by Ralph Cotton
The two raised their arms in the air, Ruiz still holding the blackened coffeepot. They remained stooped at the fire as the battered gunman made his way over slowly, looking all around in the darkness.
“No secret why I’m here, boys. Where is he?” Aldo demanded.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” said Wilcox. “He disappeared in the night, like he owed us money.”
Aldo didn’t believe them right away. He walked back and forth, taking note of the fresh tracks Shaw and his horse had left on their way out.
Ruiz looked around at Aldo and said beneath his raised hands, “Just so you know, we had nothing to do with him gun-butting you, mister.”
Aldo stepped closer and said in his nasal twang, “If I thought you did, I’d be reloading right now.” His gun lowered a little in his hand. He looked down at the coffeepot still in Ruiz’s hand.
Aldo’s swollen face was illuminated by the glow of the revived campfire, and Ruiz winced at the ghastly sight.
“Damn, he sure put it on you, didn’t he?” Ruiz said.
“Not near as bad as I’m going to put it on him,” remarked Aldo.
“I’m fixing to boil us up some coffee,” Ruiz ventured, gesturing to the coffeepot in his raised hand. “Something hot might make you feel better.”
“Yeah, it might,” said Aldo, touching his free hand to his shattered purple nose. He let his gun down a little more and stood slumped, taking one more look around. “Left without a word, eh?”
“Yep, that’s the size of it,” Wilcox said, shaking his head as he lowered his hands and continued stoking the fire. “You’re welcome to sit down and have coffee. It looks like Shaw has left us all lying in the dirt.”
Aldo stiffened at Wilcox’s words. “Are you poking fun at me?” he asked.
“No,” said Wilcox, aware that he had rubbed the young gunman the wrong way. “It’s just that me and Ruiz were there—we saw what he did to you. We’ve all three got a bone to pick with Fast Larry Shaw, far as I’m concerned.”
“Yeah . . . ? Well, I’m gonna kill him,” Aldo said.
“Right you are,” said Wilcox. He gestured for Aldo to seat himself at the fireside. “But as you can see, he’s not here.”
“Fact is,” Ruiz put in, “we might just want to kill him ourselves when the time is right.”
“The time is already right for me,” said Aldo. He released a tense breath and let his cocked pistol slump in his hand. “I could use some coffee, though. That’s for sure.”
Chapter 6
As Aldo Barry drank his cup of steaming coffee, he told the two outlaws his story, as if neither man had been there to see Shaw knock him out senseless. When he’d finished recounting his version, Ruiz and Wilcox looked at each other knowingly, but said nothing as Aldo continued.
“Had Shaw acted like any gunman is supposed to, I would have left him dead in the dirt,” Aldo said in conclusion, tipping his tin cup for emphasis.
“So, you’re saying he cheated?” asked Wilcox with a curious look.
“Damn right he cheated,” said Aldo. “Way I see it, there’s ways to do things and ways not to do them. Shaw should have stood there and drawn with me. And if he had, he’d be dead. You can count on that.”
“It’s over and done with,” Ruiz commented, tired of hearing the story. “The thing is, where are you headed now?”
“I’m headed after him,” said Aldo. “And I won’t stop until I—”
“Yeah, yeah, we heard all of that,” Ruiz said, growing impatient and cutting him off. “Meanwhile, we’re riding to la Ciudad de Hombres Malos to meet up with some pals. You want to ride along with us?”
Aldo wasn’t pleased that he’d been cut off, and gave Ruiz a scorching stare.
Wilcox cut in to keep down any harsh exchange between the two. “The thing is, when Shaw killed our man Esconza back there, it left us one short. We ride for Mingus Santana. Are you interested?”
“You’re Cut-Jaws?” Aldo said.
“Yes, we are,” said Wilcox. “You got something against Cut-Jaws?”
“No,” Aldo said flatly. “How a man makes his way is his own business.”
Ruiz cut in, asking, “You got anything against making money—big money?”
“No, I can’t say that I’ve got a thing against making big money.” He considered it under their watching eyes, then said, “La Ciudad de Hombres Malos, eh? The City of Bad Men . . .”
“That’s the place,” said Wilcox.
