Ralph Compton Rusted Tin

by Ralph Compton

  Wolpert didn’t die.

  That much was a pleasant surprise. The injury to his leg had been grievous and painful enough to make him think he was passing on, when in truth he was merely passing out. Then again, pleasant wouldn’t have been his assessment of what happened after the combined forces of a Wells Fargo militia and Texas Rangers swept up the remains of Burt Sampil’s gang.

  For the days immediately following the short-lived gun battle, Wolpert was in and out of consciousness. He recalled being draped over the back of a horse and then bounced in the back of a wagon. He didn’t know if he was riding along with Burt’s prized box of keys or on a pile of potato sacks, but he was handed over to the Rangers with the rest of the survivors. Both of them. Malone screeched like a stuck pig and Eddie cursed Wolpert’s name with such frequency that the foul words became part of his dreams as the doctor started working on his leg. There was talk of hacking it off below the knee, but that would have cost the doctor too much of his valuable time. It was still attached when Wolpert woke up again.

  As soon as he was able to leave the doctor’s care, Wolpert was handed over to a pair of uniformed soldiers and marched across a well-tended patch of grass in the middle of Fort Concho. He’d never been there before, but one stockade was pretty much like any other. When he was tossed inside this one, he was in the company of some Indians who were too tired to give him much trouble. One of them never stopped pacing at the back of his cell and the other put up a fuss until Wolpert was allowed to use a stick as a cane so he could walk on his own. White River was that one’s name. He was taken from the cell a few weeks after that and Wolpert never saw him again.

  Once that small bit of companionship was gone, all Wolpert could do was sit in a corner, watch the sunlight pass across his window, feel the pain move through his leg like a restless critter trapped under his skin and wait for the noose to be fitted around his neck.

  Days passed.

  Weeks slipped away.

  The wind grew a bit warmer as it blew in between the bars and still no death sentence was handed down.

  By the time someone came for him in what had to have been the first bit of spring, Wolpert was ready for whatever was coming.

  “Get up,” the guard told him. He was a thick man with a thicker mustache who kept a club hanging on a leather cord from a hook on his belt. The muscles on his arms were so prominent that he seemed more than capable of ripping the cell door from its hinges if the lock didn’t give way. Still, he didn’t take pleasure in kicking a gimp dog and always gave Wolpert a little extra time to move before becoming cross.

  “What’s the occasion? Supper’s not for a few hours.”

  “You made me wait this long,” replied a voice that was much sweeter than the guard’s. “I suppose a few more hours won’t hurt.”

  If Wolpert was able, he would have jumped up from his cot. Since he wasn’t allowed to have his cane or anything else to support his weight while in his cell, he hobbled over to the bars as best he could. “It really is you, Lucy,” he sighed. “Thought I was hearing things.”

  “I’ve heard plenty of things that I didn’t believe,” she said. “Until some of those outlandish promises were actually kept.”

  “So Dominick got my message to you? And you contacted Wells Fargo?”

  “They doubled their guard, didn’t they?”

  “And then some,” Wolpert chuckled.

  “You were right about them being generous when it came to paying for good information. Within a week after I passed that word on to them about the ambush waiting for that shipment, a man came all the way out to Sedley to pay me a visit. He told me some of the robbers got away, but they got a man they’d been after for some time and it was all thanks to my guidance. Paid me enough to settle my brothers’ debts and pull up stakes.”

  “You’re not running the stable in Sedley anymore?”

  “No,” she said with a little shake of her head. “Got a nice little spread in Missouri. Some hogs. A few head of cattle and plenty of horses.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  More than that, she looked nicer. Lucy’s face was a bit rounder than before and showed signs of a more contented way of life. Her smile was brighter than he remembered. Not that he could ever forget a smile like that. Thinking he’d never set eyes on that beautiful sight again, Wolpert had done his best to put the thought of her deep down in a place where it could give him some brightness without torturing him with something he’d never have.

  “Why are you here, Lucy?” he asked.

