by Ralph Cotton
“I’m taking this horse,” Harper declared. He grabbed the loose reins to Lyle’s horse. “You Cady brothers got anything to say about it?”
Lyle scrambled to his feet but made sure he kept his hand away from his holstered revolver.
“This ain’t right, Harper—!” he managed to say before Harper’s thumb and fingers clamped tightly on his nose and yanked him forward.
“Ain’t right?” Harper sneered. “I’ll tell you what ain’t right! My horse coming up lame ain’t right!” He squeezed Lyle’s already sore and damaged nose and shook his head back and forth roughly. “Me having to be broke out of a jail wagon ain’t right!”
“Please!” Lyle said with a nasal twang. Even in his pain he kept himself from going for his gun. That didn’t keep Harper from raising his Colt and poking the hard tip of the barrel against the side of Lyle’s head.
“Are you going to squawk about getting up there with your brother and riding double until we get to the relay station?”
“Huh-uh, I’m not,” said Lyle nasally, trying to shake his head.
Harper let go of Lyle’s nose and shoved him away. He kept his Colt raised and looked at the men who sat watching atop their horses.
“They’re brothers. It’s the only natural way to do this,” he said, justifying himself. A cruel grin came to his lips. “Besides, these Cady brothers sooner ride double with somebody any chance they get.”
Humiliated by both Harper’s action and the men’s round of laughter, Ignacio reached a hand down and helped lift his bother up behind him.
Seeing the end to the incident, Knapp sidled his horse over near Harper, who was now seated atop Lyle’s mount.
“We need to get moving,” he said. “That shot was heard by every white man and red heathen in the Sonora.”
Harper glared angrily at him for a moment. But then he caught himself and nodded and turned the horse and spoke over his shoulder.
“Let’s get moving, amigos,” he said, mocking Knapp. “That shot was heard by every white man and red heathen in the Sonora.” He gave Knapp a devilish lowered-brow stare and rode away.
Chapter 12
It was late evening when the Ranger found the dead horse lying in the dry wash with a bullet hole in its head. He had heard the faint report of the gunshot earlier as he and the horses waited out the heat. Now, seated atop the dun above the edge of the dry wash, he looked at the hoofprints leading off up the rocky creek bed. Their tracks had been leading almost straight to the border. Yet now, as before, their direction had to be altered to fit their need.
Someone among them was without a horse, he told himself. It would have to be replaced. Riding double was the last desperate form of travel for a gang of outlaws on the run. He thought of the Mexican relay station, and nudged the dun forward, the team horses sidling around him curiously, as if enjoying their desert adventure here without the restraint of wagon and human cargo strapped to their backs. One of the big horses pranced boldly, high-hoofed, and craned its neck out and nipped the bay on its rump as if to speed it up. Having none of it, the bay kicked its hind feet, barely missing the team horse’s muzzle. The team horse tried to bite again.
“Here, that’s enough of that,” the Ranger reprimanded, jerking the lead rope. “Set an example,” he said, eying the bay tied in front of the string. The bay galloped on, giving the big horse behind it little regard as all the horses settled and went back to negotiating the sand stirring beneath their hooves.
“That’s more like it,” Sam said sidelong to the string. He raised his bandanna up over the bridge of his nose against the fine roiling sand.
It was near midnight when Sam pulled the bandanna down again and stopped the horses atop a rise of moonlit sand. He looked down the dune into a wide basin at a dimmed lantern light glowing on a guide pole. The guide pole stood over twenty feet high out in front of the relay station to signal any Mexican land coaches lost on the endless sea of rock and sand.
Knowing the gunmen had ridden here to replace their dead horse, he first thought he would leave the string of horses here atop the dune. But knowing the reputation of the desert wolves in this area, he wasn’t going to risk it. He looked at the string in the shadowy moonlight. They stood tired, sweaty and quiet, done in from the day’s heat and the hard ride.
Here we go.
