by Ralph Cotton
“All right,” said Little Ted, “here I go.” He raised the Colt, unloaded the bullets into his hand and dropped them into his pocket. When he slipped the Colt back into the holster, he looked expectantly at Will Summers.
“Now draw on me like you mean it,” Summers said.
Without a second of hesitation, Little Ted’s hand made a dive for his Colt. The tip of the gun barrel cleared the edge of the holster and started to swing up. But as quick as a whip, Summers’ left hand wrapped over the top of the cocked gun and clamped down in front of the hammer, to keep it from falling should the trigger be pulled.
But there he stopped instead of following through and throwing Little Ted for a flip.
“See that . . . ?” he said, gesturing Ted’s attention to his gloved hand. “Even if you pull the trigger now, it’s not going to do anything.” The two stared at the cocked hammer for a second.
“Yeah,” said Little Ted, “but won’t it hurt if I pulled the trigger right now?”
“Not as bad as getting shot would,” said Summers. “That’s step one,” he added. “Here’s step two.” He reached his other hand over and clasped it onto Ted’s gun as if shaking hands with it. He swung Ted’s arm out, back and up slowly in one long circle, stopping when he saw Ted was on the verge of losing balance.
“Whoa, that’s good,” said Ted, feeling himself ready to pitch forward with the slightest pressure from Summers’ gripping hands.
“Now, if I wanted to flip you,” said Summers, “I’d step in under your arm, twist hard and swing your gun hand back the rest of the way. You’d have no choice but to flip forward. It you were a heavier man, I might have to kick your right foot back like this to get you started.” He swung the side of his boot against Ted’s foot at the ankle, then stopped short of following through. “Have you got it?” he asked.
“I think I might,” Ted said.
Watching from the porch, Bailey saw the two change positions, Little Ted putting on the trail glove, Summers holding Little Ted’s unloaded gun down at his side, ready to draw it. Beside Bailey, Rena walked up and stood watching. She laid a hand gently on her mistress’ shoulder.
“What are they doing?” she asked quietly.
“It’s something we saw Will Summers do to Dallas Tate before I sent him away with his arm hanging at his side,” Bailey replied just as quietly. Beside her in his wheelchair, Ansil Swann sat with his face half-raised but his eyes blank and staring straight ahead. A nerve twitched twice in his slack jaw, then stopped.
“He is handsome and capable, this Will Summers?” Rena said. She squeezed Bailey’s shoulder a little for emphasis.
“Yes,” said Bailey, “he is.”
“But he is leaving in the morning?” Rena said.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Bailey said.
“Oh . . . ?” said Rena, sounding concerned.
“Don’t worry. I know how to handle men,” Bailey said. She raised a hand, laid it over Rena’s and patted it softly. “Your only concern is taking care of poor Ansil and me.” She laid her head over briefly atop her and Rena’s hands. Then she straightened and looked at her husband’s hollow eyes staring at her blankly from his wheelchair.
• • •
In the night, only moments after the ranch hands and Summers had gone off to the bunkhouse, Bailey Swann lay awake in her bed while Ansil rested in a small bed against the wall where Bedos Reyes had carried him. She had left orders for Little Ted and Lonnie Kerns to ride out after dinner and watch over the main trail until the first light of dawn. The ranch hands had only given each other a look, and followed their orders.
When she’d heard the sound of Kerns’ and Little Ted’s horses heading from the barn toward the main trail, she rose on the side of her bed. Standing, she slipped out of her sleeping gown and wrapped a long coat around herself. Naked now save for the long coat, she stepped into a pair of soft moccasin house slippers and walked quietly down the stairs and through the darkened house.
When she had walked out the front door, she closed it quietly behind her and walked across the yard and down the moonlit trail connecting the front yard to the bunkhouse. On her way, she saw the fiery red eyes of a coyote stare at her as it moved along through a stretch of sparse brush. But what she did not see were the two pairs of human eyes watching her from deeper within that same stretch of brush.
