Hanging in Wild Wind

by Ralph Cotton

  “How’d she manage to get herself tangled up with this damned ranger? She’s not even wanted for anything,” he grumbled to himself. He spit in the dirt and stared along the trail toward Wild Wind. At least she’s not wanted for anything I know of, he reminded himself, realizing that Kitty Dellaros was a woman apt to do most anything that suited her, legal or not.

  “Your woman is riding with this one?” Quintos asked, pointing at the hoofprints on the ground.

  “Yeah, this one lawman has her riding with him,” Ceran said. He turned and looked Trueblood up and down with contempt. “This tells me there was only one lawman in Wild Wind, Delbert. Do you follow me?”

  “Well . . .” Trueblood furrowed his sore and throbbing brow in contemplation. “No, I expect I don’t follow you, Silva,” he said finally.

  “I’m saying, if you and the others had stayed and killed this one ranger, we wouldn’t have to deal with all this.”

  “Oh . . .” Trueblood lowered his head. He offered no reply. All he could think about was what would happen when he and Kitty Dellaros were face-to-face. If she told him about her deal with him and Weeks, he was a dead man.

  Ceran looked away from Trueblood and back curiously toward the trail into Wild Wind. “Now I’m starting to wonder what’s taking Paco and Buckles so damn long. We should have met up with them by now, on their way back from town.”

  Quintos gave a smug little grin and said, “Maybe this same lawman has killed them too. Maybe he kills all of your men.” He turned slowly and looked at his warriors with a slight nod. They stared back at him as if to say they knew he was the one who should be in charge.

  Ceran stared coldly at him, but he made no reply. He stepped back up into this saddle and turned toward the trail. “If you’re all finished, let’s get going and see what’s happened to them.”

  But Quintos wasn’t finished. He called out to Ceran, “I bring my warriors to join you, so that together we can rob and make money to arm my people against the white men. I did not bring them to help you find your men or keep watch on your woman.”

  Ceran turned his horse back at a walk and stopped only a few feet from where Quintos and his men had gathered, facing him. “Listen to me, Bloody Wolf,” he said, his rifle across his lap, lying beneath his gloved hand. “We’re going to rob lots of places together if everybody plays their cards right.”

  “I’m not playing cards,” said Quintos. “I’m here to make money,” he repeated, “in order to wage war.” He spat on the ground.

  “We’re going to make enough money for you and your people to do as you damn well please. But right now, this needs doing first.” He gestured his free hand toward Wild Wind.

  Bloody Wolf sat staring for a moment; then he jerked his horse around in a huff and turned his back on Ceran.

  Son of a bitch . . .

  Ceran grumbled under his breath, turned his horse and rode off along the trail, his men following behind him, keeping eye back on Quintos and his warriors.

  Two hours later they rode down onto the flatlands between the hill line and main trail to Wild Wind. Riding ahead of the others, scouting the trail, Little Tongue raised an arm and directed their attention to the two riders coming at them, rising up as if out of the dirt, brush and rocks.

  “It’s Paco and Buckles,” Ceran said with relief in his voice, “and it’s about damn time.”

  “It’s—it’s not them, Silva,” Trueblood said reluctantly, squinting out at the riders, his stitched and swollen face throbbing in pain.

  Ceran jumped his horse ahead of the others and stood in his stirrups, staring as Reese and Doherty rode up to Little Tongue on the trail. As they approached the silent Indian, the two circled slowly with their hands on their gun butts.

  Reese said to Little Tongue in a strained and shallow voice, “Who the hell are you?”

  Little Tongue made a squawking sound through his thin, parted lips and pointed his rifle back at the trail toward Ceran and the rest of the riders.

  Hearing Little Tongue’s strange sound, Doherty said to Reese, “Jesus, he must’ve swallowed a mockingbird.”

  Seeing Ceran ride forward toward them, followed by the rest of the riders, Reese replied, “This is just what we need—a squeaking Indian.” He looked Little Tongue up and down with contempt.

  Little Tongue stared at them in silence until Silva Ceran rode up at a gallop and reined his horse to a halt. Dust billowed; Vernon Reese fanned it away with his hat. Doherty sat slumped in his saddle with dried blood streaking his battered face. Granules of glass glistened in the afternoon sunlight on the shoulders of his fringed deerskin shirt.

