by Paul Lederer
The Land Grabbers
Paul Lederer writing as Logan Winters
ONE
The three-quarter moon was blue as it drifted overhead across the vast expanse of starry sky. The desert was a silent silver sea, the dunes around me like frozen ocean waves. The going was heavy as I trudged up one side of the sand dunes and waded down again. The night was bitter cold on the Arizona desert, and there was not a sight or sound of life. Earlier, I had heard skulking coyotes raise their plaintive yips to the desolate skies, but they were silent now, curled up in some hidden burrow. I was alone in the night.
There was a dead man behind me, and it seemed that there would be many more of them ahead.
There was the hum of cicadas down along the river, and something much larger slithered away into the willow brush. There was not a breath of wind blowing, and the desert day, still and hot as it was, was peaceful after the long miles of rough travel I had endured.
The creek flowed evenly, narrow and shallow; my horse and I had water so long as we followed its meandering course. Beyond, the country was yellow and sere, but the river provided some coolness, and here and there stood a shady stand of cottonwoods or live oak trees where we could rest throughout the hottest hours of the day.
This was the Yuma River, flowing eventually past the town of the same name and continuing its snakelike way into Mexico. But I had been told it was also the lifeblood of a small pueblo named Bianca where I expected to meet up again with the killer Jake Shockley.
At noon with the heat of the day beginning to grow intolerable, I did stop in a shady grove beside the river and let my stubby roan pony drink and search the poor forage. Dragonflies sang past and the sand beneath the cottonwoods was alive with insect life. I saw the S-shaped sign of a sidewinder in the sand, but the rattlesnake, too, would have found a cooler place to be with the sun as high as it was. I used my saddle-blanket for a spread and stretched out beneath the trees, hat tilted over my eyes.
About an hour later I was awakened from my doze. Their approach was silent, boots whispering over the sand, but some deep sense alerted me and by the time their shadows fell over me, my hand had already slipped down to the grips of my Colt .44.
I opened my eyes to slits and peered up into the shadows cast by the trees and the brilliance of the sunlight above them. Two men I had never seen before stood looking down at me. Both white, one of them was dressed Mexican-style with a huge sombrero and a tight black vest. The other, a smaller slender man, held a Winchester repeater in his hand, but it was gripped carelessly, not pointed in my direction. Now I slicked the Colt from my holster and sat up.
‘Easy, friend,’ the bigger man, the one with the wide-brimmed sombrero said, raising his hands a little to show he was not holding a pistol, ‘we saw your horse and wondered who you were, that’s all.’
‘Thought you might be a friend of ours,’ the thin man put in, his voice a chirp.
‘All right,’ I said, rising to my feet. I looked them over and holstered my pistol. They would have taken no offense at my actions. It was a wild time and a wild country. Men didn’t stay alive for long by not being alert to their surroundings. ‘I’m thinking of boiling up some coffee. You men care to share a pot with me?’
I was hoping to learn more about Bianca from them; they seemed happy to have a cup of coffee. I set to work building a small fire. I suspected that they were opportunists, hoping that my roan had gotten free, that they could catch it up and claim a good day’s profit. I had been offered a hundred dollars for the roan the week before in Phoenix, but only laughed at the man although the price was fair enough. There’s no way to put a price on a good horse in rough country, and the little roan had done well by me.
Hunkered around the tiny fire, drinking coffee from tin cups, I asked the big man about Bianca. He shook his head, glanced at his friend and said, ‘Malo.’ I took it from his response that he and his friend had lived long among the Mexicans, which was accurate. He caught himself and said slowly, his dark eyes glittering under heavy eyebrows, ‘That is an outlaw town, my friend. If you have no business there, I would ride wide of it.’
‘I have business there,’ I answered. I tossed the dregs of my cup on to the fire, watching it hiss and smoke. The two men exchanged another look that I could not penetrate. Maybe they were considering that perhaps I was an outlaw myself, which I was in a way, that perhaps my quick move with my revolver indicated that I was not above murdering them and stealing their horses.
