by Ralph Cotton
She walked to the bed frame and tossed both blanket rolls onto the woven rope grid. Summers watched her raise the bed by its foot end and drag it toward the front window.
Summers just watched.
“There,” she said, dropping the bed beneath the front window. “We’ll both spend the night right here. You can look out the window as often as you want to. We’ll wrap these blankets over both of us and keep each other warm.” She looked at him. “Any objections?”
“No, ma’am,” Summers replied without hesitation.
“And you promise to keep your hands to yourself?” she asked, her voice turning cautious.
“I do,” Summers replied. “And so do you?” he asked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cherry said.
“Nothing,” said Summers, dismissing the matter. “Make yourself comfortable. Let’s talk about what we’ll each do if I’m right about being followed….”
Outside, at the bottom of the thin path leading down from atop the cliff, the three outlaws stepped down quietly from their horses. They stood in silence for a moment staring toward the glow of light and the wood smoke coming from above the shack.
“Damn, talk about waving a flag…,” Langler chuffed under his breath, seeing the rest of the mining camp wrapped in a blanket of purple darkness. “And this is the same man you’re saying ruined the bank robbery for yas. You both ought to be ashamed.”
“I don’t trust it,” Fallon whispered, his rifle at port arms across his chest. “People don’t live long enough to get this stupid out here.”
“Let’s get this done,” whispered Langler. “The thought of that warm stove is getting to me.”
“Me too,” said Grayson. “My head’s killing me.” He levered a round into his rifle, keeping as quiet as possible.
“I’ll take the front door,” said Langler. “You two cover the side door. “Be ready if they try to make a run for it. I’m kicking the door in and going in shooting.”
“Got you,” said Grayson. His rifle in one hand, his other hand against the side of his head, he and Fallon moved away in a crouch.
Langler waited until he saw the shadowy figures disappear around the corner of the mining shack. Then he moved toward the front door of the shack, rifle cocked and ready.
From the bottom edge of the dirty window, Summers had watched the three outlaws appear out of the greater darkness into the purple light of a half-moon. In the corner where the horses stood, Cherry’s paint horse nickered slightly. Calmly, Summers reached down and shook Cherry gently but firmly by her shoulder.
“What?” she whispered with an awakening gasp.
“Company’s here,” Summers said. “Go over and keep the horses quiet, like we said.” He looked at her in the grainy darkness. “Remember, sit tight until it’s all over, one way or the other.”
Cherry whispered, “I don’t like that ‘one way or the other’ part.”
“Neither do I,” Summers said. “Now go.”
Without further reply, Cherry rolled up quietly from the bed and slipped over among the animals, stroking the paint’s muzzle, whispering in a soothing tone. With her free hand, she held the lead rope and the gray’s reins firmly.
A moment later the sound of a door being kicked in resounded in the quiet night, followed by repeated rifle fire.
In the corner Summers heard the startled horses try to stir, but the woman held a firm grip and kept the animals from spooking.
Time to go, he told himself. He hurried to the side door and slipped out into the night.
Two shacks away, Langler stood inside the open doorway in a cloud of rifle smoke, his ears ringing as he stared around the single empty room.
“Damn it to hell,” he shouted, thinking Summers and the woman had heard them coming and made a run for it, “they’re getting away!” He ran to the side door and threw it open. Realizing his mistake too late and not being able to change it, he flung himself to one side as Grayson’s and Fallon’s rifles exploded in the dark from their two separate positions. Bullets sliced past him. One clipped him in his forearm; another swiped his hat from his head.
“Don’t shoot. It’s me!” he bellowed between rifle shots.
“Cole?” Grayson shouted toward the open side door.
“Yes, me, damn it!” Langler replied.
“Where’s Cherry and the horse trader?” Fallon shouted, looking all around in the dark.
“I’m right here,” Will Summers said in a firm voice, less than ten feet behind him.
Fallon shrieked in surprise; he swung around with his smoking rifle cocked and ready. But all he saw was the blinding flash of Summers’ shot as it hit him dead center. The impact flung him backward a complete flip and landed him facedown in the dirt. His cocked rifle hit the ground butt first and fired wild into the air.
