Smuggler's Gulch

by Paul Lederer

  Bostwick called to them, ‘That’s enough time!’

  ‘All right,’ Jake hollered back. ‘Good luck to you, Sizemore,’ he said, and the two men shook hands.

  ‘The same to you, Jake. Remember though, we’re on opposite sides of the table – Kit Blanchard will take care of me, but he has a grudge against you for helping the women and for killing three of his men. If he sees you, he’ll take care of you, too. In a totally different way.’

  ‘I’ll be careful.’

  ‘Jake, if I was you, I’d get out of here. Because you’ll never again take a step without feeling the need to glance back over your shoulder. Kit Blanchard has a way of getting things done.’

  Jake went out onto the plankwalk in front of the jail, tugging his hat low against the morning sun. It was warm and pleasant, but that was the way the desert had of warning that by noon it would be searing hot across the land. He trudged back toward the restaurant. Cathy had been very depressed when he saw her last. Maybe seeing that he was still a free man – for now – would bring a smile back to her lips. There was no lightness in Jake’s heart as he clomped along the plankwalk. Talking to Billy Bostwick had helped a little, but he still had a few deep concerns, namely Sarah Worthy, Hutch Gleason and Kit Blanchard, each of whom might be nursing a deadly grudge against him for their own reasons. He was hardly cheerful when he re-entered the restaurant through the white door, but he put on a smile for Cathy’s sake when he saw her looking at him across the room. He sat at what had become his usual table and waited for her, watching the pale sky through the two large windows.

  She came with coffee and bent low, ‘Is everything straightened out now?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Well, they didn’t want to lock me up,’ Staggs said easily. She could read the concern in his eyes if not in his manner. ‘Not yet,’ he felt compelled to add.

  ‘Then you can leave. Just ride out.’

  ‘I haven’t got a horse,’ he reminded her. ‘Even if I resorted to stealing the buckskin again, he’s not fit for the long trail.’ He looked deeply into her eyes and said, ‘Besides I still don’t have a place to ride to. Cathy, have you seen those women in here this morning? You know who I mean.’

  ‘Both of them. Not at the same time, thankfully. The dark haired one – she’s Sarah Worthy, right? – came in for toast and tea very early. She kept her eyes moving, searching the room and everyone who came in.’

  ‘And the blond, Christiana?’

  ‘She came in not half an hour ago. She wanted her breakfast in a box – she said she felt like eating it in her room.’

  ‘What kind of breakfast was it?’

  ‘What kind?’ Cathy was puzzled by the question. ‘Fried potatoes, three eggs, sausage and ham.’

  ‘That’s a lot of breakfast for a small woman,’ Jake commented thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, I’ve seen a few small women in here eat more than you’d think they could handle.’ She studied him again, her brown eyes searching. ‘What are you thinking, Jake?’

  ‘I’m thinking that Kit Blanchard is in town, that somehow he and his wife have made up. They share a common cause, after all. Kit Blanchard wants his treasury money back and he knows who has it - Sarah. As for Christiana … I’m beginning to believe her when she says that she wants her cousin dead.’

  ‘Then all three of them are staying at the hotel?’ Cathy asked.

  ‘It seems like it,’ Jake said, pushing his chair back to rise from the table.

  ‘Jake, don’t do it!’ Cathy gripped his arm with her small hand. A few heads turned their way. ‘Whatever you are thinking, don’t do it,’ she said in a lower, more insistent voice.

  ‘I have to, Cathy. Don’t you understand? Those three are at the root of all of my problems. There has to be a resolution.’

  ‘I can get Billy Bostwick – if I tell him that Kit Blanchard is in town, he’ll come soon enough.’

  ‘Will he?’ Jake didn’t think so. Billy was a careful, methodical man. He would want to know what evidence they had. None. But Jake knew in his heart that the leader of the Smuggler’s Gulch gang was out there waiting, and he thought he knew where.

  ‘It’s better that I go after him now than wait until he comes after me,’ Jake said, firmly, removing Cathy’s fingers from his arm.

