High Wild Desert

by Ralph Cotton

  “I’m much obliged, Cisco,” he said, shoving bullet after bullet into the Winchester. “I’ll give you some cover. You get yourself out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Ranger,” Lang said. “I’m here to help. I brought a rifle with me.” He looked all around for the rifle that had flown from his hand.

  “Here, Cisco, take Dankett’s shotgun and loads,” Sam said, pulling the shotgun strap and bandolier from around his back and shoving them to him. “He’s over there, wounded.” He gestured toward the open storefront. “Don’t shoot him by mistake.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Lang said, pulling the bandolier around his shoulder and gripping the shotgun in both hands. “Tell me what you want. I’m good for it.”

  “I’m betting they’re just as low on bullets as I was,” Sam said. “If I’m right, they’re going to break and run when we charge.”

  “Charge . . . ?” said Lang. A sick look came to his face. But he caught himself, swallowed a knot in his throat and said, “Sounds good to me.”

  • • •

  Behind the long row of buildings facing the street where the gun battle raged, Sonny Rudabough stopped beside a dusty telegraph pole long enough to look back and see if he’d managed to lose Oldham Coyle. But before his eyes could search the alleyway behind him, a rifle bullet thumped into the pole only inches from his head.

  “I’m on you, Rudabough!” Coyle called out. “You’re not going to lose me. You better get to that paint horse and get the gun loaded.”

  “Yeah, you running son of a bitch,” Deak shouted. Raising his belly gun with both hands, he let out a yell and fired it three times in the air.

  Sonny Rudabough cursed under his breath, turned and kept running, the empty Colt in his hand.

  But at the livery barn over a block away, even as the sound of gunfire roared from the street, Blind Simon turned in his saddle and tilted his head slightly.

  “Hold it,” Simon said to Dave and the others. “I just heard Deak yelling . . . heard his gun too.” He held the reins to Chic Reye’s horse in his hand, Reye lying low in his saddle, an arm around his stomach wound, which had been freshly bandaged.

  “You’re crazy as hell, blind man,” Reye said in a weak, testy voice. “There’s a gun battle going on. Don’t act like you . . . can hear through all that.”

  Karl Sieg looked at Dave, and Blind Simon turned his dark spectacles in Dave’s direction, as if looking at him.

  “Well?” Sieg said. “Do you suppose Oldham and Deak have gotten tangled up in all this?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dave, giving a troubled look toward the sound of the gun battle. “Oldham said get their horses and meet them here. That’s what we’ve done.” He paused, then said, “Damn it! What’s keeping them?”

  “Deak’s my pard,” said Simon. “I’ve got to go find him.”

  “Nobody moves. We’re waiting right here, Simon,” said Dave. “Just like I said we would.”

  “I’m not,” said Simon, jerking his big Colt from its holster, the reins to both his horse and Reye’s in his other hand. Before anybody could do or say anything, Simon spun his horse and spurred it in the direction of the gunfire, trusting the horse beneath him to see what his own eyes could not.

  Behind him, hanging on to his saddle horn, Chic Reye let out a long scream, bouncing, swaying, seeing the corner post of a building coming straight at him until, within a hairbreadth, both horses cut sharply into a narrow alley and pounded away toward the street.

  Dave Coyle and Karl Sieg sat stunned atop their horses, hearing Reye’s tortured pleading voice move away from them down the dark alleyway.

  “Jesus, God in heaven,” Karl Sieg said as if in awe. “I have never seen anything like that in my life.”

  “Neither have I,” Dave said, equally stunned. After a second he shook his head as if to clear it. “We better go stop them. There’s no telling where they’ll end up.”

  • • •

  At the far end of the alley, on the street, the Ranger and Lang heard the sound of the two horses’ hooves behind them as they advanced, firing fast and furiously on the bullet-chewed front of Polly Corn’s restaurant. Shooting the Winchester from his hip, the Ranger had taken them closer, noting the waning intensity of return fire from Fenderson’s gunmen. Beside him fifteen feet away, Lang had fired blast upon blast from Big Lucy, each shot lifting chunks of wood from both building and boardwalk. From the rear of Polly Corn’s, three gunmen scurried away across the sand like fleeing rats.