“There he is!” shouted Grayson, having heard Fallon’s shriek and looking around in time to see him fly backward with the gunshot. “He’s shot Lewis!”
Langler and Grayson both fired toward the spot where they’d seen the muzzle flashes. But Summer had backed away twenty feet and taken cover behind a large stack of thick walk planks stacked alongside the next shack.
Bullets thumped into the stack of planks as the two outlaws fired steadily. Grayson belly-crawled to where Fallon lay in the dirt. He shook the downed outlaw by his shoulder. Fallon lay limp, dead. “Nothing I can do for you, Lewis,” Grayson whispered. “I’ve got to look out for myself.”
Summers waited for a lull, and when it came, he directed two rapid shots in the direction of the muzzle flash he’d seen coming from the shack’s open side door.
Langler shouted loudly as one shot hit the edge of the doorframe and sent sharp splinters slicing into his cheek.
Hearing Langler cry out in pain, thinking he’d been shot, Grayson stood up from Fallon’s body and backed away, trying to clear a jammed bullet from his rifle chamber. Seeing his dark figure, Summers fired, but without taking close aim. Grayson felt the bullet slice through the shoulder of his coat. Losing his nerve, he screamed, threw his jammed rifle away and raced away. He circled behind the shack and ran toward their waiting horses.
“You damned coward!” Langler shouted, seeing Grayson disappear around the rear of the shack. But before his words left his lips, two rapid-fire shots thumped against the doorframe and sent him running through the lighted shack, out the front door and toward the horses himself.
Summers waited until he heard the sound of horses’ hooves beating a retreat up the narrow path. Then he stepped warily from behind and walked to where Fallon dead in the dirt. Seeing the outlaw was dead, he turned and started toward the shack. But seeing the dark figure step suddenly in front of him, he almost fired his rifle before realizing it was Cherry.
“Don’t shoot!” she gasped.
Summers let out a tense breath and said, “I thought the plan was for you to sit tight ‘one way or the other.’”
“I told you I didn’t like that part,” Cherry said shakily. “Anyway, it looks over to me.”
“You got me there,” Summers said. He took another deep breath and let it out. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Cherry said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Summers said, the two of them listening to the horses’ hoofbeats move farther and farther away.
“What do we do now?” Cherry said, her hand trembling as she reached inside her coat and pulled out her bag of fixings.
Summers cradled his warm rifle in the crook of his arm. “Now that our company’s gone, I say we go back to where it’s warm and try to get some sleep.” He nodded toward the shack with the stove and the lantern burning.
“Sleep? After all this?” Cherry said, struggling to roll herself a smoke. “I don’t think so. Look at me, I’m a nervous wreck.”
Summers looked down at Fallon’s body, then back up at her.
“One of them called you by name,” he said. “Do you know these men?”
/> She turned her eyes up to his as she ran the tip of her tongue back and forth along the edge of the cigarette paper.
“Most likely,” she said. She ran the cigarette in and out of her mouth, firming it up. “I think this one is Lewis Fallon,” she said, touching the toe of her shoe to Fallon’s side. She jerked her toe back and said, “Oh my God! His ear is missing.”
“What the—?” Summer stooped down and looked at the clean cut along the side of Fallon’s head. Blood ran down the dead outlaw’s cheek into the dirt. “It wasn’t shot off,” he said. “It looks cut off.” He stared off in the direction the two fleeing outlaws had taken. Then he turned Fallon onto his back and saw the wad of money sticking up from his shirt pocket, the pocket button having popped open. Summers fanned the money in his hand and saw the broken paper band that read $1,000,000 in black ink across it.
Part of the stolen bank money, he reasoned. So not all of the bank money was in the bags he’d taken from behind Little Jackie’s saddle. He thought about it, hoping no one would think that he had taken some of it.
