by Ralph Cotton
“Yeah,” Cleary cut in, giving Bonsell a look. “There’s some of us here who could take a lesson from it.”
“Go to hell, Jake,” Bonsell said. He turned and looked at the Bluebird and said, “I didn’t know if he couldn’t talk or was just being half-cross with us.” He grinned at the Bluebird. “No offense intended though.” He shook his head a little.
The Bluebird shook his head along with him.
“See? He’s as good-natured as the next fellow,” said Cleary, also gathering his horse’s reins.
Bonsell chuckled, looking the Bluebird up and down.
“Did you mean it, Bluebird, offering to take care of our horses for us?” he asked.
Looking at Bonsell, the Bluebird nodded and backed his horse onto the street with Tillman and Foz.
“Yes, even so . . . ,” he said in a short tone. Prew and Cleary backed their horses and turned them beside Foz and Tillman.
“See?” said Bonsell. “Now that he’s started talking you can’t shut him up.” He chuckled under his breath and looked at the others and shook his head. Backing his horse, he turned it in the street and rode up alongside the Bluebird. “You even rubbed this cayuse down for me!” he said, running a hand along his horse’s clean withers as if amazed. He looked at the Bluebird.
The Bluebird nodded.
“Yes, even so,” he said.
Bonsell laughed aloud and slapped his thigh.
“I like you, Bluebird,” he said. “We’re going to be pals, you and me.”
Hearing Bonsell, Cleary looked down and shook his head.
“Listen up, everybody,” said Prew, booting his horse to the front of the riders.
“I did,” Foz said for no reason, sitting slumped in his saddle, Tillman beside him, riding in the same manner.
Bonsell and Cleary looked at Foz and Tillman. So did Prew with a concerned expression. Then, ignoring his brother’s remark, he turned from his brothers and looked around at the other two gunmen.
“We’re riding all day and night till we get where we’re going. We’re making sure we’ve got some gunmen waiting in each place we stop. The way we always do when we gather up for a big job.”
Bonsell and Cleary both nodded, acknowledging him. The Bluebird, Foz and Tillman rode looking straight ahead.
“It just ain’t getting no better out here,” Prew said to himself under his breath. He batted his boots to his horse’s sides and they rode on. Behind them, Stevens and Gorn looked at each other.
“I’m not going to stay here and face that Ranger, are you?” Gorn asked.
“Ha, I ain’t that stupid,” said Stevens. “Soon as the dust settles, I’m headed up out of here. We can tell Braxton Kane whatever suits us. The shape that bunch is in, they’ll be lucky if they even get there.”
“That’s what I say,” said Gorn. He grinned and spat and stared after the riders until they fell out of sight in their own wake of dust.
• • •
The Ranger left the Midland Settlement atop his black-point copper dun, leading two spare horses alongside him on a lead rope. One of the horses, a big brown-and-white paint, carried two canvas bags across its back, one carrying grain for the horses; the other carried enough provisions and extra ammunition to get him across the badlands hill country and deep into Mexico if the trail led him that far. He switched the supply sack from the paint horse to a big, easygoing buckskin every few hours to keep both horses fresh when he’d ridden his black point out and needed to switch his saddle to one of the spares.
When he’d first ridden out to where he’d found the fresh tracks the day after the jail break, he looked down at those tracks only in passing, noting how much three weeks of dry, hot breezes had caused them to fade into the rocky earth. Yet, luckily, there had been no rain up here, he reminded himself, or else he would have found no tracks at all.
So far, so good . . .
It never hurts having luck on your side, he told himself, looking out and down across the sloping sand rises where the presence of both jagged rock and smooth rounded boulder appeared to compete for the desert floor. Beside him the copper dun pushed its muzzle against his arm and chuffed.
“All right, I’m coming,” he said. “You don’t mind if I look around some . . . ?” He rubbed the dun’s muzzle with a gloved hand. The two spare horses gathered closer, their muzzles pushed out toward him. He’d rubbed them in turn. Then he’d stepped into the saddle, collected his reins and the lead rope and rode until late afternoon.
