and Parsons had replied, “Why would we? Annie’s got whatever anybody needs.” That observation had reminded Ryder that he first saw Bryan Marley in a different saloon, before the ambush that he’d interrupted, and he wondered whether that had been significant in some way that eluded him.
Only one way to answer that, he thought and set off for the first saloon after he paid his tab and left the restaurant.
It took a bit of searching, since he’d found Marley by chance the first time, on an aimless tour of Galveston’s bars. He had paid no special attention to its location, and the seamy streets looked different in any case, by daylight. Finally, to save time, Ryder walked back to his boardinghouse and launched his search from there, retracing his steps from two nights back as best he could. It took the best part of an hour, even then, for him to find the place where he had first found Marley drinking with a group of men Ryder had never seen again, among the smuggler’s crew.
A quick look past the bat-wing doors confirmed no sign of Marley on the premises this afternoon. Inside the tavern, after he had checked its darker corners for a second time, Ryder proceeded to the bar and ordered beer. The mug arrived, he laid a silver dollar on the bar, and told the bartender, “I’m looking for a friend of mine who comes in here sometimes.”
Eyeing the coin, ten times the price of Ryder’s beer, the barkeep asked him, “Got a name, this friend a your’n?”
“It’s Marley. Bryan Marley.”
Fingers edging toward the silver dollar, the bartender said, “He drinks in here awright, from time to time. Ain’t seen him in a couple days.”
“Just one more thing.”
“Wha’s that?”
“Are any of his friends around today? Somebody who could tell me where to find him?”
Lazy eyes perused the crowd of customers. “Nobody here I ever seen him drinkin’ with,” the barkeep said. “Some of ’em won’t be comin’ back, I guess.”
“Why’s that?”
The silver dollar disappeared into the barkeep’s pocket as he said, “They went’n got killed off last night. Lucky it didn’t happen here. You gonna drink that beer, or what?”
Ryder emptied the mug in four great swallows, turning for the exit as he waited for the alcohol to hit him, either clear his head or drown the idea that was taking form inside it.
Murdered friends. A number of them killed the same night he had followed Bryan Marley into Gerta’s for a showdown with Jack Menefee. Ryder did not remember Menefee himself among the men Marley was drinking with, the first time Ryder stumbled onto him in Galveston, but were the others members of the gang he’d fought at Gerta’s place? No matter how he racked his memory, Ryder couldn’t recall.
All right. Say Marley did have friends inside the rival camp. So what? Some of the gang had tried to kill him moments after others—if they did belong to Menefee—were sitting down and sharing drinks with him. Did it mean anything? And if so, what?
Ryder pushed through the swinging doors and stepped onto the sidewalk, pausing there to check his pocket watch. A slow walk down to Awful Annie’s should be just about—
To Ryder’s left, a window of the tavern shattered as a pistol shot rang out. He glimpsed the muzzle flash, across the street, then dived for cover, reaching for his Colt.
*
You missed, pendejo!”
“I can see that, damn it!” Harley Baker raised his pistol for a second shot, wishing that Tijerina would shut up and let him think.
“Mira! He’s crawling to el callejón.”
The alley, Baker guessed he meant. “I see him. Shut your trap and lemme do this.”
“Dispárale, cabron!”
The pistol jumped in Baker’s fist, its smoke obscuring his target in the dusky street. He knew it was a wasted shot before the Mexican beside him yelped, “Chinga! You missed again, estúpido!”
“If you say one more goddamn word—”
But Tijerina didn’t wait around to hear his threat. Instead, the slender pistolero bolted from the doorway that had sheltered them, running across the street to chase their target down the alley where he’d disappeared. Baker was slower off the mark—no great surprise, since he had eighty pounds on Tijerina, easily—and by the time he’d reached the alley’s mouth, both of the other men had disappeared into its shadows.
Bad idea, he thought, but had to follow them regardless. He’d been paid to do a job, and failure carried penalties beyond refunding the advance. More to the point, he’d made the deal himself. If he let Tijerina bag their target on his own, how would it look? First thing he knew, the Mexican would want a bigger share, or he might strike off on his own.
Baker scuttled through the alley, virtually blind, mouthing a string of silent curses as he scattered rocks and trash in front of him, making a racket that would wake the dead. This was supposed to be an easy job, just trail the stranger for a bit and pick him off first time they had a clean shot at him. Baker had considered going for him at the barbershop, but that meant killing witnesses as well, and nobody was paying him for that. His rule—one fee, one body—was as simple as it got.
Ahead of him, a pistol cracked, its flash some thirty yards away. Baker, already winded from his short run, held a steady plodding pace as he approached the spot. He wasn’t fool enough to blunder forward and expose himself to hostile fire before he knew exactly what was happening. That was the quickest way to die in Baker’s line of work, and he intended to survive the night no matter who else bit the dust while he was at it.
