Red River Ruse

by James Reasoner

  "After those hombres knocked you out, the one who was leadin' 'em got loose from your friend here and took a shot at him. He went right down—your friend, I mean—and for a second I thought that fella was going to empty all six into him. But then he yelled for the others to cut the leaders and mount up, and he got on his own horse and they rode out of here. Hollered back for nobody to come after 'em. Said they'd kill anybody that did."

  Cambridge glanced at the coach. Sure enough, the lead horses were gone, driven off by the outlaws as they rode away. The coach had been using a four-horse hitch, another money-saving measure, and that meant there were only two horses left to pull the vehicle on to the next stop.

  "How far are we from the Red River station?" Cambridge asked.

  The driver spat on the road. "A good ten miles, I reckon. It'll take us quite a spell to get there, the shape we're in."

  Cambridge nodded in agreement and said, "Help me with this man. I want to take a look at that bullet wound now. It might not wait until we get to the station."

  With the driver's help, Cambridge got Nacho propped up and the jacket and shirt stripped away from the wound. It was messy, sure enough, but Cambridge hoped the crease was a shallow one. He turned to the drummer and said, "Give me the flask you've got in your pocket."

  "F-flask?" the man hedged. "I don't recall saying I was carrying a flask—"

  "Damn it, give me the whiskey." Cambridge's voice was sharp. Moderating his tone, he turned his attention to the woman and went on, "And if you've got a handkerchief, ma'am, I could use it."

  "Of course," she said, taking a soft cloth from a pocket of her dress.

  "I'm afraid it won't be much good for anything once I get through with it," Cambridge apologized as he took the handkerchief from the woman.

  "That's all right." She cast a glance at her husband, not an angry look but perhaps a disappointed one. "You and your friend had the courage to stand up to those highwaymen. I'm glad to help now."

  Cambridge didn't tell her that he would have preferred not to get into a fight with the outlaws. He cast a cold-eyed glance toward the drummer and said, "What about that whiskey?"

  The salesman sighed, pulled a silver flask from his hip pocket, and handed it over.

  Cambridge poured a little of the liquor on the cloth and began cleaning away the blood from Nacho's injured side. Nacho let out a moan and shifted slightly from the pain, but he didn't regain consciousness. As the blood was washed off, Cambridge was relieved to see that the crease was indeed a shallow one, little more than a bullet burn. He'd finish cleaning it up, maybe get some strips of the lady's petticoat to use for bandages, and Nacho would be fine once he'd had some rest and recovered the strength that had leaked out of him along with the blood. Cambridge had patched up dozens of wounds that were worse, sometimes with bullets or arrows or both whizzing over his head.

  By the time Cambridge was finished, Nacho was moaning again and his eyelids were fluttering. When his eyes finally opened and stayed that way, he stared up at Cambridge and said weakly, "Billy? You are all right?"

  "I'm fine," Cambridge grunted. "I'll have a headache for a while, but at least I'm better off than you. You ruined a perfectly good shirt, amigo. Got blood all over it."

  "I remember now. I am shot, no?"

  "You are shot, yes." Cambridge slipped an arm around Nacho's shoulders and gently, carefully, lifted him into a sitting position. "But it's just a scratch. You'll be all right."

  "I'm not dying?"

  "Not hardly."

  Nacho shook his head. "I was hoping I was mortally wounded."

  "Why the devil would you hope that?" Cambridge exclaimed.

  "Those bandits . . . They got the money, didn't they?"

  'They got the money," Cambridge admitted. "But that's not your fault, Nacho."

  "Yes, it is. Mr. Nash told me to be sure that nothing happened to you or that money. And I let a bunch of second-rate desperados hit you on the head and take the cash and did nothing to stop them—"

  The words were coming faster out of Nacho now. Cambridge grimaced and said quickly, "I told you not to blame yourself. I should have hidden it better. If anybody has to take the blame, it's me."

  For a long moment, Nacho frowned at him in thought, then said, "Billy, if it's anybody's fault, it's that skunk who took the money. What say we go find him?"

  Cambridge had to grin. "I was starting to think the same thing myself."

