Dark Horses

by Ralph Cotton

  “Gracias, Bedos,” she said idly as the elderly Mexican stood ready to lead her horse away.

  “If it’s all the same, ma’am,” Summers said, “I’d like to meet with Mr. Swann before anything else. I need to get this matter cleared up—”

  “Yes, of course you do,” said Bailey, cutting him short. She looked at Little Ted and Lonnie. “You two go on,” she said. “Bedos will show Will to the bunkhouse after he’s had a chance to speak to Mr. Swann.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Lonnie, and he and Little Ted touched their fingertips to their hat brims. They both looked at Summers, then turned their horses and rode away toward a stone and plank bunkhouse eighty yards away.

  “Bedos, please lead the string to the hacienda barn with my horse,” she said. “Mr. Swann will be right along to look them over.”

  Summers saw the elderly Mexican give the woman what he considered to be a questioning look. Yet, as quickly as Summers saw the look come to the Mexican’s eyes, it disappeared.

  “Sí, señora, en seguida,” the thin Mexican said. He stepped over and untied the string and led them alongside Bailey’s horse, walking a few steps behind Summers and the woman until he veered away with the horses toward a small stone and plank barn to the right side of the sprawling hacienda.

  “I’ll give Mr. Swann your paperwork, Will,” she said, patting the shirt pocket where she’d put it when he gave it to her on the trail. “Anything you need while you’re here, you have only to ask Bedos or his daughter, Rena,” the woman said sidelong to Summers as they neared a wide front porch. “We recently sold off our market herd, so we’ll be short of vaqueros for the season. But we always keep Bedos and his daughter to attend to the hacienda, and any guests of course.”

  Understandable. . . . Summers nodded. Having already looked around, he noted to himself that there appeared to be little work going on, no line of drovers’ horses at the hitch rail out in front of the bunkhouse. Stepping onto the porch, he looked up and saw that the thick Spanish window shutters along the second floor were all closed save for one overlooking the trail they’d ridden in on. The shutters each had a gun port cross in its middle, for the sake of defense.

  On the porch, the woman stopped and turned to Summers.

  “If you will be so kind, Will . . . ” She gestured toward a row of comfortable-looking chairs. “Please have a seat, and I will tell my husband you’re here. Meanwhile, I’ll have Rena bring you a pitcher of water—some wine, some mescal perhaps?”

  “Obliged, ma’am,” said Summers, taking off his hat. “Water sounds fine.”

  As Summers seated himself and laid his hat on his crossed knee, Bailey Swann walked into the house and closed the front door behind herself. He relaxed now, glad his problem with the bay fillies would soon be over. Summers sat looking all around the large ranch, a corral of cattle ponies at the side of a weathered barn only a few yards from the bunkhouse, a better-kept breeding barn with rows of private stalls for the Swanns’ and their hacienda guests’ personal horses.

  A business baron’s cattle ranch in Old Mexico, he told himself, sizing the place up. The mark of big money, he observed, of power, success. And yet he knew that to a businessman as wealthy as Swann, while this was a working ranch, it was also a play ranch, a rancho de lujo—a luxury ranch. Something to remind himself and the world of how far he’d come in a life where so many had barely scratched themselves out a meager living.

  My compliments, Ansil Swann, Summers said to himself. As he sat waiting, he saw a single horseman ride in from the west and stop his horse atop a low rise two hundred yards away. The rider sat staring toward the hacienda, a black flat-crowned hat atop his head. He wore a black linen suit coat behind a tan trail duster.

  Summers returned the horseman’s stare for a time. His attention then went back to the front door as it opened and a young Mexican woman his age stepped out carrying a tray with a pitcher of water and a drinking gourd on it. She only glanced at the watching horseman in passing, showing no concern.

  “Water for you, Señor Summers,” she said, stepping over to the table beside Summers’ chair. Even though she was the Swanns’ kitchen help serving him water, her dark striking beauty brought Summers to his feet instinctively. He dismissed the single horseman for the moment.

