by Ralph Cotton
“My pleasure,” said Sam, stepping down and walking over beneath the tree, the coiled lariat in hand. “I might be a few feet short. But it’s closer to the ground than you’d be without it.”
“That’s most comforting,” Lucas replied, careful of what he said, least the ranger go back around the turn in the trail for another half-hour wait. He stood crouched out on the wet limb, steadying himself with one hand on the tree trunk. The ranger tied one end of the lariat around the rest of the coil to hold it together and threw it upward with all of his strength.
From the turn in the trail, Thorn and Sandoval watched the gambler fumble with the lariat but manage to catch it on the first try. While the three watched, Lucas tied a neat foothold loop in the end of the line. He made a single wrap around the limb.
Thorn and Sandoval gave each other a look, impressed by Lucas’ skill with the lariat.
“Ahoy below,” Lucas said down to them in a mocking tone. He lowered the loop enough to step off the limb into it and began lowering himself easily down the tree trunk.
“Not bad,” Sam said under his breath, equally impressed by the gambler.
When Lucas’ hands reached the end of the line, he looked down with relief, seeing that he was only five feet above the trail. He turned loose of the lariat and dropped to the ground. With a jerk on the line, he let the rope fall unfettered to the ground at his feet.
“Looks like luck is with you, gambler,” Thorn said.
“My luck is dubious at best, sir,” Lucas replied, wet and shivering. The wound to his scalp was bleeding again.
“Well done,” Thorn said. He held a cup of steaming coffee in his gloved hand; Sandoval stood with a folded blanket over his shoulder.
“Yes, for a drunkard,” the gambler said wryly. He deftly coiled the lariat in hand. “Obliged, Ranger,” he said, handing him the coiled line. The pain in his torn scalp came back to him sharply now that he was safely on the ground.
Sam took the lariat and slung it over his shoulder as the two bounty hunters moved in closer and stood around Lucas.
“Have some coffee, gambler,” Thorn said, holding the cup out to him.
Lucas took the cup in his trembling hands. “Obliged,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have anything to cut this with?”
“It so happens I do,” said Thorn. He produced one of the unbroken bottles of whiskey they’d salvaged from the brush.
“Sir, you are a living saint among men,” Lucas said, quickly holding his cup out as Thorn pulled the cork. “I’m starting to think you soldiers of the sea are indeed both gentlemen and scholars.”
“It’s too early for whiskey,” said Thorn, “but today we’re making an exception.”
“And bless you for it,” said Lucas, watching Thorn pour the booze into the hot black coffee.
“Drink up,” said Sandoval. He spread the blanket across the gambler’s wet shivering shoulders and patted a gloved hand on his back. “You’ll need the whiskey once I start sewing your scalp on.”
Chapter 8
Sam looked on, asking nothing of Lucas while Sandoval attended his wounds. Beneath the cliff overhang, the Cuban bounty hunter spent over an hour sewing Lucas’ torn scalp back in place. With the skill of a field physician, Sandoval shaved a strip of hair from around the gambler’s scalp wound. Using a surgical needle and thread from his saddlebags, he sewed the torn flap of skin back in place and closed or cleaned a half dozen other scrapes and gashes Lucas had acquired during his fall.
Once the sewing was done, and the gambler had drunk nearly the entire bottle of whiskey, Sam scooted over closer to Lucas and handed him the discarded flask he’d found lying on the ground.
“I thought you might like to fill this, to carry on the trail,” Sam said. He looked pointedly at Lucas and said, “While you’re leading us to this hidden passage through the hills you talked about.”
“You could have gotten me down from there sooner, Ranger,” Lucas said, turning sullen.
“Or I could have left you there longer,” Sam countered, holding his gaze, unblinking. Now that the gambler’s crisis had passed, the ranger knew he’d try to better his position—get the upper hand if he could.
“Or there’s still the matter of the stolen buggy horse,” said Thorn. He asked the ranger, “Isn’t there a standing reward of a hundred dollars for the capture of a horse thief, dead or alive?”
Sam didn’t answer; he kept his eyes fixed on Lucas.
