by Ralph Cotton
From a room atop the stairs another young woman, this one an American from the plains of Kansas, had been listening. “Damn it, Calisa, speak for yourself,” she said to herself, dreading the thought of getting up and attending to a cantina full of drunken border outlaws.
Beside her another girl moaned under her breath and said, “We better go on down, Maggie. If Calisa has to take on the whole bunch, we’ll be hearing her cussing over it for a month. As soon as Willie hears them, he’ll send us down anyway.”
“I know it, Flo,” said Maggie, fluffing up her hair and pinching her cheeks red. “I hope you’ve some of that white powder left. I’m going to need something good and strong to get me going again.”
“I’ve got some in my room,” said Flo. “I’ll go get it. You go on down, I’ll wake up Elnora and Lying Betty and bring them with me. We might as well squeeze what we can out of these idiots.”
“Elnora is bedded down with Willie tonight,” said Maggie.
“She won’t mind. Neither will Willie,” said Flo, hiking up her nightdress and hurrying away down the dark hall.
Downstairs at the bar, the four men had already helped themselves to bottles of mescal and tequila. Watkins had grabbed Calisa and wrestled her out of her dress and undergarments and left the items lying strewn out toward a big wooden table in a darker corner. Stemms had opened a bottle of tequila and took a long swig.
He leered toward the stairs and called out in a harsh singsong voice, “Come down, come down, or Daddy Arnold will come up and drag you down.”
He started toward the stairs, but stopped in the middle of the floor when she saw Maggie, a tall red-head, walking down seductively, wearing nothing but a towel around her shoulders.
“Evening, boys,” she said, pulling the towel back and forth as if shining her shoulders with it. “I hope you don’t mind me dressing informally. This time of night I don’ like nothing on me but big warm hands.”
“By God!” shouted Stemms. Unable to control himself, he snatched his pistol from his holster and fired two rounds straight up into the ceiling.
“Easy, big fellow,” said Maggie. “Don’t shoot up the ceiling. We’ve got girls sleeping up there. You wouldn’t want to hurt them, would you?”
Stemms shrugged; he didn’t care. “Then get the hell over here and cool me down before I bust into flames!” he demanded.
“I don’t mind if I do, you big stable stud!” Maggie hurried into his big arms, pitched the towel around his neck and pulled his face to her naked freckled breasts. She wiggled herself back and forth vigorously. “These won’t cool you, but they’ll for sure keep you occupied.”
At the bar, watching Stemms and the naked red-head, Matthew Ford called out, “Whooo-ee,” and threw back a long swig of mescal. “All we need now is some music, and we’ve got ourselves a fiesta!”
As Ford drank, Richard Little said beside him, “Maybe we ought to tend to our horses, then come back here. It looks like this has the makings of an all-night thing.”
“To hell with the horses,” said Ford. “We’ve got gold, whores and liquor. If this ain’t heaven it has to be right next door.” He laughed and wagged a bottle of tequila in the air.
“Holy cats and rabbits!” said Little, seeing a line of three scantily clad women file down the stairs.
Behind the women, a Texan named Willie “the Weed” Weedham shuffled down in his Mexican sandals, hooking his gallowses up over his shoulders. “Did I hear somebody say music? I’ll have some coming right up. Flo, you tend the bar ’til I get back.” He turned at the bottom of the stairs and headed out the open front door.
“Damn,” said Little to Ford, “was that Willie the Weed?”
“I believe it was,” said Ford, eying the women.
“I thought they hanged him in Fort Griffin,” said Little.
“If they didn’t, they should have.” Ford laughed without taking his eyes off the half-naked whores.
With the light of a torch held close to the rocky ground, Jane Crowley picked up fresh hoofprints of the eight horses coming from the direction of the place on the trail where Corio and Bocanero had transacted their stolen gun deal. Shaw sat in the wagon seat, Tuesday slumbering against his shoulder. He had taken a wrinkled shirt from the bottom of his saddlebags and put it on her. It helped ease Jane’s bitterness toward him some, but not completely.
“How can you be sure these belong to Corio and his men?” Caldwell made the mistake of asking.
“Because I’m not a damned fool like some here might think I am, Undertaker,” Jane snapped. “Who the hell else would be riding this trail, eight men strong, except Corio’s gang?”
