by Ralph Cotton
“Why’d you let them get away, Shaw?” Dorphin asked.
Shaw answered without taking his eyes from Rosa’s. “I was more concerned with Senora Reyes’ well-being,” he said, “than I was in chasing down a pack of curs.”
When Shaw listened to his own words, they seemed to be spoken by some third person on his behalf. For a second, he was no longer standing there in the Mexican hill country. Instead, he found himself in the old Spanish cemetery outside Somos Santos, Texas.
Rosa . . . , he whispered.
And although he’d spoken the name to himself every waking day since he’d seen the letters etched in stone above a bouquet of wildflowers, suddenly there was a newfound hope in the sound of it.
“Curs, eh?” said Readling. He considered it for a moment, and then said, “That’s a good comparison . . .”
Readling continued to speak, but Shaw only heard his voice fade further away as he lost himself even further in the warm depth of Senora Reyes’ eyes.
“Readling,” Dorphin said, “the three of us will get our horses ready—we’ll bring yours to you.”
“No,” Readling said, “I’ve changed my mind.” He stared at Shaw as he spoke. “Let the pack of curs go, so long as Rosa is unharmed. We’ve got much better things to do than chase around in the night after four saddle tramps.”
PART 2
Chapter 7
U.S. Marshal Crayton Dawson shoved two fresh loads into the ten-gauge shotgun and snapped it shut, smoke still curling from its barrels. At his feet lay the bodies of Logan Decker and Herbert Hartlett, two of five men he and his deputy had been tracking throughout the night. At daylight the fight had begun. Now, at midmorning, two of the men were dead, one was badly wounded and the other two had managed to get to their horses and ride away, straight north.
Dawson gazed off at the rise of dust from their horses’ racing hooves. See you soon, he thought to himself.
Deputy Jedson Caldwell walked out from behind a large, half-sunken boulder, shoving the wounded gunman along in front of him. The outlaw gripped his bloody stomach with both hands.
“This one is Dave Furley. He tells me Lawrence Shaw was in Vista Clara a week ago,” Caldwell said.
Dawson looked at the sweaty, blood-smeared face of the wounded man. “Vista Clara, eh?” said Dawson, considering it. “Was he alone?”
“He was as . . . far as I could tell,” the man said in a labored voice. “Are you going to . . . take me in?” He sat down on a rock, his hands still gripping his midsection. Caldwell stood nearby, his rifle trained on the wounded outlaw.
“Would you make it if we did?” Dawson asked.
“Hell, I doubt it,” said Furley.
Dawson nodded and looked again in the direction of the fleeing horsemen. “Give him some water, Deputy,” he said quietly.
Caldwell walked over to their horses standing in the shade and cover of a large boulder; he came back with a canteen in hand.
“Gracias, both of yas,” Furley said. He took a drink of tepid water as Caldwell held the canteen up to his lips.
“Drink slow,” Caldwell advised.
When Caldwell lowered the canteen, the gunman let out a breath and squinted at him. “Are you the one they call the Undertaker?”
“Some do,” Caldwell said, recapping the canteen.
“Why do they call you that . . . because you’re some kind of hard-ass, killing sumbitch?” Furley asked.
“Because I used to be an undertaker,” Caldwell replied.
“Oh . . . ,” said Furley. But he continued staring at Caldwell, as if the answer wasn’t good enough.
Dawson half smiled to himself. Caldwell might be a trained undertaker, but Dawson knew that was only part of the story. Caldwell had gained the moniker by facing and taking down some of the most vicious killers the borderlands had to offer.
“So, what’s it going to be?” Dawson asked. “You want to try to ride . . . or do you want us to sit here with you a while?”
“Sit here . . . just for a spell,” said Furley. He slid himself to the ground and leaned back against the rock. “I’ll tell you . . . who those two are.” He turned his eyes north, toward the rise of trail dust.
“We know who they are,” said Dawson. “Ned Breck and Carlos Loonie.”
“Well, hell,” said Furley, sounding disappointed.
“More water?” Caldwell asked him.