At dark, Sam stopped at a water hole to let the horses cool and drink their fill and he grained them with feed from the canvas. He rested himself and the animals until a three-quarter moon revealed the desert hills in broken shadows and purple moonlight. Then, with his saddle on the paint and the supplies atop the buckskin, he set out without benefit of track or sign to follow along the rocky hill trail. But at this point it made no difference. He’d seen the faded hoofprints enough to know that these were not runaway horses fleeing a fire.
The tracks, however obscure, were not meandering. There were riders on these horses’ backs, keeping them regimented, he was growing more certain of it. Ahead of him, he knew the only logical direction for men would be through a few small mining camps dotting the trail. They would stop and rest at the old Mexican trade settlement, then on to Poco Fuego—Little Fire—then on to Alta Cresta—High Ridge—he decided. He knew he could save time by riding up and bypassing the Mexican trade settlement. So he did.
Switching and resting his horses in turn, he kept moving fast and steady. When he reached Poco Fuego it was midmorning and he was met in the dusty street by Virgil Piney and a French-Canadian gunman named Henri Stampos. A burly gunman, Stampos rode with the Golden Gang now and then when he was beckoned in by Braxton Kane. He had shown up a day after the Garlets and the others had left. With Stampos rode a Texas killer known as Shotgun Lloyd. Kane had sent the Texan to bring Henri Stampos to him. Shotgun Lloyd stood at a corner of an alley, his ten-gauge shotgun hanging down his side.
When the Ranger saw the two men standing in the street, he was riding the buckskin. He brought the buckskin to a halt, his Winchester rifle across his lap. As the other two horses bunched up beside him, he looked ahead along the rooflines of shacks, of crumbled adobe ruins and hovels standing on either side of the trail.
“I’m surprised you made it this far, lawman. But you won’t be riding through here tracking my pals,” Piney called out in a harsh voice. “Not alive anyway.” He stood holding another big nine-shot LeMat with both hands, the saddle mate to the big LeMat he’d sold Prew Garlet.
The Ranger saw the third man standing at the alleyway. He turned his three horses in the narrow street, rode the buckskin over to a hitch rail and stepped down from his saddle. He walked back to the middle of the street, his rifle half raised in his left hand.
“You three need to stand down, Virgil Piney,” he called out boldly. “You’re interfering with an Arizona Ranger in the pursuit of his job.”
“Job, ha!” said Piney. “You mean in pursuit of killing men who are good friends of mine—” He stopped short and gave the Ranger a curious look. “How do you know my name, Ranger Sam son-of-a-bitch Burrack?”
The man had just set aside any doubts he may have still had about the Garlets and his two prisoners being alive and riding this way. Piney had just admitted they did. He kept his Winchester half raised in his left hand.
“There’s no need in that kind of name-calling, Piney,” Sam admonished him. “It’s a weakness of mind and spirit. And yes, I’ve heard of you, Piney,” he finally replied. “I know you’re a bird dog for the Golden Gang.”
“Now who’s name-calling?” Pine said venomously.
“Bird dog is not so bad,” Sam said quietly. As he spoke he starting drawing his Colt up from its holster slow, easy, as if with no ill intent. “I’ve heard much worse—”
/> “Whoa! Whoa! Hold it right there!” Piney shouted, taking his left hand off the LeMat and pointing his finger at the Ranger. “You ain’t pulling that trick on us!”
“What trick is that?” Sam asked calmly, still raising the Colt smoothly, clear of his holster. He cocked the big gun and let it hang down his side, his finger over the trigger.
“That trick right there, damn it to hell!” Piney shouted, enraged, realizing the Ranger had pulled the gun trick even as the angry outlaw warned him not to. Piney let his finger drop as if exasperated. He gave Stampos a sidelong look. Stampos just shook his head, as if he could not believe he’d let the Ranger get the drop on them. He stood stone still, his hand poised at his holstered gun.
“Tell your shotgun pal in the alley to come out here in the street with the rest of us, Piney,” the Ranger said, both his rifle and Colt cocked and ready.
