One Man's Fire

by Ralph Compton

  “You’re a thief, Eli. When you see something that heavily armored and that heavily guarded, what’s the first thing that goes through your mind?”

  “That there’s gotta be something good inside.”

  “And when you took that wagon, was there?”

  Reluctantly, Eli sighed, “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they were supposed to be picking the money up here.”

  “And I can tell you,” Saunders said, “with absolute certainty that there wasn’t any money here.”

  “What?”

  The lawman grinned from ear to ear, but not in the self-satisfied way that someone might expect. Instead, he looked more like a man who’d kept a particularly good gift as a surprise until the last possible second. “I met the men here as soon as they arrived to organize the party that quickly became a shooting gallery that day. They brought strongboxes and one was filled with some money, but the others were weighted down to feel the same.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “To draw outlaws like yourself to this spot where they could be captured, killed, or chased off.”

  “And what did you say about putting them on a payroll?” Eli asked. “Jake would never agree to work for a company when he could just steal from them.”

  “Wasn’t Jake. One of the men in that barn mentioned a meeting with a one-eyed fella back when the wagon made a stop in Omaha.”

  Eli gnawed on the inside of his mouth as he thought back to the time Hank had spent away from the gang. He was supposedly gathering information, but it didn’t take much for Eli to be convinced that the murderous scarecrow was up to something other than that. He let out the breath he’d been holding and held his ground before being led one more step. “You can stop this right now,” he said to the lawman. “I already agreed to help track Jake down, and I got my own reasons for doing so. You don’t need to try and get me on your side by feeding me all of this.”

  “No need to feed you anything,” Saunders said. “I’m just as curious as you are as to whether or not I pieced together what I heard into the correct picture. Both of us are here to get some proof.”

  “And you only thought to tell me about it now? That works out pretty well considering how the story serves your purposes.”

  “Convenience ain’t got a thing to do with it. From what I heard, that shipping company likes to get outlaws to spread the word that their armored wagons ain’t worth the trouble of trying to rob. They even pay for the service when they can. They pay even more for a member of a gang to hand over one of his own.”

  Eli shook his head as his stomach clenched tightly. “None of this makes sense. You’re trying to tell me a rich company is interested in collecting bounties on wanted men?”

  “No.” Saunders sighed as if he were dealing with a thickheaded child. “It’s all just about them making their wagons look too tough to rob. The iron plates give them the appearance of being too difficult to attack, and the men who still want to charge after them will know the last bunch that tried to do the same wound up dead or in jail.”

  “And some outlaws take this deal instead of the money being moved?”

  “There is no money being moved. Not in that iron piece of junk, anyway. For the outlaws that are approached, it’s either no money or a payment from the shipping company in exchange for a clear path to a safe spot somewhere. You saw all the men that were here. You’ve been in your share of gunfights, I’m sure. Do you seriously think the rest of your gang should have made it out alive?”

  Eli’s head was swimming. Saunders must have seen as much, because he said, “It’s not that hard to grasp. You just gotta shift away from thinking in such easy terms. This had nothing to do with a robbery. It was about two groups of men wanting to make easy money. The shipping company is investing time and funds into making their jobs easier so they can have safer shipments, get more customers using their overpriced services, and become a bigger company. The outlaws are either stupid gun hands who get tripped up to make the company look like they know what they’re doing or smart enough to take a handout and walk away from an ambush.”

  “There’s gotta be more to it than that.”

  “I’m sure there is. Remember, I’m working on what I pieced together from what I overheard.”

  “And what did you hear, exactly?” Eli asked.

  Looking down the trail as if he could see all the way to the spot where he’d huddled in that filthy barn, Saunders said, “I saw them load one strongbox full of rocks while protecting another with their lives. There was mention of a turncoat among the outlaws coming to this ranch and plenty of griping about having to take turns driving or riding in that ironclad contraption.”

  “That’s a whole lot of loose lips among those guards,” Eli said without trying to hide the skeptical tone in his voice.

  “There were a few. They got even looser once they figured they could trust me.”

  “You’re an amicable sort. I suppose that wasn’t so hard.”

  “It wasn’t,” Saunders said as he shifted and gritted his teeth as if he despised the words he was about to say. “Especially after I accepted a payment from them to step in line with what they wanted me to do.”

  “You took a bribe?”

  “They said it was compensation for my time, but yeah. I’d call it a bribe.”

  “Didn’t have you pegged as a crooked lawman.”

  “That’s an honest mistake, considering what I just told you.” The sheriff wheeled around and approached Eli as if he could not only pull the outlaw from his saddle but lay out the horse with one punch for good measure. His hands balled into thick fists and muscles swelled along his arms and chest as he said, “But if you ever call me that again, I will skin you alive. Understand me?”

  “Sure.”

  “They offered the money to me and it was plain to see my deputy had already taken his payment. That’s why I didn’t want him anywhere near my jailhouse when I was dealing with you.” There was no small amount of regret etched into Saunders’s eyes when he said that part. “I didn’t take it right away until it became clear that there was more going on than just a simple job guarding some money from a bunch of desperados. After I took the payment, they figured I was on their side, so they weren’t so cautious when speaking amongst themselves.”

