by Ralph Cotton
“She’s gone,” he said in a raspy growl, the binoculars squeezed tight in his broad filthy hands.
“Well, you can’t expect a gal to wait forever,” said Philbert. “I learned that coming home from the war.”
“I’m riding down there, damn it,” said Jennings. “I’m going to say ‘Howdy-do’ to her, big as day.” He pitched the binoculars to Jason Catlo.
“Is you, now?” said Philbert, taunting him. “What about that big ol’ flat-headed boy sitting beside her?”
“What about him?” said Jennings.
“You saw that long shotgun barrel sticking up beside him,” said Philbert. “Suppose he was to raise it and blow a hole through you the size of Aunt Ethel’s bloomers?”
“Then I expect I’ll ride in and kill him before he can get it raised and cocked,” said Jennings. He started to jerk around on his reins.
“Whoa! Hang on, Mule,” said Jason. “We’re all riding down there. But let’s feel this thing out when we get a little closer. Maybe we’ll stop and let you say ‘Howdy-do.’ Maybe we won’t. It’s all up to how quick he grabs on to that shotgun.”
“Huh . . . ?” Jennings had a hard time grasping it.
The Catlo brothers looked at each other.
“If he seems a little shy and hesitates to arm up right off,” said Jason, “we’ll jump right in and help ourselves. Take whatever we want, wagon and all if it suits us.”
“But if he arms right up just as soon as we get closer,” Philbert put in, “maybe we’ll ride on past them and leave them about their business.” He grinned.
“It’s our way to look things over good before we jump in,” said Jason.
“Yeah, because there’s nothing like a blast of buckshot to ruin a man’s day,” Philbert said, with a thin teasing smile.
The big dirty gunman finally settled a little and gave a grin himself. “Hell, all right. I’m with you two, whatever you think best.”
“Gracias, Mule,” said Jason. He turned his horse to the thin path leading down into the rock canyon. “Now let’s all three find ourselves a good friendly face and go see what we’ve got there.”
From the wagon seat, Charles Knox, traces in hand, looked down at his wife of six weeks, Celia Timble Knox, walking along beside the slow-moving wagon.
“That is not a safe thing to do,” he said to her, lightly scolding her for stepping down from the wagon without waiting for him to stop the rig for her first. “Nor is it very ladylike,” he added.
Celia Knox smiled up at him. She had scooped up a palmful of small loose rocks and was flipping them with her thumb as she spoke.
“Which is it that annoys you the most, my dear husband ?” she asked with a playful smile. “Is it my lack of regard for safety, or my loose, unladylike abandon?”
“You know I’m right,” Charles said. “Luckily there was no one around to see you.”
“Luckily there was no one to see my unladylike behavior last night while we camped by the stream. Should I try to be more constrained from now on . . . ?”
Charles Knox looked away with the trace of a smile and shook his head. He failed to notice the first thin rise of dust looming on a trail higher up among the rocks.
“You beat all I have ever seen, my dear wife,” he said.
“I should certainly hope so,” she said, cocking a hand on her hip. She flipped a tiny rock up at him. The rock bounced from her husband’s leg, off the front edge of the wagon and fell down the tail of one of the horses. The big horse didn’t flinch. But Charles tightened his grip on the traces just in case.
“Don’t be doing that, Celia,” he said. “We don’t want to spook these horses.”
“These horses are too tired to spook, husband,” Celia replied. She paused, then asked, “How much farther is it to Kindred?”
“Tomorrow by noon, we should be there,” Charles replied, watching the trail ahead. “Why don’t you climb back up here? We’ll find ourselves a way to pass the time.”
“Oh . . . ?” Celia said coyly. “Should I wait for you to stop the wagon, or just climb on up, unladylike?”
Charles glanced around, then said, “Since there’s nobody watching, climb on up this time.”
“Aren’t you afraid it’s a little too dangerous?” Celia asked.
Charles put both traces in one hand and reached his free hand down to her. “Climb up to me,” he said, his breath sounding a little excited. “I love watching you climb.”
