by Ralph Cotton
“Twenty, thirty minutes at the most, Colonel,” said Strap. “Soon as we can get mounted, we can catch right up to—”
Cutting him off again, Elgin called back over his shoulder, “Bobby, you and Roundhead get up here! You’re scouting ahead for us. You too, Skimmer.”
“But, Colonel,” Strap said, “me and Vlak are your scouts.”
“Not anymore, you’re not,” said the colonel as Bobby Vane and Roundhead Mitchell slid their horses to a halt and waited anxiously. “I need scouts on horseback! You two are without transportation. We have no spare horses for you. I never thought any man of mine would be left without one.”
“But our horses will be waiting along the trail, Colonel,” said Strap. “Ranger Burrack said he’d leave them waiting for us.”
“Good, then,” said Elgin, “As soon as you reach your horses, you can hurry along and catch up to us.” His stare remained on Strap and the Romanian as he gestured the three newly appointed scouts ahead with his gloved fingers.
“Yes, sir,” said Strap. He noted the smile on Bobby Vane’s face as he, Roundhead, and Skimmer heeled their horses out ahead of the rest of the posse.
As if on second thought, the colonel’s gaze turned curious. “Did you say Ranger Burrack?”
“I did, Colonel,” said Strap.
“Siding against a railroad detective with Memphis Beck?” Elgin stared off in disbelief for a moment. Then he said, “Once you reach us, I’ll expect to hear the full account of what happened here. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said Strap as the colonel jerked his horse and heeled it away before hearing his reply.
“Vat ve do now?” Vlak asked as the posse rumbled away along the trail.
“What do you think ve do now?” Strap said mockingly. “We get our horses and catch up. I’ve got to settle with that ranger if I’m ever going to show my face again.” As he spoke his fingers drummed on his gun butt. “I’ve got to kill him…there’s no other way.”
Chapter 3
No sooner had the ranger and Memphis Beck ridden around the rock and out of Strap’s sight than they heeled their horses up into a brisk pace. They kept the horses moving quickly, stopping only long enough to tie off the detectives’ animals alongside the trail. Their next stop came when they’d reached a fork leading down to their left over a rise of rock. “We’re going down this way,” Sam said, gesturing a gloved hand.
“That won’t take us to Nickels,” Beck said confidently.
“I know,” said Sam. “But now that the railroad detectives know we’re heading to Nickels, I thought it best if we head someplace else.”
Beck smiled. “I like your thinking, Ranger.” He nudged his horse ahead of the ranger, leading the Wheelers behind him. “Where does this take us?”
“To Little Aces,” said Sam. “Ever heard of it?”
“No, can’t say that I have,” Beck said over his shoulder. “But if it’s got no railroad dicks hanging around, it suits me.”
“I doubt if we threw the railroad posse off for long,” Sam said. “I’m counting on us getting to Little Aces to see the sheriff by early morning, before the colonel and his men figure out what we’ve done and come riding in on us.”
“So, once you see that I’m not wanted, I’ll be on my way before they get too hot on my trail,” Beck concluded. “I’m obliged to you for that, Ranger Burrack. The railroad is not known for fair play.”
“Don’t be obliged to me, Beck,” Sam said. “I don’t work for the railroad. If you have nothing hanging over you with the law here, you’re on your way. That’s what I agreed to and that’s what I’ll do, plain and simple.”
“Yes, but you could have gone on to Nickels and turned me loose with the posse breathing down my shirt.”
“Not if I wanted to feel right about what I gave my word to,” Sam said.
“Oh? Even though you gave that word to a suspected outlaw like me?” Beck asked, knowing Sam’s low opinion of him.
“It makes no difference. I knew what you are when I gave it,” Sam replied.
Beck nodded, thinking about it. “But some people like seeing a good fox and hounds chase,” he said without looking back at Sam, “and not everybody takes giving their word so serious these days.”
Sam didn’t reply. He knew that everything he said was being scrutinized by Beck—an outlaw’s way of trying to get inside a lawman’s mind and hopefully gain an advantage on him should the need ever arise. But this was a game that two could play, Sam reminded himself, and what Beck didn’t seem to realize was that he himself had been doing most of the talking. The ranger smiled to himself and rode on.
