by Ralph Cotton
“All right, that’s enough out of yas,” Mackenzie said, looking up with a slight frown. “I didn’t even have to take charge. I wasn’t even the trail boss anymore. I could’ve let everybody scratch for themselves.”
“Oh, you were still the trail boss all right,” said Thorpe, straightening his spectacles. “You’d have never let us hear the end of it if things went wrong on us because we didn’t listen to you.”
“That’s right,” said Brewer, “you were born being a trail boss, and you still are. You’re never going to be otherwise.” As he spoke he finished with his leg wound, lifted his Colt from his holster and checked it.
“Well,” said Mackenzie, “boss or no boss, we’re in a place here.” He also checked his Colt. “If the ranger had come along sooner, maybe things would have gone better. As it is, nobody is going to get us off the spot here but ourselves.”
“I agree,” said Thorpe. He reached down to Mackenzie’s saddle on the dirt floor, slid his rifle from its boot and pitched it to him. “It looked like the ranger cut up the hillside. But we can’t count on him killing that murdering Stanton Parks for us.” He reached down to Brewer’s saddle, slid his rifle out and pitched it to him. Then he slid Harper’s rifle up, reached it out to him and said, “Here, Tadpole, don’t shoot your foot off.”
Harper scooted upright and took the stacks of cash from inside his open shirt. “What about this money now? Are we taking it with us?”
“No,” said Mackenzie. “However this turns out with Parks and the ranger, the money stays behind. I never knew money was such a dang pain in the neck.”
Brewer stared wistfully at the stacks of cash and said, “Well, one thing for sure, it ain’t likely any of us will ever be troubled by this much money again.”
“Lucky us,” said Harper, giving Brewer an understanding look.
“Yeah, lucky us,” said Brewer. He took his eyes away from the money as if clearing his mind of it for the last time. Levering a round into his rifle chamber he turned to Mackenzie. “Tell us what you want us to do, boss,” he said with resolve.
At the horses, the ranger pulled his long-range Swiss rifle from under his blanket roll and assembled it quickly. He looked all around and said, “I’d feel better knowing that Sergeant Tom is all right.”
“He looks out well for himself,” Maria said. Seeing the four rounds of ammunition in his hand, she asked with a concerned look, “Four bullets? Is that all the ammunition you have?”
“These four will get me up the hill,” Sam replied. “If I can’t draw a good bead on him, at least I’ll force him to keep his head down—it’ll keep some fire off of you and the drovers.” He turned and gave her a look and a gentle squeeze on her shoulder. “Keep our horses out of sight,” he said. Then he turned and slipped away, deeper into the brush, Swiss rifle in hand.
Atop the steep rocky hillside, high up on a double limb of a tall pine, Stanton Parks sat swaying back and forth on a passing breeze. He saw no movement in the yard of the cabin below. Yet, studying the small clearing, he knew at any moment the four might make a dash toward the barn, get their horses and attempt to make a getaway.
“You can’t outrun the law . . . ,” he said to himself as if speaking to the four drovers, “and I am the law.”
Parks raised the rifle butt to his shoulder and scanned back and forth with the brass scope, catching only a glimpse of one of the drovers’ hats through the collapsed roof. “One short little step is all you need to take,” he murmured down his rifle barrel, “and I will take off the top of your cowpoking head.” He eased his thumb over the rifle hammer and prepared to cock it and fire.
But something powerful thumped against the limb only an inch from his shin. As he jerked his leg instinctively, he heard the telltale sound of the rifle shot resound up the hillside. “What the—?” He looked down at the big bullet hole next to his leg. “Whoa, now!” Without a second thought on the matter, he turned and hurriedly climbed down the tree to another, better-hidden limb ten feet below.
Down the rocky hillside, Sam watched, not seeing Parks, but rather seeing the motion of limbs bouncing and bobbing as the gunman retreated downward. Drawing aim on the spot where the limbs had settled, Sam cocked the big Swiss rifle and prepared to fire again.
Hugging the pine tree, using the trunk for cover, Parks peeped around and saw a glint of sunlight on the gun barrel. All right, he knew where the shooter was, he told himself. Now he had to get settled and get an aim before he could do anything to defend himself. He stretched a foot toward a limb below. No sooner had he begun to transfer his weight to the new position than another shot thumped into the tree. This shot hit so close to his boot, he felt the impact through the leather, and lost his balance.
