by Ralph Cotton
At the edge of town Shaw stopped his speckled barb and jerked the bandanna down below his chin, stirring a rise of dust on his chest. Beneath him the barb chuffed and shook itself off. “Easy, boy,” he murmured to the dust-coated animal. “We’ll get you fed and stalled first thing.”
He patted a gloved hand to the barb’s withers. Dust billowed. At a hitch rail in front of a dimly lit saloon, Shaw eyed three horses huddled together with their heads lowered against the cold wind. He saw shadows looming in the saloon’s dusty front window. With pain throbbing in his head, he veered the barb away from the saloon and rode on at a walk. He had no idea who the men inside the saloon were, but he had no doubt they were the sort of men who could lead him where he needed to be.
Inside the saloon, three gunmen stood sharing a bottle of rye whiskey. Seeing the stranger turn his horse away, one of the gunman, an Arkansan named Thurman Thornton, said proudly, “Well, well, it appears this drifter doesn’t desire our company.” He wiped his wrist across his lips and passed the bottle sidelong to the other two.
“I suspect he might be faint of heart,” a gunman named Bell Mason replied, “if just the sight of our horses scares him.”
“Suppose we ought to wake up Dex and tell him? See what he wants us to do?” Thornton asked.
“Naw, Dex is passed out with the whore,” replied a third gunman named Roland Stobble. He took the bottle, threw back a drink and passed it on.
Beside him Bell Mason took the bottle and said, “Hell, he’ll just tell us to run this scarecrow out of town. It looks like we already done that.” He gave a dark grin. “We didn’t even need permission,” he added with sarcasm, and threw back a drink.
“Yeah,” said Stobble, eyeing Thornton with a sour expression, “do you ask Dex’s permission to go to the jake, or do you figure that out on your own?”
Thornton ignored the remark. Still looking out the dusty window, he said, “I can send any scarecrow hightailing. I don’t need no help or permission.”
The three watched the ragged dust-covered stranger appraise a seedy hotel from his saddle as he rode on past the saloon and turned the speckled barb toward the livery barn at a tired walk.
“Ah, look, he’s going to attend to his horse,” said Stobble in a mocking tone. “Ain’t that commendable? You got to always admire a man who puts his horse’s needs ahead of his own.” He chuckled, grabbed the bottle back from Mason and took a drink.
“I’ll tend his horse,” Thornton threatened, staring out toward the livery barn as Shaw and the speckled barb walked out of sight. He adjusted his coat and started to stroll toward the front door.
“Whoa, hang on,” said Stobble, blocking his way with a raised arm. “What’s your hurry? It’s raw and cold out there. Listen to that wind.”
“So?” said Thornton, stopping abruptly.
“So let’s let him come to us, if he gets his nerve up.” Stobble shrugged.
“What if he doesn’t?” said Thornton. “What if he goes someplace else?”
“Where the hell else is he going to go?” Mason cut in, sounding agitated by Thornton’s slow-wittedness.
“What’s wrong with you, Thurman?” Stobble asked Thornton with a goading smile. “Are you still floating around on them cactus buttons?”
“Never mind what I am or ain’t floating on,” said Thornton. He settled back into place and let his coat fall open again. “When he does get here, I’ll send him hightailing out of town—you watch.”
“Oh, we’ll watch, sure enough,” said Stobble. “You can bet on that.”
“Send him hightailing?” said Mason. “Hell, that ain’t nothing. My poor old grandma could send him hightailing. I thought we might get a chance to see some fireworks.”
“I can do that too,” said Thornton, confidently. “It makes me no difference.”
“You mean you don’t mind killing a man before breakfast?” Stobble goaded.
“Before breakfast, after supper, during dinner, I don’t care,” Thornton said. “Dex said not to let any strangers into town. Far as I’m concerned, I’ll drop this saddle tramp when he walks through the door.”
“All right, that’s more like it,” said Stobble. “To hell with sending a man hightailing.” He gave Mason a knowing grin. “Show us some action.”
Inside the livery barn, Shaw slapped his hands up and down his coat sleeves; the speckled barb shook itself off again, chuffed and blew as dust swirled about them.
