by Ralph Cotton
“A prisoner?” The Ranger looked surprised.
“Yep,” said Bradford. “He claims he wasn’t with them, but I’m not convinced.”
“Where is he?” Sam asked. “I’d like to see him.”
“Right around the boulder there,” Bradford said. “With one of my men’s shotguns staring him in the face.” Without another word on the matter, he called out around the boulder, “Doody, bring our so-called detective around here for the Ranger to look at.”
“Detective?” Sam said.
“That’s what he claimed,” said Bradford. He fished a small badge form his vest pocket and held it out to the Ranger. “Found this on him. Probably robbed it off a railroad detective somewhere.”
Sam looked at the badge for only a second, then looked up as a powerful-looking horse stepped into sight, a handcuffed man sitting slumped bareback on the animal. A posse man with his arm in a sling rode right behind him, shotgun raised one-handed and pointed at him.
“He could pass for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster, if you ask me,” Bradford said.
Sam stared closely as the man lifted his head, revealing his face beneath a mud-streaked bowler hat. Sam saw the many stitches lining the man’s battered face, recognizing them to be his own handiwork.
“The drummer, Tunis Weir,” Sam said in surprise.
“A drummer?” said Bradford. “We found no musical instruments of any sort—”
“A hardware drummer,” said the Ranger, cutting him off. “I’m the one who sewed his head up. We were on a stagecoach together. That’s one of the coach horses he’s riding.”
“Told us his name is Foster Tillis,” Bradford said. “Detective for the Pinkertons assigned to railroad security.”
He looked to Sam as if for confirmation; Sam offered none. Instead he said, “Let me have him. I’d like to question him. If he’s wrong, I’ll see to it he cools his heels in a Mexican prison.”
“We were wanting to hang him in Trade City,” Bradford said. “But the Mexican government here frowns on some of our American customs. We didn’t see him with Orez when they robbed our bank—our buckboard bank, that is.” He sighed. “I’ll give him to you if you want him. Question him, then let him slip and fall off a cliff, far as we care. If there happens to be rope around his neck, that’s good too.”
“Obliged,” Sam said, staring over at Tunis Weir, aka Foster Tillis.
The battered-faced man sat slumped atop the big coach horse and looked away from him.
PART 3
Chapter 17
When the doctor had finished rewrapping Ailes’ head, and Ailes sat easily in his saddle, the posse finished strapping Freeman Manning’s body across the posse’s spare horse.
“Keep a close eye on that one,” Bradford warned the Ranger, eyeing the battered face of the prisoner with suspicion. The prisoner sat slumped, still cuffed, on the same rock Ailes had sat on earlier.
“I will,” Sam assured him. Looking at Ailes, he said, “Best of luck to you, Bob. I’ll be checking on you on my trip back through.”
“Best to you too, Ranger. I’m obliged for all you’ve done for me,” Ailes replied, Dr. Menendez holding the reins to the injured railroader’s horse, leading it forward behind him.
The Ranger stood watching as Ailes gave him a short wave of thanks and good-bye over his shoulder. Then the contingent rode out of sight down the path to the muddy trail. In the east, a low curtain of black clouds gave way sparingly to a streaked and red sunlight.
“I’m glad that’s over with,” said the man with the battered, sewn-up face, also known as Tunis Weir. He stood and held his wrists out toward the Ranger. “I expect you’ll be taking these off me now?”
Sam only looked him up and down, then looked away, back toward where the riders had descended the narrow path.
“How is your face healing up?” he asked.
“Very well,” he said. “Even though the Mexican doctor said he would have done a much better job. Said whoever did the sewing should not be allowed near a needle and thread.”
“Well,” said the Ranger, “he wasn’t there. I was.”
The man added quickly, “I don’t mean that to sound like—”
“What’s your real name, mister?” the Ranger said quietly, not giving him a chance to finish.
