High Wild Desert

by Ralph Cotton

  “He must’ve been a good scout, your father,” Sam said. He looked at Dankett as he picked up his sombrero and put it on.

  “Yes, he was,” Dankett said. But before he could elaborate, a knock on the front door drew their attention.

  Stepping over to the door, Dankett placed his hand on the bolt and looked around at the Ranger.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “It’s me, Deputy,” came a woman’s voice on the other side of the door, “Adele Simpson. May I please come in? I have some breakfast for Harvey.”

  “Let her in, Deputy,” said the Ranger.

  Dankett slipped the bolt back and opened the door. He looked around over Adele’s shoulder as she stepped inside carrying a tray of food, a red-checkered cloth napkin spread over it.

  “Thank you, Deputy,” she said, holding the tray in front of her. She looked at Sam as he lit an oil lamp standing on the desk. He adjusted the wick until light fell in a bright flickering circle around the darkened room.

  “May I give this to Harvey, Ranger Burrack?” she asked.

  Sam and Clow Dankett gave each other a look.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t bring enough for everyone,” Adele said. “Polly Corn, from the restaurant, allowed me to cook this. She is preparing something for the rest of you. It’s just that I’m leaving this morning and I wanted to—”

  “We understand, ma’am,” Sam said, stepping over to her. “Feel free to take it over to the corner there and serve it to Cisco.” He glanced over and saw Lang already up and hanging on the bars with both hands, staring at Adele.

  As Sam spoke, he raised a corner of the checkered napkin and looked the food over—eggs, hotcakes, gravy, salt pork.

  “My, my, Miss Adele,” Sam said, catching the wafting aroma of the food as he dropped the napkin back in place. “Losing you was the worst thing that ever happened to Cisco.” He glanced over at Lang and looked him up and down. “I suspect he realizes that by now.”

  Sam stepped aside and let Adele take the food to a feed slot and slip it through to Lang. The prisoner took the tray and walked to the far front corner of the cell, Adele walking alongside him on the other side of the bars.

  While Lang sat down on a stool at the bars, the tray on his lap, Sam walked to the other end of the cell, reached through the bars and shook Johnson by his shoulder.

  “Wake up, Toy, wake up, Randall,” he said. “It’s time to get you both up and out of here.” In the other cell, Teague and Rudabough sat up from their blankets on the plank floor. They stared at the Ranger in silence.

  “Huh, what’s that?” said Johnson.

  “Wake up, both of you,” said Sam. “I’m letting you go, like I said I would.”

  The two stirred and stood up, Johnson using a crutch Dankett had rummaged up from somewhere and given to him. They looked at each other.

  “The things is, Ranger,” said Carnes, bleary-eyed, “we don’t know where to go.”

  “Your horses are at the livery barn,” Sam said. “Get them and get going before I change my mind. There’s big trouble coming. I want you out of here.”

  “Is it trouble we can help with?” Johnson asked, leaning on the crutch under his arm.

  Sam just looked at him.

  “All right, let’s go,” Johnson said to Carnes. “We’ve lost our spot here.”

  As Sam opened the cell door for the two to leave, a knock on the front door prompted Dankett to open it for the cook, Polly Corn, from the restaurant. She walked in carrying a large tray full of food and a steaming pot of coffee.

  “Oh, good Lord, Ranger,” said Toy Johnson. “Me and Randall can’t remember when we last et. Can we, Randall?”

  “It’s been a long stretch,” Randall said, his eyes on the heavy tray as Polly set it on the desk.

  “All right,” Sam said, locking the cell door behind the two. “Get yourself some coffee and food first. Then get going. I don’t want to see either one of you again for at least a month.”

  “What about us in here?” Teague said from the bars of the other cell. Sonny Rudabough sat up holding his sore head with both hands.

  “It’s coming to you, Teague,” Sam said.

  “God bless you, Ranger,” said Carnes, already swooping down on a warm biscuit while Polly poured coffee for him. Through a mouthful of biscuit, he said, “I don’t suppose we could impose on you to return our firearms?”

