by Ralph Cotton
“Everybody has to start somewhere,” Shaw said.
“Yep, that’s what I told myself back then,” said Doc. “But I spent the two dollars on whiskey and more bullets. And I got so tired of rolling in the hay with her, I contracted a rash.”
“What can I say?” Shaw shook his head slowly.
“I’ve lived by the gun ever since,” said Doc. “Now look at me. I’ve run out of guts and I can’t keep from shaking every time I think about dying. Hell of a note, ain’t it?”
Shaw stared at him. “Seeing Blaine’s face more clearly these days, I expect?” Shaw offered.
“Him, and every other son of a bitch I sent to hell,” Doc reflected. “But that’s not so new. I’ve been seeing them for years.”
“I know the feeling,” Shaw said.
They sat quietly until Doc asked, “What got into you anyway, Shaw? You could have had it made hands down with Howard Readling. He liked you—I mean, he respected you, that is . . . leastwise as much as a man like him could respect anybody.”
“The woman is what got into me, Doc,” Shaw said. “I was married to a woman who looked enough like Rosa Reyes to be her twin—even had the same name, Rosa.”
“Damn,” Doc said. “No wonder she had you acting about half, you know . . .” His words trailed as he touched his fingers to the side of his head.
“Half crazy, you mean?” Shaw said, finishing his words for him. He touched his fingers to his head too. “Yeah, I suppose so . . . her, and taking a bullet in the head,” he offered.
“A bullet in the head never helped anybody,” Doc said with a wince.
Shaw nodded and continued, saying, “The life I live got my wife killed. When I met Rosa Reyes, I knew it was my own wife, Rosa Shaw, come back to me to give me another chance.”
Doc Penton stared at him.
“I know how all this sounds, Doc,” Shaw said, not even stopping to question why he was telling Penton any of it. “But this woman is my Rosa, no ifs, ands or buts about it.”
“A head wound can knock a man plumb off his fences for a long time, Shaw,” Doc Penton said.
“I know,” Shaw said, “and the crazier it makes a man, the least likely he is to see it.”
“Yep,” Doc said. “I’m glad you understand that.”
“Only this is not crazy talk,” Shaw said, as if he hadn’t heard him. “I don’t how things like this work, but Rosa has come back to me somehow, and I’m never going to let her go.”
“Shaw, listen to me—”
But Shaw stopped Doc Penton with a raised hand, already recognizing that Doc was going to try to reason with him and change his mind.
“No, Doc, you listen to me,” he said. “We’ve been getting along real good, you and me, sitting here, neither one of us trying to kill the other. Don’t go telling me what I don’t want to hear.”
Doc fell silent. After a moment, he said, “Well, why don’t I boil us some coffee?”
“Yeah, good idea,” Shaw said.
“What do you think of me riding with you anyways?” Doc asked.
“Suit yourself,” Shaw said, “but keep your hands off my rifle.”
“I told you I was sorry for what I did,” said Doc.
“And I heard you,” Shaw replied.
Chapter 22
Gazing down from the bell tower above the church, the young Mexican saw a wagon roll into sight ahead of a billowing cloud of dust. He turned, hurried down the ladder and raced through the hallway to where the priest stood before a cracked and tarnished mirror.
“What is it, Julio?” the priest questioned over his shoulder. He was in a fighting stance, shooting his fists out in fast short punches at an imaginary opponent.
“Riders are coming. They bring a wagon, Padre,” said the boy. “It looks like the same men who were here before.”
“The Cut-Jaws?” Father Timido asked, looking surprised.
“Sí, Las Mandíbulas de corte,” Julio said quickly, repeating the priest’s words in Spanish.
“I see,” said the priest. He stopped punching, straightened his loose sleeves and adjusted the front of his black robe. “Perhaps the time has come for me to chase them away for good.”
The young man stared in amazement. “Can you do such a thing, Padre?” he asked.