An hour later the two rode back onto a wider trail and followed it around the side of a steep hillside. Stopping as they reached a clear view of a valley below, Sam nodded downward and said, “There’s Little Aces.”
They had come upon sight of the town so quickly, Beck, riding in front of the ranger, looked surprised and commented, “The place sort of jumps right up out of nowhere.”
“I suppose so,” said Sam, nudging his Appaloosa forward behind Beck and the two dead outlaws, “if you’re not expecting it.”
“I hope the sheriff there has no bones to pick with the boys from Hole-in-the-wall,” Beck said. “If he does I could still end up with Colonel Elgin’s railroad posse down my shirt.”
Sam didn’t answer.
“Who is the sheriff?” Beck asked, seeing that Sam wasn’t going to offer the sheriff’s name otherwise.
“Vince Gale.” Sam offered nothing more.
Beck sighed to himself and shook his head slightly, realizing how the ranger was putting him off. “Do you know this sheriff? Would you mind telling me what kind of fellow he is?” “I never met him, don’t know much about him,” said Sam. “He only took the job a year ago, after their elected sheriff got killed breaking up a street brawl among a bunch of rowdy cowhands. His name was Dillard Vertrees.”
“Dillard Vertrees,” said Beck. “That’s a name I recognize.”
“You’ve heard of him?” Sam noted a change of some sort in the outlaw’s voice. He wasn’t sure what it was. Beck seemed to catch himself and cover up quickly.
“Aw, you know how it is, Ranger,” he said. “In this business you keep an ear to the wind, listening to who’s who among lawmen.”
But there was more to it than that, Sam thought. The name had struck a chord, he was certain. But before he could find out more, the sound of voices, laughter, and hooves came toward them around the turn twenty feet ahead. Beck looked back to him for direction. Sam said, “Stop here, let them pass.”
Stepping his Appaloosa up beside Beck, Sam watched as three young men dressed in range clothes came into sight and stopped short at the sight of the two bodies lying over the saddles. “Holy moly!” said the one closest. “Look at this!”
Another young man, seeing the badge on Sam’s chest, nudged his horse a step forward and said to Sam, “Pay Rupert here no mind, Marshal. We don’t see many lawmen traveling through here. I’m Dennis Barnes. Ma pals here are Hank Lindley and Rupert—”
“He’s not a marshal, fool,” said Lindley, cutting the introduction short. “He’s a ranger. Arizona Territory, I take it?” he asked Sam expectantly.
“That’s right—Arizona ranger.” Sam realized that these were cattle hands from one of the nearby grassland spreads. “I’m Sam Burrack.” He nodded toward Beck, wondering if he should say his name and get the word spread among the ranchers that a famous outlaw had arrived in Little Aces. But before he could say anything one way or the other, Beck cut in and said with a tip of his hat, “I’m David Hite…just helping the ranger deliver these men.”
But the cowhands hadn’t seemed to hear him. “What’d they do?” Barnes asked, no longer interested in introductions.
“You faced them both down and shot them?” asked Rupert Knowles.
Lindley sat staring at Sam as if in awe. “Jeez,” he said, “you’re the territory ranger who killed the Lake Ga
ng…Junior, his pa, the whole bunch?”
“Yes,” Sam said modestly. He touched his gloved fingers to the brim of his sombrero. “Now, we need to be moving along. I need to see the sheriff in Little Aces.”
The three accommodated him quickly, moving their horses to the inside of the trail, so the ranger, Beck, and the dead outlaws could pass. “Obliged,” Sam said, giving them a nod as he stepped Black Pot past them, following Beck and the bodies.
“Holy moly!” Rupert repeated under his breath as the ranger and Beck and their gruesome cargo moved around the turn in the trail.
“Stop saying that, Rupert,” Lindley demanded. “You sound like an idiot. It makes us look stupid too.”
“Am I still drunk, or did we just run smack into the ranger everybody is always talking about?” Barnes asked, a little bleary and red-eyed from three days and nights in Little Aces.
