by Ralph Cotton
The Ranger only nodded, staring out into the horizontal darts of rain, his rifle hanging in his hand.
“I want you to know that I hadn’t forgotten everything you did for me.” He gestured toward his stitched face. “Had it not been for the storm, I like to think I would have told you the truth about everything as soon as I got my senses back. The beating took a lot out of me.”
“I understand,” the Ranger said.
“I can’t say what I might have done had I managed to rest a couple of days and sort things out in my mind. But then the hillside washed away and I had time to figure out what to do. All Jenny and I could think about was staying alive. For all I knew, we were the only two who survived. I found my gun, I found a coach horse still alive. All I could think of then was going after Orez, getting the money and making things right.”
The Ranger looked him up and down.
“And now that’s what you’re doing,” he said, capping Tillis’ story off for him.
“Yep,” Tillis said with satisfaction. “And I can’t tell you how good it feels, doing the right thing. I got knocked off the right path there for a while. But now I’ve got things right in my head, and I’m back on the job.”
“That’s good to hear,” the Ranger said.
Across the barn, Jenny Lynn sat resting on a blanket thrown over fresh straw.
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m starving,” she called out to them.
The Ranger and Tillis looked at each other.
“I could use something to eat myself,” Tillis said.
“There’s a restaurant right down the street,” the Ranger said. “We can eat early, get a good night’s rest and be on Orez’s trail before daylight.”
“I’ll put the horses in their stalls,” said Tillis, turning, heading for the horses at the feed trough.
The Ranger started to follow, but he saw Jenny reach a hand up toward him for assistance.
“Ranger, would you, please?” she said. “Since it appears you’re the only gentleman here.”
“Of course,” the Ranger said. He stepped across the barn floor and bent slightly, his hand extended to her.
Jenny smiled and took his hand. In the instant she did so, the Ranger saw in her eyes the image of Tillis looming behind him, his hand raised, a wooden rope fid in it.
Uh-oh . . . It was a trick. Sam tried to jerk his hand away fast, but Jenny Lynn held on to it with a powerful grip. The Ranger tried to brace himself, realizing he was past stopping anything.
On the blanket, Jenny winced as the fid hit the back of the Ranger’s head and sent him falling toward her. She managed to catch him just enough to soften his fall. Then she rolled him aside and sprang to her feet. When she saw Tillis draw back for another blow with the tapered, top-heavy fid, she grabbed his wrist with both hands.
“No, Foster, that’s enough!” she said.
Tillis hesitated, looking down at the Ranger lying slumped on the blanket.
“Just one more, for good measure?” he asked.
“Give me that,” Jenny Lynn demanded, taking the wooden fid from his hand. She pitched the tapered wooden tool away. “Get his handcuffs. We’ll cuff him to a stall.”
The Ranger moaned on the blanket, already trying to regain consciousness. Through a watery veil, he saw the woman hovering over him. But he only saw her for a moment; then a heavy fog moved across his senses and she vanished. A moment later he came to, lying on the blanket, feeling his wrists being cuffed. He heard Tillis and the woman talking, but they might as well have been speaking a foreign language as far as he was concerned.
Through the watery veil, he saw the horses clop past him, their hooves awfully close to his face, he thought. He wanted to raise himself from the blanket and make a lunge for Tillis, but no, he told himself, that wasn’t the wise thing to do. He had expected something like this to happen. Now here it was. Lie still, be patient, he demanded of himself.
The roan stopped beside him for a moment and reached out with its muzzle to investigate. The Ranger felt it sniff his face all around. He felt it chuff and blow out a hot breath in his face. Then he saw it raise its head and walk away behind the other two horses.
This is going to be all right, the Ranger reminded himself, relaxing as he heard heavy rain splatter from the roof edge as someone opened the livery barn door. At least this was one night he wouldn’t have to ride in a storm.