He nudged the dun forward, his Winchester across his lap, and led the string all the way up to an iron hitch rail beside a corral twenty yards from the plank and adobe building. Here he hitched the horse string and his dun as well. The tired horses lowered their heads as if knowing what was expected of them. Sam rubbed the dun’s muzzle and looked into the corral where two horses stood staring out at him and his hoofed charges. On the corral rail stood two well-worn saddles with empty rifle boots.
Interesting. . . .
He turned and walked away stealthily in the darkness, to where the glow of a single candle showed dimly through an open window. He heard a drunken voice from inside the open window as he drew nearer. Lowering into a crouch, he continued on until he stood beneath the window ledge, listening.
“I’ll tell you where it all went to hell,” said the thick drunken voice. “We both shoulda made a stand when Knapp killed poor ol’ Seamus Gore. I never saw a man take any guff but what he had to take it from then on—else until he split a skull or two.”
“Forget all the skull splitting, Coco. It’s too late,” said another drunken voice, its owner equally liquored up, “Have you noted that we still ain’t been paid one dollar, not even for bringing the horses?”
“Noted it?” said the first voice. “I have noted it, Jake. I have not only noted it, I’ve been able to think of little else.”
There came a silent pause as Sam pictured a bottle being raised, swigged and lowered. A whiskey hiss followed. “Now it’s us getting blamed every time one of these cayuse plugs falters out on us,” the first voice concluded.
Sam ran the names they’d used, Jake, Coco and Seamus Gore, through his mind. Coco was not a commonly used name. Coco Bour was all he could come up with. Which made sense, he decided, knowing Coco Bour rode with a mean-tempered brawler gunman named Seamus Gore. Jake . . . ? He wasn’t sure of him. But he was ready to find out.
He had started to raise himself up to the window ledge when he froze, feeling someone grip his leg. Looking down slowly, he saw the sleeve of a Mexican federale uniform. He heard a raspy whisper.
“Señor, por favor . . . ,” the voice said, fading away. Sam stooped down and saw a wounded soldier lying between the wall and a large rain barrel. Hearing the soldier try to speak again, he quickly clamped a hand over his mouth, reached in and dragged him fifteen feet away from the building. He leaned the bloody man against a water trough and stooped down again. The man’s dark eyes tried to focus on the badge on Sam’s chest.
“They took . . . all of our horses,” he said in the weak pained voice. “They killed me. . . .”
“Shh, take it easy,” Sam said, opening the soldier’s tunic and shirt and seeing the bloody belly wound. “You’re hit, but you’re going to be all right.” He took a wide bandanna from around the wounded man’s neck, wadded it and placed it against the bullet hole, adjusting the soldier so his hand lay on top of it.
“Be all right . . . ?” he said, sounding as if the possibility hadn’t occurred to him. He looked down at the bandanna, then back at the Ranger. “Who are you, señor?”
“I’m Ranger Sam Burrack,” Sam said. “I’m tracking these men. Who all is in there?”
“Two of them,” the soldier said, his voice sounding strengthened by hope, no matter how slim. “A hostler, his daughter, y su nieto.” He reverted to his native tongue.
“A hostler, his daughter and grandson,” Sam translated. “Anybody else?” He glanced back at the window as one drunken voice shouted, and both voices laughed raucously.
The soldier only
shook his bowed head. He started coughing deeply. Sam tried to quiet him, but it was too late.
“The hell’s that?” a drunken voice said inside. “I hope that greaser you shot and threw out ain’t still alive.”
“Not a chance,” the other voice said. “If the bullet didn’t kill him, I threw him far enough to break his neck.”
Sam laid the soldier flat out of sight and hurried back to the building. He slid to a halt beneath the open window. He huddled low, hearing boots walk across a wooden floor to the window. He looked up and saw a man lean forward out the window and stare straight down at him.
“Who—!” He tried to speak, but before he could, Sam sprang up, grabbed him by his beard and yanked him down out of the window. The gunman hit the ground hard, his breath blasting from his chest. But there was more coming. As he tried to right himself, catch his breath and push up to his feet, the Ranger’s rifle butt swung around hard and knocked his head sidelong. The man’s head slung back and forth with the impact as if on oiled hinges. Then he fell flat and didn’t move.
