Gun Devils of the Rio Grande (Outlaw Ranger Book 5)

by James Reasoner

  “Are you always this careful?” Elizabeth Jane Caldwell asked as she sat on the divan.

  “Generally.”

  “I suppose a man in your position has to be.”

  “My position?”

  “A man with a lot of enemies...on both sides of the law.”

  She drew her legs up partially underneath her. Braddock couldn’t tell if it was a calculated move or if she was just getting comfortable, but he thought it made her look like a magazine illustration. One of those, what were they called, Gibson girls, that was it.

  “Look, Miss Caldwell, you don’t have to try to charm me. You got me here for a business deal. I reckon you hired that fella to pretend to be you because you thought if you showed up downstairs, I wouldn’t talk to you.”

  “Yes, that’s what I meant about false pretenses. That man is a salesman. Smith, Johnson, some sort of plain name, I don’t know, but I met him here in the hotel and thought he might prove useful. If I’ve offended you, I apologize.”

  Braddock shrugged. “I’m not offended. It just wasn’t necessary. I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman. Your money spends the same either way.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly my money...”

  “It comes from the newspaper you write for, doesn’t it?”

  “So you know who I am. You probably knew all along, didn’t you?”

  Braddock didn’t say anything. To tell the truth, it had just come to him. When he’d seen the name E.J. Caldwell on the letter, it hadn’t meant a damn thing to him. But he supposed a memory had been lurking in the back of his head, and it had chosen this moment to come forward.

  “I’ve seen the name on stories you’ve written. Didn’t know you were a lady. You don’t write like a woman—and I don’t mean just your hand on that letter you sent me.”

  “They’re just words on paper, Mr. Braddock,” she said with a faint sharp edge to her voice. “They don’t know whether it’s a man or a woman writing them.”

  “I suppose not. But people have ideas about things like that, and that’s why you use initials.”

  “That’s true. At any rate, I didn’t ask you to come here so we could talk about me. I want to talk about you.”

  “You’re writing a story about how I was unjustly dismissed from the Rangers, like plenty of other good lawmen? And how a lot of justified convictions got set aside because of some crooked politicians?”

  “Whether a politician is a corrupt scoundrel or a sterling example of public service is usually a matter of whether or not you voted for him.”

  “Not in this case,” Braddock said. “Those sons of bitches who ruined the Rangers are all as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Pardon my French.”

  “I’ve heard much worse in newspaper offices, I assure you. But I didn’t want to meet you so I could write about that. I’m more interested in what you’ve been doing since you left the Rangers...and what you might do in the future.”

  Braddock cocked an eyebrow. “What do you mean, what I’ve been doing since I left the Rangers?”

  Elizabeth Jane Caldwell drank some of the coffee and said, “There are all sorts of rumors about you, Mr. Braddock. They say that even though you have no legal right to do so, you’re still carrying a Ranger badge and go around pretending that you’re a member of the organization so you can chase outlaws. You don’t really follow the law anymore. You just dispense justice as you see fit.”

  “Those are good stories. Not sure anybody could prove there’s any truth to them.”

  “A number of lawbreakers...very bad men, each and every one of them...have wound up dead in the past year, and a man matching your description has been reported to have been in the area each time.”

  “There are a lot of men who might match my general description.”

  She reached over to a side table and set the cup on it, then said, “Let’s not dance around it. You think you’re still a Ranger, or at least you act like one, and you make it your business to go after criminals. That’s what I want you to do.”

  “There some owlhoot in particular you want to sic me onto?”

  “I don’t have any names. The only thing I know is what happened with the guns.”

  “What guns?”

  Her eyes darkened. “A shipment of a thousand brand-new Springfield rifles, the Krag-Jorgensen model, stolen from a train bound for Fort Bliss, here in El Paso. The holdup took place east of here, between Van Horn and Sierra Blanca.”

  “Not much out there in those parts.”

  “Which made it a good place to stop the train, murder the army escort, load those crates full of rifles and ammunition on wagons, and drive off.”

  “When did this happen?” Braddock asked.

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “I hadn’t heard anything about it.”

  “The railroad and the military are trying to keep it quiet, of course. They don’t want people knowing they lost enough rifles to equip a small army.”

  “A thousand men is pretty small when it comes to an army, all right.”

  “But a thousand well-armed men can do a great deal of damage before they’re stopped,” Elizabeth Jane Caldwell said.

  “True enough, I suppose. If this is supposed to be a big secret, how’d you find out about it?”

  She smiled. “I have my own sources and methods, Mr. Braddock. I was in Dallas when I heard rumors about the theft. I’ve been investigating it ever since.”

  “A woman could get in big trouble, asking questions about stolen rifles in the wrong places.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s true. A man might be less likely to be suspected.”

  Braddock sat up straighter and frowned. “That’s what you want me to do? Find those rifles? And then tell you so you can write all about it?”

  “I thought—”

  “A man can get his throat cut for poking into things that aren’t his business almost as easy as a woman can.” Braddock picked up his hat, stood, stepped over to the side table, and put his cup next to the one she had set aside a few minutes earlier. “Thanks for the coffee and the fifty bucks. You’ve wasted your newspaper’s money, though. Those rifles are probably scattered all over the Southwest by now. I couldn’t track ’em down if I tried.”