Celia let out a soft sigh. “Oh, all right, if you insist,” she said with mock reluctance.
“Oh yes, I do insist,” said Charles. “The sooner the better.”
Celia gazed up at him, seeing the aroused look in his eyes. “You are naughty,” she said, taking his hand.
The wagon rolled on.
When the Catlo brothers and Buck the Mule Jennings spotted the wagon again, the three were on a downward trail less than a hundred feet above. The man and woman in the wagon, thinking they were alone, leaned back on its stiff seat, locked in a lovers’ embrace.
“Lord God . . . ,” Jennings whispered as if in awe, staring down wide-eyed from the cover of a scrub juniper along the edge of the trail. “He’s got her dress unbuttoned and everything.”
Philbert Catlo gave a quiet chuckle and teased the big gunman. “Don’t throw yourself into a staggering fit over it,” he said. “That’s the way men and women act when they’re alone.”
Jennings sat atop his horse, his breathing growing heavier and quicker as he stared down at the wagon below. Philbert drew his brother’s attention to the big gunman’s worsening condition.
“Jesus, man, are you all right?” Jason said in disgust, looking Jennings up and down.
“We’re going to have to get him to a whorehouse, soon as we get to Kindred,” Philbert said, “else our riding animals could be in danger.”
“That’s not funny,” Jennings managed to say sidelong without taking his eyes off the couple below.
“Damn right it ain’t,” Philbert chuffed, he and his brother turning their horses back to the trail.
Before the Catlos nudged their horses forward, Jason said to Jennings, “Well, are you coming or not? You’re the one who wanted to say howdy.”
“Oh yes, I’m coming,” Jennings said in a hushed, excited voice. “I wouldn’t miss this for nothing in the world.”
In the wagon, Celia Knox writhed and squirmed on the hard wagon seat until she managed to get her hands up between herself and her husband and push him away.
“Charles . . . stop, please,” she said in a breathless voice.
“I—I can’t,” Charles said, his words ending between her damp naked breasts as he pushed his face back down between them.
“No, stop! I mean it, Charles,” Celia said, pushing harder against his chest with both hands. “I heard something.” She stared up warily along the higher trail above them.
Charles stopped himself and collapsed back beside her with a sigh.
“Okay, okay . . . ,” he said. He pushed his hair back from his eyes and stared up along the trail with his wife. “I thought I heard something up there too, a while ago.”
“You did?” Celia asked, one hand clutching the front of her unbuttoned dress. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Charles sighed again and blew out a breath, collecting himself. “My mind was on other things,” he said. He cut a glance to her, then looked back along the downward trail.
“You should have said something,” she whispered.
“Don’t worry,” said Charles. “It was probably nothing more than a—” His words were cut short when they both saw three riders step their horses out onto the trail in front of them.
“Oh my God,” Celia whispered, “they saw us.” With no time to button her dress, she quickly tucked her naked breasts out of sight and clutched the front of the dress tighter.
“Hello, the wagon,” Jason Catlo called out with a friendly smile. The three held their horses back a safe distance.
Charles grabbed the reins with one hand and jerked back on them, stopping the horses. At the same time he grabbed the brake handle with his other hand and yanked back on it. The wagon jolted to a clumsy halt.
Philbert Catlo held back a laugh and called out, “We didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“What do you want?” Charles Knox called out, shaken by their sudden presence. He realized he and his wife had heard something, and the thought of what these men had most likely seen gave him an ill and uneasy feeling.
“We’re strangers to these parts,” Philbert said, looking all around. “We appear to have gotten ourselves all turned round and lost.” He gestured a thumb toward the big dirty gunman to his left. “Anyway, our friend here wanted to ride down and tell you both ‘Howdy,’ so here we are.”
As Philbert spoke, he moved his horse forward a cautious step. The other two followed only a few feet behind him, spreading away from him slightly as they approached.
“Charles, tell them to stop,” Celia whispered, clutching her dress shut.