  “Evening, Snake,” Reese said to Ceran. “I bet you didn’t expect to see us again so soon.” He sat bowed forward a little in his saddle, his voice still weak and strained from catching the ranger’s rifle butt in his stomach.

  “No, I didn’t,” said Ceran. “To tell the truth, I thought you were both dead when you didn’t show up right away for your share of the payroll money.”

  “We got sidetracked for a few days in Cimarron, but we’re here now,” said Reese. He couldn’t wait to tell Ceran about Paco, Buckles and Kitty Dellaros being in Wild Wind’s new jail. But he held back, waiting for just the right moment.

  “What happened to you, Chug?” Ceran asked Doherty, noting his ragged, bloody condition. He swung his eyes back to Reese, seeing the way Reese sat bowed forward. “Hell, what happened to the both of you?”

  “I was what you’d call blindsided and thrown through the window of the Belleza Grande,” Doherty said.

  “I took a rifle butt right here,” said Reese, touching his upper stomach where his ribs met.

  “At the Belleza Grande?” Ceran asked, looking back and forth as the rest of his men rode forward to catch up with him. “So you just come from Wild Wind?”

  “Yeah, we just came from there,” said Reese. “That loco ranger who killed Junior Lake did this to us. The son of a bitch is running roughshod over everybody in town. There’s nobody there to stop him.”

  “I sent Paco and the Comanchero, Huey Buckles, to Wild Wind,” said Ceran. “Any idea what might have happened to them?”

  “Yep,” said Reese, but then he sat in silence staring at Ceran, making him dig for it.

  “Listen, you son of a bitch,” said Ceran, “you do not want to give me reason to kill you today. If you know something about Paco and Buckles, give it up.”

  “They’re both in jail,” said Reese, seeing that this was no time to play games with Silva Ceran. “So is Kitty Dellaros.”

  “Damn it to hell,” said Ceran. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “Is that what Paco was doing, snooping around in Wild Wind for you?” Reese asked.

  “Yes, he was,” said Ceran. “Why? What’s going on there?”

  Reese and Doherty looked at each other. Then they turned back to Ceran. “From what we heard, the townsmen there are about to stretch their necks for them, vigilante style.”

  “We both heard them talking about a lynching while we drank at the Belleza Grande,” said Doherty. He sat fidgeting in his saddle.

  “A lynching, eh?” Ceran gave them both a questioning look. “But I suppose you two had nothing to say about that?”

  “No, not a thing,” said Reese, with a shrug. “We was drinking, keeping our mouths shut.”

  “Then why’d the ranger single you two out?” Ceran asked.

  “Beats me,” said Doherty. He gave Reese a look.

  “Wild Wind is in an uproar over somebody killing their doctor and their chief detective,” said Reese. “I expect the ranger had to single somebody out. It happened to be us. But what he doesn’t know is that I’m going back there, and I’m going to kill him for it.”

  “You can ride back in there with us,” said Ceran. “I’m getting Kitty out of there before somebody makes good on their lynching threat.”

  “I’m glad to do it,” said Reese, touching his battered hat brim in salute.

  “
Who is this chief detective you’re talking about?” Ceran asked.

  “He worked for Western Railways,” Reese said. “The town signed an agreement for the company to handle the law in Wild Wind until they can manage to have themselves an election.”

  “You don’t say.” Ceran gave a slight grin. “Western Railways wouldn’t be doing it if they didn’t have money there they want protected.”

  “That’s my thoughts on it,” Reese agreed.

  “Who else is watching about the town besides the ranger?” Ceran asked.

  “Some young, snot-nosed railway detective named Clayton Longworth,” said Reese. “As far as I know, that’s all, just those two.”

  “One ranger and one Western Railways detective,” said Ceran. “It all sounds pretty good to me.”

  “Here’s something you might find of interest. Your gal Kitty and the Cullen brothers, Cadden and Price, made a jailbreak,” said Reese. He kept himself from chuckling aloud.