• • •
When the Ranger awakened again, gray dawn light seeped slanted through the barn windows and the plank barn door as a child’s small hand gripped his healing shoulder and shook him. Pain coursed through the stitches in his shoulder. He opened his eyes and stared at the barn post his wrists had been pulled around and cuffed to.
“Ranger! Ranger, wake up,” said a grown-up’s voice standing over the young Mexican boy, who was doing the shaking. “You must wake up and have for yourself some coffee to clear your head.”
Sam batted his eyes and looked first at his cuffed wrists. As he stared, he saw the owner of the livery barn and his young son, Julio, standing over him. He watched the man stoop down with a handcuff key, unlock the cuffs and pitch them aside. Young Julio looked on.
“Why were you cuffed, Ranger?” Julio asked.
“Shhh, Julio,” his father said. “It is not something you ask a man the first thing in the morning.”
“It’s all right, Raul,” the Ranger said, sitting up, rubbing his wrists. “Did you mark those horses’ shoes good and clear like I asked you to? I didn’t get a chance to check them.”
“Ah yes, of course, Ranger,” said the livery owner. He reached a strong hand down and helped the Ranger pull himself to his feet. “You can see the file marks here.” He pointed a long finger at the hoofprints on the soft wet floor. “I file one X on the man’s and two Xs on the woman’s.”
“Good job, Raul,” Sam said, looking at the floor, seeing clearly the Xs the liveryman had filed on the front hoof of each horse. As he spoke, his head pounded with each pulse of his heart. “You mentioned some . . . coffee?” he said in a quiet, pained voice.
“Sí, come sit down,” said Raul. To Julio he said, “Go get coffee, my son, and a wet cloth. The Ranger needs to clear his head. I can be sure you will be going after the people who did this to you, mas pronto, eh, Ranger?”
“Oh yes, Raul, you can be sure,” he said, following Raul to a wooden stool, where he sat down and cupped the back of his head. He took the wet cloth when the boy reappeared and handed it to him. He accepted a heavy coffee mug and sipped from it as he held the cool wet cloth against the knot on the back of his head.
“How bad did it rain last night?” he asked the livery owner.
“It rained bad, like it has rained every day and night,” Raul said. “You will have a hard time finding the tracks they left in the night.”
The Ranger only nodded and sipped his coffee. That was all right, he told himself. He had a good idea which way they had traveled in the night. They would ride right up onto the high hills trail. He had no doubt about that. It was up there that he would need to identify their prints, once the rain had ceased, or at least slowed down for a while. Sipping the coffee, he stood up and steadied himself. Still holding the wet cloth to the back of his head, he walked toward the rear barn door.
“Let’s see what kind of riding stock you’ve got for sale,” he said over his shoulder to the livery barn owner. “The longer I sit, the sorer my head’s going to be.”
“Ah, it is always the case with these things, Ranger,” Raul said, following him to the rear door, hurrying ahead and holding it open for him. The two walked outside in a light rain left over from the night before. As they walked to a corral where seven muddy horses stood huddled together under the roof of a lean-to shelter, Raul reached out a hand toward the animals. The horses stared through the gray morning rain.
“Here a
re the beauties I have on hand for you today, Ranger,” he said.
Sam walked along, looking the horses over one at a time, until he spotted a black-speckled gray desert barb with a muzzle and jawline full of brush scars. The hard-boned little barb stood off to itself in the rain, just out from under the shelter. The horse took a step back from him as the Ranger put a hand out toward its muzzle.
“He’s not a friendly sort, is he?” the Ranger observed. The barb stopped retreating and stood still and silent for the Ranger to rub his muzzle.
“No, he is not friendly, Ranger,” Raul said. “He does not like people or pets or other horses, I think.” He raised a long finger for emphasis. “But he is from these desert hills. These storms have not bothered him. Perhaps he has been in storms like this before.”
Looking at the speckled barb as he spoke, rubbing its muzzle, the Ranger said, “I don’t know that there’s ever been storms like these before. If so, I’ve never seen them.”
“I have seen them like this,” Raul said. “They come and go and when you know they are gone is when you see a red moon.”
