by Jake Logan
10
Eddie Cobb made it to the first ranch on his list about midmorning. He turned his horse into the lane that led to the ranch house, a modest frame home. He knew that Mort Hindman had lived alone since the loss of his wife ten years back. Lately Mort had fallen on hard times. Losses from the rustlers had depleted his herd. He’d been forced to let all his hands go except for old Hiram McCulley, and the two old men were just barely scraping together a living for themselves on the place. It was a shame. The Hindman Ranch had once been a thriving place. As Cobb approached the front of the house, he was greeted by a harsh voice.
“Hold it right there, stranger.”
Cobb stopped his horse and lifted his hands. He looked toward the voice, and there, behind a long-barreled shotgun poking around the corner of the house, was old Hiram. “Hiram,” Cobb said, “lower your gun, old-timer.” Hiram McCulley squinted. “Eddie Cobb,” he said, “that you?”
“Yeah,” Cobb said. “It’s me. Will you lower that gun and let me step down?”
“Sure, sure,” said McCulley. “I didn’t rekernize you, Eddie. Climb on down and come in the house. Mort’s going to be real glad to see you. Yes, sir. We don’t get many visitors out here, you know. Come on in. Come in, and I’ll fetch you a cup of coffee.”
Cobb swung down out of the saddle and followed McCulley into the house. As he stepped through the door, McCulley called out, “Mort. Mort, come on out here. We got us some company, Mort. Eddie Cobb’s here.”
A door to a bedroom opened, and Mort Hindman poked his head out. “Eddie?” he said. “Eddie, welcome. Get some coffee, Hiram.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” McCulley said.
“Sit down,” said Hindman. He indicated a chair to Cobb, and Cobb sat. Hindman sat in a chair facing him. McCulley brought two cups of coffee and handed one to each of the other two men. He went back to get one for himself. Cobb tried not to be too obvious about taking in the shabby surroundings. The place sure had gone down since Mrs. Hindman’s death. It was a sad sight to Cobb.
“Thanks,” he said to McCulley. He took a sip of the hot coffee. It was old. He could tell. McCulley had likely brewed it early that morning, and the pot had never been finished. “Good coffee,” he said. “How’ve you all been out here?”
“We’re making out,” Hindman said. He sipped his coffee. “Tastes like shit, Hiram,” he said.
“You’re lucky to have it,” said McCulley. “Enjoy it. We’re damn near out.”
“You all heard the news from town?” Cobb asked.
“Ain’t been to town in—”
“Six months,” said McCulley, finishing Hindman’s sentence for him. “And ain’t had no visitors since—”
“Three months ago,” Hindman said, “when that drummer come by.” He laughed, and McCulley joined in the laughter. “Tried to sell me a gadget to peel apples with,” Hindman added. The two old men laughed harder. “Ain’t seen an apple in—”
“Nigh onto six years,” said McCulley.
Cobb let their laughter die down, and then he said, “Let me tell you what’s been happening. You know, about two years ago, Clyde Harman got Charlie Joiner accused of rustling? Charlie damn near got lynched over it.”
“I remember that,” Hindman said. “Bunch of bullshit. Charlie ain’t no rustler. I knowed his daddy back in the old days.”
“I agree with that,” Cobb said. “Anyhow, Charlie got loose and left the country. Went down south of the border. Well, he’s back, and he’s brought proof that the rustling was done by Harman.”
“Hot damn,” said McCulley, jumping up from his chair. “I knowed it. I knowed it all along. That two-bit slimy dog-fucking son of a bitch Harman. Hot damn. I knowed it.”
“Sit down and shut up, Hiram,” Hindman said. Then, to Cobb, he said “What else?”
“Well, Charlie brought another fellow with him,” Cobb said. “Man called Slocum. And when Charlie and Slocum sneaked back on Charlie’s ranch to take it over, Bobby Hale was there. Remember Bobby?”
“I know Bobby,” said Hindman. “Go on.”
“Well, Bobby tossed in with Charlie,” said Cobb, “and they got two women with them. Charlie’s old gal, Julia, and Myrtle Bingham. Both gals can shoot too. Anyhow, when Bud Coleman found out about Charlie’s evidence on Harman, he went to arrest Harman, and Harman or some of his men killed Bud.”
