Sidewinders:#3: Cutthroat Canyon

by Johnstone, William W.

  “Of course,” Davidson replied with a nod. “I need to speak to the hotel clerk anyway. I’ll wait for you out in the lobby.”

  He stood up and walked out of the dining room. Bo and Scratch looked at each other over the remains of their supper, and Scratch said, “What do you think?”

  “I don’t much cotton to being lumped in with a bunch of hired guns,” Bo said. “You know that’s what Davidson’s talking about.”

  “Yeah, but he seems like a pretty good fella, and he’s got a right to get his gold up here without havin’ it stolen. Not to mention the hombres who work for him bein’ killed like that. Such things don’t sit well with me.”

  “I know, you never have liked outlaws. Neither do I.”

  Scratch grinned. “And I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t have a hankerin’ to visit Old Mexico again. I ain’t as young as I used to be, and the heat down there feels good on these bones o’ mine.”

  “Not to mention the señoritas.”

  The grin on Scratch’s rugged face widened. “They feel pretty good on these bones o’ mine, too.”

  Slowly, Bo nodded. “Well, since we don’t have anywhere else we have to be…”

  “As per usual.”

  “I don’t suppose it would hurt anything if we rode down there with Davidson and had a look around. If we don’t like the lay of the land, we can always pull out. Wouldn’t be anything stopping us.”

  “That’s right.” Scratch drank the last of his coffee. “Be good to spend some time in Mañana-land again.”

  They found Davidson in the lobby. With an eager expression on his face, the man asked, “Have you made up your minds?”

  “We’ll ride down there with you,” Bo said. “Whether or not we stay depends on what we find there.”

  “Fair enough,” Davidson said with an emphatic nod. He shook hands with them again and added, “I think everything will work out just fine once we get to Cutthroat Canyon.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Davidson wanted to leave at first light, but since the inquest into the deaths of Little Ed Churchill, his men who had been killed in the attack on the Birdcage, and Three-Toed Johnny Fontana would be held in the morning, Bo and Scratch had to wait for that. If it had been necessary, they would have said to hell with Marshal Jake Hamlin’s order and ridden out anyway, but Davidson thought it over and told them to cooperate with the marshal.

  “I don’t want to get on the wrong side of the law,” he said.

  He also told Bo and Scratch not to worry about supplies. He would provide everything they needed for the trip to the Cutthroat Canyon mine, which was a two-day ride south of El Paso.

  The inquest was held at the county courthouse and was well attended, since Churchill had had plenty of friends and enemies both. The cattleman’s lawyers showed up and indignantly demanded justice for their client, claimed that Bo and Scratch had foully murdered Churchill with no provocation. None of the men who had been with Little Ed testified to back up that claim, however. It seemed that none of those who had been involved in the battle could be found.

  On the other hand, August Strittmayer, Porter Davidson, and numerous other citizens of El Paso who had been inside the Birdcage when the shooting started took the stand and told the coroner’s jury exactly what had happened. Once the testimony was concluded, it didn’t take the jury long to return with a verdict stating that Bo Creel and Scratch Morton had been justified in their actions when they shot Churchill, and Strittmayer and his bartenders had been acting in self-defense when they cut loose with those Greeners. Everyone involved was free to go.

  “I’ll see you at the livery stable in ten minutes,” Davidson told them as they paused on the steps outside the courthouse. “I want to get back to the mine as soon as I can. Those bandits have never bothered the mine itself, only the ore shipments, but you never know what they might be brave enough to do.”

  Strittmayer lumbered down the steps as Davidson departed. The big German shook hands with Bo and Scratch and said, “You cannot wait for Johnny’s funeral?”

  Bo shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We gave Davidson our word that we’d ride down to that mine of his with him. You know anything about that hombre, August?”

  “Not really,” Strittmayer said with a shrug. “He has been bringing ore shipments here to El Paso for the past six months or so, about every two weeks. His mine must be a good one, ja?”

  “He ever cause any trouble?”

  “Oh, nein, nein. He is a very friendly fellow and knows a great deal about mining. I know something of that myself, and we have had several good discussions. I like him.”

