by Ralph Cotton
Dorphin rose from his chair as the woman gave a short curtsey and hurried away. “Hear that, gentlemen?” he said with a smile to the other three gunmen. “The dead man in the street is coming.”
Doc Penton shook his head a little. “I’m thinking the boy’s not all there.”
“I bet he wants his gun back,” said Dorphin.
“You’re not giving to give it back to him, are you?” Elvis asked.
Dorphin grinned and started to respond, but he was interrupted by Aldo’s enraged shouts. “Who’s got my damn gun in there?” Aldo yelled, his voice ringing from out front.
Dorphin looked along the bar at the few customers watching, then replied, “It sounds like he won’t take no for an answer.”
Out front, Aldo jacked a round into his rifle chamber and held its butt propped against his thigh. “Bring it out, or I’m coming in shooting!” he bellowed.
After a pause, Doc Penton called out, “Aldo, is that you?”
“Hell, yes, it’s me,” shouted the pain-racked gunman. “Who else would it be? Who else got left for dead by his pards . . . lying in the dirt like some damn worthless animal!”
“You sound upset, Aldo,” said Doc, “but I don’t know why.” He stifled a chuckle, then added, “Come on in. We’ve all been wondering when you’d wake up.”
Huh . . . ? Aldo shook his head again, as if to clear it.
“Who’s got my gun?” he shouted, not about to be pacified so easily. He stomped forward toward the open door of the cantina, his rifle out and ready. “I’m taking it back! You’re every one of yas lucky I don’t kill ya!” He paused for a moment, waiting for a response. When he heard none, he called out, “Dorphin, you’re mine!”
He entered the cantina and started toward the table where he saw three men sitting, but it dawned on him that Dophin was missing. The realization came too late. As he hurried forward through the door, his boot toe tripped over Dorphin’s outstretched foot; he flew forward and down to the dirty floor while Dorphin quickly snatched his rifle from his hand.
Dorphin clamped a heavy boot down onto Aldo’s chest and pointed the gunman’s own rifle an inch from his bloody purple nose.
“Let me make sure I understand this, Aldo,” he said. “You come in here to kill me, because I took your gun, to keep somebody from stealing it while you’re lying out there in the street unconscious?”
“Damn it, mister,” said Aldo, angry, humiliated, his nose and head pounding in blinding pain, “I ought to kill every one of yas! You men are my pards, my sidekicks! But you just stood here and did nothing while Shaw knocked me cold! Then you left me for dead!”
“Sidekicks?” Dorphin said with a cruel grin. “A man who gets clubbed with his own gun is no sidekick of mine.” He tightened his grip around the rifle, ready to shoot the injured young gunman. “We weren’t pards, Aldo. You made an ass of yourself, and you made the rest of us look like fools. It’s all I can to do to keep from spilling your head over the floor.”
“Don’t shoot, Mr. Dorphin!” pleaded Aldo. “I’ll make it up! I’m going to kill the man who did this to me. You can bank on it.”
Along the bar a few drinkers stood watching, wide-eyed and tensed. The other gunmen sat staring coolly from the table.
“The man who did this to you rode out of town while you lay in the street with your nose bleeding,” Dorphin said, letting out a tense breath. “You’re too pitiful to kill.”
Dorphin took his finger off the trigger, his anger subsiding a little. He levered round after round from the rifle chamber. Bullets rained down and thumped onto the floor around Aldo. When the rifle was empty, Dorphin tossed it onto the young gunman’s chest.
“There’s your rifle,” he said. He reached behind his back, raised Aldo’s pistol from the waist of his trousers and emptied its bullets onto the floor. “And there’s your six-shooter. Now drag yourself on up out of here. Mr. Readling said you’re fired.”
“Fired . . .” Aldo stared at him. “I ain’t been on the job long enough to even get—”
“You’re leaving,” Dorphin said, cutting him off. “We’ve seen all we need to see from you.”
“But—but I’ve got no money, no supplies,” said Aldo. “How am I supposed to get by?”
“A smart fellow like yourself? You’ll figure something out,” said Dorphin. “Now get moving before I change my mind and decide to kill you anyway.”
