Showdown at Hole-In-the-Wall

by Ralph Cotton

  “Oh, but you were delivered to this spot to die, you fool,” said Glick, smiling grimly as he forced the blade just enough to feel it break the skin. “I can see you are one of those who jumped out and started practicing your trade without first perfecting it.”

  “I’ll do anything! You can have my money!” the man pleaded.

  “No, no, no.” Glick chuckled. “I don’t want your money.” As he spoke he freed his other hand enough to pull the strip of jerky from inside his coat. “But here, this is something you can do for me.” He forced the stiff, cured elk jerky into the robber’s mouth. “Eat!”

  “What the . . . ?” The robber chewed deftly. He barely had the bite swallowed before Glick stuffed the rest of the strip into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed and stood for a silent moment, not knowing what to expect next.

  “There, all done,” said Glick, easing the pressure on the dagger blade but leaving it in the robber’s hand. “I’m going to turn you loose now,” he said. “Promise me you won’t try to stick me, or run away?”

  Is this an idiot? the robber wondered. He felt a dull pain crawl into his jaws. “I—I promise,” he said, ready to plunge the dagger into the old man’s throat as soon as Glick let him go.

  “That’s a good fellow,” said Glick, turning him loose with a pat on his back. The robber tried to wheel around toward the old man, but in doing so, he realized his legs had turned rubbery and his arms had gone limp. He fell helplessly to the ground.

  “Oops,” said Glick. “It appears you’ve lost your balance.” He stepped around the man, observing him closely.

  The robber sat slumped, his dagger in hand, his arms hanging slack and useless at his sides. He raised his lowered eyes enough to say in a slurred voice, “You’re . . . the Dutchman, ain’t you?” A string of saliva bobbed from his lips. “I heard of you. . . . You’re a killing devil.”

  “Ah, you’ve heard of me?” Glick said, as if delighted by the man’s acknowledgment. “Killing devil indeed,” he murmured, pulling a watch from his pocket and checking it as he spoke.

  “You’re . . . killing me, ain’t you?” the man said in a slack, halting voice, his breathing becoming labored and thick. A dreamy sadness came over his face.

  “So I am. But don’t fret so, you poor fool.” Glick glanced back toward the street at the end of the alley, making sure no one was around. “There’s nothing to fear. This will soon be over.” He stepped around in the debris, brushed off a wooden crate and sat down on it, pocket watch in hand, observing the dying man’s condition, timing his death. “As the bards say, Life passes in but a blink of an eye.”

  Chapter 3

  The ranger had made good time his first day back on the northwest trail reaching upward toward Wyoming. In the afternoon he stopped and made an early camp alongside a stream running out of a rocky hillside. He could have made another two hours, but he’d heard what he thought was the clacking of horses’ hooves on the high trail above him. At this time of day, whoever was up there would have the sun to their back. He wasn’t going to risk giving anyone that advantage, not after what had happened on his last trip along this same stretch of trail.

  He kept a vigilant eye on the upper edge of the rocky trail even as he made camp, started a small fire and waited for a pot of coffee to boil. When the coffee was ready, he poured himself a cup and set it aside to cool for a moment while he carved some strips of salt pork and placed them in a small tin skillet above the short flames.

  As the pork began to sizzle, he heard the sound of horses’ hooves again; this time they were no longer on the trail above him, but rather riding down a thin path a few yards ahead of him. Listening closely, he made out three horses, their riders making no attempt to keep the animals quiet as they negotiated the twisting rocky path and stepped out on the trail thirty yards away and looked toward him.

  This was a good sign, Sam thought. The three men appeared to have nothing to hide. In fact, they gave a short, friendly wave, acknowledging him as they put their horses forward toward his camp. Sam only touched the brim of his silver-gray sombrero. He sat comfortably on a rock, his rifle across his lap, and watched them come to him.

  “Hello the camp,” one of the men called out, all three stopping their horses twenty feet away, waiting for a gesture of welcome.

  “Hello the trail,” said Sam, nodding, his tin cup in his gloved hand. “Coffee’s up. Step down and bring your cup over.”

