Ride to Hell's Gate

by Ralph Cotton

  Redlow looked at his brother and nodded at the big pistol. ‘‘Well . . . ?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Well what?’’ said Eddie.

  ‘‘Well, are you going to put that heavy-assed gun away or sit there holding it up like an idiot until it wrestles you to the ground?’’

  ‘‘It’s not that heavy for me,’’ Eddie said, struggling to keep his hand from starting to tremble and buckle under the gun’s weight.

  ‘‘Yeah, right,’’ Redlow said skeptically. ‘‘Put the damned thing away and let’s get down to business.’’

  Both Boland and Fairday felt relieved seeing Eddie lower the big horse pistol, uncock it and slip it back into its saddle holster.

  ‘‘What business is that?’’ Eddie asked, his wrist throbbing and stiff. But he wasn’t about to rub away its stiffness in front of the rest of the men.

  ‘‘Horse business, Brother,’’ said Redlow. As he spoke he gave Fairday a scalding stare. ‘‘These men didn’t bring any. We’ll have to go find some ourselves. I told Sepreano we’d bring a big string next time we meet. I won’t be made a fool of. Will you?’’

  Eddie didn’t answer. Instead he turned a hard frown to Fairday, then to Boland and the other two men. ‘‘Send these jakes out to steal horses, is what I say.’’

  ‘‘That’s real smart, Eddie,’’ said Redlow, ‘‘after what happened last time. How do you figure it would go any better? With Dawson prowling around below the border, we’d be wise to stay together in strength. You know the story about the bundle of sticks?’’

  ‘‘No. What story?’’ Eddie asked.

  ‘‘Never mind,’’ said Redlow. ‘‘This time, we’re all going after horses.’’ He looked at Boland, Tomes and McClinton. ‘‘I take it you men came to join up with us, like every other smart gunman on the run down here.’’

  ‘‘You got it, Redlow,’’ Boland said in his distorted voice. ‘‘I always wanted to ride with the Barrows brothers. My brother, Ned, always spoke highly of you.’’

  ‘‘I hated hearing about Ned getting it from Fast Larry Shaw,’’ said Redlow. He shrugged. ‘‘But I have to say, tease a hornet, you will get stung.’’

  ‘‘Shaw is a dead piece of meat as soon as I lay eyes on him again,’’ said Boland, taking the wet cloth from his lips. ‘‘Any chance I can get a shot or two of whiskey? I’m hurting something awful here.’’

  ‘‘Again?’’ Redlow looked at him curiously, not seeming to hear his plea for whiskey. ‘‘You mean you’ve seen him lately, and he’s still alive?’’

  Boland looked ashamed. ‘‘I shot him real good, but the fool didn’t die.’’

  ‘‘You shot Fast Larry Shaw? Damn!’’ said Redlow, looking impressed. Over his shoulder he said to the men, ‘‘Anybody got a bottle handy? Give this man a few shots. He’s hurting.’’ To Boland he said, ‘‘Your brother, Ned, always told me you was the bold one in the family. I suppose he wasn’t just blowing air.’’

  Boland felt his chest swell with pride. ‘‘I shot Fast Larry Shaw, straight up, face-to-face. But Gerardo Luna stepped in, shotgun-butted me before I could put a righteous bullet through Shaw’s head. I still owe Shaw a killing—Luna too for that matter.’’ A bottle of rye made it from hand to hand, then to Redlow, who handed it down to Boland. ‘‘Luna’s bad about sticking that shotgun butt wherever he pleases,’’ said Redlow.

  Taking the bottle, Boland pulled the cork. ‘‘I’ll kill him for it, mark my word,’’ said Boland. He took a long swig of rye and let out a satisfied hiss. ‘‘I’ll kill them both—’’

  ‘‘All right, men, you heard Redlow,’’ Eddie cut in, saying in a wry tone, ‘‘Right now, we’re not killing Fast Larry Shaw or Gerardo Luna. We’re going after horses.’’ He stared down at Boland. ‘‘Think you can handle that?’’

  Boland only stared at him. When Eddie turned away, he raised the bottle of rye and took another long swig. Then he patted the wet, bloody cloth to his burning lips.

  ‘‘Pay my brother Eddie no attention, Titus,’’ said Redlow. ‘‘I always said Pa should have beat him more with a branding iron.’’ As he backed up his horse a step and turned it, he added, ‘‘Everybody listen up. There’s a big spread a couple of days’ ride from here—the late Judge Bengreen’s spread. We’re going to ride over there, slip in at night and steal ourselves some fine horses there.’’

