by Ralph Cotton
“Well, Tyler?” a townsman asked after a moment of pause. “Are you going to do something or not?”
“Yeah,” said Tyler, giving up on Longworth. “The ones of you with firearms, follow me. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
“I’ll get the Doc,” said Gabby Fletcher, who stood, using his blackened torch as a walking stick.
“Obliged, Gabby,” said selectman Tyler. “Send him out here to Bell’s body. He’ll find me at the sheriff’s office if he needs me.” He turned quickly to the other townsmen as Fletcher hurried ahead of them to the doctor’s office.
“Gentlemen, follow me,” Tyler said, his Colt army revolver raised, as if for emphasis.
Chapter 14
Inside the locked cell, Clayton Longworth began coming to as the Cullen brothers snapped the cuffs around his wrists and tied the bandana around his mouth. His head pounded with pain. As soon as the three outlaws were out the back door, his first reaction was to tug and pull and thrash wildly at his cuffs, realizing the futility of it even as he did so. He gave up with sigh of resignation.
Hoping to free his mouth and try to summon help, he tried rubbing the bandana off against his shoulder, but it held fast. Finally, long after he knew the Cullens and Kitty Dellaros had left town, he stood slumped at the bars, staring out at the dark front window, preparing himself to face his humiliation. Only as the front door opened did he happen to look down and see that his trousers were around his ankles. “Oh no . . .” He moaned under his breath.
The first townsman through the door was Paul Tyler, who stepped into the center of the room with his army Colt raised in one hand and a brightly glowing lantern in the other.
“Where’s the young detective?” a townsman asked, venturing in behind him, carrying a rifle.
At the sight of the open gun rack, the empty rifle slots inside and the spilled ammunition on the floor, Tyler said with a worried expression, “There appears to have been a jailbreak here.”
“Boy, I’ll say,” the townsman added, seeing all the desk drawers flung open where Kitty had rummaged through them, looking for her razor. “Somebody was hunting for something, sure enough.”
From his cell Clayton Longworth made a loud wailing sound behind the bandana. Tyler looked back and saw him in the outer glow of the lantern. “Oh, my goodness. Look back there,” he said, bringing the gathering townsmen’s attention toward the cuffed and helpless detective.
“Damn!” said another man. “That’s what I call caught with your britches down.”
Longworth lowered his eyes in shame, wishing it was over. He dreaded seeing Hansen Bell when he arrived, and hoped the townsmen would set him free before that happened.
“Where’s the key?” Tyler asked, seeing it missing from its place on the wall peg. His gaze went to the town blacksmith, a wiry little man named Hilliard Porter.
“How the hell do I know?” Porter asked. “I don’t keep track of this place.”
“I just figured since you’re the one building the cells, you might—Oh, never mind,” said Tyler, stopping himself.
Longworth could only make a grunting sound, trying to roll his eyes downward in a gesture to get the selectman to take off the bandana.
“Take his gag off,” said Porter to the excited selectman. “Maybe he’ll tell us.”
“Oh, right,” said Tyler. He clamped the army Colt under his arm, reached in through the bars, loosened the bandana and pulled it off.
Longworth spit wet lint from his lips. “I don’t know what they did with the cell key. But there’s a handcuff key in my trouser pocket here.” He swung his legs around to the bars. “Hurry. I want these cuffs off my wrists, and I want my trousers up.”
“I understand,” said Tyler. He looked embarrassed for the helpless detective as he stooped down and ran his hand through the bars and into the lowered trousers and found the small key.
“How did this happen, Detective?” Tyler asked as he straightened up and stuck the key into the cuffs.
“I—I don’t know,” said Longworth. “A gunshot woke me up. I saw the Cullens standing over me. How they got out of the cells, for the life of me, I don’t know.” The cuffs came off of his wrists, and he touched the welt on his forehead. “One of them must have hit me in the head and knocked me cold.” He spit more lint from his lips.
“Somebody get him some water,” Tyler ordered.
Longworth wasted no time reaching down and pulling up his trousers and buttoning them, in spite of the sharp throbbing pain in his head. “Where’s Chief Bell?” he asked, still dreading having to face the man, but needing to get some guidance on what to do next.
