by Tabor Evans
The hooves of the horse and the mule sent up a fine, white spray sparkling in the sunlight.
“What’s goin’ on?” asked Wilbur Keats.
Natcho slid the spyglass back right. Comanche John’s partner was trotting his sorrel and pack horse up a low rise, the handles of the picks and shovels tucked into the panniers nodding with the pack horse’s movements.
When the man had disappeared down the other side of the rise, Natcho slid the spyglass left again. Comanche John had mounted the river’s opposite bank. He appeared to be heading for the mouth of an off-shooting ravine.
Natcho lowered the spyglass, reduced it, and stuck it into the fringed sheath hanging around his neck. “They split up,” he said as he leaped off the scarp, landing on the lower ledge between Crazy Eddie and Wilbur Keats. He continued on down the shelf toward their horses tethered in the ravine.
“Split up?” said Keats, the biggest of the three, breathing hard as he followed Natcho and Crazy Eddie.
“John is headin’ into a ravine, south side of the river. Nearest I can figure, they are looking for a claim.” Natcho leaped the slope’s last few feet and landed flat-footed in a patch of bromegrass. To his left, the three horses tied to spindly cedar shrubs eyed the men expectantly, the high-altitude sun dancing on Natcho’s silver-mounted black saddle and bridle chains.
“What if he don’t have the money on him?” Keats asked as Natcho turned his left stirrup out, then swung into the leather.
Natcho put his black-and-white pinto toward the canyon, whipping the horse’s left hip with his rein ends and digging his spurs into the mount’s flanks. “We take it out of his hide.”
He was halfway across the river when the other two caught up to him, one on either side, shod hooves ringing off the half-submerged rocks. As they gained the river’s low, southern bank, Natcho shucked his brass-breeched Henry repeater from its scabbard, cocked it one-handed, and turned the pinto toward the ravine mouth, glancing down to see John’s tracks gouged in the sparse weeds and river sand.
Pressing a finger to his mustachioed lips for quiet, and grinning evily, he turned to the others, who fell in behind him, walking their horses single-file as they cleaved the ravine’s mouth.
Being mere drifters and occasional drovers, Crazy Eddie and Wilbur Keats deferred to Natcho, who’d been a Texas shootist and border bandit before running north from Mexican bounty hunters.
The three followed a narrow trail along a seep, into the ravine’s soft purple shadows. About fifty yards in, the ravine’s rocky, brush-tufted walls fell back, and woods opened on the left and across the seep on the right.
Bird and squirrels chittered. Springs murmured up from mossy stones.
They’d passed several dry sluice traps and the remains of an old mining shack, when Natcho drew rein and raised his rifle for the others to follow suit. About forty yards ahead, where the trail began a slow swing toward the right along an aspen copse, a black mule’s ass protruded from the woods, tail swishing lazily. Natcho could make out part of a dirty canvas pack saddle.
He waved to Crazy Eddie and Wilbur Keats, then reined his horse hard left, and in seconds they were dismounting behind a low knoll among cedars and buffalo grass. No one said a word as they tied their mounts to the spindly shrubs. Then, Keats and Crazy Eddie following Natcho while holding their old-model repeaters up high across their chests, they crept toward the half-concealed pack mule.
Natcho stopped and turned to the others. He kept his voice low. “I will circle around. Keep going and, for the love of Mary, don’t make any noise!”
Wilbur Keats wrinkled his nose indignantly as Natcho slipped into the trees on the right side of the trail, moving soundlessly on his low-heeled, black boots.
“Fuckin’ bean-eater thinks we’re a coupla moon-calves,” he groused and continued tramping up trail, Crazy Eddie on his left.
“I’d have back-shot him a long time ago if he wasn’t so good at gettin’ us women,” Crazy Eddie whispered.
“Shhh,” Keats said as they approached a broad birch, moving up to within twenty yards of the black pack mule beyond the tree.
They were ten feet from the birch, quartering around its left side, when a large figure suddenly stepped out from behind it. Comanche John held a long-barreled Colt Navy in one hand and a broad-bladed Bowie knife in the other. The horsehair thong of his sugarloaf sombrero hung loose beneath his chin.
He grinned from ear to ear, white teeth flashing in his slate gray beard.
