by Ralph Cotton
Sam gave Memphis Beck another look as Beck led the tired, steaming horse alongside them. “Let’s get you warmed up and settled down some,” Sam said. “Then you can tell me anything you feel like saying.”
Chapter 21
Perched in the limbs of a large sheltering fir tree, Hector kept watch on the trail while the woman sat at the fire, warming her hands between sips of hot steaming coffee. Her horse stood nearby at the edge of the stream, drinking its fill. She had warned Beck that Glick was out to kill him, and she’d made her confession to the ranger. When she’d finished, she took a deep cleansing breath and stared down at the rocky ground.
“I realize it was a terrible thing I did, and I don’t blame you if you arrest me, Ranger Burrack. But I have to know that Stanley is all right. If you could arrest me after I see him one last time?”
Sam considered it as he looked over at Beck, then back to the woman. “You shot me by mistake, ma’am. I can’t arrest you for a case of mistaken identity. My misfortune was good fortune for Beck here. I accept your apology, although it’s Beck you should be apologizing to, for your intentions, and not to me, for the act itself.” He smiled patiently and shook his head at the irony of it. “As for Stanley, you’re free to go join him.”
“I—I don’t know what to say,” Shala said in a strained voice. “All this time I almost felt like Stanley and I were in some sort of hell for what we did. Now I find out we’ve been fools. We punished ourselves, allowing ourselves to be made servants to a murderer like Conning Glick.”
“Over an eight-dollar livery bill,” said Beck.
“Yes . . . ,” she said in shame. She lowered her head at the thought of it. “I can’t even tell you about the terrible things that devil made me do.” She looked off with tears welling in her eyes. “He keeps a bag full of heads, of the men he’s killed, in order to collect the bounty on them.”
“That’s an old bounty man’s method,” Sam said. “It’s not practiced much anymore.”
“I can see why.” Shala swallowed a knot in her throat and added, “He even had me do it. I think it was his way of testing me, just seeing how far I would go to keep myself alive. I even thought about taking the bag of heads with me, to collect the bounty myself, help Stanley and me get back on our feet. But I can’t live on that kind of money. I’ll muck stalls first.”
“Well, it’s over now, ma’am,” Beck cut in. “And as for Glick wanting to kill me, I’d have to advise him that he’d better hurry, else he’ll find himself waiting at the back of a long line.” He grinned. But neither the ranger nor the woman seemed to share his humor.
“You don’t know the Dutchman, Mr. Beck,” Shala said in a solemn tone. “He used me in a way I didn’t even realize—to lure men in, distract them while he set them up to be killed. Look at how he used Stanley, all of it starting over the eight dollars, then growing larger every day.”
“No offense intended toward you or your husband, ma’am,” Beck said, “but I’ve been in this kind of life long enough that I’m not apt to fall for anything the Dutchman has to offer. I think it’s time me and Conning Glick met face-to-face. I don’t like the idea of him hunting me. It gives me the willies.”
Sam listened to Memphis Beck as he ran the woman’s story through his mind. “Hold on, Beck. What are you saying? You can’t go looking for the Dutchman. That’d be playing right into his hands.”
“If Glick is after me, I think it would be wise for me to track him down and kill him, now, while she can tell me where he is.”
“I believe that’s exactly what Glick wants you to do, Beck,” said the ranger. “He’s lying back like a big spider, waiting for all his prey to come to him. He used this woman to draw those others to him. Now he’s using her to draw you to him, just in a different way.”
Shala looked genuinely stunned by the ranger’s revelation. “My God, that’s why I was able to slip away so easily in the night,” she said.
“He’s smart, Beck. He thinks quick,” said Sam, not letting up. “As soon as he saw that Stanley Lowden’s wife knew her husband was alive and with us, Glick came up with the way to draw you to him.” Sam looked down at Shala’s shocked expression and said, “Yes, I believe that is how you managed to get away so easily. He knew his time with you is over. He could either find a way to use you one more time, or poison you and be done with you. Either way, he’s still ruler of his own dark world.”
“I might be very lucky, just to be alive this morning,” Shala said, feeling a sharp chill run the length of her spine.