“Chief Bell . . . ” Tyler stared at him grimly. A hush fell over the townsmen. “I’m afraid Chief Detective Bell is dead,” Tyler said quietly. “He was murdered in his hotel room.”
“Oh no,” said Longworth, rubbing his wrists. “Were those the gunshots I heard?”
“Yes, they were,” said Tyler, taking a dipper of water a townsman handed him and passing it in through the bars to the thirsty detective. “He must not have known what hit him, if that is any comfort.”
“My gosh . . . ,” said the young detective, lowering the dipper from his lips. He shook his head. Then he said to Tyler, “Have everybody look around. The key has to be here somewhere.”
“No,” said Porter. “They took it with them, I’ll wager.” He felt of the square iron lock casing in the barred door, sizing up the job before breaking into the cell. “I’ll be most of the night getting you out of there, Detective,” he surmised, even as the men searched all around for the key.
“Then let’s get started, Mr. Porter,” said Longworth. “The quicker you can get me out of here, the quicker I can get on their trail.”
“Let me through!” Gabby Fletcher said, elbowing his way through the townsmen back toward the cells. He stopped in front of Tyler, gasping for breath, his face ashen in fright. “Dr. Ford is dead too!” he said. “I found him lying in his own blood. His throat’s chopped so deep, his head’s nearly off.”
“Oh, my God, Detective!” Tyler said to Longworth. “What have these monsters done to us? What on earth are you going to do?”
“What’s he going to do? What can he do?” said one of the townsmen. “Nothing he does can bring back poor Doc Ford.” The man turned from Tyler to the rest of the townsmen. “This is what we get for following these selectmen’s advice and talking in Western Railways to administer the law for us.”
Longworth stood looking shocked, dumfounded and helpless. I have no answer, he told himself. He couldn’t even get out of his own jail.
Ten miles from Wild Wind, after a hard ride across the flatlands and up onto a steep hill trail, Kitty and the Cullen brothers stopped for a few minutes to rest their horses and drink water from a thin runoff stream. Upset and grumbling under his breath, Cadden sipped a mouthful of cool water from his cupped hand. He swished the water around and spit it back out.
“I say we should have stayed and looked for it longer,” he said. He and his brother, Price, had been bickering about searching for the money ever since they’d left Wild Wind.
Kitty sighed and turned her eyes upward as if praying for patience. “Christ, we turned the place upside down before we left. If there’s money there, Longworth and Bell did a damn good job hiding it. Far as I can see, neither one of them are all that smart.”
“We gave up too easy,” Cadden said. “We should have stayed and kept looking.”
“Brother, if you keep it up with your grousing, I’ll be forced to box your jaws,” said Price.
“You won’t be boxing my jaws, Price,” answered Cadden. He sprang to his feet. “I’ve put up with you thinking you know everything long enough—”
“Hold it. Shut up,” said Kitty with urgency in her voice. She stood with her ear turned to the trail behind them. “Hear that? Did you hear it?” she said, her voice dropping to a hushed tone.
The two fell silent and listened alongside her. �
��I heard it,” said Cadden.
“Yeah, me too,” said Price.
“Horses . . . ,” Kitty said.
“Yep, horses,” said Price.
“Coming this way,” said Cadden.
“Sounds like they’re coming fast,” said Price.
“I’ve never seen a town get a posse together this quick in my life.”
“You have now,” said Kitty. She reached down and picked her rifle off the ground where he’d laid it. “Get above the trail on the moonlight side. As fast as they’re coming, they’ll ride right into our gunfire,” she said. “We’ll pick out their eyes in this darkness.”
“How does she know so much about ambushing?” Cadden asked Price in a whisper.
“I don’t know,” said Price, “but she’s right.” He grabbed his horse’s reins and began leading the animal away from the runoff stream.
“Get out of sight, Cadden,” Kitty said. The three climbed up above the trail and took position on a rock-strewn hillside.
After a moment of listening and hearing nothing, Cadden said in a whisper, “They’ve stopped.”
“Just long enough to get down and make sure they’re still following our tracks,” Price whispered in reply. The three sat frozen, listening intently.