“Coco, what’re you doing? What’s going on out there?” the other voice called out.
Sam heard the sound of a rifle levering. Thinking of the hostler, his daughter and his grandson inside, he hurried away from the knocked-out gunman and quickly circled the building toward the front door. As he jerked the door open, he heard the gunman inside call out through the window.
“Coco? Hey, Coco? Who’s out there?” Jake Testa shouted out into the night. “Somebody better tell me something here. I’m going to start shooting!”
Standing in the open doorway, the Ranger saw the gunman leaning out the window the same as his partner had done. Looking around quickly, Sam saw the frightened eyes of a young woman holding a child tight against her. An elderly man reached out and wrapped his arms around both of them and pulled them away to a far corner, seeing what was about to happen.
Sam drew his Colt and cocked it. He held his rifle in his left hand now, taking it out of play here in these close quarters.
The gunman in the window turned around, angry and cursing for not having received a reply from outside.
“Son of a bi—” he said, his words stopping short as he saw the Ranger standing with the big Colt out, cocked and pointed at him.
“Jake,” Sam said quietly, hoping not to have a shooting break out around the three innocent people in the dark corner. “I figured that was you.”
“Me what?” Jake asked, in a drunken belligerent tone. He raised his gun, ready to do battle.
But Sam saw it coming and brought it to a quick ending. His Colt barked three times before Jake could get a shot off. Each bullet pounded Jake in his chest, shoved him backward until the third shot sent him flying out the window. Before he hit the ground his gun blazed a wild shot into the darkness. Sam stood poised and ready, smelling the burnt powder wafting around him in the small room, hearing the echo of the shots fall away off the edge of the earth. A tight silence wrapped around him. Breaking the silence, he turned to the three people huddled in the corner.
“Everybody all right?” he asked quietly.
“Sí, we are, with many thanks to you for making it so,” said the old hostler.
“Good,” said the Ranger. “There’s a soldier outside that needs lots of help if he’s going to live.”
“Jorge is still alive?” The young woman gasped as if in disbelief. She and the young boy hurried out to the yard.
“He was here to see my daughter when these men arrived,” said the old hostler.
“Can you get him somewhere for medical treatment?” the Ranger asked. “He needs to ride flat, in a wagon.”
“They take all of our wagon horses,” the old hostler said. He looked worried for the young soldier.
“I can help you there,” Sam said. “I have four wagon horses with me, rested and ready to go.”
The old man looked astonished.
“Come, help me,” Sam said. “We’ve got plenty to do before daylight.”
• • •
In the silver-gray hour before dawn, the Ranger and the old holster, who told the Ranger his name was Metosso, had rolled a spare land coach out of a barn and hitched the four team horses to it. Sam walked into the building and brought Coco Bour out with his hands cuffed in front of him. Bour staggered to the land coach, still not recovered from the hard blow he’d taken from the rifle butt.
“You’ll never . . . take me alive,” he said, half-drunk, half in a knockout stupor.
“Careful what you say, Coco,” Sam said. “I can fix that with one shot.” He righted the gunman and nudged him toward the coach as Bour started to wander off course.
“You—you killed my pard, Jake Testa?” Coco asked, thick-mouthed.
“I did,” Sam said. Two more down, six to go, he reminded himself.
“Well, don’t go thinking that bothers me any,” said Coco Bour, taking on a tough tone. “Far as I’m concerned, you can kill all of them—two of them are the Cady brothers. No loss to anybody there.”
“We’ll see how it goes,” Sam said. He gestured toward the ground at the edge of the corral rail. “Sit down there while we get this rig ready to roll.”
The old hostler busily hitched the four wagon horses to the ornately fringed and decorated Mexican land coach.
“You ain’t riding me in that whorehouse hearse, are you?” Coco asked, eying the coach critically.
“No,” Sam said, “the couch is headed a different direction. You and I are riding to Fort Hamlin.”
“Riding on what, might I ask?” Coco asked in a drunken huff, the whiskey finally overtaking the blow to his head. He jerked his sore head toward the two horses in the corral. “Those cayuses of mine and Jake are done for. That’s why we got left here.”
