by Judd Cole
“Matter of fact,” Danford said, stopping beside the women’s horses, “maybe we best start taking better care of our female guests, boys. These is what you call assets.”
“Mister, I love how their ass sets,” Lorenzo quipped.
Coyote grinned. “You’re funny when you ain’t bawling.”
“What I mean,” Danford insisted, “is that a well-fed slave fetches more on the auction block. Matter of fact ... “
Danford smirked at the captives. “I’m shortening your stirrups, ladies, so you’ll be more comfortable as you tour Mexico with us.”
Coyote giggled again. He crossed to where Connie sat hugging her knees. He squatted on his ankles, bringing his face close to hers. He had lately become fascinated by a vein that pulsed visibly in Connie’s slim white throat. He watched it now.
“Well, howdy, Little Miss Pink Cheeks. You miss me?” His voice was a razor-thin whisper. “Won’t be long now, little pretty. We’ll make camp. Then you two ladies can get out of them wrinkled and dirty clothes, eh?”
Connie averted her face from this stinking, leering mask of lust and cruelty. Stoically, she watched a lone eagle soar over a distant peak. Its freedom mocked her, especially as she listened to Anne crying softly beside her.
“Grab some saddle!” Danford called out. “Like Willard found out, Hickok ain’t down here to wash bricks. He’s looking to kill us! Let’s get a safe camp set up.”
Three days’ hard ride north of La Cola, in his stone-and-timber ranch house near Yuma, Jim Paxton met behind closed doors with a trail-hardened frontiersman named Butch Jeffries.
“I don’t credit my own ears, Jim,” Jeffries commented when the rancher finished speaking. “You can’t be serious?”
Paxton stood with one elbow leaning against the mantel of a big fireplace that was seldom lit. A young Mexican maid, who spoke only a few words in English, hovered nearby with a decanter of whiskey and a feather fly-swisher.
“Am I serious? Serious as cancer,” Paxton replied. “What? Is this job too rough for your belly?”
Jeffries shook his head. He was comfortably sprawled in a blue chintz easy chair. The walls behind him were lined with leather-bound books from floor to ceiling.
“It’s not that,” Jeffries assured him. “Especially right now. You’ve caught me when I’m a bit light in the pocket. I’ll do it if you’re sure it’s what you want.”
“Hell, you think I don’t know my own mind?”
Jeffries shook his head. “Course you do. But this is ... well, you know. Romance, or what you call it. You cool off and change your mind—”
“May I be damned if I’m not sure!”
Jeffries surrendered with a nod and killed the whiskey in his glass. He had a small, sharp, intelligent face. Few men wore two guns, and even fewer tied them down as Butch did. He was a former Army dispatch rider turned “businessman’s agent.” The private troubleshooter had spent the past fifteen years riding the border badlands.
“All right, then,” Jeffries said. “It just sets me back on my heels a mite, is all. I mean, ’pears to me like you’ve drawn a circle around the prettiest girl in America. Now you want me to make sure she’s dead?”
“Damnit, Butch, you still don’t take my meaning! Her looks are nothing to the matter! She won’t be worth having after this, yet by law and duty I’m now bound to honor the marriage. If those tainted scum in Danford’s gang haven’t raped her by now—repeatedly—Hickok will surely seduce her.”
Jeffries grinned. “What if he does? A good pie is just as tasty with a few slices missing.”
“That reasoning may be fine for the common run of mankind, but not for Jim Paxton. I won’t abide spoiled goods, I’m telling you.”
“You place too high a price on virginity, Jimbo. Personally, I like a gal what knows how to wiggle her hips.”
“It’s more than that! I’m already a pathetic cuckold, to hear the newspapers tell it. Every time Hickok even gets close to a pretty woman, the newspapers and magazines parade it. They’re doing it already. Listen to this dreck.”
Paxton crossed to a roll top desk and snatched up that week’s edition of the Yuma Recorder.
“‘Jim Paxton has indeed hired the best man for the job’,” he read. “‘But considering Miss Emmerick’s striking beauty, is he perhaps sending a wolf to comfort the lamb? Wild Bill Hickok’s penchant for female thespians is legendary. Nor have they, in turn, shown severe reluctance to encourage his zeal.’ Good Lord!”
