City of Bad Men

by Ralph Cotton

  As soon as Dorphin arrived at the rear of the wagon, he stepped out of sight from the office shack and lowered his hands. He let out a breath and shoved his hair back up under his hat.

  “That went better than I thought it would,” he said to Thorpe. He smiled, but then he saw the blood on the outlaw’s side. “Damn, what happened to you, Morgan?” he said.

  “That accidental rifle shot nailed me good,” said Thorpe. “Who fired it?”

  “Beats me,” Dorphin lied. “Both Johnson brothers have a rifle. Mine’s still in my rifle boot. See?”

  “Rifles don’t know who they belong to,” Ned Breck put in with a questioning glare.

  “Who’s the mouth?” Dorphin asked Thorpe, not about to start off taking any guff. He took a step toward Breck, his hand coming down close to the gun on his hip.

  “This is Ned Breck,” said Thorpe, his voice sounding strained.

  Breck only glowered at Dorphin.

  “Take it easy, Ned,” Thorpe warned. “I’ve known Willis Dorphin since my gun-running days when he was decking for the railroad. You do not want to give him any shit.” Just as soon as he’d spoken his coarse words, he turned toward Rosa Reyes and said sincerely, “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”

  Rosa looked away.

  From the shack, Readling called out, “All right, where’s the woman?”

  “She’s going with us,” said Thorpe. “Says she likes us better.” He ginned at Rosa as he pressed the bandana to his bleeding side. “Ain’t that right, ma’am?” He wagged his gun barrel at her, forcing her to reply to Readling.

  She took a step and called out, “I am going with them. I like them better.”

  Thorpe and the others chuckled.

  “What about Willis Dorphin?” Readling called out, trying to hold down his rage.

  “They said they’ll kill me if you try to follow them, Mr. Readling,” Dorphin cried out in mock terror.

  “The question is, Readling,” Thorpe called out, “who do you want us to kill . . . the woman or this hired gun who’s like a brother to you?”

  Readling shouted a curse, then said, “If anything happens to the woman . . .!” His words trailed in his rage and frustration.

  “I guess I see where I stand,” Dorphin chuckled along with the others.

  “Don’t worry, ma’am,” Thorpe said to Rosa Reyes. He looked her up and down, hungrily. But he clicked his cheek and said, almost as a warning to himself, “If anything happened to you, Santana himself would skin the lot of us.”

  Senora Rosa Reyes stood cool and calm. “I only want to get where I am going. I will get in no one’s way,” she replied.

  “That’s good, ma’am,” said Thorpe. “I expect any of us here can say the same.” He turned to Carlos Loonie and said, “Help me with the wagon. I’m bleeding too much to stand around here.” To Ned Breck, Charlie Ruiz and Aldo Barry, he said, “You three hang back up in the rocks, just in case. If they make for their horses to follow us, shoot them down.”

  “You mean shoot them or shoot their horses?” Breck asked.

  “Either one . . . Hell, shoot both,” said Thorpe. “What the blazes do we care? Today, we’ve become rich men.”

  Atop a high cliff, Crayton Dawson stood in his stirrups with his telescope to his eye and gazed onto their back trail. He saw the federales riding upward at a good steady pace, less than an hour behind them. They had first spotted the soldiers earlier while the shooting still raged. But now that the gunfire had stopped, it appeared the column was riding faster.

  Turning in his saddle, Dawson looked out onto a trail ahead of them where he’d spotted dust stirring only a moment ago.

  Beside him, Deputy Caldwell squinted his naked eyes, seeing with little success in the sun’s glare.

  “Sounds like the shooting’s all over with at the mines,” he said. “What can you see over in that direction?”

  “It’s the Cut-Jaws all right,” Dawson said. “It looks like they’ve gotten their hands on a freight wagon. There’s some small crates in its bed. There must’ve been something there worth stealing.”

  “Anybody from the mines on their trail?” Caldwell asked.

  “No,” Dawson said grimly. “That’s a bad sign. We might find nothing but bodies at the mines.”

