Wildfire

by Ralph Cotton

  “Man! I hope not,” Pace said, shaking his head. “This is nothing but—”

  “Shut the hell up, Handy,” said Royal Tarpis.

  Pace fell silent, but grinned drunkenly to himself. As they rode on, Tarpis leaned a little in his saddle toward Latin.

  “We’ve got to do something about this,” he said quietly. “Else it’s going to start looking bad on you and me.”

  Behind the two gunmen, Pace shook his head and grinned to himself as they rode on.

  When they’d rounded through the pine woodlands, Cheyenne caught his first glimpse of the shack partially hidden by the trees. He saw Papa Nulty standing on the front porch as he and his riders filed in and crossed the cleared yard. Nulty wore clean but wrinkled trousers and a white linen shirt. His shirt had been buttoned all the way up against his wide, hairy neck. Big Dave Tierney and Earl Weedy stood in front of the porch at the handrail. They both stared at the women, their hats off and pressed firmly against their chests.

  “Howdy, Nulty,” Cheyenne said as he and the others stopped a few feet back from the hitch rail.

  “Howdy, Cheyenne,” Nulty said in passing. He stepped down and walked right past him to where Silvia Darnell sat atop her horse. “Howdy, Miss Silvia. Welcome to Dutchman’s Gulch. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dreamed of seeing you ride in off the trail.” He gave her his best grin. “What brings you here?” He reached up and took her hand.

  “Howdy, Papa,” said Silvia. “I’ll tell you what I’m doing here. I was forced here against my will. I’m a hostage of the Cheyenne Kid here,” she said, poking a thumb toward Cheyenne.

  Nulty turned to Cheyenne with a stunned look.

  “You took Silvia hostage?” he said. “What’s going on here, Cheyenne?”

  Before Cheyenne could answer, Silvia cut in.

  “Him and his men robbed the Sky-High last night, Papa,” she said sharply. “That’s the colonel’s money he’s got tied behind his saddle.”

  “Jesus, Cheyenne!” said Papa Nulty. “You robbed the Sky-High? Nobody robs the colonel. He’s everybody’s friend.”

  “The colonel is a thieving, cheating son of a bitch,” Cheyenne said, trying to justify his actions.

  “So what?” said Papa. “Everybody I know and regularly consort with is a damn thief.” He gestured his thick hand toward Cheyenne and his men. “What’s that got to do with anything?” He stood holding Silvia’s hand, ready to help her down from her horse.

  “It’s done,” Cheyenne said firmly. “If you don’t want to take any of the colonel’s money in exchange for the chance to hide out here, tell me now, and we’ll ride on.”

  “Who the hell are these other people?” Papa nodded toward Caroline, Gilley and Little Foot, recognizing the Indian. “What the hell is Bagley’s barn hostler doing here?”

  “The women are also his hostages, the best I can make it out,” Silvia said, again before Cheyenne could answer for himself.

  Papa just stared at him, his brow furrowed in disbelief.

  “They’re not my hostages,” Cheyenne said, feeling cornered, foolish, getting angry.

  “So you’re saying Little Foot and I can just turn our horses and go right now?” Gilley cut in. Beside her Little Foot gave her a sign, cautioning her to keep quiet.

  “Try it,” said Cheyenne, anger finding its way into his voice, his eyes, “I’ll put a bullet in you.” He took her words as a good and timely excuse for him to rest his hand on the big Colt holstered on his hip.

  Papa noted that Cheyenne didn’t move his hand away from the gun when the woman shut up and made no attempt to leave.

  “Sounds like every one of you are worn plumb out from the trail, the fire and whatnot,” said Nulty. He looked up at Silvia. “Why don’t you come down here? I’ll carry you inside.”

  “I’ll walk,” Silvia offered, allowing Nulty to assist her from her saddle into his burly arms.

  “I won’t hear of your feet touching this dirty ground,” Nulty said. “Some of us are still gentlemen, in spite of the rigors of our harsh frontier lifestyle.”

  Cheyenne stared seething.

  “Come inside, Cheyenne,” said Nulty. “I think you need to tell me everything that’s been going on.”

  “Want us to get back up to the lookout rock, Papa?” Tierney asked.

