Ride to Hell's Gate

by Ralph Cotton

  Firing toward the sound of the shotgun blast and the rise of smoke, Wally Click raced toward the horses. A few buckshots from the second blast of the double-barrel hit him but only wounded him. He went down to his knee but managed to come back up firing, racing toward the spot where Caldwell had taken cover, knowing the lawman had to reload or come up with a pistol. Either way, Click saw his opportunity and he took it.

  But Dawson also saw what was going to happen; he stepped out into the open from behind a wood pile to draw Click’s attention, and shouted, ‘‘Over here!’’

  It worked. Click jerked around toward him. Delby and Paco also turned toward him from their position beside the horses. Seeing Dawson’s Colt pointed at him, Click turned his fire away from Caldwell. But as his shot whirred past Dawson’s head, Dawson took aim and fired. His shot lifted Click and flipped him backward.

  Caldwell had reloaded quickly. He rose up from the stone wall in time to see Delby and Paco firing at Dawson. The first blast on the shotgun hammered Delby backward. Delby tried to catch himself but only managed to stagger sidelong into the frightened horses. A gunman named Indian Jack Toeburg sprang from his cover behind a rock and raced in a crouch, firing at Dawson as he hurried to join Paco at the horses.

  Dawson’s Colt nailed him. The first shot hit him in the side of his neck as he ran; the second shot struck him full in the chest as he turned and tried to take aim at Dawson.

  Jumping into his saddle, Paco dug his spurs into the horse’s sides and raced across the ruins. As the horse made a leap over the three-foot-high stone wall, Caldwell’s shotgun exploded and blasted him sideways from the saddle. He hit the ground limply and rolled to a halt.

  As the echo of gunfire rolled up against the distant hills, the two lawmen stood up cautiously; a low cloud of gun smoke loomed on the still air. ‘‘Are— are you hit?’’ Caldwell asked Dawson.

  Dawson resisted the urge to feel his chest and make sure. Instead he said quietly, almost in disbelief, ‘‘No, are you?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ said Caldwell. Touching his fingerless glove to his cheek he said, ‘‘A piece of rock nicked me, but I’m all right.’’ He swallowed a tense knot in his throat, looking all around at the carnage. ‘‘Is that all six?’’

  ‘‘Yep, all six,’’ Dawson said. They stood in silence for a moment, feeling a cool morning breeze blow steadily across the ruins. ‘‘We got lucky, Jedson,’’ Dawson said at length. ‘‘It’s not likely to happen again.’’

  From a thousand yards out, Giles Sweeney had heard the sudden gunfire erupt, followed by the dead silence only a few seconds later. He circled and rode back just close enough to see that the only two men left standing were not of the Barrows Gang. Then he turned his horse and gave it spurs. There was nothing he could do, unless he wanted to ride back to the ruins and die himself. Uh-uh, he thought, racing away across the sand. This was something Redlow and Eddie needed to hear about.

  In the ruins, the two lawmen saw the rising dust of the fleeing horseman. ‘‘He’s headed out now to tell the Barrows all about it,’’ said Caldwell. He’d taken a bandanna from around his neck and pressed it to his bleeding cheek.

  ‘‘Yes, he is,’’ said Dawson, reloading his Colt. ‘‘But the Barrows brothers were already expecting us.’’ He dropped his Colt into his holster.

  They stood in silence for another moment, Dawson watching the rider’s dust move farther out of sight, Caldwell looking around at the dead on the ground. ‘‘Do you feel right about what we’re doing, gunning them down this way?’’

  ‘‘No, I don’t,’’ Dawson said bluntly. He thought about Fairday and the young girl they’d found lying staked out dead along the trail. ‘‘If you know any other way to deal with these men, I’m listening.’’

  ‘‘No, I don’t,’’ said Caldwell. He broke open the shotgun, pulled out the two spent shells, dropped them to the ground and replaced them. Clicking the shotgun shut he said, ‘‘I’m starting to understand Shaw, feel the way he always appears to be.’’

  ‘‘How’s that?’’ Dawson asked.

  ‘‘Just empty,’’ said Caldwell, ‘’empty and dark, like I need to make something right with myself.’’

  ‘‘That’s Shaw all right,’’ said Dawson, ‘’empty and dark.’’ He took a deep breath and let it out, allowing the tightness to uncoil inside his chest. ‘‘Whatever he’s doing at the Bengreen spread, I hope it’s making him right with himself.’’