  “That’s it, I’m out of loads,” Lang said, blood running down his forearm from a bullet wound.

  “What’s this?” Sam said, turning with his rifle as the horses rounded into sight out of the alley.

  “Yiiii-hiii!” Blind Simon shouted, his Colt blazing away at anything in front of him. Sam started to take aim and fire his Winchester. Yet, upon seeing Simon’s shots flying wild, he backed away to the side, Lang following suit.

  The two riders raced past them, Reye looking over at them wide-eyed in terror. A loud scream, “Heeelp meeee!” resounded from his gaping mouth.

  From the front of Polly Corn’s restaurant, a shot rang out. The Ranger swung his Winchester around and fired, knocking Sergio Oboe back inside the open front doorway, but not before Oboe’s rifle shot lifted Lang and hurled him to the ground. Sam raced the fifteen feet between them and stooped down beside Lang.

  “It’s my leg,” Lang said, gripping his calf just below his knee.

  Even with his leg wound, Lang looked back quickly with the Ranger toward the sound of the two sets of pounding hooves. Reye screamed again, this time as both horses veered hard when a rifle shot from a fleeing gunman struck up dirt at their hooves.

  Blind Simon managed to straighten his horse, but in doing so the reins to Reye’s horse slipped from his hand. Simon’s horse pounded on, but Reye’s mount had veered too sharply and, unable to right itself in time, the animal crashed through the large window of an apothecary store and lost its rider to a low ceiling beam. The Ranger and Lang saw the clapboard building tremble and spill dust from its window ledges and framework as Reye met the beam broad-faced. His horse thundered on, plowing along a gantlet of shelves, large earthen herb jars and glass medicine bottles, until the frightened animal crashed out the back door and kept running.

  “What do you . . . suppose all that was, Ranger?” Lang asked, gripping his wounded calf.

  “I won’t try to guess,” Sam said, loosening his bandana and tying it around Lang’s calf wound. He looked down the street and saw Adele running toward them, the doctor right beside her. “Here comes the doctor, Cisco. You’re going to be okay. Tell him to see about Dankett being inside over there.”

  “No need seeing about me,” Dankett called out in a weak and strained voice. He limped forward from the open storefront. “I’m harder to kill than a gallon of turpentine.” He held a hand pressed to his bloody, wounded side. “Where’s Big Lucy?” he asked. Seeing the shotgun lying beside Lang, he reached down, snatched it up and gave Lang a hard stare, as if Lang had designs on his long-barreled wench. Straightening, he wobbled weakly in place.

  As the doctor and Adele ran in, Sam looped Dankett’s arm across his shoulders. The woman and Dr. Starr helped Lang to his feet and steadied him between them.

  The wounded and the weary began to walk the length of the wide dirt street to Dr. Starr’s office. A few townsfolk ventured out from doorways and stores and began to gather and stare, until a shot from behind the row of buildings on the other side of the street sent most of the onlookers back toward cover.

  “You best go check that out, Ranger,” Dankett said beside Sam. He lowered his arm from around Sam’s shoulders and leaned on Big Lucy for support. “I’ll get to the doctor all right by myself.”

  Chapter 24

  Sonny Rudabough had made it thirty yards farther along a walkway
behind the buildings lining the dirt street. He’d only slowed down long enough to listen to the gunfire die down and question whether or not to make a run for it, grab a horse from a hitch rail and get out of town. But as he stood contemplating his next move, another rifle shot exploded. This time the bullet struck the ground an inch from his boot.

  “The next place you stop is where you’ll die, Rudabough,” Oldham Coyle called out, unseen, somewhere along the back of the row of buildings. “Get to the horse and get yourself some bullets. That’s the only chance you’ve got.”

  Okay, you son of a bitch. . . .

  If Oldham Coyle wanted a gunfight bad enough to leave him bullets and a horse to ride away on afterward, he’d oblige him, Sonny Rudabough thought—damn right he would. From the sound of the fighting on the street, he figured the Ranger was dead by now anyway. The Ranger dead, Teague dead . . . It was all right by him. He smiled a little, turned and ran toward the rear of the Number Five Saloon, keeping close to the backs of the buildings for cover.

