Crossing Fire River

by Ralph Cotton

  Shaw turned in time to see Bennie Ford running toward him from twenty feet away, a Colt in his hand. One shot spun Ford around and dropped him dead in the dirt, a bloody mist streaked in the air. From the roofline, Dawson levered a fresh round into his rifle chamber and searched the grainy darkness for a target. He found none. But listening, he heard the sounds of hoofprints racing away from behind the building along the dirt street.

  “They’re pulling back,” Shaw called out, also hearing the horses’ hooves.

  “We’re going after them,” Dawson called down in reply. He turned and hurried across the tin roof, to a ladder he’d leaned up against the back of the building.

  Shaw dropped the spent cartridges from his Colt into the dirt street and pulled six bullets from his gun belt in order to reload. Before he’d managed to get the first bullet into the gun, he froze when he heard the voice call out from thirty feet away, “We’re not all gone, Fast Larry Shaw. I’m still here.”

  Shaw looked at Dean Vincent and said quietly, “Quick Draw, what are you doing riding with this bunch of buzzard bait?”

  “They weren’t buzzard bait until they come upon you, Fast Larry,” he said, stepping forward, a slight grin on his chiseled, cold face.

  “Nobody calls me Fast Larry anymore, Vincent.” Shaw shrugged. “How’d you know it was me, anyway?”

  “The body count,” he said, with the same slim grin on his face.

  Shaw let out a breath. Was this it? Had it come to him this way, at the end of the fight he’d just won, a time when he least expected it? Not that he minded, he told himself. But he had been sober long enough that the world didn’t look as bad as usual. Well, what the hell . . . ? This was what he went around wishing for most of the time. He had no complaints.

  “You’ve got me cold, Vincent,” he said. “You caught me with an unloaded gun in my hand.” He turned the empty Colt and the loose bullets in his hand so Vincent could see. He heard running footsteps behind him and he said without looking back, “Stay out of it, Dawson. This doesn’t concern you.”

  Dawson stopped, so did Jane, who stood with Caldwell leaning against her, his arm looped over her shoulder. Blood dripped freely down Caldwell’s thigh. Vincent looked back and forth at them. After a moment of contemplation, he took a draw on his black cigar and said to Shaw, “Load up, Fast Larry. This is a fair fight. You know me. I won’t have it any other way.”

  Shaw gave him a nod of appreciation. “Anything you say, Quick Draw.” He took his time, putting one bullet after another into the big Colt. “I always knew you were fast. The fastest I ever saw, to the best of my recollection.”

  “Oh yeah, I am at that,” Vincent said, his natural arrogance coming upon him. “I always thought you ducked me two or three times back when you was building yourself a reputation, the Fastest Gun Alive.”

  “Did I?” Shaw asked, almost apologetically. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Well, it seemed to me like you did,” said Vincent, taking a moment to air his past grievances before the killing began. “That time in El Paso . . . that day in Hurrah Town . . . Eagle Pass.” He took another step and stopped and spread his feet shoulder width apart. “But not this time, eh, Fast Larry?”

  “Nope, not this time,” said Shaw. He raised his Colt and fired, so quickly that Vincent didn’t know what hit him until he sank to his knees and saw the smoking revolver in Shaw’s hand.

  “Ohhh . . .” The gunman dropped his Colt and gripped his chest with both hands, knowing he had only seconds left to live. “I . . . meant . . . holster your gun,” he gasped.

  “Oh, did you?” Shaw stared down at him. “You should have been more specific.” He cocked the smoking Colt and added, “How dare you interrupt a gun battle just to prove how fast you are.”

  “I . . . always thought . . . I was faster than you,” he said, gasping his few last breaths.

  “Really? I didn’t,” Shaw said. He raised the smoking Colt and shot him through the forehead. Vincent flipped backward, dead in the dirt. Jane caught herself looking away from the spray of blood and brain matter.

  “Let’s get Caldwell patched up and ready to ride,” said Dawson, stepping over to Jane and helping her seat Caldwell on the edge of a water trough. “We can’t give them time to get ready for us.”