  “Neither one of you move from here until I say so,” Papa Nulty said sternly. He carried Silvia up onto the porch, then turned around and looked at Cheyenne, who still sat atop his horse. “Well? Are you coming inside, so’s we can trash all this out like two civilized men?”

  Cheyenne stared at him flatly for a moment, then swung down from his saddle, drawing his rifle from its boot. He looked all around, first at Weedy and Tierney, then at the two women and the Indian, then at his own men.

  “All three of you wait out here. Keep the money bag close to you,” he said to Latin, Tarpis and Pace. “Papa and I will talk everything out.”

  * * *

  A few yards from the shack, Latin, Tarpis and Pace seated the two women and the Indian on a pine log and stood in a half circle around them. Big Dave Tierney and Earl Weedy stood near the hitch rail, their rifles cradled in their arms. They watched Cheyenne’s three gunmen warily.

  “This situation feels the way things feel right before a shoot-out,” Pace said under his breath to Tarpis and Latin.

  The two gunmen only nodded, staring back at Tierney and Weedy. The money bag lay at their feet, Latin having untied it from behind Cheyenne’s saddle and carried it over with them.

  “We need water,” Gilley said, speaking for herself, Little Foot and Caroline. “It’s been a long ride and we’re parched.” She nodded across the clearing toward the running stream. “There’s no reason for us to go thirsty.”

  “Caroline,” said Latin, “take the canteen from my saddle and go fetch it back full of water.” He looked her up and down and added gruffly, “And hurry it up.”

  Caroline stood up dutifully and started toward Latin’s horse. But Gilley took her arm, stopping her.

  “Wait a minute,” Gilley said to Latin, “why are you talking to her that way? Why’s she being treated like a prisoner? She’s not one of us.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind being,” Caroline said quickly.

  “She likes to be talked to that way.” Latin gave a thin smile and stepped in, took Caroline by her other arm and pulled her free of Gilley’s grasp. “Am I right, Caroline?”

  Caroline cast her eyes downward.

  “Sort of. . . . ,” she said. “I mean, I don’t mind so much.”

  “There, you see? She don’t mind so much,” Latin said mockingly. He gave her a dismissing shove and said, “Go on, get everybody some water.”

  “I’ll accompany you to the horses, ma’am,” said Pace.

  Latin and Tarpis watched as the two walked toward the hitch rail.

  “You made a bold move, shoving that woman, treating her the way you did,” Tarpis whispered sidelong to Dock Latin. “I don’t want to be standing too close to you when she tells Cheyenne about it.”

  Latin grinned and hooked a thumb in his gun belt.

  “She ain’t going to tell him,” he said confidently.

  “You’re betting your life on it?” Tarpis said.

  Latin shrugged and considered it.

  “Yeah, it was a bold move at that,” he said. “But Cheyenne has used her all he cares to. He’s got his head stuck in Silvia’s bustle.”

  “That ain’t no bustle, son,” Tarpis replied with a sly grin.

  “Still, with Silvia Darnell twisting her skirts at him, I’m thinking Cheyenne might pitch me his leftovers. He’s got too damn many women now. I’d be doing him a big favor taking this one off his hands.”

  “She’s got wear lines and brush cuts on her, for
a fact,” said Tarpis, watching Caroline Udall take the canteen down from Dock Latin’s saddle horn. “But even a man who appears to have lost interest in a woman most always gets that interest back when he sees another man sniffing his hunt.”

  “I’ll sniff his hunt,” said Latin. “From what I’ve been seeing, our new boss is playing his string out fast. I don’t owe him nothing. Neither do you. You and I might be looking for a new man to lead us if he don’t draw himself in a little.” He looked at Tarpis to see if he agreed.

  “Or maybe just decide to lead ourselves . . . ?” Tarpis said, testing the idea.

  “No, not me,” said Latin. He shook his head. “I’m not going to follow myself.” He gave a grin. “There’s no telling where I’d end up.”

  “Damn, look at this,” said Tarpis, seeing Delbert Pace walk back from his horse’s saddlebags, carrying a fresh bottle of whiskey in his hand. “Where’s he getting them from? No saddlebags hold that many bottles!”