“All right.” He let out a breath, as if giving in. “For the sake of simplicity, it’s Tillis. Foster Tillis, just like I told Gans Bradford.”
“For the sake of simplicity,” the Ranger said, “I’ll call you Tillis, then, until I find out your real name.” He turned facing the man and held out the badge Bradford had given him. “Tell me all about this,” he said.
“I really am a Pinkerton detective, assigned to the Southwestern Railways,” he said. “Had we met under better circumstances, I would have told you so the night you sewed me up.” As he spoke, his fingertips touched his stitched face carefully. “Obliged, by the way. I meant nothing a while ago. I know I was in bad shape that night. Hadn’t been for you and that dove, Jenny . . . something or other.” He taxed his memory, then gave up and shrugged. “Anyway, I likely wouldn’t have made it.”
Sam listened and observed.
“Jenny Lynn was her name,” Sam said, refreshing his memory. “What happened to her anyway?” he asked.
“She’s dead, Ranger,” Tillis said, shaking his head in regret. “After all she did for me, I had to watch helplessly as the floodwater swept her away.”
“That’s too bad,” the Ranger said quietly.
“Yes,” said Tillis. “She was a dove, but she was a truly giving, caring person. I only regret not getting to know her better.”
“I understand,” said the Ranger. He noted that Tillis gave a guarded look at the two horses, the big coach horse as well as the roan.
“Suppose you take these cuffs off me, Ranger?” he said. “My wrists are getting sore from them.”
Sam ignored his request and changed the subject.
“How well do you know Wilson Orez?” he asked.
“As a detective, I know him better than anyone else who carries a badge,” Tillis said. “I know his habits, his methods, where he likes to hide out, his tricks for throwing off posses—”
“No,” said Sam, cutting him off. “I mean how well acquainted are the two of you? How well do you know him personally?”
“Personally? Why, not at all,” said Tillis, looking taken aback at the question. “As for us being acquaintances . . . huh-uh.” He shook his head. “I should take offense at you suggesting such a thing.”
“Why do you suppose he beat you so bad?” Sam asked.
“When I catch up to him, I’ll be sure and ask him, Ranger,” said Tillis. “Right before I kill him.”
Sam stared at him for a moment, looking him up and down.
“See,” he said, “I figured it was so when the stagecoach men showed up looking for their late stage, they’d have to take you back for treatment instead of going after him.”
“Well, then, there you have it,” Tillis said. He looked a little relieved.
“Except,” the Ranger said, “why not just put a bullet through your foot, or your shoulder? It would serve the same purpose.”
“Beats me,” said Tillis. “I guess he just wanted to beat the living hell out of somebody and there I was.”
“Seems personal to me,” Sam said. Again he looked the man up and down. He wasn’t going to mention that Dawson, the shotgun driver, had told him he saw Tillis walk right up and start talking to Orez; then Orez began beating him. Sam couldn’t make that right in his mind. But he wasn’t going to push the matter any further right now.
“Well, it wasn’t,” said Tillis. “And who knows why a man like Orez does what he does, in any case? Maybe to him it is something personal. Something you and I would never understand.”
“Maybe,” Sam said, letting it go.
Tillis raised his cuffed hands for the third time.
“I know you’re hearing me ask, Ranger,” he said. “Are you going to take these cuffs off me or not?”
“No, I think not,” the Ranger said. “I think I’ll let you wear them awhile.”
“But I’m not your prisoner,” said Tillis. “Am I?”
“Not yet,” Sam said, “but I’m considering it.”
He turned and walked over to where the townsmen had left a fire striker and a small travel lantern with a full tank of fuel oil. One of them had left a small pile of dry kindling he’d taken from his saddlebags. As he looked the items over, a small cloth bag of coffee beans caught the Ranger’s attention. He picked it up and squeezed it a little, then laid it back down.