  Chapter 23

  Mean Myra Blount rode hard across the rolling sand hills, leading Anson and Wallick as the sound of distant gunfire resounded from the streets of Banton. By the time first light sparkled and crested on the eastern curve of the earth, they had ridden upward into the line of hills separating the desert floor from the Fire River valley.

  “Myra, we’ve got to stop!” said Anson as they eased their pace a little on a rough, rocky trail. “We can’t afford to kill these animals. Besides, I thought I heard hooves back there coming along the trail toward us.”

  “I heard them too,” Myra said. “So what?”

  “So we best get off the trail and take cover, see who it is, and let them ride on past us,” said Anson.

  “Have you always been so damned scared of every little thing?” Myra asked. She nudged her horse and speeded it up.

  Anson slowed and cursed under his breath. Seeing Wallick hurrying to keep up with her, he called out, “Get back here, Wilbur! I’m in charge here, not her.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Wallick asked with a troubled look, glancing back along the trail as he nudged his horse forward. “You’re the one wanted to bring her along with us.”

  “Damn it!” said Anson, nudging his horse up alongside him. “We can’t keep up this pace!” But he rode on.

  A few minutes later, at first light, Anson’s horse veered suddenly and slowed down on its own, taking on a limping, guarded gait. “Oh man, I gone and done it!” he said, stopping and dropping from his saddle. “This horse is done for.” Ahead of him Wallick stopped and turned his horse to face him. From farther back on the trail the sound of hooves had grown closer.

  Myra circled, rode back and looked down at him. “What now?” she asked tightly.

  “He’s gone on me,” Anson said angrily. “I told you we couldn’t keep it up.”

  “Oh? Wallick and I did,” Myra said in a critical, accusing tone. “Do you ride much?”

  “Jesus, woman,” Anson said, trying to hold his temper. He noted the rifle in Myra’s hands. He had learned enough about her to realize she would most likely use it. “Let’s not discuss it right now.” He gestured back toward the sound of hooves and reached a hand up to her. “Give me a lift.”

  “Why?” Myra said, making no attempt to reach down to him. Instead, she sidestepped the horse farther away from him.

  “Whoever’s coming back there, they’ll be here any minute,” Anson said, worried about the sound of hooves speeding up toward them. “We’re going to have to double up for a while!”

  “No, we’re not,” said Myra. She also gestured toward the hooves. “You have a gun. You can get one of their horses and catch up to us. Wilbur and I are riding on.”

  “Jesus! Wilbur! Give me a lift!” said Anson, appealing to the big, cumbersome gunman.

  Wallick started to nudge his horse back toward him, but Myra put her horse between the two in the middle of the trail. “Uh-uh, don’t you do it, Wilbur!” she warned, gripping the rifle stock as if she knew how to use it. “He knew better than to let his horse go lame.”

  “Jesus, I never let him,” Anson protested. “We were traveling too fast!”

  “Then you should’ve slowed down,” Myra said in a firm voice. She gigged her horse toward Wallick. “Come on, big fellow. It’s you and me now.”

  “I’m sorry, Booth,” said Wallick, still glancing back at the sound of approaching horses. “You can catch up to us.” He turned beside the woman and the two rode away, Myra’s tied-back hair flipping up and down with the rhythm of her horse’s tail.

  “How the hell . . . ?” Anson spread his hands in helplessness as the two faded off into the silver morning gloom. But he had
no time to stand still and ponder his predicament. Hearing the hooves getting steadily closer, he jerked the lame animal by its reins and pulled it off the trail, into a tangle of brush and bracken.

  From his hiding spot, Anson watched as the four riders slowed to a halt and then stopped on the trail in the grainy half-light of dawn. The first rider stepped down from his saddle and stooped and examined the fresh hoofprints on the ground. Steam billowed from their horses’ nostrils.

  Anson drew his Colt and held it at his side out of habit. There was nothing he could do here, he told himself, four against one, him on foot, them mounted and prepared for anything. But he wasn’t going to give up hope, not as long as there was a chance he could get one of their horses under him and make a run for it.

  He watched the man stand up from the fresh tracks, follow them to the edge of the trail and stand facing his direction. Even as Anson considered what he would have to do, he froze as the man called out, “Booth Anson! It’s me, Juan Facil Lupo. Walk out here with your hands over your head.”