“Aw,” said Hindman. “Aw, I’m sorry to hear that. Bud was a good man. Aw, hell.”
“That slimy dog bastard Harman,” said McCulley.
“The way it’s shook down,” Cobb said, “is that I been out at the ranch with Joiner and them others, and we’re fixing to have us a showdown in Rat’s Nest. We aim to ride in there and call out Harman and his whole crew, but we want you and all the other decent folks around here to know what’s going on. We want you to know that I’m still a deputy, and so the law is in on this, and we want you to know that we got proof on Harman. I come to ask you to be over at Charlie’s ranch in the morning for a meeting to talk about all this and inform everyone what’s going on. Can you be there?”
“Damn straight we’ll be there,” McCulley said.
“You bet,” said Hindman. “We’ll come, and if you need extra guns when you go to have the showdown, you can count on us for that too.”
“Well,” Cobb said, “we’ll see about that later. Just be at the ranch in the morning. We’ll talk more then. And thanks. I got to be going to spread the word around some more.”
As Cobb headed for the door, Hindman stood up. “We’ll help you out with that too,” he said. “Hiram, go saddle our horses. You just tell us where to go, Eddie. We’ll help you gather them up.”
At the Bailey place, Cobb also met with approval and instant agreement. He got away as fast as he could and headed for Harris’s ranch. Hindman and McCulley were headed into an area that he hadn’t even planned to visit. He was feeling good. They should have a sizable gathering at Charlie Joiner’s ranch in the morning.
At about that same time, Charlie Joiner and Julia rode side by side up to the front of Brick Thurman’s house. Thurman stepped out the door, having heard the sound of approaching riders. “Charlie,” he said. “Goddamn. It’s good to see you, boy. I heard you was back in these parts.”
“You hear I got my ranch back?” Joiner asked.
“I heard that too,” said Thurman. “Come on down, and let’s have us a drink together.”
Joiner dismounted and wrapped his horse’s reins around the hitching rail. He did the same with Julia’s horse and helped her down off its back. Thurman had walked up close to him by then, and the two men shook hands heartily. Joiner thought of Slocum’s caution to him about drinking, and he considered his own weakness. “I’ll settle for coffee just now, Brick,” he said. “You know Julia here?”
“Sure,” Thurman said. “I remember her. Welcome, Julia. I’m sure glad to see you both, but I got a feeling you come for more than just a friendly visit. Come on in the house, and I’ll get us some coffee.”
Joiner and Julia followed Thurman into the house, where Mrs. Thurman met them with a friendly smile. “Mama,” said Thurman, “you remember Charlie here and his gal, Julia.”
“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Thurman. “How do you do?”
“Just fine, ma’am,” Joiner said.
“I offered them a cup of coffee,” Thurman said.
“I’ll fetch it,” said Mrs. Joiner, and she turned to head for the kitchen. Julia followed her. “I’ll help you,” she said. “Oh, it ain’t no bother,” said Mrs. Thurman, but Julia followed her just the same.
“Sit down,” Thurman said to Joiner, and the two men sat.
“Where you been all this time, Charlie?” Thurman said. “Mexico?”
“You guessed it,” said Joiner. “Harman had me pegged for a rustler. I never was, but—”
“Hell, I know that,” Thurman said.
“Anyhow, he had me pegged that way, and I had to get out for a while,” Joiner said. The two wome
n came out of the kitchen and served coffee around. “But I wasn’t just hiding down there,” Joiner went on. “I was looking out for them stolen cows that I figured was being sold down there. Finally I got lucky. It was Harman’s men, all right. I got some papers down there that prove it, and that’s when I decided to come on back. Picked up a new partner along the way too. His name’s John Slocum.”
“Slocum?” said Thurman, stroking his chin. “Seems like I heard that name somewhere. Gunfighter?”
“Well,” Joiner said, “he’s handy enough with his guns. He saved my life down in Mexico. He’s out at the ranch right now with Myrtle Bingham and Bobby Hale. I come out here to see you, and Eddie Cobb’s gone out west to round up the other ranchers out that way. We want you all to come to a meeting at my place in the morning.”