  She looked up at him and said, “According to the information I’ve turned up, that’s not the case. The rifles are all still together, pending some sort of deal. I haven’t been able to find out where they’re being kept or what the plan is, though. But I have a name...Shadrach Palmer.”

  Braddock frowned. He knew the name. Shad Palmer wasn’t in the Rangers’ doomsday book, their listing of the most wanted criminals in Texas, but only because nobody had ever been able to get enough proof against the man to charge him with anything. But he was rumored to have his hands in every crooked operation between San Antonio and El Paso, right up to the elbows. He owned a saloon and bawdy house here in El Paso, down close to the river, and was on a first name basis with every desperado on both sides of the Rio Grande.

  “You think Shad Palmer is brokering the deal for the guns?”

  “I’ve heard whispers to that effect.”

  “But they haven’t been delivered yet.”

  “That’s right.”

  Braddock stood there, his expression cold and not giving anything away as he considered what she had told him. Shad Palmer was a very dangerous man, according to everything Braddock had heard. He had never had any dealings with the man or even crossed trails with him, so it was unlikely Palmer would recognize him. That was one point in Braddock’s favor.

  And as the young woman had said, a thousand Krags could wreak havoc along the border, especially concentrated in the hands of one group, rather than being scattered and sold off piecemeal. He’d never handled one of the rifles, but he knew the army had carried them during the Spanish-American War and in the Philippines.

  Elizabeth Jane Caldwell had been right about something else: this sort of affair interested him. But a couple of questions stil
l bothered him.

  “Isn’t the army looking for these guns?” he asked.

  “I’m sure they are, but I haven’t been able to find out any specifics.” She smiled. “They sort of get quiet out at the fort when I come around.”

  “And what’s your interest in this?”

  “Why, I want to write the story, of course—”

  “No,” Braddock interrupted her. “I saw something else on your face when you explained about that robbery. Something in your eyes, like it hurt you to talk about it. You have a personal connection with this, don’t you?”

  “I’d prefer not to answer that—”

  “And I’d prefer to turn around and walk out of here. All I need is a good reason to do that, and I reckon you keeping secrets from me would qualify.”

  She stood up and drew in a deep breath. She had to look up to meet his gaze, but there was no give in her. She said, “All right, if you insist. That army escort I mentioned...”

  “The troops on the train who were killed in the holdup.”

  “That’s right. They were under the command of a young lieutenant. His name was Peter Caldwell.”

  Chapter 4

  Braddock didn’t say anything for a couple of heartbeats. Then he asked, “Your husband?”

  “My brother.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I cried for a day when I heard about it, but not since. Not even at Peter’s funeral. I’m more interested in seeing the men responsible brought to justice than I am in grieving. They should pay for what they’ve done.”

  “We’re in agreement on that. I expect those other soldiers had sisters and wives and parents, too.”

  “So in a way you’d be working for all of them as well, I suppose.”

  “I suppose.” Braddock set his hat on the table next to the coffee cups. “What else do you know about Palmer’s involvement?”

  “One of my sources told me Palmer was going to be handling a large transaction involving some goods being taken across the river.”

  “That could be anything,” Braddock said.

  “A lot of things come across the border from Mexico to the United States. What goes the other way except guns?”

  She had a point there.

  “And it’s not just the guns,” she went on. “Something else is coming across the river to pay for them. I don’t know what it is. As you said, there are a lot of possibilities. But that’s all I’ve been able to find out.”

  Braddock frowned for a moment, then said, “I suppose I could go down to Palmer’s place and hang around a little. Maybe ask a few questions without being too obvious about it. No guarantees I’d find out anything, though.”

  Elizabeth Jane Caldwell started to stand up. “We need to discuss your payment—”

  Braddock stopped her by picking up his hat. “We can talk about that later. Give me, let’s say, fifty bucks in case I need to throw any money around at Palmer’s. I wouldn’t even ask for that if I wasn’t a mite cash-strapped at the moment.”

  “The money I sent you...”

  “I didn’t bring it with me,” Braddock said without offering any explanation of what he’d done with the greenback.

  “There’s not a lot of financial profit in what you do, is there?”

  A faint smile touched his lips. “I’m not admitting you’re right about me. But my needs don’t amount to much, and I get by. There are other things in life besides money.”

  “Like justice.”

  Braddock shrugged, put his hat on, and left.

  Chapter 5

  Braddock had heard of the Palmer House, which he thought was some fancy hotel in Chicago, much like the Camino Real was here in El Paso.

  Casa de Palmer, which translated to Palmer House, was a far cry from either of those places, although it was fancy, too, in its own gaudy, sleazy way. Gas lamps lit up the long boardwalk in front of the saloon. Red curtains hung at the sides of the big windows, which offered good views of the cavernous main room. Long mahogany bars ran down both side walls. The back of the room boasted a dance floor and stage where girls in short skirts kicked up their heels. It would have been a stretch to call them dancers, but they tried, making up for what they lacked in talent with exposed flesh.

