Ride to Hell's Gate

by Ralph Cotton

  ‘‘I could drink a river of whiskey,’’ Simon replied, rubbing a dirty hand on the belly of his faded, ragged serape. ‘‘But I know that it is most important to you for me to stay sober enough to tell what I saw when the time comes. So I will,’’ he said with marked determination.

  Shaw nodded and said, ‘‘Good man,’’ as they rode well past the town and stopped out front of the cantina.

  A few of the townsmen had seen them riding in and had quickly disappeared from sight. Shaw eased down from his saddle and looked all around warily, as if expecting an ambush.

  ‘‘What’s wrong?’’ Simon, having ridden bareback, asked as he slid down from the spare horse’s back.

  ‘‘I don’t know, but something doesn’t feel right,’’ said Shaw in a lowered voice. ‘‘These folks act like they’re apt to spook at any minute.’’

  ‘‘Yes,’’ said Simon in stiff but good English, ‘‘I see it too. It is not good, no?’’

  ‘‘We’ll just have to see,’’ said Shaw. ‘‘Stick close beside me. Do you have a gun?’’

  ‘‘Do I look like a man who can afford a gun?’’ Simon asked in reply.

  ‘‘No, I suppose not,’’ said Shaw. The two men stepped inside the cantina’s vacant doorway. The door that had been torn from its hinges stood against the inside wall. The broken furniture and other strewn items had been gathered from the street. But the cantinaowner’s forehead still bore the cut and the bruised knot from his earlier encounter with the Barrows. He stared nervously at Shaw from behind the bar.

  ‘‘Welcome to my cantina, senor,’’ he said to Shaw in an unsteady voice. He gave one quick look and ignored Simon, owing to the condition of the man’s ragged clothes and his deadbeat demeanor. ‘‘What can I get you to drink?’’

  Ignoring the offer, Shaw said, ‘‘I’m supposed to meet two men here.’’

  The cantina owner shrugged. ‘‘As you see, there is no one here this evening. But it is still early.’’

  Shaw turned and looked at the broken door standing against the front wall. ‘‘These men are Americanos like myself.’’ He looked back and forth along the narrow, dusty street.

  ‘‘Perhaps these men will show up later,’’ the owner said as Shaw turned and walked over closer to the bar, still looking all around the small cantina. ‘‘There have been no strangers ride into Agua Cubo for the past four—’’

  His words stopped short, Shaw’s left hand came up quick, his Colt in it, cocked and ready. The tip of the gun barrel lifted the man’s chin. His eyes opened wide.

  ‘‘Don’t even try lying to me,’’ Shaw hissed, his right arm coming out of the sling, his right hand gripping the man by his shirt. ‘‘I saw the hoofprints coming in and going out. Now answer me like your life depends on it. Where are those Americanos?’’

  Simon stared as if in disbelief.

  ‘‘Por favor, senor! Don’t shoot! I had to do what I was told! The gringos were going to kill my esposa if I did not do as they said!’’

  ‘‘What did you do?’’ Shaw persisted. ‘‘Where are my friends? If you don’t want to die, you’d better start talking.’’

  The cantina owner broke down and quickly told him everything. Simon stood by listening in silence. When the owner had finished, Shaw turned loose of his shirt and gave him a shove backward. ‘‘I should kill you anyway,’’ Shaw growled. But he lowered his gun grudgingly. ‘‘What was it you slipped into their drinks?’’

  ‘‘It is called Shanghai tonic,’’ said the owner. ‘‘It is what animal doctors use on large animals. It is also what the shipping companies in your country used to knock out sailors and shanghai them.’’

  Shaw paced back and forth. Simon watched his eyes go to shelves filled with bottles of rye and mescal along the wall behind the bar. ‘‘Anything you like, it is free,’’ said the owner. ‘‘You only have to name it.’’

  But Shaw didn’t name it. He rubbed his left hand idly on his trousers and said, ‘‘If my friends are dead, there won’t be enough desert for you to hide in.’’

  Shaw stomped out onto the street where the horses stood. Simon followed. ‘‘If you no longer need me, Senor Shaw,’’ he said meekly, ‘‘I will stay here in Agua Cubo.’’ He gestured a hand toward the open doorway. He started to turn back to the doorway.

  ‘‘No,’’ Shaw said, grabbing him by his ragged serape and stopping him. ‘‘You’re not going back in there and drinking yourself into a stupor. I need you now worse than before. If my friends are alive, it’s only so the Barrows Gang can blame them for killing Sepreano’s brother. Do you understand me?’’

