Outlaw's Reckoning

by Ralph Compton

  “Just stay here,” he whispered. “Someone’s coming.”

  “What if I need to defend myself?”

  “If they get to you, then it’s already too late.”

  Gus’s words had the very effect he’d been hoping for. The color drained from Abigail’s face and she suddenly seemed too petrified to move. She gathered up her legs and wrapped her arms around them so she was curled into a tight ball.

  As he moved out from the left side of the camp, Gus spotted a subtle hint of movement to the right. The only reason he saw Doyle at all was because he knew exactly what to look for. Since his partner was getting into position, Gus concentrated on doing the same. The river was a little ways off, so he prepared himself by pulling the bandanna up from around his neck to cover his face. Not only did that keep some of the moonlight from being reflected off his skin, but it allowed him to stay low and move through the bushes without catching anything in his mouth or nose. His Colt was held low and out of sight, but Gus was ready to pull his trigger at a moment’s notice.

  Gus kept moving toward the sounds of rushing water. The Salt River wasn’t especially deep at that spot, but there were plenty of rocks and fallen trees for it to splash against. In addition to that splashing, Gus could now hear the distinctive wet slap of boots wading through shallow water.

  He was already crouching in the bushes, but Gus bent his knees even more to lower himself deeper into the cover of leaves and spiny branches. The bushes tugged at his clothes and poked at his arms, but Gus hardly felt any of that. Even if he caught a twig in his good eye, he wouldn’t have let out a peep. Squinting through the bushes, Gus was able to pick out the shapes of three men crossing a shallow spot in the river.

  Doyle was hunkered down in a good spot not too far away, so it was a safe bet that he had spotted the other men too. Doyle looked at Gus and pointed beyond the three men. When Gus looked in that direction, he caught sight of two more approaching the opposite riverbank.

  If the men were merely on their way to somewhere else, Gus would have been content to let them pass. Even if they were crossing to try to hook up with a trail, he would have gladly sat in his hiding spot and watched them go. But these men weren’t just passing through. They moved in two rows, shoulder to shoulder, carefully surveying their surroundings. If Gus and Doyle hadn’t gotten themselves somewhat familiar with the riverbank while collecting firewood and watering the horses, they wouldn’t have known exactly where to hide. And if there had been more light than what trickled down from the pale glow of the moon, both outlaws would have been spotted already.

  Gus didn’t like the way the other men moved or the purpose in their eyes. What he liked even less was the badges pinned to those men’s chests. The moonlight glinted off the dented tin just enough to make the badges stand out against the black and browns of the men’s jackets, but Gus would have been able to spot them without much more than a single flicker to light the way. His life depended on sniffing out lawmen.

  Judging by the hungry snarl on Doyle’s face, he saw the badges, as well. The .45 was in his hand and ready to fire, but Gus got him to hold off with a single shake of his head. Doyle wasn’t happy about forsaking the first shot, but he eased his gun hand down a bit.

  The lawmen were talking among themselves in voices that were just a bit too low for Gus to hear. As long as there was the slightest possibility of those men passing by without incident, Gus meant to let them go. His hopes weren’t too high in that regard since the lawmen were headed straight for the camp. After taking a few more steps, the lawman at the front of the group motioned to the others. Those men fanned out a bit farther as if to surround the camp before closing in.

  Cursing under his breath, Gus nodded to Doyle and then stood up before his partner could make a move of his own. “Who are you men?” Gus snarled.

  The lawmen stopped and brought their guns up. Obviously surprised by Gus’s sudden appearance, they pointed their weapons at him. The man at the front of the group proved to be the leader, since he stepped forward to speak for the others. “We’re sheriff’s deputies from Coolidge, after a couple wanted men.” He squinted in the darkness and studied Gus’s face a bit too long. “Who might you be?”

  “My name’s Gerald Whitman,” Gus replied, using the false name he’d settled on a few jobs back.