  He thought of taking Cathy’s advice as he trudged across the dusty street through the growing heat of the day and made his way toward the Lewiston Hotel. The girl was right, of course – let those three settle matters among themselves. It was really none of his business. He could simply keep his head down and bide his time until he was sure they had cleared out of town.

  He had nearly convinced himself to do just that when he approached the front door to the hotel to find Sarah Worthy in a white dress with pale green trimming standing talking animatedly to Hutch Gleason.

  Gleason glanced at Jake as he stepped up onto the boardwalk, said something to Sarah and then turned away, his face smug. What sort of deal had the woman made this time? She had tried using Jake Staggs to find and kill Kit. Then she had fastened onto the notion of using Sam Trouffant.

  It looked now as if she had made a bargain with Hutch Gleason to kill Kit Blanchard. Perhaps they meant to split the reward, perhaps not. Gleason was still angry enough over the loss of his Kentucky-bred horses to kill Kit out of hand. And Jake knew by the smile on the dark-eyed girl’s lips as he walked toward the hotel doorway that that she had somehow discovered where Kit was and informed Hutch.

  He knew that just as surely as he knew that more than one man or woman was doomed to die on this day.

  NINE

  Sarah turned at the sound of his approaching boots and looked flustered for only a brief second. Then she smiled and greeted him with, ‘Why, Mister Staggs, it’s good to see you again. Fine morning, isn’t it?’

  ‘It was.’ He started to ease past her but she blocked his way, looking up at him with those dark eyes which could not conceal the venom she was harboring inside.

  ‘Will you buy me tea somewhere?’ she asked, leaning close to him. Her smile was still in place, but her hands were clenched tightly.

  ‘Maybe some other time,’ Jake said, pushing past her.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, her voice now taut with stress.

  ‘I still have a room in the hotel. I’m going to it.’

  ‘Why?’ she said with uncontrolled excitement.

  ‘Because it’s my room,’ Jake said evenly, ‘and I feel like going up to it.’

  Her body was now rigid, her eyes flashing; there was no sign of a smile on her face. ‘Don’t you interfere!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t you dare interfere!’

  ‘I won’t, not unless I have to.’

  ‘I’ll call the marshal,’ Sarah threatened as he turned his back to her and started across the hotel lobby. ‘I’ll see you hanged! I’ll.…’ Either she could think of no more threats or her anger had strangled off her voice. She said nothing else but, lifting her skirts, she chased after Jake as he made his way toward the staircase.

  ‘What room are they in?’ he asked over his shoulder as he mounted the stairs.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll be able to find it when the shooting starts.’

  She gave a muffled little shriek and started after him. It didn’t take long to find the right room. Jake saw a man lurking in the shadows beside the door to one of the rooms but he before he could approach, the prowling man shouldered the door open and entered, gun drawn. By the light from the room’s window, Jake could make out the heavy features of Hutch Gleason, and he rushed towards him, drawing his own Colt.

  Before Jake could reach the open door two shots rang out, their echo rolling down the enclosed hallway, and black powder smoke rolled from the room. Jake slowed his headlong rush and peered cautiously around the corner. Hutch Gleason lay crumpled against the hardwood floor and by the window stood Kit Blanchard, his gun smoking. Christiana was standing beside Kit and she clutch
ed at his arm, but Kit shoved her aside, stepped over the window sill and dropped to the ground before Jake could stop him. Christiana, hearing Jake’s boot-heels against the floor, whirled toward him.

  ‘Stop where you are!’ she ordered. She was holding a small silver pistol in her hand. Her eyes were frantic, her hand trembled, but she looked as ready to fight as a cornered she-wolf. Jake halted in his tracks, standing near the bulky body of the fallen Hutch Gleason.

  ‘The fat fool thought he could take Kit Blanchard!’ Christiana said with a proud toss of her head. Those eyes which had been fixed on Jake now shifted to the doorway and Jake had a sinking feeling that he knew what had happened: Sarah Worthy had followed him into the room. Christiana’s blue eyes went as cold as ice.

  ‘You ruined everything!’ Christiana screamed, and then pulled the trigger and the little silver gun sent a bullet flying past Jake’s ear. It struck Sarah Worthy full in the chest and a crimson stain spread across the white bodice of her dress.

