by John Benteen
Today, without the weight of passengers, they reached Station One early, and though the horses were still comparatively fresh, they were swapped for another team. Fifteen miles at a smart unending trot through the blazing sun had lathered them and taken the edge off their endurance; when the vehicle might have to make a run for life at any time, its safety could depend on the freshness of its team. Five minutes after they rolled in, they were rolling away from the adobe building, a minor fortress with a well and corrals and sheds, and on the second leg of their journey.
Twenty-five miles out of Coffin City, ten miles before the next station, Bushrod Adams pulled up the team. “Whoa, you misbegotten bastards!” He pointed with his whip stock. “Yonder. See that big rock? There’s another behind it kinda like a shelf. That’s where we leave the first batch of presents for them goddam ’Paches.”
“Right. Sit tight. I’ll handle it.” Sundance dismounted from the coach, after warily scanning the terrain, seeing nothing but a dust devil whirling its way across a distant flat. Opening the door, he took out a bolt of cloth, several twists of strong tobacco. Yance Rawlings swung down off the coach, watching. “What the hell?” he said, as Sundance opened a box, took out a couple of leathery objects. “Dried salt fish? Tom Evans never said nothing about leaving that.”
“He should have. Apaches love it. Special treat for ’em.” He carried the presents to the shelf, laid them there, the salt fish on top of them. Then he urinated slightly in front of the rock. “That’ll keep the coyotes and wolves away for quite a spell. Give the Apaches time to pick it up.”
“I see.” There was grudging admiration in Yance’s voice.
“Now,” Sundance said, “suppose you take my place riding shotgun. I didn’t figure on any trouble this close to town so soon after yesterday, but from here on out it’ll be different. I’m gonna scout ahead of the coach, and you tell Bushrod not to come around any blind turns or through any passes until I give the go ahead.”
“Hell, that’ll slow us down so much—”
“I told you,” Sundance said. “This trip is gonna take an extra day. Before I’m through I want to know every spot on this road an Indian—or anybody else—might use for ambush. Meantime, don’t forget to have Bushrod stop and put out the presents. A couple of those dried fish with every batch, and do what I did to keep the animals away.” He swung up on Eagle, touched the stallion with his heels, cantered on ahead.
That was how they traveled, all the long way to Lordsburg. Sundance rode ahead, taking his own time while Yance fumed at the delay to investigate every rise of ground, every nest of boulders, that could hide anyone, red or white, intending to waylay them. It was a slow, tedious process, and, in the long run, fruitless; there was not the least sign of trouble. Once, far in the distance, on the horizon, he saw two pale plumes of smoke: Apache signals. But they had nothing to do with them; more likely they were warnings of the approach of the posse Dart had led from Coffin City or some Army unit blundering blindly around the desert. Intermittently they halted at places similar to the first one, but better hidden, to leave the presents, each time capping them with the dried fish Sundance had bought at the general store.
At the halfway point, where they took a long rest and had a meal, Bushrod Adams was replaced as driver by a man named Thomas, just as tough but less profane. Driving a six-up hitch was exhausting work. Yance Rawlings, though, seemed to have the endurance of a bull; high up on the coach he remained as watchful, even through the night, as Sundance himself. “Stage line people don’t hire out to sleep,” he said once, grimly, and Sundance smiled without mirth. He might be on the lookout for Apaches, but Yance was watching him.
It was evening of the next day, nearly eighteen hours behind schedule, when they finally pulled into the dusty little New Mexican town. Here they transferred the bullion to a local express company which would haul it to the temporary station at the railroad end of track, slowly creeping toward Lordsburg. Tomorrow morning they would pull out with a full load of passengers, but, on this run, no currency, only a draft against an Eastern bank for the value of the bullion, plus a heavy load of mail. Once Yance had settled the business affairs, he spat dryly. “Now, by God, I’m gonna have a drink.”
“I’ll join you,” Sundance said, having cared for Eagle.
Yance glowered at him, seemed about to refuse.
Then he said tersely, “Suit yourself,” and led the way down the street to a saloon. Sundance, noticing how he chose a table that protected both their backs, told himself that Yance had been around all right.