  “The Cullen Brothers? Those no-good, pig-mongering sonsabitches,” said Ceran. He spat, as if the thought of the Cullens raised a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Yeah,” said Reese, “seems the Cullens and your gal Kitty set up an ambush on Paco and Buckles, who were leaving town in a hurry.” He shook his head, stifling a grin. “It appeared they must’ve shot the hell out of one another.”

  Doherty said, “Then they all five ended up in jail together.”

  Ceran sat staring, hardly believing his ears. Finally he shook his head as if to clear it. “God almighty,” he said. “What a foul-up.” He turned to the others and said, “All right, we’re riding to Wild Wind, getting Kitty and Paco and taking every dollar Western Railways has sitting there.”

  “What about my Comanchero, Huey Buckles?” said Quintos. He sat staring at Ceran with a determined look on his dark face.

  “Yeah, don’t worry, Bloody Wolf,” said Ceran. “We’ll get Huey Buckles out of jail too.” He looked around at the other men and raised his voice for all of them to hear. “And we’ll kill a ranger and a railway detective while we’re at it.”

  Chapter 21

  Darkness had fallen by the time Dr. Stanton had finished with the last of the prisoners. He had treated them in the order of the most severely wounded first, and down the line from there. When he entered Kitty’s cell and looked down at the bullet graze striping her side just above elbow level, she opened her unbuttoned shirt and spread it outward and off her shoulder.

  “Seeing that you’re a man of medicine, I suppose a gal can bare all for you.” She offered a seductive smile to the gray, aged doctor.

  Shelly looked away, embarrassed. The ranger stood at the door to the cell, watching but not allowing himself to be moved by her show of round, ample bosom.

  “You need to save your charms and, uh, other assets for the judge when he gets here, ma’am,” the doctor said, lowering his head and looking above his spectacles at her. “I’m just a poor, colored horse doctor. I can’t help you any way in the world.” He smiled tolerantly and stooped down to examine the wound.

  “You can’t blame a gal for trying, can you?” she asked coyly.

  “No, ma’am,” said the doctor. “I even appreciate the effort.”

  As he took a warm, wet cloth from Shelly and wiped the wound carefully, Kitty said to him, “Doctor, I don’t suppose you’d give a gal something for all this pain, would you? I’ll look you up and repay you in kind once the judge turns me loose.”

  The old doctor continued cleaning the bullet graze and said quietly, “I don’t have anything like that, ma’am.” He smiled. “My patients never ask for it. When they’re in pain, they usually kick their stall.”

  “That’s real funny, Doc,” said Kitty. “But come on. I know you’ve got laudanum, rye whiskey, something.”

  The doctor busily applied some ointment over the wound with his fingertip. “This will soothe your pain some,” he said. “It’s the best I can do.”

  “Please, Doc,” she whispered. “I meant what I said. I’ll take really good care of you when I’m out of here.” As she spoke she ran her free hand along his upper thigh while he took a strip of bandage from Shelly to put over the wound.

  The old doctor reached down and removed her hand from his leg before she reached his crotch. “Ma’am,” he said flatly, “do I look stupid enough to believe the judge is going to let you go, after you participated in a jailbreak, maybe even murder?”

  “What?” Kitty looked stunned by his words. “I didn’t kill anybody!” She looked over at the ranger. “Ranger Burrack, I didn’t break jail. I hadn’t been charged with anything.”

  “You have now,” Longworth said, stepping over to her cell. “I’m charging you with breaking jail, for now. It’s up to the judge to decide if you were involved in murdering Dr. Ford. If he says so, you’ll be charged with murder, the same as everybody else.”

  “Hold on, lawmen!” said Cadden Cullen from his cell, gripping the bars. “Brother Price and I had nothing to do with killing the doctor or Bell or any-damn -body. Sure, we broke jail”—he shrugged—“but that’s more or less a prisoner’s duty, ain’t it?”

  Longworth and the ranger exchanged glances. “In a time of war, maybe,” Longworth said. “But this is not a war. You two are criminals.”

  “See?” said Cadden, pointing his finger through the bars of the cell. “That’s the kind of thing the law never makes clear.”

  Kitty stood up as the doctor finished wrapping the strips of cloth around her ribs. She started to walk toward the ranger. As she did, he reached sidelong and swung the cell door shut. “That’s close enough, ma’am,” Sam said.

