by Ralph Cotton
What Caddy didn’t realize was that as soon as he’d finished his job tying the lawmen and walked away to watch the coming battle on the flatlands below, Dawson and Caldwell had strained and pushed upward with their legs until the shallow roots of the juniper had begun to rip loose from the dry, loose soil. Staring intently at the knife standing in front of them was all the incentive they needed.
In a determined pull, the two felt the short juniper give up its hold on the ground and send them both tumbling forward. Caddy heard the thrashing of dry branches as the two landed with a thud. He turned in time to see them scurry the last few inches and flip the tree in a way that allowed Caldwell to get his tied hands on the knife. ‘‘Oh hell! Get away from there!’’ Caddy shouted, keeping his voice down as much as he could. He ran toward them, his gun out, but his mind warning him not to fire it.
Caldwell had begun hacking on the rope behind his back. ‘‘Hurry, Jed!’’ said Dawson, twisting himselfaround, scrub tree and all, putting himself between Caddy and Caldwell in order to give Caldwell the precious seconds he needed to finish cutting himself free.
Caddy leaped around Dawson, his gun raised for a swipe at Caldwell’s head. But as he swung, Caldwell’s freed hands came from behind his back. He’d braced himself, ducked the swinging gun barrel and stabbed the knife blade deep into Caddy’s chest. Caddy staggered backward, the impact of the knife causing him to fire a shot wildly from his Colt before Caldwell grabbed it from his hand.
Caldwell fired two more shots into Caddy’s already mortally wounded chest, sending him backward to the ground.
‘‘Keep firing!’’ Dawson yelled, trying to see through the brush and determine how close the soldiers were to the ambush awaiting them. ‘‘Get his rifle! Fire at the soldiers! Warn them!’’
Caldwell ran to Caddy’s horse and jerked a repeating rifle from its boot. He levered a round into the chamber as he raced forward to where Caddy had stood watching the trail below. . . .
At the head of the column of soldiers, a lean young corporal’s horse jumped and bolted sideways as a rifle bullet stuck the sandy, rocky ground near its hooves. Even as he settled the spooked animal, his arm went into the air, warning the troops behind him. Beside him a seasoned captain and his sergeant, who had been looking upward toward the sound of the gunfire, also settled their horses as they both raised an arm toward the following column.
Along the hillside, Redlow and Eddie had heard the shooting from above them. ‘‘Damn Caddy! They’re not riding in!’’ said Eddie, seeing the soldiers stop short of riding into their cross-fire ambush.
‘‘Then fire, damn it!’’ Redlow shouted, already aiming his rifle and firing, knowing full well their element of surprise was gone, and their targets were not going to fall for their trap.
On the hillside high above the melee, Dawson and Caldwell hurriedly gathered the lead ropes to the Bengreen horses. Climbing into their saddles, they led the string of horses up onto the trail, Caddy’s horse tagging along behind.
‘‘We need to find ourselves a place higher up above the trail,’’ Dawson said as they rode. ‘‘I think I saw one on our way here.’’
‘‘Lead the way,’’ said Caldwell, quickly reloading Caddy’s pistol as he spoke. He carried Caddy’s gun belt, full of bullets, thrown over his shoulder.
Dawson, with Caddy’s rifle in hand, rode upward, leading some of the horses behind him. Caldwell followed, leading the rest. Below them the powerful sound of the Gatling gun began exploding back and forth along the base of the hillside, eclipsing the sound of rifle and pistol fire from the Barrows Gang. ‘‘Give them hell, federales!’’ Caldwell yelled back over his shoulder, knowing that Dawson was unable to hear him above the fray.
They rode almost a half mile upward along the winding trail, leading the horses until they spotted a long, high ledge above them. ‘‘This is it,’’ Dawson said, not stopping, but veering off the trail and onto a steeper, narrower path. ‘‘We’ll have to take the horses out of sight, down here. We’ll make our way up there on foot.’’
While the two climbed the rocky footpath and took a good firing position along the jagged edge, the battle continued to rage along the base of the hillside. Redlow and Eddie had fallen back to their horses under heavy fire from the Gatling gun. As their men scattered, grabbed their horses and made a run for it, the Barrows brothers climbed into their saddles and took their chances riding away along the base of the hillside.
