by Ralph Cotton
Will Summers’ eyes scanned the ridgeline above the western edge of Punta Del Sol, where the sunlight had not reached the long black holes of shadow across the breast of the hillside. “Don’t discount the schoolmaster,” he said. “Something must have gone wrong for him back there—who knows what it was. Maybe he saw he couldn’t warn us before they got to us. If that’s the case, he might’ve saved our lives letting us get caught in our sleep. Whatever it was, I’ll wager my life he’ll be back in this game before it’s over. Schoolmaster’s the kind of man who has to make things right. Nothing else will do for him. He’s a true hero, that schoolmaster. Count on him to always do what a hero does.”
“I sure hope you’re right about him, Summers,” said Lawrence Teasdale, trudging along without missing a step. He spit dryly through parched lips and did not bother rubbing a hand across his mouth.
Along the boardwalk out front of the cantina, Summers, Webb and Teasdale saw an old man leaning to one side on his cane. Hector Roderio shook his head, looking back and forth, first at Sergeant Hervisu’s patrol with its three ragtag prisoners, then at the half-naked outlaws who spilled blindly through the doors of the cantina and were jostled into a loose line to be herded off to the old Spanish mission.
Chapter 21
In the home of Juan Richards, Captain Oberiske stood with the empty feed bag hanging from his right hand, his left hand clasped firmly over his nose and mouth. On the floor, the two outlaws’ heads lay amid chips of dried mud that had flaked and broken off when Oberiske shook them from the sack. “What kind of men are these?” he whispered in awe. “How do they live? How do they think? What in God’s name makes them do something like this?”
Sergeant Hector Hervisu and old Hector Roderio looked at one another, then stared back down at the heads. Hector Roderio tapped his cane on the wooden floor. “I think you would be wise to kill these men and be done with them, Señor Capitán. No good is served by these men remaining alive.”
Captain Oberiske ignored Roderio and looked to Sergeant Hector Hervisu for an answer. But Hervisu only shrugged. “I have seen this means of bounty hunting many times, Capitán. Is it any different than a man who takes the pelt of a mountain cat or a wolf for the reward?”
“Oh yes, indeed. I dare say there is a difference!” Captain Oberiske replied strongly. “It is not the taking of these outlaws’ heads for reward that I find profane. It is the very act of chopping off heads, for any reason! Perhaps you must come from an older, more civilized race in order to recognize the inhumanity of such a deed.”
“Sí, that must be it,” Hervisu said, relenting to his superior officer. “My people still have much to learn. Lucky for us we have people like you to teach us.”
Hearing Sergeant Hervisu, Cherokee Rhodes stifled a short laugh and cleared his throat. He had wheeled Juan Richards to the Spanish mission, then returned to the hacienda with Sergeant Hervisu, carrying the feed sack with its gruesome contents. “Yep, I think you’re both right,” he said quickly, making sure Captain Oberiske heard the gravity in his voice.
Oberiske turned to a guard by the front door and said, “Remove these—these hideous things!” He brushed his hand through the air as if sweeping the heads out the door. “Have them burnt and disposed of in some—”
“Whoa!” said Cherokee Rhodes, cutting in. “Begging your pardon, Captain…but I put a stick to the dirt on this thing and did myself some serious figuring. There’s a few hundred dollars on these heads alone. It turns into several thousand if I can put some more of the Peltry Gang with them, especially Goose and Moses themselves. I don’t know how much that sounds like to you in Germany money, but in good ole American it’s a whole bunch, let me tell you!”
Captain Oberiske just stared at Cherokee Rhodes blankly for a moment. Then he batted his eyes as if to clear his head and make sure he’d heard correctly. “What did you say? Did you say several thousand?”
“That’s right, Captain,” said Rhodes. “It took me a minute or two for it to sink in when I first heard it, but there it is. There’s big money in dead outlaws! Will Summers saw a good thing and jumped right on it. Soon as I saw it, I did the same.” He nodded at the two grisly, mud-packed heads on the floor and said, “I know that machine rifle is mighty important to you, but surely we can work something out between us on all this bounty money, can’t we?”