  “A woman named Emma came all the way from Chimney Lake to see me. This was just after I’d been informed of how much money Wells Fargo was sending my way. She told me where you’d gone and who you’d gone there with. Between her resourcefulness and my funds, we uncovered quite a lot of stories about a jail getting cracked open, vigilantes and all sorts of excitement.”

  “Excitement is hardly the word I’d use.”

  “Well, I can’t think of a better one. The Wells Fargo men told me a sheriff and his two deputies rode away while the smoke was still in the air after Burt Sampil was killed, and they were never heard from again. I figured that was you.”

  “Anyone heard from those lawmen?” Wolpert asked cautiously.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Good.”

  “When we didn’t hear from you after so much time had gone by, folks assumed you were killed. Jane declared herself a widow and caught Dominick’s eye. When I left town, she was already strutting around like a peacock in a fancy new dress. No matter what anyone said, I knew you weren’t one of those lawmen that ran away.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” she said without pause, “you wanted to come back to me. I could see that much in your eyes before you left. For a while, I thought I may have just been playing it up in my head, but I wasn’t. I can see that now.” A bit of color flushed through her cheeks when she added, “At any rate, I kept pressing the matter with Wells Fargo and one of their guards told me that the prisoners were brought here. I arrived late last night. It took some doing to get a chance to see you and I prayed you were the one that was still here. The other two were shipped back to some other jail in Kansas.”

  “Dog Creek.”

  “That’s the one.” She cocked her head and looked at his bandaged leg. “I’m sorry you were hurt, but glad if that’s what kept you here.”

  “And you came all the way down to Texas just to see me?”

  “No. I came all the way down to Texas to get you out of here.”

  “I doubt that’ll happen,” Wolpert grunted.

  “After the price I paid, it’ll happen right quick or heads will roll.” Seeing the suspicious glint in his eye, Lucy shrugged and told him, “Emma knew the names of a few men who might be receptive to some generous donations.”

  “You bribed someone?”

  “It’s only fitting, wouldn’t you say?”

  Wolpert shook his head and rested his head against the bars. “I can’t be a part of that anymore. Not after all I already done.”

  “You’re not a part of it, Zeke. It was my doing. Besides, the men here don’t know what to do with you. Do you even know why you’re being held in this cage? You were suspected of being part of Burt’s gang, but all they got as proof was the word of them other prisoners. Those lawmen that got away spoke highly of you, but they’re nowhere to be found. Seems that nobody else has mustered up enough proof to hang you for anything.”

  “There’s got to be enough to keep me locked up.”

  “Sure,” she said. “But there’s also the word of some very insistent Texas Rangers who swear they saw you kill Burt Sampil single-handedly.”

  “How much were those men paid for that favor?” Wolpert asked.

  “Not a cent. I wouldn’t even try to hand a bribe to one of those men.”

  “Yeah, Texas Rangers don’t like that too much.”

  “All it took was a little sweet talk and some incentive to grease the
wheels,” Lucy insisted. “You’ll never convince anyone to pin another badge on you and that leg will give you troubles for the rest of your days. You may even have a price on your head thanks to that business Emma told me about, so I’d say you’ve paid your penance. How about you come back to Missouri so everyone can forget about you?”

  “Will you cook me that supper you offered?”

  “That one and a thousand more. Emma told me about the little revelation you had. It wasn’t until you were gone for so long that I realized I’d had one too.”

  Wolpert looked over to the guard and found the big fellow nodding back at him. He unlocked the cell door and muttered, “If you’re leavin’, the sergeant says it better be quick. The captain’s due back within the hour.”

  At that moment, the guard reminded him of Tom. Despite the circumstances of their introduction and the purpose for them becoming partners, those three outlaws would be remembered as friends. It didn’t even matter what they thought of him at the end. He couldn’t bring himself to sacrifice those three for his own gain and he couldn’t dredge it up in him to do the same for this one. “What are you going to tell the captain when he finds out I’m gone?”