  ‘‘What about them two lawdogs?’’ Fairday asked. ‘‘We’re not going to let them get away with killing four of our own, are we?’’

  ‘‘What do you think, Leo?’’ Redlow asked pointedly. As he spoke he reached forward and took the reins to Patterson’s horse from his hand and gestured for a man nearby to take them. ‘‘Take this horse back, Sweeney. Then catch up to us.’’ He returned his gaze to Fairday. ‘‘Well, have we, Leo?’’ he asked again.

  ‘‘No, we never have,’’ Leo said. ‘‘I was just asking is all.’’

  ‘‘We never have and we never will, Leo,’’ Redlow said in a firmer tone of voice. ‘‘If they’re still on your trail and catch up to us, we’ll make short work of them. If they show up at the ruins, Delby and the ones we left guarding the place will kill them deader than hell. Does that make you feel better?’’

  ‘‘Damned right it does.’’ Leo grinned. ‘‘A whole lot better!’’ He stepped up into his saddle and tightened his hat down onto his forehead. ‘‘Montamos esta noche!’’ he called out in Spanish. ‘‘Tonight we ride!’’

  Chapter 8

  Dawson and Caldwell lost a full day having to backtrack to the place where they had heard the sound of pistol fire in the distance. But once they reached that spot and saw buzzards looming in a wide circle above the hills, they gave each other a knowing look and nudged their horses off the trail across the sandy flats. ‘‘At least they’re easy to track,’’ Caldwell said.

  ‘‘Yep, just follow the bullets, the buzzards and the bodies,’’ Dawson replied.

  An hour later the two had climbed a hill trail in the evening sunlight and stopped with their rifles lying readily across their laps. Along the edge of the trail they saw a flock of the grisly scavenger birds squawking and batting their wings as they fussed back and forth over Black Jake Patterson’s bloody remains.

  Not wanting to risk the sound of a gunshot, the two lawmen raced their horses in close and slid them to a halt. Shouting and waving their arms, the lawmen watched the big birds rise reluctantly into the air. A string of intestines hung from the last one’s blood-smeared beak. ‘‘Filthy buzzards,’’ Caldwell growled. He took off his hat and waved it against the terrible smell of death simmering in the hot desert air.

  Looking down at the half-eaten corpse, Dawson winced and said, ‘‘It’s Black Jake.’’ He looked away from the gruesome scene and located the gathering of hoofprints on the trail. In the dirt lay the six spent cartridge shells Boland had dropped from his pistol.

  Staring at the eyeless, earless, picked-over remains, Caldwell said wryly, ‘‘It looks like him and Fairday had themselves a disagreement.’’

  ‘‘Maybe not,’’ said Dawson, directing his attention to the other hoofprints. ‘‘They must’ve met up with somebody here.’’

  The two turned their horses and stepped them over to the tracks in the trail. Looking down Dawson said, ‘‘Three riders here.’’ He looked off toward Matamoros.

  ‘‘Some more of Barrows’ men,’’ Caldwell said in speculation.

  ‘‘Possibly,’’ said Dawson, scanning the land back and forth, as if trying to discern something from the endless rocky, brushy, sandy terrain. ‘‘Right here would have been a perfect place for them to ambush us.’’ He gestured a nod up toward the rocky ledge above them where Patterson and Fairday had been waiting.

  ‘‘But instead, one of them decided to shoot Black Jake six times,’’ said Caldwell. He shook his head, puzzled by such reasoning.

  ‘‘It wouldn’t have mattered,’’ said Dawson. ‘‘We weren’t coming up this trail anyway. We can thank my poor dead horse
for causing that.’’

  As Dawson spoke he’d idly patted the neck of the cream-colored Barb beneath him and stepped the animal slowly along the narrow trail. Leaning in his saddle looking down, he took note of three sets of tracks of three horses coming up the trail, and five going down. One set of tracks cut the earth less deep than the other four, the riderless horse belonging to Black Jake Patterson, he surmised.

  With Caldwell behind him, Dawson followed the tracks to a place where the trail sloped down and wound out of sight through a tangle of cedar, scrub pine and wild sage. At a clearing the two looked out across a long rolling stretch of cactus and desert sand. The five horses had left a trail of upturned sand that snaked off into a blur of grainy light and darkening shadows and disappeared from sight.