One Alfredo Tijerina, maybe, if he got a notion he could claim the whole prize for himself.
They were friends after a fashion, barely, but the money mattered most. And when you
got right down to cases, Baker figured he was just another Mexican.
Four shots remained in Baker’s Colt Model 1861 Navy revolver, and he had a second pistol—a .436-caliber Dean and Adams double-action all the way from England—tucked under his belt as a reserve. If all else failed, the handle of a Bowie knife protruded from the top of his right boot, for close work in a clench. Whatever he discovered when he reached the alley’s farther end, Baker imagined he was ready for it.
But it turned out he was wrong.
Nothing was waiting for him when he cleared the alley. No corpse on the ground, not even bloodstains to suggest that anyone was hit. No sign of Tijerina or the target, either, which confounded Baker, since he didn’t know which way to turn.
Damn it! He couldn’t match Alfredo’s speed, and now he’d lost his quarry in the darkened maze of streets. Without a stroke of luck—
Two shots echoed from somewhere to his left, the sharp sounds overlapping. Tijerina only had one pistol, so that meant their mark was shooting back.
Trailing the echoes, Harley Baker caught his breath and broke into a shambling run.
*
Ryder knew he was running out of time and luck. The first two shots had missed him, but he couldn’t count on hasty marksmanship to spare him if the chase dragged on. He had no destination yet in mind, but knew he couldn’t run to Awful Annie’s and the Marley gang if there was any chance at all of Marley setting up the ambush.
Why?
He couldn’t say and had no time to ponder the dilemma. Maybe Seitz had swayed him, though there’d been no evidence of that during the afternoon. Had Pickering the pirate finally remembered seeing Ryder on the Southern Belle, battling his men? And what would that prove, other than determination to defend himself? There was no reason for the buccaneer to brand Ryder a traitor or informer, but he might have noted the coincidence of Ryder turning up in Galveston so soon after their skirmish in the Keys. Was that enough to land a target on his back?
Maybe. He might find out, if he could stay alive and capture the would-be assassin without killing him. No easy task on darkened, winding streets when he was busy running for his life.
Ryder had made it to the nearest alleyway, ducked in, and picked up speed, stumbling and lurching over cast-off garbage hidden by the shadows. Every noise he made betrayed him, but he didn’t want to make his last stand in the alley, nothing in the way of cover for him if the narrow passageway became a shooting gallery. If he could make it to the other end …
Footsteps scuffled and scraped behind him, someone else contending with the alley’s litter. Muttered curses—was that Spanish?—also helped him gauge the progress his pursuer made, while Ryder tried as best he could to watch his step and minimize his noise.
Not well enough, apparently. A shot rang out behind him, loud as thunder in the alley’s narrow confines, and he heard the bullet ricochet off brickwork to his right. He ducked, a stupid reflex since the slug was already long gone, and quickly found that running in a crouch accomplished nothing but to slow him down.
He could return fire, but the muzzle flash would show his adversary where to aim unless he hit his mark by pure dumb luck, and Ryder thought the risk outweighed the possible reward. Killing the shooter, even if he managed it, would solve one problem while the other—finding out who’d sent him—still remained.
The alley’s western mouth was twenty feet ahead of him, a slightly lighter patch of darkness to his straining eyes. He tried to hug the nearest wall while moving forward, fearful that the gunman on his heels would catch a glimpse of him in silhouette and hit him on the run.
One final dash and he was clear, ducked to his left and stopped some ten feet from the alley’s entrance. Dropping to one knee, raising his Colt Army. Ryder braced it with both hands, since his right was trembling from the frantic sprint, pulse hammering against his ribs and in his ears. It nearly deafened him, but he could still hear someone drawing closer, stumbling, grumbling to himself.
“Chinga tu madre! Dónde estás, cabron?”
The footsteps slowed, then stopped completely, just inside the alley’s shadowed mouth. Ryder imagined his intended killer poised there, trying to decide if it was safe to move. Was it a trap? Would a delay permit his target to escape?
“Mierda!”
The man made up his mind, emerged, crouching and scuttling sideways like a crab. He must have seen or sensed where Ryder was, swinging his pistol into line. They fired together, Ryder wincing at the muzzle flash that nearly blinded him, hearing the bullet whisper past his left ear in the night. His shot was better, smacking into flesh, dropping the gunman on his backside with a solid thump. From there, groaning, the shooter toppled slowly over backward, arms outflung, his six-gun tumbling from his hand.