  “So do I,” Scratch said. “I hope we can give him a hand with his problems.”

  Strittmayer’s head inclined in a solemn nod. “Ja, the robbers who steal his ore. I have heard about them. You two should be careful. There is much danger below the border.”

  “There’s a heap of danger everywhere we go,” Scratch said with a laugh. “It seems like that anyway.”

  Bo pressed a coin into Strittmayer’s hand. “Put some flowers on Johnny’s grave for us. He was a good hombre. Deserved to go out better.”

  Strittmayer shrugged again. “He died in a saloon. I think he would have preferred that to a bed in some rented room in a boardinghouse.”

  “You’re probably right about that,” Bo agreed. “Just see to the flowers and we’ll be obliged, August.”

  “Ja. It will be done.”

  They had spent several minutes of the time Davidson had given them in talking to the saloon keeper, so Bo wasn’t surprised when they got to the livery stable and found Davidson already there, along with half a dozen other men.

  Scratch nudged Bo with an elbow and said under his breath, “Look yonder. It’s Jim Skinner.”

  “I see him,” Bo said.

  Jim Skinner stood slightly apart from the other men with Davidson. He was a couple of inches taller than Bo and Scratch, without an extra ounce of flesh anywhere on his body. You could sharpen a knife on his cheekbones. Lank dark hair fell to his shoulders. He wore two gunbelts that crossed each other and held a pair of holstered .45s. A Winchester was tucked under his left arm.

  Bo happened to know that Skinner also carried a knife in a sheath that hung down his back from a rawhide thong around his neck. Bo knew that because he had seen Skinner use that knife to cut a man’s face half off in a saloon up in Wyoming one time during an argument. Skinner had taken the poor son of a bitch by surprise with the blade.

  “Hell, I didn’t know he’d be one of the hombres Davidson hired,” Scratch said as they approached. “I ain’t so sure now about workin’ for the fella.”

  “We gave our word that we’d ride down there to the mine at least,” Bo reminded him. “You know any of those other hombres?”

  “Can’t say as I do. They all look like they still got the bark on, though.”

  That was true. Even though none of the other men were quite as sinister-looking as Jim Skinner, all of them had the hard-eyed faces of gents who were used to trouble. Of course, most people might say the same of him and Scratch, Bo reminded himself.

  “There you are,” Davidson said as they came up. “Are you ready to ride?”

  “Soon as we throw our saddles on our horses,” Bo said.

  “While you’re doing that, I’ll introduce you to the other men. Unless you already know some of them?”

  “I know Creel and Morton,” Skinner said in a gravelly voice. He turned his head and spat. “Didn’t know they was the other two gents you said you hired.”

  Davidson frowned as he looked back and forth between Bo and Scratch and Skinner. “Is there bad blood between you men?”

  “Our trails have crossed a time or two,” Skinner said.

  “That doesn’t answer the question.”

  “There’s no bad blood,” Bo said. “But Skinner’s got quite a reputation as a gunman.”

  “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, is it?” Davidson asked. “I need men who
can handle themselves when there’s trouble.”

  “And no man I ever killed died with a hole in his back neither,” Skinner added.

  Scratch bristled. “You ain’t callin’ us backshooters, are you, Skinner?”

  “Nope. I’m just sayin’ that happen I decide to take your measure, old man, you can count on me comin’ at you from the front.”

  Davidson held up his hands. “All right, that’s enough. I’m paying you men to fight bandits, not each other.”

  “We’ll steer clear of Skinner,” Bo said, “and he can steer clear of us.”

  Skinner jerked his head in a nod. “Sounds good to me.”

  “That’s settled then,” Davidson said. “Get saddled up. We’ve already wasted enough of the day.”

  While Bo and Scratch got their mounts ready to ride, Davidson introduced the other five men, as he’d said that he would. The big, tow-headed Swede was named Hansen. Jackman and Tragg could have been brothers with their swarthy faces and thick black mustaches, but they weren’t related. “That we know of,” Jackman added. The slender, baby-faced kid whose cold eyes belied his innocent appearance was called Douglas, with no indication of whether that was his first or last name. The final man was Lancaster, and when he said hello to Bo and Scratch, Bo heard a trace of a British accent in his voice. Remittance man, more than likely, who had been in the States for a good long time.