“And if I don’t?” said Piney defiantly.
“Then I’m going to put a bullet in you the next words out of your mouth,” Sam said calmly. He called out to the alley, “You over there. Either show yourself or get out of here.”
Shotgun Lloyd took a step forward onto the street.
“Stay there, Lloyd!” Piney barked. “This man ain’t giving orders—”
Piney’s words stopped short as the Ranger’s big Colt swung up and a shot exploded along the street. The bullet hit Virgil Piney in the dead center of his chest and sliced though him, sending him flying backward. A bloody mist hung in the air for a second as did his left boot as it flew from his foot. The big LeMat hit the ground and sent a twenty-gauge blast of buckshot pellets into Stampos’ right leg. His leg flew straight back out from under him with such force that it caused him to slap the rocky ground face-first like a man who’d slipped and fallen on ice.
Sam fired at Shotgun Lloyd as Stampos struggled and yelled, rolling back and forth on his big round belly, unable to stand. Shotgun Lloyd grunted and fell to his knees as the Ranger’s shot hit him high in his shoulder. He fired the ten-gauge straight at the Ranger, but the out-of-range buckshot only scooped dirt along the street fifteen feet short of its target.
“Drop the shotgun. Stay down,” Sam warned, taking aim with his smoking Colt cocked and ready.
“Like hell!” Shotgun Lloyd shouted. He dropped the shotgun on his way up to his feet, his left hand clutching his bleeding shoulder. He tried reaching for his six-shooter at his waist, but the Ranger fired his Colt again. This time the shot hit Lloyd in his chest; he did a backflip and settled, relaxed, dead in the dirt.
Sam stepped forward, the Colt out in front of him smoking in his hand.
“Stay down, mister. You’re not going anywhere,” he warned Henri Stampos. But when he got to the large gunman, Stampos had managed to push himself to his feet with much effort. Yet, as Sam stepped closer, he kicked Stampos’ good leg out from under him and watched the large man fall with a grunt. “Now stay down there, or we’ll keep doing this all day,” Sam said. He reached down and took a Remington from its holster and stuck it down behind his gun belt.
“For your information, you did not shoot me, Ranger,” Stampos said stubbornly. “He did.” He gestured toward Piney lying dead in the dirt. “Had he not shot me in my leg, you would be dead this very minute. I am not a man to take lightly. You should have killed me while you had the chance.”
Sam just stared at him for a moment. Then he leveled the cocked and smoking Colt at the big man.
“It’s not too late right now,” he said.
The French-Canadian gunman gave a toss of his hand.
“You will not kill me now,” he said. “It is too late. You lawmen are all alike. You must defend your precious law at all costs, even when it is not in your best interest.”
“Keep it up,” the Ranger said quietly. “I bet you can talk me into it.”
“All right, I will stop. Maybe I am wrong about you,” said Stampos, now wary that the Ranger might just pull the trigger. “But if you try to get me to betray my friends, you will not succeed. I will tell you nothing.”
“I understand,” Sam said. “Your pal here already told me the men I’m looking for were through here the other day. I don’t need to ask you anything. We both know there’re going to be gunmen waiting for me everywhere between here and Braxton Kane’s hideout.”
Henri Stampos gave the Ranger a short crafty smile and eased up onto his knees and stopped there. His thick right hand fell down his side and laid easily, close to his boot well. Sam took note, but said nothing.
“Yeah, you know there will be gunmen waiting along the trail for you,” he said. “But you don’t know how many, do you?”
“No,” Sam said quietly, “you’ve got me there.” He took his eyes off Stampos for a second. “I’ll just have to wait until they come out and make their moves on me.”
“Aw, and by then it will be too late, Ranger,” Stampos said with the same crafty smile. His right hand moved quickly. It went into his boot well. Sam heard the metal on metal cock of a gun down there. He saw a Colt .36 caliber pocket gun come out of the boot and swing up at him. But the gun never came up enough to take an aim; Sam’s big Colt bucked in his hand, still smoking. The bullet hit the large French-Canadian in his wide chest and sent him sinking backward onto his calves. He bobbed there, swaying, trying to catch himself as blood spewed through the bullet hole in his shirt and ran down his broad belly.