  “So that’s how you got all them pieces to the puzzle?”

  “Yeah, and I ain’t proud of it. Taking a payment like that must not seem like much to you, but it means a lot to me. A man in my position gets offered plenty of money for plenty of reasons. The first time a man accepts one of them payments makes the rest easier to take. But it also marks him. Maybe not so anyone can see right away, but it marks him all the way down to the bone. I’ve seen it.”

  The sheriff was right. Taking a bribe didn’t seem like anything to Eli. He’d seen plenty worse and had even doled out a few payments to crooked lawmen himself. But he also knew what it was like to be marked by an act that he’d wanted to take back. Something like that was near impossible to wash away, but that didn’t mean he had to stop trying.

  Eli thought about that silently while Saunders went on to say, “I took that money as a gamble. As for rounding up your gang and bringing it to justice that day, well, that just wasn’t gonna happen. Not then, anyhow. Arrangements had already been made and a sacrificial lamb had already been chosen.”

  “And you were the one sent to slaughter that lamb,” Eli said.

  “Nope. You were to be killed somewhere along the line, that’s for certain, but all I was supposed to do was stand aside. When I charged out to knock you upside your head, the men who paid me thought I was just trying to take some initiative or maybe impress them so I’d be approached for future jobs. Honestly, I don’t know for certain what they were thinking, but they got a mighty big laugh out of me rushing out to take you down amid all that gunfire. By the time the smoke had cleared, most of the others were either dead or had taken off after the rest of th
at gang. When I stayed behind to get you tied up and loaded onto a horse, I managed to see them open one of those strongboxes. The one that actually had money inside. The same one they’d opened to get the money to pay me and, presumably, my deputy. It’s still here.”

  “They left it behind?”

  Saunders nodded. “Buried it close to that barn and then offered me another stack of bills to make sure nobody else came sniffing around it for a while. Until today, to be precise.”

  “So that’s why you cooked up the story about that fever?” Eli asked.

  The lawman’s patience dried up in a heartbeat and he snapped, “Forget the fever! Someone’s coming to collect that money and I’m betting it’s someone who must know more about what’s going on. They’re coming today.”

  “And you decide to wait until now to let me know?”

  “Why should I trust you so much when I can’t even trust my own deputy?”

  Unable to argue with that, Eli pointed out, “Two men won’t be able to bring a big company with deep pockets to justice.”

  “I ain’t worried about that company,” Saunders shot back. “I knew some of the other men that were hired on to act as nothing but fodder when the shooting started here. I’m a lawman and my job is still to go after that gang of yours, and in doing so, I could be able to muck up whatever nasty business that company’s got going. Sometimes a man can’t fix the bigger problems, so he’s gotta be content with fixing whatever’s in his reach.”

  “One man’s reach ain’t very big.”

  “But if every man cleans up the small patch he can do something about, the world would be real close to manageable.”

  Eli couldn’t deny that sentiment, but he wasn’t able to muster up the same hopeful smile that had appeared on Saunders’s face.

  “Someone’s coming to collect their payment,” the lawman continued. “That one will lead me to more of the men I’m after, and those will help me answer for the deaths that happened here. After that, I can’t help thinking the company who got all of this rolling will be damaged, but even if they’re not, justice will be done for them murders and the Jake Welles Gang. I aim for that to happen, and you’re gonna help me.”

  “That’s a long way to go to hunt down three men while inconveniencing a big shipping company.”

  Saunders didn’t hesitate before replying, “There’s more to it than that. Hopefully you’ll see before too long.”

  Chapter 11

  They waited on that ranch for hours.

  At first, Eli figured he didn’t have anywhere else to be, so he might as well fill his lungs with some fresh air before the sheriff made another unexpected move to muck things up.

  Vernon Saunders was crazy. The time spent sitting quietly in or near that barn was enough for Eli to convince himself of that much. Perhaps it was a guilty conscience for taking money under the table from men he barely knew or perhaps it was the fact that he’d taken part in an ambush that wound up with so many men dead and buried. There were dozens of ways for a man to go mad. Eli had seen it happen more than once, and whatever had pushed Saunders over that edge, it was always a bad idea to work with a madman.

  As if picking up on the thoughts running through Eli’s mind, Saunders rushed over to his side wearing a wide grin and even wider eyes. “He’s coming,” he whispered excitedly. “Hurry up and hide in the barn.”

  “Hide? In there?”

  “I swear on all that’s holy,” Saunders growled, “if I hear you grouse one more time about that fever, I’ll—”

  “Fine, I’ll go into the barn. Burning up from disease is better than sitting around listening to you.”

  “And what about sitting in a jail cell?” Saunders asked as he escorted Eli into the barn. “If you’re so tired of me, then you’re more than welcome to go back into town and test your luck with that lynch mob.”

  “Least the food was good.”

  Saunders impatiently waved that off while pulling aside a loose board in one of the barn’s walls that he’d obviously known was there ahead of time. “As if it’s the food that put that grin on your face.”

  Eli hadn’t realized he’d been grinning, but the thought of his last few breakfasts with Lyssa would have been enough to put one in place. “Who’s coming?” he asked.

