City of Bad Men

by Ralph Cotton

  “Sí, I do,” the old man said. Then he fell silent and stood staring at the drift of dust above the trail.

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Shaw knew there’d been eyes watching as he talked to the old man. Instincts . . . , he told himself.

  Yet, instead of finding out who was watching, or why, he’d simply let the notion slip away. Out of nowhere he’d caught himself bringing up the matter of the old witch and her sparrows. Jesus . . . Where had that come from? he wondered, pushing the bay up a thin path overlooking the trail. It had been a year since he’d seen the old witch and her covey of dancing birds.

  But this was the sort of thing that had been happening since the head wound. The bullet-fractured skull hadn’t outright cost him his memory or his faculties, as the first doctor believed it might. At no time during the early healing stages of his wound had he forgotten who he was, where he was from, or what his life had been. Yet, as the slow healing began, so had these unpredictable moments of haziness.

  The witch and her sparrows . . . ?

  He shook his head in wonder. The speckled bay climbed the steep path and stopped on its own when it came to a flat rock bluff, as if it knew what its rider wanted. Shaw was still consumed by what had happened, and why. Thank God for good horses.... He patted the bay’s damp withers with his gloved hand.

  Luckily, Shaw was the only one aware of his problem. The old Mexican hadn’t seen it. Neither had any of the others, like the bartender in El Paso. Shaw had called him by the wrong name, drifting back into a similar conversation he’d been engaged in with another bartender more than two years prior.

  Shaw considered things. This was what the wound had done to him, and fortunately he’d managed to catch slipups and turn them around before anyone noticed thus far. But how long could he keep doing this before someone saw through him?

  And what if my condition gets worse . . . ? he asked himself, turning the bay, watching the trail below from the cover of rocks and brush.

  He lived in a hard world, where gunmen lay in wait like wolves for the scent of wounded prey. He knew it, and he wasn’t about to give it to them. His hand fell idly to the butt of his big Colt and rested there. He still had his gun. Always the gun . . . , he told himself.

  He watched the trail below until the first sign of dust rose from the switchback farther down the hillside. As the three riders from Little Ester filed past below him, he recognized Dario Esconza in the lead. His instincts had been right. These were the eyes who’d been watching from the darkened shadows. Now they were trailing him.

  Dario Esconza . . . A killer—a man who prided himself in being fast with a gun.

  Interesting, Shaw thought. Now that he knew who was following him, it wasn’t hard to understand why. He eased the bay around and nudged it upward, taking a meandering rocky path to the next level of switchback trial....

  On the trail below, Dario Esconza stopped so suddenly that Ruiz’s and Wilcox’s horses piled up before they jerked them roughly to a halt.

  “Condénelo!” he cursed, as the other men struggled to collect their horses.

  “Whoa! Damn is right!” said Wilcox, repeating Esconza’s curse in English. “This is not a place to make sudden stops!” He pulled his horse sideways away from the trail’s edge, glancing down at jagged rock and swaying tree tops stretched far below them.

  “By God, you’ll get somebody killed!” said Ruiz, anger in his frightened eyes.

  Paying no attention to the two gunmen, Esconza said with a look of revelation on his face, “It’s him! By the saints! It is him!”

  Wilcox and Ruiz looked at each other in surprise.

  “Who?” Wilcox asked, his eyes cutting all around the trail and up the steep hillside. His hand went to his gun butt. “What the hell’s got into you, Dario?”

  Esconza took in deep breath. “Into me?” He gave the two a tight grin. “Nothing has gotten into me,” he said sharply. He tapped his forehead beneath his battered hat brim. “I told you I knew him from somewhere . . . the sombrero-wearing gringo dressed like a Mejicano?”

  “Hey, easy with the ‘gringos,’ ” Ruiz warned, his palm pistol-butted on his holstered Colt.

  “Pardon me,” said Esconza with the same tight grin, “I did not realize what a wilting soul you are, Charlie Ruiz.”

  “I’ll wilt your by-God soul,” Ruiz said, furious, wild-eyed. “You damn near run my ass off a cliff!”

  “Settle down, both of yas,” Wilcox cut in. He turned to Esconza and said, “You recognized him, all right. Who is he?”

