High Wild Desert

by Ralph Cotton

  “I hate this damnable place,” said one of the riders, a Kansas gunman named Chic Reye.

  “You hate every damned place that ain’t Kansas,” a gunman beside him named Karl Sieg put in. The three other gunmen looked at each other; one spit and ran a hand across his dry lips.

  “I allow there’s some truth to that,” Chic Reye agreed, eyeing Sieg narrowly, swishing a canteen of tepid water around in his gloved hand.

  Atop a recessed ledge, tucked back among more tall twisted rock—much of it broken trunks of ancient trees turned to stone—the horsemen fell silent for a moment, watching a long red spin of trail dust rise and spread away behind the oncoming stage.

  One of the men, a dwarf named Deak “Little Deak” Holder, finally let out a short laugh.

  “I don’t know about the rest of yas,” he said. “But it’s hard for me to be this close to a moving stagecoach and not ride down there hell-for-leather and rob it.”

  “I know the feeling,” said the leader, Dave Coyle. “But contain yourself for now, Little Deak. My brother, Oldham, will soon have us some robbing work lined up.” He held the reins to two horses, his own under saddle and tack, and a bareback buckskin with black stockings and mane, wearing only a hackamore bridle.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m good with all this,” Little Deak said quickly. “I’m always one for the making of light conversation.” He turned to the man seated on a bay beside him and said, “Ain’t that right, Blind Simon?”

  “Yeah, he’s a huckleberry, this one,” said the older, gray-bearded gunman, Blind Simon Goss. “Loves to converse,” he added. Goss’ eyes wandered aimlessly behind a pair of black-lens spectacles as he spoke. “Sometimes he carries on so much you sort of want to smack him backward.”

  The dwarf gave the blind man a surprised look, but then he grinned and shook his head. His hand fidgeted with a length of rope he carried slung over his shoulder, a small loop tied in either end.

  “Simon’s only kidding about that,” he said.

  “No, I’m not,” said Simon.

  But the dwarf ignored him and grinned as he looked almost straight up at the others towering above him.

  “The two of us have been riding together now the past six or seven months. If we didn’t get along, I expect we’d have already killed each other.”

  “Let me ask you something, little fellow,” said Chic Reye, sounding as if something had been on his mind for a while.

  “It’s Deak, not little fellow,” the dwarf corrected him.

  “Yeah, okay,” said Chic, shrugging it off. “What the all-fired hell are you two doing out here anyway?”

  “What are you asking, Reye?” said the dwarf, stiffening at the gunman’s question. He kept both his small hands near the butt of a Colt double-action Thunderer in a holster strapped across his belly. The gun, though a shorter model, looked almost as long as Deak’s arm.

  “Take it easy, Chic,” Sieg said beside him.

  “No, I mean it,” said Reye. “We’ve all wondered. I’m just the one coming up to ask. No offense,” he said to Deak, “but you’re not big enough to fart above a whisper, and your pard there is as blind as a damn cave bat. What are you doing riding this long-rider trail? Ain’t there a circus or something somewhere—?”

  “Watch your mouth, you son of a bitch,” Blind Simon cut in, his right hand gripping a big Dance Brothers revolver holstered on his waist. He dropped his horse’s reins and stepped forward, stumbling a little over a small rock that his tapping stick failed to detect for him.

  “Look at this,” Chic Reye said in disgust. “Pull your hand up off that smoker, blind man, else I’ll put a bullet in your hide.”

  “Let it go, Simon,” Little Deak said. The dwarf stepped out in front of the blind man in order to stop him, but Simon plowed over him, almost falling himself.

  “Everybody calm the hell down,” shouted Dave Coyle. He stepped over beside Reye. “Why’d you have to go and say something like that, Chic? The man’s blind, but Oldham said he’s a damn good gunman.”

  Reye gave a short disbelieving laugh.

  “Check what you just said, Dave,” he chuckled. “Blind, but a damn good gunman? He can be one or the other, but he can’t be both.”

  Before Dave Coyle could say any more, Simon stepped in closer, dropping his hand from his revolver but balling his fists at his sides.

