Crossing Fire River

by Ralph Cotton

  “Mine two,” said the other man, a younger outlaw named Billy Scott. He pushed up his broad hat brim as if to afford himself a better look. “That’s Ned Gunnison’s horse in the lead. Did you think that’s Ned strapped over its back?”

  “I’d be inclined to,” said Web. “What about you?” He gave the younger gunman a dubious look.

  The younger outlaw’s beard-stubbled face reddened under Web’s critical gaze. “Come on,” he said, gigging his horse with his spurs. “Let’s gather them up and take them in. Mr. Hewes ain’t going to like this.”

  “You don’t think so?” Web taunted, gigging his horse alongside him.

  An hour later, out front of Hewes’ large adobe, log and stone hacienda, two riflemen straightened up from leaning against a gait in the rail fence surrounding the yard. “Who the hell are these two bringing in?” one rifleman asked the other.

  “I don’t know,” the other man replied absently, “but they sure ain’t in none too good a shape.”

  Moments later, inside a large barn behind the hacienda, Bowden Hewes, a gunman named Dean “Quick Draw” Vincent and a portly outlaw named Thomas Finn turned from watching a crew of Mexican workers assist some of his gunmen in erecting a tall iron smoke-stack that reached up through a newly cut hole in the barn’s roof.

  “What the hell is this?” Hewes growled, seeing several of his gunmen gathered around Terrence Web and Billy Scott as the two led the three-horse string toward him.

  The men stopped a few feet away. Web called out above the sound of the Mexican’s hammering on the iron fittings overhead, “Bo, we got bad news. Ned, Pole and Mackey are all three dead.” He made room for Hewes to come forward and take a look for himself.

  Hewes, Vincent and Finn walked from horse to horse, looking at the bodies. “Sweet Jesus,” Hewes murmured in a gruff voice, a thick black cigar clenched between his teeth. “Where’d you find them?”

  Web had grabbed a handful of dusty hair on each of the corpses and raised their faces for Hewes to identify. “A couple of miles from the river,” said Web. He dropped the last dead face and dusted his gloved hands together.

  “I hope these three ain’t your best, Hewes,” Vincent commented. Web looked Dean Vincent up and down, not recognizing him.

  “This is Dean ‘Quick Draw’ Vincent and Thomas Finn,” Hewes said to Web and Scott.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Web said to Vincent, trying to look unimpressed but still eyeing him closely. He took note of the big bone-handled Colt on Vincent’s hip.

  “Hear that, Tommy boy?” Vincent said to Finn. “He’s heard of me.”

  “Good for you, cowpoke,” Finn said to Web. He and Vincent turned back to Hewes. “Does this change anything? I need to know before I send Finn back to Jake and the gang.”

  “Not at all,” said Hewes. “I hate losing a man, but losing even three doesn’t stop a parade, does it?”

  “Not to me,” said Vincent, “and not to Jake and the rest of the boys.” He nodded toward Ned Gunnison’s dust-covered body. “I knew Ned up in Colorado. He was no light piece of work.” He looked at the other two dead men and said, “Who do you suppose done them in?”

  “I know who done them in,” Hewes said. “It’s some damn saddle tramp who found my brother’s body up in the hills.” He didn’t want to go into detail of the situation between himself and his brother’s widow.

  “Some saddle tramp, huh?” said Vincent, sounding doubtful. He looked at Finn, then back at Hewes, and said to him, “Maybe you ought to see if he’s looking for work and hire him. He appears good at trimming numbers.”

  Hewes ignored the suggestion. “He’s a dead man when I see him.” He turned to his men. “Round everybody up.” He said to Vincent, “This son of a bitch is holed up at my dead brother’s house. We’re going to ride over there and kill him.”

  “He’s at your dead brother’s house?” Vincent said with a bemused look.

  “Yeah,” said Hewes, “he found my brother’s body and brought it home to the widow.”

  “He’s holed up with your brother’s widow?” Vincent gave Finn another look, then said to Hewes with a smug, knowing grin, “That sounds interesting.” He looked back around at the Mexican work crew and at the large iron chimney reaching up through the opened roof. “I’m wondering if I should send word to Jake, tell him we’d best hole up for a while on getting this thing done. It appears you might have a lot of personal problems plaguing you here.”

