Showdown at Gun Hill

by Ralph Cotton

  Siedell sat staring, seething at Anson for having put hands on him.

  * * *

  Sam had only made his way up past the next two mine openings when suddenly Bo Anson jumped onto the trail in front of him. Anson fanned three rapid shots and jumped back out of sight fast as Sam’s Colt streaked up from its holster. Instead of swinging his rifle up into play, Sam kept his Colt cocked, raised and ready, and started to hurry along the trail toward the gun smoke Anson left hanging in the air. Yet something stopped him in his tracks. Why had Anson done that, jumped out and revealed his position? It was a careless, stupid move, fanning three shots— Uh-oh! Three shots were a signal.

  He stopped himself in midthought and dived off the trail into the nearest shaft opening as bullets kicked up dirt and rock all around him. From atop the cliff fifty yards above him, the Gatling gun’s operator had heard Anson’s signal and brought the big gun to life. Sam, realizing he had no cover other than the mine shaft opening he’d left a dozen yards behind him, tried to ball down behind a short rock and wait it out. He’d have to make a run for it, back to the mine shaft opening, when the gun stopped to reload.

  But even as he considered his position, a rifleman straight across from the next hill line sent a bullet pinging off the rock he lay behind. Sam couldn’t get a shot off without chips of rock and dirt pelting his face from the Gatling gun’s fire. Across from him the rifleman fired again. Pinned down, Sam knew it was only a matter of time until the two guns chopped him to pieces. But in a second, the big gun fell silent above him.

  What now?

  In the silent pause, Sam heard two pistol shots ring out from the direction of the Gatling gun. He heard a pained yell as he glanced up and saw a man sailing down off the top of the cliff. Every few feet the flailing man bounced off the stone wall and narrow terraced cart paths on his way down. Even as the man fell, Sam wasted no time. He took aim across the hill line. As the rifleman rose enough to get another shot off, Sam’s rifle bucked against his shoulder and sent the man flying backward out of sight, a red mist hanging in the air behind him.

  Sam watched as Anson sprang out of the mine’s opening so he could see the silent gun’s position.

  “Give it up, Anson,” Sam called out, emerging into sight, chips of rock and dirt peppered all over him.

  But Anson only spun toward him.

  “Go to hell, Ranger!” he shouted; he fired a wild shot and raced back inside the shaft. But only a second later he came staggering backward and turned a full circle on the trail, blood running down from his black-smudged forehead. He tried to raise his gun toward Siedell, who stalked out of the shaft toward him, gripping the stub of the broken torch handle in both hands, ready for another swing.

  Before Anson could fire, a bullet from Sam’s rifle lifted him off his feet and sent him flying out over the edge of the terraced trail. Siedell stood staring at the Ranger as if not believing his ordeal was over. Sam lowered his rifle and stared up at the top of the cliff where Sheriff Sheppard Stone stood with his rifle butt propped on his hip.

  “Coming down, Ranger,” Stone called out.

  Sam looked at Curtis Siedell. Siedell tossed the broken torch, looked down at Ape’s body lying in the trail and spat on it. He looked back up at the Ranger and said in an arrogant tone, “Any reason you couldn’t have gotten here sooner?”

  “None that I can think of,” Sam said coolly. He had started to lower his rifle when a voice behind him said, “Go on and drop it, Ranger. You’re all through here.”

  Sam saw Siedell’s face turn pale at the sound of the voice. Turning around slowly, rifle still in hand, Sam saw Max Bard and Mallard Trent facing him, Bard with his long revolver out at arm’s length, cocked and ready.

  “I won’t tell you again, Ranger,” said Bard. “None of your gun tricks, and no talking. Make a move on me and you’re dead.”

  Sam could tell he meant it.

  Letting the Winchester fall to the ground, Sam took a step back in silence, letting his arms drop to his sides. He kept his right hand away from his Colt, giving no sign of being poised to reach for it. He knew that Bard had no interest in killing anybody here other than Curtis Siedell—and that intense vengeful hatred was going to have to be his downfall, Sam decided.