  PART 2

  Chapter 9

  Lawrence Shaw needed a drink. No, he thought, looking out across the shallow valley below, watching the four Apache make quick work of the dead steer, he didn’t need a drink. But he sure wanted one. He licked his dry lips. Wanting a drink wasn’t exactly accurate, he told himself. It wasn’t so much that he needed a drink or even wanted a drink. All right, he could use a drink right then, he told himself with a nod, hoping that would settle whatever argument was going on inside him. But it didn’t.

  Use a drink for what? the arguing voice inside him quickly shot back. Damn. He didn’t know. He let out a breath, tired of thinking about it, tired of quarreling over it with himself. He was sober, at present anyway, and the present was all he felt able to deal with right now. Besides, it wasn’t as if he’d stopped drinking from now on. He’d stopped long enough to sober up, to get his senses back. After that . . . well, it was hard to say. But for now, he wasn’t drinking. Good enough . . .

  How many days had it been? He wasn’t going to start counting—run the risk of opening up a whole argument with himself. ‘‘No thanks,’’ he murmured beneath his lowered hat brim. He remained hidden behind a mesquite bush, the rifle cradled in his left arm. His hands weren’t shaking as bad. That’s how long it had been.

  He waited until the two spindly-legged Apache elders and two young boys not yet near their teens had cleaned the steer to the bone and packed the last of the bloody meat out of sight. Then he raised the rifle to his left shoulder, took aim and fired just as one of the elders disappeared into a stand of rock, scrub trees and brush. The first rifle shot had sent the old man scurrying along like some stiff ancient wolf. Two more shots kicked up dirt along the path after the old man had taken cover.

  That’ll do it. Shaw stood up and looked out across the harsh terrain. He saw no movement inside the brush and trees, but with the Apache he hadn’t expected to. They had taken the meat and vanished. His shots had been meant only to warn them. Dusting his trouser leg, Shaw walked to his horse, slid the rifle into its boot, mounted and rode away, back toward the hacienda.

  Ten minutes later, before the Bengreen hacienda rose into sight, he saw the fresh plume of trail dust coming toward him. Batting his boot heels to his horse’s sides, he brought the animal into a comfortable gallop and hurried forward. He didn’t slow down until he could make out Anna Bengreen riding at the head of the dust.

  Moments later, when she rode up at a slower gallop, she circled her horse to a halt a few feet away. ‘‘I heard shots,’’ she said. ‘‘Are you all right, Lawrence?’’

  Shaw stopped and rested his left wrist on his saddle horn, his right arm still in the sling. ‘‘I’m fine, Anna,’’ Shaw replied. ‘‘Riding toward rifle shots is not a good idea,’’ he added.

  ‘‘I—I know,’’ she replied, nudging her horse up closer to him. ‘‘But I became worried.’’ She pushed her riding hat back from her head and let it hang by its strings behind her shoulders.

  ‘‘Then you should have sent Ernesto,’’ Shaw said, but in an easy tone, reminding her only for her own good.

  ‘‘Yes, you are right,’’ she said. ‘‘I will remember your advice, if it should happen again.’’

  ‘‘Yes, ma’am,’’ Shaw said, using ma’am to let her know he knew who was the boss here. ‘‘Anyway it was nothing,’’ he said. ‘‘A band of Apache dressing out a dead steer. They looked awfully lean in the shanks. I figure they needed it.’’

  ‘‘They killed one of my cattle?’’ she asked, not seeming
upset, only curious.

  ‘‘A wild one, I figured,’’ said Shaw. ‘‘Not a part of any herd. I doubt if they killed it. Most likely they found it already dead, or dying. If they were killing it for food, they would have taken it with them on the hoof, killed it and dressed it somewhere else.’’

  ‘‘Oh . . . Then the shots I heard . . . ?’’

  ‘‘They were just warning shots,’’ Shaw said, ‘‘letting them know to keep moving. Your hacienda is seven miles from here. These old-blanket warriors can smell a horse that distance.’’

  ‘‘I see.’’ She considered it, then asked, ‘‘Do you know a lot about the Apache?’’

  ‘‘I wouldn’t say I know a lot,’’ said Shaw. ‘‘But I’ve learned a little . . . mostly I’ve learned to give them wide breadth. They were here a long while before the rest of us showed up.’’ He raised his left hand and kneaded his mending shoulder.

