Outlaw's Reckoning

by Ralph Compton

  “What do you say, Gus?” Doyle asked. “There’s some mighty pretty ladies in there. Should we take one or two of ’em for ourselves?”

  “One’s enough,” Gus said. “Turn this heap around and point that team back the way they came.”

  “You want us to go back?” the driver asked.

  “That’s right. That is, unless you want to ride south with us for a bit longer.”

  The driver couldn’t shake his head fast enough and he dropped into his seat to hastily collect the reins. When the wounded shotgunner tried to speak, the driver yelped to the horses and snapped the reins to keep him from being heard.

  Gus moved away from the trail to let the driver wrangle his team until the stagecoach was turned around. Doyle had Mason’s hands tied behind his back by the time the stage was set to go. The driver looked over to Gus and waited for the nod. When he got it, he snapped his reins to get the wheels turning.

  “Oh,” Doyle said as he casually aimed his rifle at the coach, “better take this with you.” He fired a shot into the coach, which was followed by a frantic cry from within. The gunshot, along with the crack of the reins, got the horses thundering down the trail amid a cloud of dust.

  Chapter 4

  Gus kept his mouth shut until well past nightfall. Half a moon hung in the sky, its light occasionally dulled by wisps of passing clouds that were pushed along by a lazy breeze. They couldn’t afford to ride at full speed in the dark since the terrain grew rockier and more uneven the farther Gus, Doyle and their prisoner got from the trail. Eventually, a tall rock caught Gus’s eye and he steered toward it. His partner followed and both horses were reined to a stop within half a second of each other.

  Swinging his leg over to drop from the saddle, Gus stomped over to Doyle’s horse before the animal had stopped shifting its hooves against the hard ground. As much as he wanted to grab Doyle by the neck, Gus took hold of Mason instead and roughly pulled him down. “What was the meaning of that?” Gus snarled.

  Doyle slid down from the saddle, wearing an amused grin. “The meaning of what? I thought the whole thing went nicely.”

  “It did. Right until you decided to shoot someone in that coach. Sounded to me like you hit a woman.”

  “That was just a woman screaming,” Doyle said in his defense. “I ain’t sure if she was the one that was hit.” Knowing he was getting dangerously close to Gus’s bad side, he quickly added, “I didn’t hit nobody. I just got the horses going, that’s all.”

  Gus knew it was pointless to argue with his partner. Doyle could swap words until the cows came home, and if things got any worse, he’d be the first to draw his pistol and put an end to the fight. Since he had other concerns apart from locking horns with Doyle again, Gus shifted his eyes to Mason. The prisoner was composed and sat on the ground like a possum playing dead.

  When Mason casually glanced over to him, Gus pounded his boot into his stomach. There wasn’t enough force to do any damage, but Mason had a real hard time drawing his next breath. “What are you looking at?” Gus roared.

  Latching on to the moment as if he’d been born for it, Doyle pulled his railroad spike from where he kept it and stuck the cold chunk of iron under Mason’s chin. “Yeah, what are you lookin’ at?”

  Mason kept still, closed his eyes and waited.

  While there were no outward signs of fear coming from the well-dressed hostage, Gus could smell it better than hot apple pie in a warm kitchen. Before Doyle could get to work with that railroad spike, Gus pulled Mason off the ground and sat him upright. “What did you intend to do with this one?” he asked. “We got that case you were after.”

  “Sure we got the case,” Doyle said. “But he could still come in handy. If not, we can leave him here.”

  Gus kept his eyes fixed upon Mason while Doyle picked up the case that hung from his saddle horn. Mason kept still until Doyle dropped down to sit next to him with the case on his lap. When Doyle started to open it, Mason grumbled, “It’s locked.”

  “So it is,” Doyle said as he pulled at the case to find it wouldn’t even start to come open. Laying the case within inches of Mason’s nose, Doyle dropped his fist like a hammer so the railroad spike shattered the little mechanism that kept the handles together. “And now it ain’t.”