“If you fuckin’ dunderheads think you can sneak up on Comanche John, you got another think comin’!”
There was a wooden thud, and John’s head jerked forward. He closed his eye and pinched up his cheeks as he stumbled toward Keats and Crazy Eddie, dropping first his pistol and then his knife before falling to his knees with a grunt.
Slumping forward on his hands, he shook his head and snorted like an enraged bull buffalo with arrows in its flanks.
Natcho stepped up behind John, lowering the butt of his Henry, a foxy grin lifting the corners of his knife-slash mouth, framed by long, drooping mustaches. “If you say so, Jose!”
Longarm’s sorrel and pack mule splashed through the sun-dappled river specked with old leaves and occasional branches, and mounted the opposite bank.
Longarm swept the ground with his gaze, looking for more wolf sign like that which Comanche John had spotted on the other side of the river, among three sets of unshod horse tracks. Being a primitive, without regular access to a blacksmith’s forge, Magnusson probably let his horses go barefoot . . .
The lawman drew rein as his eyes scanned the moist sand pocked with several sets of horse tracks—these all shod.
Five, by his count. All five sets looked fresh.
It looked as though John was leading a parade up the ravine yonder.
Longarm shucked his Winchester from the saddle boot and heeled the sorrel ahead. At the ravine’s mouth, he tied the pack mule in high grass and shrubs, then remounted the sorrel and headed up the ravine, following the tracks etching the muddy trail before him.
Ten minutes later, angry voices rose on the breeze, above the tinny murmur of the freshet on his right. The smacks of thrown punches sounded, with anguished grunts and groans.
Longarm slipped out of his saddle, dropped the sorrel’s reins, and jogged ahead, staying as far left as he could, peering around a slow, right bend in the trail. When he spied movement about forty yards away, at the edge of the aspen copse, he dodged behind a high knoll stippled with occasional cedars and boulders, and climbed the knoll’s backside.
The voices grew louder as he gained the top of the knoll and started down the other side, weaving through small scarps and a few stunt pines. He stopped about halfway down the knoll, between a craggy thumb of rust-colored sandstone and a lone pine.
In the clearing before him, between the trail and the aspens, Comanche John stood in a loose circle formed by three men in dusty trail clothes, circling John like wolves on the death scent. Bloody-faced and hatless, John held his fists high as he bobbed and weaved and spat curses, berating and baiting his attackers, coaxing them on.
One of the men—big and fleshy and wearing a shabby opera hat with a red silk band—was on his knees, cursing and crossing his hands over his crotch. John swung toward a short, wiry gent with blood trickling down his busted lip, a battered, funnel-brimmed Stetson lying nearby.
“You fuckin’, old, cheatin’ bastard!” the wiry gent shouted, then swung his right fist at John’s head.
Comanche John parried the blow, the wiry gent’s fist glancing off John’s forearm. John stepped forward with surprising grace for a man his age and size, and jabbed his left into the wiry gent’s face with a solid smack.
“Unnghhh!” the wiry gent cried as blood from his smashed nose sprayed across his face.
As the wiry gent staggered back, clutching his ruined nose, the third man—a Mexican in bull-hide chaps and a black vest adorned with small, silver conchos—strode smoothly toward John,
grinning. As John turned toward him, the Mexican laid two quick jabs, one with each fist, against John’s cheeks.
Then he buried his right fist into John’s gut.
When John leaned forward with a massive grunt, spewing air from his lungs, the Mexican rammed his right knee into John’s face.
Howling like a moon-crazed lobo, the Mexican turned and danced away from John.
Wheeling back toward his quarry with a mocking flourish, the Mexican drew his Colt from the cross-draw holster on his left hip, thumbing back the hammer as he closed his fingers around the hide-wrapped grips.
On the side of the knoll, Longarm loudly jacked a shell into the Winchester’s breech and aimed the rifle straight out from his right hip.
“Fandango’s over, friends!”
The Mexican whipped his head toward him. So did the fat man still down on his knees and the wiry gent now holding only one hand to his nose while the other hand fingered the grips of his holstered six-shooter.
The three stood frozen, glaring at Longarm. Comanche John turned toward the lawman, as well, blinking blood from his eye, half-lowering his fists.
