by Ralph Cotton
“You do that, Ranger,” said Bell, cutting him off. “I have Western Railways standing ready to pump investment money into this town. Who do you think they’ll side with—you and the territorial law, or big business?” He gave Sam a grin. “Let’s not kid each other. This town belongs to Western Railways. Go do your job, Burrack. Leave me to do mine.”
Sam didn’t reply. He knew Bell was right. Wild Wind wasn’t going to do anything to upset Western Railways and hurt the town’s chances to prosper, especially not after having signed over the documents that put the company in charge of the law until after an election.
“Well, there went my idea,” Kitty said to Sam with a sigh. “I had hoped we could become close friends, you and I.” She gave him a suggestive look. “A hotel room, a nice, hot bath . . . dinner brought up to us.”
“Afraid not, Kitty,” Sam said, “I’m leaving here. Come morning. I still have Trueblood’s trail to follow.” Sam realized that even as she spoke to him, her message was directed in part to Hansen Bell, to annoy him, to entice him, to get whatever response she could from him.
“Oh . . .” She sounded disappointed. “Another time, maybe?”
“It’s not likely,” said Sam.
“I’ll take you up on it, ma’am,” Cadden Cullen said from his cell.
Sam said to Bell, “I’m going next door to see how Longworth’s hand is before I leave.”
“When he’s finished with the doctor, have him come on over here,” said Bell. “We’ve still got lots to do.”
“What about me?” Kitty asked playfully. “Whatever is to become of little ol’ me?”
Bell looked down at her. “You’re going into a cell, that’s what.”
“You’re not really going to put me back there, are you?” Kitty asked.
“That’s right,” said Bell, taking the key to the handcuffs that Sam had given him earlier.
“Please don’t put me there,” she said. “I know we got off on the wrong foot. But I don’t deserve to be treated this way.”
From the cell, both Price and Cadden Cullen laughed under their breath. “Why didn’t we think of saying that, brother?” Cadden said to Price in a lowered tone. “Maybe we could have avoided this whole thing.”
“Yes, you do deserve it,” Bell said to Kitty. “Now on your feet. He turned the key in the cuff and loosened her wrist from the bench arm.
As he opened the door to leave, Sam heard the two talking. He had an idea that Kitty Dellaros wasn’t as horrified as she pretended to be about going into a cell.
As soon as the ranger was gone, Bell directed Kitty toward the cells and followed a foot behind her as she walked there slowly. He gave here a slight shove as she hesitated against getting into the cell next to the Cullen brothers, who hung on the bars, leering out at her.
“Must I be in this cell next to these two?” Kitty asked.
“Yes, you must,” Bell said smugly. “The other cell doesn’t have its lock installed yet.”
“What’s wrong with being next to us?” Price Cullen asked in a feigned hurt voice. “We won’t bite.”
“Not much anyway,” said Cadden, grinning, licking the corner of his upper lip like a dog.
“Both of you, settle down,” said Bell. “If I have trouble out of you, it’ll be tomorrow morning before you get anything to stuff into your gullets.”
“Sorry, Chief Bell,” said Price Cullen. “Where is Detective Longworth anyway? I hope he didn’t get his bell rung, did he?”
“No, he didn’t. But he crushed his hand with a wagon jack,” said Bell. “He’s getting it fixed right now.”
“Well, bless his heart,” said Cadden. “You tell him we’ll remember him in our evening devotionals.”
“Yeah, I’ll tell him,” Bell said sarcastically. He locked the door on Kitty’s cell with the twist of a large key on a brass ring.
“Speaking of stuffing our gullets,” said Price. “Is it just me, or has someone at the restaurant forgotten to bring us anything to eat?”
Bell took out a pocket watch, flipped it open and checked the time. “I expect all the shooting commotion at the cantina has Shelly and the restaurant folks thrown off schedule. I’ll go see.”
“Obliged, Chief,” said Cadden, eyeing Kitty through the bars dividing the two cells. “I don’t know about Price here, but I could eat anything that’s off its hooves.”
