City of Bad Men

by Ralph Cotton

  “We should have finished them off,” he said.

  “To hell with them. They’re hurt,” said Ruiz. “That’s all that matters.”

  “We killed their horses. They’re not going anywhere, not for a while anyways,” said Ned Breck in agreement.

  “That’s right,” said Ruiz. “I don’t want that money to stray too far out of my sight until I get my share of it.”

  “I don’t give a damn about the money,” said Aldo. “I just want to get my hands on Fast Larry, the son of a bitch who done this to me.”

  “Oh, boy, here we go again,” Ruiz said between himself and Ned Breck. “We got to hear more about how he’s going to kill Fast Larry.”

  “What’d you say?” Aldo asked in a stiff, angry tone.

  “Nothing, forget it,” said Ruiz. “If you ain’t careful, you’re going to catch up to Fast Larry. Then you’re going to have to make good on all this tough talk you’ve been spewing out about him.”

  “Yeah,” Breck put in with a dark laugh, “that’s when you’re going to wish you’d caught a wildcat by its ass instead.”

  “To hell with you both,” Aldo said, his horse trotting along beside them. “I’ll kill him. Then you’ll see!” His voice grew louder. “Everybody will see!” he raged.

  Atop a cliff, they stopped long enough to look around and check their back trail. When they did, they saw two riders on their trail, gaining ground fast.

  “Damn it, who’s this?” Ruiz asked, staring beneath his hat brim, still squinting against the sun’s glare.

  “Figure they found some horses?” Breck asked, also staring.

  “I don’t know,” said Ruiz. “It might be somebody else. But I ain’t lagging back to find out.” He kicked his horse forward. “Let’s get caught up to the others. There’s strength in numbers, you know.”

  Aldo Barry shook his head and looked away. His nose throbbed with his horse’s pounding hooves.

  The three rode on.

  On the trail far behind them, Shaw stopped his bay and watched as the federales rode the last few hundred yards into Readling’s mining operation. Easing down from his saddle, he led the bay onto the hillside and circled wide of the mines until he stood looking down on the yards from the shelter of brush and rock. Perched a hundred feet above the yards, he looked all around, searching for the woman as he watched the Mexican captain talk with Readling and his men.

  “Damn it, Captain,” Shaw heard Readling say, “you should have been here with your men.”

  “We turned and rode back as quickly as we could, as soon as we heard shooting,” the captain replied, “even though we were supposed to ride to town.”

  Readling could sense that things weren’t as they should be, but this was no time to argue. He and the Johnson brothers needed horses in order to get on the Cut-Jaws’ trail.

  “All right, Captain,” he said, “you got here as fast as you could,” he relented. “But it’s too late. What I need now are three good horses.”

  “But, Senor Readling,” said the captain, “it is my job to run down these thieves. I’m taking my men immediately and getting your gold and the two hostages back. You can rely on it.”

  “We’re coming too, Captain,” Readling insisted.

  “But we have no horses for you, senor,” the captain said. “Where are the mules your workers use to haul the ore buggy from the mines?”

  “Some of them belong to buggy men,” said Readling. “They ride them to the towns on weekends. Apparently the French also took some of them,” he added in disgust, “to eat, no doubt on their way to Mexico City.”

  “Then there is nothing I can do for you. We have no spare horses,” the captain said.

  “Tell three of your men to dismount, Captain. They can wait here. We’re taking their horses,” Readling ordered, utilizing the power he knew he had through his Golden Circle connections in Mexico City.

  Shaw listened for a while; then, realizing the Cut-Jaws had taken the woman, he scooted back into the brush, rose into a crouch and crept back to where his bay stood hitched to a tree. The pain had eased up inside his head for a while, but as he moved it suddenly came back to him. He had to stop and lean against the bay for a moment before climbing up into his saddle.

  The pain grew more intense as he turned his horse and rode it away, back toward the trail. He planned to move around the federales and get back on the trail ahead of them. But before he could get on his way, he caught sight of someone hiding in the brush to his right. He swung the big Russian .44 around, cocking it.

  “You, in there,” Shaw called out, “stand up, hands good and high.”