Paxton crumpled up the newspaper and threw it toward the maid. For a moment, rage gripped him so tightly it left his jaw aching.
But a moment later he was calm again. Judging from the maid’s fearful eyes, Paxton’s equanimity was even more dangerous than his rage.
“She’s probably already dead by now,” he told Butch. “It’s tragic and all that. But in case Hickok does rescue her, your job is to make sure she doesn’t make it back. I won’t marry her! Can you imagine how this will look to history—what a pathetic fool I’ll look?”
History? Hell, you look that way now, Jeffries thought. But he only nodded.
“My wife—the mother of my children—will inherit an empire after I die. And she must be pure.”
Jeffries nodded again. “What the hell. It’s your money, and I’m just a jobber. The pay’s fine with me, so I’ll leave tomorrow.”
Chapter Nine
“It’s water,” Hickok said in a dubious tone. “And it’s not poison, or the birds wouldn’t be drinking it. The horses can drink it.”
“Can we?” Josh demanded.
“In moderation. But I’ll warn you right now, Longfellow. It’ll likely give us the squitters.”
“So? I’ve had them since we left Yuma.”
Bill grinned.
Josh knelt beside the little muddy swale they’d followed the birds to. Bill claimed his Army map showed there was an underground river here, that this was a seep spring where pressure forced some water up through the ground.
Trouble was, the water leached through alkali dirt on its way through the soil. The brackish water had a bitter taste and left annoying grit in the mouth. For many, this grit also irritated the bowel.
Both men filled their canteens, then let their horses drink. It was close to noon on the day following their narrow escape from La Cola. By now both men looked rough and tired. Reddish-blond bristles stubbled Bill’s cheeks, and even Josh had some dark whiskers on his upper lip. They both watched the barren, glaring desert from red eyes swollen halfway shut.
While the horses tanked up, their riders checked the animals for saddle galls. Bill fished a hoof pick out of one pocket and removed a few small stones from the roan’s hooves. He also kept a close eye on the horizons, watching for any dust puffs. They were now the two most wanted men in Mexico. Actually, Bill was wanted, and Josh, he often reminded his companion, “would catch some of the extra bullets.”
“Their trail’s not been hard to pick up,” Hickok told Josh as they rode out again, bearing southwest by the sun. “The problem is to hold it in this open country without being spotted. That means we have to get creative, kid.”
Bill indicated the vast, open country with a sweeping gesture.
“It ain’t smart to just lock on their trail and sniff their butts like hounds. They’re deliberately pushing through the open flats. We’ve got to study the map, then try to guess where they’ll end up. That way, we can get there by our route, not theirs. Keep a lower profile. Keep control of the situation, too.”
Bill frowned, liking this terrain around them less and less. He had scouted open country enough to know that no ground anywhere was ever truly level, that a man could almost always find hollows and sinks, hummocks and folds, for some kind of cover. But this expanse of the Sonora seemed to have been shaken out like a tablecloth.
“I sure feel sorry for those women,” Josh remarked.
“They’re in a dirty corner, all right,” Bill agreed. “But then, so are we.”
&nbs
p; Sweat beaded on Josh’s forehead, and he took that as a good sign. He wasn’t seriously dehydrated yet.
“Wish to God we could do something for them,” Josh persisted.
“You young fool! We ain’t the Knights of Malta, but what the hell are we doing right now?”
“Mostly eating dust.”
“Sure,” Bill argued, “because the best thing we can do right now is keep Danford and his cronies on the run. We keep them nerve-frazzled, worried about their own hides. A man who’s ducking bullets ain’t got time, nor inclination, to spend his lust.”
Bill seemed to pronounce this from the depths of experience.
“This way,” Hickok added, “we stay in control. We pick them off until they break and run. And if we get lucky, they leave the women behind as too much trouble.”
Bill spread his map open across the saddle horn and studied it while Fire-away trotted. Josh knew he was putting his new plan to work: trying to guess, based on their trail so far, where the gang would choose to rest.