From inside a stall a man grumbled and coughed and stood up from a blanket spread on a pile of fresh hay. He held a flickering lantern up against the morning gloom. “Damn it,” he said, “drag yourself and that dirty cayuse out back and dust him down! I’ve swallowed too much of this blasted desert as it is.”
Shaw turned and faced him, his swallow-tailed coat hanging open down his chest, his big bone-handled Colt standing tall and clean in its holster. He stared at the liveryman without saying a word.
Uh-oh . . . With an appraising look, noting both the gun and the stranger’s cool, confident presence, the liveryman said in an apologetic voice, “Pay me no mind, Mister.” He chastised himself out loud. “Damn it, Radler. I expect swallowing a little dirt is better than having a bunch of it shoveled into my face.”
“Is that your name—Radler?” Shaw asked the old man quietly. As he spoke he opened his coat enough to reach into a vest pocket and pull out a gold coin.
“Yes, sir, it is,” said the old man. “Caywood Radler, if you want to know the whole of it. You can call me Radler. Most folks do.” He caught himself and added nervously, “That is, unless you prefer calling me something else. I’m not what you call a stickler on formality. I go along with most anything.”
Shaw flipped him the gold coin. “This is for me and the horse. I want a stall big enough for both of us while I’m here.”
Radler caught the coin with his free hand and gave him a puzzled look. “Mister, we’ve got a hotel in Colinas Secas, a saloon and brothel too. A man ain’t held to sleeping in a stable.” He looked Shaw over in the thin glow of the lantern.
“I saw the hotel on my way here,” Shaw said in a flat tone. “I’ll take the livery.”
“I do pride myself on running a good, clean livery barn,” the old man said as he stepped away and hung the lantern on a post. He hefted a wooden water bucket, carried it to the barb and set it down before the horse’s probing muzzle. He slipped the horse’s bit from its mouth, lifted its bridle and let it draw thirstily from the bucket. “But I don’t want you to feel like I said anything against the hotel.”
Shaw only stared at him.
“A fellow has to be careful what he says these days in Colinas Secas . . . or Dry Hills if you prefer not to call the town by its Mex name,” he continued. “Either name you want to call it is all right by me. I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea—”
“What’s got you strung so tight, hostler?” Shaw asked, cutting him off.
“I don’t want no trouble, is all, sir,” the liveryman said. “I saw what happens to anybody who gets in you boys’ way—”
“Us boys . . . ?” Shaw asked, again cutting the frightened man short. “What boys is that?”
“Why, Dexter Lowe’s boys, of course,” said the old man. He blinked in surprise. “Who else’s boys would I mean?”
“Let’s stop asking each other the same question,” said Shaw. He began to get the picture. “I’m not one of Dexter Lowe’s men.” He studied the old man’s nervous watery eyes. “Is Lowe and his men holding up here in Colinas Secas?” Dexter Lowe and his gang were one of the countless gangs that Shaw, U.S. marshal Crayton Dawson and Deputy Jedson Caldwell had been sent to break up along the border badlands.
Radler looked stunned, but he refused to offer a reply. “Look, Mister, I’m an old man. I’ve got no business meddling where I don’t belong. Lowe told us all what would happen if we said anything about him and his boys being here . . . so I ain’t saying nothing. For all I know you might be here to see if I can ke
ep my mouth shut, like I was told.”
“I understand,” said Shaw, the sound of his own voice making his head throb deeper in pain. He thought about the battered U.S. deputy marshal badge he carried in his pocket. “Now, what about that stall?” As he spoke he loosened the barb’s saddle cinch, lifted the saddle from the horse’s back and slung it over a rack while the barb continued drinking. He knew he could reach into his pocket to pull out his badge and ease his mind, but he wasn’t going to do that, he told himself.
Showing Radler he was a lawman would settle the old liveryman’s fear, but keeping the fact a secret seemed to always work to his advantage, he reminded himself, turning and pulling his ragged dust-coated bedroll down from behind his saddle.
“This one here is freshly cleaned,” Radler said, gesturing toward the closest stall standing with its door open, its floor partly covered with clean straw.