  “I’m not blind, damn it,” he said, “leastwise not all the way. I can see shadows, images and the like.”

  “I call that blind,” said Reye, “no matter whatever else you want to call it, if all you’re seeing is shadows and the like.”

  “I’m not so blind that I can’t draw this smoker and burn you down right there where you’re standing,” said Simon, moving in even closer, his face turning back and forth trying to single out the sound of Reye’s voice in the strong constant purr of wind.

  “Ah, hell, I ain’t drawing on a blind man,” Reye said, settling down a little. “Forget I said anything.”

  “I’m not forgetting nothing. Draw, damn you to hell,” said Simon.

  “I said no, I ain’t drawing on a blind man,” Reye said, ignoring the blind outlaw’s cursing.

  “I’ll make you draw!” Blind Simon shouted. “I’ll spit in your damned face.” He let go a foamy string of spittle and wrapped his hand on his gun butt, ready to draw. “Now, what are you going to do about it, coward?”

  “Oh no,” Little Deak murmured.

  The rest of the men fell silent as stone.

  “Jesus, Simon,” Dave Coyle cut in, “you just spit on my horse.” Coyle’s dusty bay gave a low grumbling chuff and swung its head away.

  “See what I mean?” Reye murmured. He shook his head in disgust.

  “Hell, Dave, I didn’t mean to do that,” Simon said. He raised his hand from his gun butt and reached out for the horse’s muzzle. “Sorry there, horse,” he said, missing the horse, mistaking Dave’s face for the horse’s muzzle.

  Dave ducked his face away from Simon’s reaching hand.

  “Can you come get him, Little Deak?” he said. The men milled in place and looked away.

  “Simon,” said Reye with a tinge of remorse, “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, saying all that to you and the little fellow, about the circus and all.”

  “Where are you, Reye?” Simon asked, turning his head back and forth.

  Reye sidestepped farther away from Simon before answering.

  “I’m trying to apologize here, Simon, damn it,” said Reye, “to both you and the little fellow.”

  “It’s Little Deak,” said Deak, correcting him again.

  “All right, Little Deak, then,” said Reye, relenting his sarcastic position.

  Hearing Reye’s voice, Simon turned to hone in on it. But Reye sidestepped even farther way without speaking.

  “Stage is almost there,” said Sieg, drawing their attention toward the rise of red bluish dust drawing closer on the trail below.

  “All right, everybody mount up,” said Dave Coyle. “Let’s get down there first. My brother don’t like being kept waiting.”

  The men turned to their dusty horses and stepped into their saddles. Little Deak grabbed the rope from his shoulder and flipped one looped end deftly up and over his saddle horn. He stepped up into the loop with his left foot, into his stirrup with his right. Chic Reye and Karl Sieg watched him swing his short leg over the saddle.

  Beside Little Deak, Blind Simon adjusted himself atop his horse and shoved his walking stick down into his rifle boot beside his Spencer carbine.

  “There’s some things takes me a whole lot to get used to,” Reye said sidelong to Sieg, eyeing the two. “Other things . . . it ain’t ever going to happen at all.” The two turned their horses along with the others and rode away.

  • • •

  At the stage depot
on the valley floor, Oldham Coyle stood up from the space he’d cleared for himself on the rear luggage rack and shook thick red dust from the breast and sleeves of his duster. Rifle in hand, he lifted his hat from his head, slapped it against his thigh and put it back on. As the shotgun rider stepped down and helped four disheveled women passengers off the big Studebaker coach, Coyle reached into the luggage compartment, dragged out his saddle, shoved his rifle down into a saddle boot and shouldered the load. Dust billowed.

  As if from out of nowhere, a hooded four-horse double buggy rolled up to the four women and stopped with a jolt. Coyle stood watching, his coated face and mustache appearing as if molded out of red-blue clay.

  Assisting the women into the large, stylish rig, the shotgun rider shut the buggy door and turned to Coyle.

  “Stranger,” he said to Oldham Coyle, “we’re mighty obliged to have you riding our tailgate. As much trouble as we’ve had with road agents of late, I can’t seem to keep watch on everything at once.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Coyle smiled and touched his hat brim.