“Maybe we ought to try to make a run for it,” Cadden said, the tension getting to him first.
Kitty remained cool and calm. “And risk breaking a horse’s leg on these rock trails? No, thanks. I’ve done that, and I didn’t like it one bit. If anybody breaks a horse’s leg, let it be these jakes.” She cradled her rifle in her arm and sat quietly, her finger in place on the trigger.
Less than a mile back, Huey Buckles stood up in the middle of the rocky trail, brushed himself off and staggered in place. He’d been nodding, half asleep in the saddle, and let his horse ride right out from under him. Luckily he’d managed to flip backward, and landed facedown on his stomach instead of his wounded rear end.
“That won’t happen again,” he said in a thick voice, as Paco Stazo circled back to him.
“It better not happen again,” said Paco. “If it does, you must save us both the trouble and shoot yourself. You’re no good to either of us if you can’t sit your horse.” He stared at the wounded outlaw, the Winchester he’d taken from Bell’s room in hand. “Do we understand each other?”
“Yes, we do,” said Buckles. “It’s not my fault. It’s this laudanum I’m taking.” Buckles tried a friendly chuckle. “It’s got me cross-eyed crazy.”
“Then get rid of it,” Paco said flatly. He had the wicker basket full of whiskey bottles hanging from his saddle horn.
“I can’t yet,” Buckles said. “I need it for this pain in my rump.” He tried another drug-induced chuckle. “Maybe if I cut it down some with some more whiskey.”
But Paco didn’t share his attempt at humor. “You are causing me a pain in the rump,” he said. “I can’t leave you behind and allow a posse to get their hands on you. So either stay the saddle, or I must shoot you and drag you off the trail.”
“Boy, you are just all heart, Paco,” Buckles grumbled.
“I am in a heartless business,” said Paco.
“Yeah, we both are,” said Buckles. “But how would you feel, traveling on an ass like this?” Taking hold of his saddle horn, he turned his bandaged rear end toward Paco in the moonlight before stepping up into his saddle. He said, “Look at it! Go on, look at it.”
“I don’t want to look at your ass, Buckles,” Paco said, knowing if the man didn’t settle down and get his senses about him, he’d have to shoot him. “Get in your saddle and let’s get going. A Wild Wind posse will be on us any time now.”
Buckles struggled to get a grip on his wavering senses. “All right,” he said. He swung up onto the saddle, but overshot it and landed with a grunt in the dirt on the other side of the horse.
Jesus . . . Paco stepped his horse around and stood it over Buckles as he cocked the hammer on the Winchester and took aim.
The deadly metallic click seemed to sober Buckles momentarily. “Wait! Damn it, don’t shoot! Give me one more chance! You don’t want to fire that gun anyway up here. It’s a dead giveaway!”
Paco knew he was right about the gunshot. He took a deep breath and let it out. “On your feet, Huey,” he said, uncocking the rifle. “Get back in your saddle, and this time stay in it.”
Mounted, the two rode on, putting their horses into an even pace along the rocky trail. Moments later as they rounded a bend, a rifle shot exploded overhead. Paco heard the bullet thump into the hard ground near his horse’s hooves. He nailed his spurs to his mount’s sides and raced off the trail into brush and rock, Buckles managing to stick right beside him. Bullets whistled past them, thumping into the hard earth and ricocheting off rock.
In a second, Paco was out of his saddle and firing back, the Winchester bucking round after round in his gloved hands. Buckles hit the ground beside him, a Remington he’d taken from the doctor’s desk in his hand. But having only six shots and no spare ammunition, he held his fire and scanned the hillside.
“There’s more than one up there,” he said. “That’s for sure.”
“I have seen barrel flashes from three different positions,” Paco said. Above them on the other side of the trail, the rifles had stopped for a moment. Paco held his fire too.
“What I don’t get is, how’d they manage to circle around and get ahead of us?” said Buckles.
“There is no way they could,” said Paco. He stared at Buckles in the purple moonlight and considered it. “You, up there—who are you?” he called out across the dark, empty trail to the three on the hillside.
