Wildfire

by Ralph Cotton

  “So long, Tanner Riggs,” Tarpis whispered to himself.

  The men watched Riggs walk to the blanket with his hand poised beside the Colt holstered on his hip.

  Cheyenne lay stretched out bedside Caroline, a wildflower sticking behind his ear. Seeing the gunman coming toward them, Caroline grabbed her blouse, hurriedly put it on and held it closed over her breasts.

  “Cheyenne, I’ve got something to say to you,” said Riggs, stopping a few feet back, seeing Cheyenne’s gun belt lying at the edge of the blanket.

  “Get it said, then,” Cheyenne replied, already seeing gunplay coming by the look on Riggs’ face—his demeanor. Yet he lay on his back propped on his elbows, looking up at Riggs.

  “Get on your feet,” Riggs said.

  “I’m good right here,” Cheyenne said firmly. Caroline stared, afraid to move a muscle or bat an eye. She lay with only inches between her and Cheyenne.

  “Suit yourself, then,” said Riggs. “I don’t like working for chicken scratch,” he said. “You’re not running this gang right.”

  “Since when is making money working for chicken scratch?” Cheyenne said.

  “When you set up a job half-assed, just to make up for money some damn woman stole from you,” Riggs said, bluntly, removing any question about where this was headed.

  Cheyenne’s face turned dark.

  “Who thinks that?” he asked. The rest of the men sat staring intently.

  “I think it,” he said. “So does Lou,” said Riggs.

  “You’re both crazy,” Cheyenne said evenly.

  “Yeah . . . ?” Riggs nodded toward Cheyenne’s horse standing nearby, the saddlebags tied down behind its saddle. “You’re going to show us the bank money,” he said.

  “I’m not showing you a damn thing,” said Cheyenne. “Maybe I’ll show everybody else while you’re lying in the dirt.”

  “Or maybe you won’t,” Riggs said with determination.

  “All right, then,” said Cheyenne. He let out a breath. “Can I get on my feet now?”

  “No,” said Riggs, “you had your chance.”

  “You know I’m still sore and stiff some from this wound healing,” Cheyenne said, nodding to his chest.

  “Aw, that’s too bad,” Riggs said mockingly. “I’ll tell everybody you were at a disadvantage, if they ask.”

  Cheyenne saw Riggs’ gun hand streak up holding his big Colt, his thumb cocking it quickly.

  Before reaching for his own Colt, Cheyenne gave Caroline a hard shove, rolling her out of the way. Riggs’ first shot hit the blanket right between them. Caroline let out a shriek. Cheyenne rolled back the other way, his hand snatching his Colt from his holster.

  Riggs swung his gun sideways toward Cheyenne, trying to get his next shot off to make up for the one that missed.

  But Cheyenne rolled up onto his knees, quick as a snake, Colt in hand. He fanned three shots that exploded almost as one. Each shot hit Riggs dead-center; each shot punched him backward a step. Cheyenne waited, ready to fan the Colt again if Riggs’ sagging gun came back up. It didn’t.

  Riggs sank to his knees and fell forward onto his face, dead.

  At the water’s edge, Dock Latin nodded slowly.

  “See?” he said quietly to Elkins. “That’s what makes it such a bad idea.”

  Chapter 16

  Cheyenne caught Caroline and held her tight, the two of them on their knees on the blanket. Caroline could feel Cheyenne’s smoking Colt barrel hot against her back through her blouse. The three remaining gunmen still sat frozen at the edge of the stream.

  “Are you all right, Caroline?” Cheyenne whispered into her ear, feeling her tremble against his chest.

  “The bullet came so close,” she said, also in a whisper. “It almost shot me.”

  Cheyenne heard not only terror in her voice, but also a shiver of dark ecstasy. She simultaneously clung to him in fear and moved against him achingly. She made no attempt at hiding how badly she wanted him after coming so close to death.

  “Easy, Caroline . . . ,” he said, holding her back inches from him, her open blouse hiding none of her. “I’ve got something to take care of.” He stood up, his Colt still hanging in his hand.

  Caroline watched him walk over to his horse, untie his saddlebags and heft them over his shoulder.