He studied the money closely, took a single bill and rubbed it back and forth between his finger and thumb, knowing this was far less than the thousand dollars that made up the stack. He needed to take this money back. He wasn’t comfortable even having it with him long enough to return it, he told himself. But he had to do it.
Something didn’t feel right about the bill in his fingertips, but he needed a closer look.
“Yes, it is Lewis Fallon all right,” Cherry said with certainty, staring down at Fallon’s dead face. She shuddered and added, “I can’t take much of this.”
She watched Summers fold the money, shove it down into his shirt pocket and button the pocket flap. Seeing her questioning gaze, he said, “For safekeeping. We’re going back to Gunn Point and turning this money in to the deputy.”
“But what about Big Jack Warren, you shooting Jackie?”
“I’ll have to risk it,” Summers said. “How does it look, us having stolen bank money? It puts me right back into suspicion. Either I was in with the thieves or I took money from the bank bags when I took them off Jackie’s horse. We’re going back tonight,” he said with finality.
She thought about it and said, “Okay by me, since you put it that way.”
“What about the other two? Who are they?” Summers asked, prompting her back to their conversation.
“Oh.” Cherry nodded and continued. “I’d guess one of the other two is Henry Grayson—they’re always together lately.” Getting a grip on herself, she held the cigarette between her scissored fingers and took out a long match. “The other one…I don’t know who it might be.”
Summers just looked at her. Something told him she had nothing to hide.
“Here,” he said. He took the match from her shaky hand. He struck it and cupped his hands around the flame. “Why is Fallon’s ear missing?” she asked.
“Beats me,” Summers said. “I shot one ear off when they killed my string horse. But it wasn’t this man.”
“Ears. Jesus…,” she said, shaking her head.
“I know, it’s peculiar,” Summers said.
She looked at him in the small flicker of firelight. “Does it bother you, me saying I know them?” she said. “I’ve been in Gunn Point for a while.”
“It’s okay,” Summers said. He watched her bow her head over the match and light her cigarette. It would bother me if you said you didn’t, he said to himself.
PART 2
Chapter 8
The Mexican cook, Juanita, looked up from the chimnea behind the large clapboard house, where she stood twisting dough into loaves and placing them on a tin baking tray. She saw the buggy circle into sight over a bare rise; a horse tagged along behind the swaying rig, its reins tied to a rear rail.
She studied the rig as it rolled closer. When she recognized both the deputy from Gunn Point and the bank manager, Bob Harper, she turned and hurried to the house, wiping her flour-streaked hands on her apron.
Seated in the rig beside Bob Harper, Deputy Stiles watched the woman run inside the rear door. He breathed deep, steadying himself, preparing to be the bearer of bad news. Idly his right hand fell across the butt of his holstered Colt. But he caught himself and moved it away as he stared ahead, seeing Big Jack Warren walk out into the yard.
Also watching, Bob Harper fidgeted in the driver’s seat.
“I hope I’m doing the right thing, Deputy,” he said, “bringing him such terrible news on the wake of his son Jackie’s death.”
“Bad news has no timing, Mr. Harper,” Stiles said. “We have to deliver it when it falls to us to do so.”
“Yes, you’re right, of course, Deputy,” Harper said. He gave a sidelong look. “Anyway, my task is light compared to the dark, terrible news you bring him.”
“Neither task is pleasant,” Stiles said, staring straight ahead. “But we do what we must.”
“Sheriff Goss is fortunate to have such a man as you at his side, Deputy. If you don’t mind me saying so.”
Stiles only smiled modestly without reply. In the small seat behind him, Stiles heard the buzz of flies. He took off his hat, reached back and fanned the insects away from Little Jackie’s blanket-wrapped body.
In the yard, a tall, rawboned gunman named Roe Pindigo stepped into sight from around the corner of the house and stood beside Jack Warren. He wore a black wool suit and a collarless boiled white shirt behind a long black riding duster. The ivory handles of a large Colt lay at the center of his belly, shoved sidelong into a dark leather slim-jim holster. He held a black derby hat in the crook of his left arm. In his right hand he carried a Winchester rifle.