  “Gerald, huh?”

  One of the other lawmen gripped his rifle tightly and brought it up to his shoulder. “What about him?” he asked anxiously.

  The other pair of lawmen crossed the river to stand with the first group of three. They were armed, but couldn’t have been half Gus’s age and held their guns like they were afraid to pull the triggers.

  Sniffing out the younger lawmen’s fear the way a dog clung to the scent of fresh meat, Doyle said, “I’m Gerald’s cousin. Name’s Matt.”

  “Why are you men sneaking about with your guns drawn?” the leader of the lawmen asked.

  Gus shrugged and replied, “We could ask you the same thing.”

  “We’re deputized lawmen and you two look an awful lot like the men we’re after.”

  “And who might that be?” Doyle asked.

  “A pair of outlaws. One is a fella with a mighty big scar on his face and one good eye. Kind of like you, mister.”

  Although he withstood the lawman’s scrutiny without so much as a flinch, Gus settled his finger against his trigger.

  Turning slightly toward Doyle, the head lawman said, “The other fella we’re after is about your height, fair features and carries at least two guns at any given time.”

  “Sounds like plenty of men I’ve seen,” Doyle replied. Nodding toward one of the lawmen at the back of the group, he added, “Sounds like it could be him.” Doyle chuckled when a couple of the young men actually turned to get a look at the one who had been singled out.

  The lawman at the head of the group wasn’t laughing and he wasn’t wasting time swapping dumbfounded expressions with his own men. Instead, he narrowed his focus back to Gus and set his feet into a solid shooting stance. “I think you two men better come with us. We’ve got some questions to ask.”

  “Why would we do that?” Gus asked.

  Doing exactly what Gus hadn’t wanted him to do, Doyle squared his shoulders to the men and said, “We were just stretching our legs and you men are the ones who came stomping up to our camp! Now you demand that we go with you? You got no cause to take us anywhere!”

  “The men we’re after are killers,” the leader said. “They’ll answer for what they done and they’ll hang for it. We heard from plenty of others that them two outlaws were in these parts. You two sure do look like a couple of killers to me.”

  Beads of sweat threatened to push from Gus’s forehead and trickle down his face. The longer the conversation went on, the more the lawmen could stare at his and Doyle’s faces. If they asked Gus to remove his hat and pull his bandanna aside, they wouldn’t miss the uncanny resemblance between him and the pictures that were drawn on over a dozen wanted notices across the country. Gus had wanted to avoid a fight if necessary, but wasn’t about to let these law dogs get the drop on him if it came down to a shooting contest.

  “We ain’t the men you’re after,” Doyle said in something that was a bit too close to a snarl. “Deputies or not, you best make a better argument or be on your way.”

  After a slight pause, the man to the leader’s right asked, “You men passed through Benson lately? There was a shooting there and the folks who saw it described two men who rode away with guns blazing.”

  “So?” Doyle grunted.

  “One of the men threatened someone with a broken railroad tie or something like that. I don’t suppose either of you is carrying anything like that?”

  Gus frowned and shook his head, knowing that Doyle hardly even went to an outhouse without taking his good-luck piece along with him. If this conversation went any further along these lines, at least one of those lawmen would get a real nasty introduction to the gruesome keepsake.r />
  “Why don’t you two men indulge us for a second?” the leader asked. When he brought his gun arm up to sight along the top of his barrel, all the other men with him followed suit. “Start by taking off your hats so we can get a better look at you. Bob, get those wanted notices with them pictures on ’em. Jory, why don’t you go see if either of these men is carrying anything suspicious like hidden weapons or something that might pass for a railroad tie?”

  Every muscle in Gus’s body braced for the gunfight that was quickly approaching. Although he didn’t move just yet, his mind worked out every last angle. He guessed which of the lawmen would fight and which would run. He even guessed where the dead ones would fall after they’d been shot and how the bodies would trip up the ones who remained. He knew Doyle well enough to be certain that he was simply waiting for the first opportunity to skin his gun and fire a shot. More than likely, he would wait until a lawman walked up to search him. After that, all hell would break loose.