  “I just want to talk, Ranger,” she said, stopping and spreading her hands. She had a troubled look on her face.

  “Talk from there,” Sam replied.

  Outside the cell, Longworth stood watching, listening, his rifle in the crook of his arm.

  “Look, both of you,” Kitty said with an expression of shock on her face. “You can’t believe I had anything to do with killing the doctor.”

  Sam caught a quick flash of Weeks lying dead in a pool of blood, his throat sliced deep and wide. “It’s got nothing to do with what we think,” Sam said. “I keep telling you it’s going to be up to the judge when he gets here.”

  “Yeah,” said Cadden, “and if he believes we did kill the doctor, it means we’ll be tried and hanged. Tell her the whole truth of it, Ranger.”

  “You just told her,” Sam said. He’d been listening to everybody closely and watching their actions and expressions. Kitty was scared. So was Cadden—scared and angry. But as Sam looked at Paco and Buckles, both sitting on the edge of their cots, he saw no fear, no anger, nothing. Their lack of response told him a lot.

  “What about you, Paco Stazo? You, Huey Buckles? Have you two got anything to say on this?”

  Paco only shrugged and spoke for them both. “If they are guilty, they will hang.” His dark eyes studied the ranger from across his cell. He shrugged again. “What do you want from me?”

  Yep, those two are the ones, Sam told himself. Everything he’d heard and seen from Paco and Buckles had made him more convinced. They didn’t care who hanged with them; they weren’t admitting anything. There was nothing Sam could tell the judge about who had killed the doctor, but he would give the judge his thoughts on the matter, for whatever it was worth.

  “Well, that’s all I can do,” Dr. Stanton said, standing and rolling down his shirtsleeves.

  “Step back over to your cot, ma’am,” Sam said quietly to Kitty. “Give Miss Shelly and Dr. Stanton room to leave.”

  “But I’m not through talking,” Kitty said.

  “Yes, you are,” Sam said. “For now anyway.” He gestured toward her cot.

  “Damn it, Ranger,” she said. But still she turned, walked back and slumped down on her cot.

  “Jesus! You two sonsabitches!” Cadden shouted, turning in the other direction toward Paco and Buckles. “I know us three didn’t kill any
body. You two did! Tell the ranger, damn it, before this thing gets out of hand and her and my brother and I get hung!”

  “Shut your stupid mouth, Cullen,” Paco said in a menacing tone.

  As the two argued back and forth, Longworth chained Kitty’s cell door and padlocked it. The doctor and Shelly stood outside the cell, the doctor slipping into his frayed green suit coat.

  “But we’re innocent. You know we are!” Cadden bellowed, grasping the bars and shaking them violently, as if to rip them down.

  “You have never been innocent of anything in your stinking life,” said Paco.

  “Ranger Burrack, here’s the one who killed the doctor,” Cadden railed, stabbing his finger toward Paco through the bars. “This one right here, Paco Stazo. I’ll testify that he did.”

  “I get my hands on you, I’ll rip your tongue out,” Paco growled.

  “All of you, shut up and settle down,” said Longworth. Both he and the ranger turned toward the front door, having heard the sound of scuffling boots out front.

  “Detective Longworth,” a voice called out from the street out in front of the boardwalk.

  “Here we go,” Longworth said, raising his rifle from the crook of his arm.

  “Yep, here we go,” said Sam. He looked at Dr. Stanton and Shelly and said, “Both of you can leave through the rear door.”

  “Begging your pardon, Ranger Burrack,” said the horse doctor, “but if it’s all the same, I’d just as soon go out the way I came in.” He gave a grin and a slight bow of his head. “Call me superstitious . . .” He walked toward the front, where he’d left his long shotgun.

  “Whatever suits you, Doctor,” Sam said, following him.

  “And if you don’t mind, Detective,” the doctor said to Longworth, his right hand turned palm up. “For my services . . . ?” He picked up his battered top hat and placed it atop his head.

  “I’ll pay you tomorrow, Doctor, if it’s all the same to you,” Longworth said.

  “Detective Longworth,” the same voice out front repeated, “we come for all them murderers. Hand them over to us.”