  The men sat watching as he walked over and stopped a few feet from them. Dock Latin and Royal Tarpis looked cool but concerned. Lou Elkins looked unsettled and worried. Cheyenne took the saddlebags from his shoulder and pitched them on the ground near Elkins’ feet.

  “Open them,” he said flatly.

  “Open them?” Elkins stared in ignorance. “What are you talking about?” he said, denying any and all knowledge of whatever Tanner Riggs might have told him.

  “Riggs said you and him thought we robbed the bank in Nawton because Gilley Maclaine stole my part of the bank money,” said Cheyenne. “He told me to open the bags. I said no. But I let him know that once I killed him, I’d see if you wanted to take a look.”

  He stood poised, his big Colt hanging down his side, his thumb over the hammer.

  “Whoa, now, Cheyenne,” Elkins said. “I don’t know what that fool was talking about. I don’t care what’s in them saddlebags or what ain’t.”

  “It might be that everybody here is wondering,” Cheyenne said coolly. “Open them on everybody’s behalf.”

  “No,” said Elkins, “I ain’t going to.” He nodded toward Riggs’ body lying in the dirt. “Tanner was getting crazy as a June bug. He got all riled at me back in Nawton because he thought I didn’t want him smoking.” He offered a tight smile and glanced all around. “Can you imagine that? Like I give a damn whether or not he smokes?”

  “Open them now,” Cheyenne said, leaving no room for further discussion. “Settle anybody’s doubts.”

  Elkins sat staring at the saddlebags for a moment, his right hand lying on his lap near his holstered Dance Brothers revolver. Finally he shrugged.

  “All right,” he said quietly, “if that’s what it takes to oblige you.” He leaned forward to picked up the saddlebags and open them. He let his gun hand ease back to the butt of his gun.

  Cheyenne raised his Colt and shot him once, straight through his forehead, sending him flipping backward half into the running stream. Blood and brain matter splattered on Tarpis and Latin even as they ducked their heads away.

  “Damn it to hell,” Tarpis cursed, taking his hat off and slinging it free of gore. But then he looked at Cheyenne’s stony face staring at him and Latin and froze.

  “Who else wants to take himself a peep?” Cheyenne said in the same cool, even voice.

  “Come on, Cheyenne,” Latin said, “don’t put us with those two. They came the other day bad-mouthing you. We put no store in it.”

  “That’s a fact,” said Tarpis. “I thought I would have to box that one’s jaws before it was over.”

  “What were they saying?” Cheyenne asked.

  “It was nothing,” said Latin, “just everyday bellyaching, the way men will do—”

  “What were they saying?” Cheyenne demanded, smoke still curling from the barrel of the Colt in his hand.

  The two gunmen looked at each other with apprehension.

  “He was remarking how you had some kind of weakness for the ladies,” Tarpis said, lowering his voice. He shot a glance over toward Caroline, who stood at the edge of the blanket adjusting her clothes and hair.

  “Royal here saw fit to tell him to keep his mouth shut, in so many words,” Latin cut in.

  Cheyenne took a breath and looked back and forth between them.

  “I do like the women,” he admitted.

  “Hell, of course you do,” said Latin, with a devilish grin, “as do all us lusty ol’ long ri
ders.”

  “We’d be concerned about you if you didn’t,” said Tarpis. “It was none of their business, though, the way we both see it. Right, Dock?”

  “Right as hard cider,” Dock replied.

  Cheyenne wagged his gun barrel down at the saddlebags on the ground.

  “Then we’re good with the saddlebags?” he asked. “Neither of you wants to take a look, make sure Gilley didn’t take all my money?”

  “Go on now, stop it,” Latin said, dismissing the matter as nonsense.

  “These two were sore-heads, you want to know the truth,” Tarpis put in.

  “All right,” said Cheyenne, “let’s hear no more on it.” He realized that even with the money from the bank robbery last night in Nawton—the few hundred dollars—he was still short. Sooner or later it would show. He knew he had to build up his holdings pretty quick or still risk looking bad in everybody’s eyes.