  “He is a dead man,” Esconza said, fiery-eyed. “That is who he is.”

  “Oh, a dead man,” said Wilcox. He and Ruiz gave each other a look. “No name or nothing? Just . . . a dead man?” he replied back to Esconza.

  “Sí, just a dead man,” Esconza said, staring straight ahead with resolve.

  “Hear that?” Wilcox said to Ruiz. “The fellow has no name. He’s a dead man.” He spat in contempt. “I expect that’s what folks call him,” he added with sarcasm.

  “I heard,” Ruiz said. He also shook his head in contempt.

  “No offense, Dario,” said Wilcox, “but I don’t see this taking us no damn where. If you won’t even tell us who he is, I’d just as soon not even—”

  “You will see who he is,” Esconza said, cutting him off, “when I shoot open his head and poke my fingers in his dying brains.”

  The two looked at each other again.

  “Jesus . . .,” said Ruiz, as Esconza nudged his horse roughly and rode past him. When Esconza had ridden a few feet forward of them, Ruiz leaned sidelong in his saddle and said to Wilcox under his breath, “Did you know he was this way?”

  Wilcox considered the matter for second. Then he spread a short, cruel grin and asked as he heeled his horse forward, “What way?”

  Shaw had dismounted his bay and led the animal up the steep rocky path. When he’d arrived on the next level of the switchback trail, he dusted himself off, stepped back into his saddle and rode on toward the town on Ángeles Descansan (Angels’ Rest). As soon as he arrived in the small hill town, he turned the tired horse over to a young stable tender and paid him with a gold coin that was almost twice the size he was accustomed to receiving. The young man’s eyes widened at the sight of it.

  Hefting the coin in his hand, appraising the weight of it, the young Mexican asked with a smile, “Who do you wish me to kill, senor?” He looked Shaw up and down, noting the big Colt standing in its holster behind the open corduroy duster. Shaw’s trouser leg had risen and perched atop his left boot well, revealing part of the fighting stallions.

  “Not my horse,” Shaw warned.

  “Oh, no, senor!” The young man retracted quickly, looking frightened by Shaw’s dead-somber expression. “I am only joking. I would never kill—”

  “So am I,” said Shaw, cutting him off, the same somber look on his dust-streaked face.

  “Oh, sí, I understand, of course you are also joking,” the stable boy said with relief. He gave a nervous smile. “I will give this fine strong caballo extra-special care—as if he is my own.” He patted the horse’s muzzle as he spoke.

  “See to it you do,” Shaw said. Drawing his rifle from the saddle boot, he levered it and checked it, letting the hammer down with his thumb.

  The stable boy’s eyes widened again at the sight of the Winchester. Shaw stared at him, then turned and walked away in the afternoon sunlight, rifle in hand.

  “Holy Madre,” the young man said under his breath. He started to make the sign of the cross on his chest. But then, as if not wanting the horse to see how shaken he was, he stopped himself and gave a light tug on the horse’s reins.

  “Come with me, please,” he said in English, as if the horse understood him. “You and I will be very good amigos, eh?”

  The bay chuffed, gave a half nod and followed him to a clean fresh stall.

  Shaw walked straight to an adobe cantina, knowing it would be the first place
the three riders would come looking for him when they arrived in Angels’ Rest. On his way inside he passed two well-attended horses tied to the same iron hitch ring beneath a flapping canvas overhang out of the afternoon sun. From inside the cantina, the sound of a guitar and twanging mouth harp reached out to him through open glassless windows.

  Upon walking into the adobe, he locked eyes on two drinkers sitting at a table in a rear corner. When he gazed at the two well-dressed men, he took in the ornate shotgun leaning against a wall nearby. They gave him a half nod, which he returned as he stepped over to a bar constructed of two wide planks resting atop a row of large cooperage barrels.

  Friendly enough....

  But at the end of the bar, a lone drinker did not give Shaw a nod of welcome. Instead he avoided Shaw’s eyes, set his empty wooden cup down and walked away toward the rear door. Shaw stood at the bar and waited until the door closed behind the man.

  “Rye and beer, por favor,” Shaw said to a short, broad-shouldered bartender. As he ordered, he eased along the bar and stopped where the lone drinker had been standing, commanding a better view of the open front door.