She looked back over her shoulder through the light of the half moon as she stepped onto the plank porch. Seeing only the purple night, a half moon the color of molted gold lying suspended in a bed of diamonds, she turned back to the door and inched it open slowly, moonlight spilling slantwise across the pine flooring. She closed the door equally slowly. Yet, in spite of her stealth, as she stepped quietly across the floorboards, she heard the cocking of a gun hammer from a corner bunk.
She stopped and froze.
“Will, it’s me, Bailey,” she whispered. She paused, then took another slow quiet step. “Will, did you hear me? Where are you? You’re not going to shoot, are you?”
A pause; then Summers’ voice came quietly out of the darkness.
“No, I’m not going to shoot,” he said. “I’m over here.”
She watched a match flare in the darkness and go to the wick of an oil lamp on a small table beside the bunk bed. A glow of light rose, then damped low and glowed in a pale gold behind the lamp’s black-smudged glass.
“I came to talk,” she reminded him, “to tell you my plan.” She moved closer, holding the front of her coat closed.
Summers looked her up and down, getting the picture why she was really here.
“I’ll dress,” he said, holding the blanket against him. He reached the Colt up and slipped it into his holster, his gun belt hanging on the bedpost. Then he reached out toward his trousers lying over a wooden chair, having to stretch some to get there.
“No, wait,” she said, stopping at the side of the bed, looking down at him, her hair undone, falling around the collar of her long coat. “I didn’t come here only to talk.” She opened the coat, stepped out of it in the soft lamplight and let it fall to the floor behind her. She shook out her long auburn hair; it fell around her bare shoulders, down her upturned breasts.
Jesus! Sweet Mother of—
Summers withdrew his outstretched hand and lay staring, his back hiked up against a pillow, his holstered Colt hanging beside his shoulder. Here was a rich man’s woman standing naked before him. He had noted her striking beauty all along, but he’d tried not to dwell on it. He knew about her and Dallas Tate, and he knew how she had used him to taunt the jealous young ranch hand.
Yes, a rich man’s woman, something a man like Ansil Swann strove for as one of his many rewards in life. The kind of woman Summers knew a man like himself could never have, except under these dire circumstances. Yet now, seeing her here, in his world, standing naked before him, in a dusty bunkhouse, the two of them alone in the middle of a quiet night, he could not ignore her beauty; now he could no longer put it aside as something he could only admire and hunger for but never have. She had brought herself to him—a gift, a reward? Either way, how could he refuse?
Jesus, he couldn’t refuse, he thought to himself. If he did he would regret it the rest of his life. It wasn’t as if he owed Ansil Swann a thing. Besides, from all outer appearances, Swann was a dead man. Anyway, this was not something of his doing, Summers told himself as Bailey eased down to lie atop him, the heat of her already closing around him. She’d been unfaithful to Swann long before he arrived here. Who was he to—
“Wait,” he said suddenly, stopping her as she lowered her lips to his. She stopped and opened her eyes and gazed at him as if in disbelief, a woman not used to being denied what she wanted, not in matters such as this.
“Wait?” she asked, as if not certain she’d heard him correctly. She started to say more, but she felt Summers clasp his left ha
nd over her mouth. She saw him reach his right hand up and slip the Colt from its holster. Her eyes widened slightly.
“Someone’s there,” he whispered. He eased her quickly from atop him and reached over and killed the lamplight with a twist of the wick wheel. Just as the corner of the bunkhouse went black, a plank creaked on the front porch.
As the front door swung open wide and moonlight seeped in across the floor, Summers moved in a crouch, his Colt cocked, aimed and ready. Bailey Swann leaped up from the bed and stood back in the other black corner.
“We hear you in there. Don’t shoot,” said a hushed voice from outside the open door.
“You don’t shoot, we won’t shoot,” said another voice. Summers had heard those voices before, but he couldn’t place where right away. But he didn’t have to wonder long. Bailey let out a sigh of relief and stepped back over the bed.
