Trail to Cottonwood Falls

by Ralph Compton

  “Lonzo Alvarez and his brother Quatro.”

  “They got girls in there?”

  “I don’t know. They have many girls.”

  “Where were you going with my horses?”

  “Mexico.”

  Ed shoved him facedown and soon had his hands tied behind his back. Unita handed him a gag. He nodded and bent over to put it on his prisoner. Soon Tigre and Blondie were on the ground, facedown, gagged, and their feet tied up so they couldn’t run off. Ed slipped on Tigre’s cartridge belt and a Colt that had been refitted to take .44 brass cartridges. He checked the loads in it and, satisfied, replaced it on his hip.

  He took off and gave Unita the holster for the Army .44. “Now get that shotgun, and if one of them busts out those front doors shooting, blow him to kingdom come.”

  She nodded that she understood. “Where are you going?”

  “Inside to roust them up.” In the twilight he read the upset his words written on her face.

  “Is that smart?” she asked.

  “I call that fighting on my ground. Out here is their’s.”

  “They come outside shooting, they’re in my sights,” she said.

  “Good deal.” He set out across the starlit bare ground to the porch of the saloon, where yellow light streamed from around the batwing doors. With his hand, he tried the Colt in his new holster. It worked easy enough, and fit his grip. His eyes on the double doors and the glare, he reached the porch and stepped up, letting his eyes adjust to the brightness of smoke-clouded candlelight.

  He pushed inside the doors, drawing many cold stares from customers sitting around the room. At the almost empty bar, he took a place and ordered some pulque. The bartender brought him a large pottery cup of it and nodded. “Ten centavos.”

  “Which ones are the Alvarez brothers?” he asked in a soft voice, holding a silver dollar and the tencentavo piece.

  The bartender shook his head. “I know no Alvarez in here.”

  “Take your dime and go to the far end. Where’s your shotgun?”

  “I don’t have—”

  “Sumbitch, put it on the counter right up here.” Ed used his finger to point at the place on the scarred wood in front of him. “Or you’ll be the first to die.”

  The man swallowed and nodded. He used both hands to carefully place a sawed-off Greener on the bar. “What else?”

  “Them boys upstairs?” Ed gave a head toss toward them.

  The bartender froze for a long second, then nodded.

  The first shot would extinguish the candlelight and plunge the saloon into darkness. Ed wanted the Alvarez brothers out in the open so that he had a clear shot at them when the light quit. Maybe if he went up there on the second landing. The half-dozen men in the cantina looked uneasy, like they were ready to get up and run before the shooting started.

  When Ed took the sawed-off shotgun off the bar, they started scraping chairs and getting up. Even the inebriated ones looked sober enough to obey him. He pointed at the rear door with a “be quiet” under his breath. Head nods accompanied their retreat, and soon he and the barkeep were all that were left downstairs.

  Ed considered the staircase and the landing rail above the back half of the building, seeing a row of a half-dozen shut doors. Which ones contained the brothers? He met the barkeep’s gaze and pointed with his left index finger.

  The man looked up at the floor above his head and shrugged. Then he held up two digits and pointed above him. Second on the left—if he wasn’t lying. A consideration that Ed considered as a major factor. He put a boot sole on the worn pine board step and started up. The short shotgun was in his hands, loaded, cocked, and ready. He could hear the laughter of a man, the bold, brazen laughter of someone extracting cruel pleasure from a weaker individual. Mad laughter, and as far as Ed could tell it was from the fourth room from the left as he reached eye level with the second floor.

  The rightmost door opened, and Ed swung the gun’s muzzle menacingly at a wide-eyed man who dropped back in shock at the sight of Ed and the shotgun.

  A finger to Ed’s lips and the man nodded, looked relieved, and shut the door. With his heart pounding like a trip-hammer, Ed drew a deep breath to settle himself. He moved to the wall and then began to shout, “Alvarez! Alvarez! The horses!”

  “What is that?” a voice shouted.

  “Quatro, see about them!” came the order from the middle room. “Someone is stealing the damn horses.”