There was cold beer, and they drank that gratefully. The second one seemed to relax Rawlings a little. “By God,” he rumbled, “I’ll say this for you—you’re thorough. You didn’t miss a trick the whole way. And—” he grinned broadly “—we got the bullion through! That’ll keep the mines off our necks a while. Art’ll—” Then he broke off. “Now what the hell are they doing here?”
The six men filed into the saloon, the pair in the lead somehow vaguely familiar to Sundance. Tall, wiry, with the bowed, chap-clad legs of horsemen, they wore two guns, and the four behind them were cut from the same cloth. “Ain’t that part of the Cable outfit?” And his hands slid beneath the table, one near the Colt, the other loosening the hatchet in its sheath.
“Yeah. And them two in front are the old man’s sons, Ash and Mort. I wonder how come they’re here?”
Sundance drew in a deep breath. “Right now,” he murmured, “they’re looking for us.”
Inside the barroom, the men had halted, the two brothers, their resemblance to their father vivid now, surveying the place with those cold, bullet-colored eyes. Then, seeing Sundance and Yance Rawlings, they grinned and strode forward toward the table.
“Easy,” Sundance whispered. “We can’t take all six of ’em. If they’re lookin’ for trouble, it’s a whipsaw set-up.”
The taller Cable was probably in his early thirties, the shorter one only a few years younger. Cowboys they might call themselves, Sundance thought, but gunmen was what they were. Hatchet-faced, hard-mouthed, they planted themselves before the table, thumbs hooked in gunbelts, and there was a jingle of spurs as their men fanned out behind them. “Well,” the tall one said, “if it ain’t the stagecoach man and his gut-eatin’ Siwash friend.”
“That’s a bad mouth you got on you,” Yance said thinly. “And you’re a long way off your home range, Ash.”
“Come to Lordsburg to pick up freight from the railhead.”
“You ought to let Rawlings Brothers haul your freight.”
“I wouldn’t give Rawlings Brothers the sweat off my cojones. Nor anybody else that runs with crooked marshals and half-breed renegades. Look at ’im, Mort. Drinkin’ with that stinkin’ red nigger. I don’t see how he stands the smell—but they say water seeks its own level.”
Sundance’s face stayed impassive, even as Yance’s turned brick red. He was sure of it now; this was a set-up. He hooked Yance’s leg in warning beneath the table. With fighting room, they might have had a chance, but not penned in here against three-to-one odds.
Yance understood that, too. Sundance heard his gusty breath as he fought to restrain his anger. Quietly, he himself said, “Cable, I don’t even know you. I got no quarrel with you.”
The corner of Ash’s mouth lifted. “You eat guts, but you ain’t got any. They pass right on through. That it, renegade?”
Yance forced out the words as if each one cost him agony. “Sundance is right. You lookin’ for a fight, you won’t get it. Not here. Not now.”
“You see?” Mort jeered. “There he was in Coffin City, the bull of the woods, the holy terror. Now hangin’ around this red nigger has done rubbed off on him. Listen at him crawl.”
Yance sucked in a great breath that made his barrel chest swell. “You go ahead,” he rasped, face the color of a strawberry. “You say anything you like. You git no fight right now.”
The Cables stared at both of them, saw that they meant it. “Wait,
” Ash said, “until they hear , back in Coffin City about how the great Yance Rawlings crawfished. It’s kind of pitiful, ain’t it, Mort? Now—” His voice roughened. “The two of you git out of here. We aim to do some drinkin’ and the smell of you turns our stomachs.”
“Why—” Yance began, but Sundance kicked him hard beneath the table. Slowly he brought both hands into view—empty. “Come on, Yance,” he said quietly. “We’ll find another bar.”
For a long moment Yance Rawlings sat frozen, and tension filled the room with an electricity like that in the air before a Staked Plains thunderstorm. For a moment it could have gone either way. Then Yance nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ll find another bar.” And slowly, carefully, he stood up. Together, hands away from their guns, he and Sundance sidled to the door, edged out, hearing the raucous laughter of the Cables behind them.
