by Ralph Cotton
At daylight he led his men higher up into the hill country, taking a shorter route to the far end of their dark valley lair. As they climbed the trail, he left two of the brothers behind to keep watch over the lower trails and make sure no federales picked up their tracks and followed them.
No sooner had Soto and the rest of the men ridden out of sight than the two Satan’s Brothers found themselves an overhanging ledge that afforded them a view of the land, much like that of a soaring eagle. For more than two hours they sat in silence, their horses hidden on a grown-over hillside behind them.
But then, as they were about to pull up and ride closer to Soto and the men and take a new position, they spotted two riders move into sight on a thin trail fifty yards below. One of the brothers nudged the other and gestured toward the bulging saddlebags behind the two riders’ saddles. They looked at one another and smiled. Then they moved forward and down over the edge like rock lizards closing in on prey.
On the lower trail, the two riders stopped quickly, Max Short throwing his arm out and saying, ‘‘Whoa, Hunt, is that who I think it is?’’
Hunt Broadwell gazed down with him, the two seeing the ranger step down from his saddle and limp forward, leading the paint horse to the edge of a narrow stream. ‘‘Damn right it is.’’ Broadwell grinned. ‘‘It’s that ranger, Sam Burrack, the one who gave Memphis Beck such a hard time in Little Aces.’’
‘‘What’s wrong with him?’’ Short asked.
‘‘I don’t know,’’ said Broadwell. ‘‘He looks like he’s been dragged through a dry creek bottom.’’
As they stared, Sam kneeled down stiffly, sank his canteen and let it fill while he and the horse watered themselves. ‘‘Think he knows about the train robbery?’’ Short asked, backing his horse out of sight, Broadwell doing the same beside him.
‘‘So what if he does?’’ said Short. ‘‘That’s Mexico’s problem. It’s no concern of his.’’
‘‘Burrack’s known to stick his nose in where it doesn’t belong,’’ said Broadwell, drawing his rifle from its boot and stepping down from his saddle. He hitched his horse to a tree.
‘‘What are you doing?’’ Short whispered. He stared at Broadwell, even as he stepped down and hitched his horse at the same spot.
‘‘What does it look like I’m doing?’’ said Broadwell, levering around into his rifle chamber. He nodded toward his bulging saddlebags. ‘‘This is the biggest cache of gold that’s ever come my way. I’m not taking a chance some flea-bit ranger is going to take it away.’’
‘‘What about Beck?’’ said Short. ‘‘He don’t hold with killing.’’
‘‘So? We’re not on a job. This is me protecting what’s mine.’’ Broadwell grinned and stepped over to a rock at the edge of the trail. ‘‘Besides, I never held much with that old Hole-in-the-wall belief about not killing. Do you?’’
‘‘Now that you mention it, no, I never did,’’ said Short. ‘‘I never said anything because I don’t ride with them, except now and then.’’
‘‘Well, if Beck had any sense, he’d thank me for this,’’ said Broadwell. ‘‘All the same, don’t you tell him about it.’’
‘‘I won’t say anything,’’ said Short. ‘‘Make sure you don’t miss. I don’t want to spend the day trying to outrun him, especially with these heavy saddlebags.’’
‘‘Don’t talk stupid,’’ said Broadwell, kneeling down, propping his left elbow on top of the rock and leaning into the rifle stock to take aim. ‘‘Even a greenhorn could make a shot like this.’’ He eyed down the sights and slipped his finger across the trigger. ‘‘Good-bye, Ranger. You’re dead.’’
Behind him Short made a muffled sound as a hand came from behind and wrapped across his mouth. The blade of a machete sliced along the side of his neck, sinking deep into his throat.
‘‘Keep quiet while I make my shot,’’ Broadwell said over his shoulder. He settled onto the rifle stock, aimed the sights dead center of the ranger’s back and began to squeeze the trigger. On his right, he heard the sound of metal slice through the air in a full circle swing, lopping off his head just as his rifle shot exploded.
At the stream, Sam rolled sideways, rose up into a crouch, and raced away into the cover of brush. Bits of chipped rock and dirt stung the paint’s forelegs and sent the animal bolting across the streambed, out of sight. On the steep hillside Sam heard Hunt Broadwell’s head rolling, bumping, bouncing and tumbling, down through brush and rock. But he had no idea what it was until it bounced out onto the trail and came to a halt in front of him.