  Door two opened and a half-dressed, swarthy-faced man emerged cursing with a six-gun in his hand. Ed aimed between the two barrel humps, squeezed the trigger and the lights went out with the billowing black powder. His shot silenced the man’s cursing. A second door opened and a dark figure’s six-gun began blazing with orange flame. Ed’s remaining barrel of shot struck him in the chest and took him down. Shrill screaming from the doves in the rooms hurt Ed’s ears, already ringing from the percussion of all the shots

  After not seeing any movement from either man in the darkness, he shook his head and started down the stairs. They were on their way to hell, and he’d opened the door. At the bar he set the gun down, then tossed a ten-dollar gold piece on the bar. “Two bottles of something. The rest is to bury them.”

  The man had lit a candle. The flickering glow shone on the bartender’s pale-as-a-ghost face. He brought the bottles and set them on the bar. Then he nodded and faded back to his corner like an obedient dog. Ed took the bottles by the necks and started for the door. He stopped in the doorway and then parted the wings.

  “It’s me,” he said, loud enough for Unita to hear him.

  Across the street, she handed Ramon the shotgun and hurried to meet him in the starlight.

  “You all right?” she asked, falling in beside him.

  “I’m fine,” he said, never breaking his stride. “No one else was hurt.”

  “How—how did it go in there? We heard the shots—”

  “They’re dead.”

  “What about those two at the corral?”

  “I been thinking we’ll take that captive boy with us.”

  “The breed?”

  He merely nodded and went on. “We’ll saddle all their horses and take them back with us. They won’t need them. Probably stolen anyhow. Ramon started saddling them.”

  At the corral, he roughly jerked Blondie up by the arm and tore the gag off of him. “You a rustler?”

  The youth shook his head and looked bug-eyed at him in the starlight.

  “Who are you?” Ed shook him hard.

  The boy managed to give him some guttural-sounding combination that made no sense, nor could Ed have repeated it. “Your name Blondie?”

  Wide-eyed, he nodded. Fear made him quake all over.

  “You will get one chance.” He waved his index finger in Blondie’s face. “One chance to live. You savvy one?”

  “Sίί.”

  “You go help Ramon saddle them horses and help us drive them back. You do one bad thing or run off . . .” Ed drew the side of his hand across his throat. “You savvy?”

  “Sίί, sίί, me work hard.”

  He spun him around and cut him loose. Then he turned to Unita. “Alvarez may have friends around here. I want the three of you to drive the horses north to Juan’s tonight. Rest there and I’ll join you there.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Make certain they don’t follow us and try to take those horses back.”

  “But Alvarez is dead, isn’t he?”

  “Will you do as I say?”

  “Yes.” She turned on her heel and went to the corral.

  He came behind her and went in the gate, closing it behind himself. Holding out his hand he went through the horses, talking softly until he saw a light-colored head bob at him.

  “Ten Bears,” he said softly.

  Blowing rollers out his nose, the big horse acted ready to break and run. Instead, he held his ground and acted uncertain, nickering softly. Ed eased himself up close and to
uched his neck. His soft words soothing the tense horse, he soon clapped him on the neck, wishing this night was over.

  “He must know you,” Unita said from the corral fencing.

  “I don’t know if he does or not. He’s simply a good horse. No telling how many buffalo he carried his past owners in close enough to shoot.”

  “He’s light-colored.”

  Ed nodded, busy rubbing the horse’s poll and face. “He’s almost white now. He was more a red roan when I got him. Boys, get the horses saddled, and you three can ride on.”

  “I don’t understand why we—”

  Ed shook his head at her and started back. “I don’t want to be followed.”

  “What about the one tied up here?” she asked, stepping off the rails.

  “I’ll handle him too.”

  “Meet you at Juan’s?”

  “I’ll be along. If I don’t show up in a couple of days, go on home.”

  In thirty minutes they left with all the horses. Ed noticed that Blondie made a hand at helping Ramon and this eased his mind about giving the youth a chance. In the saddle, Unita looked down at him, shook her head in disapproval, and rode after them with a soft, “Be careful.”