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he said, as if he hadn’t risen quick enough.

  “Please, sit down, por favor, Señor Summers,” she said in clearly refined English. There was the hint of a playful lilt to her voice. Summers suspected it was not the first time her looks had brought a man to his feet. “I am Rena—Señora Swann told me your name.” She straightened from setting the tray on the table, then raised the water and filled the drinking gourd for him. She set the pitcher down and gave him a level gaze. “Please summon me if I can do anything for you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Summers said. There was not the faintest hint of suggestion in her words or manners, yet he saw how wishful thinking might lead a man take it that way. “This is fine, gracias,” he added, taking the drinking gourd as she held it out to him.

  “De nada,” she said. As she turned and stepped past him, she smiled demurely. But then she stopped abruptly and looked back out at the horseman. Now there were two of them, both in the black hats, both in black suits, tan dusters.

  “Expecting company?” Summers asked, checking her expression, beginning to see signs of concern.

  “I must ask the señora,” she said dutifully, shaking her head a little. She still wore the smile, but with a little tension at work in it now.

  Summers stood watching as she walked inside.

  Easy, he reminded himself, you’re here on horse business, no other kind.

  A few moments went by as he sat sipping the cool water from the gourd. Then Bailey Swann stepped out onto the porch and closed the door quietly. She leaned against the door for a moment and sighed, giving him a weary smile. She looked out at the low rise and appeared to be relieved the two riders were gone.

  Summers watched her smile strengthen, then turn weary again.

  “Will, I’m very sorry,” she said, ignoring the low rise. “My husband is still not feeling very well. He sends you his apologies.” She tried to appear brightened. “But on a good note, he did verify everything you’ve said.” Her smiled continued. “That is, you are who you say you are, and he did indeed purchase the bay fillies from you. He sent out the money he still owes you upon delivery, as the contract so states.”

  Summers watched her unfold some cash in her hand and count out three hundred dollars for him to see. “So I can settle up with you on Ansil’s behalf.”

  “Obliged, ma’am,” Summers said, taking the money as she held it out for him.

  “Oh, and here is a letter with his signature, instructing Sheriff Miller or any of his men to allow you safe passage.”

  “Obliged again, ma’am,” Summers said. “I’ll go to Dark Horses first thing and show it to the sheriff.” He folded the paper and put it away inside his shirt. He couldn’t help seeing how tense she was in spite of how hard she tried to hide it. Something was wrong here, he told himself. He had suspected it a couple of times before, but never so much as now.

  “Well, then, that concludes our horse venture, Will,” she said. “I hope we can—”

  “One more thing, ma’am,” Will said, gazing down at the money on his palm. “Did your husband mention that we had agreed on a hundred-dollar bonus if I got the bays here sooner than the time we estimated?” He looked her levelly in the eye.

  She hesitated to answer, but only for a moment.

  “Oh yes, he certainly did,” she said as if catching herself. Her smile turned nervous. “It must’ve slipped my mind. I beg your pardon, Will.” She stepped away toward the door as she spoke. “I left it lying on his desk. I’ll just go get it.”

  Huh-uh. . . .

  Summers stood watching as
the door swung shut. At the last second he stopped it with his hand before it closed entirely. Quietly he opened it and stepped inside. He knew he had no right going inside the Swann hacienda uninvited. But he had nothing but trouble ever since arriving in the Mexican hill country with Swann’s bays. He had nearly been hanged. He was making it his right to know what was going on here. He moved forward quietly, following the sound of the woman’s riding boots on the clay-tiled floor.

  • • •

  Inside Ansil Swann’s lavish office, Bailey Swann hurriedly unlocked the cash drawer on her husband’s wide polished desk. With a worried look she rummaged through the remaining cash, counting, recounting, scratching all around to find money she might have missed finding earlier. In a tall-backed chair behind the desk Ansil Swann sat in silence, his eyes staring down at the floor, a dejected look on his aged and craggy face.