“Stay where you are, mister,” Charles called out in a forceful voice. “We weren’t expecting company.”
The three horsemen stopped at once. “We can see that, mister,” Philbert Catlo called out respectfully, now less than thirty feet from the wagon. “We don’t mean to cause any trouble. Like I said, we got all turned around is all.” He averted his eyes away from Celia.
Charles nodded in the direction of Kindred. Beside him, Celia knew of nothing to do but hold her dress closed and look down until they left.
“Town is that way,” Charles called out. “Keep riding and you’ll be there this time tomorrow.”
“I see,” said Philbert. He raised his hat and ran his fingers back through his damp hair. “That’s a relief. We were afraid we’d really caused ourselves—” He stopped and stared, rising slightly in his stirrups for a closer look at the wagon. “Easy, stranger . . . ,” he murmured in a frightened tone.
“What is it, mister?” Charles Knox asked, seeing the concerned look on his face.
Philbert said, “You weren’t fixing to draw that shotgun on us, were you?”
“What?” exclaimed Charles.
“That shotgun beside your hand,” Jason Catlo called out. “My brother thought you were about to throw down on us.”
“Charles, please, let’s go,” Celia whispered to her husband.
Charles ignored her. He glanced to the side of the wagon seat, then smiled at the three worried horsemen.
“Gentlemen, that’s not a shotgun,” he said disarmingly. “That’s only a broom.” He put his hand near the up-stuck object and said, “May I show you?”
“By all means, please do,” Philbert said.
Charles picked up a long broom by its handle and raised it for the three men to see.
“A broom,” Philbert said with a dark chuckle. “Boy, do I ever feel foolish!”
“Me too,” said Jason as all three men stepped their horses closer to the wagon. “Then where is your gun, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?” he said.
“I don’t carry a gun, gentlemen,” Charles said. “I never have, and I never will. We—that is, my wife here and myself—believe guns are an evil we can live without if we all exercise mutual respect for one another.”
“Now, there’s a fresh and optimistic attitude if ever I’ve seen one,” Philbert said. He stepped his horse closer, now with less caution.
“One that I for one greatly admire,” Jason said, moving alongside him.
“Really?” Charles asked with a smile. “Well, it just happens that the town of Kindred has voted to ban guns. That’s why the wife and I are going there. We think that the only way to ever rise above this violence is to—”
“Shut up, idiot,” said Philbert Catlo.
His Colt came up from its holster. As a shot exploded from his gun barrel, a blue-orange blaze exploded beside him; the other two men had drawn their guns and fired. Charles Knox flew out of the wagon seat and landed dead on the ground, three bullets in him.
Celia screamed loud and long. Her screaming continued as she jumped from the wagon seat and flung herself atop her dead husband. The three gunmen sat on their horses watching her, their guns smoking in their hands.
“We did her a favor,” Philbert said to the other two amid the woman’s screaming and sobbing. “It’s unnatural, a man thinking that way.”
Celia pulled and tugged at her dead husband as if she still hoped she could wake him up. The front of her unbuttoned dress fell open; her pale breasts spilled out into the sunlight.
“Yeah,” said Jason, “somebody would have had to kill him sooner or later.”
Buck the Mule Jennings stared down at the woman, his mouth agape, watching her sob and scream and pull at her dead husband’s bloody shirt. “She sure has pretty teats,” he said.
Chapter 5
In the late afternoon Philbert and Jason Catlo stood in a shadowed rocky gully where they had taken the wagon out of sight from the trail. The wagon horses were dead; they’d unhitched them and shot them down. Their rifles were still smoking in their hands.
“I wish I knew something to do with this wagon,” said Jason, looking it over. “These big prairie schooners are getting scarce. Soon, there’ll be none of them left.”
“Well now, won’t that be a damn shame?” his brother said with sarcasm. “Maybe we ought to build you a barn to keep it in. You can come see it any time you take a notion.”
“Stop goading me over it, brother,” Jason warned. “I just happen to admire things like this. Is there something wrong with that?”