  “We’re short of men now,” he said, looking all around. “And I was wanting to make a hit on Iron Hat.”

  “There’s no bank left in Iron Hat,” said Tarpis. “Re-

  member? Last winter it fell in under the snow and nobody ever rebuilt it.”

  “I know there’s no bank,” said Cheyenne, “but there’s a saloon and brothel there that makes more money than the owner knows what to do with.”

  “Are we going to wait until Red Gantry catches up to us?” Latin asked.

  “No,” said Cheyenne. “We’ll take it ourselves, maybe pick up new men while we’re there.”

  “Let Gantry find us if he can?” said Tarpis.

  Cheyenne just looked at him for a moment.

  “The fact is, Roy,” he said, “I’m worried we’re never going to see Gantry again.”

  “I feel that way myself,” said Dock Latin. “All that fire back there, it’ll be a wonder if anything makes it out alive.”

  Tarpis said to Cheyenne, “You do realize there’s a big birdcage hanging in this saloon you’re talking about, don’t you?”

  “A birdcage is only as bad as the birds in it,” Cheyenne said. He looked Tarpis up and down. “You’re starting to sound like Gantry,” he said.

  There was a warning in there, Latin thought, listening.

  “Roy and I will take care of whoever’s in the cage,” he put in quickly. “You can count on that.”

  “Get ready to move out,” Cheyenne said. “I’ll go see to Caroline.”

  “How long is she staying with us?” Tarpis asked before Cheyenne could walk away.

  Cheyenne stopped and looked back at him.

  “Until I say it’s time for her to leave,” he said with finality. “Is that clear with you both?”

  “Clear as can be,” said Latin before Tarpis got a chance to reply for himself.

  The two watched as Cheyenne walked away. When he was at the blanket with Caroline, Latin turned to Tarpis.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he said. “He sent Gantry away with that woman’s lunatic husband because he was questioning everything Cheyenne wanted done. You want to wind up like he did?”

  Tarpis said, “I don’t know, how did he wind up?”

  “All right,” said Latin dismissingly, “act the way it suits you. I’m here to make money.”

  “So am I,” said Tarpis. “But I like to know a man doesn’t have his head so far turned on a woman that he ain’t paying attention to business.”

  “You saw how fast he put three into Tanner Riggs’ chest,” said Latin. “He’s atop his game, you can bet your tobacco.”

  “I’ll tell you something else,” said Tarpis, staring over at Caroline Udall as he readied his horse. “There’s no reason he can’t share some of that woman with us, far as that goes. We are his pards after all.”

  “I didn’t hear you say that, Roy,” said Latin, “for both our sakes.” He turned to his horse and readied it for the trail.

  * * *

  In the town of Iron Hat, a gunman turned saloon guard named Curly Bob Adcock stood in the afternoon light on the covered boardwalk of the Colonel’s Sky-High Saloon and Sporting House. He twirled an ivory-handled Colt on his finger. Every fourth or fifth twirl, he stopped it with his thumb, flipped it and dropped it into his holster. Then he started the pattern all over again. Beside him another gunman, saloon guard, drunkard and pool hustler named Delbert “Handy” Pace watched idly as he smoked a thin black cigar.

  “A man wants to stay good with a gun, he needs about an hour a day of this,” said Adcock. “That’s what the colonel doesn’t seem to understand,” he added. “Else he wouldn’t object to me doing it inside the cage—he don’t mind you being drunk in there. My practicing might save his life someday, his business too.”

  “So might my drinking,” said Pace. He gave a whiskey-lit grin.

  “I’m serious,” said Adcock. The Colt spun in a fast blur of metal and ivory and stopped cold. “Have you ever seen anybody faster?” He flipped it and dropped it into his holster.

  “Oh, I agree, you’re fast,” said Pace, having turned his gaze away from Adcock, along the street into town, seeing the four riders come into sight. “It ever comes to twirling a man to death, you’re the huckleberry can do it, I’ve always said.”

  Adcock stared at him, catching the sarcasm.

  “I don’t like your drunken remarks, Handy,” he said. “I was just saying why I practice so much. It makes me fast.”

