One Man's Fire

by Ralph Compton

  “Whoever counted on that sure didn’t count on us!” Jake declared. “We ain’t afraid of dyin’, so we sure ain’t afraid of no oversized, lopsided can on four wheels. Ain’t that right, boys?”

  Hank and Cody voiced their approval, but Eli could only manage part of a nod. That was all fine and dandy with Jake. The gang’s leader hunkered down to the driver, looked him square in the eye, and said, “We’ll make our way to that ranch and you’ll be driving that wagon to get us as close as possible to the money. You do your job well enough and I might tell you when to duck before the lead starts to fly.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” the driver muttered. “But I can tell you right now there are plenty of armed men at that ranch.”

  “I’ll just bet there are. And they’re all gonna be taught a lesson in what it is to truly be afraid of somethin’.”

  Chapter 3

  Four days later

  The town of Seedley might have been small, but it stuck out like a sore thumb amid the wide-open, rolling Wyoming terrain. Overhead, the sky stretched out like a lazy colossus to make everything below seem brittle and insignificant. Eli had been born and raised in Georgia. When he’d gotten his first taste of the high country, he never wanted to go back home. There was something cleansing about having such a vast amount of sky hanging over him. Strictly speaking, the sky was usually about the same and there was always plenty of it, but in the Wyoming and Montana territories, it was more than just an airy expanse that shifted from blue to black and occasionally gray. When Eli looked up, he felt as if something much bigger was looking down at him. Sometimes that was a good feeling. At other times, when he felt he had too much to answer for, he couldn’t bear to lift his eyes up farther than the top of his horse’s ears.

  He and Jake sat in their saddles, two miles outside town. As they watched, one trail of dust was kicked up by a horse that galloped away from Seedley to beat a path directly to them. Jake looked at the animal churning up that disturbance and shook his head. “You’d think Hank would’ve taught Cody a thing or two about sneaking.”

  “I think he only rides with him to kick him around when he feels the need.”

  “I’ve had friends like that,” Jake said without the slightest bit of irony in his tone. “You see any trace of the scarecrow yet?”

  No matter how well the nickname fit Hank, Jake only used it when the one-eyed gunman was well out of earshot. “Think so,” Eli said. “Some birds were flushed out of those trees over yonder. I reckon that’d be his doing.”

  “You don’t seem too keen on getting that money.”

  “I ain’t afraid of them gunmen,” Eli said quickly. “No matter how many there are.”

  “I didn’t say anything about the gunmen. You’re plenty ready for them. It just don’t seem like you give an ounce of spit about the money. Why might that be?”

  “Might be because you’re mistaken.”

  Jake shifted in his saddle. “Nah. That ain’t it.”

  “Or maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

  “I know that ain’t it.”

  “Then maybe I’m just in the wrong line of work,” Eli said.

  “Wanna know what I think?”

  “Would it matter if I said no?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then by all means, enlighten me.”

  “Every man’s got a fire in his belly,” Jake explained. “It’s just not all fueled by the same thing. Hank’s fire comes from spilling blood or putting the fear of God into another man. Cody’s comes from getting his hands on one of those big round whores he likes so much.”

  “Or a steak,” Eli said. “Don’t forget the steaks.”

  “That’s right. That fella sure does love his vittles. You know what stokes my fire, Eli?”

  Without hesitation, Eli said, “Money.”

  “Amen to that.”

  “Real interesting conversation, Jake. Nice way to pass the time. How about we put an end to it?”

  Jake ignored that request and shifted idly in his saddle as if it had never drifted through the air. “What I don’t much like is that I can’t pin down what stokes the fire in your belly.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, but it does. You see, knowing that means you truly know what makes a man tick. Helps you get along with him and, more importantly for our situation, it helps you think ahead to what he might do in most given predicaments.”

  “I’ve pulled my weight in this gang.”