  ‘‘Once we ride down from here, we’ve got nothing but desert the next thirty miles,’’ Dawson said. He turned a tired gaze to Caldwell. ‘‘The less we stop, the closer we’ll be to them by morning.’’

  Without reply, Caldwell nudged his horse forward down the narrow trail.

  They rode on. . . .

  In the chilled desert air they stopped only once in the pale moonlight, long enough to water their horses sparsely from their canteens. For themselves, they took only a small sip of water, enough to wet their dry mouths. In order to stave off their own thirst they picked small flat stones from amid the sand and placed them under their tongues. They rode in silence beneath a silver-purple dome, conserving their energy and fluids.

  At midnight the two lawmen began taking turns, one dozing for an hour or more in his saddle while the other kept watch. By the time dawn wreathed the eastern horizon, Dawson had kept the horses following the narrow path of upturned sand through a narrow canyon. Riding out of the canyon he picked the tracks up again and stopped at the pool of water at the base of the abutment wall of earth and stone. ‘‘Caldwell, wake up,’’ he said quietly, yet loud enough to stir the dozing lawman.

  ‘‘I’m awake,’’ Caldwell said abruptly, shaking off sleep and straightening himself in his saddle. He looked all around, batting his eyes. ‘‘What is it?’’

  ‘‘Maybe nothing,’’ said Dawson. He gestured down at all the hoofprints around the water’s edge. His eyes followed them a short distance away. ‘‘It looks like these three met with some others right here.’’

  ‘‘Whoa,’’ said Caldwell, getting interested. He stepped his horse forward and looked out along the trail leading south, away from the water. ‘‘Have we come upon the whole Barrows Gang?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ said Dawson, studying the ground, seeing where a single rider had turned and led the spare horse back alongside the trail. ‘‘But we’re going to find out, soon as we get ourselves watered.’’ He stepped down from his saddle and let the cream-colored Barb lower its muzzle to the water.

  As Caldwell stepped down, he froze for a second, looking off into the distance, opposite the large number of tracks headed northwest. ‘‘What was that?’’ he asked, seeing a tiny glow of firelight rise and fall in the distant early-morning gloom.

  Dawson had also noticed the flicker of firelight. In a lowered voice he said, ‘‘That was a sign from heaven.’’ He levered a round into his rifle chamber, keeping quiet in spite of the distance between them and the flicker of light. ‘‘Before we go tracking these riders, maybe we best ride back along their trail and see where they’re coming from.’’

  ‘‘Yep, I believe you’re right,’’ said Caldwell. He reached over, slid his rifle into his saddle boot and jerked the sawed-off double-barreled shotgun from beneath his bedroll.

  Behind a half-collapsed wall of old Indian ruins, a gunman named Herco Delby said, ‘‘Who struck that match?’’ But he didn’t have to ask. He knew. Walking stiffly over to where the man on guard, Blue Joe Selbert, sat puffing on a fresh cigar, he looked down coldly at him, and said, ‘‘Put it out, you stupid son of a bitch.’’

  Blue Joe calmly turned his face up to Delby and blew a thin stream of smoke. ‘‘Like hell I will.’’ He looked all around at other grim faces as the six men began to gather to see what the heated talk was all about. ‘‘The brothers left you in charge, Delby,’’ he said. ‘‘Don’t let your new hat size get you killed.’’ He gave a short chuckle as if to pass it all off as a joke.

  But Delby wasn’t laughing. ‘‘You know better than to light a damned cigar this time of morning. Somebody could see it all the way from the hill trails.’’

  ‘‘There’s nobody out there,’’ said Selbert. ‘‘If there was, he’d have already been trampled over by Eddie, Redlow and the gang.’’

  Giles Sweeney had brought Patterson’s horse back and lingered overnight before riding out to catch up with the gang. He stepped forward and said, ‘‘Delby’s right, Blue Joe. We’ve got Cray Dawson and a deputy on our trail. We can’t be taking stupid chances.’’

  Selbert kept the cigar clamped between his teeth and said, ‘‘Who are you calling stupid, Giles? I hope it’s not me. I hate name-calling.’’

  Sweeney backed off.

  But not Delby. Stepping even closer, his fists clenched at his sides, he said down to Selbert, ‘‘Put it out, or I’ll put it out for you.’’

  A tense silence fell across the ruins as the men watched expectantly.

  With the cigar clamped firmly in his teeth, Selbert laid his hand on his holstered Remington and said, ‘‘It would be a great source of amusement to see you try, wouldn’t it, boys—?’’