  When he could see clearly that there was no paint horse standing in sight behind the saloon, he ventured away from the buildings and stepped out of cover, still looking all around.

  Damn it, why did Coyle do this? Anger began boiling inside him. To hell with Coyle, he wasn’t playing this stupid game of his.

  “There’s no damn paint horse back here, Coyle. No damn bullets either!” he shouted.

  A shot rang out near Rudabough’s feet, forcing him to jump to the side.

  “I lied about the paint horse and the bullets, Sonny,” Oldham called out. “I just wanted to get you here without dragging you by your boots after I kill you.”

  “What are you trying to pull here?” Rudabough looked all around, seeing the abandoned public ditch twenty feet away. Uh-oh . . .

  “I’m not pulling nothing, Sonny,” Oldham called out. “Nothing except this trigger.”

  Another shot exploded, this one almost hitting his foot. Sonny jumped farther away. He bolted a few feet in reflex, then stopped, cursing himself for moving closer to the public ditch. The smell of waste, of putrefaction, already drifted up, surrounding him, pressing him into a dark, rancid vapor.

  “I see what you’re doing, Coyle,” he shouted. “But I’m not going any closer. This is far enough for me. You want to kill me, go ahead. But you’ll have to do it right here—”

  His words were cut short as another shot exploded; the bullet grazed the edge of his boot’s sole. Instinctively he bolted again. He stopped a few feet away and looked at the edge of the ditch only ten feet from him.

  “Damn you to hell, Coyle!” he shouted. “I’m walking away!” He spread his hands, dropped the empty gun to the ground. “You want to kill an unarmed man, go ahead. I’m not going over that edge, you son of a—”

  The rifle rang out again; the bullet thumped high into his right shoulder, spun him half around. He stopped himself, staggering in place. He started to shout again, but before he could, the next bullet hit him high in his left shoulder and he spun another half turn, this time in the opposite direction.

  His boot soles rocked back and forth on the edge of the black, odorous ditch. Huh-uh, this isn’t going to happen. Not to him, he told himself. With both shoulders bleeding badly, his arms hanging limp, he started to take a step forward; but the next shot hit him dead center. He fell backward, did a stiff flip, then a bounce, a short slide through something dark and slimy, then another flip and a facedown landing—a scream cut short by a loud wet slap.

  Oldham stepped out of the dark shade of a building and levered a fresh round into his rifle chamber. He walked forward and looked down, seeing Rudabough struggling to come unstuck from a large puddle of human waste. Taking his time, he stooped and picked up his empty Colt, which Rudabough had discarded. Oldham watched the wounded man struggle with useless arms while he took bullets from his gun belt, reloaded the Colt and shoved it down in his holster. In the ditch, Sonny finally managed to free his face and swing it back and forth, making some strange, muffled sound. Then he dropped his face again with a splat, as if into some horrible yet irresistible stew.

  All right, that’ll do.

  “Just wanted you to know . . . ,” Oldham murmured under his breath, raising his rifle, taking aim as Sonny’s boots kicked and dug in the dark waste matter.

  The rifle bucked against Oldham’s shoulder; Sonny’s boots fell limp, as did the rest of him, the shot still echoing out across rock and desert lands.

  “Good Lord, brother,” Dave Coyle said behind Oldham, startling him for one reflex second. Oldham turned with the smoking rifle still raised. But he lowered it, seeing Dave and Sieg staring down at Rudabough’s body lying half buried in waste. “I would not have gone along with this, had I known.”

  “Then be glad I didn’t tell you,” Oldham said, letting his rifle hang in his hand. “This meant more to me than killing the Ranger. I suspect that means I show little promise as a hired killer.” He looked at Sieg, who was still staring down at Rudabough’s body with a sour, twisted look on his face.

  “You got something to say about this, Karl?” he asked.

  Sieg looked at Oldham, at the rifle in his hand.

  “Hell no!” he said quickly. “If I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t say so standing here.” He stared at Oldham for a second longer, then stifled a laugh until he saw how it would be taken.