But Lucas replied, saying to Thorn, “That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever head of.”
“It’s true,” Sam said.
Lucas looked back and forth between the pairs of staring eyes. Finally he let out a breath. “It doesn’t really matter, Ranger,” he said. “A deal is a deal. I said I’d show you the hidden passage, so I will. In turn, I trust you will drop the stolen-horse charge.” He looked all around and said, “You can trust me. What else would I do, walk back to Minton Hill, through a desert full of Comadrejas, cutthroats and rattlesnakes?”
“I want more than your word, gambler,” said Sam. “I believe you’re slippery enough to twist your word to mean whatever you want it to mean. What I want with you is an understanding.”
“An understanding?” Lucas said.
“If we ride into a hidden passageway with you and find ourselves riding into a trap, I want you to understand that you won’t be riding out,” Sam said.
“Thank you, Ranger Burrack,” said Lucas, “I believe I understand that most clearly. Don’t forget that Elmer Fisk and his pards ran me off the trail and tried to kill me. I owe him and the Black Valley Riders nothing.” He raised a finger for emphasis. “But be mindful of this, once I lead you through the hillside to the hideout, I owe you nothing either. I will ride away at my choosing.”
Sam studied the gambler’s bloodshot eyes, beginning to realize that nothing he said to this man was going to matter. Lucas was a schemer, a player, and a headstrong drunkard who was not accustomed to listening to anyone. No amount of threat or force was going to change that. If anything, pressing him on the matter would only make it worse.
“The horses are rested, Ranger,” Thorn said, standing over the two. “It’s time we ride on.”
Sam looked up at him and realized the older bounty hunter was reading Lucas the same way he was. “You’re right, Captain. It’s time to ride,” said Sam, standing, dusting the seat of his trousers. He’d told Lucas what he’d do if the gambler double-crossed them. Now all he could do was stand prepared to make good on his warning. He lowered his hand to the gambler, who took it and pulled himself stiffly to his feet.
“Now it’s Captain, is it, Ranger?” Lucas said with a trace of a whiskey slur. He held the filled flask in hand. “Don’t tell me that you have become as enamored as I by these two marine bounty hunters.” He gave a grin and said to Sandoval, who stood staring at him, always ready to correct him, “It is all right if I call you two marine bounty hunters, isn’t it?”
Sandoval looked at Thorn before replying to the gambler. “We are bounty hunters, Mr. Lucas,” he said respectfully, but with restraint in his voice. He turned to Thorn and Sam. “I’ll get our horses.”
With the land still wet from rain and the trail laced by thin braided streams of runoff water, the riders resumed their upward trek. Following Lucas’ directions, they ascended a series of slick winding paths through rock and brush until they reached the higher trail the gambler and his cohorts had ridden during the previous night. Lucas rode behind the ranger on the big stallion until they’d reached a place where the trail became too unsafe on horseback. Once atop the high trail, the gambler looked back and forth with an air of uncertainty. He jerked the flask of whiskey from inside his ragged shirt, uncapped it and raised it to his lips.
“Go easy on that stuff, Lucas,” Sam said, “or we’ll have to take it away from you.”
“You would have to indeed, Ranger,” Lucas said with defiance. He lowered the battered flask, capped it and put it away. “I drink to
ease the pain, sir.”
Sam let it go. “Doesn’t this place look familiar to you?” he asked, having seen Lucas’ lost expression a moment earlier. Knowing that the tracks they’d followed had been washed clean by the deluge, Sam knew that they were at the gambler’s mercy. If Lucas misled them, intentionally or otherwise, they would be right back where they’d started, the gang still running free.
“Yes, of course it looks familiar,” Lucas said, turning upward along the trail. “Follow me.” He stomped off, along the wet rock trail.
Leading his horse up beside the ranger, Thorn asked quietly, “Do you suppose he was too drunk to remember?”
“I don’t know,” said Sam. “But without tracks to follow, he was our best hope right now.”
They walked on in silence, winding behind the gambler single file as the wet path became narrower and steeper with every step. A hundred yards farther up along the rock trail, the hillside to their left fell away sharply and left the path turning around a bald wall of rock.