  “Better toss your gun over here,” the lead deputy said to Doyle.

  Doyle grinned and held both hands away from his sides. “Sure thing, mister,” he said as he kept one hand within easy reach of the spot in his jacket where the spike was kept. “No need for anything messy.”

  Gus already knew just how messy it was going to get.

  “Did you find my stockings yet?”

  That question drifted through the air innocently enough, but stirred up more confusion than a gunshot. Gus, Doyle and all of the lawmen looked toward the sound of the voice to find Abigail working her way toward the river. In fact, they could all see a lot more of Abigail than any of them had seen before.

  She wore nothing but her slip, which hung off of one shoulder to give the men a glimpse of her creamy shoulders and the smooth skin along her neck. Her long blond hair fell loosely to cover a good portion of her front, but there was enough exposed to keep the men entranced for another second or two. As soon as she’d stepped all the way into the little clearing next to the riverbed, Abigail pulled in a quick breath and wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Oh my Lord,” she sputtered. “Gerald, who are these men?”

  Even though Gus was used to answering to his assumed name, hearing it coming from Abigail in her current state caught him off his guard. The unsteadiness in his voice wound up helping his cause. “These . . . uh . . . they’re lawmen. At least, they say they are.”

  Abigail’s eyes widened and she hopped behind a tree. “What do they want?”

  Doyle jumped right into the game by saying, “They think we’re outlaws, darlin’. Isn’t that a hoot?”

  Now that he’d had a moment to collect himself, the head lawman said, “We’re here on official business, ma’am. Are you hurt?”

  “No, and I’m certainly not comfortable with so many strangers in my camp. That’s why I sent my husband out to check on all the noise. Gerald, could you tell them to leave? They’re staring at me.”

  That got all of the lawmen shuffling their feet and looking anywhere but directly at Abigail. Their guns were still at the ready, but had shifted away from their former targets.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Gus said as he made his way over to Abigail, “I’d like to check on her.”

  “She’s fine,” the head lawman snapped. “And we’re not through with you yet.”

  Abigail stared at the deputies as if they’d just confessed to setting a torch to a small town. “This is preposterous! You think my husband is . . . Who are these men you’re looking for?”

  “Outlaws by the name of Gus McCord and Doyle Hill. They’re supposed to be loose in these parts and were last seen in—”

  “Do those men travel with a woman?” Abigail asked.

  All of the deputies froze in their tracks. After looking at one another for a bit, the lawmen stared at their leader, who shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. “No, ma’am,” the leader stammered. “At least—”

  “And do most killers you know bring their wives along when they’re running to . . . wherever killers are supposed to go?”

  “No, ma’am. Not as such.”

  “Then why are you pointing guns at my husband and his cousin Matt when they were just out to fetch something I left behind? By the way, darling, look behind you.”

  Gus hated to take his eyes off of the lawmen, but he glanced down at the spot that Abigail was pointing to. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face when he stooped down to pick something up off the ground. The deputies tensed and the hammer of a gun or two were cocked back, but all those tensions eased when Gus held up a frilly stocking that still held the basic shape of Abigail’s calf. Gus shrugged and asked, “May I?”

  Grudgingly, the deputy nodded. “For God’s sake, lower those guns,” he said to the deputies around him. The men who’d been aiming anywhere near Abigail didn’t just lower their weapons, but nearly tossed them into the river.

  “Uncle Eddie is gonna get a real kick out of this,” Doyle mused. “Just wait until I tell him that some bunch of sheriff’s deputies thought we were known killers.”

  “I have an uncle as well,” Abigail said in an icy tone. “Uncle James Billingsly is a territorial judge who makes the rounds through these parts to settle disputes or hear complaints about dishonest lawmen. Maybe he’d get a kick out of hearing this story as well.”