Captain Oberiske didn’t answer. Instead, he slapped the riding quirt against the side of his leg and said, “We will soon close the subject on the machine rifle for good. Either these men will give it up, or we will begin killing them one at a time, every hour on the hour until they do.” He turned haughtily and walked out the door.
In a large stone-walled wine cellar beneath the old Spanish mission, Will Summers, Abner Webb and Sergeant Lawrence Teasdale huddled together in a dark corner as the armed Federales shoved more and more of the Peltry Gang down the wide wooden stairs. Most of the outlaws were still in a drugged stupor, barely able to stand on their own, the powerful combination of peyote and alcohol still singing frantically inside their ragged heads. They only cast passing glances at the three possemen as they took in their new surroundings. Then they crawled off to their own spots along the stone walls as one of the guards walked down the stairs with several sets of ankle chains draped over his shoulder.
“What the hell is that for?” Dog Belly Kelso growled drunkenly at the young soldier who bent down and dropped a pair of ankle chains at his feet. From his spot in the dark corner, Will Summers took note of the key the young soldier took from his waist belt to unlock the cuffs on the end of the two-foot chain. Gigging Abner Webb with his elbow, Summers whispered to him and Teasdale, “Keep an eye on the one with the key—he’ll be our way out of here.”
Webb and Teasdale nodded, already honed in on the young soldier.
“This is to keep you from getting shot should you try to break free and run away, amigo,” the young soldier said to Dog Belly. He shoved the key back down into his belt, grabbed Dog Belly’s bare feet and cuffed them quickly, before Kelso had a chance to think about it and offer resistance. Atop the wide stairs, three armed Federales watched over the young soldier with their rifles at port arms, their thumbs poised over the rifle hammers.
Will Summers’ eye moved from face to face along the row of handcuffed outlaws lined along the stone wall. He said their names silently to himself, sorting out the ones he’d seen on the wanted posters. “There sits our bounty money, Deputy,” he whispered to Abner Webb.
Webb nodded, his eyes still fixed on the young soldier and the key to their freedom. “To tell the truth, I’ve forgotten all about the bounty money, Summers. I just don’t want to end up dead down here.”
“Neither do I,” whispered Sergeant Teasdale. “To hell with the reward, and the Gatling gun too. All I can think about is staying alive.” He shot a quick glance around Webb to Summers. “Think we’ll really get any help from that schoolmaster? Or is he hightailing it back to the border about now?”
“He’ll be back for us,” Summers whispered confidently. “It’s the only thing he’ll allow himself to do.”
Against the wall next to Dog Belly sat Brayton “Comanche Killer” Cane, Big Catt, Pip Magger and Cap Whitlow, the four dressed only in their trousers, having lost their boots, hats and shooting gear. Across the narrow hall, facing them in the same condition, sat Thurman Anderson, Roscoe Moore and Bert Smitson. As the young soldier moved from Kelso to Pip Magger, the big outlaw drew his feet up away from the set of ankle chains. “I’ve never let another living human being touch my bare feet, and I never will,” Pip Magger hissed, his eyes aswirl on peyote and mescal. He clenched his already cuffed hands into fists and snarled at the young soldier.
“I understand,” said the young soldier, jerking his hands back from Magger’s dirty ankles. He shrugged, pulled a pistol from beneath the safety flap on his holster and shot Magger squarely in the forehead.
“Lord have mercy!” Comanche Killer Cane bellowed, sitting next to Pip
Magger, Magger’s blood stinging his drunken face. The bullet had gone through Pip Magger’s head and thumped flat against the stone wall. A great rosette of blood, brain and bone matter spun out, showering the rest of the men. “You didn’t have to splatter that fool all over me, did you, Peewee!”
“Pee-wee, señor?” The young soldier turned the smoking pistol to Comanche Killer’s face.
“It’s just a figure of speech, boy,” said Cane, raising his cuffed hands chest-high in a show of submission. “Nothing to get in an uproar about.” Blood and brain matter ran down and dripped from Cane’s face.
The young soldier’s face and voice took on a sharp edge as he fanned the pistol slowly from face to face along the wall. “Does anybody else object to me touching his bare feet?” The pistol made its rounds from man to man, then aimed back at Comanche Killer Cane as if expecting an answer for the group.