  “Much obliged,” said the same man. “We smelled the coffee halfway up the trail. We have some of our own to trade off for it.”

  “Obliged,” Sam said, keeping his eyes on them in spite of their good manners as they stepped down from their saddles, took tin cups from their saddlebags and led their horses forward. “I’ve got a skillet hot if you can use it.”

  “No, but thanks all the same,” said the first man, the other two flanking him a step behind. “We’ll have coffee and rest the animals a spell. We’re riding long. There’s still too much daylight for us to camp down so early.” He smiled at Sam and pushed up the brim of a well-kept derby hat.

  Sam appraised the three as they walked forward. They wore long dusters over dark wool suits. He caught glimpses of revolvers in shoulder harnesses behind their open lapels. Colts bulged in hip holsters beneath their dusters. Lawmen? Bounty men? Sam wondered. But he didn’t have to wonder long.

  The first man stopped and faced him from across the low campfire. As if knowing the question running through Sam’s mind he said, “I’m Clement Emory. This is Bradley Ratliff and Kenny Beecham. We’re special detectives with the railroad association.”

  Sam gave a half nod. “I’m Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack. Stoop down and pour yourselves a cup.”

  The three nodded and stooped with their cups in hand. Clement Emory had reached out, picked up the coffeepot and started to pour for the other two when he stopped and looked at Sam in surprise. “Ranger Sam Burrack, you say? The same Sam Burrack known for taking down the Junior Lake Gang?”

  “The same,” Sam replied matter-of-factly, used to hearing that question.

  “Well, I’ll be. . . .” Clement Emory smiled and continued pouring the other two men’s cups full. “I’ve heard a great deal about you, Ranger. I have to say, I never thought about running into you all the way up here. You’re far off your graze, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” said one of the other men. “Don’t Arizona Territory have enough drunkards and hard cases to keep the local lawmen busy?” He chuckled at his attempt at humor.

  But Emory cut in to try and make up for the man’s bad taste. “Pay Beecham no mind, Ranger,” he said, giving Beecham a cold stare of disapproval. “He’s been on the trail so long he’s lost his manners.”

  Sam let it pass and said to Emory, “I am far off my graze. But I’m not up here on law business.” He stopped his words there and sipped his coffee.

  The three detectives did the same. Emory looked all around the wild, rocky terrain and ventured, “What does bring you up here, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I’m headed up around the red wall, to bring back a stallion that belongs to me,” Sam said. He again sipped his coffee.

  “The red wall?” Beecham said, a look of suspicion coming into his eyes. “That’s where we’re headed.”

  “I see,” Emory replied to the ranger, ignoring Beecham. He wanted to ask more, but realizing the ranger was through with the subject, the detective didn’t pursue the conversation.

  But Beecham persisted. “This acquaintance of yours wouldn’t happen to be somebody living up west of the red wall, would he?” he asked.

  “Could be,” Sam said in defiance, noting the accusation in the detective’s voice, the surly arrogance about the man. A troublemaker, Sam decided.

  “I’m not buying the horse story, Ranger,” Beecham said, standing as he spoke, “so I’m asking you straight out, what’s your business at the red wall?”

  “I don’t expect I’ll be telling you, Mister,” Sam replied evenl
y. “You strike me as a man carrying a strong urge to shoot somebody.”

  “You can count yourself right on that, Mister,” said Beecham in the same bullying tone. “Be careful you don’t satisfy that urge for me.”

  “Damn, Kenny,” the third detective, Ratliff, said under his breath, “why don’t you drink your coffee and shut up? This is Ranger Sam Burrack. He’s a lawman. We’ve got no right asking him his business.”

  But Beecham kept on. Disregarding Ratliff, he said to the ranger, “Hell, it’s no secret, there’s a lot of lawmen who have acquaintances living in Hole-in-the-wall. I understand it’s a profitable acquaintance for a lawman to have.” He grinned contemptibly. “Could be his acquaintance is one of the men we’re headed up there to bring to justice.” He rested his hand on his pistol butt, his fingers tapping impatiently.