  A few moments ago, the leader of the deputies was willing to lower his guard a bit. Now he crumpled like a fish that had just been filleted. “I’m real sorry about this, ma’am. It was an honest mistake.”

  “Was it?” she asked through tight lips. “Is that why you and your men are still gawking at me?”

  The head lawman averted his eyes and some of the others went so far as to actually cover their own eyes with their hands.

  Never satisfied until he’d thoroughly pressed his advantage, Doyle asked, “Can we go or did you boys still want to search us? If you’d prefer to turn our camp upside down to see if we’re hiding any assassins or such, you’re more than—”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the lead deputy quickly said. “We’re sorry about the misunderstanding and we’ll just be on our way.”

  “Our camp is right over—”

  This time, Gus was the one to interrupt Doyle in midsentence. “I think these men want to move along. They’ve got important business to tend to.”

  Doyle shrugged as though he was grudgingly passing up a free meal instead of the possibility of being shot or hung. “Suit yourselves,” he grumbled.

  As the lawmen turned and walked away, they whispered among themselves. Gus wasn’t able to catch all of it, but he heard just enough to let his next several breaths come a whole lot easier.

  Doyle stepped up to him and grumbled, “That was too easy. They’ll just circle back.”

  “No, they won’t,” Gus replied.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because they’re already convinced they followed the wrong trail in getting here. By the looks of it, I’d say they mean yours.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Doyle asked.

  “Did you circle around and cross the river from that side when you were out scouting?”

  After looking across the river silently for a second or two, Doyle nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Me and her rode straight up to the camp, so that means we put down enough tracks to make it convincing. If we pack up and leave now, we’ll only look like we’re trying to hide something.”

  “And we wouldn’t want to give them such a foolish notion as that,” Doyle said with a sly grin.

  “No,” Gus said, “we sure wouldn’t. Even so, you might want to follow them for a bit just to make sure of that.”

  Doyle nodded. “I’ll give ’em a head start. Wouldn’t want to spook the poor fellas.”

  When he turned around to face Abigail, Gus found her still huddling behind the tree. “It’s all right. They’ve gone.”

  Peeking out from behind the tree, she replied, “But you�
�re still there and I’m still indecent. Where’s he intending on going?”

  “To double-check that your little story worked. I’d say it did just fine, though.” He took a step toward her and extended the hand that held the stocking. “You got my thanks.”

  She snatched the stocking from him and stepped away from the tree. “It was the least I could do. After all, you did save my life once or twice by now.”

  “I suppose you could hear what we were saying from the camp?” Doyle asked.

  She nodded. “I meant to come see what was happening and heard you mention those names.”

  “And you just happened to have left a stocking over here?”

  Abigail shook her head. “I tossed it there right before I showed myself. I figured that . . . well . . . showing myself would fluster some of those boys.”

  “You sure figured right,” Doyle said. Leaning toward Gus, he added, “She’s a devious little thing. Make one hell of a bandito.” With that, Doyle eased his way across the river without making enough noise to be heard over the normal flow of cold water.

  Gus watched as Abigail slowly lowered her arms to stand in front of him as though her slip was a full dress. When she looked to the river again, there wasn’t even a hint that Doyle had been there.

  “Sorry if I intruded,” she said.

  “Not at all. You did real good.”

  Abigail smiled warmly and walked back to the camp. Gus gave her a few moments before following her so she’d have enough time to pull the rest of her clothes on.

  Chapter 16

  Doyle didn’t return for a while after disappearing from the riverbed. Although Abigail didn’t have much trouble curling up beneath a blanket and falling asleep, Gus wasn’t about to let his eyes close for any longer than it took to blink. If he’d been on his own, he would have ridden out to find Doyle himself. But since Abigail had a tendency to follow him, he remained at the camp to nurse several cups of thick coffee.