“It’s the Belltraes,” she said. She reached down, pulled up the bedcover and wrapped it around herself.
“The Belltraes?” Summers said, seeing that as no good reason to lower his Colt. He stared at the two shadowy silhouettes stepping into the dark bunkhouse.
“Yes,” said Bailey, “they’re here to see me.” She stepped around to the table, picked up a match, struck it and lit the lamp.
To see her?
Summers held his Colt level, but he felt dumbstruck.
“I hope we’re not interrupting anything here,” said Collard Belltrae. The lamplight rose and spread back into a circling glow.
“Call it just a wild guess,” said Ezra Belltrae, “but I’m betting we are.”
“You’re right, Ezra. You are interrupting,” Bailey said, sounding exasperated.
“For that you have our apologies,” said Ezra.
Both Belltrae brothers stood grinning at Summers and the woman as Bailey slipped on her moccasins and gestured for Summers to lower the Colt and put on his trousers. When both were adequately covered, Bailey wrapping her coat around herself and dropping the bedcover from under it, she looked at the brothers and pulled back her long auburn hair.
“This had better be good, fellows,” she said. She held her open hand out toward Collard as she spoke. Collard stepped forward and handed her a bag of tobacco with a card of rolling papers stuck down in it.
Summers stood watching, in bewilderment. “I realize the three of you have already met,” she said, taking out a paper and smoothing it in her fingers.
“Yes, we have,” said Collard. He said to Summers, “I’m sorry we had to leave you behind that night. Fact is, you didn’t seem real keen on cutting out.”
Summers looked at their faces, still bruised and swollen, but not as bad.
Summers still hadn’t found a basis of understanding on what these two were doing there. He looked at Bailey as she expertly rolled herself a smoke and ran it in and out of her mouth.
“I know I owe you an explanation, Will,” she said. “I’m sorry these two arrived at such an inconvenient time.”
“I could use an explanation,” Summers said, still watching the Belltraes, but lowering his Colt a little.
She paused as she leaned over, picked up another match, struck it and lit her cigarette. She shook out the match as she blew out a puff of smoke.
“They did a job for me,” she said. “They stole my husband’s racing stallion . . . to keep it from getting taken by Finnity and Baines’ collection men.”
“Oh?” Summers lowered the Colt a little more.
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Collard, to Summers. He turned to Bailey and added, “The stallion is safe and sound at Don Manuel’s place, by the way.” He looked back at Summers. “That wasn’t the stallion you and ol’ Hendrik ate. That was a desert mustang, happened to be the same color—they all look about alike dressed out.” He shrugged.
“We only broke his leg over a rock after he was shot and dressed out,” Ezra put in.
Summers just stared at him, getting the idea.
“I know how terrible this sounds, Will,” said the woman, “but my back was against the wall. I had them steal the stallion, and I reported it to Sheriff Miller. I managed to sell the stallion to Don Manuel, who has a spread thirty miles north of here. No one doubted it. With the stallion butchered and eaten, no one would go searching for it.”
“Us being known to scalp and fillet other folks’ horses for hair and steak,” said Collard, with a sharp grin, “that slaughter in the cave and the quirt you found was all we needed to seal the deal.”
Summers let out a breath and gave Bailey Swann a look.
“Is this the idea you were going to tell me about—?” he asked.
“No,” Bailey said quickly, cutting him short. She looked at the Belltraes as if to explain. “I had thought we might do the same thing with the bays. But we can’t.”
“We’ve seen the bay fillies,” said Collard. “Don Manuel would give top dollar, if we could get them to him.”
“Too risky,” Bailey said, shaking her head. “The stallion was a onetime thing. If the bays go missing, it’ll start looking peculiar. Finnity and Baines’ men will start searching.”
“Suit yourself, ma’am,” said Ezra. “We just wanted to report, let you know the stallion made it to Don Manuel’s.” He reached inside his shirt, took out a leather bag of gold coins, shook it, rattled the coins and handed it to her. “Here’s your money—less our fee, like you promised. You be sure and let the don know we brought this to you like you paid us to. We don’t want our heads on a stick. Do we, Collard?”