“Of course,” Father Timido said proudly, jutting his chin. “I am a man of God. I can do many things. I can tell these men to go, and they must go. I can beat in their faces if they disobey me.” He smiled a little as he opened and closed his tight fists. “This is the power I have.”
The padre and the young man hurried to the ladder and climbed up to the bell tower. Father Timido looked out at the riders and the freight wagon, which were now drawing closer, leaving a swirl of dust behind them.
“I sense that they are coming here, to our humble church,” he murmured.
“Then what must we do, Padre?” the boy asked.
“I know what I must do,” Father Timido said. “But as for you, Julio, I think it is time for you to go join your family.”
“I cannot leave you here alone with them, Padre,” the young man said, concerned, in spite of all the priest’s bold talk.
On the street below, many of the townspeople had already seen the rising dust and were once again frantically preparing to leave.
“The best thing you can do for me, Julio, is to go, take your family back to the hillsides and stay there until these men are gone,” Father Timido said.
The young boy submitted. “I will do as you tell me to do, Padre, but I do not like it. I want to stay here with you.”
Father Timido turned and looked at the boy. He smiled. “Julio,” he said, “I have been here almost three years, and always you have been at my heels. If I stop too quickly, I know you will bump into me.”
The boy stared at the approaching riders and said bitterly, “If I only had a gun—”
“Shhh! Stop that kind of talk,” the padre said. “You had a gun. You lent it to Larry Rápido, remember?”
“Sí,” Julio said, “and that was a mistake. If I had it now—”
“Stop it,” the priest said, cutting him off again. He turned and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You are a good boy. But I am sorry to say, this is not a day for good boys. This is a day for bad men.” He gestured a hand around the town below them. “What better place for bad men than this City of Bad Men?”
Julio stood quietly.
The priest patted his cheek. “No, you go and do as I tell you. You must grow to be strong of both mind and body, so that when you are a man, you will be a good man. You will be the kind of man who will put himself between outlaws and this beloved country of ours. Knowing you have done that with your life is all I care about.”
The boy looked frightened. “Padre,” he said, “you talk as if this will be your last day here.”
“We never know what day will be out last, my son,” the padre said. “Now go. See to your family.”
When the boy had descended the ladder, Father Timido stood watching. He saw the boy cross the dusty street and disappear into a small adobe house. A moment later, he saw the boy and his mother leave through a back door with a bundle of belongings and supplies, which the boy carried on his thin shoulder.
“Now, my bold desperadoes,” he murmured toward the rising swirl of dust that trailed the horsemen and wagon as they closed in on the town. “Welcome back to the City of Bad Men. Let us see what this day holds in store for us.” He stood straight and tall, making sure the outlaws could see him clearly.
On the seat of the wagon, Morgan Thorpe sat slumped, the bandana pressed to his side now blackened and crusted with dried blood. Beside him Carlos Loonie drove the team of horses hard. The wagon bucked and bounced and rumbled forward.
Raising his head slightly, Thorpe saw the lone figure in his black robe staring out toward them from the bell tower.
“There’s the good Padre now,” he said to Loonie in a weak voice, managing a thin smile. “I feel bett
er already.”
Loonie spat sidelong from the wagon seat. “Our Father Timido should have been a doctor. He’s certainly had to cut a lot of bullets out of folks.”
As Loonie and Thorpe watched, the padre left the bell tower. Now that he saw the boy and his mother were safely out of town, he climbed down the ladder and walked to his sleeping chambers.
He knelt and slid a small ironclad box from beneath his bed, unlocked it and took out a gun belt wrapped around a slim-jim holster that housed a big Colt Dragoon. Knowing the gun belt would show too clearly under his robe, he slipped the gun from the holster, placed the empty holster in the box and slid the box back under the bed.
From the wagon, Loonie and Thorpe saw the priest reappear at the open side door of the mission church’s adobe-walled courtyard.
From the path up the rocky tree-covered hillside, the boy Julio looked back and saw the padre step out of the churchyard as the wagon and riders came to a halt in a stir of dust.