  As Dawson looked back and forth, seeing the faces of the Cut-Jaws as if they were only a few yards from him, he scanned back across the wagon bed, then back toward the front seat, where he saw the backs of two men and a woman seated between them.

  “All right,” he said to Caldwell, “I think I’m spotting Readling’s woman, the one Shaw was telling us about.”

  A swirl of trail dust drifted across the circling lens view, then moved away. As it did, it revealed the woman’s face as she turned and looked back into the wagon bed. Dawson got a good close look at her.

  “My God . . .” He lowered the lens from his eye as if he’d been stricken in the heart.

  “What is it?” Caldwell asked.

  Without answering, Dawson raised the lens again, looked through it and found her face for a second time, now only for a few seconds before more dust wafted in and she righted herself in the seat. Dawson let out a breath.

  “Holy Mother,” he said. He lowered the lens and rubbed his eye as if in disbelief. “I see why Shaw was so taken.” He handed the lens sidelong to Caldwell as he spoke. “She looks so much like Rosa Shaw that I—”

  He stopped himself short and shook his head.

  Caldwell searched through the lens, seeing the streaking dust, the wagon, the backs of two men and a woman in the seat.

  “I can only see the back of her head,” he said sidelong as he continued looking. “I never saw his wife anyway . . . .”

  “You have now,” Dawson said in earnest, “as close as you ever will in this life.”

  When Caldwell lowered the lens, he looked at Dawson and saw the hurt look on his face, the wistful sadness in his eyes. He looked away for a moment as he collapsed the telescope between his palms and handed it back to him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked finally.

  “Yeah,” Dawson said, but he drew a breath and let it out as he replied, “I wasn’t ready for something like that,” he said.

  “So I see,” Caldwell said. He continued looking off toward the stir of dust on the distant hillside, no longer able to see the faces of the men or the woman.

  Dawson looked at him. “We lived in Somos Santos, within miles of each other. We were neighbors.”

  “I know,” said Caldwell, turning his horse on the trail. “I also know that there are things that are unresolved between you and Shaw over her.”

  Dawson turned his horse alongside him. “No, there’s not,” he said. “There are things Shaw and I have never discussed. There are things neither one of us wants to bring up. But there’s nothing unresolved.”

  “I understand,” Caldwell said.

  “It resolved itself somehow,” Dawson said, “or else one of us would be dead.” He nudged his horse forward with a tap of his boots.

  They rode onto the trail leading toward the mining complex. But before they had made their way three miles closer, a series of quickly fired rifle shots exploded on the distant hillside. The sound caused the two lawmen to nudge their horses up into a trot even on the rocky, hazardous trail.

  At the mines, Readling stood over the dead horses, gazing off along the trail, gripping his left arm where a bullet had grazed him.

  “The sons of bitches,” he said bitterly, a pistol hanging in his hand. “I’ll get them for this even if it kills us all.”

  Elvis and Witt Johnson gave each other a look. Witt said, “Begging your pardon, Mr. Readling. But the woman sounded like she meant it when she said she liked them better than us.”

  “Don’t be a damn fool, Witt!” Readling snapped at him angrily. “They told her what she had to say! What else could she have done but go along with them, under the circumstances?”

  The Johnson brothers fell silent.
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  “Whatever the case, it’s going to be a damn long walk to the City of Bad Men,” Elvis said quietly. He held a wadded-up bandana pressed to a bullet graze along his left shoulder.

  “What’s this?” said Witt, jerking his rifle up at the sight of the two riders who appeared from around the front guard shack.

  Elvis’ rifle came up as well. “Jesus, there’s more of them Cut-Jaws coming!” He levered a round into the chamber. The brothers flanked Readling on either side.

  Readling raised his pistol with his good arm, cocked it and took aim.

  “Hold your fire,” Dawson shouted out loudly as he and Caldwell rode closer. “We’re lawmen. We’re not with the Cut-Jaws.”

  “Lawmen, eh?” Readling said skeptically. But he tipped his gun barrel up. “You look too much like us to be the law here in the Mexican hill country.”

  “We are the law all the same,” Dawson said, speaking fast as he pulled his horse to a halt.

  Following suit beside him, Caldwell said, “We heard shooting.”