  The driver sidled up to them and said, "If you fellas are up to travelin' now, we'd best get movin'. Be after dark as it is before we get to the Red. You never know, there might be more outlaws along this trail."

  The man was right. Cambridge said to him, "Take Nacho's other arm and let's get him on his feet."

  After a moment's dizziness, Nacho seemed to be fairly stable. He looked a little gruesome in his blood-stained clothes, but a healthy slug of what was left in the drummer's flask began to put some color back in his face. He was able to pick up his flat-crowned black hat and settle it on his head. Frowning, he looked around. "Where's my gun?" he asked.

  "Outlaws took it," the driver said. "Got my six-gun and greener, too."

  Nacho sighed, and Cambridge knew he regretted the loss of the pistol. "Then I guess I'm ready when the rest of you folks are . . ." the foreman said.

  Cambridge picked up his own Stetson, pushed its dented crown back into shape, and placed it carefully on his graying hair, avoiding the tender lump where the gun butt had landed. The married couple was already back on board the stage. The drummer climbed in next, followed by Nacho and Cambridge. With only two horses to pull the load, the coach lurched even more than usual as it began to roll along the road toward the Red River station. Cambridge didn't care.

  Comfort didn't matter anymore, he thought grimly. What was important was getting that money back—and getting his hands on the men who had stolen it.

  Chapter Two

  The pain in Nacho's side had settled down to a dull ache, and Cambridge had wrapped the bandages around him so tightly that he was having a little trouble breathing. Every jolt of the stagecoach sent a twinge of pain through his head. Other than that, he thought, he didn't feel too bad for somebody who'd been shot by a no-good outlaw.

  When his mind had started working coherently again after regaining consciousness, his first thoughts had been of going after the bandits and recovering the stolen money. He was glad to discover that Cambridge's thinking was running along the same lines. Anger burned inside Nacho, deeper than the pain from the bullet wound.

  "Did you ever get a good look at the leader's face while you were tangling with him?" Cambridge asked.

  Nacho shook his head. "I got the impression he was an ugly son-of-a-buck, but that's all."

  "Well, he could have killed all of us. I guess we're lucky to be alive."

  Luck had nothing to do with it, Nacho thought. Fate had decreed that they survive the encounter with the outlaws, so that they could hunt down the lawless dogs and avenge themselves. He kept himself insulated from the pain with that thought.

  He'd been a little uneasy about this trip ever since he and Billy Cambridge had left Pecos. Established as a railroad stop, Pecos was right on the Missouri Pacific and it would have been simple to take a train from there to Fort Worth and then on to Fort Smith to deliver the money. But Cambridge had gotten it into his head that he wanted to go on the stagecoach. "With the way the railroads are expanding, it won't be much longer until the stage lines are all gone," Billy had said. "Besides, it might even be safer. There have been a lot of train robberies lately." Nacho had to admit he was right about that. And it was still possible to travel from West Texas to Arkansas by stage, although you had to change from one small, struggling line to another half a dozen times.

  Then there was the matter of the cash. It would have been simpler and safer to send a bank draft, but old Simon Prescott had insisted on cash, and he had insisted that his friend Billy Cambridge bring it to him. They had fought together in th
e Cortinas War a quarter of a century earlier under the command of Captain Rip Ford, Cambridge as a young man, Prescott already a middle-aged, veteran Ranger at the time. According to Cambridge, Prescott had saved his life a time or two during that bloody border skirmish, and whatever Prescott wanted now, Cambridge was going to do his best to deliver.

  The situation had worried Edward Nash, too, and since he was involved in a complicated legal case back in Pecos and couldn't leave at the moment to accompany Cambridge, Nacho had been more than willing to take his place. He and Billy Cambridge had always gotten along well, Cambridge treating him as an equal rather than as a hired hand, and a part-Mexican one at that.

  "We'll have to report this outrage to the authorities," the man sitting across from Nacho and Cambridge was saying. "Maybe they can track down those criminals."

  The drummer snorted in contempt. "Don't bet on it, friend. I've been through these parts before, and the law around here isn't going to care about some piddling stage holdup. The sheriff'll have other things on his mind—like the next election."