“Well, hell no, we don’t mind you touching our feet,” said Cane, giving a low, drunken laugh. “The truth is, neither did that ole boy.” He nodded at the slumped head of Pip Magger next to him. “He was just drunk and confused…mistook his bare feet for another part of himself, I reckon.”
“Make no mistake, any of you,” the soldier said, raising his voice for everyone’s benefit. “I will put a bullet in any man who hampers my job.” He slowly lowered the pistol and holstered it, then went back to his task with the ankle chains.
“So there’s that,” said Comanche Killer Cane, still laughing under his breath. The soldier looked at him and shook his head in disgust, realizing the outlaw was still under the influence of the peyote.
Down along the wall, Goose Peltry had been passed out ever since the soldiers had peeled him up off the floor of the cantina. But now the gunshot caused him to raise his face from the cool dirt floor and rub his blurry eyes. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked, looking across the dirt floor at the dark corner where Will Summers, Abner Webb and Lawrence Teasdale sat staring at him.
“You’re a prisoner of the Mexican government, Goose,” Will Summers said flatly. “We all are.”
Goose looked all around, rubbing his face, having a hard time understanding. Then he tried harder to focus and said, “Will Summers? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Howdy, Goose,” Summers responded.
Goose squinted, then opened his eyes as he recalled the events of the past week. “You’re the ones been trailing us all the way from Rileyville, ain’t yas?”
“Yep” said Summers. He nodded toward Abner Webb. “This is the deputy you and your men shamed in front of the whole town.”
Webb seethed, then said, “Remember me, you rotten sonsabitch?” He leaned slightly forward, but Summers blocked him back with his forearm.
“This is Sergeant Teasdale,” said Summers, nodding toward the other side of Webb. “He’s the one you stole the Gatling gun from.”
“Really now?” Goose gave Webb and Teasdale a hard stare, feeling the peyote and mescal loosen its grip on his brain a little. “I suppose the two of you can’t wait to settle up with me?”
“That’s right,” said Teasdale. “The only thing keeping you alive is circumstance, Goose. The minute that changes, you’re dead.”
“Says who?” came the gruff voice of Comanche Killer Cane from the other end of the wall. “Just cause we’re prisoners, don’t go thinking we won’t kill you.”
“You heard him,” said Goose Peltry to Teasdale. “You’re just as outnumbered here as you was out there.”
“That won’t be for long, Goose,” said Summers. “The way I figure, you either got to tell these boys where the machine rifle is, or they start trimming down your numbers for you.”
“Me?” Goose looked confused. “I don’t know where it’s at. Last I knew, either you or the Federales had it.”
“You better hope you can sell them on that story, Goose,” said Summers. “Otherwise you’re cooked.”
“Real funny, Summers,” Goose sneered. He looked back and forth along the wall where he lay, seeing the faces of his men and Doc Murdock’s scalp hunters. “Where’s my brother and Murdock?” he asked.
“We saw Moses being led out of the big hacienda on our way over here,” said Comanche Killer Cane. “I ain’t seen Doc Murdock since late last night when he left the cantina with that Mexican woman. I hope they haven’t bushwhacked him. You know they killed poor Flat Face Chinn and Handy Phelps…shot them down in the cantina a while ago, these dirty, rotten poltroons.”
“It’s been a rough night on all of us. They’ll be missed,” Goose said. Then, keeping his voice lowered, casting a glance toward the young soldier as he worked his way along the wall from one man to the next, Goose said to Will Summers, “You know it weren’t nothing personal against you, Summers, what happened back in Rileyville, We just needed horses awfully bad…and damned if you didn’t take off with the best ones in town.”
“So you tried burning the whole town down because of it,” said Summers. “Shame on you, Goose. Imagine how that made me feel. Hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t have come looking for you, bounty money or no bounty money. I’ve got better things to do than to chase a bunch of misfits who don’t have enough sense to know the war’s over.”
Goose started to say something more, but the door at the top of the stairs opened and three soldiers walked down to the cellar, escorting a naked Moses Peltry between them. At the bottom of the stairs, Moses stopped and stood as the young soldier hurried over and threw a pair of dirty striped trousers against his chest. “Here, put these on,” the soldier commanded.
