Showdown at Hole-In-the-Wall

by Ralph Cotton

  “These two are both loco, this outlaw and this ranger,” Hector said aloud to himself. “But maybe I too am loco from riding with them.” He turned and began firing up at the two positions, deflecting some of the fire from Beck and the ranger with his shots and drawing it toward himself.

  With the fire away from him and the rocks beneath his feet and around his position beginning to settle, Sam eased out of cover and climbed quickly up the steep, rocky hillside to the first tall, spindly pine that clung to the earth as if in defiance of gravity. From behind the pine, he steadied his Winchester against the tree’s rough-barked trunk and took close aim down at Ben Lane, who had turned and begun scanning the hillside for him.

  Before Lane could see the thin trail of loose dirt and rock seeping down from the ranger’s new position, Sam’s shot nailed him squarely in the chest. Only a moment later, when Harvey Bottoms heard no more fire coming from Lane’s position, he turned and eased up just enough for a better look and called out, “Ben! Are you all right over there?”

  Almost before his words left his lips, Beck and Hector fired at once. Both shots hit Bottoms and sent him sprawling back against a rock, his rifle flying from his hands. Both Hector and Beck watched the rifle bounce down the side of the boulder, pieces of it breaking off each time it struck rock.

  A deathly silence fell upon the hillsides and the high trail, broken only by a cool, gusting breeze. From above and below, the ranger, the Mexican lawman and the train robber waited, each listening intently until finally the strained voice of Harvey Bottoms called out, “Don’t nobody shoot. . . . I’m done for.”

  Another silent pause, then Hector said to Beck, “Is he telling the truth, or is this one more trap?”

  Staring up along the boulder and the steep hillside, Beck said in a lowered tone, “I believe they’ve run all out of tricks up there.” Standing and dusting himself off with his hat, Beck stepped out warily and walked back to where the horses stood waiting. Mounting the horses, the two rode back and turned upward along the same path the ranger had taken. Ten minutes later they reached the spot where the ranger’s horse stood picking at some dry stubbles of wild grass.

  “Over here,” Sam called out to them. They stepped down and hitched their horses next to the ranger’s.

  Sam had helped the wounded gunman up off the rocky hillside and sat him down with his back against a rock near the sun-bleached trunk of a dead cotton-wood tree. As Beck and Hector approached, Bottoms called out in a failing voice, “Don’t worry . . . fellows. I’m unarmed . . . and undangerous.”

  The wounded gunman tried to chuckle at his little joke, but it turned into a rattling cough and ended in a trickle of dark blood down his chin. “Lie still now, Bottoms,” said Sam, stooping down beside him with an uncapped canteen he had taken from his saddle horn. “I brought you some water, like you asked for.”

  Beck and Hector looked at each other as Sam placed the canteen to Bottom’s lips and raised it enough for a short sip. The wounded man swallowed and struggled to hold the water down. “Now, tell me what Sabott is up to, Bottoms,” Sam said. “Where’s he going, that he needs dynamite?”

  “He’s—he’s hitting the . . . new rail spur. The one carrying all . . . the mining money.”

  Sam cut a glance around to Memphis Beck. “You were right, Beck. It looks like you know these thieves pretty well.”

  Beck only nodded. He stepped forward and asked Bottoms, “How many men is he bringing in on it? He’s a few men short, now he’s lost three more. He’s starting to stretch too thin for pulling off a job that size.”

  “Ha . . . don’t you worry . . . about us,” said Bottoms, managing a slow wink. He spoke as if he were still in the game, in spite of the two mortal wounds, one only an inch from his heart, the other through his liver. “We’re meeting up . . . with Zackarow and . . . some of his Wind River boys.”

  “How much dynamite is left after blowing that canyon on me?” Beck asked as the gunman’s eyes started to fade and glaze over.

  “Not much . . . but enough,” Bottoms said, his words growing weaker and quieter as he spoke. “We’re . . . going to strike it rich . . . on this one. . . .”

  “He’s gone,” Sam said. Beck watched him reach out and close the dead man’s eyes.

  “That’s all the ambushing we’ll have to worry about now,” Beck said.