  “Yes, you did,” said Readling. “Now, who the devil are you?”

  “I’m U.S. Marshal Crayton Dawson. This is my deputy, Jedson Caldwell,” Dawson said. “We work here with the blessings of the Mexican government.”

  Readling let his gun down. “All right, I’ve heard of you fellows.”

  “So have I,” said Elvis. He and his brother lowered their rifles as one.

  “I sure wish to goodness you had extra horses, Marshal,” Readling said. “You see how they’ve left us here.” He gestured down at the dead horses lying sprawled on the ground.

  “Sorry we can’t help you in that regard,” Dawson said firmly. “We’re going after them, though. I caught sight of them riding along the trail with a wagon.”

  “Yes, a wagon carrying crates of my gold and cash on it,” Readling said. “Which way do they appear to be headed?”

  “My guess would be they’re going for the high trail and south to San Simon first of all. There’s water for their horses there,” Dawson said.

  “I think one of them is wounded,” Readling said. “We found blood over by an empty wagon.” He gestured to where Thorpe had stood.

  “In that case they’ll head north on the trail and cut back to the City of Bad Men,” Dawson said. “There’s a mission priest there who can patch up a bullet hole. There’s no one who can help them in San Simon.”

  “That settles it, then,” said Readling, “they’re headed for la Ciudad de Hombres Malos.” He rubbed the back of his neck in frustration, then said, “I don’t suppose you’d sell us those horses, would you? I mean, for a very serious amount of money?”

  “Not a chance,” said Dawson. “But we’re going to find the men who robbed you. With any luck, you’ll be getting your gold and your money back very soon.”

  Readling hated to think of a U.S. Marshal and his deputy opening one of the crates and finding gold bars bearing a U.S. Depository stamp on them. Damn....

  “All right,” said Readling. He snapped his raised pistol back toward the two lawmen. “What if I say we’re taking those horses and leaving you here until help comes along for you?”

  “Jesus . . . !” Elvis murmured. “He’s lost his mind!”

  Dawson’s and Caldwell’s rifles came up from across their laps as one. “You don’t want this to happen, mister,” Dawson said. “We’ll leave you lying dead with your horses.”

  Readling’s pistol tipped back up, some sense coming back to him. As if nothing had just happened, he said, “All right, Marshal, they’re holding two hostages . . . a man who works for me and a woman who’s traveling with me.”

  “We’ll be careful not to get them hurt,” Dawson said.

  “What about us?” Readling asked. “How do we get out of here?”

  “There’s a column of federales riding up behind us,” Dawson said. “You’ll be able to get horses from them.”

  Readling saw the lawmen had nothing else for him. He nodded and said, “We’ll be right behind you, then.”

  The two lawmen turned their horses and nudged them back onto the trail.

  Chapter 20

  As the two scouts rounded a turn in a winding switchback, they both reined up hard at the sight of Shaw sitting his horse in the middle of the trail gazing coldly at them. Both scouts swallowed a hard knot and stared wide-eyed, stricken with fear.

  “Just the two men I’ve been looking for,” Shaw said quietly.

  “Larry Rápido,” the older scout whispered and crossed himself slowly, as if he’d witnessed a miracle. Shaw moved his horse forward and stopped less than four feet away as the soldiers continued to stare. He nodded down at his rifle, sticking up from the older scout’s saddle boot. The soldier had swapped places with his own older rifle, which now lay shoved into his bedroll.

  “I’ll be taking my rifle back now,” Shaw said in the same quiet but sinister tone.

  “Sí, of course,” said the older scout. “I—I want you to have it. I cleaned it real good, just in case we ever met again.”

  “You mean after you cut my throat and threw me off the cliff?” Shaw said, watching closely as the scout drew the rifle up and handed it over to him, butt first.

  “Yes, right after that,” the scout said, nodding his head vigorously. “I felt so bad—as we both did, and I told my friend here, if by some chance you lived and we ever saw you again, I wanted to—”

  The sound of Shaw levering a round into the rifle chamber cut him off. Shaw cocked the rifle and laid it across his lap, his hand around it, his finger inside the trigger guard. “What kind of six-shooters are you carrying?” he asked.