“For God’s sake, I’m a servant of the law, the same as you! We’re fellow lawmen,” Tillis said, walking over to him. He held up his cuffed wrists. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because so far, I don’t believe one word you’ve told me is the truth, including your name,” the Ranger said. “Until I start to believe you, I’ll feel better seeing your hands cuffed.” He sniffed the bag of coffee beans. “It’s for your own good too,” he said. “If those cuffs came off, there’s not a doubt in my mind you’d make a run for the horses.” His look turned cold and hard. “I’d feel bad for a week if I had to kill a fellow lawman.”
“You’re mistaken, Ranger,” said Tillis. “It didn’t enter my mind that I might try to make a run for the horses.”
The Ranger ignored him as he gathered the items the posse had left for them and stored them in his saddlebags. As he prepared for the trail, he looked up at the breaking sunlit sky above them, yet off in the direction the storms had been coming from he noted the same low, swollen darkness on the horizon.
“You have no legal reason to keep me handcuffed or held here against my will, Ranger,” Tillis said.
“On the U.S. side of the border, that would be true,” Sam said. “But this is Mexico. I think the rule is, don’t get yourself cuffed to begin with.”
Tillis shook his battered head.
“I had hoped you’d be a man who listens to reason,” he said.
“I will. As soon as I hear some from you,” Sam said. “Meanwhile, get that coach horse between your knees. I want to get some ground covered today before these storms jump down our shirts.” He turned to the roan, gathered its reins and waited until Tillis climbed atop the bareback coach horse. Then he swung up into his saddle and motioned Tillis ahead of him onto the path leading down to the main trail.
• • •
When they stepped down from their horses at noon, they sat on a low bundle of rocks alongside the trail. The Ranger looked back, studying the oncoming dark sky that seemed to have followed them all morning.
Tillis looked up along a hillside to their right where large, land-stuck boulders loomed above broken stone ledges, shading piles of rocks that would be considered large by any other comparison.
Sam passed an open canteen of tepid water to Tillis, who took it gratefully and sipped from it, then wiped a hand over his mouth. As he held the canteen in his cuffed hands, he swirled its contents in contemplation for a moment.
“You know, Ranger,” he said quietly. “It makes no sense, us being at odds with each other.”
The Ranger continued to study the far sky and listen.
“You want Wilson Orez, and I want him too. We should be looking for ways to work together on this, make sure it gets done. The Southwestern Railroad has a bounty on his head. So will this stage company he robbed. I know you don’t work bounty, but whatever I get, I’m willing to split with you.”
“And how much would that be?” Sam asked.
Tillis smiled to himself, thinking he’d struck a nerve.
“Well, it would be half of whatever I get,” he said.
“I didn’t know Allan Pinkerton’s men worked for bounty,” the Ranger said.
“Public knowledge says I don’t,” said Tillis. “But the agency always gets a large portion, sometimes all of the bounty on an outlaw’s head. Being the agent who brought Wilson Orez to justice, dead or alive, I would receive a generous bonus out of that reward money.”
“Really, now?” the Ranger said, sounding interested.
“Absolutely,” said Tillis, scooting over a little closer, handing the canteen back to him. “And half of that nice fat bonus will be yours.”
Sam appeared to consider it.
“Let’s break that down,” he said. “We take Orez, dead or alive. Allan Pinkerton gets a bounty fee. He shares part of it with you, and a part of what he gives you comes to me?”
“There it is,” said Tillis. “What could be sweeter?”
“This could be sweeter,” the Ranger said. “I deliver you to the federales in Picate, tell them to hold you there and question you until I come back for you. But instead of coming back for you, I go take down Orez on my own, collect all of the bounty money for myself and go on about my business.” He stared at Tillis. “Sooner or later, when they decide I’m not coming back for you, they might turn you loose. By then you’ll be tripping over your own beard.”
Tillis sat staring at him.
The Ranger shook his head and capped his canteen.
“If that’s what it took all morning for you to come up with, I’m disappointed,” he said. He stood up and gestured toward the horses.
