by Ralph Cotton
“How do you know that?” Shala asked.
Glick only stared at her for a moment, still a bit taken aback by the way she had walked up and begun talking to him. She’d never done that before. Most of the time, she avoided even being near him, let alone speaking to him. But not now, he told himself, stifling a crafty smile. This was what getting caught with her britches down by the three detectives had done for her. “Never you mind how I know it,” Glick replied finally. Now that she’d come near to giving herself to three strangers in order to save her husband, she must’ve begun to realize that it would take a man like him to keep her safe, not some weak young pup like Stanley.
“Whatever you say, Mr. Glick.” Shala shrugged. “How about some hot coffee?” she asked, already reaching for the handle of the pot. She pulled her long, unbuttoned shirtsleeve forward and wrapped the cuff around the hot pot handle. Stretching the sleeve down her arm revealed the smooth white flesh through the partly unbuttoned bib of her woolsey shirt. “You must be freezing, riding all that way.” She looked into his eyes, shifting closer to him as she turned up a tin cup sitting near the fire. “Let me help warm you up.”
Oh, yes . . . She had come a long way tonight, Glick said to himself, still kneading his stiff hands near the short licking flames. He had played things just right. He’d gotten his foot in her door; now all he had to do was inch his way inside. “Thank you, young lady,” he said. “It was awfully cold on the trail.”
Glick turned a glance up to Stanley, just to let him know he hadn’t been excluded from the conversation. Then his eyes went right back to Shala as she poured steaming coffee into the cup for him. “I could have spent the rest of the night by a warm fire with the detectives, gathering information from them about Beck and his gang. “But I told them I needed to move on.” He gave Shala a look. “I didn’t want to chance something else happening to yas, me not here to protect you.”
Shala gave him a sincere look and said in a gentle voice, “That’s most kind of you, Mr. Glick. I am obliged to you for what you did back there.”
“We both are,” Stanley cut in, walking to the fire-side and dropping Glick’s saddle on the ground beside him.
But Glick didn’t even look up at Stanley. He kept his eyes on Shala, taking in her face, her hair, her deep blue eyes in the flickering firelight. “It was a lucky thing for you, Little Lady, me being there when I was,” Glick said quietly. “Those three are rough and willful men.”
“Yes, I know,” said Shala, realizing she’d been right. Glick had been awake, listening, biding his time, waiting for the best moment to spring up and rescue her.
But Glick wasn’t through reminding her. “Lord only knows what they would have done to a young woman like you, had I allowed it,” he said. “Although, in their defense, I see how something so comely can make a man forget himself and give in to his lower nature.”
As he spoke he reached out a cold, bony hand and brushed her hair back from her face. It was a brazen thing for him to do with her husband standing there, she thought. But she only smiled demurely and sat stooped on her boot heels beside him. “Is the coffee to your liking?” she asked. Then, before he could answer, she asked, “How is your hand?”
Glick drew back his hand, opening and closing it stiffly, recalling how she had poured the hot coffee on him earlier. “It’s . . . all right,” he said, looking at his hand as he continued squeezing it shut and opening it above the rising heat of the fire. Over his shoulder he called out, “Stanley boy, fetch me some of that Chinese brown powder. I might just see how favorably it works on these brittle old hands of mine.”
Shala remained close beside the old man while Stanley walked to his saddlebags long enough to produce a corked blue medicine bottle and return with it. “Here you are, Mr. Glick,” he said, holding the medicine bottle down to him. “The store owner said just sprinkle a mound of it onto your palm, swallow it and wash it down with something to drink. He said it brings relief fast.”
“Did he now?” Glick said, looking the bottle over closely, then pulling the cork. He poured a small mound of the powder into his palm and started to raise it to his lips. But he stopped suddenly, looked up at Stanley and raised his palm slightly toward him, saying, “Here, you try some first.”
Stanley looked back and forth between Glick and Shala and said with a surprised expression, “But, Mr. Glick, that would be wasteful of me. The powder is for you. It’s not me who needs it.”
“What about that whelp on your jaw?” Glick asked, eyeing the young man.