“I’ll take it,” Shaw said. He could feel Radler’s curious eyes on him as he beat the rolled blanket against a support post, then unrolled it and stepped inside the stall.
“Yes, sir,” said the old man. “A fellow wants to sleep in the barn, who am I to wonder about another man’s peculiarities?” He stood watching until the barb raised its dripping muzzle from the empty water bucket. Giving the horse a nudge on its rump, he followed it inside the stall, where Shaw stood fashioning his sleeping blanket into a hammock.
“Now I’ve seen it all,” he said, watching as Shaw tied the gathered blanket ends along the stall rail. “Mister, you must be a man who has slept his share of nights with heathen animals.”
Shaw turned around, sat down in the drooping hammock and leaned against the wall planks. “You don’t know the half of it,” he said tiredly. He took off the battered stovepipe hat carefully and pegged it on a post atop the rail. The liveryman winced at the sight of a bloodstained bandage covering the top of Shaw’s head.
“Lord God . . . !” the old man said. “Was you scalped?”
“Scalping would have been a treat,” Shaw said. He touched his fingertips gently to the bandage. The fabric was wrapped around Shaw’s head nearly down to his ears, but beneath the hat brim the otherwise white gauze wrapping had turned brown under a coating of trail dust.
“Somebody shot you?” the old man ventured. “You was shot in the head and lived? My God, man! You must hurt something fierce!”
“Only when I talk about it,” Shaw said, giving him an irritated glare.
“I understand, say no more.” Radler dropped his inquiry, growing less fearful now that Shaw was off his feet and making himself at home in the barn. “I’ll get this cayuse rubbed down right away,” he said. He couldn’t keep himself from staring at the bloodstained bandage.
“Not yet,” said Shaw, stopping Radler from reaching down and picking up a handful of clean straw from the floor. “He likes to stand for a few minutes first, collect his thoughts.”
“Really . . . ?” Radler eyed him, wondering whether or not he was joking. “Then he’s one hell of a horse.”
“Yes, he is.” Shaw fished another coin from his pocket and flipped it to the old liveryman. “Before you rub him down and grain him, suppose you go to that saloon and bring me back a bottle of rye.” He winced at the pain in his head.
“Oh, you need whiskey for all the torment you must be in,” said the old man.
Instead of replying, Shaw said, “Stand it on the post for me while I catch some shut-eye.”
“Want me to wake you up soon as I return with it?” Radler asked.
“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” Shaw said firmly. Turning lengthwise and slinging a dusty leg up onto the hammock, he sank down, folding his hands and carefully tucking them behind his head.
Chapter 2
Inside the saloon, the three gunmen stood waiting expectantly. They’d seen the figure emerge from out of the grainy morning light and limp quickly toward them. But upon recognizing the old liveryman, they eased down and watched him step up onto the plank boardwalk. “Hell, it’s only Radler,” said Stobble, seeing the front door swing open in a gush of dust and cold desert wind.
“The hell are you doing, Caywood?” Thornton asked as the old liveryman limped to the bar and laid the coin down on it.
Ignoring the gunman, Radler said to the sleepy-eyed bartender behind the counter, “I’m getting a bottle for a stranger who just rode in from the badlands.”
“The hell you say,” Stobble called out to Radler. “Is he too timid to come get his own bottle?”
Radler ignored him.
The three gunmen looked at one another. As the bartender rose from his stool where he’d sat dozing rather than leave his saloon at the three gunmen’s mercy, Stobble called out to Radler, “You best look at me when I’m talking to you, Caywood. Who is this stranger? What’s he doing here in Dry Hills?”
Radler turned a cold stare toward the three men. “If I knew who he is, he wouldn’t be a stranger,” he said acidly.
“It’s time I give this old gimp a serious backhanding,” said Stobble.
Knowing he’d pushed the three too hard, Radler said quickly, “Which do you want me to answer first, Mr. Stobble, who he is or what he’s doing here?” He barely managed to mask his contempt for the three.