  “The son of a bitch is a magician,” said Dock Latin.

  “I’ve never seen nothing like it,” Tarpis said.

  Caroline Udall walked on to the stream to fill the canteen with fresh water. Pace approached, wagging the bottle of rye in front of him.

  “Jesus, Handy, how do you do it?” said Tarpis, looking at the bottle as if it might be a mirage.

  “No good drunkard is ever without a drink,” Pace said, pulling the cork, smiling at the bottle. “I learned that from my pa when I was ten years old.” He raised the bottle to his lips and took a deep swig.

  Little Foot had sat silently, listening, watching. He stood up from the log and rubbed his palms on his trousers upon seeing the open bottle of rye raised into the air.

  “You just as well sit yourself back down, Injun,” Tarpis said to him. “Ain’t none of this firewater coming your way.”

  “Hey, come on, now, Roy,” Pace said to Royal Tarpis. “That’s no way to be. When a man needs a drink, somebody ought to give him one.” He stepped forward and held out the bottle. Little Foot took it with a trembling hand and turned up a long swig.

  “He gets on the warpath and scalps you, Handy, it’s your own damn fault,” Tarpis chided.

  “I have never scalped a man,” Little Foot said, feeling the whiskey surge through him. He narrowed his gaze at Tarpis. “But I do know how.”

  “Is that a threat?” Tarpis asked, his rifle barrel rising in his hand. “Because if it is—”

  His words stopped short at the sound of angry cursing coming from the shack’s open front window. They had heard bickering now and then coming from Cheyenne and Papa Nulty, but nothing like this.

  “Damn!” said Latin, him and Tarpis looking at each other, then back at the shack.

  Inside the shack, a chair crashed. Silvia cursed and shrieked; Papa Nulty bawled out like a raging bear. At the hitch rail, Tierney and Weedy took a combative stance toward Cheyenne’s men. At the log, Little Foot sat back down beside Gilley. He looked toward the stream and the trees beyond it, gauging the distance in case he and Gilley needed to make a fast run for it. Beside him, Gilley squeezed his upper arm, letting him know she understood.

  “Take it easy over there!” Latin called out to Papa Nulty’s two gunmen. “They know what they’re doing in there.”

  Tierney and Weedy stood tensed, ready. But Tierney saw the killing coming if he didn’t say something to stave it off.

  “All right,” he said, letting out a breath, lowering his rifle a little. He said to Earl Weedy beside him, “Keep your head, Weedy. We’re the hired help here.” He jerked a nod toward the shack. “Let the bosses sort things out.”

  Yet, almost before he’d finished saying the words, the fast, steady beat of a rifle firing resounded out the window, followed by Papa Nulty’s bloody scream. The impact of the bullets hurled the large outlaw straight out the window and over the porch, into the dirt at the hitch rail. The horses spooked and reared and jerked against their tied reins as Nulty’s body rolled to a halt at their skittish hooves. It was wrapped in a tangle of greasy checkered curtains, broken glass and pieces of window frame.

  Big Dave Tierney and Earl Weedy jumped away in shock for a moment at the sight of their fallen leader lying bloody in the dirt.

  Across the yard, Latin swung his rifle up to his shoulder.

  “Kill these sons a’ bitches!” he shouted at Tarpis and Pace as the rifle bucked and exploded in his hands.

  Chapter 23

  As soon as Cheyenne had fired the succession of rifle shots and sent Papa Nulty flying out the window, he grabbed Silvia by her wrist before she could run out the front door. Outside, bullets thumped against the front of the shack. Silva shrieked and scratched at his face, trying to pull herself from his grasp. But Cheyenne held her firmly in his free hand, his other hand holding his smoking rifle.

  “Turn me loose, you crazy son of a bitch!” Silvia screamed.

  Cheyenne shook her hard, then held her against a wall.

  “Listen out there, Silvia!” he said. “You can’t go out there. They’ll kill you!”

  In the yard, a gun battle raged back and forth between Cheyenne’s men and Papa Nulty’s. The frightened horses had jerked the hitch rail apart. They raced wildly back and forth across the yard. The long top rail still held one of the horses’ reins. The rail swung back and forth like some ancient weapon as the horse circled the shack, bucking and kicking, running amid flying bullets.