On the street, Yance cursed savagely. “Goddammit, they’ll spread that story all over Coffin City! I’ll be the laughin’ stock—”
“Don’t be a fool!” Sundance snapped, dragging Yance farther down the sidewalk. “They didn’t come to Lordsburg to pick up freight! They came here to crowd us into a six-against-two gun fight, kill us! They were lookin’ for us when they came into that bar! And they wanted both of us, but it was me especially ... What I wonder’s why?”
“Because you’re workin’ for us and they hate our guts. That’s reason enough. We’re on Dart’s side, they’re on the Sheriff’s.”
“Maybe that’s it, maybe there’s more. One thing’s sure—if we keep circulatin’, they’ll make another try. We’d best head for a hotel, or your office here and hole up and not give ’em another chance.”
Yance stared at him incredulously. “You mean hole up? Hide from those goddam Cables like a pair of jackrabbits from some coyotes? Hell, maybe they’re right! Maybe you ain’t got any guts!” He jerked his arm from Sundance’s grasp. “If you’re that scared, you run and hide. Me, nobody tells me when and where I can walk the streets of any town! I aim to walk where I please and drink where I please, and if they want trouble, I’ll damn well give ’em all they can handle.”
Sundance’s mouth tightened. “I wasn’t thinkin’ about you, I was thinkin’ about the stage line. How the hell would Art run it if he didn’t have you to help?” He saw then that it was hopeless. “Okay. Have it your way. But I’m sticking to you everywhere you go, tight as a tick.”
“You are like hell! I don’t need no bodyguard, and I’m like the Cables this way—the less I have of your company, the better I like it. You go your way, I go mine.”
“No,” Sundance said. “Tonight we stay together. And tomorrow, when we start back to Coffin City, we’ll have some outriders—if you know any good men here in Lordsburg.”
“Plenty, but I done told you—”
Sundance said, “I mean it, Yance. Tonight I’m stickin’ with you. Or,” he added wearily, “have I got to fight you again?”
For a moment he thought he’d have to do that as Yance stood, face mottled, big fists clenching and unclenching, wordlessly. Then slowly Yance nodded. “Awright, if you’re that scared, you can stay by me. Come on. We’ll go into that next bar yonder and have a drink. And this time, by God, if the Cables come after us, they’ll catch more lead than they can carry!”
~*~
Yance Rawlings, Sundance thought tiredly three hours later, was like a one-man army marching around Lordsburg with all banners flying in defiance. Except for the first one where the Cables had crowded them, he’d had a drink and sometimes more than one in every saloon in town, meanwhile marching boldly up and down the sidewalks between them, deliberately challenging that half dozen gunmen.
Who so far had not picked up the gauntlet. In fact, Sundance and Rawlings had seen nothing of them so far, as if they were doing some serious drinking inside that first bar or else had given up.
Which was not very damned likely, Sundance thought, watching Yance down a slug of tequila in a small cantina in the Mexican quarter of the town. Far more likely that they were waiting for a time and place of their own choosing. So, while Yance drank and growled defiantly, Sundance remained sober, alert.
It was nearly midnight when Yance slammed down his empty glass and dragged the back of a huge hand across his mouth. “Whuff! That’ll do it for tonight!” Swaying only slightly, though he had drunk enough to fell two ordinary men, he hitched at his gunbelt. “Well, them bastards never had the nerve to show again, did they? Come on, half-breed; let’s head for the barn and get some sleep.”
“Yeah. But keep your head up.” Sundance was in front of him, edging warily through the door as they went out onto the street. But everything down here was quiet, the little adobe jacales dark. Sundance, though, watched the shadows between them as they walked toward the main part of town, still going strong, fueled by the boom of the approaching railroad, soon to make this its terminus. And how here, where the wooden sidewalks began, the buildings were frame, two-story, closer together with narrow alleys between them. Sundance, on the inside of the walk, halted at the first one they reached, stopping Yance with an outflung arm. Warily, he peered around a corner, down its length, saw nothing in the illumination spilling from a window of a bar.
“You’re like a goddam ole woman,” Yance growled, striding on.
Sundance caught up with him just as they approached another alley. “Listen—” he began, broke off, and then something within him seemed to explode, triggered by he knew not what. Sheerly by instinct, he flung himself against the other man, knocked him sprawling in the street, landed flat in the gutter himself—and at that instant the alley’s mouth belched lead and flame and there was the thunder of several pistols.