“Well, sure, Charlie,” Thurman said. “But what for? What are we meeting about?”
“It’s like this, Brick,” Joiner said. “We’ve already cut down Harman’s force to nine men. That counts Harman himself. I’ve got the proof that Harman’s been the rustler all along, and we’ve got Eddie Cobb with us. Harman had Bud Coleman killed, you know, and Joe Short was in cahoots with him. That leaves just Eddie to represent the law, and Eddie’s with us.
“Well, we don’t want to ride into town and just call Harman and his gang out for a showdown without all you folks know what’s going on and how come we’re doing it. We want everyone to know that we got the law on our side. And we got right on our side. But we can’t just ask Eddie to go arrest them. That’s what Bud tried to do, and they just killed him. Just like that. So we just want everyone around to know what the deal is. That’s all. We ain’t asking no one to get into the fight with us.”
“We’ll be at your meeting in the morning,” Thurman said. “Me and Mama. I’ll bring along some of the boys too.”
“Thanks, Brick,” said Joiner. “It’ll mean a lot having you there.”
“Why don’t you two stay the night with us?” Mrs. Thurman said. “We can all ride back over there together in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Joiner said, “but I reckon we’d better head on back. If we don’t show up, Slocum and the rest might get to worrying about us.”
They were mounted up and back on the road, moving along at a leisurely pace. “It’s looking good, Charlie,” Julia said. “With Brick Thurman backing us up, no one’ll doubt our story. Everyone will know we’re in the right.”
“I don’t guess there’s much worry about that,” Joiner said. “This was a good idea that John had. Course, all his ideas are good ones. I don’t know where I’d be right now without him.”
They rode on a little farther, and then they saw four riders coming toward them. The riders were moving casually, and they did not look familiar to either Joiner or Julia. “Could be just strangers riding through,” Julia said.
“Could be,” said Joiner, “but be careful, just in case.” He rested the palm of his right hand on the butt of his revolver. They rode closer.
“It’s four Mexicans,” Julia said. “Harman’s got no Mexicans in his gang.”
“Unless he’s been recruiting new guns already,” Joiner said. “We better hold up here.” He moved off to the side of the road, and Julia moved off to the other side. They waited for the four Mexican riders to approach. A little nearer, one of the riders spoke up. “Buenos dias,” he said. “Is it far to the next town?”
“The way you’re headed,” Joiner said, “it’s a couple of days.”
“Is there a nearer town, Señor,” the man asked, “if we choose another way?”
“Back toward the border,” Joiner said, “there’s a little place called Rat’s Nest. It ain’t far.”
“Gracias, Señor,” the Mexican said. “We have already come through there. I guess we’ll ride for two more days to find the other town.”
The four riders tipped their sombreros and rode on. Joiner and Julia watched them over their shoulders for a moment. Then, convinced that the four were actually what they seemed, four strangers riding through, they faced forward again and urged their mounts on. All of a sudden, shots were fired. Joiner looked back, and the four Mexicans had turned and were shooting at them. He jerked the Winchester out of the scabbard at his horse’s side and cranked a shell into the chamber. Just then a bullet smacked into his horse. It screamed in pain, reared, and dumped Joiner onto the ground. He lost his rifle as he fell. The wounded horse stamped and milled about in the road.
“Run, Julia. Run,” Joiner yelled.
“I won’t leave you,” she said, pulling the rifle from her own scabbard. She jacked a shell into the chamber.
“Julia,” Joiner said. “Get out of here. Go get Slocum.” She turned her horse and rode as hard as she could. Joiner looked at the Mexicans, now close to him again, and he raised his hands. “I got no money, compadres,” he said. “I got nothing but a couple of guns. You’re welcome to them.”
“We don’t need your guns, amigo,” said the spokeman of the group, “but we will take them away from you. We don’t want you to try nothing foolish.” One of the riders dismounted and took Joiner’s six-gun and his rifle “Now get up on your feet,” the spokesman said.
Joiner stood up. “What’s this all about?” he asked:
“You don’t know me, Señor?” the man asked. “You don’t recognize me or my friends? You have such a short memory, gringo. Of course, you saw us only twice. The first time it was dark. The second time we were clear across the river from each other. And then too, we were wearing uniforms those times. Well, at least part of the time. Do you remember us now, Señor?”