  Yep, he couldn’t wait to shoot somebody. Sam smiled secretly to himself.

  “There’s more than just outlaws lives there. It could be he’s riding up to one of the ranches in the valleys up there,” said Ratliff in the ranger’s defense.

  “Outlaws, ranchers, they’re all the same up around red wall,” said Beecham. “One can’t live without the blessings of the other, is what I hear.”

  “Maybe he’s going up there to do the same thing we are,” said Ratliff. “Maybe he’s going to thin out some of the gangs hiding out there.” He looked at Sam. “Is that it, Ranger?”

  The ranger’s smile faded away. Instead of answering, he said in a calm, even voice, “If you men have rested, maybe you’d feel better drinking your coffee on your way.”

  Emory took the hint; he stood up, cup in hand. “I apologize for these men’s behavior, Ranger Burrack.” Pointing at Beecham he said, “He had no call to imply such a thing.” He pointed at Ratliff and said, “This one . . . well, he’s just short of brains to be honest about it.”

  Ratliff and Beecham both gave Emory a cold stare. But they kept their mouths shut.

  “Apology accepted,” Sam said. “But there’s no more for us to talk about.” He still sat with his rifle across his lap, but his hand had managed to move over and close around it, his finger on the trigger, his thumb over the hammer.

  Ratliff stood up beside Beecham. “He’s right, Ranger. Sometimes I’m too stupid to make conversation.” He kept his tin cup of coffee.

  But Beecham sneered, pitched his coffee away and said in the same surly tone, “Let’s not beat around the bush, Ranger Sam Burrack. I don’t care if you’re riding up there to get a horse, or get yourself paid off, or bring back somebody’s head in a bag. The three of us are going up to do some long-needed killing. If our trails cross at the red wall, you’d better be prepared to answer to us to what you’re business is. And I won’t settle for any horse story.”

  Sam sat in silence, his thumb and trigger finger in place. As the three men turned and walked toward the horses, Ratliff and Emory both looked back at him with a polite touch of their hat brims; Beecham stomped away gruffly.

  Here it was, Sam reminded himself, watching the three mount and ride away. This was the sort of thing he could expect by having had anything to do with a man like Memphis Warren Beck. Just the mention of the red wall, or Hole-in-the-wall, caused the hackles to rise on these railroad detectives. True, Beck had saved his life. He could never forget that. But he wondered just how close he might have to come to bending the law because of it.

  He could have lied and told them he was headed to some other place, or he could have simply told them nothing at all. But neither lying nor evading was his way of doing things. If his trail and the detectives’ crossed again, what would his past alliance with Memphis Beck cost him? He thought about it for a moment, then put the matter away. He was glad Beck was not wanted for anything in his jurisdiction. That would have really complicated things. He sipped his coffee and gazed up along the rocky ridgeline, not convinced these detectives were the riders he’d heard earlier on the trail above him.

  As the three detectives rode back up the path toward the higher trail, Beecham said to Emory, “If I didn’t know better, I’d’ve thought you were a schoolboy talking to his headmaster back there.” He spit in contempt and added, “I never saw you break at the waist for anybody the way you did. It was downright embarrassing.”

  “Kenny, ease up a little. Ranger Burrack is widely known as a highly respected lawman,” Ratliff interjected on Emory’s behalf.

  “Keep your mouth shut, Mr. I’m Too-Stupid-for-Conversation,” Beecham growled at Ratliff. “I don’t give a blue damn if Ranger Burrack is known as the Prince of Hades. We’re detectives working for the biggest railroad association in the world. We don’t have to respect any-damned-body.” He looked back along the trail, then said, “I still would like to know what his business is up here. It’s not about a damned horse, that’s for sure.”

  “Whatever you say, Beecham,” Emory said over his shoulder, not wanting to argue the point any further. “The next time we run into the ranger, you just feel free to beat the living hell out of him, in case he is lying to us.”

  “Don’t ever think I can’t,” said Beecham, his disposition turning even more sour. “I’ve never been impressed by big-name lawmen. Far as I’m concerned they all put their britches on the same way I do.”