“You know damned well who we are,” Kitty called back to him. “Following us here is going to get you all killed.”
“Kitty?” Paco shouted.
Instead of a reply, a shot exploded, aimed toward the sound of his voice. Paco and Buckles both scooted along the ground, pulling their horses by the reins. “Kitty, don’t shoot,” Paco called out. “It is I, Paco Stazo!”
“The hell it is,” Kitty shouted, not recognizing the half-breed’s voice. “Pour it on them,” she said sidelong to the Cullens.
Bullets whistled past Paco and Buckles. One grazed Paco’s shoulder. “Damn you!” he shouted, convinced it was Kitty’s bullet, but also knowing that a bullet from her rifle would leave him no less dead than if it were a bullet coming from a stranger. The hillside blossomed with flashes of blue-orange fire. Paco returned fire madly.
Chapter 15
The ranger ate a late dinner of jerked elk, hoecake and coffee, then continued on after dark. He followed the trail back halfway across the flatlands, eventually reaching the spot where he’d stopped tracking Delbert Trueblood and instead detoured to Wild Wind to leave Kitty Dellaros for the town law to deal with. It was an easy flatlands trail, and he’d made good time in the moonlight. But he stopped the big Appaloosa when rifle fire resounded in the distance, and drew his eyes to the blinking bursts of fire along the black line of jagged hills.
Staring off at the sight and sound of the raging gun battle, he patted a gloved hand on the stallion’s withers and said, “What do you think, Black Pot, huh? Should we check it out?”
The big Appaloosa understood only the sound of his name. But upon hearing it, he shook his mane, blew out a breath and sawed his big head up and down.
“Yeah, me too,” the ranger said quietly, still gazing off toward the flashes of gunfire. He turned the stallion and rode off at a quickened pace across the flatlands, straight to the black hill line where the battle continued to rage with no sign of letup.
An hour later, the ranger rode up off the flatlands and ascended a narrow, rocky trail that cut his time sharply. Still, it was nearing daylight in the east as he heard two pistol shots followed by a return round of rifle fire. “Maybe it’s starting to wind down after all,” he said to the stallion, nudging it upward, closer toward the sound of gunfire.
On the rocks, Paco lay pin
ned beneath his dead horse, which had taken a bullet and collapsed atop him an hour earlier. Paco had struggled to free himself, but the saddle had him snared and he could neither loosen it nor his legs from beneath the weight of the animal.
“Crazy bitch!” he cried, his voice gravelly from shouting throughout the night over the pounding of rifle fire. He would have made a run for it long ago had the horse not fallen atop him. He felt as if his leg might be broken. Dark blood was smeared across his face and clotted in his eyebrows from a bullet graze on his head.
“What’s the use?” said Buckles. “She’s probably half deaf from all the gunfire.” He sat holding the empty Remington in one hand, his six precious bullets long since spent. His free hand was pressed to a bad shoulder wound that had already cost him a great deal of blood. The whiskey and the laudanum, however, left him cloaked in a warm, fuzzy glow.
“Yeah, what’s the use . . . ,” Paco repeated to himself in defeat. “I’m saving two bullets. One is for her when and if she ever decides to come down here. The other I will use on myself, if I cannot get out from under this horse.”
“I—I would help you if I could,” said Buckles, barely able to speak from the loss of blood and the effects of booze and narcotics. “But I’m too weak . . . to do any big pulling.” Beside him on the ground sat the wicker basket. Drained whiskey bottles were strewn all around it, and the empty blue laudanum bottle lay broken in the dirt.
“Just shut your drunken mouth, Huey,” said Paco in disgust, “or I will use her bullet on you.”
Up on the hillside, Kitty looked past one dead horse and one badly wounded one that nickered pitifully from its spot on the bloody ground. Next to the two animals sat Price Cullen, sprawled back against a rock, slumped, his head bowed onto his bloody chest.
“Price, shut that horse up,” she said. “Put it out of its misery.”
“Jesus,” said Cadden, lying at Kitty’s feet among the rock and brush, “I’m afraid he’s dead.”
“Then go see,” said Kitty. “If he is, see if he’s got any bullets left. And shut that poor horse up.”