Down the hillside, Sam watched the limbs begin to bob again, this time violently, as Parks slid and bounced and tumbled down, until he caught on to a limb fifteen feet from the ground.
Instead of taking another aim on the gunman’s position, Sam took the lull in fire as an opportunity to hurry farther up the hillside. He raced along from tree to tree until he reached a tall land-stuck boulder, where he stopped and dropped to the ground for a moment. As he waited he heard Parks call out, still a hundred and fifty yards above him.
“Ranger, I saw it’s you,” said Parks. “I knew you’d be sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong!” He paused, waiting for a reply. When no response came he called out, “I will not leave until I have all my damned money!”
“It’s not your money, Parks, it never was,” Sam called out. Even though talking gave away his position, Sam took this for what might be his only chance to get Parks to admit to anything. “You and two other thieves robbed the stage and killed innocent people. But you didn’t find the money in the hidden compartment, did you? A big bold gunman like you, how’d you miss all that money?”
“I missed it because I didn’t know Grissin had any money riding the stage that day. Had I known it I wouldn’t have robbed the stage. I’m no fool, me and my pards have made a killing robbing banks and trains that Grissin set up for us. I wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds me. But since the money was there, I wasn’t about to let some damned cowpokers have it.”
There it was, Sam told himself. That was as much of a confession as anybody would ever likely hear Stanton Parks make. But if nobody but him ever heard Parks say it, the information was useless. He needed to take Parks in alive, he told himself. He knew how unlikely that would be, yet he knew he had to try. “You need to give up your gun, Parks,” he called out.
“No,” Parks said gruffly, “you need to come try and take it.”
“I need to take you in alive, Parks,” said Sam, leveling with him. “I need for somebody beside me to hear you say what you said about Davin Grissin.”
“It ain’t going to happen for you, Ranger,” said Parks. “I’m one of the last of the die-hard outlaws. I tell nobody nothing. I live and die the way I am.”
As Parks spoke, Sam eased his way upward a foot at a time, ever closer, hoping against hope that he might get a chance to rush him, overpower him and take him back alive.
While talking to the ranger down the slope in front of him, Parks heard the breaking of brush on the rough terrain behind him. Turning quickly, rifle in hand, he saw the big dog standing just inside the clearing. He fumbled quickly with the rifle, trying to get a fresh round into the chamber. But in his haste, he dropped the rifle and when he started to stoop down the retrieve it, a fierce growl from the dog stopped him cold.
“Easy now, doggie,” Parks said, easing his hand down around the butt of his Colt, “you and me ain’t never been enemies.”
But the look in the big dog’s eyes said something different. There was a dark, smoldering memory there, Parks decided. He could almost hear the big dumb animal say with satisfaction that now it was only the two of them . . . that now there would be no one to stop them . . . no one to question why.
“I’m a lawman, damn it!” Parks said, trying to sound fo
rceful, on the outside chance that his words might stop the big raging beast. His hand jerked the gun from its holster. “I demand that you stop in the name of the law!”
But the dog would have none of it. Seeing Parks’ hand come up with the big Colt, the dog shot forward. Parks could have sworn he heard the animal curse him out loud, the booming, growling voice of some angry soldier seeking revenge for the loss of someone near to him. The Colt bucked once in Parks’ hand, but the dog had cut away quickly, as if knowing what to do, like some old hand at ducking bullets. By the time Parks’ Colt was recocked, Sergeant Tom Haines was upon him.
Down the hillside, Sam heard the shot, the muffled scream cut short and the snarling rage of an animal given a free hand to do its worst. Hurrying, he scrambled hand over hand up the last thirty steep, treacherous yards toward the top of the hillside. But before he reached the top, the sudden fall of silence above him told him that there was no longer any urgency in his arrival.
Sam pushed himself up over a lip of stone and looked over to where the big dog sat licking its fore-paw. On the ground beneath the tall pine lay the long-range rifle. A few yards away lay Parks’ Colt. A few yards farther lay a bloody part of Parks himself. The ranger only glanced at the gore for a second, then looked away, back at the dog.