“Why . . . ?” he lamented. “You saw what I was . . . doing. You could have . . . told me to stop.”
“Yes, I could have,” Sam said, and he fell silent.
He sat staring at Stampos for a moment, seeing the question swirl deep in his dark eyes. He let the Colt slump at his side.
“It was better this way,” Sam said finally, fresh smoke rising from his gun barrel, caressing the back of his hand like a silver-gray serpent’s tongue. “I don’t have time to take you in.”
He watched as the big man rocked again on his under-turned calves, then toppled onto his side and seemed to melt onto the rocky ground.
Yep, this is how it is going to be, he told himself. There would be gunmen positioned along the trail all the way to wherever he would find Braxton Kane. So be it. . . . Maybe Kane would run out of gunmen before he got there. He stepped over and picked up the big LeMat. Nine .42 caliber rounds and a twenty-gauge shotgun blast to boot. He hefted the big, heavy gun in his hand and shook his head. He turned and walked away, back to his three waiting horses.
Chapter 8
Toby Delmar and his twin sister, Lindsey, finished burying their father deep in the sandy soil. They spent the next half hour rolling rocks over from the sloping hillside and covering the grave to keep out desert scavengers. While they worked, the mule, Dan, stood hitched to the small covered wagon that contained everything they and their father had owned in the world. The mule watched them and chewed hungrily on a clump of wild grass that grew sparsely strewn along the base of the rocky hills.
“Go easy on that water, Sis,” Toby cautioned the slim, auburn-haired girl. “We don’t want to run out before we find more of it around here.”
“I’m just touching it to my lips,” the girl replied. She watched as Toby sat down on the rocky ground and untied rawhide strips from around his worn-out shoes. As he untied the strips, the thin soles of the shoes gapped like the mouth of some strange land animal. He pulled the shoes off and cast them aside. He yanked up his dirty ragged socks, tucked the holes of the sock toes under his feet, and then stuck his feet into his father’s heavy miner’s boots.
Lindsey looked away across the desert floor as Toby stood and stamped his feet in the big boots.
“It—It don’t seem right you wearing Pa’s boots. Not this soon anyway.”
“Sis, I’m going on sixteen years old,” Toby said quietly, being as patient with her as he could under the circumstances. “I need footwear that I don’t have to keep looking
back to see if I’ve walked out of.” He stepped over closer to her. “If Pa could say something right now, he’d tell me to take these boots and wear them. You know he would.”
Lindsey didn’t reply. Instead she looked back out across the desert floor to the stretch of hills lining the far side.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked pointedly. “Pa’s dead. His claim and map are no good. We’ve got no provisions. Dan is thirsty and falling off with hunger. He’ll likely die of starvation, if the wolves don’t eat him first.”
“Whoa, now, Sis,” said Toby. “Don’t try prettying things up on my account.” He gave her a look. “Sounds like you think we’re in bad straits here.”
The girl shook her head and gave a thin, sad smile in spite of herself.
“You sound just like Pa, Toby,” she said. “Always hoping for a gold mine while your belly growls out loud that there’s none to be found.”
Toby, having heard the same thing recited so many times he managed to join in and finish her words along with her.
She stopped talking and looked at him.
“Now guess who you sound just like, Sis,” he said.
“I know,” she said, “but Ma was right. Pa did put too much into searching for what’s not there.”
Again her brother finished her words right along with her, and gave her a look.
“It’s not funny, Toby,” she said.
“It’s not funny,” Toby mimicked.
“I mean it. Stop it,” she said. “It’s not funny at all.”
“I’m not laughing,” Toby said, turning more serious. He reached out, took the canteen from her, capped it and walked it to the small covered wagon. He pointed toward a tall stand of rock farther along the hill line beside them. Afternoon shadows had begun to stretch long across the desert floor. “There’s the water hole we come to on the way out here,” he said. “Pa called it Dutchman’s Tanks. We need to get there before dark.”