  “For God sakes, Ansil, there’s more cash here somewhere! I know there is. There has to be!” She gave up searching the drawer and hurried across the room to a hand-carved wooden box sitting on the mantel above the fireplace. She had to step onto a footstool in order to reach it.

  Behind the desk, Ansil sat motionless. An ivory-handled engraved Army Colt lay atop the desk. As Bailey took the wooden box in hand and stepped down from the footstool, she heard a footstep creak just outside the office doorway where the tile floor turned into broad-plank polished oak.

  “Rena, is that you?” she said in a hushed tone as she turned with the wooden box in her hands. “I need you to go to the porch and stall until I—” Her words stopped short as she stared into Summers’ watching eyes. “I mean, uh. That is—” She stopped again as she hurried to the open office door, forcing Summers back a step with the wooden box.

  “Here we are, Will,” she said, talking fast, trying hurriedly to take charge. She reached a hand back to shut the office door, seeing Summers look past her at Ansil Swann. “We mustn’t disturb poor Mr. Swann! He’s not doing very well at all—but I have your hundred dollars right here, I believe. Mr. Swann must’ve put it away when I left—”

  “Stop it, ma’am,” Summers said, cutting her off. He reached hand past her and shoved the big door open.

  “Please, Will, what are you doing? I have your hundred-dollar bonus—”

  He cut her off again as the door creaked wide open, revealing Swann at his desk, his downcast eyes, the big Colt lying there.

  “There was no bonus agreed to, ma’am,” Summers said as gently as he could, or as gently as he thought she deserved. He eased her around and ushered her back into the office, over to the desk. He took the box from her and set it on the desk.

  “Mr. Swann, sir,” he said, “it’s me, Will Summers—from the horse auction, Denver City?”

  Swann only stared blankly at the floor. Summers eyed the ivory-handled Colt. He saw that it was cocked, ready to fire.

  “Mr. Swann?” he said in a louder voice. He saw Swann’s head move, but only a fraction, a twitch in the side of his neck. He picked up the ornately engraved Colt and looked at Bailey as he tried to uncock it.

  “The hammer is frozen,” she said. “It hasn’t worked for years. It’s worthless, merely a keepsake, a desk piece.”

  “Can he hear me?” Summers asked.

  “Yes, he can,” she said defensively. “I told you he simply isn’t feeling well today!” Her voice rose impatiently.

  “I believe that,” Summers said cynically. He turned to Swann and slapped his palm down loudly top the desk.

  “Mr. Swann!” he shouted loudly. But still the man only sat staring at the floor. At that moment Summers saw the linen bib hanging on his chest, the wet circles on it. Swann’s chin glistened wetly above it. Will saw two handles atop the high-backed chair.

  A wheelchair. . . .

  “You have no right to barge in here like this!” Bailey said. “Now leave! Get out of my house this instant!”

  “Your husband has had a stroke, ma’am?” Summers asked her in a quiet tone.

  “Yes,” Bailey said, “I mean, no, he’s just feeling ill—” She stopped herself, seeing that her denial wasn’t going to work. Her eyes welled with tears. “I don’t know . . . ,” she said. “I haven’t had a doctor look at him. I haven’t dared.”

  Summers looked at her curiously as he laid the broken Colt atop the desk.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  She produced a lady’s handkerchief and touched it to her eyes.

  “He—he wouldn’t want me to under our circumstances,” she said, keeping herself from crying.

  “He wouldn’t want you to get him a doctor?” Summers asked. “Then just what are your circumstances, ma’am?”

  “I’ve been afraid to tell anyone, Will,” she said. “But I can see it’s time to trust someone, before my situation gets worse. I only hope I can trust you to keep silent about what I’m going to tell you.”

  “Anything you confide in me stays with me,” Summers said. “You have my word on that.”

  She nodded and looked down and shook her head. Then she backed away from him and put away her handkerchief.