“That was him all right,” said Rupert Knowles. “I recognized that Appaloosa stallion right off. It’s the one ole Outrider Saze rode up until Junior Lake and his gang killed him.”
“Yeah, that’s the ranger, but who do you suppose this David Hite fellow is?” Lindley asked.
Rupert shrugged. “I don’t know, some other lawman or citizen volunteer, I expect.”
“Wrong,” said Lindley with a sly and confident grin, staring at the turn in the trail. “He’s no lawman—no volunteer either, I can tell you both that much.”
“Then who is he?” Rupert asked.
Lindley didn’t answer. Instead he gave the other two a knowing look, turned his horse to the trail, and nudged it forward.
“Don’t pay attention to him,” Barnes said to Rupert under his breath. “He don’t know near as much as he likes to put on that he does.”
“Well, neither do we,” said Rupert. He looked toward the turn in the trail. “I’d give anything if we was just getting here instead of just leaving.” He called out to Lindley, “Hank, do you suppose we could—”
“Don’t even think about it,” Lindley replied without looking back at him. “We’re supposed to be back this evening. We’ve got cattle to deliver all the way to Spurrier come morning. Bad enough we’ve got to tell the ramrod that Omar quit short on us.”
“Dang it!” said Barnes, jerking his horse’s reins to the trail and nudging the animal forward to catch up with Lindley, Rupert right beside him. “Just when things start to look interesting. What do you suppose made Omar do a thing like that anyway? Who’s going to hire a cowhand that quit short?”
“I don’t know,” said Lindley, “but Omar told me he was just marking his time. He’s no cowhand, I saw that plain enough.”
“I’ll say one thing for Omar Wills,” Rupert commented, looking back almost longingly in the direction of Little Aces. “Anything the ranger does there, Omar gets to see it firsthand.”
“Good for Omar,” said Lindley. “We’ve got cattle needs tending.”
Emma had been right about the young cowhand. He did come back, she reflected, looking at Omar’s bare shoulder as he lay sleeping beneath the quilt on her feather bed.
She’d seen him lingering near the back fence later that first afternoon, his horse’s reins in hand—standing there in the evening gloom, staring toward her door. She had ignored him and closed the window curtains. Moments later when she’d let her hair down and brushed it, she’d returned to the window and opened the curtains with a bold sweep of her hand. But when she looked out this time, he was gone.
Good…, she’d resolved, after searching back and forth the length of the darkening deserted alleyway. But was that the last of him? She didn’t think so. Did she want that to be the last of him? She wasn’t sure.
Later, when she’d dressed for bed and idly walked past the window with a glowing candle lamp in hand, she’d heard a tapping sound and looked out through the curtains into the last waning vestiges of purple light. But instead of seeing the young cowhand, she’d seen the blind man, Curtis Clay, and his spotted dog walking along her fence toward his shack behind the livery barn.
She’d watched man and dog move along like ghosts, Clay’s walking stick probing its way along the picket fence. She’d smiled to herself, recalling how Clay had stood at her fence earlier after Wills had left for the first time. Clay had turned his expressionless face back and forth, his head slightly tilted, as if distinguishing what scent loomed in the air and what that scent might reveal to him.
But then the quiet tapping had stopped as man and dog reached the end of the fence and moved away into the darkness, to do whatever a blind man did in the impartiality of night. Closing the curtains slowly, Emma had stepped over and put her hand on the door bolt in order to lock it overnight. But instead of locking it, she’d stopped and stared at her fingers on the bolt. One year, four months, and six days…
Without admitting to herself what she was about to do, she’d taken her hand away from the open bolt and walked away.
In her bedroom, she’d set the candle lamp on a nightstand, taken off her night robe, and slipped beneath the covers on her feather bed.
Out front on the darkened dirt street, Omar had stepped forward when he saw the candlelight go out and murmured to himself, “It’s about damned time….”
That had been three nights ago. Now it was time for him to leave, Emma told herself, wrapping her robe around herself and sitting down on the side of the bed. Before daylight the morning after their first night together, she’d insisted that he go move his horse somewhere besides the hitch rail across the street from her house. He’d done so reluctantly. But when he returned he’d slipped in through the back door carrying his saddlebags, and told her he wouldn’t be going back to the ranch with his friends. Be that asitmay…
“Wake up, Omar,” she said quietly, shaking him gently by his shoulder. “It’s almost sunup. Time for you to get dressed and go.”