  “That ain’t the question,” Jake said as his voice dropped to a more serious tone. “I can’t decide what bothers me more. The fact that I don’t know what gets you to lift your head every morning or the fact that I might have an idea of what it is.”

  “Sounds like you won’t be happy either way.”

  “If your fire comes from what I think it does, I won’t be happy. Not one bit.”

  Eli sighed and turned so he was facing the gang leader as much as possible. “All right, Jake. Go on and tell me. What gets my fire burning?”

  Jake studied him carefully. The silence that followed wasn’t for the sake of drama or to prove a point. It was simply a man taking all the time he needed for his thoughts to come to fruition. “I guess it only matters how you act as part of this gang. Long as you stay in my good graces, you can burn however you like.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I’ll burn you even worse.”

  That threat would have sent a chill down most men’s spines. Although Eli wasn’t foolish enough to discard it, he always knew it was there just as well as a condemned man knew there was a noose dangling over his head. He pointed his eyes toward Seedley and followed the path of dust that was being kicked up along the trail leading from its border.

  “When you and I first met up, it was in a jail cell,” Jake said as if he were telling a fairy story to a child. “You were full of venom and vinegar, spitting at them law dogs and shaking them bars as if you meant to pry ’em straight up from the floor.”

  “And you were too drunk to stand up,” Eli reminded him.

  “You got that right. I knew there was something wild about you. For men in our line of work, that’s usually a good thing. The longer you’ve been riding with us, though, I ain’t so sure.”

  “So cut me loose.”

  “No need for that, since you do your job well enough. I just worry about when you stop thinking about doing your job and let that fire in your belly grow too high. Kind of like when you charged that wagon.”

  “I thought that was the plan.”

  “It was,” Jake replied, “but not at the detriment of your own hide. Me and Hank were firing away like demons. Even Cody gets wrapped up in the chaos, but not you. You get quiet.”

  “You got something against quiet?”

  “I do when it’s the wrong kind of quiet.”

  “And that’s what I am?”

  Jake’s lips tightened against his teeth as if he were either gnawing on something small or looking for a piece of raw meat that was stuck between them. Finally he said, “Haven’t decided yet. I just hope I made the right choice by allowing you to walk out of that jail cell in one piece.”

  Years ago when Eli had been locked up with Jake Welles, his biggest concern had been avoiding getting his neck snapped by the wild, enraged drunk. After Jake had sobered up, he seemed like something close to a rational man and offered him a spot in his gang. Now, as he thought back with the knowledge that Jake hadn’t been such a flailing lunatic, it chilled him to think of all that power being focused by a sober mind. Those last few words spoken by Jake made Eli think of half a dozen times when the gang leader could have been poised over him while he was sleeping or coiled in a corner. How many other nights had there been when that killer’s eyes were fixed on him, fretting endlessly about what was too quiet for his liking? All it took was one bad night for Jake to stomp out Eli’s fire for good.

  “Cody’s almost here,” Eli said.

  And, like a s
torm that had suddenly been blown in another direction, the steely intent on Jake’s face was replaced by a sunnier disposition. “So he is. Let’s see what he’s got to say.”

  By the time Cody reined his horse to a stop in front of the other two, Jake looked as if he were sitting on his uncle’s front porch sipping from a glass of lemonade. “Found out a thing or two about the Lazy V,” he said. “First off, I got directions on how to get there other than the straight path that was to be used by that driver.”

  “You been in town for almost two days,” Jake snapped. “We could’a found as much just by riding in circles for a spell.”

  “Yeah, well, I also found out there’s at least a dozen men there that don’t belong.”

  That got a rise out of Jake. “Go on.”

  “Fella who runs a steak house says two groups of armed men stopped in for supper when they got to town. Said they was headed to the Lazy V.”

  “Sure they weren’t the ranch’s hired hands?” Eli asked.

  Cody shook his head definitively. “The man I spoke to said they weren’t from around here and that they were armed.”

  “Ranch hands can be armed,” Jake pointed out.