“No, we don’t,” Collard agreed, shaking his head. The two looked at Summers and Bailey and touched their dirty fingers to their sagging hat brims.
“And a good evening to you both,” Ezra said. As the brothers stepped toward the door, Ezra turned and said, “I almost forgot. If I was you I’d be shying away from Dark Horses. Your man Miller is going out. Evert Crayley is putting a Finnity and Baines man in his place.” He grinned. “You might say Ansil Swann’s days of glory are coming to a close.”
“Thank you, Ezra,” Bailey said stiffly. She and Summers sat watching as the brothers left and closed the door behind them.
Chapter 11
No sooner had the Belltraes gone than Will Summers uncocked the Colt and let it hang loosely in his hand. He walked to the bed and shoved the gun down into its holster. He buckled his loose belt at his waist and passed up the cigarette when Bailey offered it to him. He looked squarely at her as he sat down in the wooden chair. Seeing the look on his face, Bailey sat in silence for a moment; then she shook her head and held it in her hands. Looking at her, Summers thought he saw a tear fall from her cheek.
“Well, now you know about the stallion,” she said. “You are the only person here who knows it. I deliberately kept it from the ranch hands, even Dallas Tate.” She shook her head as if in shame. “What a terrible person you must think I am, Will,” she said in a hurt voice, “all these things I’ve done, just to keep the body and soul together.”
“I haven’t judged you, Bailey,” he said. But he knew he was not seeing her with the same eyes now that he’d learned what she and the Belltraes had done. “You and your husband are in trouble. I’ve seen the kind of men you’re up against. If you try to play fair with these men, they’ll eat you both alive.”
But what he said wasn’t completely true. Moments ago she had been the rich man’s woman, some creature of grace and beauty standing above the fray of the world. Now she was cheapened somehow, he thought, a scheming woman, doing whatever it took to pull herself forward. He didn’t know why he felt this way, but he did, and he was certain that what had almost happened only moments the Belltraes arrived was not going to happen at all.
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Will,” she said. “It means a lot to me.”
Damn it! Of all the times to start feeling guilty, he chastised himself.
He didn’t know why, but somehow he even felt like a lesser person himself, as if while she took advantage of her husband’s unfortunate condition, he would be taking advantage of hers. No matter how badly he wanted her, it was not the same now. She stood and walked over to him, letting her long coat fall open on its own. He watched her reach out to turn out the lamp. She gave him a look as she reached.
“They’re gone,” she said. “It’s still early. I sent the hands away until morning. . . .” She let her words trail.
“Leave it on,” Summers said quietly. “It’s time you tell me about this plan you mentioned.”
“Oh,” she said. Summers saw the mixed feelings in her pale blue eyes. Surprise, relief, but some disappointed. “Well, all right,” she said, tightening the coat at her throat. “I can tell you my plan.” She leveled her gaze at him. “Please, Will, promise me you’ll keep it a secret.”
“I promise,” Summers said.
She glanced at the window, then at the closed door. She gestured for Summers to move his chair closer. He did, yet she still spoke in a lowered, guarded voice.
“In the shaft of one of my husband’s closed mines is a strongbox he hid there. The box contains a large amount of cash and gold ingots. The cash is what he received for gold when he sold to the Dutch and the French Belgians. They bought the gold with American greenbacks to keep the transactions from being easily traced by the Mexican government. The cash was never taken to the bank in Dark Horses.” She paused and took a breath. “The gold is what he still had on hand when the new federale regime took over Mexico City and declared individual gold sales illegal.”
Summers just looked at her as she continued.
“Don Manuel had agreed to purchase the remaining gold from him, but Ansil had the stroke. I haven’t yet been able to risk moving it across the hill country to Don Manuel. The federales turn a blind eye to everything, but not when it comes to gold—gold they haven’t taken their cut from,” she added.
Summers considered it.