“Naw, not really.” Philbert shook his head. “I just can’t see it, is all. To me a wagon is a wagon. I can’t make more of it than that.”
Jason looked off toward an overhang of rock where they had dragged the woman and ripped her clothes from her, ignoring her pleas and sobs. A curl of smoke from a small campfire rose from under the overhang.
“It’s getting dark,” he said. “We best get some coffee and tend to our horses.”
The two walked back toward the hastily made campsite where Buck the Mule waited for them with the woman.
“I told him to shoot her when he was finished with her,” Philbert said. “Do you think the fool followed through?”
Before Jason could answer, a pistol shot exploded from beneath the overhang.
“Well, what do you know?” Philbert chuckled. “He finally did what he’s supposed to do.”
“You ought to stop crowding him so much,” Jason said to his brother. “Buck the Mule Jennings is not a man to mess with.”
“He’s a thickheaded fool,” Philbert said. “I don’t know why we ever took him in with us.”
“Because of what I just said,” Jason insisted. “He’s not a man to mess with. He’ll kill anybody we tell him to. Shooting that woman proves it. When the time comes to chop down a bank guard or a stagecoach guard, he’ll do it without batting an eye.”
“So far,” said Philbert, “I don’t see us doing much business, bank, stagecoach or otherwise.”
“We will, though, and soon,” said Jason.
“Yeah, we better,” said Philbert. He grinned. “I need some money for the finer things in life . . . whiskey, whores, poker . . .”
“What do you make of what the idiot told us before we shot him?” Jason asked.
“Which idiot?” Philbert asked.
Jason stared at him.
“Oh, the no-gun idiot,” said Philbert. “I thought it was real intriguing.”
“Intriguing enough to go see about?” Jason asked. “I figure if the whole town is unarmed, we might just find ourselves a soft spot and sink our teeth in it.”
“We could do that . . . ,” Philbert said, considering it as they walked on.
At the campsite beneath the rock overhang, Buck the Mule Jennings sat huddled beside the small fire, his hands wrapped around a tin cup full of steaming coffee.
“Did you shoot the woman
like we told you to?” Philbert asked.
“Yeah, I shot her, like you told me to,” Jennings said in a sad and grudging tone of voice, his eyes on the flickering flames.
Jason gave his brother a slight smile. “See what I mean—anything we tell him to do,” he said, quiet enough that only his brother could hear.
“Yeah, I see,” said Philbert, “if he really did shoot her.” He said to Jennings, “Where’s she lying, Buck the Mule?”
Jennings looked up from the flames at him. “Don’t you believe me?” he asked.
“Oh, I believe you,” said Philbert. “I just enjoy looking at naked dead women. Now, where is she?”
“She’s over there,” said Jennings, nodding toward the bush-covered edge of the overhang. “I stuck her under the brush with the man.”
“Yeah . . . ?” Philbert said skeptically. “Well, I’ll just go take myself a look-see.” He stooped and picked up a burning stick from the fire, and held it up as a torch.
“Don’t go over there,” said Jennings. He stood up, tin cup in hand.
“Oh? Why not?” said Philbert.
“Because I don’t want you to,” said the big dirty gunman.
“That’s not a good enough reason, Buck the Mule,” said Philbert. He moved away slowly, keeping his eyes on Jennings.
Jason stepped back watching, keeping his hand poised near his holstered Colt. He was ready to cover his brother if he needed to.
“Easy, Buck the Mule,” he cautioned the broadshouldered gunman, seeing a look of rage come over Jennings’ grimy, beard-stubbled face. “My brother just wants to make sure she’s dead. It never hurts to make sure, does it?”
“I killed her, just like I was told,” Jennings said.
Philbert held the burning stick down and illuminated the area below the brush. The flicker of firelight shone on the naked woman, a hole in the center of her back. The bloody body of the man was there too, and Philbert was surprised to see that Jennings had undressed him as well. Even more shocking, though, was the gruesome way the body was left.