“It might just be the same place Shaw is headed,” Ruiz threw in.
“I’ve heard of the place,” said Aldo, running the prospect through his mind. “I wouldn’t mind taking a ride there, ’specially if Shaw might be headed that way.”
“It’s a good bet he is,” said Wilcox.
Aldo looked back and forth between the two. “None of the Cut-Jaws would object to me killing him, would they?”
“I can’t see why they would,” said Ruiz. “We’re a high-spirited bunch.” He grinned. “We welcome a good killing as much as the next fellow.”
A smile formed beneath Aldo’s swollen, purple nose. “I always wondered, are there really a lot of bad men in that town?” he asked.
“There will be when we get there,” Ruiz said in earnest.
At the morning’s first light, Shaw sat atop his bay, looking out at the main trail that stretched below him. From his position, partially hidden by overhanging juniper branches, he watched four riders step down from their horses and quietly lead the animals forward. They were headed toward a curl of campfire smoke rising from a small clearing among trees and rock.
Readling’s camp . . . ? Yes, he told himself, he was certain of it.
He watched the four men spread out as they approached, circling wide around the campsite before moving in. “Interesting . . . ,” he murmured to the bay. With a touch of his boot heels to the horse’s sides, he turned the animal to a thin tree- and brush-covered path leading down to the campsite.
Among the rocks, the leader of the four men, a gunman known as Silver Bones, raised his hand and brought the others to a halt. They listened intently to the exchange of voices coming from the campsite. Silver Bones’ leathery face looked toward the sound of a woman’s laughter.
“Did you hear that, Bones?” a young, round-faced gunman called out in a hushed tone less than twenty yards away.
Bones only nodded, and gave him a warning gesture to shut up. “Hell, yes, I heard it,” Bones then whispered to himself. He eased forward, a sawed-off shotgun in his gloved hand. “I’m going to have me some of it too . . . .”
At the campsite, out in front of a canvas tent set up beside a wagon, the woman walked off with a robe wrapped around her, a bathing brush and bar of soap in hand. “It’s never too cold to bathe,” she said laughingly over her shoulder to Readling as she walked away. “Don’t be such a tenderfoot.”
Readling looked over at the campfire where the Johnson brothers, Doc Penton and Willis Dorphin sat eating breakfast from tin plates. “Dorphin, keep an eye on her,” he said.
Dorphin set his plate aside and stood up.
“Don’t you dare follow me, Willis Dorphin,” the woman said in a threatening tone. She scowled at Readling with a hand cocked on her hip. “Are you out of your mind? You want him to watch me bathe?”
Dorphin looked to Readling for clarification.
“Sit down, Willis,” Readling said in defeat.
Dorphin sat down. “Damn . . . ,” he whispered, disappointed.
“Eat your breakfast, Dorphin,” Doc Penton whispered under his breath. “You can’t even afford to look at a woman like her.”
“How do you know what I can or can’t afford?” said Dorphin.
“None of us can afford that kind of woman,” Elvis Johnson said.
“Amen, brother,” said Witt Johnson.
Dorphin watched the woman walk out of sight toward a pool of runoff water backed in the rock basin. As soon as he picked up his tin plate and started to spoon his warm beans
, he heard Readling call out to him in a guarded tone.
“Give her a few minutes, then go check on her. But make sure she’s in the water first,” he said.
How the hell . . . ? Dorphin thought. But he caught himself and said, “Sure thing, Mr. Readling.” He set his plate aside again as Doc Penton and the Johnson brothers grinned secretly into their coffee cups.
“And mind you, keep your eyes to yourself,” Readling demanded before he turned, walked back inside the tent and closed the fly.
“Yes, sir,” said Dorphin, his coffee cup in hand.
Doc said teasingly, “Whatever you do, keep your eyes to yourself.” He winked.
Dorphin gave a guarded half smile. “Of course I will,” he said. He looked off toward the water basin and asked, “How many minutes is a few minutes?”
“I expect you’ll have to figure that one out to suit yourself,” Doc replied. “For me it’d be long enough already.”
“I’ll wait some . . . .” Dorphin pulled a watch from his vest pocket, studied it, then looked off in the direction of the water, not wanting to get on the bad side of either Readling or the woman if he could help it.