Aldo half crawled across the floor until he struggled to his feet, empty rifle in one hand, empty revolver in the other. “All right, I’m leaving,” he said, cutting a sharp glance toward the other three gunmen. “But you haven’t seen the last of me. I’ll be back, and when I do, it’ll be with Fast Larry Shaw’s head on a stick!”
“On a stick!” said Elvis Johnson with a mock look of excitement on his face.
“Hear, hear!” Witt Johnson said, raising a shot glass toward Aldo in a toast.
Doc Penton just stared hard, licking a fine line of milk from the bottom edge of his thin mustache.
Chapter 5
As darkness sank upon the baked and broken land, Shaw sat atop a flat sand-stuck rock overlooking a stretch of flatlands and gazed back along their trail. His horse stood beside the rock, its reins hanging to the ground. Behind Shaw, Charlie Ruiz and Ollie Wilcox were busy setting up camp, spreading their saddles and blankets on the ground, while a pot of coffee boiled over a fire.
“I tell you, this man ain’t natural,” Wilcox whispered to Ruiz.
The two stared over at Shaw, who sat as still as a statue. Ruiz shook his head.
“I’ve seen so much lately, I can no longer say what’s natural and what ain’t,” he whispered in reply.
“Well, this one ain’t,” said Wilcox. “If you can’t see it, you can take my word for it.” He scooted closer to Ruiz and said, “We’ve got to kill him and get on away. Else we need to get him to the Cut-Jaws and let Santana deal with him.”
“Umph,” said Ruiz, grunting at the thought of trying to kill Shaw, having seen how unsuccessful everybody else had been.
Wilcox stared at him coldly. “What do you mean, ’mph?” he said.
“Nothing,” said Ruiz.
“Are you afraid of him?” asked Wilcox.
“I don’t know,” said Ruiz. “Maybe I should be. Maybe it would be wise if we both were a little afraid of him.”
“Wise? What do you mean?” questioned Wilcox.
“Every man who wasn’t afraid of him today ended up dead by nightfall,” said Ruiz. “That ought to tell us something.”
“All it tells me is my pard is starting to turn yellow on me,” Wilcox replied.
Ruiz ignored the remark and gazed over at where Shaw sat, seemingly immersed in thought. “Look at him,” he said. “He ain’t even concerned enough to keep his eyes on us anymore.”
“There’s been other talented gunmen who’ve died making that same mistake,” said Wilcox. As he spoke, he eased his gun up from his holster.
“Yeah, except I’m thinking that Fast Larry Shaw does it on purpose,” said Ruiz, “just his way of catching us trying to get the drop on him—so’s he can kill us with justification.”
Wilcox eased his gun back down into its holster. “You really think so?” he said. “All this crazy staring and wandering around is just for show—just so he can kill us? Why does he have to justify killing a man?”
“Some people just have to,” Ruiz whispered, “I don’t know why.”
“Jesus . . . ,” said Wilcox, bewildered. He crossed his arms and sat staring into the fire.
Finally, Shaw turned in surprise when the horse nudged its muzzle against his left shoulder, as if warning him to pay attention. He looked at the two gunmen sitting in the circling light of the fire. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten they were there—only that for a long moment his mind was clear of everything but the woman, who had reminded him so much of his deceased wife, Rosa.
He noted how much darker it had grown since he’d sat down on the rock. The nigh
t had set in and surrounded him.
“Gracias,” he whispered to the horse, rubbing its curious probing muzzle.
The big horse grumbled, scraped a restless hoof and shook its mane.
“All right, I best get you attended,” Shaw said, standing and lifting the reins from the ground.
Hearing Shaw’s movement, the two men turned and watched him lead the bay toward the fire.
“Coffee’s boiled,” Ruiz said cordially.
“Obliged,” Shaw said, walking his bay toward a stand of wild grass between two towering boulders where the other horses stood.
“Coffee’s boiled . . . ,” Wilcox whispered, mocking Ruiz in a sarcastic tone. The two watched as Shaw dropped his saddle and bridle from the bay.
“What’d you want me to say?” said Ruiz. “Stay on your toes, Shaw. We’re fixing to kill you.”