“A red moon?” the Ranger pondered, the wet cloth against the back of his head.
“Sí, a red moon,” Raul said. “It scares the old women and makes them weep. It makes the young ones act loco until it is gone. The Apache warriors say it is big medicine.” He made a tight fist.
“Big medicine in what way?” Sam asked.
“They believe all spirits, both good and bad, await to rise on a red moon,” he said. “Great men fall on a red moon. Other men become great in their place. Good men are harder to die. Bad men die easier. But all men who stand in a red moon will change, some for the better, some for the worse.”
The Ranger only stood staring at him, as if waiting for him to get the story out of his system.
Raul shrugged. “But listen to me, I talk about the moon and the storms when I should be selling you a horse. Anyway,” he said, “I believe this barb is a good horse for fifty americano dollars, eh?”
“He’s a better horse for thirty-five,” Sam came back.
“But still a real bargain for forty-five?” the livery owner said. He knew he was going to sell the Ranger a horse; it was just a matter of settling on the price.
“A real bargain for forty,” Sam said.
“Yes, or an even better bargain standing under a saddle and bridle for forty-five?” Raul said, knowing it was coming—waiting for it, waiting—
“Forty-five, and trail ready,” the Ranger said.
There it was. Raul smiled.
“Ah yes, trail ready, of course,” he said. “Follow me, Ranger. I have just the saddle for you.”
“Good,” the Ranger said. “I need to get on up into the Blood Mountains. The man I’m after is up there.”
“Oh, Montañas de Sangre?” Raul said. He gave the Ranger a wary look, but offered no more on the matter.
As they walked back toward the barn, the Ranger, holding the wet cloth to his head, said, “Tell me more about the red moon.”
“I hope I have not made you think I am foolish, talking about these old Apache beliefs,” Raul said.
“Not at all, Raul,” Sam said. “Lately I’ve taken a sharp interest in anything Apache.”
“Oh, you mean you are interested in Apache because you are hunting Wilson Orez?” Raul asked.
“How’d you know I’m hunting Orez?” the Ranger asked.
“Who else would you be hunting up there?” he said, gesturing in the direction of the distant hills and mountains obscured by miles of silvery rain. “Above the Twisted Hills, everything belongs to Orez. To him and the renegade Apachean Red Sleeve warriors.” He paused, then said, “Anybody who goes there will die, unless Wilson Orez says otherwise. It is his lair. Everybody who knows of him knows not to go there.”
“I’m going there,” the Ranger said.
“And the man and woman who stole your horse, they are going there too?” Raul asked.
“Unless something stops them,” the Ranger said. “I’m sure they’re already on their way.”
“I see,” said the livery barn owner. “That explains what I saw in their faces.”
Sam looked at him as they walked along.
“What did you see in their faces?” he asked.
“I saw only death,” the man said grimly, staring straight ahead.
“Look long enough, you can see death in anybody’s face,” said the Ranger.
“This is true,” said the Mexican. “But I didn’t have to look very long to see it in theirs.” He looked sidelong at the Ranger. “Be careful that their deaths do not become your death too.”
“I’m going to try my best,” the Ranger said.
• • •
When he’d wiped the wet, mud-streaked barb down with an empty cloth feed sack, he pitched a worn and well-attended California-style saddle atop its back and cinched it. The speckled barb stamped a hoof in anticipation and shook out its wet black mane.
“Don’t start right off rushing me,” the Ranger said, giving a quick rub on the horse’s muzzle.
Stepping into the saddle, his Winchester in hand, he buttoned his swallow-tailed coat and pulled a brown rain slicker over it, buttoning the slicker all the way closed and flipping up the collar beneath his hat brim. He pulled on a pair of leather trail gloves the Mexican liveryman gave him and tapped the barb forward toward the open barn door.