At any rate, they did not take long finishing their own coffee, thanking me for it and disappearing into the copse of cottonwoods where they had tied their own ponies.
Hands on hips, frowning, I watched them ride out, their horses’ hoofbeats muted by the sand. I had just received my second warning. Bianca was no place for an honest man to enter. John Dancer had told me that before I had even begun my ride south.
‘It’s a swarming nest of low-lifes and snakes,’ was the rancher’s estimate of Bianca.
But I had made up my mind. There were things to be accomplished there. One of my deepest failings is that once I have made up my mind, I see things through to the end. It has not always been a trait that has served me well. Time to time people have said that I am ‘dogged’, but more often they simply call me ‘bull-headed’.
No matter, I suppose they come down to the same meaning. I only knew that if I didn’t straighten out the whole affair concerning the murder, no law or justice system was ever going to clear my name. My choice had come down to being hanged in Phoenix or shot to pieces in Bianca. At least in Bianca I would have a chance. I saddled my roan once more and continued southward as the sun coasted overhead, beginning its slow descent toward the western mountains.
The roadside sign read ‘Campo del Bianca’ in barely legible paint. At the foot of the sign a jackrabbit sat panting in the scant shade offered, eyed me briefly and then bounded away. It was still the middle of the afternoon when I reached the low cluster of adobe buildings squatting along the river. No one, nothing was stirring much in the dry heat. I dragged a thin plume of yellow dust behind me down the main street of the tiny pueblo as it dozed on through the hours of siesta.
Few animals were hitched before the business establishments – a weary-looking pair of mules hitched to a rickety wagon in front of the general store, two hard-ridden horses in front of the cantina, a burro looking displaced and irritated at being tied there and neglected. There was nothing unique about the desert town, nothing to encourage hope. Clumps of greasewood and sage grew along the street, between buildings, wherever they had chosen to take root. Piles of trash cluttered most of the alleyways. A yellow dog got halfway to its feet as if to warn me off, tired of the effort and lay down again in the ribbon of shade it occupied.
Nearer the river I got a hint of Bianca’s true aspect. A small rectangular pole corral had been thrown up there beneath the gathered live-oak trees and held within it were a dozen of the finest horses you could ever hope to see. Sleek, leggy, deep-chested ponies of all hues. They were expensive mounts, the sort only an outlaw could afford, and needed to outrun more poorly set-up animals local lawmen rode. A quick-looking pinto quarter-horse, a Morgan, a sorrel so well groomed that its hide seemed burnished, a leggy blue roan with a white mane and tail, muscles quivering as it watched me pass, perhaps wanting to run with us, or in challenge to my sturdy, but unremarkable red roan.
Where you might expect a lazy-appearing stableman in a straw sombrero to emerge from the lean-to arrangement that served as the office for the enterprise, here I was met by a red-headed man in a pair of black jeans and pressed white shirt carrying a double-twelve shotgun. He stepped forward to meet me, his eyes searching the area to make sure there were no other men with me. This was no stablehand, but
a hired gun paid to stand guard over the valuable animals corralled here.
I smiled, reined in and leaned forward, crossing my hands on the pommel of my battered saddle. The guard did not raise the shotgun toward me, neither did he lower the weapon.
‘Can I help you, friend?’ he asked, eyeing me narrowly.
‘I need to put my pony up,’ I answered. ‘We’ve put some miles under us, and he’s had nothing but poor fodder for the past few days.’
The man shook his head slightly but definitely from side to side. ‘We’re full up as you can see.’
‘No room for one more tired horse?’ I asked in surprise.
‘No room. There’s a place back uptown called Contrerass. Maybe they can help you.’
There was no threat in his words, but a quiet menace lurked in his eyes and in the way he held his twelve-gauge. This was a private club, it seemed, and no one had issued me an invitation.
I turned my horse away under the steady gaze of the watcher. I was in the right place. That blue roan was Jake Shockley’s mount beyond a doubt. He was holed up through the heated hours of day, in a cantina, hotel or some señorita’s room, but when the sun dropped lower and the siesta time was past, he would emerge from his hiding place, and I would find him. How I was to handle the six bandits riding with him was something I had not yet determined.