“Just asking,” said Caldwell.
“Just don’t,” Jane snapped.
“How long ago?” Dawson interceded, to keep down the tension.
Jane settled and studied the ground again. She pressed her fingertips into a shoe imprint. “The ground’s so dry it’s hard to tell,” she said. “But I make it six hours, give or take.”
“What’s ahead?” Dawson asked.
“There’s Cedrianno in one direction,” Jane said. “There’s Nozzito in the other.” She gazed off into the darkness ahead. “Both places have everything Corio and his men will be looking for. They want grain and water for their horses. They’ll want food, liquor and whores for themselves.”
“There’ll be a fork in the trail somewhere, then,” said Caldwell.
“Yep, Undertaker,” Jane said, a bit of sarcasm toward Caldwell left over in her voice, “there will be a slit in the trail a few miles ahead.”
Shaw shook his head at her sour mood.
Caldwell and Dawson ignored it. “That’s where Madden Corio will split his gang up and try to throw us off his trail,” said Dawson. He looked at Shaw. “We’ll split up too. Caldwell and I will . . .” His words trailed as he gazed back at a flicker of dim light tagging along behind them.
“Who the hell is this?” Jane asked.
“I don’t know,” said Dawson, “but whoever it is must be begging to get themselves killed.” He sat staring for a moment longer as if to make certain he wasn’t imagining things. “Shaw, get the wagon out of here.” To Caldwell and Jane he said, “All right, let’s get into cover. This could be a trick.”
“Yeah . . . ,” Jane said speculatively, staring toward the bobbing light, “nobody is this stupid.”
Shaw drove the wagon forward as quietly as possible. When he’d reached a point thirty yards along the trail, he set the brake handle, carefully eased Tuesday Bonhart over onto the wooden seat and stepped quietly over in the wagon bed behind the Gatling gun. “What’s wrong . . . ?” Tuesday asked, waking to Shaw’s movement and adjustment of the big gun.
“We’ve got somebody on our trail,” he said.
In the darkness behind Shaw, Tuesday and the gun wagon, Caldwell and Jane had slipped down from their horses on one side of the trail. A few yards ahead of them, Dawson did the same on the other side. The three watched as the lantern light drew nearer. Finally, when the swaying light revealed its carrier, Jane let out a breath of relief and disgust, and said, “I’ll be a son of a bitch. It’s Raidy Bowe. She’s following me.”
Hearing the raised voice from the side of the dark trail in front of her, Raidy gasped and said, “Jane . . . is that you?”
“Damn it,” Jane said to herself. Then to Raidy Bowe she said, “Hell yes, Raidy, it’s me. You better thank your lucky stars it is me. Now trim down that damn lantern unless you’re throwing a part for every gun-toting son of a bitch this side of hell.”
At thirty yards away, Shaw heard every word being said. So did Tuesday. “That’s Raidy Bowe?” said Tuesday.
“That’s what I heard them say,” Shaw replied.
“Why is she following us?” Tuesday asked.
“Beats me,” said Shaw. “Do you know Raidy?”
“Yes,” said Tuesday, “she and I worked the line together when we both started whoring. She quit the line before I did.” Havin
g been asleep when Jane and the lawmen had joined them, Tuesday asked almost in a whisper, “Is that’s Jane Crowley I hear back there?”
“Yes,” said Shaw, “the mouth with all the black-guarding flying out of it.”
“Is everything she says a profanity?” Tuesday asked with a short giggle, still hearing the loud cursing voice as Jane and the two lawmen led the horses back out onto the trail.
“Yes, pretty much,” Shaw said. He stood and stepped over beside Tuesday as she made room for him in the driver’s seat. “Look, I might need to tell you this. Jane and I were sort of together for a while.”
“Sort of . . . ?” Tuesday asked. “You don’t sound like it meant much.”
“It didn’t,” said Shaw, “not to me, or to her either.” As he talked he turned the wagon around on the narrow trail and began driving it back toward the others. “We went on a drunken spree, is all it really amounted to. But when it came time to get away from each other, she took offense. She’s still a little prickly over it. I thought you ought to know.”
