Riding Shotgun

by William W. Johnstone

  Muldoon, dressed in a blue sailor coat decorated with two rows of silver buttons that gave him his name, reappeared, Ryan’s Greener under his arm, gun leather and duds thrown over his shoulder.

  “Jim says you don’t owe him a damned thing and I got your three dollars back from the whore he said you was with this morning since services were not rendered,” he said. “Now get dressed and saddle your hoss. Did you remember we got a stage to pick up in Fort Concho?”

  * * *

  Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon rode out of town, dodging rocks thrown by four highly irritated whores led by Dolly Barnes who yelled at Red that he was dirty, no-good, low down . . .

  Ryan agreed with what the women called him, but the dirty part hurt.

  He and Buttons reached Fort Concho three days later.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Throughout its twenty-two-year history, construction never ended at Fort Concho, and the day Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon rode in under a black, growling sky, the post consisted of forty buildings on forty acres surrounded by a vast wilderness of flat, treeless prairie. The buffalo soldiers of the 10th Cavalry occupied the fort, commanded by Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson, a stern man who’d never recovered from his grief over the death of his twelve-year-old daughter, who’d died in an upstairs bedroom of one of the houses at the post.

  Red and Buttons rode past the sutler’s store, the bakery, and the blacksmith’s shop to the sandstone headquarters building. A Patterson & Son stage was parked a distance away, brought there by a relief driver a few days before.

  Muldoon stopped to inspect the coach and Ryan swung from the saddle and looped his horse to the hitch rail. He looked around at the scouts coming and going across the parade ground, recognizing big Tam McLeod, who’d scouted for Grierson during the colonel’s successful 1880 campaign against Victorio that had ended the Apache threat to West Texas.

  “Tam!” Red yelled, waving.

  The big man stopped, turned, and looked at Ryan and shook his head. “Hell, I heard you was dead!” he hollered. “And buried.”

  “Not yet,” Ryan called back. “I’m still aboveground.”

  “I see you got a bullet hole in that fancy hat of your’n,” McLeod said.

  “Long story,” Red said.

  The scout, looking more Indian than white man in greasy buckskins and feathered hat, walked up to Red and said, “All right, I got two versions of the happy story of your demise. One is that a jealous husband caught you in bed with his wife and shot you through and through with a pepperbox pistol. The second was that you was hung for a hoss thief in El Paso a year ago by Dallas Stoudenmire. Now which one o’ them is true?”

  “Neither, Tam, since I’m still alive and kicking.”

  “Well, that’s surely a sore disappointment. Ain’t it?”

  Ryan watched an eight-man patrol commanded by a boy second lieutenant ride out, their accoutrements jingling, a Pima wearing the blue headband of an army scout ahead of them.

  “What’s going on, Tam?” Red said. He and the scout went back a ways, and his smile showed that he held no ill will in regard to the big man’s chagrin that he was still breathing.

  “The Apaches are out. The colonel is bringing in the settlers, them that will come anyway.”

  “I thought Victorio’s death had ended all that warpath stuff.”

  “And you’re not alone, so did a lot of people. For the past two months, there’s been a heap of coming and going around the Mescalero wickiups and then a couple of weeks ago about twenty young Chiricahua loiterers left the San Carlos and were welcomed by the Mescalero with open arms.”

  “How many hostiles are we talking about, Tam?”

  “Counting both Mescalero and Chiricahua, about fifty, all of them young bucks, and they’re already playing hob. So far, they’ve murdered twenty-seven Americans, settlers, miners, army supply train escorts and the like, and that number is likely to grow before the army catches up with them.”

  “Who is leading the broncos? Old Nana? Or is Loco still alive?”

  “Yeah, Loco is still alive, but him and Nana are in Mexico where the pickings are easy, and they ain’t likely to raid north of the Rio Grande again. This present bunch is led by a young war chief who calls himself Ilesh. In Apache that means Lord of the Earth. From what the Pima scouts tell me, Victorio’s spirit came to Ilesh in a great dream and promised him that if he led the united Apache tribes in battle they’d drive out the white man and become lords of the earth.” McLeod shook his head and then spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the sand. “It’s a bad business, Red.”