  “No,” Hewes snapped, “we’re going right on with our plans. If you think that saddle bum is holding me up, you’re wrong. Jake Goshen knows I’m good for taking care of business.” He turned a confident gaze to Finn. “You tell him we’ll have this set up and ready by the time him and the rest of the boys get here.”

  Finn nodded, but he looked to Vincent for approval.

  “Tommy’s going to ride back and tell Jake and the boys to bring the gold on in,” said Vincent. He looked all around the large barn at the work going on. “But I ain’t leaving right away. I’m going to stick with you and your men. We’re going to find this so-called saddle tramp and make sure he doesn’t kill all your men and put you out of business.”

  In a dingy service room above the Red Dog Saloon, Booth Anson stood shirtless, a soiled and bloodstained bandage on his healing shoulder wound. He held a foamy mug of beer in his hand; his sweaty hair lay plastered to his wet forehead. Watching out the window as Shaw rode in leading the paint horse and the dead Mexican, Anson called out over his shoulder to Wilbur Wallick, who lay stretched out on a bare feather mattress spooning cold beans from an airtight container.

  “Get over here, Wilbur,” he said. “You won’t believe this.”

  Next to Wallick a naked whore cursed in a sleepy voice when she felt the whole bed squeak and bounce as Wallick got to his feet and walked to the window. Looking down beside Anson, Wallick saw Shaw step down from the speckled barb at a hitch rail. “I’ll be damned, it’s him, big as life! Look, he’s toting a body around with him.”

  “It won’t be long before somebody’ll be toting his dead ass down the street,” said Anson. He pressed his hand to the bandaged shoulder as if gauging how much longer before it would completely heal. “Get your boots on, Wilbur. We’re going to follow him around some, see what he’s up to.”

  “Right, Booth.” Wallick hurried and set the airtight container of beans on a nightstand, then reached for his boots. “Think we ought to wake Mean Myra and tell her we’re leaving?”

  “If she doesn’t see us here, she’ll get the idea,” Anson said.

  “But what if we still owe her some money?” Wallick asked.

  “Jeez, Wilbur,” said Anson, just looking at him, not knowing how to answer.

  From the bed the woman’s muffled voice said, “I already been paid, unless you both want to give me a little something extra.” She rolled onto her back and propped her back up against the iron bars of the headboard.

  “Cover yourself, Myra,” said Anson. “You look rank as hell lying there like that.” He reached for his own clothes piled on the grimy floor.

  “Oh, I look rank, do I?” Mean Myra Blount reached over beside the can of airtights, picked up a bag of tobacco and rolling papers. “I must’ve looked like a warm apple pie when I uncovered,” she said in a knowing tone as she rolled herself a thin smoke and ran it in and out of her red-smeared lips. “You sure couldn’t get your fill—”

  “Shut up!” snapped Anson. “That’s not the kind of thing I like talking about.”

  Mean Myra chuckled, reaching for a match and lighting her cigarette. “Throw me my dress,” she said.

  Anson picked up her dress from a chair and pitched it over to her. She spread it over herself and continued smoking and watching Anson dress. “Who did you see ride in down there, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “The sumbitch who shot me,” Anson said, sitting down on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots, barely using his right arm beneath his sore and healing shoulder.
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  “So you’re going to kill him?” the dark-haired young woman asked. She idly twirled a strand of hair as she smoked and talked.

  “Oh yes, you bet I am,” said Anson.

  “I might just get dressed and come along, watch it for the sport of it,” she said.

  “Oh, I might not be killing him today,” said Anson. “It depends on how things look when I find him. If I get a good chance, I’ll take it. If not, I might wait until my shoulder’s all the way right.”

  “I see,” Myra said, settling back as if she had doubts it would ever happen.

  “No, you don’t see,” said Anson, catching the skep tical tone. “He’s dead, he just ain’t found it out yet. Soon as I can swing some iron at him, he’s going down face-first.” He stood up and stamped his boots into place on his feet, looked down at her and said, “You don’t believe it, you come along and take a look-see.”

  “I might,” Mean Myra said, blowing out a thin stream of smoke through her perched lips. “Let me know when you get ready to do it. I don’t want to get all dressed for nothing.”