  “You tell me. This is part of the reason I went to such lengths for you to accompany me.”

  The loose board hung by one nail, which allowed it to pivot down when it wasn’t being propped in place by another nail protruding from the wall. When Eli held the board aside and moved his face closer for a look through the hole, he swore he could smell the disease that had probably soaked into every fiber of the structure. Rather than ask for clarification as to how long ago the most recent fever patient had been stricken, he diverted his thoughts with the task at hand.

  “What exactly am I looking for here?”

  “Single rider coming in from the north,” Saunders told him. “Shouldn’t be able to miss him.”

  “Right. If he’s headed straight for this barn.”

  “Which he is.”

  “Sure,” Eli sighed. “Unless you’re not…Wait a second.” Straining to push his forehead even harder against the wall as if that would be enough to show him more, he said, “I see the man you’re talking about.”

  “And he’s headed this way?”

  “Yes.” The moment he said that, Eli swore he could feel the smugness rolling off the sheriff like a heat wave. “Where’s the money buried?”

  “At the base of that post about ten paces in front of you. See it?”

  “Yep. What’s the plan from here?”

  The sound of iron brushing against leather meant Saunders was drawing his Colt. When Eli turned to see what was happening, he found the lawman checking to make sure the pistol was loaded. “The plan,” the sheriff announced, “is for you and me to approach whoever that is once he’s off his horse and trying to dig up his payment.”

  “And what if he’s just passing through?” Eli asked. “Maybe looking for water or a ranch hand looking for work?”

  “Then he’s not the man we’re after. You’ll get to say you were right and I’ve got rocks in my head. Happy?”

  “Most definitely.” When Eli pressed his face once more against the wall, he couldn’t tell which he was hoping for the most. On one hand, if he’d been offered up as a sacrifice so the rest of the gang could cash in to salvage a payday from a foolish job, he wanted to know about it. On the other hand, it would do him a lot of good to be there once Sheriff Saunders was taught that he couldn’t be right all the time. Unfortunately, when Eli saw the rider bring his horse to a stop and climb down so he could start poking around the base of that post, he knew the lesson would have to wait for another day.

  “You recognize him?” Saunders whispered.

  Eli nodded, bumping his head in the process. “Yeah. I’d be able to spot that overripe head from a mile away.”

  Cody approached the post, sniffed around it like a dog looking for scraps, tapped the loose earth around it with his boot, and then looked around some more. Even though he didn’t seem to realize he was being watched, the outlaw sighed and grumbled to himself while getting down to his knees so he could scrape in the dirt with both hands. Eli shook his head. Leave it to Cody to forget to bring a shovel when his only job was to dig.

  “You think you’ll be able to do this?” Saunders asked.

  “We can take him without a doubt.”

  “No,” the sheriff said. “I mean will you be able to take a stand against your own gang?”

  When he turned to look at the sheriff, Eli noticed the Colt was held at hip level and pointed in his direction. All it would take was a twitch of one finger for a round to drill a hole through Eli’s midsection. He’d already had plenty of guns pointed at him, so one more wasn’t about to rattle him. “I never liked him very much anyway,” Eli said.

  Saunders holstered the pistol, but kept his hand resting upon it. “We go straight at him
. Nothing fancy and no rough stuff unless there ain’t no other choice. Understand?”

  “You’re the boss. Besides, I don’t have any bullets in my gun.”

  “And that’s the way it’ll stay.”

  “Cody may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I can guarantee his gun will be loaded. I do have an idea for a way to get some results without bloodshed, though.”

  “I’m listening.” After hearing the bare bones of Eli’s plan and agreeing to it with a nod of his head, Saunders faced the door to the barn and nearly kicked it off its rusted hinges before stepping through. He walked with his head held high and his chest puffed out as though he had an army behind him.

  Cody shifted so he was only down on one knee. That way, he could turn toward the barn while granting himself easier access to the pistol at his side. His expression was that of a dumb animal with sharp teeth. Dangerous without a hint of intelligence. He was about to say something, either to explain his presence there or frighten away his unwanted visitor, when he caught sight of a face he obviously hadn’t been expecting. “Eli? That you?”

  Walking with confident steps, Eli said, “It’s me, Cody. What’re you looking for under that dirt?”

  “I don’t know. I just…thought somethin’ may have gotten dropped during the fight. You know…”

  Eli shook his head. “You always were too stupid to be any good at lying.”

  Like most stupid people and bad liars, Cody didn’t like hearing that. He bared his teeth angrily and snarled, “I should be askin’ you what you’re doing here with that law dog! Were you the one who set us up to be gunned down?”

  “You and I both know I wasn’t the one to set anyone up.” Hooking a thumb back at Saunders, he added, “That law dog told me all about the deal Hank worked out.”

  If surprise was a flesh-and-blood thing, it would have punched Cody in his oversized head and left a scar. He tried to recover with a few blinks and deep breaths, but it was too late. His fingers scraped noisily against something solid as he raked them through the dirt on their way out.

  “Go on,” Eli said as he drew his .38 and held it at his side. “Keep digging.”