  Ryan watched Buttons Muldoon closely inspect a bright yellow stage wheel and then said, “I reckon the Patterson stage isn’t going anywhere until this is over.”

  “Kinda depends on the attitude of the passengers, don’t it?” McLeod said.

  * * *

  “I have two patrols out and in addition the B Company under Captain Taylor scouting the old Butterfield stage route as far as Ketchum Mountain,” Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson, tired and looking older than his years, said. “It’s a show of force but a token one. The company is understrength, and if the hostiles are in the area I doubt they’ll be impressed. Thank God settlers are few and far between in this part of the country, a good reason for the Apaches to avoid Fort Concho. We just aren’t important enough.”

  Red Ryan didn’t like what he heard. “Colonel, I’ve been hired to guard the Patterson stage to Fort Bliss,” he said.

  “I know, Mr. Ryan. The passengers have already made that clear.” Grierson glanced out his office window and said, “Ah, I see Buttons Muldoon heading this way, and he looks none too happy.”

  “Somebody must have told him about the Apaches,” Red said.

  A rare smile from Grierson and then, “That would be my guess.”

  And the colonel was right. Muldoon’s round, whiskered face was wrinkled in concern. He took off his leather glove and extended his hand. “Good to see you again, Colonel. It’s been a spell.”

  “Since the Victorio campaign, Buttons,” Grierson said. “You’re looking well.”

  “Wish I could say the same about how I feel,” Muldoon said. “I’ve just been told that the Mescaleros are out.”

  “And about twenty Chiricahua bucks with them. They left the San Carlos two weeks ago,” Grierson said.

  “Me and Red have been hired to take the Patterson stage to Fort Bliss,” Muldoon said.

  “Yes, Mr. Ryan has already informed me of that fact,” the colonel said. “I can guarantee your safety as far as Ketchum Mountain and perhaps a distance beyond, at Captain Taylor’s discretion. I’ll give you a note giving him my permission to use his best judgment.”

  “Colonel, it’s four hundred miles of rough country between here and Fort Bliss,” Red Ryan said. “That’s four or five days on the trail and maybe longer. I doubt the passengers will want to make the trip.”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Ryan, they seem eager to leave. At least two of them do. I advised them to wait until the hostiles are corralled, but they insist on making the journey, Indian uprising or not.”

  Ryan shook his head. “Colonel, who are those people? Are they rubes from back east that don’t know any better?”

  “Two of them are the wives of enlisted men, and they’re traveling to Fort Bliss to join their husbands,” Grierson said.

  “My God, a couple of washerwomen,” Muldoon said.

  “No doubt, Buttons, no doubt,” the colonel said.

  “Are those women the two that want to make the trip?” Ryan said.

  “No, the stalwarts are Mrs. Stella Morgan, the wife of soon-to-retire Major John Morgan, currently stationed at Fort Bliss, and Mr. Lucian Carter, a San Antonio bank clerk heading farther west in hope of finding a better career situation. To the best of my knowledge the two are traveling companions but are not related in any way.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” Ryan said. “Tell them—”

  But a commotion outside the door to the col
onel’s office stopped Red in mid-sentence. The door burst open and a tall young man barged inside, followed by a harried-looking desk sergeant. “Sorry, sir,” the soldier said. “I couldn’t stop him.”

  “It’s all right, Sergeant,” Grierson said. Then, “What can I do for you, Mr. Carter?”

  Carter was blond, blue-eyed, and handsome, but he had a sulky, petulant mouth, almost effeminate in its fullness, and a pale skin that would flush easily and burn in the sun. There were bulges under the armpits of his expensive gray sack coat and Ryan pegged him as a two-gun man, rare in the West and probably unique among bank clerks.

  “I’ll tell you what you can do for me, Grierson,” Carter said, his face bright scarlet. “You can guarantee Mrs. Morgan and me a cavalry escort between here and Fort Bliss.”

  “On the frontier there are no guarantees, Mr. Carter,” the colonel said. “My command is already spread thin, and I cannot spare men for escort duty. I suggest you remain here at the fort until the Apaches are rounded up and returned to the reservation.”