  As much as Doyle flustered him, Gus had to chuckle at the sight of his partner enjoying himself so much. “What’s inside?” he asked.

  Doyle opened the case, glanced to both of the other men and then looked inside. He gnawed his tongue as he fished around in there. When he pulled that hand out again, he was holding something that absorbed the moon’s pale light like milk being sopped up by a rag.

  “This belong to one of the ladies?” Doyle grumbled. Holding the material to his nose, he sniffed it a few times and scowled as if he’d just caught a whiff of a skunk’s tail. “It does, doesn’t it?” When he didn’t get an answer right away, he threw the material aside and raised the case over his head. “Answer me!” he bellowed.

  Gus stepped up to place a hand upon the case. Although he didn’t try to take it from Doyle, he kept it from moving long enough for him to say, “I didn’t know you insisted on bringing him this far just to cave his head in.”

  Sucking in a few breaths, Doyle blinked and lowered the case. “You’re right.”

  “Let’s just see what we’ve got here,” Gus said as he reached into the case. Upon first inspection, all he could see were a few more scraps of material that resembled the first one Doyle had already pulled out from there. Gus examined each scrap in turn, only to find a few lacy bits of stocking as well as shreds of what might have been a light green blouse.

  Crouching down next to Mason, Doyle grabbed some of the well-dressed man’s hair and forced him to look directly at him when he asked, “What’s the meaning of this? Why were you so worked up when this case was being loaded onto the stage?”

  Thinking back to how Mason had yelled at Eddie, Gus looked one more time at the case. He was certain it was the same one. The same silver filigree was around the handles, but there also hadn’t been any other black cases on the stagecoach. “Yeah,” Gus said as he looked down at Mason, “I think you should answer that question.”

  Although Gus had stopped Doyle from shoving that case down his throat, Mason could tell he no longer had an ally in the other man. “I-I never got worked up,” he stammered. Since both of the gunmen were scowling at him, Mason was quick to amend his words. “What I mean is, I just wanted my baggage treated with the proper—”

  “That’s it,” Doyle said as he drew one of his .45s and aimed it at Mason’s face. “This one’s just become more trouble than he’s worth.”

  “Those clothes belong to Abigail Swann!” Mason sputtered. “They’re bound for Dragoon Summit, where they’ll be put on a train and delivered to Benson. I don’t know where they go from there! I swear it!”

  Doyle’s eyes narrowed even more and he started shaking his head as though he was trying to loosen up something that had gotten lodged in there. “What are you talking about? Gus, do you have any notion of what this fool is saying?”

  But Gus had shifted his focus onto the black case and the contents that had been strewn about. He collected the items and put them in a pile. Even with the scar swelling over his damaged left eye, he could see there was something peculiar about the garments. Just to be sure, he picked them up and took a closer look at each bit of clothing one by one.

  “Damn it, Gus, pay attention,” Doyle scolded. “Now ain’t the time to sniff them bloomers.”

  “There’s blood on these clothes,” Gus said.

  “So?”

  Shifting his eyes to Mason, Gus held up a torn blouse and said, “This is blood and it’s on every piece of material in this case.”

  Doyle stepped over to where Gus was crouching and picked up one of the articles he’d so recently tossed away. All the while, he kept his pistol trained upon Mason. “This is blood,” Doyle said as he examined the dark stains on the cloth
es. He picked up the rest of the items and looked through them all in a rush. “There’s a lot of blood here and it ain’t just from nickin’ a finger. How’d so much blood get on these lady’s frilly things?”

  Picking up the blouse, Gus crumpled it up the way it had been when it was inside the case. Although it wasn’t perfect, he could tell that gripping the blouse like a rag naturally brought most of the bloodstains together. Holding it up that way, he declared, “The blood was sopped up. Why would you do this?”

  When he looked at what Gus was doing, Doyle cocked his head to one side like a dog trying to figure out a peculiar whistle. Turning to the man on the ground, he said, “That’s a real good question. Why would you do that?”