  Simon considered it and said, ‘‘Si, I think so. But if they join Sepreano, how will the two of us get Sepreano’s ear, in order to tell him what really happened?’’

  ‘‘Let me worry about that when the time comes,’’ Shaw said, realizing he had no idea how to pull it off. ‘‘Get your horse watered. I’m not letting up. We’re staying hot on their trail.’’

  Chapter 19

  When Dawson had lost consciousness, the cantina had been swaying before his eyes. Now, as he awakened slowly in the waning evening light, he saw nothing but sand and small rocks swaying and drifting past his face with each step of the cream-colored Barb. When he tried reaching up and rubbing his throbbing head, he found that his hands wouldn’t do as he’d wanted. It took him a second to realize that he was lying tied down over his saddle. Looking back, he saw Caldwell lying in the same manner, his bare head bobbing lifelessly with each step of his horse. Was Caldwell dead . . . ? Slowly Dawson recalled what had happened to the two of them.

  The last thing he remembered hearing had been Fairday laughing close to his face, telling him that he and Caldwell were dying. Dawson took a deep, thankful breath and let it out. Well, that much wasn’t true, he told himself. Now that he knew he was still alive, he wanted to find out why. It certainly wasn’t because Fairday didn’t want him dead—

  ‘‘Well well, pards,’’ Fairday said to the other three men, cutting off Dawson’s train of thought, ‘‘look who’s back among the living.’’ He sidled his horse in closer, reached his right foot out of his stirrup and raised Dawson’s head with the toe of his rough, dusty boot. ‘‘I bet you figured the next face you’d see would be ole Satan himself.’’

  ‘‘How’s—how’s Caldwell?’’ Dawson asked in a thick voice.

  ‘‘Stop right here, Dog,’’ Fairday said to Drop the Dog Jones, who had led Dawson’s horse all the way from Agua Cubo.

  As Drop the Dog stopped and the cream-colored Barb stopped behind him, Dawson looked back and saw the other two outlaws ride up closer. Caldwell’s horse was being led by Billy Elkins. Deacon Kay rode along beside him. ‘‘Why are we stopping?’’ Kay asked. ‘‘We’ve got a long way to go to catch up to the others.’’

  Fairday said in a mocking tone, ‘‘Mr. Federal Marshal Crayton Dawson here has a few questions he’d like to ask us, Deak. I felt it only polite that we stop here and answer them for him, don’t you?’’

  Kay looked down at Dawson with daggers in his eyes. ‘‘For my money, I’d as soon split both their heads and leave them lying out here to bake up good and plump for the buzzards.’’ He nodded at the still-unconscious Caldwell.

  Fairday, with Dawson’s face still lifted on his boot toe, grinned. ‘‘There now, Marshal Dawson, does that quiet any questions you have going round in your lawdog head?’’ He jerked his boot away roughly. ‘‘If he keeps talking, I’ll clip off his ears first, then his tongue if he keeps it up,’’ he said to Drop the Dog. ‘‘That’s an old Apache way of shutting up a prisoner.’’

  Recalling the gruesome condition of the young woman Fairday had staked down on the desert floor when this manhunt had begun, Dawson decided it wise to keep his mouth shut unless he was spoken to.

  ‘‘How come you know so danged much about Apache ways, Leo?’’ Drop the Dog asked, riding on, Dawson on the Barb in tow behind him.

  Fairday said sharply, ‘‘Never you mind
how I know. I just know is all.’’

  They rode on.

  At dark, they stopped only long enough to water their horses at a shallow puddle of water at the base of a hill line and relieve themselves, and allow Dawson and Caldwell to do the same. Then they rode upward, climbing onto a meandering hill trail under the thin light of a half-moon. In the middle of the night, they stopped again, this time on a high precipice overlooking the sand flats they left behind them.

  ‘‘Untie them,’’ Fairday said to Drop the Dog. ‘‘I’m throwing one of them off this edge. I want to hear how loud they can scream.’’

  Dawson heard him, but he knew it was only Fairday taunting them again. He looked back toward Caldwell but he couldn’t make out his face in the purple darkness. Caldwell had been conscious the past couple of hours, but they hadn’t been able to talk.

  ‘‘I’ll let our good marshal here decide which one goes off the edge,’’ Fairday said. ‘‘What say you, Marshal Dawson? Who should I throw off, you or your loyal deputy here?’’

  ‘‘Throw yourself off, Leo,’’ Deacon Kay cut in, speaking in a somber voice, ‘‘if you want to get rid of some of the stink in this world.’’

