by Ralph Cotton
“I’ll be dipped and rolled dry,” he said, squinting up at Shear in the dimming evening sunlight. “Is that you, Brayton?”
“It’s me, Freddie,” said Shear. “Now pull your paws up off those Uhrlingers before some bad memory comes to mind, and we start shooting each other.”
Freddie slipped his hands up off the pistols but kept his thumbs hooked in his pockets. “He-heck, Brayton.” His head made an uncontrollable jerk. “I got no bad memory of you. You—you were always square wi-with me.” His head jerked again.
Shear’s men gave each other a look, but sat in silence.
“Where’s Lilly?” Shear asked.
“I’m right here, Brayton!” Lilly called out, swinging the door open wide and standing in the doorway in a pair of ragged miner’s overalls she’d hurriedly changed into. “What in the world brings you up this way?”
Shear gave a quick look around the place as he said in a more guarded tone, “A wagonload of red-hot railroad gold, Lilly. We need a place to let it cool some overnight.”
“Just like the old days, eh, Brayton?” said Freddie with a chuckle.
“Just about, Freddie,” said Shear.
“Is anybody dogging you?” Freddie asked, his eyes slipping away to the thin trail on the other side of the flat stone shelf they stood on.
“Our trail is clean enough to eat off of,” Shear said with a slight grin.
“You always was a careful one,” Freddie chuckled. “Damn it! I’d give anything if I was in on it with you.”
“You’re not, though, so put it out of your head, Freddie,” said Shear, his tone stiffening a little as his grin went away. “There’s something in it for you, for keeping our wagons hid.”
“Hell, I wasn’t hinting at any gold,” said Freddie. He shrugged. “You know me, Brayton. I just meant I’d like to have been in on the whole thing. I like that fire it puts in the belly.”
Shear let out a breath and eased some. “Yeah, I know you, Freddie,” he said. “Pay me no mind. It’s been a busy day.” He watched as Lilly and Freddie stepped down off the porch.
“Well, get down off those tired horses before they fall,” said Lilly. “We’ve got a barn you can stick your wagon in. Nobody comes here anymore except some crazy old coots now and then, thinking I’ll still cock my ankles for them.”
Shear gave his men a nod; they all swung down from their saddles.
“I’ll go boil you boys a pot of coffee,” Lilly said, excited at having so much company unexpectedly.
“What’s in that barn, Freddie?” Shear asked. He gestured toward a large barn with a sagging roof.
“Nothing but dirt,” said Freddie. “We keep our old buggy horse in a stall out back.”
“Is there room for both of our wagons in it?” Shear asked.
“No,” said Freddie, “but you can back one wagon under an overhang right around that hill turn.” He pointed to where a trail rounded out of sight around a large tall boulder.
“Good enough,” said Shear. “Freddie, do me a favor, go inside and help Lilly boil the coffee while me and the men divvy up some spending gold.”
“Sure thing,” said Freddie. He stopped first and said, “Are you riding into Alto Meca? Tonight?”
“That’s my plan,” said Shear. “I want to get there before dark and do some drinking, maybe chase down a whore or two.”
“There’s still a saloon for the drinking,” said Freddie. “But there’s not much in the line of women. Most all the young pretty doves flew off last summer.” He shook his head in regret. “The pickings are slim and poor now.”
“We’ll make do,” said Shear, undaunted.
At the rear of the gold wagon, he and his men gathered in a tight group. From the wagon bed, Duckwald pitched down a crate of gold coins, then jumped down behind it.
With the blade of a big bowie knife, Dave Pickens pried the lid off the crate and laid it over in the dirt. The men stared at the glittering unstamped coins in the evening sunlight.
“Jesus! Those are some pretty things,” Epson said, almost breathless at the sight. “Unstamped, and waiting for whatever the generalissimo wanted to put on them.”
“Most likely his head on one side,” said Duckwald.
“His tail on the other,” Epson chuckled.
The men stood waiting for Shear to stoop down before they followed suit. When all of them were huddled around the crate, Shear picked up a coin and hefted it on his palm.
“How much are they, Big Aces?” asked Longley.