Holding his revolver about four inches above his holster, the Mexican shaped another grin, his black eyes cunning. “Mister, I’m betting you cannot fire accurately from that distance and position.”
Longarm squeezed the Winchester’s trigger.
“Ahhhh!” the Mexican cried as the bullet drilled the revolver in his hand. The gun dropped several feet behind him, the force of the shot spinning him toward the trees and dropping him to his knees.
Clutching his bloody right hand in his left, he turned his slit-eyed, hard-jawed glance over his right shoulder. “Son of a bitch!”
Longarm raked his gaze across the other two men, saw the hefty gent sliding his pudgy, gloved right hand toward his own six-shooter while staring at Longarm. Longarm swung the Winchester toward him, and blew the opera hat off his head.
The man screamed and ducked as his hat, a ragged hole in the red silk band, rolled off on the breeze.
“Anyone else?” Longarm asked, swinging the Winchester from left to right and back again.
Comanche John lowered his fists to his sides and chuckled.
The skinny gent with the broken nose yelled as though from the bottom of a deep well, blood spraying from his smashed nostrils with every breath. “That old bastard done fleeced us at cards in Valentine. Won five hundred dollars off’n us with a marked deck!”
Longarm glanced at John, who pointed at the skinny gent and lifted his chin toward Longarm. “I done told ’em I’d pay ’em back when I got to Diamondback. But no, they wanted it right then and there on the trail. Well, goddamnit, boys, I don’t have it.” He leaned back on his heels and threw his head back, guffawing. “And I reckon you found out what happens when you try takin’ it out of my hide.”
“Shut up, John,” Longarm said.
Comanche John closed his mouth and scowled, brushing blood from his eye with the back of his hand.
Longarm looked at the men who’d been trailing them. “You three, toss down your weapons and get the hell outta here. I see you again, I won’t be near this friendly.”
The Mexican was wrapping his neckerchief around his hand, scowling up at Longarm. “What about our money?”
“You’ll have to take that up with John . . . when I’m out of the picture. As long as I’m in it, I’ll perforate your hides if you come after him again.” Longarm jerked the Winchester barrel down ravine. “Now, break a leg.”
When the men had tossed down their weapons and slouched off indignantly, the skinny gent shoving bits of his torn neckerchief up his nose, the Mexican cursing and clutching his wounded hand, the beefy gent walking bull-legged and donning his bullet-torn opera hat, Longarm descended the knoll.
Comanche John stood in the middle of the clearing, smiling at Longarm, blinking blood from his eye. Longarm approached the man, scowling, raising his Winchester straight out from his waist.
John backed away, lifting his hands to his shoulders, palms out. “Now, wait a minute, Longarm. Don’t do nothin’ hasty! I’m the one that spied that wolf scat! You’d have ridden right on by!”
Longarm snugged the Winchester’s barrel against John’s belly. John tensed, balling his gray-furred cheeks and slitting his eye, awaiting the shot. Longarm wasn’t about to shoot him, but for several seconds he enjoyed the fantasy.
He removed the barrel from the mountain man’s belly and depressed the hammer. “You find any sign up this way?”
Comanche John swallowed, his sheepish grin returning, and lowered his hands. He shook his head. “Not even a track.”
“I found more wolf prints just ahead of the shit pile across the river. Horse tracks, too.” Longarm turned and began walking down ravine, resting his rifle barrel on his shoulder. “Come on.”
“Can’t I take a moment to tend myself?” John said behind him, voice hoarse with indignation. “In case you can’t see, Longarm, I’m a bit disheveled!”
“You can tend yourself tonight. I wanna stay on that wolf’s trail while it’s fresh.”
Chapter 10
When Natcho, Keats, and Crazy Eddie had retrieved their horses, they splashed back across the river in moody silence. When they’d gained the main trail hugging the canyon’s north wall, Natcho drew rein. Hunkered over his wounded hand, he gazed west, his eyes pain-wracked and fury-glazed.
He’d replaced his lost Colt in his holster with a spare from his saddlebags, as had Crazy Eddie. Wilbur Keats didn’t have a spare six-shooter, but he still had his saddle gun—a Spencer .56.