  “I’ve got you, you rotten son of a bitch,” Bard said, stepping forward slowly, his eyes now riveted on Siedell. “I can’t tell you how long I have waited to open your belly and watch you suck air like a fish!”

  There it is, Sam noted, watching as Bard took another slow step. His hard stare at Siedell seemed to have shut out everyone else around him. Sam saw his gun hand tighten on the big revolver. Here it comes.

  Before Bard’s finger pressed the trigger, Sam shouted, “Bard!” The vengeful gunman swung his revolver just enough toward Sam to take his aim off Siedell. That was what Sam needed. His Colt streaked up from his holster, firing on the upswing. His first shot sent Bard staggering backward, Bard’s gun flying from his hand. The second shot sent him over the edge of the terraced trail onto the rocky hillside. Almost before Bard fell out of sight, Sam swung his Colt toward Mallard Trent and saw him raise his hands chest high away from his gun.

  “Don’t shoot,” said Trent. “I’m not one of his men. I was riding with him until I saw a chance to get away.” He nodded at Siedell. “I work for Curtis Siedell. Just ask him.”

  “He works for me, Ranger. He’s a tracker,” Siedell said. As he spoke he took out his last cigar from inside his coat and stuck it between his teeth. “You’re through here. Obliged for your help, but you can go now. Trent and I have things under control. We’re quite capable. . . .”

  Sam just stared at him.

  Having heard the two pistol shots, Sheriff Stone hurried down the hillside and slid through loose gravel onto the trail, his Colt out and cocked.

  “Can’t I turn my back for a minute without more shooting starting up?” he said to Sam, a wry half grin on his weathered face.

  Sam looked at him, seeing he was sober, steadier, stronger looking, more sure of himself than before.

  Seeing the look on Sam’s face, Stone said, “That’s right, Ranger, not a drop.” He uncocked his Colt and held it up in his hand. “I bought three bottles on my way out of Gnat. But I haven’t opened any of them. I thought about it. But it came to me—hell, I’ve been a wolf all my life. I don’t need rye to make me think I’m one.”

  Sam watched him spin the Colt on his finger, lowering it and twirling it expertly into its holster.

  “That’s good,” Sam said. He looked all around, understanding how Stone felt. There was something hollow now. Something missing inside now that the shooting had stopped and all that remained was to ride on to Yuma. “I’ve got a man handcuffed inside a mine shaft back there with the horse,” he said. He turned and started to walk away.

  “What about these two?” Stone asked, jerking a nod toward Siedell and Trent.

  “Siedell says this fella works for him,” Sam said. “I figure they most likely deserve each other.”

  “All right.” Stone nodded in agreement, falling in behind the Ranger. “When we get to Yuma, do you have to tell the judge about me, the drinking and all?”

  “No, not if you tell him yourself,” Sam replied without looking around at him. “I’ll tell him I don’t know of anybody I’d sooner work with—tell him Sheriff Deluna will say the same.”

  “Obliged, Ranger,” Stone said quietly. “I’m telling him about the bribery money, where it’s at and how much it is. Think he’ll believe I wasn’t holding on to it for myself? The Cadys will say I was if they get a chance.”

  “Then he’ll have to decide who he believes,” Sam said. “Are you holding on to it for yourself?”

  “No, I’m not,” Stone said.

  “Then there you have it,” said Sam. “He’ll hear the Cadys and know what they are. He’ll hear you and know what you are. Th
e truth ain’t worth a tin nickel if you don’t know who it’s coming from.”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right,” Stone said, satisfied. They walked on. “He’s going to wonder what took us so long,” he added as the two of them stopped before turning where Purser waited.

  “He might wonder,” Sam said. They faced the west, where the desert sun perched low, glowing red along the rim of the hill lines and the edge of the earth. “But he realizes a man never knows what to expect, crossing these badlands.”

  Turn the page for a look

  at Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack’s

  next adventure in Ralph Cotton’s

  PAYBACK AT BIG SILVER

  Available from Signet in October 2015.