The boy said a quick prayer for the padre. Then he crossed himself, turned and climbed the hill path, taking his mother’s hand in his. “When I do become a man, I will be like Padre Timido,” he vowed in a whisper. “Because of him I will be a good man . . . in spite of this place where I come from.”
At the church, Carlos Loonie and Matt Stewart helped Thorpe down from the wagon and through the door into the courtyard. Once they were inside, Killer Cady looked all around at the others, who had stepped down from their saddles. They gazed back in the direction of the trail as if in dark anticipation.
“We don’t want to stay bunched up here,” Cady said. “Some of you go water your horses and get yourself some grub and something to drink at the cantina.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” said Hogue. He looked at Silver Bones’ battered face and said, “Do you feel like a shot or two would help that mouth of yours?”
“Yes, I do,” said Bones, standing with his horse’s reins in hand. He wasted no time turning the animal around and leading it away along the dirt street, Hogue walking alongside him.
“I expect it’s no secret Santana’s going to shit a squealing worm when he learns that we lost the woman,” Hogue said sidelong to Bones.
“A squealing worm . . .?” Bones questioned, giving him a strange look.
“It’s an old expression, is all,” Hogue said.
“I sure as hell never heard it before,” Bones said in his new toothless voice.
“He’ll throw a fit, is what I meant by it,” Hogue said.
“I don’t know,” said Bones. “Look at all the money we made . . . and hardly anybody hurt on our side. Santana has to look at it as a job well done, woman or no woman.”
As they walked on to the cantina, Killer Cady, standing at the wagon, saw Ned Breck, Charlie Ruiz and Aldo Barry come into view on the trail.
“Here comes the three you left to take care of Readling and his men,” Dorphin said, still standing near the wagon bed as if guarding its cargo.
“Good,” said Kale, standing nearby. “The sooner we’re all back together, the better.”
“Yeah,” said Killer Cady, looking back contemplatively across the hill country. “If we ain’t careful, this town could fill up awful fast.”
At the bottom of a thin path Shaw and Doc Penton had taken down from the switchbacks, the two sat atop their horses watching Dawson ride up into sight, someone seated behind his saddle. Shaw stared ahead, waiting to see Caldwell ride into sight as well. But when he didn’t see the deputy ride up, he looked closer and realized it was Caldwell riding double with Dawson.
“Here comes a story if I ever seen one,” Shaw said quietly.
When Dawson spotted Shaw and Doc Penton, he rode straight to them. A few feet away, Caldwell dropped from behind Dawson’s saddle and stood with his rifle in hand.
“What happened?” Shaw asked Caldwell. “Did your horse go lame on you?”
“No,” Caldwell said.
“Senora Rosa Reyes stole his horse last night,” Dawson cut in.
“She just slipped away into the night,” Caldwell said in a bitter tone. As he spoke, he eyed the spare horse standing beside Doc, its reins in Doc’s gloved hands.
“We saved her from the Cut-Jaws,” Dawson said. “Then she turned around and did this to us.”
“She must’ve been scared,” Shaw said in the woman’s defense.
Dawson and Caldwell just stared at him.
“I don’t think the woman is afraid of anything,” Doc Penton said.
“Who’s this?” Dawson asked Shaw.
“This is Doc Penton,” Shaw said. He introduced the three, then said, “Doc was with Readling when the Cut-Jaws hit the mines. Says they stole crates of gold and U.S. currency from Readling.”
“We know,” said Dawson. “The woman told us the same thing.”
“It’s gold and cash that belongs to the Golden Circle,” Caldwell said.
“All of it stolen from the U.S. government over a long period of time, no doubt,” Dawson put in. “Do you realize what this means, Shaw?” he asked, noticing that Shaw looked better than the last time he’d seen him—his senses seemingly clearer as well.
But then Shaw said, “I don’t care what it means. I don’t care about the Golden Circle. Where do you think she went?”
Dawson let out a breath and said, “Look, Shaw, I saw her. I know how much she reminds you of—”
“Where do you think she went?” he repeated, his tone more pressing this time.