Moses stepped into the trousers, pulled them up and gathered them at his waist. Then the young guard bent down and clamped a set of ankle chains on him. When the soldier stood up and backed away, Moses looked along the faces of his half-naked men and said, “If any of us make it out of this alive, remember this. Cherokee Rhodes is the man who set us up and sold us out. He told me so himself.”
“Against the wall with you, outlaw,” said one of the guards, giving Moses Peltry a shove from behind. The guards turned as one and walked back up the stairs, except for the one still clamping chains on the prisoners’ ankles.
“Come down here with me, Moses,” said Goose, waving his brother toward him.
Moses Peltry looked down at the body of Pip Magger without changing his cold expression, then walked barefoot to where Goose had pushed himself up and stood against the wall. The men murmured greetings to Moses as he passed by. When he joined his brother, he stopped at the sight of Will Summers standing against the opposite wall and staring at him.
“Will Summers….” Moses looked him up and down. “Rhodes told me it was you back there dogging us. You never should have trusted that half-breed any more than I should.”
“Who said we trusted him?” Summers replied. “He said he knew your stomping ground.”
“Yeah,” said Moses. “He said you was after the bounty on everybody’s head. I never knew you to go out for that kind of money, Summers.”
“You burnt Rileyville in my name, Moses.” Will Summers returned Moses Peltry’s harsh stare. “Whatever made you think I’d stand still for that?”
“Call it the heat of the moment,” said Moses. A tense silence passed, then he said quietly, “Any reason we can’t call a truce for a while…just to see what it’s going to take to get us out of this mess?”
“Why not?” Will Summers shrugged. “But it won’t change anything once we’re out of here.”
“That sounds fair enough to me,” said Moses. “I never wanted any trouble with you anyway.” He looked at Abner Webb. “You’re that deputy from Rileyville, ain’t you?”
“Yep,” Webb said, tight-lipped.
“And you?” said Moses, looking at Sergeant Teasdale. “How do you play into all this?”
“I was with the army patrol you and your men bushwhacked,” said Teasdale. “As far as I’m concerned, you and I can go at it tooth and nail right now.” He nodded toward Will Summers. “But if he calls a tr
uce, I’ll honor it as long as the next man does.”
“Wait a minute, brother Moses!” said Goose, also gesturing toward Will Summers. “You can’t trust this damn horse trader! He’s part of the reason we’re trapped here…dogging our trail the way he has.”
“What do you want to do, brother Goose?” Moses demanded, squeezing both hands around his long beard. “You want to start fighting here and now like this Yankee soldier said?”
“It beats belly-crawling,” said Goose.
“Belly-crawling?” Moses Peltry shook his head and said to Will Summers, “See what I have to deal with?” Then, turning back to Goose, he said, “You never know when to keep your mouth shut, do you? When you’ve lost everything you’ve got, all the way down to your bare ass, it’s time to stop and look at every possibility!”
“Never thought I’d see the day we’d have a truce with a Yankee, a lawman and a horse trader,” Goose mumbled. He hung his head and looked down at the floor.
Will Summers said to Goose, “All we’re talking about is trying to stay alive until we get out of here.”
“So shut up and pay attention,” Moses cut in. “What do you have in mind, Summers?”
Will Summers looked along the hall to where the soldier was still busy clamping ankle cuffs on the rest of the men. Keeping his voice lowered, Summers said, “It’s plain enough what these soldiers want. They want the machine rifle. The sergeant said they were going to start killing us if you don’t give it to them.”
“We don’t have it,” said Moses. “I figured you’ve got it.”
“It doesn’t matter which of us has it. We’ve got to keep them from knowing. Once they get their hands on that gun, there’s no reason to keep us alive. We’ve got to keep them guessing which of us has it for a while.”
“For a while?” Moses gave him a questioning look. “Are you expecting some company, Summers?”
“Maybe,” said Summers. “But I’m not saying when or how many, so don’t even ask. But when the right time comes, I’ll need you and your men ready to make a move with us. We all bust out of here together.”