Stopping, Lucas gazed out over the broken edge at a thousand-foot drop through thin air, jagged rock, wisps of cloud and swaying pine tops. He chuckled under his breath and leaned sidelong against the rock wall to their left.
“How are your wings, Ranger?” he said, gazing out across the open abyss.
“Never better,” Sam said, the two bounty hunters bunching up behind him. “Keep going, before your whiskey gives out on you.”
“What an ugly thing to say, Ranger,” Lucas replied. He squinted and looked all around again. “To tell you the truth, this is as far as my recollection takes me.” He gestured out across the steep sloping rock cliff, at the scrapings left by the buggy horse’s steel shoes. “There is where the buggy horse did its last dance.”
Sam stepped past the gambler and looked farther along the trail. “They couldn’t have gone any farther than here,” he said. “This is the end of the trail.” He looked down from the edge and spotted the tiny dead horse still swaying in the treetop below. “But this has to be where you fell from,” he said to Lucas.
“Yes, it is, Ranger,” the gambler said. “I was feigning sleep. I heard Fisk tell the other two that this was the place. That’s about as much as I can give you.”
“Why were you feigning sleep?” Thorn asked pointedly.
“Call me peculiar,” said Lucas, “but I do that a lot. It helps me hear what I might not hear otherwise.”
“The same as pretending to be drunk?” Thorn asked.
“Watch your language, please, Captain, sir,” Lucas said in his wry, playful tone. “A man should never pretend himself drunk. He should simply be drunk and forgo any pretense.”
“Still,” said Thorn, “I’d like to know why you felt you needed to pretend—”
“Over here,” Sandoval said, cutting in before Thorn could continue.
Thorn, the ranger and the gambler all turned as one to where Sandoval stood crouched at a black crevice in the rock wall, his hand on the opening of it as he peered into an endless blackness.
“What have you, Sandy?” Thorn said, stepping over to the young bounty hunter. The trail lay flanked by a wall full of such crevices, all of them tall, deep and jagged, carved into rock by wind and water. This one was no different at first glance, only a bit wider than usual.
Turning his eyes from the blackness to the ground at his feet, Sandoval picked up the short damp stub of a burnt match stick and examined it between the tips of his gloved fingers. “Jackpot . . . ,” he murmured as the other three drew closer around him.
“Keep up the good work, Sandy,” Thorn said with a thin smile, seeing the burnt match. He patted Sandoval on his shoulder as he stepped past him. “Cover me, gentlemen,” he said over his shoulder as he raised the flap on his holster, took out his big horse pistol and walked inside the black crevice. Three feet inside, he stopped and took a match of his own from inside his duster pocket and stuck it on the rock wall.
Sam and Sandoval stepped forward and crouched at the opening, guns in hand, seeing the flare of the match rise, then taper off into a flickering yellow glow.
“Don’t you think you should give me back my Thunderer, Ranger?” Lucas asked.
“No,” the ranger said flatly, keeping his eyes on the match light inside the crevice.
Lucas shrugged and mumbled to himself, “It’s probably broken anyway from being thrown to the ground.”
“Quiet, gambler,” Sam said over his shoulder.
In a moment the flickering light of the match grew in its intensity as Thorn called back to Sandoval and the ranger, “I’ve found some torches and lit one.” He paused for a few seconds, then called out, “Gentlemen, I think we’re onto something here.”
“I’ll bring your horse, sir,” Sandoval called out.
“Yes, please do that, Sandy,” said Thorn, “I’ll continue on and scout the way.”
A moment later, Thorn stopped and looked back, seeing another torch flare up in the darkness and start moving toward him above the clack of the horses’ shoes on the stone floor. Rather than wait for the others to catch up to him, the older bounty hunter walked on for a half hour, negotiating the narrow downward-winding rock corridor, until he saw a break of daylight slash sidelong across the darkness ahead. With his horse pistol hanging in his hand, he leaned against the wall and waited until he saw Sandoval’s face in the flickering glow of torchlight.
Taking the reins to his horse from the younger man, Thorn let Sandoval take the lead and fell in behind him, followed by the ranger, who kept Lucas walking in front of him inside the glow of the two torches.