  “I’m Wilson Tash. I didn’t catch your name,” the shotgun rider said, looking him up and down.

  Coyle let his thumb fall over his rifle hammer as he looked back and forth between the women and Willie Tash.

  “I’m North . . . Joe North,” he said, seeing a weathered sign pointing north toward the main street of New Delmar. Oddly, he had used the name Joe North before. The fact that the sign had brought the alias back in his mind struck him as a good omen.

  “Well, Mr. North,” said Tash. “I want you to tell the bartender at the Number Five to stand you a bottle of rye and see me for its value.”

  “Obliged, Willie Tash,” said Coyle.

  A light giggle came from the women in the buggy.

  “Tell him to send you up for a tight go-round with Utah Della, and see me for the value, cowboy,” said a willowy brunette with a lewd grin and a smeared black beauty dot above her lip.

  “Oh, or with Lila too,” said another woman, this one a hefty middle-aged blonde with lips the color of calf liver, lipstick mixed with red silt from riding eighteen miles along a string of red-layered buttes through a hard-pushing wind.

  Beside the voluptuous blonde, a young woman giggled and batted her eyes.

  “Or, don’t forget Betty, cowboy,” she said. “You can ride tailgate for me any time.”

  “Ladies, I am nothing but, nothing but, obliged,” Coyle said, sweeping his hat from his head in a grand gesture and holding it to his chest as he made a slight bow. Then he pointed at each woman in turn. “Let’s see . . . that’s Della, Lila and Betty, and . . . ?” His finger moved toward the fourth woman, a small, fine-featured redhead who sat staring at him with a coy smile.

  “Don’t be wagging that finger ’less it’s the best thing you’ve got, cowboy,” she said. “I’ll whisper my name in your ear when you come see me.” Her eyes played up and down his dust-caked clothing, his face and hat. “Once you get some of this countryside scrubbed off yourself, that is.”

  “I can’t wait.” Coyle smiled.

  “Well, gals,” Willie Tash said almost sullenly, “you sure know how to pale a bottle of rye, I reckon.” To Coyle he said, “But the bottle is there for you when you want it. It’s no small thing, guarding a stagecoach when you got outlaws like we’ve got up here.”

  “Real killers, I hear,” said Coyle, touching his hat brim again and looking off toward five bands of dust following his men down the last few hundred yards of trail into the old Delmar depot.

  “Something awful,” said Tash, shaking his head.

  “Don’t forget us, cowboy,” said Lila from the buggy. “We’re getting tired of humping these rock crackers.”

  “I’d have to be a straight-out fool to forget you, ma’am,” Coyle said, turning away as he spoke.

  • • •

  At the head of the five riders, Dave Coyle slowed his horse down to a trot, then down to a walk the last few yards. When he reined the horse to a halt and turned it sidelong to his brother, Oldham stood up from leaning against a corral fence. The rest of the men sidled their horses in around Dave Coyle.

  “Well . . . ?” Dave asked. “How did it go?”

  “It went dry and dusty,” said Oldham, his face still coated red-blue. “How else could it go?”

  “I mean how’d it all go?” said Dave. “Did they believe your story, that your horse died on you?”

  Oldham grinned as he walked forward, spread a frayed saddle blanket on the buckskin and pitched his saddle up over the horse’s back.

  “They believed it enough it got me on the stage,” he said. “They’re so skittish about outlaws, or road agents as they called them, I even rode guard on their tailgate most of the way here.”

  “Did they stop at the Englishman’s mines?” Dave asked.

  “Yep, they did, brother,” said Oldham, drawing the cinch snug beneath the buckskin’s belly. “What we heard is true, the John Bulls are sneaking their payroll money in by stagecoach right now. They rolled in, set off a strongbox and rolled on. Nobody seemed any the wiser for it. Except for me, that is.” He grinned, his teeth looking pearly white against the red-blue dust caked on his face. He swung up into his saddle and sat atop his horse staring from one face to the other. “Boys, we’re fixing to become well heeled.”