Tuesday said, “But I thought Jane was, you know . . .” She let her words hang for Shaw’s interpretation.
“I heard that too,” Shaw said, “but she told me it’s not so. I didn’t push the subject any further.”
“Well,” said Tuesday, “Raidy Bowe is.”
Shaw looked at her. “How do you know?”
“Oh, I know,” said Tuesday. “Believe me, I know,” she added in a way that made Shaw not want to pursue that subject any further either.
He shook his head and drove the wagon forward. “I’m never getting drunk again,” he murmured.
When they stopped in the midst of the dimly lit lantern, Jane looked at Tuesday and said, “Well, well, look who’s awake. I hope we didn’t interrupt your beauty sleep.”
Tuesday ignored her, and looked at Raidy, who recognized her right away. “Tuesday Bonhart, is that you?” Raidy asked.
“Hello, Raidy,” said Tuesday.
“You two know each another?” Jane asked warily.
“Yes, we do,” Tuesday said. “What are you doing out here, Raidy?”
“I—I’m following my friend, Jane,” Raidy said.
“Yes, we’re friends,” Jane said defensively to everybody. “What the hell of it?”
No one responded. Both Raidy and Jane eyed Shaw as if to see what his reaction might be. But he only stared blankly. “And you, Tuesday,” Raidy asked, “what are you doing out here?” She took note of how close Tuesday sat to Shaw.
“It’s a long story,” Tuesday said.
Off to the side, Caldwell whispered to Dawson, “Shaw draws them from every direction, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he seems to,” Dawson said. To Shaw and the three women he said, “Whatever you four have to talk about, you best do it on the trail. We’ve got to get going.”
Jane stared harshly at Shaw, then at Tuesday Bonhart, and then she said, “I don’t have another damn thing to say about it.” She took Raidy’s horse by its bridle and pulled it over beside hers. “You stay close to me, Raidy,” she said protectively.
“I will, Janie.” Raidy beamed.
Jane scowled at Shaw, even though he hadn’t said a word or made any critical sign on the matter. “Anybody doesn’t like it, they can go to hell,” Jane added, staring toward him.
Dawson also looked at Shaw. “Are we ready to go on now?” he asked stiffly.
“I’m ready when you are,” said Shaw. He turned the wagon on the trail and pointed it in the direction of Cedrianno.
Chapter 23
Outside the Rosas Salvajes Cantina, in the grainy blue hour before daylight, the four horses stood at the iron hitch rail, still under saddle, unattended and streaked white with their own dried sweat. Inside the two-story adobe cantina and brothel, Matthew Ford stood up from a ragged blanket on the dirty tile floor and fumbled for his trousers lying on the floor beside him. He looked out at the trail-worn horses through the open front door and cursed under his breath.
“Hey, Watkins, get up. I know you’re not asleep,” he said to the nodding gunman stretched out on the bar, the young whore Calisa pressed against him, one of her short naked legs slung over him. On the bar two feet from them, a pile of brownish white cocaine powder lay spilled from the open drawstring top of a small leather pouch. Calisa snored steadily through a nose coated with the fine powder. “Watkins, damn it! Get up, let’s go,” said Ford.
He stepped over, shook Watkins roughly by his shoulder, then walked over to where Stemms lay naked on the bare tile floor between two naked women, his eyes wide and shiny, staring up at the ceiling. A streak of cocaine powder lay across Stemms’ hairy chest. “Stemms, get up,” said Ford. “You’re not asleep.” He reached his boot out and wagged Stemms’ foot back and forth. “It’s time we got moving.”
Stemms grumbled in protest. But he snapped to his feet, still in the grip of the cocaine. Beside him the two women stared as if they had never seen him before, as he snatched up his clothes and gun belt and began dressing as if the cantina were aflame. A few feet away, two guitar players and a young accordion player lay in a heap on the floor, their instruments still in hand.
“Damn, Matthew,” Stemms said, wrestling himself into his clothes. “You was the one so interested in getting here and finding some women and some hooch. Now you’re wanting to leave already?”
“I come to with a bad feeling in my guts,” said Ford, glancing with a wary eye though the wide-open front door, toward the empty street. “It’s time we get our horses watered and fed and get out of here.”