“All right, he’s smart,” said Beck, unconvinced about Glick. “But I’m not Hook-nose Cleaver or Lew Prado or any of the others he’s managed to draw in and kill. I think pretty fast on my feet too.”
“Pride comes before a fall, Beck,” the ranger cautioned.
“This is not pride talking, Ranger,” Beck pointed out quickly. “I’ve never gone gunning for a bounty hunter in my life. I’m not going to him because I want something he’s got.” As he spoke, he gestured a nod toward the woman. “I won’t be distracted, like the others. I’ll kill him because I don’t want to end up with a belly full of poison some night, watching Glick the Dutchman come at me with a sharp knife.”
“Don’t you see, Beck?” Sam said. “It doesn’t matter what brings a person to him. He’s expecting you. He’s already got your head in the bag. He’s got something in store for you, ready and waiting. That’s why he’s not like the others. That’s why the railroads hire him and pay him extra.”
“What kind of plan could he have for me, Ranger?” Beck asked. “You explain that and maybe I’ll listen to you.”
“That’s just it,” said Sam. “I can’t explain what he’s got in mind. He’s too good at this. That’s why you need to leave him be. Make him come to you, like all the others have had to—the ones you’ve always outsmarted or outfought or tricked and left sitting in your dust. You never want to come into a man’s lair, alone, him expecting you, him knowing that you’re out to kill him. Don’t be a fool.”
As Sam had spoken moments earlier, he’d motioned for Hector to climb down from the big fir and join them. As the Mexican lawman arrived and stood at the fire with them, Beck said, “Hector, your ranger pard is telling me to stay away from Glick the Dutchman. I say I should ride in and kill him. What do you think I should do?”
“I don’t like to argue,” Hector said with a shrug. He looked down at the woman, then back at Memphis Beck. “You should do what you think is best. Is that not what I should do too?”
“That’s right.” Beck grinned. “I believe you should always do what you think is best.” He looked at Sam and said, “Ranger, stay on Sabott’s trail. I’m going to ride ahead, catch up to Glick and kill him.”
“What about sticking with us?” Sam asked, trying any approach to keep Beck away from the Dutchman.
“I told you, I’ll join you on the trail,” Beck said over his shoulder. “This won’t take long.” He turned to walk toward the horses.
The ranger shot Hector a glance; Hector’s rifle came up quickly. He slammed the butt forward against the back of Beck’s head, solidly enough to send the unsuspecting outlaw sprawling on the dirt. Shala gasped and jumped to her feet, not knowing what to expect next.
“Take it easy, ma’am,” Sam said. “He just needed a little convincing. We’ll take good care of him.”
“S’í,” Hector said, with a thin smile. “He will be all right. I only did what I thought was best, eh?” he added, looking at the ranger.
“I—I can go now?” Shala asked, already taking a half step toward her horse standing at the water’s edge.
“There’s a sign along this trail that will direct you to the Havelin Mines, ma’am,” Sam said.
“I’ll find my way,” said Shala. “That’s not what I’m worried about.” Her eyes held a questioning look.
“If we see the Dutchman, he won’t make it past us, ma’am,” Sam said. “But you’d best make some good time. We might not
be on this trail much longer. If the men we’re trailing turn off, so do we.”
“Thank you for everything, Ranger Burrack,” Shala said. She turned and hurried to her horse and jumped atop its bare back.
When she’d ridden out of sight, down the winding trail leading into the deep, tree-studded hillside, Hector looked down at Beck and said, “He will have a bad headache all day, I’m afraid.”
“That’s nothing compared to what Glick would have had waiting in store for him,” Sam said. “Let’s cuff him and get him on his horse. We’ll uncuff him when we’re far enough away that he won’t likely turn back searching for the Dutchman.” Sam looked away and shook his head again. “I never thought I’d be going to all this trouble to keep an outlaw from losing his head.”
In the midmorning sun, Memphis Beck awakened, slumped in his saddle, his cuffed hands clutching the saddle horn instinctively. Hector rode close beside him, keeping watch on him. The ranger rode a few feet ahead, keeping just as close a watch on the hoofprints of Angelo Sabott and his riders. “What happened . . . to me?” Beck asked, looking back and forth through dazed eyes. The back of his head throbbed in pain.