I was thinking that it didn’t matter much so long as Jake got his share of frontier justice before they shot me down. Perhaps I just wasn’t thinking.
I found the Contrerass Stable and helped the thin twelve-year-old boy there unsaddle and groom my roan. The boy was bright-eyed and eager and he chattered on in rapid Spanish all the time. I caught about one word out of every three as he spun them rapidly off his tongue. But I smiled as if I understood, and gave him a silver dollar as he slipped a nosebag full of oats on to my horse’s muzzle. I myself needed a cool place to rest, to eat after the deprivations of the desert trail, but I did not wish to encounter Jake Shockley and his gang just yet – not before I was ready for them.
I wanted to get some food into my belly without showing myself in town so, crouching down I asked the Mexican kid about comida, making shoveling movements into my mouth with my fingers. Grinning, he took my hand and led me to a back door, pointing toward a poor adobe house a hundred yards away standing in the shade of twin cottonwood trees.
‘Mi familia,’ he told me, pointing encouragingly toward the house, and I got the idea. Shuffling along the overgrown lane, squinting against the glare of the high sun, I made my way to the door of the house which stood open despite the heat. A trio of gray chickens scratched in the dusty yard and a bearded white goat tied to a stake eyed me dispassionately.
I called to the house several times and eventually a middle-aged lady, round as a ball, wearing a striped many-colored skirt came to the door, wiping her hands on a towel. After a few more gestures and a conversation in broken Spanish and English, the pudgy woman grinned, showing a missing front tooth and escorted me into a low-beamed room which remained cool somehow despite the cooking fire burning in an arched brick fireplace.
‘Sit, sit,’ my hostess said, and I took off my hat and plumped myself down.
Food was served: tamales, frijoles, tortillas and chivo meat, hot and spicy and delicious. I ate voluptuously under her gaze. She beamed at me as if I were doing her a favor. There was a pack of black-eyed kids in the house, and now and then they dared to peek around the corner to watch me enjoying myself at their table.
The lady of the house protested when I left two silver dollars beside my plate, saying that it was too much, which it might have been, but I was grateful and felt ready to face the world again.
Facing Jake Shockley was another matter.
I stepped out of the shadows of the house into the white sunlight to come face to face with the man I had been chasing. The heavy plank door was slammed shut behind me. The kid from the stable stood just off to my left, still smiling broadly. Now he scooted away through the trees, toward the river.
You’d think that I would have learned somewhere along the road not to trust people for a piece of silver.
Shockley was alone, though I figured there would be more men hidden about. Jake Shockley looked the same as I remembered him: bulky, dirty, wearing a greasy leather vest. His porcine eyes stared at me out of ridges of fat. He had a Winchester repeater in his hands, and I did not believe he held it for decoration.
‘Your name’s Clanahan, isn’t it?’ he said slowly, ‘Giles Clanahan – isn’t that right?’
I nodded carefully. There was no denying it, though I wished I could have. Shockley’s thick finger was fitted into the trigger guard of the Winchester, curled around the curved trigger. I noticed that the rifle’s hammer was drawn back. Had I the quickest draw in Arizona Territory, he still would have shot me down before I could clear leather, and at that range the rifle bullet could cut my spine in half.
Shockley’s amused little eyes continued to survey me. He spat without turning his head and a gob of tobacco juice landed near my boot. ‘Well, well,’ Shockley said.
‘I’ve been wanting to have a look at the man who killed me. Frankly, you don’t look up to it.’
He whistled shrilly then, and from behind the house two riders emerged to side Shockley. Both were angry-looking, red-eyed, probably having been roused from their siestas. One of the two led the blue roan with the white mane and tail, and Shockley accepted the reins to the leggy animal.
‘Take that side arm off him, Curt,’ Shockley ordered. ‘I wouldn’t want Mr. Clanahan to kill me again.’ He emitted a muffled snort, something close to a laugh, but not exactly that. Jake Shockley, it seemed, was not much experienced in laughing.