  “Not a chance,” said the Ranger, stepping over to get himself a cup of coffee. When Polly had poured a cup for him, Sam carried it over to where Adele sat at the bars and watched Lang eat his breakfast, the checkered napkin stuck down in his open shirt collar, serving as a bib.

  “Your train will be arriving at the depot in a few minutes, Miss Adele,” he said.

  “Oh. So soon?” She paused, looking regretfully at Lang through the bars. “Then must I leave now, Ranger?”

  “No hurry on my part, ma’am,” Sam said. “I just wanted to let you know.”

  “Then it’s all right if I stay here a little longer?” she said. “The train will have to take on water and wood.”

  “Suit yourself, ma’am,” Sam said. “Deputy Dankett and I are going to take a little walk in a few minutes. I’m sure I can trust you here with the prisoner.”

  Adele only looked at Lang through the bars.

  In the other cell, Teague and Rudabough took tin plates of food that Dankett had passed through the food slot in the bars.

  “There’s still time for you to let us go, Ranger,” Teague said. “I might be able to save your life.”

  “You’d be lucky to save your own, once Fenderson finds out I’m not dead,” said Sam.

  “I knew we should have killed you the first time we laid eyes on you, Ranger,” Rudabough said.

  “Trying to make friends, are you, Rudabough?” Sam asked dryly.

  “I’m saying, if I get my hands on a gun—”

  “Shut up, idiot,” Teague growled at Sonny. “When you’re sitting in a jail cell, don’t be threatening your jailer!”

  The Ranger and Dankett gave the men time to eat. As soon as Carnes and Johnson had finished their breakfast and coffee and limped out the front door, Dankett led the remaining prisoners one at a time out the side door to the jakes. When he had locked Lang in his cell and watched him join Adele back in the front corner, Sam picked his Winchester up from against the desk and cradled it in his arm.

  “Everybody’s fed and had their coffee,” he said to the two cells. “Deputy Dankett and I have business to take care of this morning, but one of us will be around to check on you every few minutes.”

  “Sit tight and don’t do something stupid,” Dankett put in, swinging a bandolier of shotgun loads over his shoulder. “Or I’ll save a couple of these loads for you.”

  The Ranger gave him a look.

  “Sorry, Ranger, I’m trying,” Dankett said under his breath.

  Adele had started to stand up from her short wooden chair.

  “Ma’am, you’re welcome to stay,” Sam said. “Be careful you don’t miss your train.”

  Adele sat back down. She and Lang looked at each other through the bars.

  • • •

  Inside his Pullman car, off on a short length of private rails beside the New Delmar Depot, Hugh Fenderson stood putting on a long swallow-tailed coat as Oboe, Singleton and Harkens stepped inside the car door and stood waiting for him. Beneath his long coat, Fenderson wore a new hand-tooled holster housing a custom-engraved, bone-handled Colt. As the men watched, the well-dressed businessman raised the fancy Colt and turned it in his hand, letting them get a look at it.

  “I’m sure there’d be a few folks upset that I’ve had the Ranger killed,” he said. “I may have to promise them something—a new hay barn for the town livery perhaps. So, until I get these desert rats soothed down, everybody watch for t
rouble.” He spun the ornate Colt as he spoke.

  “Sir, begging your pardon,” said Chester Harkens. “But won’t you be carrying a shotgun, or a rifle at least?”

  “He means in case some of these people ain’t interested in a new hay barn,” Oboe put in.

  “Ha!” said Fenderson. “I know these people. A new hay barn never fails. Besides, I may be only carrying a handgun, but let none of you forget that I was the best pistol marksman at Harvard three years in a row.” He grinned, spun the Colt and slipped it back down in his holster.

  “Yes, sir,” said Oboe. “The rest of the men are gathered behind the operations car. Your horse is saddled and ready.”

  “Then let’s be gone, men,” said Fenderson. He placed a well-brushed Stetson hat on his head and walked forward with deliberation. The men parted and fell in behind him as he walked straight through them, out onto the platform and down to the rocky ground. He stopped and stared back along the train to where four more men sat atop their horses, holding reins to other horses in their hands.