“Maybe you fall,” Hector said, straight-faced.
In his addled state, Beck considered it for a moment, then said, a bit more awakened, “Maybe I fall?” He gave Hector a cold stare. “I didn’t fall.” He jiggled his cuffs on the saddle horn. “These things didn’t fall on my wrists.”
“You’re right,” Sam said over his shoulder without looking back. “I put them there.”
“No,” said Hector, “we put them on you—both of us, because we were afraid you would go find the Dutchman.” He paused, then added bluntly, “We were afraid the Dutchman would kill you.” Sidling even closer, Hector reached over and dropped Beck’s battered Stetson on his lap. “Here is your hat—when you can, you should put it on.”
With a soft groan, Beck reached his cuffed hands up and carefully placed the hat atop his throbbing head. Reaching back, he lifted his hat a little and carefully examined the large knot left by Hector’s rifle butt. “Who hit me?” he asked.
Before Hector could answer, Sam called back, “We hit you, Beck.”
Hector gave a short grin. “We hit you.”
“So you wouldn’t do something stupid,” Sam added, studying the hoofprints that ran on ahead of him and disappeared around a blind turn in the trail. He drew his rifle from its boot, checked it and held it propped up on his thigh. “Pay attention up ahead, Hector,” he said, “that is, if Memphis Beck has no more questions that require our immediate attention?”
Beck stared coldly at the ranger’s back. Then he looked all around and asked in defiance, “Where’s the woman?”
“Gone to the Havelin Mines,” said Sam, “to join her husband.”
“Man, what a fine-looking woman.” Beck considered something for a moment, then shook his head and said as if thinking out loud, “If it wasn’t for Clair . . .”
Sam brought his horse to a halt, stepped down and tied his spare horse’s lead rope around his saddle horn. Seeing the ranger walk purposefully back toward him, Beck straightened in his saddle and said, “Hold on, Ranger. I didn’t say anything disrespectful toward her. I only meant that if I were free and she were free—”
“I’m going to uncuff you, Beck,” Sam said in a lowered tone, cutting him off. “We could need your gun around this turn. Will you give me your word not to turn back and go looking for Glick?”
Beck thought about it, seeing the ranger pull the handcuff keys from his vest pocket. “Yeah, sure,” Beck said, “turn me loose.”
But Sam only stared up at him, key in hand. “Don’t fast answer me, Beck. I’m in no mood for it.”
Beck drew a deep breath and said clearly, “You’ve got my word, Ranger. I won’t ride back after Glick.”
Sam reached up, unlocked the cuffs and took them off Beck’s wrists. “Give him his guns, Hector.”
“S’í, gladly,” Hector said. He pulled Beck’s Colt from his waist and handed it over to Beck, butt first. He lifted the rifle he’d been carrying from across his lap and handed it over as well. “Ah, I am glad that we are all three thinking the same way once again.”
The ranger walked back and stepped up into his saddle, taking the lead rope to his spare horse in hand. Beck gave the Mexican a flat look as he took the guns, checking each of them in turn. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to be just like him, Hector,” he said, still cross at the ranger, even as he realized that what Sam had told him about Glick had been dead right.
“I would not mind that so much,” Hector said, not catching the dry sarcasm in Beck’s words.
“Good for you then.” Beck shoved the Colt loosely into his holster and cradled the rifle in his right arm. Rubbing his wrists, he said to Sam as the ranger rode up beside him, “I would have killed the Dutchman. I want you to know that.”
Sam didn’t even acknowledge his words. Instead, he gestured toward the tracks on the ground and said, “These are all fresh. But a few yards back it looked like three riders veered away.”
“Oh?” said Beck, he and Hector looking to their left, where a stretch of land sloped upward against an enormous boulder alongside their trail. “You figure they circled up there and are waiting for us?”
“That’s a possibility,” said Sam. “I figure on riding up there and taking a look, while you two round the turn and keep their attention if they are up there.” He handed Beck the lead rope to his spare horse.
Beck looked all around, then at Hector, then back down at the ranger. He touched the back of his throbbing head. Then, as if doubting the ranger’s good judgment, he said, “Go ahead then. We’ll get their attention . . . if they are up there.”