Shaw smiled to himself, knowing they were talking about him. He took out a handful of grain from his saddlebags and palmed it to the bay’s wet mouth. “Sorry, boy,” he murmured under his breath. “I was off my game there for a minute.”
The bay crunched on the grain and ate hungrily.
When he’d finished attending to the bay, Shaw set the animal loose to graze alongside the other two horses. He carried his saddle and blanket over to the fire and dropped them on the ground across from the two gunmen. Spreading his blanket out beside the saddle, he filled a tin cup he’d taken from his saddlebags and took a seat on the ground.
The two gunmen watched Shaw sip his coffee, not knowing what to say. After seeing how unpredictably he’d walked right up to Aldo Barry, snatched his gun and knocked him senseless, they were aware that anything they said could set him off.
“So,” Shaw said, lowering his tin cup of coffee from his lips, “who wants to tell me all about Mingus Santana and the Cut-Jaws?”
“Does—does this mean you want to join up with us?” Wilcox asked hesitantly.
“It means I’m still thinking about it,” Shaw said. “The more you tell me about the Cut-Jaws, the easier it will be for me to decide.” He sipped his coffee and waited.
“That makes sense to me,” said Wilcox. The two gunmen looked at each other with an air of relief. “What is it you want to know?”
Shaw gave a shrug. “The usual stuff. Who’s Santana’s right-hand men? What big jobs have they pulled? What jobs are they planning on pulling?”
“Whoa,” said Ruiz, “some of that’s awfully powerful information. Santana would cut our throats and stick our legs down them if he ever found out we—”
“I understand,” said Shaw, cutting him off. “You’ve got my word, nobody in the gang will ever know you told me.”
“You’re swearing on that?” Wilcox questioned, still with a hesitant tone.
Shaw just stared at him; his gun hand fell easily to the butt of his big holstered Colt.
“Damn it, Ollie!” said Ruiz, looking worried. “He gave his word. What more do you want?”
“Pay me no mind,” Wilcox said to Shaw. “I know you’re a man to be trusted.” He continued quickly. “We hardly ever even see Santana. He lies low and stays away. He gives his orders to the two lead men under him. One is James Long. The other is Morgan Thorpe.” He paused, then said, “I’m betting you’ve heard of them both.”
“Yep, I’ve heard of Long,” said Shaw, sipping his coffee. He repeated the names to himself, needing to remember them so that he could pass them along to Dawson and Caldwell when next they met. “Long was a prison guard at Yuma. They called him ‘the Fist.’
“That’s right,” Shaw continued. “His right fist is twice the size of his left. They say it comes from beating so many prisoners with it.”
The two looked impressed that Shaw would know this. They had no idea he’d learned about the men from the other lawmen at the American consulate in Matamoros while riding as deputy with Marshal Crayton Dawson.
“What about Thorpe?” Wilcox asked.
“Never heard of him,” said Shaw. He had heard of Thorpe, but he’d decided to hold back and see what information the two had to offer about the man. Morgan Thorpe was a gunman who’d ridden with the Younger brothers after the war. Soon after Cole Younger’s arrest following the holdout at Northfield, he’d disappeared. A year later he’d turned in Mexico, running guns, kidnapping the rich and robbing payrolls.
“Thorpe is Santana’s right-hand man,” Ruiz said. Then he lowered his voice as if Thorpe might be standing nearby listening. “He’s the one you don’t mess with. He’s a straight-up killer.”
“He’s a straight-up lunatic,” Wilcox cut in, also in a whisper. As he spoke of Thorpe, his eyes instinctively moved around, as if he were on the lookout. “But don’t ever let him know I told you so.”
Shaw just stared at the two.
“Listen to us go on,” said Ruiz, looking a little embarrassed. “We’re talking to Fast Larry Shaw. I don’t expect we need to warn him about Morgan Thorpe.”
Wilcox said, “Forewarned is forearmed, though, no matter who you are or how you see it.” He looked at Shaw, wanting him to agree.
Shaw remained silent for a moment. When he did speak, he asked, “What kind of big jobs is Santana planning?”
The two fell silent; they gave each other a guarded look. “I want to know I’m not wasting my time riding with him,” Shaw explained. “I don’t want to get stuck here stealing federale mules for a living.”