Ryder edged forward, not convinced the man was dead—hoping, in fact, that he was still alive and fit to answer questions if they could communicate. Ryder could recognize the Spanish language, but he didn’t speak it. If the shooter couldn’t talk to him in English, or if he was too far gone to answer any questions, Ryder would be left in limbo with his quandary.
Watching the wounded gunman’s hands, Ryder moved closer, knelt beside him, bending down to ask him, “Can you hear me?”
*
Goddamn it!”
That was English, but the words had not come from the supine pistolero’s blood-flecked lips. Somebody else was coming down the alley, wheezing with exertion, heavy footsteps drawing nearer by the second.
Two assassins, then. At least.
Ryder eased backward from the dying man, who’d sprawled across the entrance to the alley on his right. He had no way of knowing if the second gunman had already glimpsed him, but if so, the stalker wasn’t wasting ammunition on a risky shot. Waiting to close the gap, perhaps, and find out what had happened to his partner while he lagged behind.
The wounded Mexican gave out a final rattling gasp and died. Ryder felt nothing but relief over the killing, edged out by a mounting apprehension as the other pistolero shambled closer. From the sounds he heard, Ryder concluded there was only one man in the alley, but that didn’t rule out others circling around the block to flank him from the north or south—maybe from both directions, if the hunting party had sufficient numbers.
Stay or run?
He had a choice to make, and quickly. If he waited for the second shooter to reveal himself he would surrender the decision, maybe find himself boxed in with no means of escape.
Splitting the difference, Ryder retreated to the far side of the street and ducked into the recessed doorway of a shop directly opposite the alley’s mouth. The nearest street lamp was a block away, and he was confident no one could spot him where he stood, without a dangerously close inspection. Covering the alley with his Colt Army, he waited for the second shooter to emerge, while shooting glances up and down the street in search of any more.
It took a while—Ryder was starting to imagine that a beat cop might arrive before the gunman showed himself—but finally a hulking figure lurched out of the alley, swinging first one way and then the other with his pistol, seeking targets. Finding none, he knelt beside the fallen Mexican and shook him roughly, hissing, “Hey, amigo! Can you hear me?”
“I don’t think so,” Ryder answered from the shadows, still invisible, watching the big man over pistol sights.
The shooter jumped, tried scrambling to his feet, but slipped and lost his balance, nearly tipping over on his side. He caught himself, left hand outstretched to brace him, while he triggered two quick shots in Ryder’s general direction. Ryder gave one back and heard his adversary grunt as it struck home somewhere within his bulky torso.
“Agh!”
“It’s finished,” Ryder told him. “Drop the piece!”
Instead, the wounded shooter struggled to his feet, back braced against the nearest wall, and raised his pistol, obviously trying to home in on Ryder’s voice. He sent another bullet high and wide, thumbed back his weapon’s hammer for another shot, but R
yder beat him to it, aiming low as he squeezed off another round.
The big man fell then, as his wounded left leg buckled under him. Ryder hurried across the street to snatch the pistol from his hand and toss it out of reach, frisking the shooter in a hasty search for any hidden weapons. Finding none, he rocked back on his heels and used his Colt to prod the fallen enemy.
“Who are you?”
“Go to hell.”
He saw blood pumping from the shooter’s punctured thigh, a darker stain spreading across his rumpled shirt. That blood was nearly black, an inky flood.
“Maybe I’ll see you there,” said Ryder. “Looks like you’ll be going first.”
“The hell do you know?”
“I can see you’ve got a bullet in your liver,” Ryder said. “Call it a toss-up if you die from that or bleed out through your leg. I’d give you ten or fifteen minutes, either way.”
“Doctor?”
“I’m new in town. Don’t know one. Sorry.”
“Bet you are.”
“Tell me who put you up to this. I’ll make it right.”
“For … who?”
Before he had a chance to answer that, the big man gasped, his eyes rolled back, and he was gone.
*
Ryder considered trying to conceal the bodies, then decided it would be a waste of time and energy. The gunfire should have drawn police by now, although he heard none of their whistles in the distance yet. Whether they’d missed it somehow or were sneaking up to have a cautious look around before they showed themselves, Ryder was anxious to be gone.
He left the corpses where they’d fallen, hurrying along the street until he’d put three blocks between himself and his would-be assassins. He was overdue at Awful Annie’s now, uncertain whether he should go ahead or skip the gathering and see what happened next.
If Marley was behind the botched attempt to kill him, Ryder might be walking into a death trap at Annie’s saloon. On the other hand, if Otto Seitz had planned the ambush on his own, without Marley’s approval or authority, he might expose himself with an expression of surprise at seeing Ryder still alive. Something to drive a wedge between the King of Smugglers and his second in command, perhaps, if it worked out.