  “I swear, you beat all, Kenny,” Ratliff said, shaking his head. Both Emory and Ratliff overlooked the detective’s surly disposition as the three continued riding upward in the evening light. At the top of the path they turned their horses onto the meandering trail as the sun boiled in a fiery glow below the far ridgeline.

  “Look at this, we had company travel by since we rode down,” said Emory, stopping his horse before they had ridden fifty yards along the dusty, rocky trail. He gestured a gloved hand toward a fresh set of hoofprints on the ground.

  “We have, sure enough,” said Beecham, looking ahead as he slipped his repeating rifle from his saddle boot and stood the butt of it on his thigh. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked Emory.

  “If you’re thinking it’s that old assassin we spotted through the field lens this morning when we passed town, yep, I am,” said Emory. As he spoke he also pulled his rifle from its boot.

  “That sick old man?” said Ratliff. “He wouldn’t be roaming around up here by himself. He looked like he could barely sit a horse.” He watched Emory check his rifle and lay it across his lap.

  “Who said he’d be traveling up here all alone for long?” Emory asked.

  “There’s only one set of prints,” Ratliff replied with a shrug.

  “There’s a hundred places up ahead where that old cutthroat could be meeting up with some like-minded man hunters,” said Beecham. “Don’t you think now that winter’s ending, there’ll be all kinds of gunmen traipsing out after the railroad bounty?”

  “I’m just saying we don’t know that it’s the Dutchman made these tracks,” said Ratliff. “If it is, I don’t see him as anything to get concerned over.”

  “You’ve not been around long enough to know about that old killer,” said Beecham. “If you had, you’d be shoving one up in the chamber right now, instead of talking like a man who thinks he can’t be killed.” He eyed the trail ahead as he spoke in a guarded tone of voice. “Alone or with somebody, you don’t want the Dutchman slipping up on you in your sleep. He’s killed enough men to fill hell times over.”

  Ratliff drew his rifle, levered a round into the chamber, then said, “There, loaded and ready, all right?”

  Emory and Beecham looked at each other. “Look, pard,” said Emory, “don’t take it that we’re afraid of that old man. Right, Kenny?”

  “Right as rain,” Kenny Beecham agreed. “We’re damned sure not afraid of him. But it’s just like having a rattlesnake around. If you think the Dutchman is anywhere nearby, you do want to keep sight of him.”

  “We should have tailed him awhile this morning,” said Emory. “But I thought he’d be swinging south. I never figured an old geezer like him for these hig
h trails.” He nudged his horse forward at a slow walk. “If he’s up here, let’s catch him unawares.”

  “If he’s up here, how do we know he didn’t see us this morning when you saw him?” Ratliff asked.

  But neither detective replied. “Come on, let’s track him down,” said Beecham. He grinned at the thought of the Dutchman caught off guard. “Also like a rattlesnake, once we pin his head to the ground, we can pick at him as much as we please—have ourselves some fun with him.”

  “Yeah,” said Emory. “Assassin-killer or not, he needs to understand that we won’t stand for him stalking the same prey we’re after.” The two heeled their horses forward. Ratliff shook his head and gigged his horse along behind them.

  Chapter 4

  The Dutchman had seen the three riders earlier that morning. He’d also seen the three sets of prints even after he’d circled wide to make certain he wasn’t being followed. Whomever the prints belonged to, he wanted to be well ahead and high above them, looking down at them when they passed. This high rocky pass wasn’t called the Outlaw Trail for no reason.

  Glick knew the odds were good that whoever were riding the Outlaw Trail at this time of year were either men on the run or men doing the chasing. If the riders turned out to be wanted men, good enough, he thought. He could get information from them that would be valuable once he’d traveled through the red wall pass and into the wide valleys of the notorious Hole-in-the-wall. He could store their heads in burlap sacks for safekeeping—bury them under rocks until he came back this way.

  He looked back closely at the trail behind him. If these three were lawmen, hired guns or independent bounty hunters, well, they would still have to be dealt with, he decided, nudging his horse enough to keep it moving at a safe gallop.