“I’ve got a good horse for you,” the Ranger said, referring to the rested bay.
“You do?” Coco asked, amazed. Upon hearing Sam, the old hostler looked around too, he himself a little surprised at the Ranger’s ample resources.
“You provide transportation these days?” Coco Bour asked. “Had Jake known that, like as not he might still be alive. We figured we were stuck here. Do you happen to carry a change of socks?”
“Don’t push it, Coco,” Sam said. “If I didn’t have to fool with taking you to Fort Hamlin, I’d be right back on their trail this morning.”
Coco’s voice turned crafty; he offered a thin smile, even as he held a cuffed hand to his throbbing head.
“Oh . . . ,” he said. “Well, what if I told you a few things you need to know, and in turn you just slip these ol’ cuffs off and send me on my way?”
“Things I need to know, like what?” Sam asked.
“Huh-uh,” said Coco, “first tell me if we have a deal.”
“Like what, Coco?” the Ranger insisted. “I’m not going to ask you again.”
“Okay, then. Like who hired Jake and me to help spring Harper—” Coco said.
“That would be Charlie Knapp,” Sam said, almost before the gunman got the words out. “Charlie Knapp is Edsel Centrila’s top hired gun, so that means Centrila is behind it.”
That stopped Bour. He stalled for a second.
“Oh yeah . . . ? But where is it they’re going?” he asked, undeterred.
“To Big Silver,” Sam replied quickly, without having to give the matter so much as a thought. “My hunch is, the Centrilas both want Sheriff Stone dead.”
“They do?” Bour replied, looking genuinely surprised and curious. “Why is that?”
Sam just looked at him.
“Do you have information I can use, or not?” he asked. “I’m not wasting time with you.”
“Well, pardon the hell out of me, Ranger,” Bour said with contempt. “Here’s something I guaran-damn-tee you don’t know! I once threw a man off a bridge in Missouri. Nobod
y—I mean nobody—has ever known that but me! How’s that for information?”
“That’s good, Coco,” Sam said. “It’s not something I can use, but I’ll pass it along, make sure the judge hears about it. Anything else you want to confess?”
“Confess!” said Coco, rising to his feet. “I wasn’t confessing nothing! I’m trying to trade information—get you to turn me loose, is all!”
“I’m not turning you loose, Coco,” Sam said. “Keep talking, though. Confession’s good for the soul. You’ll likely hang as it is, for killing Ernest Shule and Curly Ed Townsend.”
Bour looked ill and sank back to the ground.
“Try to help a law dog, this is the thanks . . . ,” he mumbled to himself, shaking his sore head.
Sam took one of the saddles down from the corral rail for the bay. He turned to the old hostler. Two revolvers stuck up from the old man’s waist, one that belonged to Jake Testa, the other, Coco Bour.
“Are you folks going to be all right getting Jorge to the mission?” he asked.
“Sí, we will be,” said Metosso. He patted one of the revolver butts. “And so will Jorge.”
“All right, then,” Sam said. “I’ll tell them at Fort Hamlin that you’ll be bringing their horses when you’re done.”
The Mexican nodded.
“They know me at Fort Hamlin. Tell them I will be there straightaway, por favor.”
“I’ll tell them,” Sam said. He stepped back, the saddle on his shoulder, and said to Coco Bour, “On your feet.” He watched Bour struggle to his feet and stand weaving in place. Then he gave him a starting nudge toward the bay and the dun standing hitched inside the corral rails. “Any other confessions you want to make, you can do so while we’re riding,” he said. “Otherwise keep your mouth shut.”
Bour walked on in silence, his cuffed hands dangling at his waist.
Chapter 13
Oscar White stepped off the boardwalk out in front of his barred office when he saw the Ranger ride out of the wavering desert heat onto the street. Townsfolk began to gather. They stood watching as the Ranger and his copper dun followed Coco Bour on the bay. Both horses were sweaty and white-frothed from their trek across the last stretch of sand flats leading to Fort Hamlin.