“Sergeant Tom Haines, look at you,” Sam said with a deep sense of regret.
The big dog perked its ears at the sound of its name, and looked up from licking its paw. He stared at the ranger with a look of innocence, fresh blood circling his powerful flews.
Chapter 23
With the long-range rifle fire silenced, Mackenzie looked up from the large canvas bag of money lying on the dirt floor. “Let’s go,” he said to the other three. He stooped, picked up his saddle with his left hand and hoisted it stiffly atop his good shoulder.
“You heard him,” said Brewer, “vamos, unless you still haven’t yet gotten a bellyful of this place.” With his leg bandaged, he leaned on his rifle for support.
“I’m sure going to miss it,” Thorpe said dryly, hefting his saddle onto his shoulder in spite of his side wound. He adjusted his wire rims and followed Mackenzie out the open door.
“That goes for me too,” said Harper, the welt of the rifle slug still throbbing in his chest.
“Get straight to the barn, get your horse and get out,” Mackenzie cautioned them over his shoulder as he walked out from behind the protection of the thick pine log walls. “Don’t stop to fool around. We don’t know what happened up there.” He started to nod upward along the steep hillside. But he stopped cold as he saw Davin Grissin and his men, mounted, in a half circle, facing him from fifty feet away.
“That’s good advice, trail boss,” Grissin said, staring with his wrists crossed on his saddle horn, a big Remington revolver hanging from his gloved hand. “Judging from all the gunfire we heard riding here, this place can get awfully dangerous.”
Mackenzie and the other three stopped cold out in front of the cabin. Thorpe let his saddle fall to the ground, as did Brewer and Harper.
“I see the ranger and his lovely companion aren’t here.” Grissin looked all around.
Not wanting to jeopardize the ranger and Maria should the two come down the hillside, Mackenzie passed over answering him and said, “We’ve been expecting you most any time, Mr. Grissin.” He showed no favor to his wounded right shoulder or his stiff weakened right hand as he eased his saddle down to the dirt and poised his hand near the butt of his range Colt.
“I’ll bet you have,” said Grissin, in no hurry, knowing he was in charge. “I would have been here sooner had it not been for Buckshot Parks ambushing us. It seems everybody is after my hard-earned money.” Cocking an eye in recognition, he said, “You four are the cowpokers I cut loose when I bought Davis’ Long Pines spread, eh?”
“Yep, that’s us,” said Mackenzie, seeing that Grissin was only dragging things out to suit himself.
“But we don’t go by the name cowpokers,” Harper cut in. “If you knew a hill of beans about ranching, you’d know that.”
“That’s enough, Tadpole,” Mackenzie cautioned him over his shoulder in a lowered tone.
“No, let him speak.” Grissin gave Harper an unfriendly grin. “Tadpole, huh?”
“To my pals,” said Harper, with no grin, just a flat stare.
“To your pals . . .” Grissin nodded and added, “I see. So tell me, Tadpole.” He continued in a sarcastic tone, “What is it you fellows prefer to be called?”
Harper stared to reply, but Mackenzie took over for him. “We drive cattle,” he said. “We call ourselves drovers.” He paused for only a second, then said with resolve, “But you do already know that.”
“Yeah, I knew that . . . ,” said Grissin. As if dismissing things for a moment, he straightened in his saddle, took out a fresh cigar from inside his coat and looked all around the clearing. “I wonder if the rights to this place came along with the deed to Long Pines?” he asked, not directing the question to anyone in particular.
“You ought to check it all out with your land attorney,” said Tillman Duvall, seated atop his horse beside him.
“Clel Davis built this place on open land,” offered Harper. “Nobody owns it . . . it’s open land forever.”
“Forever is a long, long time,” Grissin mused, “just ask anybody who’s dead.” He bit the end off his cigar, spit it away and stuck the cigar into his teeth. On his other side stood Sheriff Peyton Quinn. He wore a bloody bandage on the spot where his ear had been, a bandanna tied around his head to keep the bandage in place. He stepped his horse forward, struck a long sulfur match and reached it over to the tip of the expectant cigar.