“Nor do we,” said Wilcox.
Ruiz leaned in a little and said, “You remember hearing about the big gold robbery at the Banco Nacionale last year in Mexico City?”
“I heard about it,” Shaw said.
“That was Santana’s setup. We pulled it off, under Thorpe’s lead,” said Wilcox.
Shaw studied their faces in the glow of firelight, then said, “Setup is right. Word has it, there was more German gold coin lying in the bank that day than there’s ever been before or since.”
“Amen, it’s true.” Wilcox grinned with pride.
But his grin waned when Shaw asked, “If you two were in on that, how come you’re not rich?”
Ruiz looked disturbed. “We were in on it, but not for a big share. We were paid a cut for being ten miles outside of town with fresh horses.”
Shaw sipped his coffee. “So you two were horsemen for the rest of the gang,” he said flatly.
Ruiz and Wilcox looked at each other again. “Well, yes, sort of,” said Ruiz. “But that was then. We’ve garnered ourselves more important positions since—”
“I don’t want to hear about what happened in the past,” Shaw said, cutting him off. “What’s in the works right now?”
The two thought about the question for a moment. Finally Wilcox said, “We don’t know. But whatever it is, it will be big.”
“You don’t know,” Shaw said with finality. He gazed out across the dark quarter-moon night.
The two gunmen sat in silence, watching intently until Shaw took his last drink of coffee and slung the grounds from his cup. Neither spoke as he set his cup down and lay back against his saddle. He stared across the fire at them as he drew his Colt from its holster and set it on his chest. Then he pulled his blanket over himself and tipped his sombrero down over his eyes.
After ten minutes of silence, Ruiz finally whispered, “What do we do now?”
Wilcox tossed the grounds from his battered tin cup, lay back against his saddle and whispered in reply, “Damned if I know.”
The two gunmen spent a tense and wary night, each wrapped in his blanket with his gun drawn and clasped to his chest. As the first thin slice of sunlight mantled the eastern horizon, Wilcox awakened and lay stone-still for a moment, listening for any sound of snoring or rustling from Shaw’s side of the fire. After a while he sat up slowly and squinted through a curl of smoke atop the glowing embers.
“I’ll be damned,” he murmured.
Ruiz’s eyes snapped open, startled. Then he too eased up on his blanket, six-gun in hand, and whispered under his br
eath, “What is it?”
“He’s gone,” Wilcox said in his normal voice. He sat staring at the spot on the ground where Shaw had been lying on his blanket.
“Gone . . .?” Ruiz rose to his feet and hurried over to their two horses.
Wilcox stood up and stepped around the glowing remnants of the campfire. “Blanket, horse and all,” he said, staring down at the ground where Shaw had been lying.
Ruiz returned and stood beside him, still wiping sleep from his eyes. “Damn, he just lit out in the middle of the night,” he said, baffled by Shaw’s actions.
“Yeah,” said Wilcox, equally stumped. “Did—did we do something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” said Ruiz. His voice turned bitter. “But maybe we shouldn’t have told him we’re just horsemen for the Cut-Jaws. Maybe he figured we’re not high enough up to suit him.”
“We’re not just horsemen,” Wilcox corrected him. “We’re also hiring agents, remember. We’re supposed to bring in some new blood.”
The two considered things for a moment. “Well, I say good riddance,” Wilcox declared. He blew out a deep breath of relief. “The fact is we were looking to get ourselves shed of him, new blood or not.”
“Yeah,” said Ruiz, “probably lucky for him he drug up and left when he did. Otherwise, we might’ve had to kill him.”
The two chuckled as they looked all around in the grainy darkness. “I don’t like the idea of telling Thorpe about what happened to Esconza,” said Ruiz, picking up the coffeepot to prepare a fresh brew.
“We’ve got to tell him about it, though,” Wilcox said, stoking the embers back to life with a stick. “Otherwise he’ll hear it from somebody else and be madder than a hornet—”
His words stopped short at the sound of a twig snapping behind them. As they both turned, their gun hands reaching frantically for their holstered revolvers, a familiar nasal voice rang out from the darkness.
“Get your hands away from your shooting irons,” Aldo said.