  “What the hell . . . ?” Anson stood stunned for a moment. Then he shook his head to clear it and said, “All right, Easy John, don’t shoot. I’m coming out.”

  Leading his lame horse up onto the trail, his hands above his head, he said, “Don’t worry about me getting in the wind. This horse has gone lame on me.” Without lowering his hands, he let the horse’s reins fall from his fingertips.

  From atop their horses, Maynard Lilly and the three bounty hunters, Iron Head, Merle Oates and Bobby Freedus stared down at him, stone-faced. Anson only glanced at them in passing and said to Lupo, “If you don’t mind saying, how’d you know it was me?”

  Lupo only stared at him. But Maynard Lilly spit and ran a hand across his lips and said, “Your horse’s shoe brand, idiot.”

  Anson looked down at the prints in the dirt. “Is that it?” he asked with a puzzled look. “All this time you kept track of me by knowing my horse’s shoes?”

  Lupo didn’t answer. He continued to stare. He didn’t mention that earlier he had spotted Anson, Wallick and the woman on the trail below them.

  “I was coming back, you know,” Anson said, testing his situation a little. “That’s all Wallick and I talked about, was getting back with you boys and getting this whole thing cleared up about the stolen gold.”

  Lupo remained rigid and silent, his eyes burning into Anson’s.

  Anson looked up at the others, then back to Lupo. “The fact is, we managed to pick up some information about the gold, where it’s at . . . who’s got it, and whatnot.”

  Still the silent stare.

  “We was on our way there. Thank God I ran into you fellows, I didn’t know what Wilbur and I would have done without all of yas backing us.” He tried a weak grin. “It’s kind of like we traveled one big ole circle and came right back to yas.”

  “Are you a man who prays?” Lupo asked.

  Anson didn’t reply; instead he went on as if he hadn’t heard him. “A fellow by the name of Hewes has the gold at his place, across Fire River, not too far from here. Hell, lucky for you I can lead you there.”

  “You can lead us there?” Lupo asked.

  “I sure can. Like I said, that’s where we were headed,” said Anson.

  Lupo raised a finger and said, “Stop and weigh your answer very carefully before you give it.” His eyes burned with resolve. “Have you ever been there?”

  Anson shrugged and said with no regard for Lupo’s advice, “Well no. But hell, that won’t keep me from leading—”

  The rifle lying across Iron Head’s lap bucked once, then fell back into its resting place, a curl of smoke rising in a coil from the tip of its barrel. Beside Iron Head, Lilly asked Lupo, “Do you believe any of it, Easy John?”

  “Yes, I believe it,” Lupo said. “It was the confession of a condemned man. I was his confessor.” He stared at Anson’s body lying sprawled atop a stiff pile of dry brush. “He told us the truth, or as much of it as he was capable of telling.”

  Turning to Anson’s lame horse, Lupo drew his pistol and cocked its hammer. “I am sorry, caballo pobre,” he said. “But tonight the wolves will eat you. It is better for you that they eat you dead instead of alive.” He fired one shot between the horse’s eyes, then holstered his revolver and stepped up into his saddle.

  But before he could lead the men forward, a voice from behind them said quietly, “Hello the trail, Juan Facil.”

  Turning as one, the mounted men saw Cray Dawson and Lawrence Shaw standing in the middle of the trail, their rifles cocked and ready in their hands. Glancing past the two, Lupo saw a gun barrel lying over a rock pointed at him and his men. On the other side of the trail, another rifle barrel stared at him from behind a sparsely branched juniper.

  “Hello yourself, Marshal Dawson,” Lupo said. Seeing the two on foot, Lupo knew they had led their horses up quietly and came prepared for a fight with whomever they found waiting for them around the turn in the trail. “I bet you are wondering why we killed this man,” he said, sweeping a hand toward Anson’s body atop the pile of brush, bobbing slightly on a morning breeze.

  “The question crossed our minds,” said Dawson. Both he and Shaw took a step forward. The other four mounted men returned their stares. “But I defer to your judgment,” Dawson said, “knowing we’re all after the same thing.” Again his eyes went to the mounted men, this time to the bounty hunters. He added, “Unless you’ve changed the nature of your business since last I saw you.”