“Keep quiet, Tadpole,” Mackenzie said to Harper under his breath.
Grissin puffed on the cigar and blew out a long stream of smoke. “Thank you, Sheriff,” he said, staring more harshly at Mackenzie as he spoke. “Do you drovers realize all the trouble you’ve put me through?”
“I’m all broken up over that, Mr. Grissin,” said Mackenzie, realizing how wounded and worn out he and his pals were, “but the fact is, all the trouble we’ve had has been because of us trying to return the money to its rightful owner.”
Grissin ignored his words. “Well, now it appears you’ve done it,” he said. His gaze narrowed. “Where is my money?”
Mackenzie gestured a nod over his shoulder toward the cabin door. “It’s inside, on the floor, right where we intended to leave it.”
“Go fetch it, Fellows,” Grissin said to the half-breed.
Antan Fellows swung down from his saddle and walked straight into the cabin. The drovers took a step away and made room for him.
In seconds the tall half-breed stepped back through the open door, stood in front of Grissin and hefted the bag as if to toss it up to him.
But Grissin made no motion of wanting to catch the bag. “I’ll be damned, there it is,” he said, sounding a little surprised. “It even looks like it’s all still there.”
“It’s heavy enough, I expect it is,” Antan said with a trace of a grin, not knowing how much money had been inside the bag in the first place. He stepped over beside his horse, the heavy money bag in hand.
“No, it’s not all there,” said Mackenzie. “We took a few dollars out for some supplies we needed to treat our wounds and get us up here to the cabin.”
“Why would you tell me a thing like that?” Grissin asked, staring at him curiously. He shrugged and shook his head. “I would have left here not knowing.”
“Because it’s the truth,” Mackenzie said flatly.
“Oh, the truth. Now I understand,” said Grissin. He shook his head again. “You were going to walk away, just leave all that money lying in the dirt?” he asked, looking both puzzled and agitated by the thought of them doing such a thing. “That’s damned hard for me to believe,” he added bluntly.
“You don’t have to believe us. Five minutes longer, you would have seen for yourself,” Mackenzie said.
“We’re not liars, mister,” said Harper, unable to let the remark pass in spite of Mackenzie having told him to keep quiet.
“Maybe you’re not liars,” Quinn said with a dark scowl, testy and cross in his pain. “But you damned sure are fools.”
Neither Grissin nor Duvall seemed to notice the offense the drovers had taken at Quinn’s insult. But a few feet away, Chester Cannidy had seen it. In his lap his hand tightened on his rifle stock. Beside Cannidy, Clayton Longworth had not seen the tracker clutch his rifle, but he’d felt a tension seem to close in and tighten around them. He glanced back and forth, his hand also on the rifle lying across his lap.
“We’re neither liars nor fools,” Mackenzie replied tight-jawed. “We’re just four working drovers trying to get by.”
“Who lost our jobs because the spread we worked for got bought out from under us,” Brewer tacked on. He looked toward Cannidy, who looked away, not liking where he knew this was headed if Grissin didn’t show some good sense and manners and let them pass unharmed.
“Yeah . . .” Holly Thorpe took a step closer to Jock Brewer and threw in, “And who got gypped out of our last month’s pay.”
Grissin stared at the four for a tense moment, then said to Cannidy, “Foreman, did you know anything about these drovers not getting their pay?”
Cannidy had heard Grissin tell the bookkeeper to get rid of them without their pay, but Cannidy knew better than to say so here and now. Instead he ducked the issue and said, “It was that new bookkeeper, Clifford Moorland, boss. I was standing there when he told Mackenzie here that they wouldn’t get paid.”
Grissin gave a one-shoulder shrug toward Mackenzie and said, “There, you see, trail boss? I had no knowledge of the matter. If I had it would never have happened.”
“I expect it doesn’t matter now anyway,” Mackenzie said.
“It still matters to me,” Grissin said. “Before I leave, I want to make sure everybody here gets what’s coming to them.” As he spoke he nudged his horse around to where Antan Fellows stood holding the big money bag. Reaching down to him with his black-gloved hand, Grissin hefted the canvas bag up and laid it on his lap. “Kill them!” he ordered. Then he quickly nailed his boot heels to his horse’s sides.