  As he called out, his head pounding insistently, everything began to take on the grayness he’d seen earlier. He struggled to remain upright in his saddle.

  In the brush, Doc Penton stood up with his hands above his head. “Don’t shoot, Shaw,” he said. “I’m not going to cause you any trouble.”

  Shaw had a hard time focusing, but he managed to recognize Penton and said in a thick voice, “What are you doing out here, Doc?”

  “Damn, Shaw, I thought for sure you were dead,” Penton said, taking a step forward. “Didn’t those soldiers cut your throat and leave you bleeding out?”

  “They did,” Shaw said, “and that wasn’t but half of all they did. But they didn’t get the job done.” He paused before saying, “You did your part, Doc, unloading my rifle for Dorphin.”

  “I know,” Doc said, “and I’m sorry.” He sounded sincere, but so had the two soldiers until they’d decided to make a move on him.

  “I bet you are,” Shaw said, managing to keep himself sitting straight even though the image of Doc Penton moved in and out of the dim grayness before him. “Are those your horses?” He gestured toward two horses standing hitched to a tree a few yards deeper into the brush and rock.

  “Yeah,” Doc said, “they are now.”

  “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing out here,” Shaw said.

  Doc looked ashamed as he stalled for a second. Finally he said, “I’m hiding, Shaw . . . all right?” He tilted his chin up. “I ran, grabbed the horses and hid out here when the Cut-Jaws rode in, because I didn’t want to get myself shot.”

  Shaw just stared at him. “All this time you’ve been hiding?”

  “That’s right,” said Doc. “I’d screwed myself up enough guts to go back, but then the soldiers came riding in and I stayed here. Now I don’t think I can go back and face Readling and the Johnson brothers.”

  Shaw started to sway in the saddle, but he caught himself. He couldn’t put off shooting Penton. He had no idea how long he’d remain upright. The grayness closed in deeper around him.

  “Do you know what I did with those soldiers, Doc?” he asked, cocking the big Russian.

  “Knowing that’s the kind of guns they carry,” Doc said, referring to the big Russian Smith & Wesson in Shaw’s hand, “I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

  “You’re right. They’re dead,” Shaw said, feeling his voice sound farther away. “Now you’re going to die too,” he added.

  “This close to the yard and to the federales?” Penton asked.

  But Shaw could no longer make out what Penton was saying. He only saw his lips moving. “So . . . long, Doc,” he said, barely staying conscious enough to keep the big revolver steady.

  Penton squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the bullet to hit him. But instead of hearing a shot explode, he heard Shaw topple from the saddle and land at the bay’s hooves. The bay chuffed, reached down and sniffed at its rider lying in the dirt.

  “Huh . . . ,” Doc said in surprise. He stepped forward with his hands still up and said down to Shaw, “Are you hit somewhere, Shaw?”

  When Shaw didn’t answer, Doc shrugged to himself and said, “Damn, this has been a strange day for me.”

  He stepped over to the bay, took down Shaw’s canteen, uncapped it with a shaky hand and took a gulp of tepid water. With his own gun in its holster, he stooped down, pick
ed up the big Russian .44 lying cocked and ready to fire. He plucked a twig from its cylinder and dusted some dirt from it.

  “After all this, I’m the one who ends up killing ‘the fastest gun alive’?” He shook his head. “It can’t get no stranger than this.”

  He held the tip of the gun barrel down close to Shaw’s head. “This time it’ll get done, Fast Larry,” he said to the unconscious gunman.

  Chapter 21

  In the middle of the night, Marshal Dawson and Deputy Caldwell were perched on a hillside, staring down onto glowing firelight radiating from the trail below them. They had slipped down within thirty yards of the camp, close enough to see the faces of the men sitting around a low fire sipping coffee. Dorphin sat amid the men, talking freely, a rifle across his lap, a pistol standing in his holster. The two lawmen had heard one of the other gunmen call Dorphin by name only a moment earlier.

  “He doesn’t appear to need much saving,” Caldwell whispered to the marshal.

  “It’s good to find out now, instead of later,” Dawson replied.