  “No, that won’t do,” Carter said. “Mrs. Morgan is an army officer’s wife and she’s anxious to be reunited with her husband because she has some tragic news to impart. She will brook no delay and neither will I. As a gentleman, it is incumbent on me to see her safely to her destination.”

  “There are two other army wives involved, and they are willing to remain at the fort until the Apache threat is over,” Grierson said.

  Carter’s peevish mouth twisted into a contemptuous grin. “A couple of fat women married, or so they claim, to corporals,” Carter said. “Who cares about such people?”

  “I do,” Red Ryan said. “If the two ladies in question are passengers of the Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company and they paid the same fare to Fort Bliss as you did. Until they reach the fort they are my responsibility.”

  “And who the hell are you?” said Carter, a truculent, arrogant man Ryan had disliked on sight.

  “Name’s Ryan. I ride shotgun for Abe Patterson.”

  Again, Carter’s insolent grin, then, “Yeah, then that makes me feel a whole lot safer.”

  “You should,” Buttons Muldoon said. “Red’s the best scattergun guard there is, and I’ve ridden with a few.”

  Carter turned to Grierson. “You still insist that I can’t have an escort?”

  “I’m afraid it’s out of the question,” the colonel said.

  “Then you will take us there, Ryan?” Carter said. “We’ve paid our fares.”

  “Listen to the colonel, Carter,” Ryan said. “Wait until the Apaches are penned.”

  “I’ll pay you double what Patterson is paying,” Carter said.

  “No deal,” Ryan said.

  “Triple.”

  “I’ll be on my way, Colonel,” Ryan said. He stepped past Carter, but the man shot out his arm and with considerable strength grabbed Ryan’s right bicep and squeezed . . . hard. “Don’t you ever walk away from me when I’m talking to you,” Carter said.

  There were a couple of warning signals Carter should have noticed about Red Ryan, but didn’t.

  Most obvious was the fact that Red stood six feet and a half-inch tall, and under his buckskin shirt his shoulders and arms bulged with a pugilist’s muscle, a holdover from his days as a bare-knuckle booth fighter with Dr. Edwin Drake’s Medicine & Curiosities Show. Red had taken on all comers in the ring, had never once failed to come up to scratch, and his quick fists earned him a record of sixty-three wins with only one defeat, and that at the hands of an up-and-coming youngster by the name of Joseph Choynski, the California Terror, who would later in his career fight the likes of James J. Jeffries, James Corbett, and Jack Johnson.

  The second fact Carter should already have known . . . that it’s never a good idea to muscle a quick-tempered, redheaded man with an arm as hard and big around as an iron stovepipe.

  Lucian Carter paid dearly for his oversight.

  Ryan twisted a little to his left as he wrenched his arm free and at the same time unleashed a powerful left cross that connected with Carter’s chin. The man’s legs turned to rubber and he staggered back a few steps before crashing into the office door, splintering the lock. But as Carter slid to the floor, his right hand moved under his coat and emerged with a short-barreled Colt in his fist.

  “I wouldn’t,” Buttons said, his own Remington hammer-back and ready. “Mister, you could be about to make the worst mistake of your life.”

  Carter thought it over, but he knew the portly stage driver wasn’t bluffing, and now wasn’t the time to take chances. He holstered his gun and rose to his feet, a trickle of blood running down his chin from the corner of his mouth.

  Carter pointed at Red and said, “Damn you, you’ll live to regret this.”

  The man turned on his heel, threw the door wide, and lurched outside.

  Buttons looked at Grierson and said, “Colonel, whenever this show hits the road, I’ve got the feeling it’s gonna be a fun trip.”

  Both Red Ryan and the colonel laughed their agreement.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon shared a spare room that in the past had been reserved for a couple of infantry sergeants. Apart for a threadbare rug on the stone floor and a couple of chairs, two iron cots, a dresser, and a full-length mirror were its only furnishings. Buttons was cleaning his revolver, and Ryan sat in one of the chairs reading a book he’d found, Middlemarch by George Eliot, a morbid, depressing novel that was then unaccountably popular among Western men.