Along the other side of the trail, the bodies of Teddy Barksdale and Fred Townsend lay at the bottom of a long smear of blood leading down from the boulder standing above them. ‘‘That damned Caddy!’’ Eddie shouted. ‘‘I’ll kill him when I get my hands on him!’’
‘‘Don’t you know he’s dead already, you fool?’’ Redlow said harshly. ‘‘The lawdogs killed him! Can’t you figure that out for yourself? You and your ‘lucky streak we’re on’! Where is that lucky streak now?’’
Eddie didn’t answer. He clenched his teeth and rode on.
The Mexican soldiers, seeing the gang break up and race away, sent riders in pursuit of them in every direction. The captain and sergeant stayed back with the main column, making sure not to weaken their ranks so much that the cannon and Gatling gun sat underprotected on the flatlands floor.
Dawson and Caldwell remained ready. Hearing the battle lessen and spread out as the soldiers chased the fleeing men, they watched the trail until at length they saw a rise of sandy dust start drifting upward along the trail toward them. ‘‘We best kill them quick and get back down,’’ said Dawson. ‘‘The soldiers behind them won’t know which side we’re on until we get a chance to explain it to them.’’
When Andy Mack and Deacon Kay raced into sight below them, the two lawmen stood as one and fired. Dawson’s rifle shot picked Elkins up from his saddle and launched him backward. Elkins hit the trail dead, and rolled another twenty feet before coming to a halt as four soldiers came charging upward into sight.
Caldwell fired three pistol shots, each one hitting Deacon Kay and knocking him out of his saddle.
Dawson and Caldwell stood tensed, waiting, expecting more men. Then when they saw the soldiers, they ducked down quickly and Dawson shouted, ‘‘Don’t shoot! We’re on your side. We’re americano lawmen!’’
‘‘Americano lawmen?’’ The four soldiers looked back and forth at one another. After a moment’s pause, a voice called out, ‘‘Stand up with your hands in the air, and walk down here! If you try to run we will shoot you dead!’’
‘‘Sounds fair to me,’’ Dawson said to Caldwell, letting out a breath of relief. ‘‘This must be the help the Mexican government said they would send.’’
Chapter 23
Walking slowly with their hands raised, Dawson and Caldwell looked down the edge above the trail. On the ground they watched a soldier walk over and nudge Elkins with the toe of his boot, making sure he was dead. A few feet away another soldier, his pistol cocked and pointed forward, had stepped down beside Deacon Kay. But the soldier jumped back with a start as the wounded gunman struggled up onto one knee, one hand raised, the other hand clutching his bloody chest.
‘‘We’re not with them,’’ said Dawson, stepping around the rock from the steep footpath onto the edge of the trail. ‘‘We were their prisoners. We fired the shots to warn you there was an ambush waiting for you.’’
‘‘Oh, I see,’’ said the lean young corporal whose horse had reared at the rifle shot. He held a cocked pistol toward Dawson’s chest. ‘‘You are the ones who almost shot me from my saddle?’’
‘‘No,’’ said Caldwell, ‘‘we weren’t trying to shoot you, or you wouldn’t be standing here. That was a warning shot to get your attention. You saw who was waiting for you between those two stretches of rock, didn’t you?’’
The corporal didn’t answer, but he did seem to ease down a little, enough for Dawson to say, ‘‘We’re both lawmen. We’re tracking the Barrows.’’
‘‘On my side of the b
order?’’ the young corporal said with a harsh stare.
‘‘But with your country’s permission,’’ Dawson countered quickly. ‘‘We’re supposed to get some help from your government. In fact, we thought that you—’’
On the ground, Deacon Kay cut in a coughing, rasping voice, ‘‘He’s telling you the truth, Corporal. They were our prisoners. We were taking them . . . to Sepreano. He would have . . . killed them.’’
‘‘Obliged, Kay,’’ said Dawson. He and Caldwell both gave the mortally wounded man a surprised look, not expecting any help from any of the Barrows Gang.