Pindigo sidled closer to Jack Warren, who took out a long cigar, bit the tip off it and spit it to the ground.
“Something’s wrong, I can feel it,” Big Jack Warren said to his gunman without taking his eyes off the approaching buggy.
“Yeah, me too,” said Pindigo.
When the buggy drew closer, Jack Warren and Pindigo spotted the wrapped body leaning in the small rear buggy seat. The short Mexican cook crossed herself and hurried back over to her baking.
“Here we go,” Stiles whispered to himself as the buggy circled into the side yard and Warren and Pindigo walked around to meet them.
“Deputy,” Warren said in greeting. “Bob.” He nodded at Harper. “What brings you out here?” He noted Harper’s swollen purple eye. “Everything all right at the bank?”
Harper turned nervously to the deputy, his derby hat in hand.
“I’m afraid it’s not all right, Mr. Warren,” Stiles said, grimly. “We’re both bringing bad news.”
“Oh?” Warren gave the wrapped body a troubled look. “Who is this?” he asked either of them.
As he spoke Pindigo walked around the buggy and slapped at flies with his black derby hat.
“It’s Little Jackie, Mr. Warren,” Stiles said somberly. “He was shot and killed after him and some other men robbed the bank.”
“Robbed my bank?” Warren said in disbelief. His expression didn’t change. But his knees appeared to go weak and almost drop him to the ground before he managed to catch himself.
“My God, Little Jackie,” he murmured in a trembling voice. He gave Pindigo a somber look; the gunman reached out and peeled the top corner of the blanket away from Jackie Warren’s dead blue face. Flies swirled.
“Get him out of there, Roe,” Big Jack commanded Pindigo. Get him in the house. Take Juanita with you, tell her to clean him up.” He turned to Deputy Stiles.
The gunman dragged the body from the buggy seat and rolled it up over his shoulder as flies careened and swirled around him.
“I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Warren,” Stiles said, watching Pindigo walk away with Little Jackie’s blanketed body.
“Which posse man shot my boy?” Warren said, anger boiling behind his voice.
“It wasn’t a posse man,” said Stiles. “It was a horse trader named Will Summers.”
/>
“Will Summers,” said Big Jack. “I’ve heard of that son of a bitch. He comes through here peddling his horseflesh every year or so.”
Harper put in timidly, “He said Little Jackie shot one of his horses…. I mean, not that is any comfort.”
“You’re right, it’s no comfort at all,” Warren said gruffly. “I don’t give a damn if Little Jackie shot every one of his mangy horses. Summers had no business killing my son.”
“We were right on their trail after the robbery,” Stiles said, “but it was questionable whether or not we would have caught them. Hadn’t been for Summers, they would have likely gotten away.”
“Was anybody else shot?” Warren asked.
“Another robber was wounded,” said Stiles. “Two others got away. Sheriff Goss got shot down in the street. But is looks like he might make it.”
“Is the wounded man saying who was with him?” Warren asked.
“So far no,” Stiles said, “but I haven’t had a chance to question him yet. I wanted to get out here to you first.”
“He—Summers that is—saved our money, Mr. Warren,” Harper said.
“He did?” said Warren, staring at Deputy Stiles as he spoke.
“That’s right, he did,” said Stiles. He stepped back over and took two carpetbags of the cash from the back floor of the buggy, carried them back and set them on ground at Warren’s feet. “It’s all there. But now I’m afraid Mr. Harper here has more bad news to tell you.” He turned to Harper.
“Yes,” said Harper, clearing his throat nervously. “I closed the bank and carefully counted all the money.” He looked worried, and continued, saying, “It appears to all be counterfeit.”
“What?” said Warren. “Counterfeit?”
“Yes, counterfeit,” Harper said, looking more worried every time he said the word.
Warren stood with a curious look on his broad, rough face as he contemplated the news. He struck the toe of his boot against one of the carpetbags.
“How the living hell can it be counterfeit, Bob?” he said finally. “Are you saying the robbers switched the real money for counterfeit?”