“I figure she’s heading for the same place we’re headed,” Dawson said. “That’s the direction the Cut-Jaws and their wagon is headed in too.”
“Here’s a question for you, Marshal,” Doc said. “If you take the wagon from the Cut-Jaws, do you give it back to Readling, knowing it’s going to the Golden Circle?”
“That’s a good question, Doc,” Dawson said. “Are you still working for Readling?”
“No,” said Penton, “I expect I’m not, anymore.” He looked at Shaw, wondering if Shaw was going mention what Penton had admitted earlier. When Penton realized that Shaw wasn’t going to reveal anything they’d talked about, he spoke for himself, no longer ashamed of his actions.
“I told Shaw I lost my nerve back there, Marshal,” he said. “But the more I think about it, the more I recognize that’s not what happened. I believe it was just the first time in my life I realized how bad it would be to get myself killed saving some lousy rich bastard like Howard Readling. It spooked me.”
Shaw looked off in the direction of the City of Bad Men and said, “Doc, unless you want to ride into town with me, this might be a good place for you to split off.”
“Are you telling me to leave, or giving me the choice?” Doc asked.
Shaw only shrugged.
“Then I think I’ll ride along with you. I hate the idea of getting this close to la Ciudad de Hombres Malos without stopping in and saying howdy.”
Caldwell cut in and said, “Any chance of me riding your spare?” As he spoke he stepped closer in hopeful anticipation.
“Help yourself,” Doc said. He handed the deputy the horse’s reins.
“Obliged,” said Caldwell. He swung up atop the roan’s saddle and reined it back and forth in place to get a feel for it.
In a moment, the four men had turned the horses and trotted them toward the thin trail.
Chapter 23
When Howard Readling looked back and saw that Captain Fuente had brought his column to a halt, he cursed and swung his horse around, riding back toward the captain, the Johnson brothers right behind him. The captain sat waiting. Beside him, his sergeant raised a hand to steady the men as Readling slid his horse sidelong to a halt and glared at the captain.
“What the blazes is the holdup, Captain?” Readling demanded.
Captain Fuente stared at him stone-faced and said calmly, “Nothing is holding us, senor. I said we would find the men who robbed you, and we have.” He nodded ahead toward the dirt street running the
length of the dusty, seemingly deserted town. “Now it is up to you to take back what is yours.”
“Damn it!” said Readling. “You’re supposed to be guarding my property! You said I’d be getting my property back very soon!”
“Sí, that is what I told you,” said Fuente. “But that did not suit you, senor. You insisted on coming with us, as if we are not capable of doing the job without you overseeing us.” He shrugged. “So, there is your property. Now do with it as you wish. I will not endanger my men by sending them to do something you and your men can do for yourselves.” He sat firmly, his big wrists crossed on his saddle horn.
“I get it,” Readling said in an angry tone. “You had no idea we would track these men to town. You thought you were leading us on a wild-goose chase. But something brought them here instead of where you thought they would go.”
“Be very careful what you say, Senor Readling,” the captain warned. “You are not in New England anymore. I take your accusations most personally.”
“I had a deal with Mexico City for a column of men to be here until I got settled and brought in my own security,” Readling said.
Captain Fuente gave a thin, smug grin. “Everybody in the Mexican hill country has a deal with someone.” He chuckled. “Sometimes there are deals inside deals. But I need not explain how such things work, not to a businessman like yourself, eh?”
“I’ll have your hide for this,” Readling growled, as the captain backed his horse a step and nodded toward the sergeant, giving the signal to turn the column away from town.
“Senor, do not make foolish threats,” the captain said, wagging a finger at him. “You are in no position to be doing so.”
Readling and the Johnson brothers watched as the column circled, completed a turn on the trail and rode away.
Elvis turned and looked down the long dirt street at the wagon sitting alone out in front of the adobe mission church. The doors of the cantina were wide-open; a line of horses stood in the side alleyway, and at the iron hitch rail out front.