The tall, shabby-looking man named Curt slid easily from his saddle, half-turned me and lifted my Colt from its holster. I say that Curt was shabby in appearance, but beyond his personal appearance everything gleamed with hints of wealth. The black Morgan horse I had seen at the riverside corral was decked out in a silver-mounted saddle and bridle. His gunbelt where two .36 Remingtons rode was decorated with silver conches. The pistols themselves had ivory grips.
The second rider approached me on his paint pony, formed a noose in his lariat, draped it over my shoulders and backed his horse to tighten it so that the rope cut into my arms and chest.
‘Let’s take Mr. Clanahan for a little walk, boys,’ Jake Shockley said, and I was jerked away from the house in a staggering, stumbling run. I had to keep my feet or the trotting horse would have dragged me, face-first over the rocky earth. I had never realized before just how difficult it is to run without the use of your arms. I thought of that and then released the thought, using all of my concentration simply trying to stay upright. Jake Shockley glanced back at me and smiled with satisfaction.
I had done everything wrong. Riding into the outlaw town, I had first gone to the bandits’ stable and announced my presence in Bianca. Then I had let the guard posted there send me to another stable I knew nothing about. Had let the kid send me to a house for my last meal, giving Jake Shockley time to be alerted, to gather his crew, to capture me.
The rope, binding me like iron bands, gave me pause to consider what it might feel like around my neck.
We had come once again to the sandy river banks. The river flowed past flat, shallow and smooth, mirroring the high sun. The cicadas fell mute as we followed the riverside trail The horses had been slowed to a walk so that I was able to follow along without fear of falling. I kept quiet. What was the use of protesting, cursing or begging?
‘What are you taking all this trouble for, Jake?’ the outlaw riding the paint pony asked in a querulous voice. ‘It’s hot out. Shoot him and give some Mex two dollars to plant him. Besides we should be heading out for Canoga.’
‘There’s justice in it this way,’ Jake Shockley answered heavily. ‘This man, this Clanahan, is the one who killed me over to Mesa Grande. Oh, that’s right, you weren’t there, were you, Vallejo? Curt was – tell
him, Curt.’
‘You’re doing fine,’ the equally-irritated Curt replied. Both of Shockley’s minions obviously felt that their time could be better spent elsewhere. Jake Shockley continued:
‘Me and Curt, a few of the boys were dining on red beans and whiskey when a stranger walked into the saloon in Mesa Grande. Curt says, ‘Jake, don’t that gent look like you?’ Well, I didn’t think so. A man never thinks another looks like him. But the more I watched the fellow, I began to see a resemblance. Heavy, with a bearded face. I began to think of the possibilities.’
Jake’s voice was flat, the way he told the story was uninteresting to the other outlaws. But not to me. We halted in the shade of some shaggy willow trees. Jake removed his hat, wiped at his brow with a bandana and returned to his story-telling.
‘Curt had got me to thinking,’ he said, ‘thinking about the posters that were out on me, about the warrants running all the way back to El Paso. I waited until the stranger was half-drunk. When he left the saloon, we followed him.
‘We steered him into an alley and I laid him out with the muzzle of my Colt. Then I lifted his pistol. I meant to leave my own revolver behind – you know that old six-shooter of mine, the one with my initials carved into the handle? That and an old folded-up wanted poster on me that I shoved into his vest pocket. Then we waited.
‘After a while here comes our friend Mr. Clanahan up the alley, leading his horse. I stepped out and yelled something – don’t recall what – and fired my gun into the stranger’s heart.
‘Clanahan fired back, but he had no clear shot and was taken unaware. He might have hit the sky, nothing else.’ Jake took a drink from his canteen and passed it around to the others.
‘People came running, naturally. Me and Curt just sauntered away.’
‘All right,’ Vallejo grumbled. The water was not doing the job for him. He obviously had other places he’d rather be, other drinks he would prefer, other things he’d rather be doing than sitting in the heat listening to Jake’s rambling story. ‘You shot a man? So?’