  Bo cinched the saddle snug on his rangy lineback dun and said to Davidson, “With a group this big trailing your gold wagons, it’ll be hard to keep those bandidos from spotting us.”

  “I thought maybe you could split up so that you wouldn’t be as noticeable, then converge on the wagons if there’s trouble.”

  Bo thought it over for a second and then nodded. “That might work,” he allowed.

  “But only once, like Bo told you last night,” Scratch added as he led his big, handsome bay out of the barn.

  “I’m hoping that once will be enough,” Davidson said.

  The nine men swung up in their saddles. They had a couple of packhorses loaded with bags of supplies and a pair of long crates, one on each horse. Douglas and Hansen led the pack animals as the group started out of El Paso. They rode to the long wooden bridge that spanned the lazily twisting Rio Grande. Horseshoes rang on the planks as the riders crossed the border into the Mexican town of Juarez.

  Dogs barked at them and children ran after them as they followed the dusty streets through Juarez, but the men paid no attention to those distractions. Soon enough the settlement was left behind, and the riders headed due south across the flat, semiarid terrain toward the greenish-gray mountains that rose in the distance. The mountains were farther away than they looked, which explained the two days it would take the men to reach them.

  Despite the fact that summer was still more than a month off, the temperature rose steadily as the sun climbed higher in the sky. Bo took off his frock coat after a while, and Scratch removed his buckskin jacket. Sweat trickled down Bo’s back.

  “It’ll be cooler in the mountains,” Davidson said with a smile as he pulled a bandanna from his pocket to wipe moisture from his face. He had changed into gray trousers and a white shirt and flat-crowned black hat, and he wore a holstered six-gun like the rest of the men. Bo recalled the way Davidson had shucked his iron from that shoulder rig during the battle of the Birdcage the night before, and figured the mine owner was plenty tough despite being something of a dude.

  “Did you study engineering, Mr. Davidson?” he asked.

  “Yes, I did, as a matter of fact, along with geology. That’s a good background for a mining man, don’t you think?”

  “Always helps to know what you’re doing, no matter what it is.”

  “What’s your specialty, Mr. Creel?”

  Scratch laughed. “We both been studyin’ on how to stay out of trouble for more’n forty years now. Haven’t quite got the knack of it yet, though.”

  “Surely you’ve done something besides just…drift.”

  “A little of everything,” Bo said. “Drove freight wagons and stagecoaches, scouted for the army, even toted a badge a time or two—”

  “But didn’t like it much,” Scratch put in.

  “No, we’re not really cut out to be lawmen,” Bo agreed with a faint smile. “We’ve done our share of cowboying. Chopped firewood and sold it one winter in Deadwood. Mostly, though, we just amble around from one place to another.”

  Skinner moved his horse up so that he was riding even with them. With a sneer, he said, “Don’t try to make out like you’re better’n the rest of us, Creel. You two have hired out your guns plenty of times, just like me and these other boys. What about that range war up in Montana you were mixed up in?”

  “Is that true?” Davidson asked. “You were part of a range war?”

  Bo shrugged. “The fella who owned one of the ranches did us a mighty big favor once. We were just paying him back, I guess you could say. Anyway, he was up against some mighty big odds. He would’ve been wiped out if somebody hadn’t given him a hand.”

  “That was quite a ruckus, all right,” Scratch said.

  “Last I heard,” Skinner said, “you two had a murder charge out against you up there.”

  Davidson frowned. “I heard what you told the marshal last night. Is it true you’re wanted for murder?”

  “Those charges were dropped,” Bo said as he gave Skinner a hard glance. “And the only reason they were filed in the first place is because one of the gents who ambushed us had a crooked judge for a friend.”

  “But you did kill him—the man who ambushed you, I mean?”