Furley’s limp, bloody hand waved the canteen away, so Caldwell placed it by Furley’s side for later. He turned and began dragging the first body deeper into the shelter of rocks.
“Hartlett and me . . . argued over the horses,” Furley said to Dawson. “Sumbitch . . . shot me.” He looked at the body of Herbert Hartlett lying dead in the dirt. “For all . . . the good it done him,” he added.
“You always rode with Dag Elliot’s Wild Boys,” said Dawson. “What’s got you over here with Hartlett and these Cut-Jaws?”
“Hard times . . . ,” the dying outlaw mused. “The Wild Boys are . . . thinning down to nothing. A man needs work. Santana’s Cut-Jaws are the ones . . . hiring.”
Dawson and Caldwell looked at each other. “We’ve heard that ourselves,” Dawson said. Caldwell took the second body by its boots and began dragging it away to the rocks.
“Anyway, I’m all finished,” Furley said with solemn acknowledgment. His voice sounded stronger, his having resolved himself to his fate, and he lay silent until Caldwell returned from among the rocks.
“I tied two of their horses back there,” Caldwell said. “Looks like they were a horse short.”
“That’s what got me killed,” Furley reflected. He looked up at Dawson and said, “Marshal, can you . . . oblige me my gun back before you leave?”
Dawson looked at Caldwell.
Caldwell pulled Furley’s Remington from behind his gun belt. He opened the chamber and let five bullets fall out into his palm. Then he shut it and said, “I’ll leave it at the rocks with the bodies. Can you make it that far?”
Furley only nodded. “Obliged,” he said. Then he looked up at Dawson and said, “Shaw acted . . . about half simpleminded when I saw him in Vista Clara—asking in the cantina about birds . . . witches and such.”
“He took a bullet in the head,” said Dawson.
“Damn . . . that’ll do it,” said Furley. “Looks like I’m not . . . the only unlucky one.” He let his head bob on his chest.
Caldwell stood with the Remington in hand, staring down at Furley. He knew he wouldn’t have to carry the gun into the rocks after all. Holding the five bullets in the palm of his gloved hand, he stooped down and raised Furely’s bowed head. The outlaw’s dead eyes gazed off aimlessly into the harsh sunlight.
Dawson’s shotgun slumped to his side and the deputy shoved Furley’s Remington back behind his gun belt. He took ahold of the dead man’s damp shirt collar and dragged him away into the rocks. When he returned, Dawson had gathered their horses, as well as the two horses belonging to the dead outlaws.
“So Shaw is back,” Dawson said.
“Yep, just like you said he’d be,” Caldwell replied. He took the reins to his silver gray, and then grabbed for the reins to the outlaws’ horses.
“What’s it been, six months?” Dawson asked.
“Less than that,” said Caldwell, stepping up into his saddle. He adjusted his dust-streaked bowler hat atop his head. The two sat atop their horses for a moment, staring out across the badlands.
“Birds and witches . . . ,” Dawson finally said with a sigh.
“His head’s still not well,” Caldwell said, as if in Shaw’s defense. “The doctors all said it would take a long time to heal—a head wound like that. Maybe never.”
“Yep,” said Dawson. “I figured getting away from here might help. But I knew he’d be back.”
“I wonder what became of the woman?” said Caldwell.
“Tuesday Bonhart?” said Dawson.
“Yeah, Tuesday,” said Caldwell.
“I expect we’l
l have to ask him, first chance,” said Dawson, nudging up his horse’s pace.
Caldwell turned his horse alongside him. “It’s darn near impossible to speculate about what Shaw’s going to do next.”
“So long as he’s still carrying a badge, he’s still on the job, as far as I’m concerned,” said Dawson. “We need to find him, see what he’s doing.” He turned his horse to the thin trail.
“That’s what I was thinking,” said Caldwell, riding beside him. “A man could get himself in an awful fix, the shape he’s in.”
Having made their getaway, Carlos Loonie and Ned Breck wasted no time in putting a stretch of hill country between themselves and the two lawmen. They pushed their horses steadily until they’d ridden onto a narrow flatlands and reached a watering hole on the trail to Little Ester.