“It’s all right,” said Stanley. “I mean it still hurts, but not so much I need to—”
Glick’s face turned stony. “Take it,” he said with firm resolve, cutting Stanley off, “else I’ll have to wonder if there’s something wrong with it, something you know about it that I don’t.”
“I—I’m not going to take it,” Stanley said, taking a step back from the fire. “This is nonsense. I told you, I don’t need any medicine for pain.”
“You’re going to,” Glick said threateningly. He set his cup down, freeing his gun hand and placing it near a big Colt holstered across his stomach.
“Stanley, what’s gotten into you?” Shala said. “Take some of the powder if it’ll set Mr. Glick’s mind to rest.”
“Nothing’s gotten into me. I just don’t want to take it,” Stanley insisted, shaking his head. “I’m not going to take it,” he added with determination.
“Then you’ve got yourself some big trouble, boy,” said Glick, appearing on the verge of raising the Colt from its holster, his palm still extended upward toward Stanley.
“Oh my goodness, you foolish men!” said Shala.
“No, Shala, don’t!” Stanley shouted. Before either he or Glick could stop her, she pulled the Dutchman’s palm down to her face, lapped the mound of powder up from it and gave a lick of her tongue for good measure.
“There, I took it, see?” Shala said with an innocent shrug. “Are you both satisfied?” She reached over, picked up Glick’s coffee cup and took a swallow. “This is the most bitter stuff I’ve ever tasted,” she offered, making a sour face.
Glick stood up stiffly, his hand still on his Colt, his eyes still on Shala. “You’d better hope she’s all right, boy,” he said in a warning hiss to Stanley.
“All right?” Stanley replied. “Of course she’s all right. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Don’t play innocent with me, boy. I think you know why she wouldn’t be,” said Glick.
“Oh, I get it,” said Stanley. “You think there’s something wrong with the powder?”
“Is there? If there is, time will tell,” Glick said, glancing at Shala, watching her every movement for any sign of poisoning. He also watched Stanley for any sign of fear or concern regarding his wife.
“No, there’s not,” said Stanley. “I bought the powder because you said this cold weather and long hours in the saddle were hurting you. There’s nothing wrong with it!”
“You didn’t add anything to it?” Glick asked, still suspicious.
“No, what would I add to it?” Stanley asked. “Poisons are your style. I don’t know about such things as poisons, and ways of killing people!”
Glick looked at Shala, seeing a fearful look come into her eyes. “Poison?” she said, her hand going instinctively to her stomach as she stood up.
“No, Shala,” said Stanley, to calm her, “he’s wrong. I haven’t done anything to the powder. It’s not going to harm you.” He looked at Glick. “If it were poison, wouldn’t she know it by now?”
Glick didn’t answer; yet he could tell by the way Stanley was acting that there was nothing in the brown powder. “Forget it, both of yas,” he said in a dismissing manner. “I just let my cynical nature get the better of me.” He offered a flat, tired smile, straightening the grisly scalp and his battered hat that had gone a bit crooked on his hairless head. “We’ve all three had a long, trying night. We’ll feel more amiable after some rest and a good hot break
fast.”
“Yes, I’m certain we will,” Stanley said. He and Shala gave each other a guarded look.
“About Ranger Burrack,” Stanley said, ready to let Glick know he was not going to go through with the killing.
“Never mind about the ranger,” Glick said. “You’re both riding up to Hole-in-the-wall with me. You can help me bring down Beck and his gang.”
The two looked at each other again, not sure of how to respond. Finally Stanley said, “Then you’re no longer concerned about the ranger?”
“No,” said Glick. He paused with a sigh, as if tired of having to explain things to the young man. “If we happen across him and the opportunity presents itself, we’ll kill him. But my main concern now is Memphis Beck.”
“But if we’re through with the ranger, then there’s no more for Shala and me to do,” said Stanley. “I suppose we can ride away and go on about our business?”
Glick sat in silence for a moment, then said, “I’ve taken you both in as family, so I can look over you and protect you. I don’t know who did all the shooting we heard, but I can’t risk you two running into them alone.”
“But, Mr. Glick—” said Stanley.