Chapter 22
From the stretch of steep, tree-covered earth above the large boulder, three of Sabott’s men lay in wait. They had taken cover at the first sign of trail dust they’d seen drift out into the blue, open sky. The one lying closest above the trail, gunman Ben Lane, gave a short wave to the other two when he saw Beck and Hector ride slowly into sight below him.
On the rim of the earth above Lane, the ranger had stepped down, hitched his horse to a stub of scrub juniper and taken cover himself. He had scanned the boulder and the smaller rocks half sunken into the hillside surrounding it. But until Lane raised his gloved hand, Sam had seen nothing. “All right, Lane,” he whispered to himself, rifle in hand, “there you are. Now where’s your pards?”
As if in reply to the ranger’s question, a hand rose fifty yards farther along the trail. The hand waved slowly from side to side, then fell. There’s number two. Sam continued to scan until he saw Beck and Hector riding deeper and deeper into the ambush. This was all he would get for now, he decided. Locating the third rifleman would have to wait. He raised his Winchester to his shoulder and took aim at Lane.
But before he could get a shot off, he felt the hard jab of a rifle barrel in his back and heard a voice behind him say, “Drop it, Ranger. Today ain’t your day.”
Sam lowered the rifle to the ground and turned around slowly. He stared into the familiar, weather-hardened face and said, “Herbert ‘Cowboy’ Shoe. It looks like you’ve got me.”
“Yeah,” Shoe said with a dark grin, “only this time it’s me saying Today ain’t your day, remember? That’s what you told me before you dragged me off to Yuma.”
“Yep, I recall saying something along that line,” said Sam, not wanting to sound hurried, but realizing that at any second the two riflemen would open fire on Beck and Hector. “What’s it been, two years, three years?”
“Three damned years, four damned months, and fifteen, no make that sixteen damned days,” he said, gripping the rifle tighter as he spoke. “I’ve thought of little else, ’cept for killing you every time I feel this whelp on my jaw.” He cocked his jaw for Sam to get a better look. “But today I won’t have to think about it anymore,” he said. “I volunteered to be in on this ambush just so’s I coul
d watch you die.”
Sam knew Beck and Hector were in a bad spot down there. He had to make a move and make it fast. He gazed confidently into Shoe’s eyes. The gunman stood on loose, rocky ground a few feet above him, his rifle cocked, the barrel only inches from Sam’s face. “You won’t be killing me today, Cowboy Shoe,” he said with a grin, “at least not with that rifle, you won’t.”
“Oh?” Shoe gave a dubious look. “Why not?”
“Because the hammer’s broke,” Sam said; and he waited, tensed and ready, without appearing tensed and ready.
“The hell it is,” said Shoe. But even as he said it, his eyes went down to the hammer, just for a second, and that second was all the ranger had gambled on.
Sam reached up quickly, grabbed Shoe’s rifle barrel in both hands and yanked hard, stepping to the side as he did so. Shoe’s rifle went off, exploding just above the long scream Shoe let out as he plunged downward, bouncing off the jagged, terraced edges of the big boulder.
“Up there, get him!” shouted Ben Lane, turning and seeing the ranger at the place Herbert “Cowboy” Shoe had just fallen from. Farther along the rocky hillside above the trail, the third gunman, Harvey Bottoms, turned his rifle away from Beck and Hector on the trail below and fired repeatedly at the ranger.
“The Ranger’s right, there’s gunmen up there!” shouted Beck, stopping his horse and jumping down from the saddle. Beside him, Hector did the same. Rifles in hand, the two slapped their horses’ rumps, sending spooked animals out of the way as rifles fired repeatedly above them.
“He’s taking all the fire,” Beck said, the two standing crouched in the cover of rock, noting the shots were all going toward the ranger’s position high up on the steep hillside. Seeing bullets kick up dirt and loose rock around the ranger’s position, Beck said to Hector, “Cover me, before they start a rock slide under him!”
“Wait!” Hector shouted, seeing the dangerous position Beck was about to put himself in for the ranger’s sake. But his words went unheeded as Beck ran along the open trail, firing shot after shot at the two riflemen lying well covered above him.