  “No,” said Lupo, “the bounty hunters are with us because we are all after the same thing.” He motioned again toward Anson. “He and another man were scouting for us, but they ran away and left us without horses or guns. That is what brought him to his present condition. The other man and a young woman are headed the same direction as we are.”

  “I understand,” said Dawson. He motioned for Jane and Caldwell to come forward, now that he and Shaw saw who was here. “And are you men headed where I think you’re headed, Easy John?” Dawson asked.

  “Only if you think we are headed for the place across Fire River,” said Lupo, watching Dawson’s face for a reaction. For all he knew, Dawson and his men could be out to find the gold and keep it for themselves. “I hear the stolen gold is there.”

  “We heard the same thing,” Dawson admitted, now that he heard Lupo admit that he had the same information. Again he let his eyes go to the bounty hunters, giving them a wary look.

  “Don’t worry about us,” said Oates. “We’re out for bounty.”

  “Not that we wouldn’t take a stab at disappearing with the gold if we got a chance,” said Freedus, eyeing Shaw, the big low-slung Colt, the familiar face.

  “But we don’t want to keep looking over our shoulders for the Mexican army the rest of our lives,” said Iron Head.

  “Are you who I’m thinking you are?” Freedus asked Shaw. “Are you Fast Lar—”

  “I’m Lawrence Shaw. I don’t go by Fast Larry anymore,” Shaw said, cutting him off.

  “Does everybody else know one another?” Dawson asked as Jane and Caldwell came forward, Jane leading their horses. Caldwell limped forward with a trouser leg cut off and a bandage around his thigh. Another bandage covered his shoulder beneath his open shirt front.

  Both sides exchanged nods. “You were the cause of the gunfire we heard coming from Banton in the night,” Lupo said. He offered a short, wizened smile. “It is unusual for me to see you and the Undertaker on your own side of the border.”

  “We go where it takes us,” Dawson said without apology, “same as you.”

  Lupo sighed. “It is true, I am spending more and more time here where I don’t belong. But I’m afraid it will be so until the border is secured from those criminals who use it to their advantage.”

  “Do you expect that to be anytime soon?” Jane asked, looking up at Lupo with a hand on her thin hip. “Those of us trying to live here could use a little encouraging word on the matter.”

  �
��Sí, but you will get no encouragement from me, Jane Crowly,” Lupo said. “I see no end of the trouble in sight. The border will remain wild and wide open so long as there are powerful men on either side who profit from it being so.”

  “I’d love to discuss it with you, Easy John,” Jane said, “but as you can see, I’ve taken to tending horses for the law.” She jiggled the sets of reins in her hands.

  Dawson said, “Do you suppose we could ride across Fire River together, trust one another enough to get this job done?” As he spoke he looked at the bounty hunters again, letting it be clearly known where his doubts lay.

  “We’ll behave if you will,” Oates offered. “I told you, all we want is the bounty due on any of these rascals, if nobody objects to it.”

  “None here,” said Dawson, stepping over and taking his reins from Jane. “They’re getting ready for us about now. Some of them made a run for it last night, but we managed to trim their numbers.”

  “Good for you,” said Lupo, turning his horse on the trail. “We will make our plans along the way.”

  “Suits us,” said Dawson, as Jane and Shaw helped Caldwell up into saddle. He waited until all three had mounted and gathered behind him, then rode forward and joined Lupo in the lead.

  Behind Dawson, Lupo and the others, Jane sidled in between Shaw and Caldwell. In a guarded voice, she asked them both, “Do we really trust these buzzards?”

  “No, we don’t,” Shaw said, but gave her a thin smile and added, “But who do you trust along these borderlands?”

  “Good point,” she whispered, the shotgun from the saloon gripped firmly in her gloved hand. She looked at Caldwell’s pale face in the thin morning light and asked him, “Undertaker, how’re you holding up?”

  But Caldwell didn’t answer. He cut her a sidelong glance and stared grimly at the trail ahead.

  Chapter 24

  A gunman named Eddie Sheves, who had run away from the fighting at Banton, arrived at the edge of Fire River at the same time as Myra and Wilbur Wallick. Caught by surprise, Myra cursed under her breath, “Damn it to hell, Wilbur, why didn’t you see him coming?”