  “Why do you say so?” Sam asked, standing with the canteen in hand. He wiped a smear of Bottom’s blood from the spout and capped it.

  “You heard him,” said Beck. “Sabott is meeting up with Bobby Zackarow and his boys. Zackarow is not a man you want to partner with unless you’ve got plenty of guns backing your interest. Losing a few men only sweetened the pot for Sabott, but he can’t afford to lose any more. He can’t ride in on a job this size, looking weak and outnumbered. Zackarow would eat him alive once they got their hands on the money.”

  Sam shook his head a little.

  Seeing a look of disdain on the ranger’s face, Beck shrugged and said, “What?”

  “Nothing,” said Sam. “I just couldn’t help thinking how it’s a shame you didn’t turn your life toward some other line of work. There’s some good you could have done.”

  “Hold it, Ranger,” said Beck. “All the time we’ve spent together the past year, you haven’t been preaching at me, so don’t start now.”

  “I beg your pardon, it won’t happen again.” Sam turned toward the horses, Hector and Beck right behind him. “I expect if I were Sabott, shorthanded, meeting up with another gang and trying to hold things together to pull off a big train job, I wouldn’t be wasting any time right now. I’d head straight for the rail spur, catch that train at its slowest point before it reaches Noble Siding, the place you told me about.”

  “See? That’s good planning,” Beck said in a mocking manner. “I can’t help thinking how much good you could have done for folks like me if you’d taken your life in another direction.”

  Walking along behind them, Hector shook his head and murmured under his breath in his native tongue, “I am missing Mejico more every day.”

  Ten miles from the water stop at Noble Siding, Angelo Sabott sat atop the big Appaloosa stallion and gazed out across the valley below. A long stretch of rail came into view from their left, dipped low, then reached upward and wound out of sight to their right. “This is the place to do it,” Sabott said quietly to Al Heakland and Crazy Lou Ozlow, who sat flanking him.

  “I’m ready as hell,” Crazy Lou said, excited at the prospect of robbery.

  “Take it easy, Lou.” Sabott sat watching seven riders weave in and out of sight on a path that ran through stands of dark green pine and spruce.

  “Seven of them and ten of us,” he said quietly. “That’s how I like it.” He gave a faint smile and watched Zackarow and his men top the trail and ride toward him.

  “I wouldn’t count on Ben Lane and the other two until they show up,” Al Heakland replied.

  “The problem with you, Heak,” said Sabott, “is that you never look for anything good to happen.”

  “Yeah, that’s me all right.” Heakland spit and looked back toward the high trail they had ridden down, back in the direction where they’d left the three riflemen to ambush anybody following them. “I was raised by good, God-fearing folks, and taught to look for only the worst ever happening in life.”

  “Then you need to listen to me real close,” said Sabott, his voice turning cold and serious. “If I feel you go jinxing this job for me with your ‘everything’s-gone-to-hell’ attitude, I’ll most likely put a bullet in your ass and make your worst expectations come true.” He turned a cold stare at Heakland for emphasis. “Now, do we understand where one another stands?”

  “Clear as spring water,” said Heakland.

  “Yeah, me too,” said Crazy Lou, even though no one had spoken a word to him. “No matter what happens, I won’t mention nothing.”

  Sabott looked back at Heakland and asked in a less harsh tone, “Do you ever kn
ow what the hell he’s talking about?”

  “Not yet,” said Heakland. He spit again and watched Bobby Zackarow and his men ride up closer and pull the horses down to a walk, then to a stop.

  “Howdy, Bobby,” Sabott said, touching his hat brim in greeting.

  “Evening, Sabott,” said Bobby Zackarow, touching his hat brim in return. He looked past Sabott, Ozlow and Heakland and counted the rest of the men sitting mounted behind them. “Well now, seven of us and eight of you fellows. That worked out well enough.” He gave a short grin.

  “There’s eleven of us, Bobby,” said Sabott. “I left three men back along the high trail, to take care of anybody dogging us.”

  “You must’ve grown extra careful of late,” said Zackarow. “Any reason to think you’re being followed, I mean reasons aside from you always being on a long-rider trail?”