  The woman sat off to the side; she wasn’t tied up, but Silver Bones stood nearby, watching over her with a rifle in his hands. His mouth was still bruised and misshapen from the slam of Shaw’s rifle butt.

  “We haven’t seen or heard anything yet to make us believe Mingus Santana is with this bunch,” Caldwell reasoned.

  “True,” said Dawson. “We don’t want to go charging in there and risk getting the woman hurt.” He thought about the blood they’d found in the mining yard. “We know at least one of these men needs tending to in the City of Bad Men. We can hang back and trail them there.”

  Caldwell nodded in agreement.

  “All right, let’s slip in and get her out of there without a fight,” Dawson said. “We can deal with them anytime.”

  “Right,” said Caldwell. “They seem to be treating her good enough right now, but that can change with any turn of a card.”

  The two left their horses hitched to a stand of short rocks and moved away in a crouch, circling wide of the outlaws’ campfire in the purple moonlight. When they’d found a safe place behind Silver Bones and the woman, Dawson made a gesture that told Caldwell to wait there. The deputy stopped and gripped his rifle in both hands, ready to provide the marshal cover fire if he needed it.

  Dawson slipped along silently, as far as he could in a crouch. Then he dropped down onto his belly and crawled the last few yards until he stopped behind a rock only six feet behind Silver Bones. The woman still sat to the side, suspecting nothing, gazing over toward the flickering campfire ten yards away.

  Here goes....

  Dawson stood up and moved forward fast, holding his rifle high. Seeing the back of Silver Bones’ head, he made a powerful short jab with the rifle butt and sent the outlaw tumbling to the ground. The woman heard a sound, no different than a sack of grain falling. But when she turned toward the noise, Dawson had already crossed the few feet to her.

  Seeing the look of fright and surprise on her face, the marshal threw his gloved hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. “It’s all right. We’re lawmen. We’ve come for you.” He pulled her against him.

  Her eyes darted wildly back and forth above the edge of his glove, looking for the other lawmen.

  “Do you understand me?” he whispered. “We’re here to save you.”

  She nodded vigorously, wild-eyed, yet she still hesitated until Dawson took his hand from her mouth and pulled her away with him toward the cover of brush and rock. Once they were safely hidden, she jerked free of him and spoke in a whisper, suspicion in her voice.

  “Americano lawmen? Out here, in the hill country? Who are you?” she demanded. She saw Caldwell appear out of the darkness.

  “Not now, ma’am,” Dawson whispered. “We’ve got to get you out of here, before they find the rifleman knocked out.”

  The three hurried away toward the horses, the woman being helped along by the lawmen on either side of her. When they reached the animals and unhitched them from the rock, Dawson swung her up onto the saddle and pulled himself up behind her. They rode away without incident, looking back onto the flickering campfire glowing peaceably in the night.

  “We were lucky, getting out of there without firing a shot,” Dawson said, his face close enough to the woman’s hair to catch its soft, flowery fragrance.

  Jesus.... Shaw was right, he thought, closing his eyes for a moment as if feeling Rosa Shaw’s hair once again caress his cheek. Head injury or not, he could see that the two women were almost identical.

  Stop it . . . , he had to tell himself. He’d had to do the same many times since Rosa’s death, as he often found himself lost in his memories of his best friend’s wife.

  “Who are you? Where are you taking me?” Rosa Reyes asked over her shoulder.

  Beside them, Caldwell offered a response, as if he realized Dawson needed a second to collect himself.

  “La Ciudad de Hombres Malos,” Caldwell said in Spanish, in respect of her native tongue.

  “The City of Bad Men,” she translated back to him with a snap. “My English is good, senor,” she said. “You do not need to make concessions for my benefit.”

  “No, senora,” said Caldwell, “I understand that, and I apologize.”

  Dawson reached past her knee, feeling the heat of her bare skin, her skirt hiked up for riding. He picked up his canteen by its strap and uncapped it. He had to keep himself in close check with this woman, he realized.

  “This is my deputy, Jedson Caldwell, senora,” he said quietly. “I’m Marshal Crayton Dawson.”