  “Shortly after returning from Denver City,” she said, “my husband revealed to me that the financial empire he’s created is crumbling before his eyes.” She paused as if to see what affect the news would have on Summers.

  Summers looked impassive.

  “You mean all of his wealth, the mines, the railroads, everything?” he asked.

  “Yes, everything,” the woman said. “Most of it embezzled by the very men he paid to protect and manage his interests. And now those same men have banded together to take everything we have—our mine holdings here in Mexico, our hacienda, everything. They have already legally taken possession of Ansil’s railroads north of the border. Learning he lost the railroads is what brought on this.” She gestured a hand toward the dejected man in the wheelchair.

  “You mean they’ve taken everything they could seize from him legally,” Summers said. “Now they can come to Mexico and take everything else by force. When you lost your money you lost your influence with the Mexican government.”

  “Yes, that is our situation, Will,” she said. “Ruthless men become even more ruthless in Mexico. I’m trying to keep his condition a secret and salvage whatever I can before these men arrive and begin taking over our mines and our ranch. Even my hired hands don’t realize how bad his health is.” She paused, then said, “That’s why I wanted to postpone paying you the three hundred dollars.”

  “You weren’t going to mail my money to me, were you?” he said.

  “That’s true, Will. I’m sorry,” she said. “It wasn’t so much about not paying you your money as it was about people hearing that we could not come up with three hundred dollars.”

  “But you did come up with it,” Summers said.

  “Yes,” she said. “It is every penny we have. But I paid it to keep the truth from being known—to buy myself time while I figure a way out of this mess I’m in.” She paused, then said, “Ansil did come up with a plan that would help. But now that he’s ill, I don’t know if I can carry it out.”

  Summers glanced out through an open window and searched along the low rise for the two horsemen. They were not only back; they had two more horsemen with them, the same black suits, string ties, tan dusters. Behind the horsemen an empty wagon rolled up into sight and stopped.

  Summers nodded at the window.

  “These are debt collectors?” he asked.

  Bailey rose and stood close to Summers’ side, looking out.

  “Yes, they are. I’ve been expecting them. They work for Finnity and Baines, the company who bought my husband’s banknotes in Chicago. They call themselves debt collectors,” she said, “but they are more like hired gunmen, marauders out to take whatever they can.” She gripped his forearm firmly, seeing the four men riding toward the hacienda at a gallop,
the wagon close behind. The four drew rifles from their saddle boots as they rode closer. Summers looked toward the bunkhouse and saw Kerns and Little Ted jumping atop their tired horses at the hitch rail. He saw them boot their horses toward the hacienda at a hard run.

  “Ma’am,” Summers said in a quiet tone, “it looks like these fellows have their bark on. You’d best wheel your husband out of here. Get Rena and her pa and all of you take cover.” He stepped over and pulled the thick shutters closed on the office window. “Collecting a debt is one thing, but these men appear to be out for blood.”

  “You—you’re going to face them for me, Will?” she said, sounding surprised.

  “The closer they get, the more it looks that way,” Summers said, looking out, seeing the four men slow their horses a little and spread out as they neared the front yard, the wagon right behind them. He watched as Kerns and Little Ted rode hard, out of sight around the far end of the hacienda. Taking their horses out of the line of fire, he decided. He stepped over to a wall rack of firearms and took down a shortened double-barrel shotgun. He checked it, found it loaded.

  Bailey had hurried over, grabbed the handles on her husband’s wheelchair and pushed it across the floor. She stopped in the doorway and looked back at Summers. Ansil Swann sat with his head bowed, a string of slobber hanging from his gaping lips.

  “Will,” she said solemnly, “they’re going to tell you they have every right to collect what my husband owes.”

  “They can say what suits them,” Summers said. “I don’t listen well when charged at with rifles.” He clicked the shotgun shut and walked out the office door behind her. “Now get out of sight, please,” he said, turning toward the front door.