  Sarah stretched out both arms, opened her mouth and collapsed, dead before she hit the floor. Jake flinched and raised his own gun, but the pistol in Christiana’s hand never shifted his way. She stood holding the smoking gun loosely at her side, her other hand to her breast. She took a step back, dropped the pistol which clattered to the floor, and sagged onto the bed behind her.

  There were bootsteps rushing down the corridor toward the room. A man cried out. Jake went to the window, and after one glance out to make sure that Kit Blanchard was not there waiting, stepped over the sill and leaped from the ledge to the alley below.

  Which way? He did not think the outlaw would run toward Main Street and all of the citizens there, so he turned away from town, running up the narrow alley with his gun gripped tightly in his hand.

  He did not want to kill Kit Blanchard. He did not want to have to get into a shootout with the savage outlaw leader. But he wanted to end it. It had to all end sometime, and it seemed that killing Kit Blanchard was the only way to finish everything.

  Of course having Kit Blanchard kill him would effectively end it all as well.

  Sarah was gone now; the marshal probably dying and Hutch Gleason would trouble him no longer. Only Kit Blanchard remained, and the badman would be a threat to him and any hopes for future happiness so long as he lived. Jake ran on determinedly, but with a faltering sense of confidence. Kit Blanchard was plain dangerous, and he knew it. Yet there was no one else to call on, no one to rely on. Within minutes Kit could be out on the desert, and in time he would reform his gang and remember that – in his own mind at least - Jake Staggs was partly to blame for his misfortunes.

  On the desert. Of course that was where Kit would be headed. Where any pursuit could be seen, where he knew every track and arroyo, and then would he try to make his way back to Smuggler’s Gulch?

  Why would he not? It had always been a place of safety, his refuge against the world, unknown to most, hidden and secure. That was where he would head; Jake was certain of it. He slowed his pace, looked around at the mouth of the alley, the willow-clotted, dry creekbed beyond and holstered his pistol. He retraced his path, going past the hotel and saw two men looking out of Christiana’s window. One of them called to Jake, but he ignored him. On the main street spectators were gathering in front of the hotel. In passing, he heard someone say that Kit Blanchard was dead. Another excited man said that Blanchard had just gunned down three men and that they had him cornered upstairs.

  Jake trudged on, head down as the sun beat against his back and shoulders. He made his way to the stable and went into the musty smelling, shadowed building to find the buckskin eyeing him dolefully. The horse had no need to worry. The buckskin was too used up for the ride Jake had in mind.

  ‘Help you?’ the stableman asked. He was narrow, had a game leg and frightened eyes.

  ‘I want that dun horse saddled,’ Jake said, pointing at Will Sizemore’s pony.

  ‘That horse.…’ the man objected.

  ‘That horse was being ridden by an outlaw. It belongs to the town of Lewiston now. I am a deputy marshal. My name’s Jake Staggs. You can ask Sam Trouffant or Billy Bostwick.’

  The man looked doubtful. He glanced at Jake’s shirt front, saw no badge but proceeded to saddle Will Sizemore’s dun horse. The stableman was not the sort to seek out trouble, and besides, it was not his own mount that he was giving away.

  In fifteen minutes, Jake Staggs was back on the desert, bee-lining it south toward Smuggler’s Gulch. Jake saw no other rider across the long desert flats, but Kit Blanchard knew the secret ways of the land, its gullies and ridges and hidden trails, and he did not doubt that the outlaw was capable of making his way to the robbers’ roost nearly unseen. Perhaps, Jake thought, he had guessed wrong and Blanchard had chosen not to head this way, even though it was the only destination that made sense.

  It was high noon with the white sun hanging motionless in a desolate sky when Jake came upon the rocky bluffs guarding the entrance to Smuggler’s Gulch. He drew up the dun and let it blow as he considered – which way? From what Will Sizemore had told him it seemed unlikely that there were enough men remaining in the outlaw band to post sentries among the boulders, but that did not mean that Kit Blanchard himself, being a cautious man by nature, was not positioned somewhere among the rocks with a long gun.