  Half sick to his stomach, he listened to Ten Bears’s coarse whinny in the distance. The squeal of some mare he’d bitten to make her stay in the herd shattered the darkness, and the hoofbeats soon disappeared in the night.

  Cap’n Jack had said never to leave behind anyone that you’d simply have to track down again. Made no sense to let them go and have to spend more precious time redoing the same business all over again. When they tracked down horse thieves, they only brought the horses back. They drew cards from a worn-out deck. High cards meant you were the executioner, or one of them.

  The condemned had been caught red-handed—no doubt about their guilt. And except for two young boys, about like Blondie, they released and sent home in two different cases, they tied the rustlers up, made them get on their knees, and then, after letting them make peace with their maker, shot them in the back of the head. Ed knew in this case he had drawn the ace. Didn’t make it any easier.

  There’d been two young cowboys who stole a handful of ranch horses on a spree—probably drunk—and his ranger company had tracked them down. He never forgot the freckle-faced one of the pair of boys. He was maybe eighteen, and he asked Ed to send his Bible to his mother when Ed was getting ready to execute him.

  Ed didn’t know which was the worse part—executing him, or riding up to that homestead ten days later and handing the Bible to the woman who was hanging clothes on a line.

  She looked up sad-faced at him, the leather-bound black book in both her hands. “He ain’t coming home, is he?”

  “No, ma’am.” Ed had turned his horse around, too upset to stand another moment in her presence.

  He found one bottle he’d bought in the cantina and collapsed to a seat in the dust. His butt on the ground he watched people bring out the two bodies and toss them in a two-wheeled carreta. Several peered into the night in his direction, and then, with shrugs, they went back inside. At last, the wooden wheels squealing loudly, the dead were hauled away in the night.

  With his teeth, he removed the cork and tried the whiskey. Bad stuff, but he gagged some down.

  “Senor?”

  He turned and looked at the dark form of the tied-down Tigre, who had not said a word until then. “What?”

  “If you are going to kill me, be swift.”

  “You ever pray?”

  “Ah, what good is to pray? I can not go to heaven.”

  Ed nodded, considered the bottle, and then took another jolt from the neck. “You’re right, they probably won’t let you in up there.”

  “Right. I have killed many men.”

  “How many?”

  “All together?”

  “Yes. How many?”

  “Maybe ten?”

  “Ten, huh. How many women have you raped?”

  “Several, but I am ashamed of the time I raped a real little girl.”

  “So you have killed ten men and raped many women—even little girls?”

  “I was very drunk at the time.”

  No excuse in his book for such a vile act. Ed took another snort and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “How many horses have you rustled?”

  “Many—many.”

  “So if I shoot you, the world won’t be out much?”

  “I don’t savvy out much?”

  “You will.”

  Ed set the bottle down and dropped back on his hands behind his back to stare at the thousand stars. A few more drinks and he’d send his worthless piece of shit to hell. His eyes squeezed shut but he could still see the gun smoke cloud from the muzzle of his .44 and the jerk of Freckles’s thin shoulders before he spilled facedown in the dust. Ed had holstered his gun and stepped back. Freckles’s blood ran over scuffed boots twisting in the last throes of death, his horse-stealing pard likewise on the ground, still next to him, executed by ranger Jimmy Brown who was puking up his guts beside him. He could even smell the sourness of it. The damn Bible—the one he had promised to deliver—why did all this have to come back now?

  ’Cause he held the ace in this deal too.

  Chapter 8

  “Oh, Suzanna, don’t you cry for me. I’m coming from Alabama with a banjo on my knee—hello,” he sang to Unita, who’d come out to meet him. His eyes closed against the bright sun, he gripped the saddle horn in both hands. “See you made it.”

  She cut him a sharp look. “We were about to go back and find you.”

  He turned and looked at his back trail through the greasewood, and then twisted around to nod at her. “Nothing back there that you’d want.”