Rain from the roof splattered across his shoulders as the barb walked out of the barn into the blowing rain. Sam leaned in the saddle and followed the three deep sets of hoofprints with his eyes, seeing them fade away in the mud and rain less than five feet away. But that was all right for now, he thought, already knowing the direction the two would start off in.
The pair of detectives would go back along the same trail out of Picate that they’d ridden in on. At the main trail they would turn right toward Twisted Hills—toward the Blood Mountains, Montañas de Sangre, as the Mexican had called them.
Putting the barb to a light gallop in the rain, splashing through the mud, he noted that the animal made no more than a short reflex response to both the flicking slice of lightning and the rumble of thunder following it.
“Good boy,” he said down to the barb. He pulled his hat tighter onto his forehead and rode on, not stopping or slowing the barb until he reined it up at the T in the trail and looked off to his right, where he knew the Twisted Hills lay obscured in the silver-threaded rain.
Turning the horse in that direction, he touched his bootheels to its sides. But as the horse started to advance, he reined it up sharply.
“Wait a minute,” he said aloud to himself, holding the barb in check.
It is Orez’s lair. Everybody who knows of him knows not to go there, he heard the Mexican say to him only a few minutes ago.
What were you thinking? he admonished himself. Maybe the wooden fid had knocked him off his usual game. He reined the barb around quickly on the trail and looked off in the opposite direction. There was something about the wagon being where they’d found it that wasn’t right, he thought—Tillis and Jenny Lynn had seen it too, he was certain.
Beneath him the barb pawed at the mud and blew out a breath.
“All right,” Sam said, straightening the animal back on the trail to Trade City where they had found the empty wagon. “I hope you like running in the rain.”
Chapter 20
In the pouring rain, Tillis and Jenny Lynn had struggled with the large rock until it had finally come free from the mud with a loud sucking sound and lay half over onto its side. Some of the stitches on Tillis’ forehead had popped open. Pink-red blood ran down his face in the rain. His hair was plastered to his bare head. But he still managed to let out a chuckle of delight when he saw the bank bags piled under the rock where Orez and his two men had buried them.
“And here we find it, lying in wait for us!” he said. “Just like we knew it would be!” Laughing, he shuffled his feet a little on the wet muddy ground.
“Shhh, take it easy,” Jenny Lynn said in a lowered voice, trying to quiet him down. She looked around warily through the rain. Lightning flickered in the black sky.
“Take it easy, hell!” said Tillis, still laughing. “It’s ours, and there is nothing or nobody going to take it away from us, Jenny. Do you hear me? Nothing or nobody!” he shouted on the hillside above the trail where the Trade City posse had found the body of Freeman Manning with his guns tied in his hands.
Jenny Lynn shook her head and picked up the shovel Tillis had brought along from the Picate livery barn. She began digging a wider space under the overturned rock to better reach the bags of money stuffed beneath it.
Tillis watched her dig for a few minutes, standing with his collar held snug around his neck, the bone-handled Colt stuck down in his waistband behind his coat.
Seeing her stop digging and start tugging at one of the bags to get it freed up beneath the rock, Tillis sighed and shook his head in exasperation.
“Here, get up out of there,” he said, reaching a hand down to help her up. “Let a man do it.”
Jenny gave him a spiteful look but didn’t reply. She sank the shovel blade into the dirt, took his hand and stepped up away from the rock. The rock swayed back and forth a little as she pushed against it on her way to her feet.
Tillis gave a short smirk and stepped down where she’d been standing.
“We’d be here all day and night, as slow as you were going,” he said, stooping down, taking a hold on one of the bags and pulling hard on its string-tied top. “Jesus,” he said. “The rock’s got it pinned under it.”
“Why do you think I was digging?” Jenny said coldly.
“Blast it!” said Tillis. He put a hand on either side of the rock and shoved hard back and forth to get its weight moving and tip it the rest of the way over. As he rocked it back and forth, he grunted, saying, “What the hell is it going to take to get this thing to—” His words stopped as the big rock tipped slowly over toward him. “Oh no!” he shouted as he shoved the rock with all his strength.