  Jake didn’t have the energy to try the ridge route he had ridden with Christiana again, and it was punishing for a horse. He decided on the old Indian cut-off that he and Sarah had used when he had made his first escape from the canyon. It was a guessing game, of course – with Kit Blanchard you never knew, but the man could not be everywhere at once.

  Cautiously then, Jake made his way up among the boulders as the sun continued to beat mercilessly down. He found the foot of the Indian trail fairly easily and followed its winding path through the scrambled rocks. Now he rode with his rifle – Will Sizemore’s actually; it had been left in his saddle scabbard – in his hand, his eyes darting from point to uncertain point. A rabbit skittered away before the dun’s hoofs startled him as did the slithering exit of a desert rattler from the trail. He was jumpy, he knew it, and could do nothing about it.

  Cresting the trail near where he and Sarah had been ambushed by Lemon Jack Baker and River Tremaine, he drew up the wearying dun horse to let it blow and to study the land below him. He knew the layout of the place well enough by now – the long row of Mexican fan palms following the course of the creek, the cottonwood trees below hiding the ranch house and horse pens. He could see the main road leading into and out of the gorge, but he saw no one moving across the land, heard nothing but the whispering of the dry desert wind as it wove its way among the boulders and ruffled the fronds of the palm trees. That did not make him feel any safer.

  True, Kit Blanchard could have made a different decision – ridden off to some outlaw camp known only to him, but Jake did not think it likely. This was his sanctuary, and if he decided to start his horse stealing ring again, he would need the security of the hidden gorge.

  No, Kit was down there somewhere, Jake thought, his mouth tightening. He took a sip of tepid water from his canteen and gave matters some thought. Eventually he decided to hold off until sundown before he tried to make his way down to the house. In darkness he would have less chance of being seen; by then Kit Blanchard might have lowered his guard slightly, believing that he had not been followed.

  Perhaps that was all only hopeful conjecture, but Jake had made his decision, so he swung down from the dun, loosened its saddle cinches slightly and let it poke around for sparse graze.

  He waited.

  It seemed like days, years, before the glaring white sun finally decided that it was growing weary and heeled over toward the western mountains; days, years more before it began to color, turning deep yellow and then red as purple evening settled. Jake watched the doves heading home again, saw the first owl of the evening rise into the sundown sky on broad, heavy wings. With a sigh and an dull ache in the pit
of his stomach he rose, tightened the dun’s cinches again and heeled it forward into the depths of Smuggler’s Gulch.

  He couldn’t trust himself to find his way in full darkness, so there was still a hint of color, a faint light in the western sky, but the canyon was already deep in shadow, and as he reached the bottom where the Indian trail intersected the main road, the world seemed to have gone suddenly dark. He could not read the sign the passing horses had left in the earth well enough to tell if any one of them was newer than the others. So many horses had passed that way in recent days.

  There had to be a moon somewhere in the sky, but it was low and the gorge cut off any light it may have been casting. In near total darkness Jay walked his horse toward Worthy’s house, accompanied by the silence. Frogs grumbled along the creek, but they too fell silent as he approached and then passed them by.

  There was a light in the window of the stone house. That was not surprising, really; Jake had been told that Worthy meant to stay in the canyon no matter what. He was yet another man with no place else to go. Jake steered his pony away from the road and into the cottonwood grove. He meant to approach the house on foot. The horse’s plodding hoofs were loud in the night and who knew if the animal might choose to nicker at the wrong moment.

  He dropped the reins to the dun, leaving it to manage on its own and he slipped through the shadows. Starlight now began to flicker through the upper reaches of the trees. Not quite enough light to see, and hopefully not enough to be seen by. Jake had left his long gun in its scabbard. This figured to call for close work, and he carried his Colt low and solidly in his hand. He crept toward the back corner of the house where he again paused to listen. There were no voices from within, leading him to believe that Worthy was alone. Of course, as he had witnessed, Kit and Worthy were not given to much conversation. He waited, but there was going to be nothing learned from standing alone in the night, and he knew that he was only trying to postpone the inevitable. All he could do was be as ready as possible and hope for the best.