  “I am Senora Rosa Reyes,” she said, nodding first at Caldwell in the moonlight, then turning her words back over her shoulder to the marshal. She paused in reflection for a moment, then said, “I have heard of you both . . . from my father. Thank God you came along when you did.”

  “You appeared safe enough for the time being, senora,” Caldwell said.

  “Yes,” said Rosa Reyes in a brittle, prickly tone, “for a defenseless kidnapped woman, in the company of several armed thieves and killers who are on the run, I should never have felt safer in my life.”

  “Again, I apologize, senora. I’m an idiot,” Caldwell said flatly, apparently unable to converse with the woman on any intelligent level without his words tangling into a mess.

  To get the deputy out of the spot he’d stumbled into, Dawson cut in, saying, “What about the man, Dorphin? It looks like he’s part of the Cut-Jaws.”

  “Yes,” said the woman. “It was he who told the Cut-Jaws about Readling’s plan to hide all the cash and the gold at the mines.”

  “Do you know why a man like Readling would do such a thing—bring such a valuable cargo to a place like this?” Dawson asked, handing the canteen around to her.

  “Yes, I know why,” she said. “Because he is a pig and an outlaw himself, only of a different sort.” Her voice became stronger as she spoke. “The gold and the cash belong to a group he’s part of called the Golden Circle. Have you heard of them?”

  Dawson looked at Caldwell in the moonlight.

  “Oh, yes, senora,” Dawson said. “The Golden Circle has been around for a long time. If Readling is a member, you’re right, he’s an outlaw himself, only a more polished and refined one.”

  The woman sipped the tepid water, then handed the canteen back to Dawson.

  “I can tell you many things about the celebrated Mr. Howard Readling,” she said in a bitter tone. “He had my father and my brother killed.” She paused for a second, then continued. “I was told as much by the gunman, Lawrence Shaw. Readling then had soldiers kill Shaw, I’m certain of it. He told me he would not . . . but he did.”

  “Good news, Senora Reyes,” Dawson said, recapping the canteen. “Lawrence Shaw is not dead. We found him and took him to a church in the City of Bad Men. He’s there now recuperating,” he added.

  “Thank God,” she said, crossing herself, appearing stunned by the news. “But how can it
be that they did not kill him. He was so helpless, and out of his senses?”

  Helpless . . . ?

  “Senora, I could tell you stories about that one . . . ,” Dawson said, nudging his horse forward.

  Near dawn, Shaw awakened and looked off across the purple hill country surrounding him. He remembered the last time he’d drifted off into the grayness and awakened with his gun standing unloaded in his holster. Instinctively, he reached his hand down his side and he felt the empty holster on his hip.

  A small fire flickered between him and Doc Penton.

  “I’ve got both the Russians, Shaw,” Doc said quietly, sitting a few feet away, facing him across the fire. One of the big .44s hung loosely in his hand.

  “You should have killed me when you had the chance, Doc,” Shaw said. He was still foggy, but the pain in his head had eased off.

  “Not with the federales so close,” Doc said. “But who says I don’t still have the chance?” The big revolver flipped upward in his hand, his thumb cocking the hammer as he leveled it in Shaw’s face.

  Shaw didn’t flinch. “Do it, Doc,” he said calmly, his eyes level on Penton’s. Make yourself the fastest gun alive. I’m through with it.”

  “The fastest gun alive . . .?” Doc said. He let the hammer down with his thumb, flipped the gun around in his hand and laid it on Shaw’s lap, butt first. “I already considered it, when you were lying knocked out on the ground.” He nodded at the revolver and said, “I only took the guns because I didn’t know what kind of mood you’d come back in.”

  Shaw stared at him.

  Doc shook his head. “Fastest gun alive sounded like a lot of work to me.” He gave a thin smile.

  “A wise observation,” Shaw said. He picked up the Russian and slipped it into his holster.

  Doc handed him the other one and Shaw slid it down into his belt. “Besides, my gunning days are over. I’ve run out of nerve.”

  “That’s hard to believe,” Shaw said.

  “I know,” Doc said. “I started hiring out my gun when I was sixteen . . . charged a cousin of mine two dollars, and as much time as I wanted rolling in the hay with her, to kill her husband, Blaine.”