‘‘Ah, what the hell . . .’’ Kay coughed and clutched his chest even tighter. ‘‘When a man is dying he can . . . afford to be generous, I reckon.’’ He took a breath and struggled to continue. ‘‘We’re the Barrows Gang. We’ve thrown in with Sepreano’s army. We were going to . . . meet him. These lawdogs were hounding us. We took them prisoner . . . and were going to tell the general that they . . . killed his brother, Carlos.’’
‘‘Take it easy, Kay,’’ said Dawson. ‘‘Try to save your strength.’’
‘‘Yeah . . . for what?’’ Kay rasped. He nodded up at the soldier holding the gun on him. ‘‘This peckerwood . . . is going to finish me off. Ain’t you?’’ As he asked, his bloody hand left his chest, reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small hideaway gun.
Seeing the gun swing up toward him, the young Mexican pulled the trigger. Kay’s head snapped back with the impact of the bullet. He pitched backward in the dirt, a puddle of blood spreading beneath his skull.
Dawson started to say something, but before he could, the corporal rushed him and Caldwell toward the spot where they’d tied the horses. ‘‘Are there any more of you up here?’’ the corporal asked.
‘‘One more,’’ Dawson said, still thinking that Shaw must be somewhere on the trail behind them. ‘‘He should be coming along any time.’’
‘‘I see,’’ the corporal said, sounding skeptical.
Dawson once again started to say something, but again the corporal cut him off, this time telling him curtly, ‘‘Anything you say to me, you will only have to say again when we get to my capitán. Dawson took that as a polite way of telling him and Caldwell to shut up.
As they walked along through the brush around the large rock, one of the soldiers hurried to the top of the ledge and came back carrying the pistol, gun belt and rifle the two had left lying on the ground. Caldwell and Dawson looked at one another with a sigh of relief they hadn’t breathed in days.
‘‘You can believe us when we tell you, we are both mighty pleased to see you,’’ Dawson said over his shoulder, still holding his raised chest high.
‘‘You can lower your hands,’’ the corporal said, appearing to believe what the two had told him.
‘‘Gracias, Corporal,’’ Dawson replied. He and Caldwell lowered their hands as the soldiers unhitched the horses and motioned for them to get mounted.
Random gunshots still resounded on the sand flats below, but the Gatling gun had fallen silent as they turned the horses onto the trail and followed it down to the base of the steep hill. Once they were upon the flatlands, the other soldiers spotted them riding across the trail. By the time they stopped and sat atop their horses in front of the captain and the sergeant, the gunfire had ceased altogether. ‘‘Who have we here, Duego,’’ the captain said, looking Dawson and Caldwell up and down with close scrutiny.
‘‘Capitán Agosto,’’ the young corporal said as he gave a salute, ‘‘these two men were waiting atop a ledge on the hill trail.’’ He gestured toward Dawson. ‘‘This one says they are on our side, that they warned us of the ambush and in doing so, kept us from suffering casualties.’’
‘‘Oh, so we have them to thank,’’ the captain said, appearing cautiously grateful. ‘‘What do you make of all this, Sergeant?’’
‘‘If he is telling the truth,’’ the big sergeant cut in gruffly, ‘‘then we are fortunate that they warned us.’’ He glared at Dawson as if to decide whether or not to believe him.
‘‘They had all of these fine horses, Capitán,’’ said the corporal. ‘‘If they wanted to get away, they could have. But they did not flee. Instead they stopped the two men we were chasing. One of the men said that the gang had been holding these two prisoners.’’
The captain fell silent for a moment, considering everything. During the pause, Dawson said, ‘‘Captain, I’m U.S Marshal Crayton Dawson. This is my deputy, Jedson Caldwell. We were told that Mexico would be sending us some help when the time came. I figured that was you and your men. Am I right?’’
The captain only gave a thin, sly grin and said, ‘‘Por favor, allow me to ask all the questions, U.S. Marshal Dawson.’’
From the other side of the rocks along the trail, a rider came racing up to them at breakneck speed and slid his horse to a halt in a spray of sand and rock. With a hasty salute, he stared anxiously at the captain until the officer said, ‘‘Speak.’’
‘‘Si, Capitán,’’ the man said, ‘‘we have found a spot on the trail where the men we were chasing gathered back together and rode on across the desert.’’
‘‘In which direction are they headed?’’ the captain asked, already rising in his stirrups and stretching for a look through the stirred dust and wavering heat.