  “I understand,” said Pace, “and don’t think your practice has gone unnoticed. “I say to myself most every day, ‘Whooee, Bob Adcock is fast. I bet it’s because he practices so much.’”

  Adcock’s jaw tightened.

  “Okay, how about you, Handy?” he said. “I’ve heard you’re fast. I never see you practice. How do you keep your edge on, by swilling rye day in day out?” He turned to face the thin, hard-boned gunman.

  “You have found me out,” Pace said.

  Anger flared in Adcock’s eyes. His hand opened and closed beside his holstered Colt.

  “All right, I want to see how fast you are. I count to three, we both pull our fastest draw.”

  “Huh-uh,” said Pace. “As drunk as I am, I might mistakenly kill you. I’d feel bad about it for hours.”

  “I’m not worried you’d kill me,” said Adcock, getting angrier with the irritating gunman. “Now I’m starting to wonder if you’re fast with anything other than your mouth. What do you say to that?”

  Pace didn’t answer. Instead, staring out over Adcock’s shoulder, he recognized the Cheyenne Kid.

  “Father, son and holy goats . . . ,” he murmured under his breath.

  “Holy goats . . . ?” Adcock gave him a confused, agitated look.

  “What if I told you, the fastest, baddest, killingest, thievingest sumbitch I ever saw is riding atop your right shoulder this minute?” said Pace.

  “What are you talking about, Handy?” Adcock said, agitated, brushing a hand over his right shoulder as if a scorpion might be perched there.

  “It will take much more than a flick of the wrist to get rid of this one,” Pace said with his grin. “You may have to show him how blindingly fast you are.”

  “Damn it, make sense, Handy,” Adcock said, actually cocking his head, eyeing his right shoulder.

  Pace took him by his forearm as if leading the blind and turned him toward the four approaching riders.

  “There now, Bob, see them?” he said, patting Adcock on his back as if he were some dumb animal. “The man with the woman riding beside him is the Cheyenne Kid. Ever heard of him?”

  “Jesus,” said Adcock, “I’ve heard of him, sure enough.” He glanced at the dilapidated, abandoned bank building, with its caved-in roof, across the street. “He wouldn’t go anywhere unless it’s to rob something. What do you suppose they’re doing here?”


  “Now, think about it, Bob,” said Pace. “If you were him, what would you be coming here to rob?”

  “Damn it, you’re right, Handy,” he said. “We better warn the colonel right away!” He started to turn back to the doors of the saloon, but Pace grabbed the tail of his short corduroy coat and stopped him.

  “Slow down, Bob. We’re not on duty right now. This is Virgil and Eddie’s problem.” He grinned. “The worse they do, the better it looks on us.”

  Adcock thought about it, turning back around, watching the four riders draw closer.

  “Sometimes you make a little sense, Handy,” he said, settling down, staring at the riders. “Let’s not mention nothing about gun twirling or how fast we might be,” he murmured. “Sometimes it’s best not to say anything.”

  “I could not agree more, Bob,” Pace said.

  As Cheyenne and the other three stopped at a hitch rail, Delbert Pace stepped down and met them, smiling up first at Caroline, his cigar clamped between his teeth. Curly Bob Adcock stood awkwardly on the boardwalk, no longer interested in looking like a man fast with a gun.

  “Want me to guess why you’re here, Kid?” Pace asked, turning his eyes from Caroline to Cheyenne after giving Latin and Tarpis a scrutinizing glance.

  “Do your best, Delbert,” Cheyenne said, looking away from Pace, eyeing the busy saloon appraisingly, not putting much effort toward hiding his intentions.

  Pace smiled. “Lucky you ran into me first,” he said. “It happens that I used to work the birdcage in there—shotgun guard.”

  “No kidding?” said Cheyenne, still looking the place over. “How long ago was that?”

  Pace gave a slight shrug and said, “Half an hour ago, give or take.”

  “So, you and this big fellow know the setup here?” said Cheyenne, giving a nod toward Adcock.

  “Oh yes, we certainly do,” said Pace.

  What the hell is this? Adcock thought, watching. It sounded as if Handy was siding right up with these thieves. Whoa! He wanted no part of—