  Poker tables, roulette wheels, faro layouts, and other games of chance filled about half of the floor area. The other half had tables where customers could sit and drink. The light from numerous chandeliers competed with a never-ending, blue-gray haze of tobacco smoke.

  In one of the rear corners, next to the stage, was a curving staircase with burgundy carpet on the steps, an ornately carved baluster railing, and a finial on the newel post carved in the shape of a naked woman from the waist up. Those stairs led to the second floor, where another major part of Shadrach Palmer’s business was carried out.

  Braddock had never been on the second floor of Casa de Palmer. In fact, as he leaned on the bar and sipped from a mug of beer, he tried to remember if he had ever set foot in the building during any of his previous visits to El Paso, back when he’d been a Ranger. He didn’t think he had.

  He’d heard about the second floor, though. This wasn’t some squalid frontier whorehouse with paper-thin walls between the rooms that sometimes didn’t even go all the way to the ceiling. The girls here worked in proper rooms with decent beds instead of cots covered by bug-infested straw ticking. The rooms even had rugs on the floor.

  They probably still had a certain disreputable air about them, considering what went on there, but nice enough Palmer could justify charging higher prices. Palmer’s real money came from his criminal enterprises, but his saloon and bawdy house turned a nice legal profit, too.

  Braddock wore the same dusty range clothes he’d worn on the ride upriver from Esperanza. A gunbelt was snugged around his hips, and his Colt with well-worn walnut grips rode in the holster.

  El Paso had a modern police department that frowned on men wearing guns openly like in the old, lawless days, but this close to the border, with the Rio Grande less than two blocks away, nobody tried to enforce that very stringently.

  Braddock wasn’t going to venture into this part of town with just the derringer, either.

  A craggy-faced bartender, one of several drink jugglers working tonight, ambled down the hardwood and frowned at him. Braddock had been working on the beer for a while, and the longer he took drinking it, the less money Shad Palmer made. Braddock figured the bartender was going to tell him to drink up and order another or get out, but before the man could say anything, a commotion erupted on the other side of the room.

  “All I’m sayin’ is I’d like to know where that third jack came from,” a man declared in a loud, angry voice.

  “Are you saying that I cheated, sir?”

  The room hadn’t gone completely quiet after the first outburst, but enough so Braddock had no trouble hearing the question phrased in cool, yet taut tones.

  The bartender who’d been about to speak to him had lost interest in him, so Braddock turned to see what was going to happen.

  Not surprisingly, the two men who had raised their voices faced each other across a baize-covered poker table. One was clearly a professional gambler wearing a frock coat and a fancy vest and shirt. His hair was slicked down and he sported a Van Dyke beard.

  The man who had asked about the third jack was dressed like a cowboy, with a brown vest over a cotton shirt and an old Stetson pushed back on fair hair. He was approaching middle age, and his face reminded Braddock of a wedge used to split wood.

  He was no puncher, despite his clothes. His hands were too soft for that, Braddock noted.

  Which meant the holstered gun on the man’s hip was probably the tool he used most often.

  Braddock took in all those details in the first second after he turned around. By that time the gunman was saying, “I just don’t like losin’ in a game that ain’t on the up and up.”

  “I deal a fair game,” the gambler said, tight-lipped.

  “Huh. Yo
u couldn’t prove it by me.”

  The gambler stared coldly at him for a moment, then gestured toward the pile of bills and coins in the center of the table.

  “Take what you put in the pot and leave,” he said. “I want this to be a congenial game, and if you’re bent on causing trouble, you’re not welcome.”

  The other man’s mouth curved in an ugly grin as he said, “You’ve got it backwards. I’m the one who tells you to get out. Or have you forgotten who my boss is?”

  Anger made the gambler’s jaw clench even more. He said, “You don’t run this saloon—”

  “One word from me is all it’s gonna take to get you run out of here, though. Not just this saloon, either. I’ll see to it you don’t ever set foot in El Paso again.”

  The gambler put up a bold front, but after a few seconds he sighed and said to the other players, “Help yourselves to the pot, gentlemen. It appears this game has come to an unfortunately abrupt end.”

  He scraped back his chair, picked up a flat-crowned hat from the table, and stood. Braddock could tell he was trying to muster up as much dignity as he could while he put on the hat and turned toward the saloon’s bat-winged entrance.

  The gambler was about halfway to the door when the man at the table laughed and said loudly enough to be heard over the growing buzz of conversation, “That’s how we deal with damn cheatin’ tinhorns around here.”

  Braddock saw the gambler stop short, saw the way the man’s body stiffened, and knew what was going to happen next.

  The gambler swung around swiftly. His hand darted under the frock coat to come out clutching a small pistol.

  Chapter 6

  The gambler’s course as he left the saloon had brought him closer to Braddock. Close enough Braddock was able to take two fast steps and bring the beer mug crashing down on the back of the man’s head.

  The blow made the gambler stumble forward a couple of steps. His arm sagged, and even though the pistol went off, the bullet smacked harmlessly into the sawdust-littered floor right in front of him.