  “Sí, rye y cervesa coming,” the bartender said, part Spanish part English, noting Shaw’s shift to the end of the bar.

  The bartender placed a bottle, a shot glass and a mug of beer in front of him, and Shaw paid him, watching him pour the shot glass full. Shaw drank the beer as if it were water. Then he laid his Winchester on the bar beside him, took off his dusty sombrero, slapped it once against his leg and placed it atop the rifle.

  “There will be senoritas here shortly,” the bartender said privately to Shaw. He gazed at Shaw for a response, as if he understood the needs of a man in their most natural order. But when Shaw didn’t reply, the bartender only nodded slightly and stepped away.

  Shaw raised the shot glass to his lips and tossed the rye back in one drink.

  At the table in the rear, the two men turned their eyes away from the thirsty newcomer and back to the twanging mouth harp and the strumming guitar. Shaw kept an eye on the open front doorway. He drank sparingly.

  A quarter of an hour later, he watched through the open door as the three riders gathered and stepped down from their horses at the hitch rings out front.

  “Is there something else I can get for you, senor?” the bartender asked Shaw. “Some food perhaps? There are frijoles and roasted cabra warming in the cocina out back.”

  “Gracias. Beans and roasted goat sounds good right now,” Shaw said, without taking his eyes off the three men out front.

  “Coming up,” said the bartender.

  Shaw only stood staring as the three filed inside, Esconza in the lead, and took the positions they thought would best suit their purpose.

  Ollie Wilcox stood at the middle of bar. Charlie Ruiz stayed close to the open doorway. Dario Esconza stopped in the middle of the floor and stood scowling at Shaw. Wilcox waved the bartender away as he stepped over to ask what they wanted to drink. “Make tracks,” Wilcox growled menacingly.

  The bartender seemed to vanish through the rear door almost before Wilcox’s words had left his mouth. In their own back corner, the mouth harp and the guitar stopped short. The two musicians stood staring. From the open rear door, the smell of roasted goat meat wafted in on the hot air.

  Wasting no time, Dario said, “You’re Fast Larry Shaw.”

  “I’m Lawrence Shaw,” Shaw said quietly. “You’re Dario Esconza.”

  “They call you ‘the fastest gun alive,’ ” said Esconza, cutting right to the point.

  Fast Larry Shaw? Jesus . . . ! This was the first Wilcox had heard of it. He stood stunned, barely managing to swallow the hard knot in his throat. He shot Ruiz a frightened look.

  But Charlie Ruiz didn’t return Wilcox’s stare; instead he gazed straight ahead with surprise and terror on his face. His gun hand eased up away from the butt of his holstered revolver. The fastest gun alive? Whoa . . . ! Though Ruiz was looking directly at Shaw, Wilcox could see he wanted no part of this.

  “Do you believe that?” Esconza said to Shaw in a tight, clipped tone of voice. “That you are the fastest gun alive?”

  “The question is, do you?” Shaw said in his quiet tone.

  “No,” said Esconza, showing no fear. “That is why I have come here. To kill you.”

  “I saw you trailing me,” Shaw said. “I’ve been waiting here for you.”

  Esconza was a little surprised, but he kept it from showing.

  Shaw asked him calmly, “Who are you riding with these days, Dario? I heard you were working with Santana and his Cut-Jaws.”

  “We—we are,” Wilcox cut in, hoping to head this off before it went any further. “The fact is, we were following you, wondering if maybe—”

  “Shut up, Ollie!” Esconza snapped at him over his shoulder. “It’s none of this man’s business who we ride with. I am going to kill him.”

  Damn.... Wilcox fell silent. He and Ruiz looked at each other.

  “Fast Larry,” Esconza said to Shaw, “I cannot tell you how long I have dreamed of catching you alone like this.” He worked the fingers of his gun hand open and closed, loosening them.

  Shaw took one step away from the bar and stood facing Esconza, while affording himself a partial view of the two men at the rear corner table. “Let’s get on with it,” he said. “I’ve got food coming.”

  The Mexican gunman sneered at Shaw’s words and said with confidence, “Not tonight, you don’t.”