“There’s volcano hills about twenty miles from here,” Hickok finally said, looking up again. “That means water. I’d wager they’re heading that way to rest.”
Bill studied the terrain through slitted eyes.
“No use,” he finally admitted. “Since I can’t sight us a route with better cover, lets hole up until night’s coming on.”
The two men took what shelter they could in the lee of a big dune, staking out their ground sheets for shelters.
They fed their horses the last of the parched corn, then picketed the animals in the scant shade of the dune.
Bill slid his Winchester .44-40 from its saddle boot and quickly checked the firing mechanism for sand. He had not kept a round in the chamber because of possible “cook offs” from the direct sun. He racked one in now.
“I’ll take the first watch, kid,” he said wearily. “Wake you up in a couple.”
The spot was ideal for anyone on the run in this desolate stretch of northern Mexico: a long rock shelf located halfway up the slope of an otherwise nondescript lava hill.
From the desert floor below, the shelf appeared to be just another rock spine. But a climb upward soon revealed a big, natural chamber formed by erosion under the shelf. The area was as big as a ballroom, which left plenty of room for horses and people. And it included perpetual pools of cool, clean seep water.
Connie and her sister had mixed feelings about finally reaching this place. Their captors had actually allowed both women to bathe in private in a natural stone cistern at the back of the cavern. Even without soap, it felt wonderfully refreshing just to be wet and cool again.
But how long would the gang’s “courtesy” last? There was only one good reason why the women had been left alone so far: The men were all too busy watching for Hickok.
Now, however, as the two women huddled together fixing each other’s hair with pins, Fargo Danford appeared in the entrance, holding a dead rabbit. Blood still oozed from a wound in its side.
He walked back closer to the seated captives and threw the bloody carcass in Anne’s lap. He tossed down a knife, too.
“Gut that son of a bitch, Mrs. Gov’nor,” he ordered. “Save out the heart and kidneys—Coyote likes to chew ‘em up raw.”
Anne made a sound of distress in her throat, knocking the awful thing out of her lap.
“S’matter?” Danford demanded. “You too fine-haired to clean what you eat? Do like I said or go hungry, fancy woman. No skin off my ass.”
Lorenzo walked back, too, and tossed a battered metal pan at Connie. She had to duck her head quick to avoid being struck with it.
“You! Juliet! Scrape the gravy skillet! We’re starved here, damnit.”
While the women went reluctantly to work, Danford and Lorenzo walked back to the cavern entrance, joining Coyote on watch.
“See how it is?” Danford said, his tone confident. “You can see from here to China and back! Even after the sun sets, there’ll be a full moon.”
All three men stood under the rock outcrop, sharing the last of their tobacco. A long, open slope led up to them, offering no cover larger than a few scrub weeds and small rocks. There was perhaps another hour before nightfall.
“Long as we all take watches,” Danford assured them, “nobody will sneak up on us. Besides, way that wind’s raisin’ hell, it might wash out our trail completely. Hickok might never find this place.”
“Lotta people looking to pop Wild Bill,” Coyote agreed. “The longer we keep him out in the open, the better our chances of getting out of Mex with our swag.”
Lorenzo glanced back inside the cavern. “What about them, huh? You still hot to put a ransom on ‘em?
“Why not? But it’s pointless until everybody knows we’ve put Hickok under. Us or somebody. I ain’t particular who kills the son of a bitch long as it gets done.”
“Sure,” Lorenzo said, hardly listening. Now he was staring hard back into the cavern, his breathing quickening a little.
“Say, Fargo,” he cajoled. “Like you said, from here we can see into China. What say we make tonight the night we have us some fun with ‘em society gals?”
“The man’s right,” Coyote agreed in his atonal voice. “It’s been put off too damn long now, Fargo, and you know it. You’re wanting one of them, too.”
“Both of ‘em,” Danford admitted.
“Works out real nice,” Lorenzo said. “One man on watch leaves two men and two women. What say, boss? Think o’ all them nights in prison without a woman.”
Danford again gazed down the long slope, mulling the decision. After all, with Willard dead, that left one less man to fight over shares of the women.