  “Darned right we did,” Scratch said. He slapped his thigh. “I got an old bullet wound in my leg that aches when the weather’s right to prove that the ornery son of a gun had it comin’, too.”

  “Don’t try to stir up trouble,” Davidson told Skinner.

  “Not tryin’ to stir up anything,” the skull-faced gunman said. “I just don’t want these two old buzzards thinkin’ that they’re any better than the rest of us. They’re goin’ down to that mine of yours for the same reason as the rest of us—to kill Mex bandits for pay.”

  Bo was tempted to tell Scratch that they were riding away right now. He’d already had a bellyful of Jim Skinner, and the trip had barely started. The idea of spending even a week around Skinner was distasteful.

  But they had given their word to Davidson, and Bo liked the mine owner. If they could help Davidson get those ore shipments to El Paso, Bo supposed he could put up with Skinner—at least for a little while.

  He hoped this job wouldn’t last too long, though.

  Jackman, Tragg, and Hansen started talking about some whores they had been with back in El Paso, and that shut Skinner up. Douglas and Lancaster were both pretty close-mouthed, Bo noted. But at least Skinner left Bo and Scratch alone following the brief clash, for the most part riding a short distance away from the others.

  They stopped from time to time to rest the horses, and at midday they paused longer to make a sparse lunch on biscuits and jerky from the bags of supplies. While they were eating, Scratch nodded toward the crates and asked Davidson what was in them.

  “Just some mining equipment,” Davidson replied. “That’s another reason I went to El Paso, to pick up that gear.”

  This was a dry, thirsty land, but the men had brought along plenty of full canteens. The water they had would last them until they reached the mountains, barring some sort of bad luck. And once they arrived at their destination, there would be streams to provide cool, clear water that came from springs higher up.

  “Have you ever been down here before?” Davidson asked Bo and Scratch late that afternoon.

  “Quite a few times,” Bo replied. “Not in recent years, though.”

  Scratch said, “Last time we rode through these parts, a fella still had to worry about the Yaqui and the Apaches. Never could tell when you’d run smack-dab into a raidin’ party. From what I hear tell, though, most of the
Injuns have pulled back even farther into the mountains since Major Jones and the Frontier Battalion of the Rangers made it too tough on ’em every time they crossed the border. The Rurales chase ’em down here, too.”

  “Yes, well, the Rurales aren’t the most efficient law enforcement group in the world,” Davidson said. “Between their corruption and their incompetence, they haven’t been able to do a thing about the bandit problem in this area. I found that out when I lodged a complaint with the Mexican government about my ore shipments being robbed.” He shrugged. “I’ll give them a little credit, though. The Indians haven’t bothered us. As you said, Mr. Morton, they seem to have retreated.”

  “Mr. Morton was my pa. Call me Scratch.”

  “Same here,” Bo said. “I’m just Bo.”

  “Very well.”

  Davidson didn’t tell them to call him Porter, though, Bo noticed.

  They made camp that night next to a dry wash. Davidson thought they ought to camp inside the wash, so that they could build a fire without it being seen, but Bo shook his head.

  “I’ve known flash floods to come along and fill up one of these arroyos quicker than I can tell you about it,” he said.

  “Flash floods?” Davidson repeated. “Out here in the middle of this arid landscape?”

  “All it takes is a good storm up in the mountains,” Scratch said. “That’s why they sometimes call ’em gullywashers.”

  Skinner snorted. “I would’ve told you the same thing, Boss, if these two old mossyhorns hadn’t jumped in first.”

  “You’re mighty free with that mouth of yours, Skinner,” Scratch snapped. “And I’m gettin’ a mite tired of bein’ called names.”

  Skinner’s angular jaw jutted out defiantly. “I can think of worse things to call you, old man.”

  “Settle down,” Davidson said, his voice sharp. “Don’t make me regret hiring you—any of you.”

  Scratch built up a ring of rocks so that he could kindle a tiny fire inside it without the flames being seen by any enemies lurking in the night. That was enough to boil their coffee and fry some bacon. Davidson promised the men that their next supper would be a better one, since they would have reached the canyon by then.