“Twenty-dollar pieces at least,” Shear said. He stopped hefting the coin and turned it back and forth on his fingertips.
“Yeah . . . ,” Longley cooed.
“The generalissimo will never see gold this pure and clean in his whole life,” said Shear. “I ought to be ashamed of myself.” He grinned. “But I’m not.”
He picked up four more coins along with the one in his hand and dropped all five onto Longley’s eager palm. Seeing Longley look at the coins questioningly, Shear stopped what he was doing and stared coldly at him.
“Damn it, Ben,” Pickens said to Longley, giving him a shove. “If you spend that much on anything in Alto Meca, God help you.”
The rest of the men laughed.
“Hell, I know it!” Longley said, falling away with a laugh, clasping his fist around his gold coins.
Shear’s hands went back to the crate, counting out five gold coins to each of his gunmen.
When he’d finished disbursing the gold coins, Shear stood up and gestured for Pickens to put the lid back on. He watched closely as Pickens did so. When the crate had been passed upward and restacked by Duckwald, who’d climbed back onto the wagon to receive it, Shear turned back to the men.
“Two of you take this gun wagon around that turn and stash it under the cliff,” he said. He looked up at Duckwald and said, “Put this gold wagon in the barn. Grain and water the horses, then lock the barn down good and tight.”
“You got it, Big Aces,” said Duckwald atop the gold wagon.
Shear turned to the other men and said in a quiet tone of voice, “Let’s be real sociable. First, we’ll have some coffee with Lilly and Freddie.” He looked up at the afternoon sky, judging the length of daylight. “Then we’ll ride into Alto Meca about dark and see what we can stir up for ourselves.”
Two hours later on the cusp of darkness, Sam stood up from tracing the outline of wagon tracks and hoofprints with his gloved fingers in the dim grainy light. Behind him, Thorn sat atop his horse, watching him. Behind Thorn, Sandoval and Tinnis Mayes sat atop their horses, having left the Gatling gun and wagon with the stranded railroad men—the gun for protection, the wagon to send for help.
“The riders and the wagons turned here,” Sam said, gesturing his hand toward the thin trail leading upward to their left. “The riders came back down, but the wagons didn’t.” He gestured farther along the trail. “It looks like they’ve headed for Alto Meca.”
“How far?” Thorn asked.
“An hour and a half, give or take,” the ranger estimated.
Thorn glanced back over his shoulder. “Mayes’ side has started bleeding again. The wagon was easier on him than the saddle.”
“I hear you talking about me, Captain Thorn,” Tinnis said in a strained voice. He nudged his horse forward, his left hand gripping his side, fresh blood on his soaked and dripping bandage. “Be reminded . . . I did not sign on . . . for the short tour.” He bowed slightly, in pain, as he spoke. “I am here . . . for the long ride.”
Sam and Thorn looked at each other.
Sandoval looked up the trail where the hooves had first gone. “There must be something up there,” he said. “They left their wagons there.” Looking back at Thorn and the ranger, he said, “Mayes will be dead if we don’t get him off of this saddle for a while.”
“I say we . . . ride on,” said the gambler, weaving a bit in his saddle as he spoke.
Sam and Thorn both ignored Tinnis and nodded in agreement with
each other. They mounted, turned their horses and rode up the rocky trail between the wagon tracks.
When they reached the cabin, they stopped moments later at the stone ledge where the cabin sat against the hillside. Sam called out, “Hello, the cabin.”
“Holy Moses and Mable!” Freddie said inside the window, peeping out from a lower corner of the wavy pane. In the fading evening light, he saw the badge on the ranger’s chest. “Brayton told me that he wasn’t being dogged!”
“Then he must’ve thought that he wasn’t,” said Lilly, in Shear’s defense. “Now get the hell out there and tell them something.”
“Tell them what, for goodness’ sake?” said Freddie, spreading his hands helplessly.
“I don’t know,” Lilly snapped at him. “But get rid of them!”
“Damn it! I’ll try,” said Freddie.
“Hello, the cabin,” Sam called out again, this time in a stronger tone.
Lilly cursed under her breath and stooped down and looked out the corner of the window herself. “He’s an Arizona Ranger,” she said. “He’s out of his territory. What is he doing here?”