  Mason was shaking like a leaf and he couldn’t force himself to look at the bloody clothes. Sweat beaded upon his brow, and when he heard the metallic click of a hammer being pulled back, Mason curled up and covered his head with his hands.

  “Answer the question,” Gus said from behind the gun he’d just cocked.

  “They’ll come find me,” Mason whined. “They know where you were headed and they know who you are. My associates will find me.”

  “Everyone knows who we are,” Doyle said proudly. “And as for where we’re headed, they only know what we told ’em. Whoever’s looking for you won’t find you until your carcass is picked clean by the vultures.”

  Waiting until Mason glanced over to him, Gus nodded. “We left a real good trail that’ll lead anyone after us in circles. Unless you want to be lost as well, you should speak up. Why carry around a case of bloody clothes and guard it like it’s money?”

  “Because it is money,” Mason said, sighing in a way that made it sound as though the words leaked out of him. “It’s proof that we got Abigail Swann.”

  “You got her?” Gus asked. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means she’s a hostage,” Doyle said with a victorious grin. “Ain’t that right?”

  Mason nodded. “We’re holding her for ransom and have been moving her around. We’re about to send our demands and we’re sending along those clothes to let her family know we truly have her. My associates and I split up so the plan could continue even if a few of us were caught by the law. We’re all moving around even more than she is.”

  “Those clothes could come from anywhere,” Doyle said. “And that could even be your blood for all we know. What good’s that stuff supposed to do?”

  “There’s more arriving at Benson. We sent it over different routes so nobody could track it back to us. Those clothes were specially made for her. You can tell by the stitching on the collar.”

  Gus examined the blouse to find the word “Abby” stitched in flowing letters. He wasn’t an expert on women’s clothes, but it looked expensive. At least, it struck him as something a rich lady would wear.

  “What’s arriving at Benson?” Doyle asked.

  “More of her things,” Mason said. “There’ll be enough to convince anyone who knows that woman that we truly do have her.”

  When Doyle asked his next question, he was all but licking his lips. “How much is the ransom?”

  For the first time since he’d started talking in earnest, Mason stopped himself short. His silence lasted right until he happened to get a look at the cold promise of death written on Gus’s face. “Twenty thousand.”

  “Twenty thousand?” Doyle asked. “You expect to get that much for some woman in fancy clothes?”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of the Swann family?” Mason asked. “They’re old money from the East and Thomas Swann’s shipping companies have made them even richer. Abigail is Thomas’s youngest daughter. We might have been able to get more for her, but we figured the family could pull together the money fast enough for us to get it and get out.”

  “And you don’t think someone that rich will be able to pay some gunmen to collect his daughter?”

  Mason shook his head. “She’s moving around almost as much as me and my associates are. She’s never even kept anywhere there’s a telegraph, so if she’s spotted nobody can send quick word out about it.”

  Gus nodded as he said, “That’s a good way to go about it.”

  “It sure is,” Doyle gasped. “Who are you meeting at Benson?”

  “My associates,” Mason grumbled.

  This time, Doyle didn’t fool about with harsh words or waving a gun in the other man’s face. He dropped to one knee beside Mason and drove a fist straight into the prisoner’s gut. “I want names,” Doyle growled. “I want to know what they’ve got and I want to know right now!”

  Although it hadn’t been said out loud, Gus already knew where Doyle was headed. “We’re not getting tangled up in a kidnapping,” he said.

  Without taking his eyes off of Mason, Doyle asked, “And why not? There’s plenty of money to go around. Besides, if whatever is in this case is so important to the operation, my guess is that the folks meeting in Benson will pay to get it back. Ain’t that so?”

  Reluctantly, Mason nodded.

  “They may even pay to get you back.”

  “Don’t get greedy,” Gus scolded. “How many times do you need to almost get killed before you’ll learn that lesson?”

  “That there’s my conscience,” Doyle said as he nodded toward Gus. “Sometimes he’s a real pain in the rump, but other times he makes a good point or two.” With that, Doyle eased back and offered a hand to the man on the ground.