  “These men looked like gunmen. That’s what this fella said.”

  Eli shrugged. “I suppose you were in that steak house long enough to earn the proprietor’s trust. That means there’s a bunch of gun hands waiting at that ranch. We were expecting as much.”

  Hooves rumbled in the distance. Since they already knew who’d be coming, none of the outlaws bothered to watch as Hank approached.

  Still smirking at how quickly Cody had shown his colors where his love of food was concerned, Jake asked, “What else did you find out?”

  “Those armed men are getting anxious. At least twice a day, one or two of them have been coming into town asking about any stages that have rolled through.”

  One of Hank’s boons was that his ears were sharp as a hawk’s eyes, and he displayed that feature as he rode up and announced, “I can vouch for that. Even better,” he added while bringing his horse to a stop, “I followed the last pair out of town and back to where they met up with their friends. They’re honest-to-God gunmen all right. I’d stake my life on it.”

  “Any of them look familiar?” Jake asked.

  “Not as such, but they had the look of them fellas hired by the railroad. You remember those gents we met outside Wichita?”

  Jake twitched as if he was feeling the bite from an old pain somewhere beneath his flesh. “I remember them well enough.” He gripped his reins tighter. “You figure out more than one way to get to that ranch?”

  Cody nodded. “There’s a trail that wanders along a river to the east. It snakes up to one side of the property line. Not as easy of a ride and supposed to meander a bit, but it should get one or two of us to the fence without being spotted.”

  “And over the fence with no trouble since most of those men will be distracted by the arrival of that rattling mess of a wagon.” Looking over to Eli, Jake said, “The two of us will come in through the back way and you two will ride on that wagon. Agreed?”

  Every instinct at Eli’s disposal wanted him to disagree with that idea. The tension in Jake’s voice convinced him otherwise. “Agreed,” he said in a tone that didn’t even try to pass itself off as enthusiastic.

  Fortunately, Jake never cared if anyone was enthusiastic about following him just so long as they did so with a minimum of fuss. “The wagon’s back at the camp,” he said. “After Cody tells me the particulars about that backdoor trail into the Lazy V, him and Hank will get to the wagon and start driving it down the main trail into the ranch. You think half an hour head start will be enough for us to get there about the same time as you?”

  That question taxed the limits of Cody’s mental capacity, and it showed in a painful grimace. Before he was forced to attempt an answer, Jake said, “You’ve also got to untie that driver and make sure the rest of those men are behaving. All of ’em are trussed up in the back of the wagon. Me and Eli will hightail it to that ranch and lie low until you arrive. After you get the driver situated, just take your time in getting there. How long of a ride is it from here?”

  “About seven miles,” Cody replied.

  “Good. Along the way, do what you gotta do to squeeze any more out of that driver. Just come up with something to get that money in the open or loaded onto the wagon. Once things go south, start shooting. Me and Eli will back your play.”

  “What if the money isn’t in sight by the time the shooting starts?” Hank asked.

  “Then we kill everyone at that ranch and search the place ourselves.”

  Eli wasn’t sure if it was the fire they’d mentioned earlier, but there was definitely something clawing at his belly as the gang split up and rode away.

  Chapter 4

  When Eli rode alongside Jake down a broken trail that faded in and out of sight like a fat eel wriggling in a stream, he was reminded of why he’d joined up with the gang in the first place. There wasn’t anything between him and his goal. The wind caressed his face. The terrain flowed beneath his horse’s hooves in a continuous motion. Even the rumbling noises that rushed through his ears became a part of him, entwining with the beat of his heart to make him feel almost glad to be alive. The grin Jake showed to him when glancing over was ridiculously large, and Eli didn’t even try to return it in kind. Instead, he nodded and fixed his eyes on the trail in front of him.