  The words had hardly passed his lips when Delby’s boot shot out and kicked him solidly in the face. Selbert flew backward on the ground in a spray of cigar sparks. Pieces of the flattened cigar stuck to his beard and eyebrows. Hair sizzled as the half-conscious gunman slapped at his burned face, spitting the stub of the cigar from his lips.

  ‘‘Damn you, Delby! I’ll kill you!’’ he shouted, his hand grabbing the handle of his Remington.

  But Delby’s boot clamped down on his wrist before he could snatch the gun up and put it to use. Delby’s Colt came down into his face, cocked and ready to fire, an inch from his blackened nose. ‘‘You’re not killing anybody, Blue Joe. It’s over,’’ Delby growled. ‘‘Ain’t it?’’ He stood poised and ready.

  Selbert saw the dark determination in his eyes. He eased down and let his wrist drop. Nodding, he cut a quick glance all around at the other men but saw no support for himself. ‘‘Damn it. Yeah, it’s over, Delby,’’ he said, again trying to play it off as a joke. ‘‘You said you’d put it out for me . . . and you did. What more do you want?’’ He tried a stiff grin. ‘‘I was just funning with you some. Don’t go getting so damned serious. Right boys?’’ He looked all around again, still seeing nothing but grim faces; no support.

  A scar-faced gunman named Wally Click said in a no-nonsense tone, ‘‘Firing up that cigar could have gave us away and got us killed. You’re lucky we don’t all kill you.’’

  ‘‘Hey! Come on pards,’’ said Selbert. ‘‘We’re all pals here. I made a little mistake. Nobody else here ever done that? It was almost daylight.’’

  ‘‘Almost the daylight is not the daylight,’’ said a Mexican outlaw named Paco Bonapey, in stiff English. He wagged a finger back and forth. ‘‘You knew that it was wrong, what you did.’’

  Before Selbert could reply, Delby said, ‘‘It’s over, Paco. Let it go. Everybody go on about your business.’’ He looked at Sweeney and said, ‘‘Giles, you need to get saddled and get out of here, catch back up to the others.’’

  ‘‘I’m on my way,’’ said Sweeney, walking briskly to where his horse stood in a small makeshift corral constructed of downfallen tree limbs and brush tied together with lariats and scraps of string, wire and rawhide. In moments he’d slung his saddle up onto his horse, cinched it, climbed up and ridden away.

  A hundred yards away, Dawson and Caldwell stopped their horses in a low sandy draw and stepped down. They kept the animals quiet, hearing hooves move away across the desert floor in the grainy morning light.
As the sound of the hooves faded out of hearing, the two lawmen climbed to the edge of the draw and bided their time. They waited until they had enough light to identify three of the six men in the ruins lying ahead.

  Finally Dawson said, ‘‘It’s them. Let’s go.’’ If they waited too long, sunlight would leave them exposed on an open stretch of ground.

  Inside the ruins, Paco asked Delby, ‘‘Can I gather some wood, to make for us some coffee?’’

  Delby looked all around, judging daylight, seeing the purplish veil lift slowly from the desert floor. ‘‘Go ahead and gather it. But wait a little longer before starting a fire.’’

  ‘‘Si, I will gather it and wait,’’ said Paco.

  From the edge of the sandy draw, as soon as Dawson and Caldwell could see well enough to count six figures moving about within the crumbled walls of the ruins, they both stood in a crouch and moved forward.

  Inside the ruins, a gunman named Bob Tall Pockets Stevens stood with his saddle raised, ready to throw in over his horse’s back. But upon seeing the two shadowy figures move into sight and spread out, he said, ‘‘Uh-oh! Trouble coming, Delby!’’ He let the saddle fall from his hands and grabbed for his holstered Colt.

  But Delby had already seen the two approaching figures himself. ‘‘It’s the law!’’ he said, drawing his Colt and cocking it as he backed away behind part of a crumbling stone wall. ‘‘Damn it, Selbert! You’re supposed to be on guard!’’

  ‘‘What the hell do you want from me?’’ Selbert shouted at Delby. He stood up, his Remington in hand. But before he could raise it toward the advancing lawmen, a bullet from Dawson’s Colt picked him up and hurled him backward onto the ground.

  ‘‘Kill them!’’ shouted Tall Pockets Stevens. But as he fired wildly, Caldwell had raced in closer and taken cover behind the low stone wall. A blast from his ten-gauge shotgun silenced Stevens and left him lying dead in a spreading pool of blood.