  Arizona Territory Ranger Sam Burrack sat waiting midtrail atop his copper-colored dun. Both man and animal stood perfectly still, statuelike in the crisp silver dawn. Their senses searched the silence along the winding trail leading off and upward along the rocky hills. A sliver of steam curled out of the dun’s nostrils. The Ranger rested the butt of his Winchester rifle on his thigh, cocked and ready, its barrel pointing skyward. He’d removed his trail gloves and stuck them down in his gun belt. He held his hand in a firing grip around the small of the rifle stock, his finger outside of the trigger guard, resting along the cold metal gun chamber.

  When the dun’s ears pricked slightly toward the trail, the Ranger gave a trace of a smile and rubbed the horse’s withers.

  Not much longer . . .

  The men he lay in wait for had robbed a mine payroll the day before—in fact had robbed two other payrolls over the past week. As the sound of horses’ hooves overtook the morning silence, Sam wrapped his reins loosely around the dun’s saddle horn, stepped down from the saddle and nudged the dun on its rump. The horse stepped away behind the cover of a tall rock as if trained to do so. Sam shifted his rifle to his left hand, drew his Colt and held it cocked down his right side. Looking up along the trail he counted four horsemen riding down, dust roiling behind their horses’ hooves.

  Riding into sight, the first horseman swung his horse quarterwise to the Ranger, and jerked it to a halt.

  “Whoa, boys!” he called out to the others, caught by surprise at seeing the Ranger standing there, alone, armed, looking as if he might have been there all night, waiting.

  Sam stood staring calmly, his duster open down the front showing his badge, should anyone be interested in seeing it.

  “How the hell did you get around us, Ranger?” the first rider, a seasoned Missourian gunman named Bern Able, called out. As he spoke, the other three jerked their horses to a halt. They instinctively formed a half circle on the narrow trail.

  “Simple,” Sam said coolly. “You stopped. I kept riding.”

  “I’ll be damned. . . .” Able gave a stiff grin through a long, unattended mustache. He looked all around the hill lines encircling them as if to see what route the Ranger had taken. “And that’s all there was to it?” His hand rested on the butt of a Remington conversion strapped across his belly in a cross-draw holster. “I’ll have to remember that.”

  The Ranger stood with his feet spread in a fighting stance, his riding duster spread open down the front, his battered gray sombrero brim tilted down a little on his forehead—Sonora style—against the glare of rising sunlight in the east.

  “I’ll be taking that money now, Able,” he said with resolve. He nodded at the bulging canvas bag hanging from the saddle horn of Able’s pale speckled barb.

  “Taking’s what you’ll have to do,” said a younger Tex-Mexican outlaw named Brandon Suarez. His right hand rested on a holstered black-handled Colt with an eagle etched on its grip.

  Sam only gave him a throwaway glance as if it went without saying that he would take the money. Then he looked back at Able, who still sat grinning, yet tensed, poised.

  “Hush up, Brandon. We’re talking here,” Able said sidelong to Suarez without taking his eyes off the Ranger. “But he’s right you know,” he said to Sam. “I’ve never understood why you lawmen think a man will risk his life, get his hands on some hard-earned money and just turn around and give it all up to you.” He shook his head in disgust. “I’d like to hear just how you see any fairness in it.” He fixed a hard, sharp gaze on the Ranger.

  “Yeah, me too,” said Suarez.

  “It would require a lot of explaining,” Sam said quietly, almost patiently. “That’s not why I’m here. . . .” As he spoke, his cocked Colt came up casually in an unthreatening manner and leveled at Able’s chest twenty feet away. He slid a glance over the other two: a young but well-seasoned Wyoming cattle thief named Freddie Dobbs and a huge saloon bouncer from Maryland named Armand “Boomer” Phipps. He noted that Dobbs kept his hand well away from his holstered sidearm. Boomer Phipps, owing to his massive size, was not known to carry a gun.

  “Well, ain’t you slicker than pig piss . . . ?” said Able. Rather than looking taken aback at how coolly the Ranger had just gotten the upper hand, Able shrugged it off.

  The other three just stared, not understanding why Able had allowed that to happen.

  “See, Brandon . . . ?” he said as if undaunted. “That’s his way of telling you to go to hell—that he don’t give a damn how hard you work or what-all you go through to get the money. He figures his job is to take it back and make sure it goes to the square heads who wasn’t fit to hang on to it in the first place. Right, Ranger?” He glared at Sam as if enraged by the unfairness of it.