“I really think it would be wise of you to give me my Thunderer now, Ranger,” Lucas said over his shoulder into the darkness. “What is it you’re afraid of?”
“I’m afraid you’ll do something stupid and make me shoot you,” Sam said.
“I’m touched that you’d go to such precaution to keep from doing me harm, Ranger,” Lucas said.
“Don’t flatter yourself, gambler,” Sam said. “I just wouldn’t want the gunshot to warn anybody.”
“Of course,” said Lucas with a flat grin, “how presumptuous of me.”
They walked on.
At the end of the long corridor, Sandoval extinguished his torch and leaned it against the wall. Behind him Thorn did the same. The two led their horses out onto a flat cliff overlooking a wide crater valley, Lucas and the ranger following. The four men gazed out as the shadows of evening stretched long across the carpet of cactus, brush and chimney rock a thousand feet below them.
“There’s no need in thanking me, Ranger,” Lucas said wryly, looking all around, as surprised as the others but trying not to show it. “I’m sure you’d have done the same for me had the circumstances been the other way—”
“We can’t stay up here,” Thorn said, cutting the gambler off. “If this is the only way in from the south-east, you can bet they watch this hillside like hawks.”
“Right,” said Sam, looking down at the same sets of hoofprints they’d been watching ever since they’d entered the crevice. He gestured toward the tracks leading down a thin trail to their left. “We’ll follow them on down to the valley floor—manage to keep ourselves out of sight.”
Gazing out across the rough windy terrain, Sandoval said, “The ground is still wet enough to hold down our dust up here. Once we’re down there, it will be a different story.”
“All the more reason to hurry,” said Thorn. “When this land is dry and dusty, a jackrabbit can’t move without its dust being seen a mile away.” He gazed out with the others and said, “What a perfect place for the Black Valley Riders to see their enemies coming without ever being seen themselves.”
Without reply, Sandoval turned his horse and led it onto the thin downward path. Thorn followed suit. Behind him, Sam reached over and took Lucas by his shoulder as he raised the flask to his lips and took a quick shot of rye. Giving him a nudge, Sam sent him stumbling on ahead of him in the dimming evening light.
/> “Ranger!” Lucas said in a mocking, playful tone.
“Don’t tire of me so soon. We may still yet have a long ways to go.”
PART 2
Chapter 9
Brayton Big Aces Shear was waiting for Mingo Sentanza and Ben Longley when they rode up at a gallop and slid their horses to a halt out in front of the cabin. Stepping down from the porch, flanked by Ballard Swean and Dave Pickens, the outlaw leader grabbed Sentanza’s horse by its bridle and watched it saw its head as he rubbed its wet frothing muzzle.
“This is the only hideout in the world where a man can ride a horse plumb to its nubs just getting word back and forth,” Shear said with a grin. “Tell me something good, Mingo. I slept poorly last night.”
“Riders coming, Big Aces,” Sentanza said, staying atop his horse, waiting for a signal from Shear that it was all right for him to step down.
“Now, tell me it’s Elmer Fisk,” said Shear, “so I’ll know it’s time we get to work.”
“It is Fisk,” said Sentanza. “I couldn’t make out the other two, but it’s Crazy Elmer for sure. They must’ve made it to the valley just ahead of the storm this morning.”
“Nobody trailing them?” Shear asked, watching Sentanza’s response.
“We saw no dust across the valley floor,” said Sentanza. “But with the rain hitting along there, the dust will stay settled for a day or two.”
“Yeah . . . ,” said Shear, rubbing his chin in contemplation. “That’s the only trouble with this place. It’s so damn big, the weather can get ahead of you.” He gave a short chuckle as if that was really not much to worry about.
Two other gunmen, Calvin Kerr and Dolan Callahan, relief guards for Sentanza and Longley, walked over from a run-down barn leading their horses behind them. As they drew closer to the rest of the gunmen, Shear called out to them, saying, “Elmer Fisk is riding in. Ride out there. Make sure the other two are men of ours on your way. Then get to your lookout position fast. That storm has left the trail wet.”