  Elkins and Drop the Dog both laughed under their breath. But Fairday saw no humor in it. ‘‘You have no cause to talk to me in that manner, Deak,’’ he said in an angry but even tone of voice.

  ‘‘I get sick of hearing somebody take overbearing advantage just because they’re holding all the cards,’’ said Kay. ‘‘Either kill these two wretches or else shut the hell up about it.’’

  Fairday, aware of Deacon Kay’s reputation for viciousness and murder, decided to step back from any further argument on the matter. ‘‘Hell, I can’t kill them, Deak. You know that—else I already would have, and not in a pretty manner. Eddie and Redlow want them alive to take to Sepreano for killing his brother, Carlos, back in Rock Station. Marshal Dawson here is going to feel the wrath of Sepreano sure enough.’’

  ‘‘Then quit picking at him till then,’’ Kay said bluntly. ‘‘It’s starting to raise my bark every time you do it.’’

  Dawson listened intently, realizing why he and Caldwell were alive. Now he understood what must’ve taken place in Rock Station, and why the Barrows Gang had left there in the midst of a raging sandstorm.

  Fairday had to make some sort of comeback to Kay, or face looking timid in front of the other two men. ‘‘Well, excuse the hell out of me, Deak,’’ he said with a chuckle, hoping to lighten the air a little. ‘‘I’m not being overbearing. The fact is I was going to cut them loose after I scared them both good and proper. I figured it’d be easier on all of us if they rode sitting up.’’

  ‘‘Dawson is a U.S. federal marshal, Leo,’’ Kay said quietly. ‘‘Do you really think you’re scaring him with your schoolboy teasing? If you do, you haven’t been walking streets near as mean as the ones I’ve been on.’’

  He called over to Dawson. ‘‘Marshal, how scared are you of getting thrown off a cliff?’’

  ‘‘About as much as I am of dying in my sleep,’’ Dawson answered in a level tone.

  ‘‘There, Leo,’’ said Kay, ‘‘that’s what he thinks of dying.’’ Kay shook his head, walked over, took out a knife from his belt and sliced through the rope that ran from Dawson’s tied hands, under the Barb’s belly and wrapped around Dawson’s feet.

  ‘‘Try anything funny and we’ll kill you!’’ Fairday warned Dawson.

  ‘‘Jesus, Leo!’’ said Kay in a tried tone of voice. ‘‘He already knows that.’’ He pitched his knife to Drop the Dog and said, ‘‘Dog, cut the deputy loose.’’ Then he said to Fairday, ‘‘Think you ought to warn the deputy too?’’

  Humiliated by the muffled laugh that rose from Elkins and Drop the Dog, Fairday changed the subject, saying, ‘‘I don’t know about the rest of yas, but I’ll be glad when we get to Hell’s Gate and hook up with Sepreano. I’m ready for a few days of lying back and taking it easy.’’

  ‘‘I’m all for that myself,’’ said Drop the Dog, watching Dawson and Caldwell slide to the ground and stretch their aching bones before stepping into their saddles, their hands still tied, but this time sitting upright. Dawson had listened to every word, getting an idea where they were going. He hoped Shaw had made it back to Agua Cubo, knowing that if he had, there was no doubt he’d found out what had happened. That meant he was back there somewhere on the sand flats right now, headed this way.

  As the four men mounted their horses, Dawson and Caldwell managed to get close enough for Dawson to ask under his breath, ‘‘Jed, are you all right?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I believe so,’’ said Caldwell. ‘‘How about you?’’

  Dawson only nodded.

  ‘‘I thought for sure we were both done for back in Agua Cubo,’’ said Caldwell.

  ‘‘Yeah, that was Fairday’s idea of having a little fun,’’ Dawson whispered.

  ‘‘You heard what they said,’’ Caldwell whispered, ‘‘about blaming us for killing Sepreano’s brother? What do you suppose that’s all about?’’

  Dawson had to let his question go unanswered when Drop the Dog said harshly right behind them, ‘‘Shut up, or we’ll tie a gag around your mouths.’’

  Throughout the purple moonlit night they rode, across high trails that neither Dawson nor Caldwell had ever ridden. Dawson did not risk asking and possibly bringing trouble for himself or Caldwell. Instead, he rode on in silence, feeling the night air grow chilled around them on the mountain trails. Besides, he thought to himself, he didn’t need to ask. He was already certain they were headed for Hell’s Gate.

  At daylight, Lucky Dennis Caddy, a gunman from Utah Territory, rode back from the edge of a high overhang and over to Eddie and Redlow, who sat at a licking campfire, sipping coffee from tin cups. ‘‘Fairday and the others are coming up the trail.’’