Finally he nodded. “Tonight,” he agreed. “After we eat. But lissenup, Coyote, no knife-work when you finish, hear me? These two ain’t like that whore you cut to ribbons in Matamoros.”
Oh yes they are, Coyote thought. But he only nodded obediently.
“No knifework,” he promised. “Just fun.”
By late afternoon, Wild Bill and Josh had slept enough to function for a few more hours.
“Kid, grab a big rock and come with me,” Bill ordered. “Before we ride out, I need some meat, damnit.”
“Can’t we just shoot it?”
“Could,” Bill replied. “But you got any idea how far sound travels over a desert? No sense announcing we’re coming.”
“Where we going?” Josh demanded as they moved out from the protection of the sand dune. Josh had picked up a rock twice the size of his fist.
“Hunting,” Bill replied tersely. “Shut up.”
Bill carried his rifle, but he had it by the barrel, not the stock. Josh saw his eyes sweeping across the surface of the sand.
“There,” Bill said. “Fresh track. Let’s follow it.”
“That’s a snake’s trail!” Josh protested.
“Rattlesnake, to chew it fine. Get ready with that rock, kid. We ain’t far behind it.”
Josh was about to fire off another question, but Bill suddenly lunged forward, pinning something in the sand. Only then did Josh hear the angry buzzing of the snake. It writhed furiously under the rifle butt, trying to escape.
“Hell, kid, you bolted down?” Bill demanded. “Smash its goddamn head before it bites me!”
The head, at least, was fairly still. Josh crushed it with one drop.
“Good work, kid,” Bill said, his mood improving at the thought of hot meat. He tossed the dead snake over his shoulder.
“You roust up some mesquite wood,” he told Josh. “I’ll butcher us out some snake steaks.”
“Don’t know if I can eat that,” Josh said.
“Ahh, you’ll like it, kid. Tastes just like alligator.”
It was dark enough now to risk the smoke from a fire if it was built in a pit. When Josh finally bit into the tender meat, he did like it.
“Didn’t I say it tasted like alligator?” Bill asked.
“I never had that. But I could swear th
is is chicken.”
“Chicken?” Bill said. “Don’t believe I’ve ever tried it, kid. What’s it taste like?”
“Just like rattlesnake,” Josh assured him.
“I’ll be damned.”
While they ate, Bill studied his map in the dying light.
“I’ve been doing a process of elimination,” he explained. “If we go on the assumption they want to head west by northwest, which is the way they’re sticking, then there’s only one logical destination.”
Bill tapped the map with his index finger. “There’s a place marked Devil’s Shelf on the map. The cartographer has used the symbol for a cave to mark it.”
“How far from here?” Josh asked.
“I think we can be close in about two hours. But we’d have to leave the horses for the final approach, go in on foot.”
Bill washed his hands in the sand, his eyes meeting the reporter’s. “This won’t be pretty, Longfellow. You’d best wait behind with the horses.”
“That an order?”
Bill shook his head. “I don’t coddle any man. You know the way of it, kid. What you choose to do is your show.”
“Not really. I gotta go, or else how can I claim to be telling your story to millions of people?”
“There’s still green on your antlers! Ned Buntline made a fortune off my name and never broke a sweat.”
“Well, I ain’t him.”
“No,” Bill agreed, pushing up to his feet. “You’re twice the man he was, so you’ll prob’ly die poor. Saddle up, kid, it’s time to ride.”
The horses, sensing water ahead, easily held a canter across the now dark, but still well lit, desert. It wasn’t long before both men saw the rolling shadows of the lava hills out ahead.
They watered the horses at a seep spring, then left them hobbled in a barranca. Josh had watched Bill pocket some charred wood from their cooking fire. Now he realized why as Bill used it to smudge both their faces.
“Bright moon tonight,” he explained. “This’ll cut reflection.”
Bill took his Winchester, filling his shirt pocket with extra rounds. “We’ll move in on foot until we hit the slope,” he said. “From there it’s a low crawl the rest of the way. Cover will be scarce, but stick as close to me as you can—I’ve got the rifle. The plan is simple: I mean to shoot at the first target of opportunity.”