  “I’ll think of something,” the guard said with enough confidence to let Wolpert know it wouldn’t be the first time he’d covered similar tracks out of that stockade. “Would you rather stay here?”

  “No,” Wolpert said as he reached out to touch the face he’d been dreaming about through the duration of that long, harsh winter. “I sure wouldn’t.”

  Don’t miss another exciting Western adventure

  in the USA Today bestselling series!

  THE BURNING RANGE

  A Ralph Compton Novel by Joseph A. West

  coming from Signet in December 2010.

  When a gambler is trying to outrun a losing streak, he sometimes forgets the rules. That night Chauncey Drake misplaced two of them: He was playing poker under a blood moon, always unlucky for him, and he’d stubbed his toe on a dead man.

  In more prosperous times he’d have sat out the unlucky night in his hotel room with a bottle and a couple of whores who were a credit to their profession.

  But these were not thriving days for Chauncey Drake.

  And he suspected that harder times were coming down.

  “The game,” Peter J. Grapples said, “is poker.”

  The eyes peering over the top of the banker’s glasses nudged Drake gently. A man doesn’t push a known and named gunfighter too much.

  “I’m studying on it,” Drake said, staring at his cards.

  “It’s not difficult, Mr. Drake,” Grapples said. “I raised you ten.”

  “Man’s got the right to take his time,” Ed Winslow said.

  “But not all night,” Grapples said.

  Winslow nodded. “No, not all night. Truer words were never spoken.”

  Drake studied his cards. Aces and eights, a dead man’s hand.

  Nothing about the damned night boded well.

  Grapples wasn’t pushing him hard and Drake understood why.

  But what the banker didn’t know was that Drake’s blue Colt currently reposed in Sy Goldberg’s Pawn and Mercantile on Second Street, tagged, bagged and pigeonholed.

  In return for the revolver, Drake had received, from Sy’s own hand, as befitted a regular customer, a ticket and ten dollars.

  The ten dollars now sat in front of him and there was not another thin dime in his poke.

  Ed Winslow’s eyes moved to the saloon window. “Blackest night I’ve seen in a spell,” he said. He cocked his head, listening into the darkness. “Coyotes are hunting close.”

  “There’s blood on the moon,” Grapples said.

  “Unlucky for some,” Winslow said.

  “Maybe for you, Mr. Drake,” Grapples said, smiling. “Or me.”

  The banker’s smile faded and he sighed. “The game is poker,” he said for a second time.

  Drake made up his mind.

  He pushed his ten into the pot. “I call.” He spread his cards. “Got me a dead man.”

  “Too little and way too late,” Grapples said. He tossed his hand onto the table. “Three ladies.”

  “Unlucky for some,” Winslow said.

  Grapples gathered up the deck. “Shall I deal?”

  Drake shook his head. “I’m done.”

  He rose to his feet, a slim man of medium height, dressed in patched and faded gambler’s finery.

  “Another time, perhaps,” Grapples said.

  Drake nodded. “Yes, another time.”

  He walked to the door and stepped outside.

  The blood moon was rising, but for the moment it had spiked itself on a pine at the edge of town. The night gathered close, and along First Street, kerosene lamps glowed red in the darkness and smoked like the cinders of fallen stars.

  Drake found a ragged cigar stub in the pocket of his frock coat, then took a seat in one of the rockers scattered along the saloon porch.

  Across the street, outside the marshal’s office, the dead man was propped up in a pine coffin, illuminated by the railroad lantern on the boardwalk in front of him.

  The man’s face was as blue as marble, his eye sockets pooled in shadow and he showed his teeth in a death grimace.

  The reason for the grotesque display was that when Marshal Dub Halloran killed a man in the line of duty, justice had to be seen, by the whole town, to be done.

  The dead man had been a small-time thief and all-round nuisance by the name of Bates or Baxter—nobody knew for sure.