  Chapter 15

  A gathering of curious onlookers had watched as Shaw spun the speckled barb’s reins to an iron hitch rail out front of the town barbershop. He hitched Raul’s paint horse beside the barb, untied Raul’s body and dragged him off the saddle and over his shoulder. A few of the onlookers standing closer tilted their heads at an odd angle in order to get a better look at the dead Mexican’s face as Shaw walked past them.

  “Sorry, Raul. I should have covered you up,” Shaw murmured to the corpse as he stepped away to the open shop door. In a bottom corner of a window a sign read: FINAL ARRANGEMENTS.

  At the door, the town barber, who had been watching, stepped aside and gestured Shaw in. “What happened to Raul?” he asked straightaway, staring at the body as Shaw stopped in the middle of the floor and turned and looked at him.

  “You know this man?” Shaw asked.

  “I sure do. That’s Raul Hernandez,” the barber replied. “He used to do odd jobs around town some, off and on. His mother-in-law cooks and keeps house for the Edelmans.” He gestured Shaw toward a door, then stepped ahead of him and opened it for him.

  “I know,” said Shaw, walking through the door. “I met him at the Edelmans’ hacienda. He was on the trail home from there when somebody killed him.” Seeing a long wooden mortuary table in the middle of the room, Shaw lowered Raul over onto it.

  “You were at the Edelmans’?” The barber looked at him even closer now. “Then you must be the drif . . .” His words trailed as he eyed Shaw’s ragged, dusty poncho and battered top hat. “That is, you must be the fellow who found the doctor’s body, too.”

  “Yeah,” Shaw said cynically, “I’m good at finding bodies lately. How’d you know about that?”

  “Jane Crowly and Ed Baggs took the news of it all the way to Fort Carrick. It made it back here by wire. This is a strange newfangled world when what a person says a hundred miles away makes it home before they do.” His eyes widened a bit. “Word is you knocked Jesse Burkett’s teeth out!”

  Shaw only nodded. “I want to make sure Raul gets seen to properly.” He gestured a gloved hand around the room and said, “Looks like you’re well equipped for the job.”

  “Yep, I’m the man you want for this,” said the barber. “I’m the only Chicago-trained professional around.” He motioned toward a sawed-off shotgun hanging on a wall peg with a tin star dangling from a strip of rawhide. “I’m also the town’s acting peace officer until we get ourselves a real sheriff.”

  Shaw gave him a patient stare.

  “Right,” the barber said, giving a nervous little cough to the back of his hand. “Anyway . . .” He looked at Raul’s dead, dust-covered face appraisingly, noting the gaping bullet holes in him. “Shave, haircut, washed, dressed and in the ground for six dollars—that’s in a place we’ve got staked off especially for a graveyard. Mexicans are buried right alongside the rest of us.” He winked and added, “Of course, off a little to one corner, if you get my meaning.”

  Shaw gave him a hard stare for a long moment, then said, “Get it done.”

  “Right away, sir,” said the barber. “I’m Wheatis Buckley at your service.” He looked at Shaw as if expecting a name in return.

  “Call me Lawrence,” Shaw said. He reached down into his pocket and came up with money for Raul’s burial.

  “My pleasure, Mr. Lawrence,” the barber said, taking the money as Shaw dropped it into his clean, poised hand. His hand snapped shut quickly as if this stranger might change his mind. “Now, what about yourself, sir, if I may inquire?” he asked. “Will you be getting a shave and a haircut today?”

  Shaw didn’t answer. But when he turned to walk out of the shop he saw three men standing across the street, staring toward him through the open door. He stopped and said to the barber, “Yeah, let’s do that too, while I’m here.”

  “A wise decision if I may say so,” Wheatis Buckley said, noting Shaw’s two-day beard stubble and the long dust-covered hair gathered beneath the battered top hat brim.

  Shaw took off his top hat and hung it on a hat rack before seating himself in the barber chair. As the barber stepped forward with a clean shawl to spread over him, he said to Shaw, “You may also hang your gun belt there if you wish.”

  Shaw just stared at him.