  Oldham chuckled under his breath, shook his head and looked away.

  Finally Dave let out a breath and gave a short laugh himself.

  “All right,” he said. “Unless you want to stick around and watch Rudabough sink, let’s go chase Simon and Reye down if we can find them. I’ve got a feeling Reye won’t be leaving with us. I saw his horse wandering the streets.”

  Oldham nodded, looking all around. “Deak’s around here somewhere. He had a hard time keeping up.”

  “I’m over here,” Deak Holder called out, running from the alleyway leading to the street where their horses were standing. “I just saw Chic Reye lying dead in a drugstore. The poor bastard.” He kept himself from grinning. “I saw the Ranger too. He’s coming this way. You want to kill him, boss, here’s your chance.”

  Dave gave his brother a look, seeing excitement flash across his eyes. But he waited and watched the excitement finally give way to good sense.

  “I don’t want to kill the Ranger,” Oldham said. “The man has never done anything to me. There’s something doesn’t seem right about killing a man just for money.” He looked embarrassed and said, “I let the oddsmaking and the sport of it get the better of me for a while. But I’m over it now.” He looked at the three men, at the expressions on their faces. “Let’s get over to Colorado, find ourselves something to rob.”

  As Oldham and his men turned to walk to the alleyway where their horses stood waiting, the Ranger lowered his Winchester from the corner of a building where he’d been supporting it.

  Good decision, Coyle, he thought, hearing Oldham’s plans, realizing his death was no longer a part of them. He let out a breath, knowing that from here, his bullet would have lifted the top of the gunman’s head off.

  He had followed the dwarf closely through the alleyway and stood with his rifle aimed and ready, listening to what Oldham had to say. Having heard it, he backed away, rifle in hand, and rubbed a gloved hand across a skittish horse’s side, keeping it settled until he’d slipped past them and backed away into the black shadow of a side doorway.

  • • •

  It was nearing noon when Tom Singleton and Hugh Fenderson heard the knock on the Pullman car door. Fenderson half rose from behind his desk, a look of fear in his red-rimmed eyes. He jerked the cigar from between his lips.

  “Who the hell might this be, Tom?” he said.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, sir,” Singleton said, lifting his Colt from its holster as he walked to the door. “I’ve got you cove
red here.”

  None of the three men who had run away from Polly Corn’s restaurant after the gun battle had returned to the train. Knowing he sat unprotected, down to one gunman, had Hugh Fenderson unnerved. The railroad men it took to run the train were not gunmen, and they made no pretense at being skilled as such. While he waited for the train to get moving, Fenderson sat at his desk with a shiny, engraved Winchester rifle lying to his right, the elaborate Colt to his left.

  “Who’s there?” Singleton asked, his face close to the edge of the door.

  “Arizona Ranger Sam Burrrack,” came the reply.

  Singleton and Fenderson gave each other a stunned look from across the Pullman car. Neither of them had expected this.

  “Stall him!” Fenderson said in a lowered voice as he rounded the desk, picking up the rifle on his way.

  Stall him? Singleton stared at his boss, seeing him become more and more rattled by this Ranger.

  “Uh . . . just a minute, Ranger,” Singleton said, huddled up next to the edge of the door. Fenderson stood close beside him, both of them staring at the door.

  Neither of them saw the Ranger raise a leg over the edge of the open window behind Fenderson’s desk and climb inside. He stood for a moment listening, watching the two men, his Colt out, cocked and ready.

  Fenderson pointed at the dressing screen, motioning for Singleton to get behind it and wait in ambush. Sam kept his Colt on Singleton just in case, and watched the gunman slip along the other side of the room and step out of sight behind the screen.

  At the door, Fenderson took a deep breath and swung the door open, rifle in hand. Expecting the Ranger, he started to say something. But he stopped and stood staring at the empty platform.

  “He’s not here!” he said, surprised. “The hell is this?”

  Swinging the door shut, Fenderson turned back toward his desk and saw the Ranger staring at him from above his aimed Colt. He started to call out and warn Singleton, yet before he could speak, he saw a streak of gunmetal as the Colt turned in the Ranger’s hand and fired three shots through the thin dressing screen.