‘‘Toward the hills southwest,’’ the man said, pointing as he spoke.
Dawson cut in. ‘‘They’re headed for a valley up in the hills known to be the Barrows Gang’s hideout, Captain. It’s called Puerta del Infierno. It’s my belief that Sepreano and his men will be gathering there too. The Barrows were bringing him these horses.’’ He gestured toward the Bengreen horses strung along behind them.
‘‘Ah, a place known as Hell’s Gate,’’ the captain said, still weighing Dawson’s words. ‘‘How fitting that we should all travel to such a place as Hell’s Gate, each in search of our enemies.’’ Then he asked as he watched Dawson’s eyes closely, to see what his answer would be. ‘‘Tell me, Marshal Dawson, do you know the way to Puerta del Infierno?’’
‘‘No,’’ Dawson was quick to point out. ‘‘But that’s where they’re headed. If you want them, they’re leaving us plenty of tracks to follow.’’
‘‘Ah, yes, and it is for the first time that we have tracks to follow!’’ Looking at his sergeant, the captain said, ‘‘Assemble the men, Sergeant. I think it will be I who will be known as the one to have followed Luis Sepreano to the gates of hell, and there killed him.’’
On their way toward the valley where Puerta del Infierno lay hidden between two towering hill lines, Shaw, Rhineholt and the others heard the distant sound of gunfire far behind them. They looked back only now and then in curiosity until the firing had stopped and the desert floor lay in silence.
‘‘Anything we should be concerned about?’’ Shaw asked Rhineholt, in a way that included himself in with Sepreano’s Army of Liberación.
‘‘No,’’ said Rhineholt. ‘‘The federales are always chasing their tails out here. They probably shot up some poor band of gypsies crossing the flats—mistook them for us most likely.’’ He chuckled under his breath.
‘‘All right . . .’’ Shaw smiled slightly. ‘‘It’s going to feel good riding with a bunch that wields so much power and has so much confidence.’’
‘‘That’s Sepreano for sure,’’ said Rhineholt. ‘‘If it wasn’t I wouldn’t be riding with him.’’
‘‘It sounds like you and I ride gun with an outfit for the same reasons,’’ Shaw said, wanting to know as much as he could about Sepreano and his men.
‘‘Oh, and what’s that?’’ Rhineholt asked.
‘‘Money,’’ Shaw said flatly. He gave Rhineholt a knowing grin.
‘‘You hit it dead center, Fast Larry,’’ Rhineholt replied. He gave a guarded look around to make certain they weren’t being overheard. ‘‘They can stuff all the liberación, all the common good, all the flags, politics and fireworks. When the
money runs out, I run out, usually one step ahead of it, if I’m lucky enough to make it happen that way.’’
‘‘Here, here,’’ Shaw said in agreement. The two chuckled quietly together.
They rode on.
As afternoon shadows fell long across the hillsides and flats, they rode up along a high ledge, following its path until the land leveled off and led down into a valley of broken rock and patches of wild grass. In the first purple shades of night, Rhineholt brought the men to a halt. He gestured Shaw’s attention ahead where the valley narrowed and funneled in between two rocky hillsides.
‘‘There it is, Hell’s Gate,’’ he said. ‘‘Could you ever imagine a better hiding place than this? There’s room to hide an army here. Sometimes I believe the only reason Sepreano let the Barrows join his forces was to find out about their hideout.’’
‘‘I can understand that,’’ Shaw said, looking all around, taking in the desolate, endless land.
Noting the eeriness of the place, Simon made the sign of the cross on his chest as he looked up and saw a dark, winged predator glide silently past their heads. Then, seeing the two look at him, he said, ‘‘Forgive my superstitious peasant ways, senors. But all my worthless, drunken life I have lived in fear of reaching the gates of hell, and yet, here I am.’’ He wobbled a bit in his saddle. ‘‘I have arrived at the gates of hell of my own accord.’’
Rhineholt replied, ‘‘Haven’t we all?’’
Simon fell silent.
Shaw eyed the half-full bottle in his hand. But he made no comment. Instead he said to Rhineholt, ‘‘I hope you’ll allow him to get some food in his belly and get some sleep—sober up some before we meet Sepreano.’’