At the edge of the rock basin, fifty yards from the campsite, the woman stepped out of her slippers and touched a toe to the shallow water. It was colder than she’d expected, but not unbearable. In any case, she wasn’t about to go back now and admit she’d been wrong. Smiling at her stubbornness, she loosened her robe and let it fall the ground at her feet.
Here goes....
She waded out only a few feet into the water. Goose bumps covered her naked flesh as the cool crispness of morning wrapped around her. Oh, yes, this had been a mistake, she told herself, swishing the bathing brush around in the water. Still, she raised the brush and rubbed it up and down her forearm with determination.
“Good God Almighty,” said Silver Bones, who had slipped from the brush and rocks to the water’s edge. Startled, the woman turned her head toward the voice and set her eyes on Bones. Without hesitating, he waded straight into the water, boots and all, loosely holding a shotgun aimed out at the naked woman.
“We got her covered, Bones,” said Bobby Flukes. He and the other two men, Rady Kale and Dub Banks, were spread out along the water ’s edge, guns in hand.
The woman didn’t scream as Bones approached her. Instead she snarled, “Get away from me, you filthy pig!”
“I got you, honey!” said Bones, hurrying, grabbing the woman’s wrist as she swung the brush at his face. She jerked her arm free for another swing.
But with a powerful grip Bones shook the brush from her hand and pulled her to him, roughly. She backed down and shut up, feeling a sawed-off shotgun barrel jab into her flat, naked belly.
“There, now, honey,” said Bones, “you just stay real quiet for ol’ Silver.” He looked around at the other three gunmen and said to the woman, “We’ll ease on out of here before your friends even know what’s happened.”
“Ple-please,” the woman managed to say, still struggling to catch her breath.
“Bobby, grab her clothes,” Bones said over his shoulder as he dragged the woman into the brush and rock where the horses stood waiting. Rady Kale and Dub Banks stood staring, their mouths agape. Flukes managed to take his eyes away from the naked woman long enough to snatch up her robe and slippers from the ground and hurry along behind the others.
“I got her next right after you, Bones!” Flukes said, excited, scurrying past Kale and Banks, right on Bones’ heels.
“Well, I expect that’ll be up to her,” said Bones. “See, I never force my friends on a woman. I like to give a gal some say in it.” He grinned. “It’s only fair.”
“Like hell,” said Flukes, not sure if Bones was only teasing him. “I’m carrying her clothes!”
“Bobby! Settle down,” Bones said over his shoulder as he rounded a boulder toward their horses. “There’s an art to romancing a woman as beautiful as this one. You can’t just bend her over a fence rail.”
The woman groaned in the crook of his arm, her breath coming back, but not strong enough to offer a struggle.
“You see,” Bones continued, “with a good-looking woman like this you need to—”
His words stopped short at the end of Shaw’s rifle butt as he stepped around the boulder and caught the brunt of the blow straight into his grinning, unsuspecting mouth.
Blood and teeth flew.
“Drop them,” Shaw said to the other three almost before Bones’ limp body hit the ground like an empty feed sack. Holding his rifle one-handed as he caught the woman in his left arm, he cocked and aimed it at Bobby Flukes’ nose from less than a foot away.
Flukes’ gun fell from his hand, so did the woman’s robe and slippers. Behind Flukes, Kale and Banks dropped their rifles and raised their hands high. Banks recognized Shaw instantly.
“Don’t shoot, Fast Larry!” he said. “It wasn’t my idea!”
“Mine neither!” said Kale.
“Fa-Fast Larry?” said Flukes, looking fear-stricken by the news. “You’re him?” His empty hands reached high above his head in surrender.
“Damn right, it’s him!” said Banks. “Shaw, we—we had no idea this was your woman!” he pleaded.
Suddenly a sharp pain stabbed at Shaw’s head, just below the mended bullet wound, forcing him to wince. He tried to ignore it, but for a second he felt as if he might black out and drop to the ground. For the woman’s sake he couldn’t chance it.
“Get out of my sight,” he growled at the three frightened gunmen. He waved his rifle barrel toward their horses.