  "The robbery has to be reported anyway," Cambridge put in. "That's the thing to do."

  "But if the law won't do anything"—the woman spoke up—"what's the use?"

  "I'm an attorney, ma'am," Cambridge told her. "It's always best to follow the proper channels, even when the purpose of it isn't readily apparent."

  Nacho wasn't so sure about that. Seemed to him that the best way to deal with this problem would be to find those outlaws and take the money back, at gunpoint if necessary, and proper channels be damned. If Billy wanted to talk to the authorities first, though, Nacho supposed it wouldn't do any harm.

  As the driver had predicted, night had fallen before the stagecoach reached the Red River. Actually, the river marking the border between Texas and the Indian Territory was still about an eighth of a mile ahead when the coach pulled up in front of a sturdy building made of wide, thick planks. A lantern hung from the ceiling over a porch along the front of the building. Out back was a large barn where spare teams for the coaches were kept.

  Another building much like the first one sat about twenty yards away. Its porch was lit by a lantern, too, and its large double doors were open. This building looked to be more neatly kept than its companion, and a sign over the door proclaimed it to be the Red River Trading Post and Mercantile, Theodore Maxwell, Esq., Prop.

  As the passengers climbed out of the coach, Cambridge looked over at the trading post sign and frowned. "Theodore Maxwell," he read. "Must be Jake's boy. I hope nothing's happened to Jake. It's been ten years or more since I've seen him."

  The words were barely out of Cambridge's mouth when the door of the first building opened and a tall, slender man stepped out, a worried look on his weathered face. "What happened, Rufus?" he called out to the driver. "You're runnin' late."

  "We had some trouble, Jake," the driver replied. "Some gents held us up."

  "I see now the leaders are gone," Jake Maxwell said as he came closer. "Anybody hurt?"

  The driver gestured toward Nacho and Cambridge. "These two gentlemen got roughed up, and the fella who was leadin' the gang shot one of 'em."

  Maxwell swore emphatically. As he stepped up to the passengers and saw their faces, he let out another exclamation. "Billy Cambridge!" he said. "What are you doin' in this neck of the woods?"

  "Well, I didn't come to look at your ugly face, you old hoss." Cambridge clapped Maxwell on the shoulder. "But I reckon it is good to see you again, Jake." The attorney turned to Nacho. "My friend here caught a bullet during that robbery. He could use some hot food and a little rest."

  "Not as much as I could use a chance to even the score with the man who did this," Nacho said.

  Cambridge performed the introductions. "Nacho, this is an old friend of mine, Jake Maxwell. Jake, meet Nacho Graves."

  The two men shook hands, their work-roughened palms gripping firmly, and Maxwell said, "Glad to meet you, Nacho."

  "Ignacio Alexander Rodriguez Graves," Nacho supplied with a grin. "But any old friend of Billy's can call me Nacho, Mr. Maxwell."

  "Come on inside, son. Billy patch up that wound of yours?"

  Nacho nodded.

  "I'm sure he did a good job, but like he said, you could still use some hot grub. I been keepin' the stew warm 'till the stage got here. All of you folks come in and rest a spell."

  Nacho felt an instinctive liking for Jake Maxwell. The leathery station keeper was a few years older than Cambridge, but he moved like a much younger man and there were only a few streaks of silver in his thick black hair. Nobody could call Maxwell a particularly handsome man although he had a certain dignity about him.

  The married couple babbled to Maxwell about the holdup as everyone went into the station. Inside, the building was furnished simply and functionally, with a long table flanked by benches dominating the big main room. A large, wood-burning, cast iron stove sat in one corner, and there was a fireplace in another corner. A couple of armchairs were pulled up in front of the fireplace, which was not lit on this mild autumn night. In a few weeks, as fall settled in over North Texas, a fire would feel good against the evening chill.

  As Nacho caught a whiff of what was simmering in the big pot on the stove, he drew in as deep a breath as he could with the bandages strapped around him and grinned. He was hungrier than he had realized. He guessed losing so much blood was responsible for that. At the moment, he felt just about as wobbly-legged as a newborn calf, and it would be good to sit down and put away some food.