  “There you have it,” Sam said with resolve. He saw the slightest clasp of Able’s gun hand on the butt of the big Remington belly gun—the faintest move of his thumb toward the gun hammer.

  Now . . . !

  Sam’s Colt bucked in his right hand before Able brought his belly gun out and up into play. Able flew backward as his blood splattered on Freddie Dobbs. Dobbs’ horse whinnied and reared wildly. Sam fired the Winchester in his left hand, hoping the shot would distract Suarez. It did. The outlaw ducked a little as the rifle shot whistled past him. Before he could straighten and get a shot off, Sam swung his Colt toward him and fired. Suarez fell down the side of his spooked horse, blood spilling from his chest.

  Even as his world faded around him, Suarez squeezed off a wild shot. Sam saw the round send Dobbs flying backward out of his saddle. He landed flat on his back. Sam swung the Colt toward Boomer Phipps, who sat unarmed and growling in his saddle like a mad dog.

  “Hands in the air, Boomer,” Sam called out. But even as he spoke, he had to holster his Colt quickly and grab Able’s speckled barb by its reins as the animal tried to streak past him. He held on to the spooked horse’s reins, his Winchester smoking in his left hand.

  “Who says?” Boomer growled at him. He swung down from his saddle. Moving fast for a man his size, he charged at the Ranger as if unstoppable. “You’re not going to shoot me. I’ll break your head off!”

  Sam knew he needed to lever a fresh round into the rifle chamber, but he had no time. Boomer Phipps charged hard and fast, a massive and deadly force pounding at him like a crazed grizzly. Sam let go of the barb’s reins and drew the rifle far back over his right shoulder with both hands. With all his strength, he drove the rifle butt forward into Phipps’ broad forehead. Phipps stopped as if he’d run into a brick wall. The impact of the huge outlaw sent the Ranger flying backward onto his rump.

  Instead of going to the ground like any normal-sized man would, Phipps staggered backward two steps, caught himself and stood swaying, dazed but still on his feet. Sam came to his feet, levering a round into his rifle, and stood with his feet braced, ready to fire.

  “Stay where you are, Boomer,” he warned. “Don’t make me kill you.”

  Phipps batted his eyes; he raised his arms and spread his big hands in a wrestling stance.

  “You ain’t going to kill me, Ranger,” he said, still dazed. “I’m going to kill you!” He stalked
forward one step, then another.

  Sam leveled the cocked rifle and aimed it at the outlaw’s broad chest. There was nothing more to say—nothing more to do. Sam started to squeeze the trigger. But before he made the killing shot at a distance of less than thirty feet, Phipps crumpled to his knees, growled aloud and pitched forward onto his chest, finally succumbing to the blow to his forehead. Even still he moaned and slung his big head back and forth, trying to clear it.

  Sam lowered the rifle in both hands as Phipps groaned and wallowed in the dirt. Stepping over to the dun, Sam took a pair of handcuffs from his saddlebags and a coil of rope from his saddle horn. Walking back to the downed outlaw, he grabbed the reins to Able’s barb again as the horse stepped nervously around on the narrow trail.

  “Don’t make me hit you again, Boomer,” Sam said, stooping down, grabbing the outlaw’s left arm and pulling it back behind him before Phipps knew what was happening.

  “I dare . . . you to, law dog!” Phipps growled, sounding groggy and thick-tongued. He reached his other hand around behind him and flailed about for the Ranger. Sam managed to grab the big hand long enough to clasp the cuff around the other wrist.

  Phipps, still a little dazed, struggled against the cuffs and wallowed until he managed to rise onto his knees.

  “I’ll twist your limbs off!” he shouted at Sam.

  Sam stepped back, opened a loop in the rope and swung it down over the big man’s shoulders, drawing it tight around his arms. Before Phipps could react, two more loops swung around him and tightened.

  “There now, Boomer, settle yourself down,” Sam said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Phipps strained and struggled; Sam heard the rope creak with tension.