Glick ignored him and continued. “You’ll be beside me until I say otherwise.” He looked at Shala with piercing eyes in the flickering firelight. “And you’ll do for me what I would expect family to do. Don’t deny me, or disappoint me.”
Shala caught the underlying suggestion aimed at her in his eyes and his words. She returned his fierce stare, not shrinking from him, not showing fear. “Agreed,” she said firmly, before Stanley could either object or say otherwise on the matter. “We won’t disappoint one another, will we, Mr. Glick?” There was an intended challenge in her words. When she’d finished speaking, she stood for a moment, letting him look her up and down, letting him see what he would be taking on if she submitted herself to him. She stared at him until at length it was he, not her, who turned his eyes away.
PART 2
Chapter 8
Memphis Beck gazed out across the rugged terrain in the wispy silver hour of dawn and squinted into the binoculars, closely searching every shadowed rock and crevice where a man might take cover and lie in wait along the trail. He knew that Angelo Sabott and his Mad Balls Gang had left Hole-in-the-wall, certain that he would soon be tracking them.
“What do you see out there?” Clarimonde “Lady Dynamite” Stewart asked, seated on her horse beside him. A few feet behind them sat Hector Sandoval, a Mexican lawman who had crossed the border with the ranger in pursuit of the men who had killed his brother the previous summer. The paint horse the ranger rode had belonged to Hector’s brother, Ramon Sandoval.
“Nothing,” Beck replied, letting out a breath of frustration. “Not even a mountain goat . . . not even a lizard.” He lowered the binoculars from his eyes, handed them to her and looked back at Hector. “But this could turn bad all of a sudden, my friend. The shape you’ve been in all winter, we both understand if you want to turn back and wait for us.”
“No,” said Hector, “I am over my wounds. I am strong and well. I will ride with you until we get back the ranger’s stallion and the dynamite these men stole.”
Beck turned his eyes to Clarimonde as if to ask her opinion, since she had been the one who’d nursed Hector throughout the winter. Clarimonde replied with only a slight nod of her head.
“Obliged, Hector,” Beck said, and he made no more mention of the matter. When Hector had been wounded, Memphis Beck had taken him and the ranger’s stallion to Hole-in-the-wall to recover. Sam had ridden off on the paint horse to a final reckoning with the South American explosives expert, Suelo Soto, and his cult followers at a place called Shadow Valley.
Hector Sandoval had proven himself to be a fearless ally of the ranger throughout the gun battle in Shadow Valley. Beck knew he would be a good man to have with him when they caught up to Sabott and his gang and the situation turned dangerous. Reining his horse back toward the thin trail, Beck nudged the animal toward a high-walled rocky pass lying ahead of them.
“Keep a close watch,” he warned, his eyes searching the path ahead. “Sabott knows we’re coming to take back our dynamite. This place is the perfect spot for him to leave a rifleman behind, waiting for us.”
With the slightest hint of a German accent, Clarimonde said softly, almost to herself, “My main concern is the ranger’s stallion. If Sabott knew the stallion belonged to a lawman, as cruel as he is, he might kill it.”
“S’í,” said Hector, “kill it and eat it, the kind of man he is.”
“All the more reason to catch up to him and get this settled,” Beck said. He stared ahead, considering matters as his horse moved along at a walk. “None of us should have let Sabott and his Mad Balls Gang get a foothold in Hole-in-the-wall.” He spit in disgust. “We should have seen this coming. Sabott knew we made our own explosives. He just waited out the winter and made his move when he saw most of my gang was gone.”
“You must not blame yourself for this,” said Clarimonde. “Don’t forget, yours is not the final word in who can stay and who cannot stay at the hole.”
“But I should have seen this coming,” said Beck, not letting himself off the hook. He shook his head slowly, thinking about Sabott and his Mad Balls Gang. “There’s been outlaws like myself living in peace here since long before the civil conflict—some of the biggest names in the business. Everybody from Casey Eddings’ Wild Riders to Missouri’s James Gang. Every one of them always got along respectfully, if not amiably.” He shook his head. “Now a bunch like Mad Balls comes along and the whole thing starts going to hell on us.”