Atop the higher trail, the Satan’s Brother looked down and back and forth only for a second, out of curiosity. Wiping his blade on Broadwell’s back, he stepped away from the bloody rock, turned and shoved the other brother away from the bulging saddlebags. Taking the reins to both horses, the two swung up into the saddles and rode back up to where their other horses stood waiting.
From the brush the ranger ventured a look up in the direction of the rifle shot. His Colt was out, cocked and ready. But after waiting so long that the paint horse came walking back warily toward the steam, Sam eased forward with caution. Taking the paint horse’s reins, he looked down at Broadwell’s head, then up along the edge of the higher trail, long enough to decide what had just happened. Rolling the head off the trail with the toe of his boot, he stepped up into the saddle and rode away.
When the trail he rode switched back and climbed upward, he found both bodies where the Satan’s Brothers had left them. Broadwell lay headless, sprawled across the bloody rock, his arms spread and his rifle lying between them. Short lay in a bloody heap on the ground. Sam looked all around and saw where their killers had ridden off on their horses. Without realizing it, the Satan’s Brothers had saved his life.
‘‘See?’’ he said to the paint horse, as if talking to Hector. ‘‘Even demons make mistakes.’’ He tapped his heels to the paint’s sides and rode on.
No sooner had Soto and his men arrived in the dark end of Shadow Valley than he began making enough explosives to bring the valley walls down on anyone foolish enough to come looking for him. There had been no one on his trail, but he realized the region was crawling with federales who were searching everywhere for the shipment of gold.
Let them come, he told himself, looking at the empty buckboard wagon that the brothers had taken when it was loaded with gold, after killing Captain Guzman and his soldiers. ‘‘Even the Mexican army is no match for Satan’s Brothers, eh, my brothers?’’ he said to the men gathered around him. ‘‘When I am finished placing these loads, we will ride out and take more gold for ourselves.’’
The entire community of brothers had stood watching him load bundle after bundle of freshly rolled dynamite sticks and glass vials of extra nitroglycerin into a large canvas pack and swing it carefully up onto his shoulders. Before he turned to climb the crude, chiseled steps up the rock wall of the valley, one of the brothers stepped forward, and spoke to him in Spanish.
‘‘We have watched you make and place your explosives throughout the length of Shadow Valley for three days,’’ the brother said. ‘‘When will you be finished?’’
‘‘We have many enemies,’’ said Soto. ‘‘If we are pushed here into the dark end of the valley, we must have an ambush prepared for them.’’
‘‘But when will it be enough?’’ the brother asked.
‘‘When I say it is enough,’’ Soto said with a snap, giving him a dark glare. ‘‘When is anything ever enough? With us there is always a need for more of everything. More gold, more explosives, more blood.’’ He picked up a coil of fuse cord and slipped it over his shoulder. ‘‘This is the world we create. This is what the ancient ones bequeathed to us. This is what Satan has sworn us to.’’
The brother stood back and watched him step up onto the jagged rocky wall and begin climbing the steep, narrow steps toward the top. Every ten yards he stopped long enough to reach back over his shoulder, pull out a bundle of dynamite and
stick it tightly into a crevice before continuing on.
At the top of the wall he still had three bundles of dynamite and the vials of pure nitroglycerin when he climbed over the top edge and stood up, brushing dirt from his chest. The sound of a horse caused him to stop brushing and look in disbelief at the big paint horse standing twenty yards away, staring calmly at him.
Looking quickly all around, Soto started to slip the pack from his back, but he stopped when he heard a gun hammer cock and saw the ranger step out from behind a large, embedded boulder. Keeping his hands on his pack straps, Soto gave a slow, menacing grin and said, ‘‘I should have chopped you apart myself, Ranger.’’
‘‘It’s too late for ‘should haves,’ Soto,’’ Sam said, making no mention of arrest.
Soto shook his head and said, ‘‘I go to all this trouble setting up an ambush in Shadow Valley, and you ride all the way around the valley instead of through it. Why did you do that, Ranger? It makes no sense that you would go to all that trouble.’’
‘‘I try never to do what the devil predicts,’’ Sam said flatly.
‘‘I think it’s because you are that afraid of me, and of my kind?’’