  Shaw stood staring, realizing that for the time being, the constant pain in his head had ceased to pound; his mind felt clearer, his vision sharper. He looked back and forth from one face to another, his hand hanging loose but poised near the butt of the big Colt on his right hip. Maybe this was his most natural state.

  At the corner table the two men sat watching as if frozen in place, the ornate double-barreled shotgun still leaning against the wall. One of them whispered to the other, “Is that really him?”

  “I believe so,” the other man whispered in reply. “I’ll tell you for certain in a minute—”

  Before he could finish his words, Esconza’s hand wrapped around his gun butt. He drew the gun with the blinding speed of a striking rattlesnake. But fast though he was, the tip of his gun barrel never made it past the top of his holster. Shaw’s Colt exploded before the two men watching realized it was even in his hand.

  “Dear God!” one of the well-dressed Americans whispered, as if in a prayer.

  “Yep, it’s him all right,” the other whispered in reply, batting his eyes at the sound of Shaw’s big Colt.

  Esconza hit the dirt floor, dead, a streak of blood flying out his back with the bullet, lashing both Wilcox’s and Ruiz’s faces.

  “Don’t shoot!” Wilcox shouted as Esconza’s body settled in a puff of floor dust. His hand already chest high, Wilcox now reached straight upward toward the dusty ceiling.

  “Please!” shouted Ruiz, speaking in a fast frenzy. “It wasn’t our fight this fool Esconza was crazy I don’t know why we let him ride with us that’s the gospel truth!” He jerked his head toward Wilcox. “He’ll tell you the same thing!”

  “Easy, the both of you,” Shaw said calmly. “It’s over.” He’d already seen that these two had wanted no part in Esconza’s plan once they’d realized who they were up against. Besides, he reminded himself, they might have information on Santana and the Cut-Jaws that could be useful.

  Wilcox looked relieved. He let his hand come down a little and started to step toward Esconza’s body. “Want me to check? See if he’s dead?”

  “No need,” Shaw said. He spun his Colt backward into his holster. He glanced first at the two men at the table, and then at the mouth harp player, all standing and staring at him. Behind the rear door, the bartender stood peeping inside warily.

  “How’s my food coming along?” Shaw asked him.

  Chapter 2

  At the bar, Shaw ate beans and chunks of roasted goat with a wooden spoon. In t
he rear corner, the guitar player had reappeared and began accompanying the twanging mouth harp once again. From the back table the two men still watched Shaw as he talked with Ollie Wilcox and Charlie Ruiz. The bartender and a cook from the cocina out back dragged Esconza’s body onto the street and left it lying in the dirt. A skinny hound appeared, as if out of nowhere, and licked hungrily at the dead outlaw’s bloody shirt.

  “Someone else will have to move him,” the bartender said to Shaw when he and the cook walked back inside dusting their hands.

  “Gracias,” Shaw said. He nodded and turned back to Wilcox and Ruiz. “Go on,” he said to Wilcox.

  Wilcox continued what he’d been saying. “See, Charlie here and I both told him, as bad as we need good gunmen, we ought to be talking about hiring you, not killing you.” He shrugged. “But we couldn’t make the dumb jackass listen to anything.” He looked at Ruiz. “Ain’t that right, Charlie?” he said.

  “Right as rain,” Ruiz said quickly. He paused, looking at Wilcox, and then said, “But I’d be lying if I didn’t say we never heard of Fast Larry Shaw ever riding with a gang like us Cut-Jaws.”

  “It’s Lawrence Shaw, and I always keep who I ride with to myself,” Shaw corrected him. He raised a spoonful of beans and goat meat to his mouth, moving his eyes from one man to the other as he spoke. He knew that the Cut-Jaws had long been on the list of border gangs that his friends U.S. Marshal Crayton Dawson and Deputy Jedson Caldwell were trying to wipe out.

  “Oh, we understand that,” Wilcox cut in. “I say a man who doesn’t watch his tongue might damn well end up losing it.”

  “Watch his tongue . . . ?” Shaw said, staring coldly at him over the spoonful of food.

  “That’s just a way of putting it,” said Ruiz, cutting in. “The point is, we wanted you to join up before we even knew who you are. Now that we know . . . well, hell, we doubly want you with us.”

  Shaw took his time, chewed his food, swallowed and gazed off in contemplation for a moment.