“All right,” Tillis said, standing, giving a shrug. “But this is a mistake, us not working together. I know where Orez is headed. How do you even know you’re headed in the right direction?”
“I know,” the Ranger said confidently.
“Yeah? How?” said Tillis. “What makes you so sure you’re headed where he’s going?”
“Because you haven’t stopped me,” the Ranger said, gathering his horse’s reins.
Tillis stood slumped in defeat.
“Let’s go,” the Ranger said. “You’ve got all afternoon to come up with something worth listening to. If not, we’ll be headed through Picate come morning. I’ll show you around your new home.”
They mounted and rode on, the Ranger noticing Tillis scanning the rocky hillsides every few minutes. Ready to cut the horse away and make a run for the rocks? Sam asked himself. No, he didn’t think so. Tillis, or whatever his name might be, wasn’t the kind to cut and run with handcuffs on. This man was smarter than that. He had more up his sleeve than a break-and-run, Sam decided.
The Ranger had something up his sleeve too. Tillis had no idea that Dawson had told him what he’d seen before the pistol whipping took place. Sam couldn’t picture the man walking up and talking with Orez. Talk about what? Only one thing that he could think of—money.
But that was all right too, he decided. If this was a detective gone wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time, and it wouldn’t mean he couldn’t work with the man. But before that happened, the Ranger was going to have to hear the truth come out of his mouth. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth . . . if Tillis believed there still was such a thing.
Behind them, as they rode along throughout the day, the dark sky continued to advance until, by late in the afternoon when they stopped for the night, the grumble of thunder and the flash of lightning had returned, preceded by a fine windblown rain. “Up there,” the Ranger said, nodding at a flat undercut ledge supporting the receding hillside above it. “The angle this wind is blowing, we might even stay dry for the night.”
“I sure hope you’re talking about a warm fire and some hot coffee,” Tillis said over his shoulder.
“I am,” the Ranger said. He looked at Tillis as they turned their mounts onto the rocky hillside.
They let the horses find their footing and climb toward the ledge, both animals appearing to know instinctively where shelter lay waiting for
them out of the rain.
“Did we get lucky or did you know this place was here?” Tillis asked over his shoulder as they managed to ride their horses all the way up and under the overhang. Behind them the wind grew stronger, the lightning brighter in the failing evening light as the two stepped down from the horses and led the animals farther away from the edge.
“We got lucky, I suppose,” Sam replied. He wasn’t going to reveal anything about himself or his trail-craft by telling Tillis he had spotted the overhang an hour earlier, searching it out for shelter when it was little more than a black spot on the hillside.
“Sometimes luck overrules knowledge,” Tillis said. He stood looking at his cuffed wrists while the Ranger took out the lantern and the dry kindling the townsmen had left with them. The Ranger nodded toward a blackened circle on the dusty stone floor where others had made camp under the overhang. Beyond it lay some limbs and brush.
“Get us some wood while I strike up this kindling,” Sam said. He watched Tillis walk over, gather the limbs and return with them. He laid the wood down and stepped back and looked at his wrists again.
“I don’t want to sound like a worrier,” he said. “But I hope Gans Bradford did give you the keys to these cuffs. I didn’t see him do it.”
“He did,” Sam said, listening closely and offering no more on the matter than what he’d been asked.
“Good,” said Tillis. He paused for a moment, then said, “And I suppose you have that key in a safe place, of course?”
“Of course,” the Ranger said flatly, listening, weighing Tillis’ possible reasons for asking such questions.
“Okay, I can see you don’t want to talk about it,” Tillis said. “So I’m not going to ask you where, because I know you’ll take it the wrong way. But suppose, through no fault of mine, something happened to you. Things being as they are, look at the fix I’d be in.”
“If I were you, I’d do my best to make sure nothing does happen to me, things being as they are,” the Ranger said, giving him a look.
Chapter 18