Breck, a tall, rangy Arkansan, looked up from watering his horse, shook his head and said, “How the hell we gonna find Santana? I don’t want to spend my life running from these law dogs.”
“We might not find Santana before we have to get rid of them ourselves,” Carlos offered. “Mingus Santana ain’t likely to come forward and show his face just to protect us. He’ll wait to hear that we’re able to protect ourselves.” He shrugged. “If we cannot take care of these lawmen, Santana will decide we’re not worthy of riding with him.”
“Yeah? And how will Santana ever hear about it, if he ain’t around?” said Breck, with a sarcastic turn to his voice.
“Like any smart leader, Santana has eyes and ears all over these badlands,” said Loonie. He was a Mexican-Irish gunman, born and raised in the rugged Mexican hill country.
“Sounds like a hell of deal to me,” said Breck, a little irritated. “We search every barn lot and pigsty in this hellhole until we find him—he won’t even come forward and help us out when we need him to?”
“It is the way we do things,” Carlos said. “When you’ve ridden with the Cut-Jaws for a while, you’ll better understand how things are done.”
“That’s real comforting to know,” said Breck, still obviously irked. “I’ve ridden with some of the best, the Youngers, the Mollyhorns, the Border Dogs. I expect I’ve been around long enough to know how things are done. I don’t need you telling me.”
Loonie stared at him.
Seeing he might have pushed too hard, Breck pulled his attitude back a little and said in a friendlier tone, “This heat makes me easily riled.” He stood in silence for a moment, working to settle himself down.
Then he asked, “And these two law dogs? Are they the ones I’ve heard so much about—always sticking their beak into everybody’s business?”
“Yeah, they’re the ones you heard about,” Loonie said in a flat tone. “They’re the ones who put the Mollyhorns out of business. They almost did the same to the Border Dogs last year.”
“Damn their eyes! I should have figured they were the same two sonsabitches,” Breck said, irritated once again. “Why don’t somebody do everyone a favor and kill them—be done with them for good?”
“Why don’t you?” Loonie asked.
“If I can get half a chance, I damn sure will,” Breck declared.
Loonie gave a dark grin. “I’ll give you more than half a chance. I’ll kill them with you.”
When the two had finished watering their horses, they mounted and rode away on an upward trail toward Little Ester. By late afternoon they had traveled into town, and turned their horses to an iron hitch rail out in front of a cantina.
“Bienvenidos a Pequeña Ester, señores,” said an old man, the town greeter.
Loonie and Breck looked the old man up and down, then stepped from their horses, hitched them and stared at the old greeter again.
“I have been here before, old man,” Loonie said. As he spoke he untied his saddlebags, slung them over his shoulder and drew his rifle from its boot. Watching him, Breck followed suit.
“Ah, sí,” the old man replied to Loonie, allowing a look of cautious recognition to appear on his weathered face.
Aware that the old man knew him all along, Loonie shook a finger and said with a half grin, “You’re a wise old man. You remember no one until you see they don’t mind being remembered, eh?”
The old man admitted nothing. Instead he fell back on his well-rehearsed lines and said, “May I ask what brings you to Little Ester?”
“No, you may not,” Ned Breck cut in.
“Easy, Ned,” Loonie said. “You are a friend of a friend of mine,” he said to the old man. “I want you to tell my friend that I’m here in the hill country, and I’m looking for him.”
“Amigo de un amigo . . .?” the old man said, looking confused.
Loonie grinned again. “Suddenly he doesn’t understand me,” he said to Breck. Taking a gold coin from his vest pocket, he held it up for the old man to see.
“Fool with me and I will kill you, Miguel,” he said, calling the old man by name. “Do as I ask and you will be rewarded.”
The old man only nodded. His blank eyes and expression still admitted nothing, but Loonie knew this was all the response he would get, and flipped the coin to him.
“Go to the stable and have the boy bring us two fresh horses—the best horses in the barn. And tell him to stick some food in a sack for us while we ride.”
“Sí, si,” the old man said, nodding. “Food and good horses.”