  Mason was reluctant to accept the help Doyle was offering. In fact, he looked at the outlaw’s hand as if it had fangs. “You won’t be able to get anything in Benson. Not without me.”

  “Oh, you’re coming to Benson sure enough,” Doyle assured him.

  “If I’m a prisoner, my associates will know and they’ll take steps to free me. If I’m . . . if I’m . . .” Pulling in a deep breath, Mason straightened up and steeled himself before finally saying, “If I’m dead, they’ll scatter and you’ll never find them. Killing me won’t get you anywhere.”

  “Who said anything about killing you?” Glancing away, Doyle asked, “Gus, did I say I wanted to kill this here fella?”

  Gus shook his head.

  Mason brightened up a bit but not much. “There might be a way to make this mutually beneficial. We could use men like you in the event things got rough. There could always be entanglements with the law in a situation like this.”

  “Entanglements, huh?” Doyle mused. “You reckon we know a thing or two about entanglements, Gus?”

  Gus nodded. In his years with Doyle, he’d learned more than his share about entanglements. By the looks of things, he was about to get another lesson.

  Chapter 5

  Benson train depot two days later

  The three men rode northwest into Benson as if they had the devil on their tail. Now that he thought he’d won over the two outlaws, Mason was cooperative enough to ride on a horse of his own. Gus stole the animal the morning after their little talk about the kidnapping of Abigail Swann. He rode behind the well-dressed man, prepared to shoot if Mason got it in his head to make a bid for his own freedom.

  Not only did Mason ride to Benson without making any waves, but he did so in fairly good spirits. He and Doyle joked at every watering hole along the way and swapped tall tales when they’d made camp. Gus kept his mouth shut and his gun ready. He may not have had full use of both eyes, but he kept them open and on the lookout for a double cross. When he, Doyle and Mason arrived at the train station, Gus was prepared for trouble to be headed his way.

  At the station, Gus stood with his back against the wall of the ticket office and watched the train hiss to a stop. Every time he saw one of those big metal buckets on wheels, Gus felt something grind inside of him. He’d never been fond of trains as a kid and that only got worse as he’d grown older.

  There was just nowhere to go inside a train. Even if he stayed close to a door or window, the land outside kept changing too rapidly for him to pick out new places to run or hide. There were to
o many angles he couldn’t figure. Too many things could go wrong. When he pulled his trigger, he couldn’t afford to have the floor rocking under his feet.

  Doyle gave him no end of trouble for hating trains as much as he did, but Gus didn’t care about that. He had his ways of doing things and they’d served him well for plenty of years. Trains were fine to rob, but not so good to ride. After the last few times he and Doyle had robbed a train, Gus was even beginning to think twice about doing that again.

  As if hearing the thoughts rushing through his partner’s head, Doyle strutted up to him and said, “No need to look so angry, Gus. Nobody’s asking you to ride on that thing.”

  “Shouldn’t you be with Mason?”

  “I will be once that train comes to a stop. He ain’t about to come all this way just to blow this deal now. Didn’t you listen to him when we were in camp last night? He’s already making plans to spend the money he’s set to make.”

  “I didn’t listen to a word he said,” Gus told him. “Most of whatever comes out of his mouth is probably a lie.”

  “You never knew when to accept a piece of good luck when you found one, Gus. That’s always been your problem.”

  Grumbling under his breath, Gus set his eyes on Mason and kept them there. Although Mason still carried himself like a dandy, his well-tailored suit was showing the strain of being worn for the duration of a two-day ride. Mason shifted on his feet as he stood at the platform and glanced about. So far, the only other folks up there with him were a few old-timers sharing an apple and a small family waving at the approaching train.

  “Did you forget about something else?” Gus asked.

  Doyle sighed. “Whether I did or didn’t, I’m sure you’ll tell me anyway.”

  “We went through the trouble of laying a false trail and telling folks we were headed the other direction. Now that we’ve changed course, we’re drifting close to the same direction as we let on. We should be heading due north. Hell, we shoulda been out of these Territories by now.”