  He’d stolen a side of bacon from a farmer’s smoke-house and Halloran had tracked the man to a box canyon north of the farm. Bates or Baxter had promptly surrendered, but, for convenience’ sake, the marshal had gunned him where he stood and dragged the body back to town behind his horse.

  Nobody much cared, Sy Goldberg pretty much summing up the town’s attitude when he declared that the man’s death was a case of “good riddance to bad rubbish.”

  Drake didn’t have much sympathy for Bates or Baxter either.

  On his way to the saloon, he’d tripped over the man’s coffin, and everybody knew how unlucky that was.

  Drake took a last draw on his cigar and ground it out under his shoe.

  He was busted. Broke. Destitute. Penniless. And it hurt.

  He’d sold his horse a while back, then his watch, then his diamond stickpin, then his emerald ring. Sy Goldberg had his Colt and the shoulder holster that went with it.

  Farther down the street he saw the lights of the Bon-Ton Hotel. He couldn’t go back there until the manager left for the night. The man was pressing Drake for money and had threatened to padlock his room if the eighty dollars he owed was not paid “instanter or even sooner.”

  A six-month losing streak had exacted its toll, and that night Drake knew he had scraped the bottom of his last barrel.

  He rose to his feet and stepped to the edge of the boardwalk.

  A cowboy walked past, leading his horse, looking neither left nor right. Then one of the respectable matrons of the town followed behind him. Drake touched his hat to the woman, but she lifted her nose and ignored him.

  Despite his gloom, Drake smiled. Could people sense poverty? Or did they not care to look at a man who was wrapped up in his own gloomy shadow?

  Round as a coin, the moon had broken free of the pines and was riding high in the sky, spawning crouching shadows all over town. Out in the darkness coyotes yipped, their fur rippled by a rising wind.

  Drake was seized by the urge to flee, to steal a horse and outrun the tiger. But flee to where? To yet another hick town in the middle of nowhere where no one would be glad at his coming or sad at his leaving?

  From the frying pan into the fire.

  “Evening, Chauncey. Still prospering, I see, huh?”

  Drake turned. Savannah Swan stood on the boardwalk, a smile on her scarlet lips.

  “That obvious?”

  “I’d say. You’ve mended them bri
tches you’re wearing so many times, they look like Grandma’s patchwork quilt.”

  Drake said nothing and Savannah said: “Still trying to buck a losing deck?”

  “That sums it up.”

  “Let me buy you a drink.”

  “I’ll pass.” That sounded harsh and Drake sweetened it with a smile. “How’s business?”

  The woman shrugged. “Tuesday night. It’s slow. All the married ones are to home with their skinny wives and the drovers don’t get paid till Friday.”

  “Things are tough all over,” Drake said.

  Savannah ignored that and said: “Why don’t you talk to Loretta?”

  Drake shook his head. “Loretta ain’t exactly a whore with a heart of gold. She stung me on my ring.”

  “She likes you, Chauncey. And I know she’s holding. Got a big roll.”

  “Smooth that out for me.”

  “Like I said, she’s holding. Ask her for a grubstake.”

  “I’ve got no, what they call, collateral. Loretta has my ring and Sy Goldberg has my gun.”

  “So? You ain’t going anyplace, are you?”

  “Loretta is holding, you say?”

  “Big roll.”

  “I’ll study on it.”

  Savannah smiled. “Don’t study on it too long. She’s leaving town tomorrow to visit a sick aunt—be gone for a week.”

  “She’s home right now?”

  “Washing her hair. She’s had no gentlemen callers and isn’t expecting any.”

  “Maybe I’ll go talk to her.”

  Savannah smiled, looking over Drake’s shabby clothes and down-at-heel shoes. “Maybe you should.”

  She gathered her shawl around her naked shoulders. “I got to get down to the Alamo. There will be no customers, but Hank Bowman expects me to be there on the chance that somebody gets horny.”

  The woman glanced at the sky and shivered as she walked away. “Blood on the moon, Chauncey,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, I noticed that,” Drake said.