They rode along slowly, deeper into the rocky pass, Hector dropping back a little in order to keep an eye on the high ridges above them. Beck studied the many darkened crevices and rock ledges surrounding them and considered the irony of his being here in the first place, on the high trails, in pursuit of a gang of killers like Angelo Sabott and the Mad Balls.
You must be crazy, he told himself, searching for Ranger Burrack’s stallion. But then he had to admit, the ranger had dealt fairly with him—the only lawman ever to do so without a substantial amount of bribe money changing hands. Beck smiled wryly to himself. Burrack was as tough and honest as they came, not at all the sort of lawman he would have ever hoped to run into in his line of work. But after all that had happened last summer . . .
Beck glanced at Clarimonde riding along quietly beside him. Clair, he said to himself. Then he turned his eyes back to the trail and the rock ledge ahead of them as he laid his hand on the rifle across his lap. Had it not been for the ranger’s dogged pursuit of Suelo Soto after Soto had kidnapped her, there was no telling what would have become of her.
Beck had set up a prison break and freed Soto from Yuma Penitentiary, knowing the Argentinean came from a long line of master explosives makers—a skill worth knowing, a skill worth learning, Beck had decided. But what Beck had not realized was that Soto would turn on him and try to kill him when Beck took Clarimonde away from him and set her free.
In a bloody confrontation between the ranger and Hector, and Suelo Soto and his men, both the ranger and the Mexican lawman had taken a beating—so had the ranger’s stallion, Black Pot. But the ranger had refused to let his wounds stop him. He’d left Hector and Black Pot in Beck and Clarimonde’s care and continued on after Soto on the paint horse. That’s the kind of man the ranger is, Beck told himself, and that was the kind of man he had to respect, badge or no badge. . . .
On a high ridge fifty yards ahead, a gunman named Lew Prado nudged another gunman, Teddy Noose Newson, who sat dozing against a rock beside him. “Noose! Wake up, damn it. Here they come,” he said gruffly, keeping his voice down.
“Yeah, right, okay,” Noose said, coming awake with a start. He grappled with the rifle lying in his cradling arms, trying to raise it to his shoulder.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” said Prado, knocking the rifle down from his s
houlder. “We’re not going to start shooting, like some kind of idiots. We’re going to let them ride on in first. Pay attention here.”
“I am paying attention,” Newson replied. “I just shut my eyes for a minute, long enough to get the dust out of them.”
“Sure, I could see that right off,” Lew Prado said skeptically. As he spoke, he rose just enough to wave a hand back and forth at a third gunman positioned closer to the approaching riders. When the third gunman, Bream “Hook-nose” Cleaver, waved back, Prado crouched down again and said to Newson, “There, we’re all set. They’re riding right into our gun sights.”
“Good,” said Newson, batting the remnants of sleep from his eyes. “The sooner we kill Beck, the sooner we can get on to Casper and make ourselves rich.” He grinned and levered a round into his rifle chamber.
On the trail below, Beck and Hector at the same time spotted the quick glare of sunlight on gun metal. “Uh-oh,” said Beck, reaching over and grabbing Clarimonde’s horse by its bridle.
“What is it?” Clarimonde asked, startled by his sudden move as he pulled her horse along with him, veering off the trail to the shelter of a tall pile of rock.
“Ambush ahead,” Beck called out. No sooner had he said the words than a bullet whistled through the air and kicked up a spout of dirt on the spot where they’d been.
Behind them, Hector saw Beck and the woman taking cover. Instead of taking cover himself, he gigged his horse toward the other side of the trail, keeping the three of them from becoming bunched together in a trap. “Can you see anybody?” he heard Beck call out to him as he jumped down from his saddle, rifle in hand, and slapped his horse on its rump to get it out of any line of fire.
Another shot hit the dirt; another ricocheted wildly off the pile of rocks where Beck and Clarimonde stood crouched. Two more shots resounded.
“No,” said Hector, scanning the distant ridgeline a hundred yards forward and high above them, “but I see where the shots come from.” Instinctively he threw his rifle to his shoulder and sent a wild shot upward into the ridgeline.