“And move quickly,” Loonie said. “We have men trailing us.” He looked at three horses standing along the iron hitch rail. Two of the animals were strong-looking desert bays, but the third was a scrawny, mousy-looking range stray.
An accordion stopped playing as the two dusty gunmen stepped inside the cantina and stood staring at four drinkers sidling along the bar. Noticing the look on the barkeeper’s face as he stared toward the new arrivals, the four men turned and looked them up and down.
“Carlos Loonie,” said one of the men, a Mexican who bore a long, vicious scar down his right cheek. “You are the hombre I have been looking for.”
Loonie’s hand went instinctively to the butt on his holstered Colt. “Cervo, my cousin,” said Loonie. “You better have a good reason for letting my name fall from your lips so freely.”
“Mi primo . . .” Cervo spread his hands in the gesture of an apology. “I heard that Santana needs good men. We come to join you. I did not mean to—”
Carlos raised a hand, silencing him. He looked the other three men over good, recognizing one of them, a young Texan named Buck Collins. “How good are these men?” he asked Cervo.
The three stared at him coldly. “Good enough not to be questioned about it,” said Buck Collins.
“You I have seen before,” said Loonie as he and Breck ventured to the bar. “You rode with Junior Lake’s gang before that Arizona Ranger killed Junior and his old man.”
“You’ve got it right,” said Collins, a sneer on his craggy face. “Had I been with Junior, it would have been the ranger who wound up dead that day.”
“Well-spoken,” said Loonie. “Who’s riding that flea-bitten stray out front? No one who rides with us Cut-Jaws would be seen riding such a sad animal.”
“That’s my horse,” said Buck Collins, looking ashamed. “But don’t worry. I plan to trade up the first chance I get.”
“See to it you do,” Loonie said haughtily. He jerked his head toward the other two men. “Who are these hombres?”
“This is Matt Stewart and Russell Hogue,” said Buck. “Two of the meanest sonsabitches I ever took up with.”
“What do you say, cousin?” Cervo cut in. “Did I bring you some good hombres?”
Loonie let a slow grin come to his face. “No,” he said. “You brought me some bad men . . . and that is good.” He looked at Breck, who nodded with approval.
“Yeah,” Breck affirmed, “come to think of it, some bad hombres are just what we need right now.”
“There are two lawmen dogging us,” Loonie said to his cousin. “Your first job is to kill them when they arrive.”<
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Chapter 8
It was dark when the two lawmen rode along the hillside trail toward Little Ester. Knowing they were close behind the outlaws, and well aware they were in perfect terrain for an ambush, they remained cautious. Their senses tended to every sound, every rustle of night breeze, every click of hoof or padded paw on the rocky hillside.
When they caught the sound of riders moving quietly on a trail running parallel to theirs, they stopped in their tracks and searched the darkness, listening intently. After a moment they saw the silhouettes of riders highlighted on a trail above them.
“Think it’s them?” Caldwell asked in a hushed voice.
“If it is, they know we’re down here,” Dawson whispered, easing his rifle from its boot and propping it on his thigh. “Let’s ride up and meet them on level footing.”
“Good idea,” agreed Caldwell, his rifle already out of its boot and lying ready across his lap.
The two nudged their horses forward at a walk, staying on the inside of the trail, close to the steep rock-strewn hillside that reached two hundred feet upward to the next switchback. Less than twenty yards forward, they turned their horses onto a narrow path leading up through a maze of brush and loose-lying rock.
Hidden along the upper trail, Carlos Loonie, Ned Breck and the other four men hurried down from their saddles and stretched out along the cliff’s overhang. There they lay in wait for the two riders; they’d already heard the riders’ horses moving toward them in the darkness.
“Everybody hold fire until I give the say-so,” Loonie whispered sidelong. He grinned at Breck, who was lying beside him, and said, “Now that we’ve got these law dogs in our gun sights, let’s make sure they don’t ride out of this alive.”
“I’m with you on that,” said Breck, checking his rifle. “Be sure you tell Santana that I had a hand in this. That’s all I ask.”