Even as he hit the dirt, Sundance’s Colt was in his hand. Rolling, he fired back, punching slugs at muzzle flashes, hearing the mean slap of bullets overhead. Between the buildings, a man let out a hoarse, gurgling yell, and Sundance rolled and fired again at another winking gun, sprayed with dirt from a slug chugging into the street as he did so. He heard Yance yelling something, heard Yance’s gun firing, too. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the shooting from the alley ceased. Panting, clear of the alley-mouth, Sundance rolled out of the gutter up on the sidewalk, came lithely to his feet. Edging to the corner of the building, he poked the Colt around, fired straight down the alley. And even as it bucked in his hand, he leaped into the darkness, shooting as he came, left hand clawing the hatchet free of its sheath.
He almost collided with a man coming away from where he had been pressed against the building wall. At point-blank range, a slug from Sundance’s Colt caught him in the chest; he dropped. Sundance leaped aside, stumbling over something soft, yet heavy that had to be another corpse. He bought up against the opposite building flank just in time to see, silhouetted by the glow of the narrow street behind, the figure of a running man.
Sundance aimed the Colt, pulled the trigger, heard it click on empty. He threw it.
The hatchet was in the air, too: a perfect “border shift” the empty gun landing in his left hand, the hand-ax’s hilt in his right. Sundance jerked back his arm, hurled the hatchet with all his strength.
A whirling blur, it caught the running man in the head, keen blade sinking through sombrero felt to bury itself in bone and brain. The body pitched forward, legs kicking violently, then was still. Sundance flattened himself against the wall, cramming rounds into the Colt.
But there was no more movement in the alley. Behind him there were heavy, thudding footsteps. “Sundance!” Rawlings’s voice was a husky whisper.
“Careful,” Sundance said, silently closing the Colt’s loading gate. But the alley was very still now, save for the sound of Yance’s husky breathing. Then a scrape of match, a flare of flame.
“Put that thing out!” Sundance snapped, but Yance held it high for a pair of seconds. Three bodies lay sprawled face up in the alley; a fourth prone at its end, the hatchet buried in its skull. There was time enough in that interval for Sundance to see t
hat none of those whose faces were visible were Cables. And the man who’d caught the hatchet had been too short to be either Mort or Ash.
The match winked out. On the main street, people were yelling now, and there was the sound of many feet on the plank sidewalks. Sundance ran down the alley, wrenched the hatchet free, wiped it briefly on the dead man’s shirt, thrust it back into the sheath. He dodged around the building onto the back street, with Yance just behind him. They ran a block, slipped into another alley by a darkened house. Behind them, finally sure that the shooting had come to an end, someone lit a lantern at the scene of slaughter.
Yance Rawlings hawked and spat. “Not the Cables, but the Cable’s men, goddam ’em! I know I got one, ‘cause I saw him shoot straight down when I laid a bullet in him.” He drew in breath. “Hell’s fire, how’d you know they was in there?”
“I don’t know,” Sundance answered honestly. “They must’ve made some sound I caught. Hammer comin’ back on a gun, a spur jingle—it was all too fast. All I knew was that there was somebody in that alley.”
“The Injun in you, I reckon.” Yance’s voice was hard, cold sober. “Well, that’s a drink I owe you. But that still leaves the Cables.”
“Yeah,” Sundance said. “And I bet I know exactly where they are.” Cold rage filled him; this would have to be squared with the Lordsburg law, but whether four or six killings made no difference now to him. “Come on.”
They edged down the back street, keeping to the shadows, dodged through another alley, emerged on the main one. It was nearly deserted; everybody had run to see the bodies. Sundance’s moccasined feet were soundless on the board walk as he strode toward the same saloon where the Cables had confronted them earlier. Yance flanked him as he went through the open door. They were sitting there, Mort and Ash, at the same table Sundance and Yance had occupied, a nearly empty bottle in front of them, a grin on Ash’s face as he said something inaudible to Mort. Then Mort saw them, and watching his expression change, Ash turned; but by that time, hands on gun butts, Sundance and Yance were at the table, looking down at them.