“Me too,” said Price. He also eyed Kitty through the bars. “It wouldn’t even have to be all the way off its hooves.”
Cadden gave a short, dark laugh, the two leering at the woman, who had sat down on the edge of a cot and crossed her arms as if to protect herself from the world. “If I just had something to suck or nibble on till we get—”
“Shut up, both of you!” Kitty sobbed, sounding near hysteria. She turned sideways, flung herself facedown onto the cot and said in a muffled voice into the thin mattress, “Detective, please don’t leave me back here with these two.”
Bell kept himself from giving a thin, cruel grin. “I thought you’d be right at home here. After all, these are your kind of people.”
As Kitty sobbed into her cot and the Cullen brothers stood watching her through the bars, Bell turned, walked to a far wall and hung the brass ring on a wall peg.
“I’ll go see abut Shelly bringing that food over,” he said over his shoulder to no one in particular. “Try not to upset the lady while I’m gone.” He unfastened his gun belt and hung it on the wall beside the key.
The Cullen brothers stood watching Kitty sob into the cot until the front door closed behind Bell. The thud of the man’s boots could be heard across the boardwalk, then stopped as he stepped down into the street. The two looked at each other and grinned.
“He’s gone,” Price said through the bars into Kitty’s cell.
“Good,” said Kitty. She raised her dry-eyed face from the cot and walked over to the bars. “Now go on with what you were saying about Western Railways’ big-money shipment coming here.”
The three outlaws huddled at the bars standing between them. “You misunderstood,” said Cadden Cullen. “The money’s not coming here. It’s already here.”
“Where?” said Kitty, getting more and more interested, since the three had started talking about it before the ranger and Bell had came in and interrupted them.
“If we knew that, we’d already be rich men and gone the hell away from here,” said Price.
“Oh . . .” Kitty looked discouraged.
“But we know it’s here somewhere. It’s hidden in a wagon,” said Cadden.
“What makes you so cocksure?” Kitty asked.
“We snuck into the livery barn and watched them load the wagon in Cottonwood,” said Price. “While the guard was asleep, Cadden crawled under the rig and filed a cross on a rear wheel band.”
“Yep.” Cadden grinned. “I marked it good. We followed it all the way across the badlands, just watching that X in the dirt.”
“But in the middle of the night the wagon disappeared right outside of Wild Wind,” said Price. “That’s when we come into town and got caught breaking into the livery barn. We confessed to being there trying to steal horses. But it was the money wagon we were looking for.”
Kitty considered things, then said, “It disappeared, huh?”
“Somewhere in the night,” said Price.
Cadden said, “The next morning we found an empty camp. We started following the wagon tracks, but they went up into some rock and we lost sight of them.”
“Smart thinking on somebody’s part,” said Kitty. “Is Bell that smart?”
“He’s not smart enough to find the socks on his feet,” said Cadden. “Clayton Longworth might be, but he’s too young. Nobody at Western Railways is going to tell him anything.”
“I doubt that anybody even told him the money was coming,” said Price. “The fact is, the money is either lying somewhere on that wagon, or else it was taken into the new bank building up the street.”
“Which ain’t very likely
,” said Cadden. “The building is not finished yet, and the way banks have been getting robbed, Western Railways wouldn’t risk putting it there.”
“Even if they did,” said Price, “if we were partnered with a bunch like you ride with, we could sweep through here, rob the bank and turn this town upside down till we come up with that money wagon.”
“Either way,” said Cadden, “we’d ride out of here with that money.”
“You did right telling me,” said Kitty. “This is something that’s too big for just the two of you.”
“That’s what we figured,” said Cadden. He reached out and placed his hand over Kitty’s hand on one of the bars between them. “And hey, all that catcalling we did before we realized who you are . . . That was nothing.”
“I know that,” said Kitty. She didn’t try to move her hand from beneath his. Instead, she reached her other hand through the bars and smoothed his hair back off his forehead. “We all do what we have to do to make ends meet.”
“Hey, what about me?” said Price, looking jealous. He moved in closer, his hand also wrapped around a bar.