  Sabott shrugged. “Me and Memphis Beck have had what you might call a ‘falling out,’ ” he said, giving a strange little smile. “He’s got a woman named Clair Stewart who makes up explosives for him these days.”

  “So I heard,” said Zackarow.

  “They call her Lady Dynamite,” said Sabott, with a twist of contempt in his voice. “The truth is I gutted their whole supply of brand-new explosives.” He jerked a thumb toward the pack mule standing back beside Whispering Phil Lindsey. “There it is right there.”

  “I’d say that’s cause for a falling-out.” Zackarow nodded.

  Sabott grinned, still pointing at the load of dynamite. “I already got fuse cord in it and got it ready to use. We’ve got enough to blow the track ahead and the track behind, and enough left to blow the safe if they don’t cooperate.”

  “Sounds like you’ve thought of everything,” said Zackarow. “Anything else I ought to know about?”

  “I had sort of a run-in with an Arizona Ranger,” said Sabott. “There’s a chance he was smoking my trail . . . but he won’t be now, not once he rides under the three riflemen I left back there.”

  “An Arizona Ranger, huh?” Zackarow looked back in the direction of the high trail. He seemed to consider things, then said, “Okay, anything else I need to know about?”

  “Nothing I can think of,” said Sabott, a wider smile coming to his face, “Except how you’re going to spend all the money you’re getting ready to make.”

  “I like the sound of that,” said Zackarow. He looked around and spotted a tree-lined draw a short distance below them. “Let’s make a camp down there, out of sight. The money train will roll through here tomorrow in the afternoon. We might as well get comfortable.”

  “Yeah,” said Sabott, “I told Lane and the other two we’d meet them somewhere along here.” He turned his horse alongside Zackarow and they rode down toward the draw. On their way, Zackarow looked at the big Appaloosa stallion beneath Sabott and said, “That’s a fine-looking cayuse you’re riding. Damned if it doesn’t look familiar.”

  “Yeah,” said Sabott with another smug grin. He patted Black Pot’s neck. “He’s another little something I acquired from Memphis Beck.”

  “I never knew Memphis Beck to be so careless.” He eyed the big stallion closer, trying to recall where he’d seen him before.

  “Maybe his time has come and gone,” said Sabott. He stared at Zackarow. “Maybe my time and yours has only arrived.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” said Zackarow, still eyeing the stallion with a curious expression.

  Chapter 23

  It was late in the evening when Sam, Hector and Memphis Beck stopped their horses and looked down at the trail of tracks running through the lowlands. “Here we are,” Beck said. The three looked down at the gathering of hoofprints on the ground, where only hours earlier the two outlaw gangs had met before riding down into the shelter of the draw. The ranger’s eyes followed the hoofprints as far as his vision could take him, seeing enough to know.

  “They’ll hole up in there for the night,” he said. Then he looked around more as he backed his horse and his spare horse away from the edge of the deep cut bank. On either side of him, Beck and Hector did the same, avoiding being seen by any guards Sabott had posted.

  Back from the edge, the three turned their horses and rode a hundred yards, into the shelter of a small stand of spruce and mountain ash. Stepping down from their saddles, Sam said, “I need to make my move tonight. I’ll go in after midnight. Get Black Pot and get out.”

  Hector gave him a worried look. “You mean slip into their camp? You can’t do that. It is too dangerous.”

  “It’s the only way, Hector,” Sam replied. “There are too many things that could go wrong, and get an animal killed during a train robbery.” He looked to Beck for support.

  “He’s right, Hector,” Beck said. “The army has been patrolling this area ever since the rail spur opened. If I know this is a good place for a robbery, you can bet so do the army and the railroad. That’s one more reason my gang and I haven’t already made a strike here.” He looked at the ranger and added, “I hope I’m not telling you too much about how I plan my business.”

  “I’ve got news for you, Beck,” said the ranger. “If I didn’t know how outlaws plan their business, I’d have been dead long ago.”

  “Right,” Beck conceded. To Hector he said, “We’ll need you to hold our horses and keep watch while we slip in and take back what’s ours.”

  “Hold it,” said Sam. “I’m going in alone. I’m going to find my stallion and get out of there, fast and quiet-like.”