“Yes, sir!” said Flukes.
The three men wasted no time peeling Silver Bones’ limp body up off the ground and throwing it over his saddle. Bones cursed under his breath, then fell silent. A string of red saliva swung from his lips. The others leaped atop their horses and raced away through brush and rock, leading Bones’ horse by its reins.
“Who—who are you?” the woman asked, clinging to Shaw as the men rode away.
“Take it easy, ma’am,” Shaw said quietly. “I’m on your side.”
She looked into his eyes; recognition came to her face. “You’re . . . the gunman from yesterday. In Ángeles Descansan?”
“That’s right. I am,” Shaw replied. He picked up her robe and helped her slip into it. As she pulled the sash around her waist and hitched it, the men came from the campsite, having heard the horses’ hooves pounding away along the rocky trail.
“Step away from her, Shaw!” Dorphin shouted, in the lead, his gun in hand. Doc and the Johnson brothers gathered around him.
“Put that away, man!” Readling shouted at Dorphin, passing the three gunmen. He shoved Dorphin’s gun down and to the side. “Can’t you see what’s happened here?”
“She’s all right,” Shaw said as Readling ran up and took the woman from his arm. At first the woman clung to Shaw, resisting Readling. But Shaw turned her loose, his eyes still on hers, assuring her that he wouldn’t be far away.
“Are you all right?” Readling asked her anyway.
“Yes, I’m all right,” she said. She didn’t cling to Readling the way she’d clung to Shaw. Instead, she collected herself and stood with her arms crossed, the collar of the robe gathered together in one hand at her throat.
“Four men tried to take me with them. But they failed,” she said to Readling, still looking into Shaw’s eyes, “thanks to this man.”
Noticing the questioning look on Readling’s face, Shaw explained. “I saw them coming from up there,” he said, pointing toward the ridge above the trail. “I came down and waited for them at their horses.”
“I see,” said Readling. “You were just happening by, and saw this unfold below you?”
Dorphin and the others looked at Shaw with skepticism in their eyes.
“No,” Shaw said, “I was following you. I’ve been following you most of the night.”
“Following us?” Readling half turned toward Dorphin. “And y
et no one seems to have noticed you.”
“What does it matter if he was following us?” said the woman. “The important thing is, he was there. He saved me from a pack of lowlifes.” She huddled tighter in her robe as she considered what could have happened.
“Yes, of course that’s the important thing,” Readling said quietly, consoling her. He looked back at Shaw and said, “I’m most grateful to you, Mr. Shaw. But I have to ask, why were you following us? Did you reconsider my offer? Have you decided to ride for me?”
“I’m still considering the prospect of riding for you,” Shaw said. “But right now, I’d like to ride with you. If I’m welcome, that is.” Even as Shaw spoke to Readling, he couldn’t keep his eyes away from the woman’s. He barely tried.
“Yes, you certainly are welcome to ride with us,” said Readling. “Perhaps it will help you make up your mind.” He showed a stiff smile in spite of the fact that he noticed the way Shaw and the woman were looking at each other, and didn’t like it one bit. He knew that the men saw it too, and he wasn’t happy with the way it must make him look in their eyes. But he stayed cool and tried to smooth the situation over.
“I don’t believe you’ve been formally introduced to Mr. Shaw,” he said to the woman, with the same stiff smile. “Rosa, this is Mr. Lawrence Shaw . . . .”
Rosa . . . ?
My God, Shaw thought, even her name is the same. Is this some sort of dream, or is this really happening?
Readling’s voice sounded distant and unearthly as he continued the introduction, saying, “Mr. Shaw, this is Senora Rosa Reyes. She is accompanying me . . . ”
Shaw continued to hear Readling’s words, but he didn’t bother trying to make sense of them. He had heard the name Rosa. Now everything around him seemed to slow to a halt as he stared into her dark eyes.
“Ma’am . . . ,” he heard himself say as he lifted his sombrero toward her.
Doc Penton, the Johnson brothers and Willis Dorphin stood watching guardedly. Readling stood clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides.
“Well, then,” he said, “now that everyone is properly introduced, let’s get back to camp, get our horses saddled and see if we can catch these scoundrels.”