  “Oh my God, you saved my life, Cheyenne!” Silvia said, holding the back of a hand to her mouth. Cheyenne saw her eyes swim with gratitude and admiration.

  “That’s all right,” he said, releasing his grip on her a little. “Just do like I say and everything—”

  He let out a grunt as the ball of her slender knee slammed upward into his crotch.

  “There, you bastard. For starting all this!” she shouted, jerking away from him while he bowed in pain. Gunshots still resounded in through the broken window. Bullets thumped against the front of the shack. He was right about one thing, she thought. It was too dangerous to go that way. She turned to run past him, out the back door.

  Even in his stricken condition, Cheyenne wrapped an arm around her, grabbed her and held on. She turned with her nails outstretched like claws and swiped them down the side of his face. But one swing was all she got. Before she could claw him again Cheyenne managed to get his Colt up from its holster and make a swing of his own. The gun barrel struck the side of her forehead; she crumpled in his arm. He scooped her up in both arms in spite of his pain-racked crotch and headed out the back door.

  As the bullets continued to fly out front, behind the shack Cheyenne spotted the frightened horse with the hitch rail still attached to its reins. He approached the animal slowly. “Whoa, boy . . . ,” he whispered in a soothing voice. The horse chuffed and grumbled and stomped its hoof, the ongoing gunfight keeping it skittish.

  Cheyenne got his hand on the horse’s rein and untangled it from the broken hitch rail. The horse settled a little, feeling a firm hand take control.

  “Where—where are we going . . . ?” Silvia said dreamily in the crook of Cheyenne’s arm.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Cheyenne, “I’ve got you.”

  “You son of a . . .” Silvia’s words trailed back into unconsciousness as Cheyenne lifted her up into the saddle and swung up behind her.

  Now the money, then out of here . . . , he thought, with no remorse whatsoever for his three men here to die in the dirt while he rode off with all the money.

  He gigged the horse and guided it deeper into the cover of trees. He circled out of sight and watched from cover, searching all around the yard for the bag of money. Not seeing it, he cursed to himself and swung down from the saddle. Leaving Silvia sitting slumped forward on the horse, he jerked a rifle from its saddle boot and stepped over beside a l
arge pine.

  * * *

  In the yard, Caroline Udall was positioned flat behind the low log where she, Little Foot and Gilley had been seated when the shooting started. She held her hands over her ears and trembled against the hard, rocky ground.

  Ten feet away, Royal Tarpis and Dock Latin lay prone in the dirt, firing round after round as fast as they could, relying on the volume of their fire to keep Tierney and Weedy pinned around the front corner of the shack. Blood ran down the back of Latin’s hand from a deep graze in his forearm; Tarpis had a gaping hole in his shoulder.

  A few feet from them, Delbert Pace lay sprawled in the dirt, holding two Colts out at arm’s length, firing furiously. His bullet shattered the bottle of rye lying in the dirt beside him. A dark circle of whiskey wet the ground. When he ran out of bullets in both guns, he let his hands fall limply to the dirt and lowered his drunken head as if accepting defeat.

  “Reloading, keep me covered,” Dock Latin said to Tarpis. He jerked his rifle around and stuck round after round into it.

  “Hurry the hell up, Dock!” said Tarpis, sounding worried. “I’m going down too.” He kept firing, but he began spacing his shots, knowing that each shot left his rifle that much closer to being empty.

  Having fallen back and taken cover around the corner of the shack, Big Dave Tierney and Earl Weedy had been able to conserve their ammunition a little better. As one reloaded, the fire of the other kept the three gunmen pinned in the dirt.

  Tierney listened close, noting the wane in firing.

  “They’re reloading,” he said sidelong to Weedy. “Here’s our chance!” He levered a round into his rifle chamber and smiled at Weedy with satisfaction. “Looks like I ain’t going to hell after all. Leastwise not today.”

  “Still, you should have repented from your sins whenst I gave you the chance,” Earl Weedy said. He shot Tierney a tight, excited smile, also levering a fresh round into his smoking rifle. Sweat streamed down his gaunt face. “Okay, sinner, I’m ready! Let’s walk them down and send them to hell,” he said.