  “And while you’re taking back your stallion, I’m taking back what’s left of my dynamite,” Beck said with determination. “That’s the way I’ve thought this was going to happen all the way through. How did you see it?” he asked as if already knowing the answer.

  The ranger considered matters. “All right, we go in together, Hector watches our backs. You get your dynamite, I get Black Pot. We get in and out fast, before anybody knows we’re there. Deal?”

  “Deal,” said Beck. He gave a smile on the matter and added, “I started out horse thieving when I was young, before I learned train robbing. I never thought I’d be going back to it, with an Arizona Ranger beside me.”

  “I’m not thieving,” said Sam in a somber tone. “I’m taking back what’s mine.”

  “I understand,” said Beck, “but that’s not the way Sabott is going to see it.”

  During a meal of stale hoecakes, salt pork and coffee, the two groups of outlaws sat talking quietly around a small fire sheltered by the thick surrounding woods. On one side of the fire sat Sabott, still flanked by Al Heakland and Crazy Lou Ozlow. Beside them sat the other five, Donald Keyes, Shelby Boyd, Whispering Phil Lindsey, Frank Farrel and his younger brother, Bud.

  “How come every get-together feels like a funeral unless there’s some whiskey and music to liven it up?” Bud Farrel asked, staring solemnly across the fire.

  “Put it out of your mind, Bud,” said Sabott. “There’s going to be no whiskey drinking tonight. There’ll be nothing stronger than coffee and water until after tomorrow.” He looked across the fire at Bobby Zackarow for agreement.

  “That’s for the best,” Zackarow said, looking along his row men as he heard a groan of disapproval. “I catch anybody drinking, they’ll wish they never got spit out of their mama’s belly.”

  His men, Jack Fannin, Willard Hargrove, James Tott, Bill Weydell and Minnesota Fred Martin, all looked back and forth among themselves and shifted uncomfortably on the ground. “Hell, it’s okay by me,” said Fannin. “I’ve been wanting to see if I could go all day and night without whiskey. This is a good time to find out.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Minnesota Fred replied to Fannin. He spit in dismissal and lay back against his saddle with a look of disgust. “I don’t sleep ’less I’m drunk.”

  The group fell silent for a moment until Zackarow said to Sabott, “How about I put up two men for guards tonight and you do the same?”

  “Sounds right,” said Sabott. He looked at Al Heakland and Crazy Lou
. “You two, take turns with two of Bobby’s men. Two hours each throughout the night.”

  Zackarow looked down the line toward Minnesota Fred Martin. “Fred, since you won’t be sleeping anyway, you and Hargrove split the hours up with those two.” He gestured toward Heakland and Crazy Lou.

  Hargrove cursed under his breath. But Minnesota Fred stood up with his blanket over his forearm and his rifle in hand. “Suits the hell out of me,” he said. “Somebody wake me up when it’s my turn.”

  “Thought you couldn’t sleep,” said Hargrove.

  “Mind your own damned business, Willard,” Martin snapped over his shoulder. The men all watched him stomp over to a big tree and pitch his blanket on the ground.

  “He gets testy as hell when he goes without his whiskey,” Fannin pointed out.“Says nothing else agrees with him.

  “Then he’ll just have to settle for sucking his thumb tonight,” said Zackarow. “This job we’re going to do takes a clear head and a steady hand.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Sabott said, raising a tin coffee cup in a toast.

  “I think I’ll turn in for the night,” said the former dentist, Donald Keyes, standing and pitching his coffee grounds into the glowing embers.

  “Yeah, me too,” said James Tott.

  “Why not?” said Bill Weydell, sounding bored.

  Two hours later, the only man left awake was Hargrove, who stood watch all the way up until midnight. In the pale, moonlit night he walked through the sleeping bodies strewn about on the ground and over to the tree where Minnesota Fred lay flat on his back with his forearm over his face.

  “Are you asleep?” Hargrove asked in a whisper, nudging Minnesota Fred with the toe of his boot.

  “Hell no,” said Martin, “keep your dirty boot away from me.”

  “It’s time for your guard,” Hargrove whispered, a little bit of a chuckle to his voice.