“I’ll be sure and ask him,” said Freddie, lifting one hand off the double Uhrlingers so he could open the door.
From the lower corner of the window, Lilly’s eyes went from rider to rider, then stopped at the gambler, seeing him sway and barely catch himself from falling to the ground. Well, I’ll be . . . , she said to herself.
The first thing the ranger noted when Freddie Dupree stepped out barefoot on the rough plank porch was the position of his hands, both shoved into his baggy trouser pockets.
“Raise them slow and empty,” he said. He’d been holding his Winchester rifle propped on his thigh; he lowered the barrel until it stopped level to Freddie Dupree’s chest.
“Hey, easy there, lawman,” said Freddie. He raised his hands from his pockets and held them chest high. Both pockets sagged a little with the weight of the two small pistols. “You can’t blame a man for being heeled out here. We’ve got Comadrejas, Apache, outlaws, Mexican banditos. Hell, you name it. We’ve got it up here.”
“We know,” Sam said coolly. “We tracked two wagons up here all the way from Skull Rock.”
“You did, sure enough.” said Freddie, sounding a little surprised, as if the wagon tracks and scars across the stone shelf weren’t really there.
“You know we did,” Sam said in a strong yet even tone of voice. “Where are these wagons, and where is Brayton Shear and his Black Valley Riders?”
“Uh-uh, wa-wait a minute, Ranger,” he said, his head making a hard jerk. Over his shoulder he called out with urgency, “Lilly! Li-Lilly! Ge-get out here.” He looked back and forth wide-eyed between Thorn and the ranger.
As the woman slipped out the cabin door onto the porch, Sandoval had looked down at the ground. He turned his horse and eased it away along the path leading to the second wagon.
On the porch, Lilly stood with her hands chest high beside Freddie Dupree. “What is it you want, Ranger?” she asked.
“Brayton Shear, ma’am,” the ranger said. “Don’t even waste your breath denying he’s been here.”
“All right, then, I won’t,” said Lilly. She stepped off the porch and walked toward the gambler, who sat slumped and half conscious in his saddle. “What are you trying to do, kill this one?”
“No, ma’am,” Sam said, “he’s one of us. He needs some tending—”
“I know who he is,” Lilly said, cutting the ranger off. “He’s Tinnis Lucas, and he’s not one of you. He’s one of Brayton Shear’s informants.”
The gambler opened his eyes and said with a weary smile, “No, I’m not . . . anymore, Lilly.”
“Not what?” Lilly asked, a hand on her hip. “Not Tinnis Lucas, or not Shear’s informant?”
“Neither,” said Tinnis. He drifted and slumped farther.
Sam swung down from his stallion and hurried over in time to help the woman catch the gambler as he slid down his horse’s side.
“This is a fine fix I’m in now,” Lilly grumbled as she and the ranger carried Tinnis toward the cabin. “Brayton has been my friend since longer than I can remember, and this drunken gambler has always done right by me. Now he’s sided with the law against Shear, and here I am, stuck right in the middle.”
As they stepped onto the porch, Tinnis hanging between them, she shouted at Freddie Dupree, “Freddie! Get some fresh water and cut some clean bandage for me.”
“Lay the guns on the porch first,” said Thorn, still atop his horse watching.
Freddie hurriedly laid the two Ehrlingers on the plank porch, turned and ran inside behind Lilly and the ranger.
From around the boulder, Sandoval came riding back and stopped at Thorn’s side.
“The gun wagon is around the turn, under a cliff,” he said. Gesturing toward the wagon tracks leading to the barn, he added, “I predict that the other wagon will be in there.”
Thorn looked at the two guns lying on the porch. Deciding that the ranger would be all right, he turned his horse and rode beside Sandoval to the locked barn.
Inside the cabin, the ranger and Lilly laid the gambler on a bed in the corner. The ranger stepped back to where he could keep an eye on both Lilly Quid and Freddie while Freddie tore cloth into strips for a bandage change.
“Tinnis,” Lilly asked close to the gambler’s pale face, “what have these lawmen done to get you to turn your back on your friends? Did they do this to you?”