“Come on, now,” said Kitty. She laid her other hand over his and rubbed her thumb back and forth. “I’ve always got something warm waiting for a couple of handsome, strapping men like you.”
“What about Silva Ceran?” Price asked, feeling a hot surge inside him at just the feel of her thumb moving back and forth on his skin.
“He’s not here,” said Kitty. “You two are.”
“Jesus . . . we sure are,” Cadden said with bated breath.
“Now, let me ask you fellas,” said Kitty. “What have you got in mind to get us out of this cage?”
“Oh, that’s the easy part,” said Price, clearly aroused by her slow-moving thumb.
“Take a guess,” Cadden said.
Kitty looked all around. Seeing the key on the brass ring across the room, she said, “You have a string or something that you’re going to pitch over and—”
“God, no,” said Cadden, cutting her off. “But you’re close. The whole idea is to get that key off that wall, and get it over here to where it will do us some good.” He looked at Price and asked, “Why didn’t you think of that string idea?”
Price shrugged. “I did think of it, but we didn’t have any string. Anyhow, I like our way better.”
“Which is . . . ?” Kitty let her question trail.
“You think about it a while; see what you come up with.” Cadden winked.
“I don’t like guessing games,” Kitty said, her hands still on theirs, but her thumb not moving, the warmth and feel seeming to change.
“Oh, you don’t?” Cadden smiled. “You could’ve fooled us, with what we were watching a while ago with you, Bell and that ranger.”
At the sound of the front door opening the three turned quickly, their hands dropping from the bars. They stepped back from the bars as a dark-haired young woman and a small boy walked in, each carrying a dinner tray.
“Yoo-hooo, everybody,” said the woman, walking ahead of the boy. “Supper’s here. Sorry it’s late.”
“We’ll talk later,” Cadden whispered to Kitty as the woman and child walked back toward the cells.
At the Cullen brothers’ cell, the woman set the tray inside the wide upper feed slot in the barred door. At the bottom of the barred door, another slot had been built to accommodate a waste bucket. The boy walked over to Kitty’s cell and slid the tray in to her. “My, my, Miss Shelly Linde,” Cadden Cullen said to the dark-haired woman, “you look lovely, as usual.”
Chapter 11
Inside the doctor’s office, the ranger looked down at Longworth, who still sat across from the white-haired old doctor. His crushed hand seemed better, having been stretched, pressed and manipulated back into its normal shape. The exposed tendons were back beneath the skin, where they belonged. The skin had been stitched together over them. The swelling appeared to have gone down a little, the ranger thought.
“Feeling better, Detective?” Sam asked.
“Huh,” said the doctor before Longworth could answer for himself. “The dang fool refused any laudanum for the pain. He wouldn’t even drink whiskey.”
Sam looked at Longworth’s pained and red-rimmed eyes. He shook his head and said, “You asked me on the trail if I had any whiskey.”
“That was on the way here,” Longworth said. “I wanted it for the pain.” He held his breath as the doctor pushed the hooked needle through the skin of his hand. But he managed to put the pain aside and say, “You heard Bell. We’ve got lots of work to do here. I can’t be drinking. I need my wits about me.”
“You’ve got no business working this evening, not with this hand in this kind of shape,” said the doctor, drawing the stitch snug, tying it and clipping it with a small pair of scissors. “I’m starting to think you’re a little touched in the head, Detective,” he added, getting ready to make another plunge with the hooked stitching needle.
“No, Doctor, I’m not touched,” said Longworth. “I’ve got a job to do and I’m going to do the best I can at it.”
“There’s nothing you’re going to do tonight that can’t wait until tomorrow,” said the doctor, making another stitch. “You won’t be able to use this hand for a while, even to go to the jake.”
Longworth gave another slice of breath, then relaxed and said, “Chief Bell says we need to get some things done. He’s the boss.”
“You should tell Chief Bell to go pile sand up his ass,” the old doctor said matter-of-factly. “Get yourself an honorable job clerking or something.”
“Railway detective is an honorable job,” Longworth insisted.