  “Fence line’s just ahead!” Jake shouted above the roar of the two horses. “Seen anyone patrolling the perimeter?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

  As if to join in on their conversation, a pair of gunshots crackled in the distance. Both outlaws reined their horses to a stop and sat hunched forward to listen for more.

  The only thing in sight was a cluster of trees and bushes that had been sloppily parted to reveal the sorry excuse for a trail they were using. It was dusk, which meant the shadows were almost thick enough to obscure various obstacles that would make riding along that path dangerous. When Eli squinted hard enough, he could see the fence that Jake had already spotted. It was made of thick pieces of lumber that had been partially covered by overgrown weeds and tall grass. Nothing moved in the vicinity of that fence, or anywhere around the two riders for that matter. Even so, they watched and listened for the first hint of trouble.

  “You think the wagon was brought down?” Eli asked.

  “If it only took two shots, I’ll find Hank and Cody’s graves and dance on ’em,” Jake snarled. “They were probably just warning shots.”

  “One way to find out, I suppose.” Without waiting for Jake’s approval, Eli snapped his reins and rode toward the fence. He could hear the gang leader’s laughter as he followed in his wake.

  The fence was sturdy, but not high enough to be much of anything other than a marker to trace out the ranch’s boundary. Both horses cleared it with an inch to spare and landed upon better-tended ground on the other side. The outlaws felt the glory of charging forward when most others would have been stopped by a simple construction of wooden beams. As far as Eli was concerned, this was the true definition of freedom. No fence could keep him from riding on. No law would tell him what he could or couldn’t take. No man would stand in his way. The next smile that drifted onto his face was as genuine as they came.

  “Halt!” bellowed a tall man wearing a long coat that flapped in a passing breeze. The rifle in his hand, as well as the one carried by the man beside him, was still smoking after firing the rounds that had brought the iron wagon to a shuddering stop.

  Hank sat in the shotgunner’s position next to the wagon’s original driver. Inside, Cody crouched while holding the door shut that led out from the back of the structure. The one-eyed outlaw knew his partner could be there at a moment’s notice when he reached over to tap the driver’s arm and whisper, “Easy. Just do what you’re supposed to do.”

  The pair of riflemen in
long coats cautiously approached the wagon. Another two in similar garb stood about twenty paces away, while a fifth man wearing a vest and a rumpled Stetson aimed a pistol at hip level at the wagon. The three farthest away held their ground while the first man in the coat did the talking.

  “You’re late!” he said.

  Half a second before he was prodded by the .44 secreted under Hank’s jacket, the driver replied, “Had a little trouble the other day.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Broken wheel.” When the rifleman stepped forward to examine each of the front wheels in turn, the driver shifted uneasily in his seat. Beside him, Hank tensed and shot a quick look behind him as if he could see through the iron plates to make certain Cody wasn’t about to do anything foolish.

  “Doesn’t look like anything was broken,” the rifleman said.

  Laughing nervously, the driver told him, “Course it don’t. I had it fixed.”

  “That shouldn’t have taken very long. Don’t you carry replacements?”

  “Come on, now. This thing ain’t exactly speedy under the best circumstances.”

  Every second that the rifleman remained silent, Hank cinched his grip in tighter around his pistol. His finger caressed the trigger while the rifleman looked up to study him.

  “You’d be Kyle?” the rifleman asked.

  “No,” Hank grunted.

  “Wasn’t Kyle supposed to be riding with you?”

  The driver shrugged and let out a partial squeak before Hank stepped in to say, “There’s five of us in all. It’s been a long ride and it’s my time to sit out where I can breathe some fresh air for a switch. That all right with you?”

  Raising his eyebrows, the rifleman glanced back at another man wearing a long coat and said, “I don’t know, Matt. You reckon that’s okay?”

  “I don’t care who’s up front, who’s in the back, and who stayed home to feed the pigs,” Matt replied while lowering his rifle as if it had suddenly become too heavy to lift. “There’s a lot of loading to be done, and the quicker we get started, the quicker it’ll be through.”