  Maxwell ladled out bowls of the savory stew and poured cups of coffee for the hungry passengers and driver, then said, "While you folks are eating, I'll see about changing the team."

  "Need a hand, Jake?" Cambridge asked. "I didn't notice any hostlers around."

  Maxwell shook his head. "No, thanks, I been changin' teams by myself for so long, I've got it down to an art, Billy." With a grin and a wave, he went out.

  Cambridge turned to Nacho, who was already wolfing down his bowl of stew. "Better take it easy there. Your system's already had one shock today. You don't want to give it another one."

  "You said I needed to eat, Billy," Nacho replied. "And you know how I like to eat."

  That was true enough. Nacho's skill with a knife and fork was legendary around the bunkhouse and in the whole Pecos area, in fact. Hard work kept him from gaining weight, however.

  "You're not chasing cows ten hours a day now," Cambridge pointed out. "Anyway, when you get through, we'll go through your gear and find you some clean clothes."

  Nacho nodded and went back to the stew. He was just a growing boy with a healthy appetite, he told himself. Besides, he had to recuperate from the bullet wound, and that would take plenty of nourishment.

  "Where can we find the sheriff around here?" the husband asked. "I still intend to report that robbery."

  "You'd have to go clear back down to Sherman," the drummer replied. "I tell you, it's not worth it. I lost my money, too, you know, but I'm just going to wire my home office to send me an advance."

  "I suppose I could wire my bank in St. Louis for traveling expenses," the man mused. "Our tickets are already paid for until we can get back home."

  Cambridge said, "We can probably find a deputy or a constable around here who could take our report of the holdup. I'm sure Mr. Maxwell, the station-keeper, can tell us where to find someone in authority.

  Before the discussion could continue, a footstep in the doorway made everyone at the table look up. They were all still a little jumpy, Nacho supposed.

  But even though he had tensed at the sound of someone entering, he relaxed immediately when he saw who it was. A grin broke out on his face. That was an instinctive reaction on the part of Nacho Graves whenever a pretty girl came into a room.

  This girl was pretty, no doubt about that. She had thick blond hair that fell in long, shining waves past her shoulders. Her eyes were a brilliant blue, even in the fairly dim lantern-light of the stage station.
The creamy skin of her forehead creased in a frown as she looked around the room and said, "Oh, excuse me. I was looking for Jake."

  Billy Cambridge stood up politely, and Nacho was only a second behind him, not wanting to be outdone in manners by his companion, not where a lovely creature like this was concerned. Cambridge introduced himself and Nacho and then said, "Jake went to hitch a fresh team to the stagecoach. Didn't you see him outside?"

  The girl shook her head. "No, he must have been out in the barn. I'll go find him."

  "If there is anything we can do for you . . .?" Nacho spoke up.

  She smiled, and Nacho forgot about the pain in his side and the ache in his head. "No, that's all right," the girl said. "I'll find Jake."

  She turned and went out, and Nacho and Cambridge took their seats again. The salesman leaned forward, the smile on his florid face threatening to turn into a leer, and said, "Mighty pretty girl. You reckon she works here?"

  "I don't know," Cambridge replied. "But if she comes back in, I hope everyone will be polite to her. Any lady deserves that much respect." He looked meaningfully at the drummer.

  "Sure, sure," the man said hurriedly. "I didn't mean anything, mister. Just commenting on the young lady's attractiveness."

  "You got to admit she was mighty pretty, Billy," Nacho added.

  "Don't you start," Cambridge told him. "Every time you see a pretty girl . . ." He broke off with a shake of his head.

  A few minutes later, the door opened again and Jake Maxwell came in. "I'll have that team hitched up in a few minutes," he said, "but you folks just take your time with that meal. I know you've been through a lot today."

  "We already lost quite a bit of time on the schedule, Jake," the driver said. "Got to make it up."

  Maxwell waved off that objection. "No need bustin' a gut doin' it." He turned back toward the door.

  Before he could leave, Cambridge stopped him by saying, "There was a young woman in here a minute ago looking for you, Jake. She find you?"