‘‘Of you and your kind, no,’’ said Sam. ‘‘You and your boys are nothing new . . . just one more handful of fanatic idiots who’re feeling bold, thinking you’ve got backing from hell.’’
‘‘Oh, but we do have, Ranger!’’ Soto said, his eyes a dark, fervent glow. ‘‘Satan’s Brothers are ancient, and we are indeed brothers of the devil himself, as you will find out as soon as I signal for the men below to ride up and kill you.’’ His grin returned. ‘‘You won’t get away. This time I will eat your heart. I swear it to the devil and to hell!’’ He backed to the edge and signaled down to the men on the dark, narrow valley floor.
‘‘The devil and hell . . .’’ Sam shook his head. ‘‘Soto, you’re a fraud. You’ve never known the devil or hell, either one’’—his Colt leveled in his hand—‘‘until now.’’
Hearing the shot from the valley floor, the brothers looked up as they scrambled to mount the horses and follow Soto’s command. They stopped suddenly, seeing Soto in the air above them, the impact of the shot picking him up and hurling him backward off the rocky edge.
Knowing what came next, the ranger turned and raced farther away from the edge. Below him he heard the demons scream loudly in unison, some strange chorus from the bowels of hell. But their scream stopped suddenly. Grabbing the paint’s reins and bracing himself, Sam heard and felt the first in a string of terrible blasts as Soto’s body struck the side of the valley wall on its way down.
Ducking low, Sam rubbed a gloved hand along the paint’s side, settling the frightened animal as the explosions raced violently along the length of Shadow Valley. For a full minute after the last blast, he stood listening, feeling the cavernous ground beneath him rumble and settle and adjust itself back into place.
‘‘Easy, boy, it’s over,’’ Sam whispered to the paint, feeling grit and tiny pieces of debris shower down around him. He stepped up into the saddle, turned the paint and rode almost a hundred yards before escaping the worst of the billowing dust and smoke. When he stopped the paint, he turned it and stared in awe, witnessing for a moment what terrible force man could create for the destruction of his own.
‘‘We don’t need the devil,’’ he said to the paint, rubbing its neck as he contemplated man’s resource and the lack of reluctance on the part of men like Suelo Soto to use it. But he didn’t think about it long. He needed to get back across the border. The federales would be stopping and questioning anybody riding these badlands until they found out what happened to the gold. He didn’t have time for it. He had a long ride ahead of him, all the way to Hole-in-the-wall, Wyoming. A dangerousplace for a lawman, he reminded himself. But that’s where Beck told him his stallion would be. He gave a thin, wry smile, turning the paint away from Shadow Valley, back toward the high trails. Yep, if his stallion was there . . . that’s where he was headed.
Turn the page for a preview of Ralph Cotton’s next book, RIDE TO HELL’S GATE Coming from Signet in September 2008
Matamoros, Mexico
Lawrence Shaw, aka Fast Larry, aka the Fastest Gun Alive, aka the Mad Gunman, aka Chever Reed, had been too drunk for too long to be standing in a dirt street about to do battle. Yet here I am, he reminded himself through a whiskey haze. He held his right hand poised at the butt of the big Colt holstered at his hip. He stood with his feet spread shoulder-width apart, not so much in preparation for a gunfight, but rather to settle the unsteady world beneath him and keep himself from falling.
‘‘I know who you are,’’ Titus Boland called out from thirty feet away, stone sober, advancing slowly toward Shaw as he spoke.
So do I..., Shaw answered to himself, not sure what he meant, or if he could have formed an intelligent reply even if he’d wanted to. Instead he only nodded; he dared not attempt a step forward, not until the world stopped spinning and wobbling before his bloodshot eyes.
‘‘You’re sure as hell not Chever Reed, the attorney from Brownsville, the man you’ve tricked everybody here into thinking you are. You’re Lawrence Shaw, the murdering coward from Somo Santos, Texas,’’ Boland called out. ‘‘I aim to take from you what you took from my poor brother Ned in Eagle Pass—your life!’’
All right, now on with it . . . Shaw nodded again; he didn’t care. He stared at Boland, feeling his bleary eyes began to focus. He wasn’t the least bit concerned with Titus Boland’s angry threats, even though he knew Boland meant every word he’d said and had every intention of killing him, right here, right now, drunk or sober. It makes no differenceto Boland, Shaw thought, or to me either. He took a deep, drunken breath.