By the time he had finished his little speech, the man had ridden up close to Joiner. He slipped his foot out of the stirrup and swung it hard, giving Joiner a hard but glancing blow to the side of the head. Joiner spun around and fell hard.
“Get up, Señor,” the man said. “We can’t leave you here like this. Lying helpless, alone and unarmed, with no horse out in the middle of nowhere. Get up on your feet.”
Joiner struggled up and rubbed the side of his head. “I got a horse,” he said.
“Oh, no, amigo,” the rider said. “You don’t got no horse. We are taking your horse.”
“Look,” Joiner said. “Okay. I know who you are now. You’re those rurales that chased us out of Mexico. But we didn’t do nothing illegal down there. We run off from you because we just didn’t want to get tangled up in no investigation. We had things to get to up here. You go back down there and ask Pee-dro in that cantina. That hombre was fixing to back shoot me. Pee-dro can tell you that.”
“Is that right, hombre?” the rurale said. “I don’t care about that stinking dead gringo no more. You and your amigo pulled your guns on us. You and your amigo made us take off our clothes and walk to the river. You and your fucking amigo embarrassed us, and we don’t want to let you get away with that.”
He made a wild gesture with his right arm, and another of the rurales swung a lariat, tossing a loop around Joiner. He jerked it tight before Joiner could react.
“Get his caballo, Pepe,” the leader said, and the man called Pepe rode over to take the reins of Joiner’s horse.
“Wait a minute,” Joiner said. “Whatever you think about what happened down there, you got no authority in Texas.”
“Authority?” said the rurale leader. “What authority? Do you see uniforms? Do you see badges? Fuck you, and fuck authority. You insulted us. You and your fucking amigo. We don’t like to be insulted, hombre.”
“You mean to kill me for making you take a hike without your uniforms on?” Joiner said.
“We might kill you,” the man said. “We might peel off some of your white skin. We don’t know yet just what we’ll do with you, but you won’t like it, hombre. You can be sure of that. And we won’t kill you before your fucking amigo comes to save you. Then we’ll get him too.”
“He’s long gone,” Joiner said.
“Oh, yeah? We’ll see about that, gringo. We’ll
see. Why do you think we let the pretty little gringa ride away so easy? We could have stopped her. We could have killed her. We could have taken her and fucked her a few times. Maybe we’ll do that later. Who knows? But we let her go so she could go to your fucking amigo for help. You stupid gringos. Enough talking. Let’s go.”
He turned his horse and kicked it hard into a run. The others followed him, one leading Joiner’s horse, another pulling Joiner along at the end of his lariat. Joiner ran as hard as he could to keep up, but soon he was jerked off his feet. He landed hard on his belly, then felt himself being dragged across the rough land, bouncing, bumping, twisting at the end of the rope, and then, mercifully, everything went black.
11
Bobby rushed to meet Julia as she came pounding up to the house, her horse sweating and panting. It was obvious that something was wrong. She wouldn’t otherwise have so mistreated a horse. He grabbed the reins to settle the poor animal down, and Julia swung down off its back fast. Just then Slocum came out of the house, followed closely by Myrtle. Julia ran toward Slocum, almost collapsing against his chest. “What’s happened?” he asked.
“Oh, John,” she said. “We’ve got to hurry.”
“All right, but first tell me what’s wrong. Where’s Chuck?”
“They’ve got him,” Julia said. “Four of them. I wanted to stay and help him, but he told me to ride out. Oh, come on. They might have already killed him. We’ve got to go. Please.”
“I’ll go,” Slocum said. “You just tell me where to go, and tell me what happened. Who’s got him?”
“We were coming back from Mr. Thurman’s ranch,” Julia said, “and we met four men on the road. We were cautious, but then, we didn’t recognize them. They were strangers. Mexicans. We rode past each other. We thought they’d gone on their way. Suddenly they turned and rode hard at us. They knocked Charlie off his horse, and he told me to run. I have to go back with you, John. I can’t tell you exactly where it happened, but I can show you.”