“Yeah, sure it is,” said the old doctor wryly. He clipped the stitch and started to make another plunge with the needle.
“Anyway, I’m leaving, Detective,” Sam cut in. “I wanted to check on you first.”
“Ranger, I know I’ve said it already, but I’m obliged to you for all you’ve done for me,” Longworth said. “If there was time, I’d buy you dinner.”
“Next time I’m through Wild Wind, I’ll hold you to it,” Sam said. “But I’m eating on the trail tonight, before Trueblood’s trail gets too cold to follow.”
“Best of luck to you, Ranger,” said Longworth. He reached his right hand around to shake hands. But the doctor gave him a jerk and said, “Hold still, man! I came dang near sewing your hand to the table.”
Outside, in the long shadows of dusk, Paco Stazo and Huey Buckles rode onto the dirt street from the north. They watched as a man stuck a torch to the oil pots sitting on either front edge of the cantina, but not to the ones sitting directly out front. They both noticed that no music resounded down the empty street to greet them.
“I’m betting this has something to do with the gunshots we heard earlier,” Paco said to Buckles under his breath.
Buckles looked around with his head bowed slightly, moving only his eyes. “I don’t like it,” he replied. “I say we turn around now, and tell Silva—”
“Turn tail if you want to,” Paco Stazo said, cutting him off. “I came to see what’s gong on here. That’s what I intend to do.”
“Hell, me too,” said Buckles, having a fast change of heart. “You didn’t let me finish what I was saying.”
“Oh . . . ?” Paco gave him a skeptical stare. “Then finish.”
“Never mind now. It don’t matter,” said Buckles with a shrug, looking away as they rode on to the Belleza Grande Cantina.
The two climbed down from their horses and spun the reins around an iron hitch rail, noting that theirs were the only mounts there. “This ain’t natural,” said Buckles, sounding wary and unsure of himself.
“Neither is riding into a town and not having whiskey to drink,” Paco said, nodding toward the closed door and the cantina’s dark interior through a dusty window.
“My God—it’s closed?” said Buckles as if his eyes could not comprehend such a thing.
“We’ll see,” said Pac
o. He stepped onto the boardwalk and to the closed door as the pot lighter walked along the boardwalk with his flaming torch. “Hey you, mister,” Paco said in an agitated tone of voice, “why is the Belleza Grande closed?”
“Death,” the old man said without stopping.
“Death? Whose death?” Paco demanded.
“Owner’s,” the man said. He shuffled along.
“Damn it, stop him,” Paco said to Buckles. Buckles grabbed the man by the back of his coat. The man turned toward him, the torch coming so close to Buckles’ face that he felt his eyebrows crackle and fry. “Jesus!” he said. “You’ve singed me like a chicken!”
“Sorry,” the old man said in a flat tone. “Don’t stand so close.”
Buckles felt like beating him in the face, but the looming torch held him back.
“What happened to the owner?” Paco asked. He raised a finger in warning. “Do not give me another short answer, or we will nail your tongue to this door.”
The old man looked at the rough cantina door as if trying to visualize such an occurrence. He cleared his throat. “A gunman named Harry Ginpole shot him in the head. He shot a young whore and a town selectman. Then a ranger and a detective killed him.”
“A territory ranger and a railroad detective, both in town at the same time? They killed Harry Ginpole?” said Paco, looking all around cautiously, as if the ranger and the detective might be lurking in the shadows.
“That’s right,” said the old pot lighter. “The same ranger was through here last week. Killed another bad egg, a road agent by the name of Wheeler.” He looked back and forth between the two. “It’s been a busy time here in Wild Wind.”
“Road agent . . . ,” said Paco with a smile, not caring much that Wheeler was dead. “That is a name I have not heard in a long while.”
“Yeah,” said Buckles, “that’s an old one.”
The old man continued. “Today the ranger brought the detective in with a broken hand. He had a woman prisoner. The detective was getting his hand fixed when Harry Ginpole started his killing.”
“A woman prisoner, you say?” Paco asked, getting more interested. “What did she look like, this woman? She is pretty, yes?”