  A signal from Oboe brought the four riders forward and to a halt, a tall chestnut bay swinging around sideways to Fenderson, ready for him to mount.

  “Since Teague did not say where he and Rudabough would be,” he said, stepping up into his saddle, “we will start at Polly Corn’s restaurant this time of morning.” He looked at the others. “I don’t know about you, but I could use some of Polly Corn’s fresh-made coffee.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned the bay and nudged it in the direction of the town sitting three hundred yards away. The men, nodding in agreement, fell in behind him and followed in a loose column of twos.

  “By all rights, it should have been me who killed that Ranger,” a gunman named Red Mike Sylvane said under his breath to the man riding beside him, a gunman named Dade Burke.

  Burke looked at him.

  “Why’s that, Red Mike?” Burke said in the same lowered tone. “Are you somebody special that the world just hasn’t heard of yet?”

  Red Mike gave him a snarl.

  “It just happens that I could have taken the Ranger cold. He’d have been lucky to get his gun out.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess we’ll never know now, will we?” Dade Burke said, sounding sarcastic.

  They rode on in silence through the silvery morning air until they reached a long iron hitch rail out in front of the restaurant, stepped down and tied their horses in line. As Hugh Fenderson started to turn and step onto the boardwalk toward the restaurant door, Sergio Oboe stopped him suddenly, drawing his attention toward the street.

  “Mr. Fenderson, sir!” Oboe said in a stunned voice. “Is that who I think it is?”

  Fenderson and all his men turned and stared as the Ranger and Clow Dankett walked toward them up the middle of the nearly empty street, a swirl of silver still lingering, adrift on the early morning air.

  Fenderson stared for a moment, his eyes widened in disbelief. Then his eyes narrowed; his face flushed with anger.

  “Teague, you lying poltroon son of a bitch!” he growled as if Henry Teague were right beside him, his fists clenched tight at his sides. He stood staring fiercely at the Ranger, as if he’d ordered him to die and the Ranger had disobeyed him.

  Seeing that his boss appeared to be frozen in place, Sergio Oboe took a sidelong step and stood poised with his rifle in both hands.

  “Spread out, men,” he said to the others. “It looks like Burrack wasn’t none too happy being in the grave.”

  Widening the gap between them, Dade Burke looked Red Mike up and down with a thin, smug grin.

  “Well, Red Mike, it looks like God does answer prayers. You get the chance to kill this lawman after all.”

  “You think I’m worried, Dade?” said Red Mike, taking a stand, his feet shoulder-length apart. He pitched his rifle to Burke. “Hold on to this for a minute, big-mouth. I won’t be needing it.”

  Burke caught the rifle and gave a chuff.

  “I could take your meaning a couple different ways, Red Mike,” he said.

  “Take it however you want it. I’ve got killing to do,” said Red Mike. He adjusted the front of his gun belt with the inside of his wrists.

  “Kill them both,” Fenderson said to Oboe under his breath. He looked at Tom Singleton. “You stay with me, Tom . . . lead the way,” he said, gesturing a nod toward the restaurant’s door.

  “That’s as close as you get, Ranger,” Oboe called out to Sam and Dankett.

  Sam said sidelong to Dankett, “Keep walking, Deputy.”

  “That’s what I intended,” Dankett said, sounding as fearless and determined as the Ranger had decided him to be these past few days. He carried Big Lucy at port arms, cocked and ready, the shoulder strap drooping from its walnut stock, two fresh reloads stuck between three fingers of his left hand.

  “I said stop, Ranger!” Oboe demanded.

  But the Ranger and Dankett continued walking, drawing a few feet closer until Sam knew they were in pistol and shotgun range.

  “Right here,” he said to Dankett; both of them stopped and stood ten feet apart.

  Oboe looked relieved that the two stopped, but he knew that was only part of it. Now he saw the Ranger lower the Winchester and let it hang in his left hand. He watched Sam raise the big Colt from its holster in such an easy, natural manner, as if to merely check it and holster it again before the fight started. But instead of holstering it, the Ranger held it down at his side and cocked it, ready to bring it up into play.

  Son of a bitch! Oboe cursed to himself, realizing the Ranger had just drawn first and taken the upper hand.