  Anna studied him as he looked out across the broad, harsh terrain. Fast Larry Shaw, she said to herself, liking what she’d learned so far of the infamous Texan gunman. Of course she had heard of Lawrence Shaw, the Fastest Gun Alive, and it went without saying that he realized it. Although neither of them had brought the matter up, they had both carefully directed their brief conversations around or away from it.

  While she had heard of him, she knew little about him, other than the fact that he was rumored to have killed many men . . . men who had come seeking to kill him. Did that justify his actions? Certainly it did, she answered herself without hesitation, gazing out across the wild desert land with him for a moment. Then she returned to his weathered face, his confident, flint-sharp eyes.

  Suddenly, to her own surprise, she heard herself ask him, ‘‘Why did you give the name of the Tejas lawyer for yourself?’’

  Without turning his eyes to her, Shaw sighed, almostin relief that the subject of himself had come up. He had nothing to hide, not from Anna Reyes Bengreen. ‘‘Chever Reed was my lawyer, and a friend,’’ he said bluntly, finally turning to her as he spoke. ‘‘Before he died, he made me promise him I’d use his name.’’ Shaw shrugged his left shoulder. ‘‘So I did.’’

  ‘‘May I—’’ She halted, then continued, ‘‘May I ask why?’’

  ‘‘Yes, of course you may,’’ Shaw said, feeling even more relieved. ‘‘He knew my circumstances, how many men were out to kill me, just to claim my reputation. He knew he was dying, so he asked me to use his name—sort of his way of leaving behind a little mystery about himself.’’

  ‘‘But why was such a thing important to him?’’ she asked, not about to even try and fathom why men would kill one another just to prove themselves faster with a gun.

  Shaw thought about how to explain it for a moment. Then finding no way, he said, ‘‘I suppose you would have to have known Chever Reed to understand why that was important to him.’’

  ‘‘Oh, I did not mean to pry,’’ she said quickly, thinking she had stepped too deep into Shaw’s world.

  ‘‘No, Anna,’’ Shaw said quietly, nudging his horse closer to hers, ‘‘I didn’t take it that way. It’s just that some things don’t explain out as easily as others. This is one of them.’’ He looked into her eyes, not wanting her to remind him so much of Rosa, yet feeling powerless to keep her from it. ‘‘Let’s—let’s keep talking though, about anything you want . . . that is, if it’s all the same to you.’’

  She studied his eyes in return and asked, ‘‘I want to talk about you. But I do not know what I should or should not ask.’’

  ‘‘Ask me anything, Anna,’’ Shaw said, his voice growing softer. His horse was sidled up against hers, so close he could smell the scent of her hair, a scent so achingly familiar to him.

  ‘‘It is said you faked your own death,’’ she said, averting her eyes down to her gloved hands for a moment, but then back to his.

  ‘‘Yes, that’s true—I did,’’ Shaw replied. ‘‘But little good it did me.’’ He paused, took off his hat and laid it on his saddle horn. ‘‘It worked for a while. . . . I’m still rumored to be dead in some places, I suppose. But it’s wearing thin. People are catching on to it, even all the way here in Mexico.’’

  Anna considered his words for a moment. ‘‘So, a person cannot hide from themselves forever,’’ she mused, shaking her head slowly. ‘‘What a terrible way to live, always wondering each day if someone will know the lie you are living and destroy the new life you have created for yourself. This is how you must live, yes?’’

  ‘‘Well . . . Yes, I suppose you could say so.’’ His life seemed even more sad and seedy to him, hearing her describe it, and at the same time catching glances of his life and how much darker and more hopeless it had become since his wife’s death.

  She reached out a hand and brushed a lock of damp hair from his forehead. Shaw sat stunned by the act; but he liked it. ‘‘I think I understand.’’

  ‘‘You do?’’ Shaw wasn’t sure what it was she understood, or what it had to do with anything. But he knew by the change in her voice, the touch of her hand, that she had resolved those questions a woman has about a man before giving herself to him.

  ‘‘Yes, I do,’’ she whispered.

  They looked deep into each other’s eyes, each knowing, each asking and replying to one another without needing words. At length, she whispered breathlessly, ‘‘Not here . . . follow me.’’