“Where the hell we goin’, Natcho?” said Crazy Eddie, bits of bloody neckerchief hanging from his swollen nose. Already, his eyes were turning purple. “We ain’t gonna turn tail on that son of a bitch, are we?”
“Listen, boys,” Wilbur Keats grunted, shifting uncomfortably in his saddle to make room for his swollen balls. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to write off my share of that five hundred dollar fleecin’. Comanche John’s partner”—the lumpy man shook his head grimly—“no thanks!”
“Shut up, coward,” grated Natcho through gritted teeth as he hipped around in his saddle to look back across the river.
“Come on, Natcho,” Keats said, wincing, his chubby, patch-bearded cheeks streaked with sweat and grime, “I think I might have some permanent damage. I’d like for a sawbones to check me out.”
Crazy Eddie laughed nasally and punched Keats in the arm. “Ah, what’re you worried about, Wilbur? You never had any balls in the first place!”
Natcho booted his horse westward. “Fall in, amigos. An old Ute woman works at the roadhouse up yonder. Uglier than Diablo’s bride, but she knows some healin’.”
“Ah, Christ,” grunted Keats, hunkered over his saddle horn. “I’d just as soon have a white man inspect my oysters.”
Crazy Eddie laughed again. “What—you think the ole dog-eater’s gonna cut ’em off?” He sobered as his horse followed Natcho’s high-stepping pinto. “I tell you what I want. I want another run at ole Comanche John and his friend that’s so handy with that long gun. I’m gonna take that Winchester of his, shove it up his ass, and pull the fucking trigger . . .”
“You’ll get your chance,” Natcho said without turning around.
An hour later, as the sun angled behind the toothy western ridges, they drew up before a roadhouse nestled in a little gap in the rocky, cedar-stippled bluffs on the north side of the trail.
“Ah, fuck!” Crazy Eddie complained as he ran his gaze over the hovel, its tin chimney pipe smokeless, the windows shuttered, a padlock on the door. There were no sounds from inside, no horses in the corral or lean-to stable flanking the shack’s right side. “No one’s here!”
Wilbur Keats leaned out from his saddle, studying the sheet of moisture-stained paper fluttering from a nail in the right door casing. He moved his lips, trying to sound out the words.
Natcho turned to Crazy Eddie, the only one of t
he three who could read. “What’s it say, Professor?”
Crazy Eddie leaned out from his own saddle, slitting his eyes. Haltingly, he recited the words penciled on the breeze-jostled leaf.
“Closed . . . till crazy mountain man and his wolf girls . . . are hung.”
Natcho cursed.
Crazy Eddie looked at him. “What crazy mountain man?”
“I never heard nothin’ about it,” said Keats. “Ain’t been through this country in a time.”
“Crazy mountain man?” Natcho chuffed. “You ever known one that ain’t crazy?”
He frowned suddenly, lifting his chin and squinting his eyes. He’d heard something.
A woman’s laugh?
“What the hell was that?” said Crazy Eddie.
It came again, like a chime wafting on the wind. It was a woman’s laugh. No doubt about it.
Natcho hipped around in his saddle, trying to follow the sound to its source. It had come from the river. He stared at the scattered pines and aspens impeding his view of the Diamondback, the wind ruffling the leaves.
Female voices rose. A giggle.
Suddenly, a horse’s head pushed through a low-hanging aspen branch. The horse mounted the bank, the branch swiping over it, two riders ducking beneath the rustling leaves.
The horse’s hooves clomped and rang off stones. When the mount had cleared the tree, the two young women on its blanketed back lifted their heads, giggling.
“I’ll . . . be . . . damned,” muttered Keats.
Natcho blinked as the women pulled the brown-and-white paint onto the trail and reined it up canyon—two young women, probably in their early twenties, one with light features and curly, golden hair, the other with the dusky red features and the coal black hair of a full-blooded Indian. The Indian girl sat in front of the blonde, holding the braided rawhide reins up high against her full breasts pushing at the low-cut deerskin dress.
Three large, gutted jackrabbits hung down from the saddlehorn before her—the fur bloody, eyes open.
The dark-haired girl turned toward Natcho and the others and halted the horse. The blonde followed her gaze, lips stretching back from her teeth in a grin.