  Red Mike looked at Oboe in disbelief for letting the Ranger get by with drawing his Colt like that.

  “What the hell, Sergio?” he said. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Shut up, Mike! I wasn’t expecting it!” Sergio shouted.

  On the boardwalk behind them, Fenderson and Tom Singleton had just disappeared inside the restaurant. It didn’t surprise the Ranger at all.

  Chapter 22

  Seeing the Ranger and his deputy face off with the gunmen out in front of the restaurant, the early morning townsfolk along the boardwalks ducked inside stores and open doorways. Signs in windows turned from OPEN to CLOSED with a flick of a wrist. Wagon and horse traffic veered off the street into open lots and alleyways. A gangly hound loping along the side of the dirt street slowed and changed his direction at the sound of the Ranger’s voice in the middle of the street.

  “None of you have to die here today. Except Hugh Fenderson,” Sam called out, almost matter-of-factly, yet making sure Fenderson heard him from the other side of the restaurant door. “Pitch him out to me and you can all go home.” He knew they weren’t going to give up Fenderson. He called out to the closed restaurant door, “Hugh Fenderson, come out, do your own dirty work. Don’t make these men die trying to do it for you.” He wanted Fenderson to know the penalty for trying to bring about the death of a lawman.

  What? Is this Ranger crazy? Oboe asked himself.

  “You best learn to count, Ranger,” he said. “There’s six of us here.”

  “Yeah, but there are two of us,” Dankett put in. He swung the big shotgun down level to the gunmen’s midsections. “Three, counting Big Lucy.” The deputy appeared exuberant at the prospect of a bloody gun battle.

  “To hell with this. I’m claiming the reward,” said Red Mike, stepping forward, his hand poised near his holstered black-handled Colt. “Ranger, leave the rest of them out of this. It’s just you and me, here and now. We’ll settle this thing—”

  Without hesitation, the Ranger’s big Colt rose and leveled in a glint of gunmetal. The first shot cut Red Mike off as the bullet bored through his chest. A crimson mist appeared to hang for a second in the air behind him. Then a long string of blood ejected out his back, following the bullet, and splattered on over the fron
t of the restaurant. Red Mike Sylvane flew backward and landed dead on the ground.

  “Kill them!” shouted Segio Oboe, sidestepping toward the cover of wooden shipping crates stacked in front of a store next door to the restaurant. Even as he shouted, rifles and handguns had already lifted into play. Gunfire erupted; bullets flew from both directions.

  The Ranger fired the big Colt, hearing bullets zip past him. He swung the smoking barrel toward Sergio Oboe and fired. Yet Oboe, moving away, took only a deep graze on his upper right shoulder as he retaliated wildly.

  All of the gunmen returned fire, in the open, moving only grudgingly, ducking as the Ranger’s bullets whizzed at them. But when the cannonlike roar of Dankett’s Big Lucy picked up two gunmen and hurled them away in a tangle of bloody limbs and torn flesh, the gunmen broke ranks and dived for any cover they could find before the shotgun exploded again.

  • • •

  In an alley alongside the Number Five Saloon where the Coyles and their men had spread blankets for the night, the group had sat up bleary-eyed and listened intently at the first sounds of gunfire from up the street. But the double blasts from Big Lucy had drawn them quickly to their feet.

  “Good Lord!” said Sieg, the shotgun blasts resounding along the street above all other gunfire.

  “Dankett,” Oldham said flatly to his brother, Dave, standing beside him.

  “Yes,” said Dave. “Fenderson must’ve got here without us hearing his train.” As they spoke, they grabbed their rifles and ran back along the alleyway and behind the row of buildings in the direction of the gun battle. Sieg and Deak ran along behind them, Deak’s short legs pumping like steam pistons, yet still unable to keep up.

  At the alley nearest to the restaurant, Oldham and Dave turned and ventured forward until they could see the street around the corner of a building.

  “Whoa, look at this!” Oldham said, seeing Clow Dankett go down onto one knee, reloading for the third time as a bullet sought him out. Around the Ranger and Dankett a cloud of gun smoke loomed thickly.