  Shaw watched her turn her horse expertly and gallop off toward a line of trees at the base of the rock hillside. Without a second thought he booted his horse along behind her.

  When they’d finished making love on the bedroll Shaw had hastily thrown to the ground from behind his saddle, he lay watching her as she poured water from a canteen onto his bandanna and touched it to her naked breasts. When she had bathed herself all over with the canteen water, she stood facing an afternoon breeze coming off the hills. Her arms spread, her eyes closed, she let the breeze both cool and dry her skin.

  ‘‘I have been too long in mourning,’’ she said quietly, her face comfortable and relaxed. Wringing the bandanna, she tied it loosely around her throat and walked back to the bedroll. ‘‘Do you suppose Gerardo Luna foresaw this happening between us when he planned our meeting one another?’’ She smiled as she reached down, picked up Shaw’s shirt, slipped it on and stretched out beside him.

  Her action gave him pause. It was the same thing he’d watched Rosa do countless times when they had finished their lovemaking and lay together closely for a while.

  ‘‘Well, do you?’’ she asked when he didn’t answer right away.

  He caught himself before she’d seen the dark cloud move across his brow. ‘‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’’ he said, forcing himself to let the other thought go. Even in the midst of their passion he’d made up his mind that this was no ordinary woman. He knew that Anna Reyes Bengreen was not Rosa Shaw; but he also knew this was a woman he did not want to lose.

  She pressed herself against him and spoke softly, close to his face, ‘‘I am not angry with him if he did. I am glad.’’

  ‘‘I’m glad too . . . Anna,’’ he said, realizing how close he had come to calling her Rosa. He held her tight against him, the taste of her mouth still fresh on his lips. ‘‘It’s been a long time since I felt this way with a woman.’’ He closed his eyes and lay with her, letting her scent engulf him. This was not Rosa; this . . . was . . . not . . . Rosa! He didn’t want to think about Rosa. Yet he knew, even as he held this warm, beautiful woman and felt the need in her respond to him, this was not Rosa . . . and his heart ached.

  He felt her pull away from him and heard her say, ‘‘What is wrong, Lawrence?’’

  Damn it, even her voice, he told himself, growing angry at himself. ‘‘Nothing, Anna,’’ he said. ‘‘But it’s getting late. I need to get you back to the hacienda before it gets too dark.’’

  At first she looked puzzled, seeing him pull back from her and stand up. But she liked his smile as he reached down, helped her to her feet and he
ld her for a moment longer. ‘‘I don’t want anything to happen to you. I only saw two old men and two children. But I don’t know how many Apache were waiting in the trees.’’

  ‘‘I understand.’’ She looked around as he turned her loose. True, it was getting dark; they were seven miles from the hacienda. ‘‘Anyway, Ernesto is preparing a nice dinner for us.’’ She turned from him and dressed. Shaw did the same.

  When he’d finished buckling his gun belt and buttoning his shirt, he slipped his arm back into the sling, rolled up the bedroll and carried it to his horse. In moments the two had mounted and ridden the horses onto the trail leading back to the hacienda.

  Chapter 10

  When they had returned to the hacienda, Shaw and Anna sat down to the dinner Ernesto had prepared for them. Afterward, Anna dismissed the elderly houseman, and the two watched him walk away in the glow of a tall candle he carried. When he’d turned out of sight, toward the far end of a long hallway leading to the back door of the sprawling house, Anna smiled. She picked up her glass of wine and moved around to the head of the long table to the chair next to Shaw, where he sat sipping coffee, his hat and gun belt hanging on the chair back, within reach. His rifle stood leaning against the wall behind him.

  As if in secrecy she said, ‘‘I don’t know if it is the wine going to my head.’’ Through an open window Ernesto’s horse’s hooves rode toward the small house near the horse stables a hundred yards away. ‘‘But tonight I feel so free, more free than I have felt since I was a child.’’ She reached a hand over to Shaw. ‘‘And how do you feel, Mr. Shaw?’’ she asked playfully.

  Shaw took her outreached hand in his. ‘‘Mr. Shaw has never felt better, ma’am,’’ he said, unable to feel as playful as her, yet going along with her. There was something wrong with her reminding him so much of his deceased wife, Rosa. He felt as if he were betraying someone, either her, or Rosa’s memory; he wasn’t sure which. Maybe both, he thought.