  ‘‘Good,’’ said Redlow.

  ‘‘Are they bringing anybody with them?’’ Eddie asked impatiently.

  ‘‘Yeah, two men. Both with their hands tied, it looks like,’’ said Caddy.

  ‘‘It’s about damned time,’’ Eddie commented, letting out a breath.

  Redlow motioned for Caddy to pour himself some coffee. When the outlaw had done so, he stepped carefully into his saddle and rode back toward his guard position. Redlow grinned and said to Eddie, ‘‘See? Fairday is good for something.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, right,’’ said Eddie, ‘‘he’s good for trickery and deceit. The sonsabitch has gotten to where he lies more than Lying Earl.’’

  Redlow chuckled. ‘‘Now that would be some serious lying, Brother. Lying Earl even lied once about his boot size. He went limping around for a year complaining about his sore toes.’’

  ‘‘Yep, that’s Lying Earl all right,’’ said Eddie. ‘‘But I believe Leo has gotten worse.’’

  Hearing the two talking from across the fire, Titus Boland laughed stiffly along with them. His mouth was much better now, his lips getting used to the sharp edges of his broken teeth. Redlow nodded toward Boland and said to Eddie, ‘‘I’m not saying Leo is anywhere near as good a man as Titus there. But he tries. Damn, how he tries.’’

  Staring hard at Boland, Eddie said, ‘‘I guess I just don’t see what you do in this man. He still hasn’t showed me much.’’

  ‘‘Oh really?’’ said Redlow. ‘‘You act like killing the Fastest Gun Alive is just an everyday occurrence.’’ He sipped his coffee after tipping his steaming cup toward Titus across the fire. ‘‘Here’s to you, Titus. Whether Brother Eddie here sees it or not, you’ve damned sure shown your worth to me.’’

  Eddie ignored his brother’s praise of Titus Boland. He stood up, slung the last few drops of coffee from his mug and looked over to where Fairday and the others rode up into sight, Dawson and Caldwell riding closed in between them. ‘‘Let’s go over and hear about how Leo captured these two lawdogs for us.’’

  Standing, Redlow slung the grinds from his cup and set it beside the fire.
‘‘Come join us, Titus. I want you to get familiar with how things are done around here. Once we meet up with Sepreano, I’m going to be putting you in charge of certain situations.’’ He winked. ‘‘Provided you’ve got no qualms about killing anybody I want killed.’’

  ‘‘None at all,’’ said Titus. He stood and dusted off the seat of his trousers, then followed the Barrows brothers and some of the other men over to where Leo had stepped down from his saddle.

  ‘‘Both of yas down from there right now!’’ Leo barked at the two hand-tied lawmen. He grabbed Caldwell and pulled him down roughly to the ground. Before he could turn and get his hands on Dawson, Redlow and Eddie watched Dawson slide easily from his saddle and stand facing them.

  ‘‘So you are the marshal who never learned where that border runs, eh, Crayton Dawson?’’ said Redlow.

  ‘‘They offered me the job. I took it,’’ Dawson said, offering no more than he had to on the matter.

  Redlow, Eddie and the rest of the men looked at Caldwell on the ground as Dawson ventured his hands down and helped him to his feet. ‘‘Just the two of you,’’ Eddie remarked. ‘‘Now that was damned bold thinking on somebody’s part.’’ He stepped closer to Dawson and said with a menacing stare, ‘‘I’m betting they’ll change their minds when Sepreano sends both your heads home on a stick.’’

  Dawson said calmly, ‘‘We’re not the only ones. There’ll be others after us.’’

  ‘‘They can die too,’’ Eddie said. He grinned. ‘‘But I have to admit you two jakes came along at the right time. We saw what you did to Carlos Sepreano in Rock Station, how you killed him with Gerardo Luna’s little angel.’’

  Dawson glanced at Luna’s shotgun hanging around Redlow’s neck by its strip of rawhide and understood what had happened. ‘‘I suppose it doesn’t matter that we weren’t even in Rock Station?’’

  ‘‘Naw, not at all.’’ Eddie chuckled. The rest of the men laughed along with him. ‘‘Sepreano will be so happy to get his hands on the two of you, he won’t take time to listen to what you’ve got to say. Hell, who wouldn’t deny killing Carlos Sepreano, knowing what Luis is going to do to you.’’ He grimaced and added in a pained tone of voice, ‘‘Whoo-eee! I hurt just thinking about it.’’