  She looked about ready to bust. He knew she would be mad about his drinking. What else could he expect? Then Juan came from another jacal, smiling and shouting hello at him.

  “Ah, mi amigo!” Ed shouted to him, grateful to have an excuse to ignore her motherly ways. “Oh, we can start home in the morning. Get us some sleep and rest here today.”

  Her blue eyes bored holes in him, but she kept it to herself as he dismounted and went to hug “his friend.” Damn, he felt uncomfortable under her scrutiny. So he was half drunk; that was his business. Besides, she didn’t have to live with the things he lived with in his head. If she had them, she’d drink too.

  “Ah. Amigo, you killed those bad hombres. No?”

  “Sίί, sίί, they are gone to burn in hell.”

  “Good place for them. You saved that yellow-headed one, huh?”

  “He was no killer.”

  Juan nodded and looked at the ground. “Maybe he lived too long with them Comanches?”

  “You figure so?” He went back to the roan horse and drew out a half-empty bottle of mescal.

  “Those red devils, they live on blood.”

  Ed nodded woodenly and held out the bottle to him. “He don’t act like that, does he?”

  Juan took the bottle with a sly smile. “You bring good stuff, amigo. I don’t know, but he must have lived with them for a long time. Some—” Juan held up the bottle as if appraising it. “Some of their bloody ways may have rubbed off.” He took a deep draft of it and then sighed deeply.

  “Mi amigo, that is good.” Juan’s head bobbed in approval. “This one, he may be like a half wolf-dog I once had. He was a good dog but he never really got over being a wolf either.”

  Ed indicated he’d heard the man. “I’ll watch him.”

  “You ate today?”

  “I don’t need anything.” Ed held out the bottle and looked hard at the remaining liquor in it. He had more in his saddlebags.

  “Come to the women and they will feed you.” Juan looked around and then lowered his voice. “Those bastards raped them when they came through here.”

  Ed nodded that he heard the man. No one would ever miss them. “I don’t need any food.”

  “No. Mi amigo, you must eat. Hey. Fix my
good amigo some food!” Juan shouted, and the women scurried to obey. He smiled hugely when Ed handed him back the bottle for another drink. “Gracias.”

  The next morning, they rode for home in the drizzle. Light, cold rain fell all morning. At noontime, when they reached the corrals and thatched hut they put the horses up and decided to wait out the rain. It was a good rain for winter oats, and this thirsty land always needed it. Still, the small fire on the floor felt good, and Unita cooked some sheep that Juan had donated to them under the roof of the ramada. Her meat broiling, she joined them, sitting in a circle wrapped in blankets against the chill.

  “What are your plans?” she asked Ed.

  “I guess I’ll go home.”

  “I still need you to take my cattle to Kansas.”

  Under his blanket, he hunched his shoulders and closed his eyes. “You can’t depend on me.”

  “If you’d show me the way even, I—I—”

  He looked over at her as if appraising her. “I suppose I could bury you.”

  “Ed Wright, everyone doesn’t die going to Kansas.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Plenty of good ones do.”

  “I’m willing to take my chances.” She didn’t look at him as she tossed some grass stems on the fire and it consumed them.

  “Trouble is, I ain’t.”

  “How will you know? You’ll be drinking.”

  “Right. I tried being dry and don’t like it.”

  “Will you hire me the hands?”

  Something on his neck itched, so he scratched it. “Ain’t many will work for a woman.”

  “I can’t help what I am. There must be some hands who will.”

  He chewed on his sun-crusted lower lip. “I bet there are. I just wanted you to know there’s going to be prejudice against you.”

  “There was when my husband went to war. I was even told by my own help to go to the house—once.” She raised her face and he saw the strength in her features. He’d have hated like hell to have been the one said that to her. He blinked when a wind shift sent smoke in his eyes. Maybe if he agreed to go as a guide and help her she’d get off his back about the drinking thing.

  “All right—I’ll go as guide, but don’t count on me. It’ll be the worst thing I can imagine ever doing again and I’ll have hell passing all those places where I’ve lost boys and buried them.”