  “Yes, well . . .” The barber spread the shawl over him, tied it loosely around his neck and adjusted the chair back into the shave position. “I hope this water is hot enough to meet your approval.” He took a wet shaving cloth from a pan of hot water, wrung it and covered Shaw’s face with it. Beneath the warm cloth, Shaw relaxed and closed his eyes for a moment as Wheatis Buckley twirled his shaving brush in a shaving mug and worked up a thick, soapy lather. “So, how was the ride here?” he asked, making conversation out of force of habit.

  Shaw didn’t answer.

  Across the dirt street one of the three men said to the other two without taking his eyes off Shaw, “I can’t say I’ve been all that fond of Jesse Burkett.” He gave a short, nasty grin. “But there are times you feel like shooting a man just to watch him die.”

  “Willis, you’re cold as ice,” said a gunman named Parker Maddox, who stood beside Bert Willis, the two of them leaning back with a boot raised against the front of a building. “I don’t know about watching him die. But I know Bo would be mighty grateful to us if we shot a few holes in this trail-bird.”

  “There’s something familiar about him to me,” said the third man, a Texas gunman named Fred Cooder, who had ridden up from Eagle Pass a month earlier to work for Bowden Hewes. He had taken a step forward as if for a better look across the street and through the open barbershop door once Shaw had removed the top hat. “I just can’t place the man.”

  Willis gave another short grin and straightened from against the building now that the stranger was seated and leaning back with his face covered. “If you’re going to place him, you best be doing it quick.” He adjusted his gun belt on his hips. “He’s about to leave this world with a clean face . . . but unshaven.” He started across the street. The other two flanked him a step behind.

  Maddox looked over at Cooder and said, “Well? Any luck yet?”

  “No,” said Cooder, “but I’ve seen him before somewhere; I know I have.”

  “All you Texans claim to know one another ’til one of you gets caught in congress with a sheep,” said Willis with a sidelong look.

  Cooder ignored the remark, concentrating more intently on the stranger in the barber chair as the three continued across the dirt street.

  Inside the open door, Wheatis Buckley saw the three gunmen advancing toward his shop. “Oh, dear,” he said to Shaw in a guarded tone, “here come three men who work for Bowden Hewes—pals of Jesse Burkett, no doubt.” The sound of the shaving brush clicking around in the soap mug had stopped. “What should I do?”

  “Go on with it,” Shaw said beneath the wet shaving cloth. He reache
d up with a fingertip and rounded a peephole in front of his right eye, just enough to look at the men when they stepped inside and spread out.

  “My goodness, my goodness . . . ,” the barber whispered nervously, the brush in his fingers going back into its spin around the inside of the shaving mug.

  “We saw you ride in with the dead Mex, Mister,” Willis said, standing the closest to Shaw.

  Shaw sat in silence watching the man through the peephole in the shaving cloth.

  After a second, Willis said, “Did you hear me, stranger?”

  “No,” Shaw replied. The barber stopped working up the lather and took a step back when Shaw’s left forearm came out slowly from under the shawl and moved him away.

  Willis was taken aback at the reply, but only for a second. He cut a glance to the other two men, then said to Shaw, “You’re not from here, so I best let you know—”

  “I’m from here,” Shaw said. “Born here, raised here, been here all my life.” He reached his hand up slowly and pulled the wet cloth from his face.

  Maddox started to speak. “Stanger, you ain’t from—”

  “He’s being funny with us, ain’t you?” Willis said to Shaw, cutting Maddox off.

  Cooder winced, recognizing Shaw now that the shaving towel was off his face. “Oh hell.”

  “Did you think it was funny?” Shaw asked the gunman in a flat tone, adjusting the leaning chair back into its upright position. He could see the look on Willis’ face grow darker, and heard the scrape of his boots on the floor as Willis spread them shoulder width apart.

  “No, I didn’t think it was funny,” Willis said, his voice growing tighter, going into a growl. “You’re the sumbitch from the Edelmans’. You busted up a friend of ours, Jesse Burkett. We don’t allow no-account saddle bums to injure one of our own around here. We think we need to chop you off at the ankles.”

  Shaw just stared at Willis. He’d seen the stunned look on the face of the gunman standing to Willis’ right. The man had recognized him; Shaw knew that look. Now the question was, would the gunman recognizing him cause him more, or less, of a problem when the shooting started. Less, Shaw decided, judging the man’s pale, frightened expression. All right, Shaw decided, it was the man in front of him first, then the man to his left.