  The moon was on the rise and coyotes yipped in the dreary darkness when a soft, hesitant tapping came to the door. Ryan marked his place in the book and rose to answer, allowing inside a young woman who instantly banished the bleak lamplight with her luminous beauty.

  Buttons, ever a gentleman when he was around the ladies, especially pretty ones in their early twenties, rose to his feet and joined Ryan as the girl smiled and said, “Ah, which one of you gentlemen is Mr. Ryan?”

  “I am,” Red said. “And this here is Buttons Muldoon, the best whip in Texas.”

  “I’m so glad to meet you both. My name is Stella Morgan, originally of the Philadelphia Morgans. I’m booked on the Patterson and Son stage.”

  “Yes, you are indeed, pleased to meet you, Mrs. Morgan.” Red waved to his recently vacated chair. “Would you care to sit?”

  Buttons would later accuse Red of “grinning like a possum eating persimmons” when he first beheld the fair Stella, and Red readily agreed that he was smitten by the woman’s dazzling loveliness.

  “Ma’am, we have whiskey but no glass, if you’d care to make a trial of it,” Buttons said.

  “No thank you,” Stella said. “I’ve already taken tea with Colonel Grierson.”

  Red smiled. “What can we do for you, Mrs. Morgan?”

  “Please call me Stella. Mrs. Morgan sounds so formal, especially out here in the wilderness.” The woman returned Ryan’s smile and said, “Red . . . may I call you Red?”

  “Please do.”

  “Red, the colonel told me of the unfortunate unpleasantness between you and Lucian Carter, and it distressed me terribly. I can tell you that Lucian is very upset about it.”

  “I imagine he is,” Red said. He wanted to say that a left cross to the chin with a lot of shoulder behind it would upset just about anybody, but he didn’t. Instead he did his best to look sympathetic. “We all let our tempers get the better of us at times.”

  “Well, please let bygones be bygones,” Stella said. “Lucian told me he’s most willing to forget the whole unhappy incident. But . . . Red . . . it is imperative that I reach Fort Bliss within the next few days.”

  “Why the hurry?” Red said.

  “I’ve been living in San Antonio with my husband’s mother—”

  “Major Morgan’s ma?” Buttons said.

  “Yes, a dear, sweet lady, but unfortunately she passed away over a week ago. It was all very sudden, I’m afraid. But thank God, she didn’t su
ffer too much.”

  “Sorry to hear about the lady’s death, Stella,” Ryan said.

  “Well, she was old and very sick and it was her time,” the woman said. “But John was very attached to his mama, and I want to be the one to break the sad news to him before someone less caring than myself does. I think you will understand that time is of the essence.”

  “Ma’am, you know the Apaches are out?” Buttons said.

  “Yes, I do. But to spare John further heartbreak I’m willing to take my chances. I must be at my husband’s side at this trying time.”

  Buttons said, “Mrs. Morgan—”

  “Stella.”

  “Stella, do you know what Apaches do to women?”

  “Buttons, I’m sure Stella has a pretty good idea,” Red said, angling him a look.

  “I am not well versed in the ways of the world,” Stella said. “But I imagine being a prisoner of the savages would not be pleasant.”

  “You’re so right about that, little lady,” Buttons said, but when the woman took out a little handkerchief and dabbed her eyes it banished his smile.

  “I must be with John . . . I just . . . must be on hand to succor my husband,” she said. “I know he’ll be heartbroken.”

  A woman’s tears are corrosive enough to melt a man’s heart, and Red Ryan was not immune.

  “I must say that I admire your courage, Stella,” he said. “Such fortitude is rare, even among Western women.”

  “Red, say you’ll take me to Fort Bliss,” Stella said, sobbing slightly. “Please, please say you will.”

  “I’ll study on it,” Ryan said. “You have my promise on that.”

  “I need more than a promise, Red,” Stella said. “If I’m not with John when he learns of his mama’s death, I’ll never forgive myself. Red, he doted on her, loved her with all his heart and soul. I’m an army wife, and I can’t fail my husband now because of some savages. John himself has faced so many dangers on the frontier, can I do any less?”