  “Whooiee!” said Dave. “It’s high time I was struck by some solid good fortune.”

  “Here’s the deal,” said Oldham. “We ride in, do some drinking, get fed and bred. Tomorrow we ride out to the mines—collect the payroll money from the John Bulls.”

  The men smiled and nodded at each other. Little Deak bounced up and down in his saddle, his stubby legs sticking straight out on either side. Reye looked at him, then at Blind Simon, and his smile went flat as he turned and stared at Oldham with his wrists crossed on his saddle horn.

  “Not to take on a dark attitude, Oldham, but I’ve gotta ask, how much of a cut do these two new men get?” He nodded at Little Deak Holder and Blind Simon.

  “Come on, Chic, let it go,” said Sieg, getting disgusted.

  “Keep out of this,” Reye warned Sieg. He stared at Oldham Coyle for an answer.

  “An even split,” said Oldham. “Why?” he asked, sensing something brewing.

  “I don’t think they deserve full shares, that’s why,” Reye said bluntly.

  “Everybody gets a full share, Reye,” Oldham said. “What’s wrong with you anyway?”

  “Pay him no mind, Oldham,” said Sieg. “He’s had a mad-on off and on, all day.”

  “I said keep out of it, Sieg,” said Reye. “I still want to know what they’re doing riding with us.”

  “All right, Chic, since you’re questioning my judgment,” said Oldham, stepping his horse closer, “let’s see if I can make you understand. Last year, Simon Goss hid me out from a Colorado sheriff and a hanging posse at a place called Apostle Camp, up above Black Hawk. For that, I told him if he ever needed to make a run or two, let me know. So he did a while back. Now here he is. And I’m good for my word.”

  “I understand you’re good for your word, Oldham,” said Reye. “But the man can’t see.”

  “We’ve been through all this,” Blind Simon called out. He turned his head back and forth, singling out the sound of Reye’s voice.

  “He sees shadows and such,” said Coyle. “More important, he makes up for what he can’t see with his other senses. He’s got the hearing of a watchdog.”

  “Yeah, what else?” said Reye, sounding dubious, unmoved.

  Staring at Reye, Oldham called out over his shoulder to Blind Simon, “Point us out the best hot food in this town, Simon,” he said.

  The blind man sniffed the air quickly, then raised his arm and pointed a finger in the direction of the town sitting three hundred yards away.

  “
Any womenfolk?” Oldham asked.

  Simon kept his arm raised but moved it slightly to his right, stopping at three different points.

  “There, there and there,” he said respectively. “No shortage of females here,” he replied, “but you best like rose-lilac perfume. It smells like there’s been a cosmetics drummer through town of late.”

  The men all looked impressed. Reye only stared, not giving in yet.

  “What’s that restaurant serving today?” Oldham asked Simon Goss.

  “Rocky Mountain ram shank,” Simon said confidently, “all you can eat.”

  “Stewed or baked—?” said Oldham.

  “All right, Oldham, I get it,” Reye cut in. “I’m just a son of a bitch sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?” said Sieg.

  The men chuckled.

  Reye paused, then looked at Little Deak and asked, “What about this one?”

  Oldham grinned and said, “He’s not carrying that Colt Thunderer as a belly ornament. It’s there for a reason.”

  “Yeah?” said Reye. “Is he just fast, or is he any good?” he asked, looking at Little Deak through new eyes now that Oldham had vouched for him.

  “Both,” said Reye. “The best and fastest I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen them all.”

  Little Deak just sat staring at Reye with a thin smile that implied that every word Oldham said was true.

  “All right,” said Reye. “I had a right to ask, didn’t I?”

  “You did,” said Oldham. “Now you best put it away. I’m hungry. I don’t want to have to stop and bury you before we eat.” He turned his buckskin amid a low ripple of laughter from the other men and booted it toward the main street of New Delmar. The town lay obscure in looming red dust. Dave and the others looked at Reye, still grinning as they turned their horses and fell in behind their leader.

  “Damn it,” Reye grumbled to himself. “A man has every right to inquire on things pertinent to his well-being.”

  Chapter 4

  New Delmar, Badlands Territory