Lawrence Shaw had long forgotten how many men had shouted pretty much the same kind of threats at him from countless dirt streets, from hastily abandoned saloon bars, from overturned card tables, from hotels, restaurants, houses of ill-repute . . . Death threats all sounded the same; they had for a long time.
‘‘Let’s get it done,’’ Shaw managed to say flatly without his thick tongue betraying him. He almost attempted a step forward now that this senses seemed to be returning. But unsure, he stopped himself at the last second and remained standing perfectly still.
‘‘I’ve been killing you in my sleep for over three years, Fast Larry!’’ Boland bellowed. ‘‘Today I’m bringing everybody’s chickens home to roost.’’
A few feet behind him, to his left, one of Boland’s gunman pals, Albert McClinton, looked sidelong at Vincent Tomes and whispered, ‘‘What the hell is he talking about, ‘chickens roosting’?’’
‘‘I don’t know. Hush up,’’ Tomes replied nervously without taking his eyes off Shaw. ‘‘This Shaw fellow is faster than a rattlesnake. We do not want to be caught unawares by him.’’
‘‘Yeah, but chickens roosting?’’ Albert persisted, still in a whisper. ‘‘I don’t see what chickens roosting has got to do with any—’’
‘‘It’s just a figure of speech, damn it!’’ Tomes growled. ‘‘Now spread out, so’s one shot don’t kill us both! I wish I’d never got talked into this.’’
‘‘That goes double for me,’’ McClinton murmured.
Okay, there’s three of them. . . . Shaw grinned to himself. Good . . . Maybe these three were the ones who would do it. Maybe this would be the day the undertaker closed the lid over his face and lowered him into the ground forever. Mexico, eh . . . ? So this was where it would happen. He cut a glance across the wide street, seeing colorful banners and streamers fluttering on the breeze in front of the American Consulate building a block away.
Mexico will do, he told himself. He’d always liked Mexico. Rosa was from Mexico, not far from here. That was good enough for him. Ah, Rosa. Dear, precious Rosa, he said silently to his deceased wife, half closing his eyes. For a numb, drunken moment he felt a deep joy sweep over him. Was she here? Could she see him? He hoped so; God, he hoped so. I’m comin
g to you at last, Rosa, he spoke silently to her, even as the three gunmen settled into position.
‘‘Here it is, Shaw!’’ Boland shouted, his fingers opening and closing restlessly. ‘‘Anything you want to say before I send you straight to hell?’’
Shaw slowly shook his head, a dreamy smile on his lips as he thought of Rosa, seeing her loving face, her dark eyes. He could feel her warm arms around him. ‘‘Get it done,’’ he said, his hand poised and relaxed near his holster, as if he might or might not decide to draw it when the time came.
‘‘My god, look at him!’’ Tomes whispered to McClinton in a shaken voice. ‘‘He’s as calm and cold-blooded as any man I’ve seen! He has no doubt what’s about to happen here.’’
‘‘Because he knows for damn sure that he’s going to kill us all,’’ McClinton replied, his voice turning strained and shaky.
‘‘Go for your gun, Shaw!’’ Boland raged, seeing Shaw’s indifferent attitude, ‘‘else I’ll kill you, anyway. It makes me no never-mind if you fight back or not!’’
Still wearing his drunken, reposeful smile, Shaw slapped his hand to his gun butt.
Instantly Boland made the same move, his Colt coming up cocked and firing as Shaw’s hand seemed to stick to his holstered gun. McClinton and Tomes stood stunned, not believing their eyes as they saw Boland’s bullet punch Shaw in his right shoulder. They looked even more stunned as they watched Shaw pitch forward, unfazed by the gunshot wound, and pass out cold, facedown in the dirt.
‘‘Watch it, Boland!’’ Tomes warned, sidestepping away with his gun drawn and ready to fire. ‘‘It’s just a ploy!’’
‘‘A ploy?’’ Titus Boland cut Tomes a disgusted look as he advanced toward Shaw, who lay limp in the street. ‘‘This is no ploy. He’s hit. I nailed him fair and square.’’ He stopped a few feet away from Shaw and aimed the gun at the back of his head. ‘‘This one here is for my poor deceased brother.’’