  The two looked at the gun in Shaw’s holster, seeing for the first time how battered and old it appeared. Realizing they had just been duped into arming the beaten-up gunman, the older scout shook his head in regret and said, “Mine is a Russian Smith & Wesson, senor.”

  “As is mine,” said the younger scout.

  “Raise them, and hand them over,” Shaw said, feeling pain start to churn inside his head.

  Both soldiers raised their holster flaps, lifted the big Smith & Wessons and held them out, butt first. Shaw pulled the battered relic from his holster and shoved it down beneath the flap of his saddlebag. The scouts stared in disgust at each other as he took both revolvers, cocked one and laid the other on his lap.

  “Now, bullets,” Shaw said.

  “Bullets, senor . . . ?” the older scout said as if not understanding.

  “These Russians shoot forty-fours. I carry forty-fives.” He wagged the big pistol. “Give me some forty-four bullets.”

  “Of course, I forgot,” the older scout said. He reached over, taking a black bandoleer of bullets from the younger scout’s shoulder, and handed them over. Shaw hung it over his own shoulder.

  “I’m happy to see that you are doing so well, senor,” the older scout said. He gestured toward the stitches on Shaw’s chin. “There will hardly be a scar, once you have healed—”

  “Ride on,” Shaw said, cutting him off, feeling the pain in his head growing more intense.

  “You are not going to kill us, Larry Rápido?” the younger scout asked.

  “No,” Shaw said, “not unless you force me to. You’re soldiers, you followed orders. Now get going.” His head began to pound inside. Things began looking flat and gray in front of him. He could hardly distinguish the men from his surroundings.

  “We go now,” the older scout said as they both backed their horses a few steps. Before turning the animals, the soldiers noted the look on Shaw’s face, seeing that he was having trouble staying upright in his saddle.

  The younger scout gestured his eyes toward his rifle, still standing in its boot.

  The older scout’s eyes glittered, realizing Shaw had made a terrible oversight. Looking up at the young scout, the older soldier shouted, “Ahora!”

  Acting on command, the young soldier snatched the rifle up from its boot as the older scout’s hand went inside his tunic a
nd came out swinging a double-action Colt Thunderer around toward Shaw.

  The big Russian .44 snapped up from Shaw’s lap and bucked twice in his hand, firing at little more than gray shadows. But Shaw’s condition didn’t hinder him any. The older scout flew backward from his saddle and landed dead on the ground. The younger scout went down only a second behind him. He lay groaning, writhing in the dirt, a gaping bullet hole in his chest.

  Shaw’s head cleared a little; so did his vision, as he batted his eyes and looked down at the big smoking revolver.

  Nice gun . . . .

  He held the revolver dangling down at his thigh as he nudged the bay over and looked down at the Mexican soldier lying on the ground.

  “Larry Rápido! Larry Rápido!” the young scout said in a strained and sobbing voice. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Yep, I suppose so,” Shaw said. The Russian bucked once more in his hand; the scout fell silent.

  Shaw stepped down from his saddle and leaned against the bay’s side for a moment, making sure that his head was clear and his vision was back to normal. When the world settled around him, he dragged the two bodies off the trail, dropped the saddles and bridles from their horses and shooed the animals away.

  Back at his own horse, he stepped up and sat slumped in his saddle for a moment, as if he was trying to remember what to do next. He thought about the old woman he’d seen—or at least thought he had seen—on his way out of town.

  “The bruja and her sparrows . . . ,” he said quietly to himself. How did she manage to train birds as wild and fast and headstrong as sparrows . . . ?

  Hell, he didn’t know, he thought, and he put the question out of his mind, tapped his boots to the bay’s sides and rode on toward Readling’s mines. He would find her if it meant his life. Rosa . . . , he told himself, I’m not losing you again . . . .

  Ned Breck, Charlie Ruiz and Aldo Barry had hurried atop their horses and lit out as soon as they’d wounded Readling and Elvis Johnson. As they rode away, Aldo Barry had looked back and spoken with a nasal twang, his nose healing, but still purple and swollen.