When he didn’t stir, she shook him more firmly. “Omar, please, it’s time to get up. I have things to do. You must leave now.”
Omar groaned and rolled onto his back. He batted sleep from his eyes and looked up at her. “Go where?” he said blurrily, rubbing a hand over his face, his black beard stubble.
“Anywhere,” Emma said, reaching down and brushing his hair from his eyes. “You’ve been here three days. It’s time to go.”
Omar stared at her in silence, his expression hard for her to read. Finally he stifled a yawn, ran a hand inside her robe, and cupped her warm breast. “Hey, settle down and stop being so nervous. What are you worried about?”
She didn’t move his hand; she didn’t want to move his hand. She gasped slightly at the feel of it on her skin. But she said, “I’m not nervous. But it won’t be long. Folks will know you’re here. It’s not proper.”
“Hang what’s proper,” said Omar. “Those folks can all kiss my—”
“I’m still in mourning,” Emma said, cutting him off. “I’m not ready to take up with a man.”
“It’s been well over a year,” said Omar with a playful grin. “I did some snooping around and found out after I left here the other day. You made it sound like your husband’s still alive, I found out he’s been dead a long time.”
“A year, four months, and ten days,” she quoted from the running calendar in her mind. She didn’t like hearing him say your husband, here in the room where Dillard Vertrees and she had slept—here in this most private place.
“That’s a long time.” Omar grinned. His hand left her breast and traveled down the length of her stomach, into the warmth of her lap. “Besides, I’ve got no place to go right now. I’m staying here until my plans start working out.”
She stared at him, wondering if he honestly thought he could move in here. “That can’t be,” she said more firmly, lifting his hand from under her robe.
“Like hell, it can’t.” He shoved his hand back inside her robe in a way that dared her to try pulling it away again. “I need a clean place to lay up awhile. I’m sick of dirty shacks and bunkhouses. I’d rather sl
eep with a woman any day.”
“I’m almost old enough to be your mother, Omar,” Emma said. “I’m glad you came here. But this is not something that can go on—”
“Almost old enough doesn’t cut ice with me. You’re sweeter than a ripe peach, being so long without a man to cool you down,” Omar said. “But if you were old enough to be my ma, so what? I like what you do to me.” He smiled. “The two of us under this quilt, nothing on, just your bare skin against mine.” He relaxed his hand and rubbed it up and down her side. “If you tell me you don’t like it too”—he smiled—“you know you’d be lying.”
“All right, yes, I enjoyed it,” she admitted with a smile, liking the feel of his hand on her. “But I have things that I must go about doing—”
“Shhh,” he said, placing his free hand over her lips, a bit strongly, she thought. “What you’ve got to go about doing right now,” he said, smiling playfully, but gripping her firmly beneath the robe, “is fixing me up a big ole breakfast…after wearing me out all night.”
She sat staring at him until he lowered his hand from her mouth and released his grip on her and drew his hand from inside her robe. “I’ll—I’ll have to go to the store. I’ll need to get some things first.”
“Sure, you do that, sweetheart,” Omar said, scooting up and resting against a pillow, putting his hands behind his head. “I’ll be right here waiting. Oh,” he added, raising a finger and pointing at her breasts, “be sure and get some canned peaches. I love sweet peaches after a big meal.”
She backed away from the bed and looked around at his boots on the floor, one standing, one lying on its side. A crust of dirt had broken loose from a heel and crumbled onto her clean bedroom floor. My God, Dillard, she said to herself, what have I done…?
Chapter 4
Town Sheriff Vince Gale stood on the boardwalk out in front of his office and searched the morning shadows still lingering beneath the deep wooden overhang. He’d made his early rounds while coffee cooked on the potbellied stove; his shotgun still hung under his arm. He held a steaming cup of coffee in his gloved hand, the collar of his wool plaid coat standing against the crisp morning air.