But his prickly attitude had already drawn him trouble. Stobble gave him an icy stare as the three men walked slowly across the floor from the dusty window. “Damn it, Caywood,” the bartender warned under his breath, “couldn’t you see they’re all three barking drunk?”
“He—he didn’t introduce himself,” Radler said quickly to Stobble, hoping it would stop the gunmen from coming closer. It didn’t. “He never said why he’s here neither,” he hurriedly added. “All I can tell you is he’s asleep right this minute, in his horse’s stall. His head’s hurting him.”
“Ah, now, that’s too bad, he’s got a headache,” Mason said mockingly.
“Sleeping in his horse’s stall . . .” Stobble chuckled. “He must’ve heard about the hotel here.”
“You didn’t even ask this fool’s name?” Stobble said menacingly. “Shame on you, Caywood.”
“I—I figured he’s one of you,” Radler said, sounding more nervous as the men gathered around him. “I never like to meddle. I was warned against it by Dexter Lowe himself.”
“One of us?” said Thornton. “You thought that sorry slab of buzzard bait is here to ride with Dex and us? I ought to seat you on the woodstove, Caywood.”
“Easy, Thurman,” Mason chuckled. “I have to admit, at first glance I thought that ragged drifter might have been some kin of yours, say, a cousin or something?”
Stobble stifled a laugh; Thornton only stared fiercely in dark reply and said, “Did you, now?” His hand clenched his holstered gun butt.
“Come on, take it easy, Thurman,” said Mason. “I never seen you with so much bark on this early in the morning.”
“There’s something about this man riding at this hour of the morning that strikes me the wrong way,” said Thornton. “I see nothing funny about this.” He turned his harsh stare to the old liveryman. As the bartender set the bottle of whiskey on the bar, Thornton snatched it before the liveryman could get his hand around it. “How funny is it going to be when I send you back to the barn without his bottle under your arm?”
The liveryman summoned up the courage to say, “I wouldn’t do that if I was you, Mr. Thornton.”
“Yeah, why not?” Stobble cut in.
“I don’t believe this is a man you want to tangle with,” Radler ventured.
“I thought you didn’t know anything about him?” Mason asked, the three gunmen drawing into a tight knot around him.
“I don’t,” said Radler. “I only know what I see, and what I see is a man intolerant of abuse.”
“Intolerant of abuse . . . ,” Stobble said mockingly. He and Mason chuckled. “That’s enough to send me the opposite direction.”
Thornton shook the bottle in his hand. “I believe I’ll just deliver his whi
skey myself. Any objections?”
“Not from me,” said Radler. “But you might get a sharp rise out of him. He warned me not to wake him when I return.”
“Warned you, did he?” said Thornton. He looked at the other two and added, “Now, we can’t have strangers riding in here issuing warnings to our liveryman . . . maybe speaking rudely or in some harsh manner.”
“No,” said Radler, “he wasn’t rude! He was polite as any man could be. I don’t want him thinking I came here and accused him of anything! He is not the sort of man I want getting cross with me!” He snatched for the bottle, but Thornton shoved him away and turned toward the door. Stobble and Mason followed close behind him.
“Don’t fret yourself about it, Caywood,” Mason said over his shoulder. “This saddle tramp ain’t going to be around long enough to get cross with anybody.”
“J.W., I believe I might have just gotten somebody killed,” Radler said to the bartender as Mason stalked out behind the others with a ringing of spurs and pulled the door shut against the cold moaning wind.
“I wouldn’t worry about it, Radler,” said the bartender, J. W. Quince, who was too tired to care. “You don’t owe that drifter nothing. Like as not, he’s no better than this bunch of trash.”
Radler looked at him. “Who says I was talking about the drifter?”
When the three gunmen stepped out of the cold wind and eased the livery barn door closed behind them, they looked around in the thin glow of the flickering lantern hanging on the post. They saw the tall battered stovepipe hat sitting atop a stall post and the dusty swallow-tailed coat hanging over the rail beside it. With their guns already drawn, Stobble whispered sidelong to the other two, “Radler ain’t lying. This sonsabitch sleeps with his horse.”
“It’s unnatural,” Stobble whispered.