“Listen to me, Matthew,” said Stemms. “It ain’t likely the law has even gotten on our trail yet. If they did, they turned back at the border. We’re in Mexico, my young friend. Enjoy yourself.”
“I did enjoy myself,” said Ford, the cocaine keeping him as jumpy as a squirrel. “Now it’s time we did as we’re told and get moving.”
“I am moving,” Stemms said, “so settle down.”
Ford turned and walked quickly back across the cantina floor, behind the bar to where Willie Weedham sat slumped in a tall bartender’s chair, his hand folded across his thin, flat belly. “Wake up, Weed,” Ford said to the sleeping bartender, the only one in the place who had not snorted or drunk the cocaine powder.
Willie the Weed awakened to a pile of gold coins dumped into his lap. His eyes opened wide as he began gathering the coins with a big openmouthed grin of appreciation. “You fellows come back any time. You’re always welcome at the Wild Roses!”
At the bar, Watkins had stepped down onto the floor, scraped his clothes together and begun dressing. As he slung his gun belt around his waist, he said to Stemms from across the cantina, “What’s got Ford so agitated?”
“He wants to get going,” Richard Little cut in. “So do I. We didn’t mean to stay this long. It’s not wise.” He gestured a nod toward the horses out front. “We didn’t even take care of our animals.”
“Well, hell,” said Watkins, hurrying a bit faster, but sounding cross about being told what he had to do, “I expect we’ll just go take care of them right now. Let it not be said that I ever slowed this bunch down, not for a damn minute.”
In moments the four had dressed and gathered their rifles, and lavished more gold on the whores and walked out, their arms loaded with bottles of tequila and mescal. But out front they stopped and stared back and forth at the empty iron hitch rail in the grainy morning light. “Where the hell’s our horses?” Watkins asked, his face smeared with lipstick, his beard flaked with dried saliva.
“What the hell is this . . . ?” Matthew Ford said in a wary voice. “I saw them no more than five minutes—”
“Uh-oh, this ain’t good,” Arnold Stemms said, cutting him off. Less than a hundred feet away sat the gun wagon in the middle of the empty street. The rear of the wagon faced them, its tailgate down, the Gatling gun aimed in their direction. Behind the gun Shaw stood wearing his tall stovepipe hat and swallow-tailed coat. In one hand
he held one of the remaining French hand grenades. In his other hand, instead of a grenade striker, he held a glowing cigar.
“Whoa, ole buddy,” Ford called out. “Corio told us you were dead. He said some of Sepio Bocanero’s men killed you by mistake.”
“Imagine our grief,” Watkins threw in, still sailing on cocaine. Even as he spoke he looked all around to see if anyone else had them in their gun sights. “Seemed like no sooner than you joined us, you were dead and gone.”
“We were broken up,” said Little, wearing a tense, tight cocaine grin. He held bottles of tequila cradled in his left arm, but his gun hand was free, poised near the butt of a holstered Remington.
Shaw offered no reply. He only stood, silent and imposing, the open bores of the big Gatling gun barrels staring blankly at them, like some leering attack dog awaiting its command.
“Hell, I hope you ain’t gone cross at us over anything,” Ford said, noting the Gatling gun. “All we did was what we was paid to do.” He stepped forward with a shrug. “You was just one of us, far as we were all concerned.”
Shaw still didn’t reply.
After a moment, Stemms stepped forward too, and said in a lowered tone, “The hell with this, Matthew, look out.” He elbowed Ford aside and said to Shaw, “If you come here looking for your share, you’re out of luck. If you come here spoiling for a fight, you’ll get one, sure enough.”
“Arnold’s right,” said Ford. “Too bad, if Corio screwed you out of anything. But we ain’t giving nothing up without a fight.”
Behind him, Ford and the others heard the big cantina doors slam shut. They heard the iron bolt fall into place on the inside.
“Oh, shit,” said Watkins, looking all around for cover, knowing what the Gatling gun was capable of doing at this close distance.
Shaw took the cigar from between his teeth and stuck the glowing tip of it to the grenade fuse. While the four outlaws reached for their guns, he made sure the fuse was burning in a good strong sizzle, then lobbed it in a high arc toward them.