“No, Lilly,” Tinnis managed to say. “It’s a . . . long story. . . .”
“Well, he’s knocked out,” she said, reaching around and taking the bandages from Freddie’s hand. “Get me some clean water and a washcloth. I’ll get this done while he can’t feel anything.” She asked the ranger, “What did he mean, saying he’s not Tinnis Lucas?”
“His real name is Tinnis Mayes, ma’am,” the ranger replied while she busily unwrapped the blood-soaked bandage from around the gambler’s waist. “Like he said, it’s a long story, and it goes back a lot of years.”
Thorn and Sandoval entered and closed the door behind them. Sandoval moved over to the window and peered out, keeping watch on the trail.
“You lawmen,” Lilly said, shaking her head. “How can you face yourselves, turning a man against his own kind this way?”
“Ma’am,” said Thorn, “Tinnis Mayes was one of our kind long before he took up with the likes of Brayton Shear and his men.”
“Well . . . it just doesn’t seem right,” she said idly, appearing to only hear what suited her.
“Sandy found the Gatling gun,” Thorn said to the ranger. “We found the railroad’s gold on the wagon in the barn.”
“We had nothing to do with any of it,” Freddie cut in, walking to the bedside holding a pan of water and a washcloth. “We didn’t know they were coming here, until all of a sudden here they were.”
“Shut up, Freddie,” said the woman. “These lawmen are not our friends, Brayton Shear is.”
“There’s no doubt they’re going to be coming back for the gold,” Thorn said to the ranger. “It looks like they grained and watered the wagon horses without unhitching them from the rig.”
Sam observed Lilly peeling away the blood-soaked bandanna and saw dark blood oozing out of the wound.
“Yes, no doubt they’re coming back,” Sam replied to Thorn, “and no doubt Tinnis isn’t going anywhere for a while. We’d best be ready for them when they return.”
Chapter 24
When Shear and his men rode in to the dusty, all but abandoned, mining town, two old-timers stood up from rickety wooden chairs and stood staring at them. On a battered empty crate between the two chairs lay a worn and faded checkerboard, its pieces evenly distributed.
“It’s time we called it a night,” one of the men said, judging the dim evening light.
The street of Alto Meca lay strewn with tumbleweed and patches of pale wild grass standing at the corners of empty boarded-up buildi
ngs. A broken freight wagon, sandbanked up on its spokes, lay just off the middle of the street. Beneath a high porch, a lean bitch hound stood up with pups hanging and whining and dropping from her sagging teats. She barked once halfheartedly, then coiled back down as the men rode past at a walk.
Dave Pickens spat sidelong and said as he looked at the bitch and her liter, “I hope we haven’t just witnessed the whole of entertainment this town has to offer.” He ran the back of his hand across his lips.
“No,” said Duckwald, his head raised to the dry dusty air, “there’s whores around here. I’m sniffing two right now.”
“Yeah?” said Longley, giving him a dubious look. “What color’s their hair?”
“One’s yellow,” said Duckwald, still sniffing. “The other—hell, I don’t know. She could be bald as an egg top and bottom. I don’t care.”
The two old men continued to stare in silence until Shear touched his hat brim and said, “Good evening to you, gentlemen.”
“Likewise,” said one of the old men. He pointed a finger along the empty street. “The saloon is open if you’re looking for a drink. There’s only two fellers drinking there, pilgrims like yourselves.”
“Obliged, sir,” Shear said with a sweeping gesture.
Tobias Barnes said quietly to Ballard Swean riding beside him, “What the hell else would a man be looking for in this pig-wallow?”
They rode on.
At a burning oil pot out in front of a clapboard building that stood badly tilted to one side, the men reined their horses over to an iron hitch rail and stepped down from their saddles. Shear ran a hand over the rump of one of two horses already standing at the hitch rail. The horse’s flesh was dry. The animal looked rested.
Duckwald sniffed the air again and said to Ben Longley, “We’re getting closer.”
Longley just shook his head.
A face looked out from a dusty saloon window, then disappeared as the eight gunmen stepped onto a weathered boardwalk and walked inside and across a squeaking bare plank floor.
