Ride to Hell's Gate

by Ralph Cotton

  ‘‘Stanley and Shala Lowden . . . ,’’ the ranger said under his breath. He’d observed the couple throughout the weeks he’d spent healing here above the muddy street. He’d also seen them in some of the towns he’d passed through before his ambush. ‘‘You can bet I will.’’

  ‘‘ ‘The lovebirds,’ we called them when they first arrived here last year,’’ Beatrice Prine said. She tightened her hand on his forearm. ‘‘I’m still convinced it was they who shot you.’’

  The lovebirds . . .

  ‘‘No proof,’’ he said flatly, his tone indicating that he too was convinced these two had been the ones who ambushed him. He’d thought hard about the circumstances of his shooting all through the long winter days and nights he’d lain here, his lower back throbbing in pain, his strength depleted from loss of blood.

  ‘‘No proof?’’ Beatrice Prine cocked her head with a curious look. ‘‘There was no one else for miles around. You saw them only hours beforehand . . . watching you from a trail above you. That is more proof than most people need. You have every right to—’’

  ‘‘I’m not most people,’’ Sam said, cutting her off with a wry smile. He tightened his hand over hers and added, ‘‘That’s the cost of wearing a badge. If I start bending justice, shaping it to fit myself, it’s time I begin looking for another occupation.’’

  ‘‘Come now, Sam,’’ Beatrice Prine said playfully, yet with her cordial air of sophistication. ‘‘Would you have me believe you have never bent the law— ‘justice,’ as you put it?’’ She raised a skeptical brow. ‘‘Please, don’t disappoint me . . . don’t turn out to be another hypocrite.’’

  ‘‘Hypocrite? I can’t say,’’ he replied. ‘‘I expect we’re most all of us hypocrites in some way or another. I don’t claim to be perfect. I’m far from it.’’

  He thought about it as he watched another man step out of the ragged tent and join the Lowdens at the hitch rail. The man shifted his eyes back and forth warily. His breath steamed in the cold air; he wore a thick bearskin coat and a wide-brimmed hat cocked jauntily above long, glistening black hair. ‘‘Besides,’’ Sam continued, ‘‘I didn’t say I never bent justice. I admit I have played loosely with justice at times, but never to serve myself—not to suit my own needs.’’

  They stood in silence for a moment; then Beatrice Prine said, ‘‘So, what does this mean? Will these two go unpunished for what we both know they did to you? That hardly seems fair.’’

  ‘‘None of us go unpunished, Miss Beatrice,’’ Sam said contemplatively, watching the man in the bearskin coat stand and talk privately with the Lowdens. ‘‘Everything we do in life has a price. We all pay as we go.’’

  ‘‘I have found that to be the case,’’ Beatrice Prine said in agreement.

  ‘‘Who is that fellow?’’ Sam asked, nodding toward the man in the bearskin coat.

  ‘‘He’s Conning Glick,’’ said the Englishwoman. ‘‘Have you heard of him?’’

  ‘‘Conning Glick . . . also known as the Dutchman.’’ The ranger nodded, running the name though his mind. He stared more intently at the man through the wavy glass windowpane. ‘‘So, that‘s Conning Glick?’’

  ‘‘Yes, that’s him,’’ said Beatrice. ‘‘Not exactly a name that rolls easily off the tongue, is it?’’ She smiled thinly. ‘‘No wonder so many people prefer calling him the Dutchman.’’

  ‘‘He’s a paid assassin from years back,’’ said Sam, summoning up his stored information about the man. ‘‘Did most of his killing for railroads and big mining companies. Also worked on the sly for any wealthy, powerful man who needed his services.’’

  ‘‘As far as I know, he still does,’’ Beatrice said. ‘‘I can’t see a man like Glick ever giving up his profession. I suspect he loves killing too much to ever retire.’’

  Sam studied the older man’s pasty white face, noting the long, shiny black hair hanging past Glick’s shoulders. The hair was far too young and far too black for Glick’s aged, pale skin coloring. A woman’s hair, Sam thought to himself. Then he asked, ‘‘Is he wearing a wig?’’

  ‘‘You don’t miss a thing, Sam. Yes, he is,’’ Beatrice said with a dry smile. She wrinkled her nose a bit in a gesture of distaste and added, ‘‘Conning Glick is as bald as a stump. Word has it he was born hairless. No eyebrows, no body hair . . . nothing anywhere.’’ She gave him a look that said her information was reliable.

  Sam gave her a questioning look.

  ‘‘Not that I have seen for myself firsthand,’’ she said as if in her own defense, ‘‘but two of my doves, Fannie and Darlene, have told me as much. Fannie also said the long black hair is a cured human scalp. Fannie said the smell is terrible up close.’’

  ‘‘I bet,’’ Sam replied.

  ‘‘She told me he frequently douses it with perfume and witch hazel, but it only makes the smell worse. It got so bad that Fannie said she refused him service unless he took it off.’’ Beatrice shook her head, contemplating the matter. ‘‘Apparently he discards the scalp after a certain amount of wear and tear and procures himself another. God only knows how or where he finds them,’’ she mused grimly.

  ‘‘I can guess.’’ Sam shook his head slowly, watching Conning Glick and the Lowdens speaking intently at the hitch rail.

  ‘‘Why doesn’t the law do something about a man like Glick?’’ she asked. ‘‘He makes it no secret that he’s a killer. I’ve heard him brag openly to the girls how he uses poisons, fire, does anything it takes to kill men in all sorts of gruesome ways.’’

  ‘‘Again, it takes proof,’’ Sam said patiently. ‘‘The same thing it would take to accuse the Lowdens of shooting me in the back. It doesn’t matter what he says unless he mentions names of people he’s killed and there’s a way to tie them to him. Otherwise it’s all just saloon talk.’’

  Beatrice gave him a sigh and shook her head. ‘‘If you ask me, you are entirely too fixed on this proof issue you keep bringing up.’’

  ‘‘I admit, it’s often a drawback of mine,’’ the ranger replied, going along with her dry style of humor. Then, dismissing the subject, he asked, ‘‘What do you suppose these three have to talk about?’’

  ‘‘Heaven only knows,’’ said Beatrice. As an afterthought she said, ‘‘Sam, watch your back out there. Proof or no proof, I don’t like the looks of this.’’

  ‘‘I always watch my back,’’ Sam replied, staring down at the Lowdens as Glick stepped closer to them, appearing to berate the ragged couple.

  ‘‘I know you do, of course,’’ said Beatrice, patting his hand. ‘‘But I feel better telling you to anyway.’’

  At the hitch rail, Stanley Lowden turned a wary glance upward toward the ranger’s window. But the Dutchman jostled him rougly, saying through clenched teeth, ‘‘That’s it, you damned idiot! Be sure and look up there, make sure he knows you’re watching his every move, if he doesn’t know it already.’’

  Stanley turned his face quickly away from the second-floor window and looked at the Dutchman. ‘‘He didn’t see me, Mr. Glick,’’ he said in a lowered voice, as if to keep the ranger from hearing him even at such a distance.

  ‘‘Start using your head, Stanley!’’ Glick demanded, like an overbearing father. He palmed the bigger, stronger, young man on the forehead. ‘‘Do you understand me?’’ His other hand held firmly onto Stanley’s lapel. Shala stared in stunned disbelief. She’d never seen her husband take this sort of treatment from anybody. He certainly didn’t have to take it, she knew. Stanley stood over a head taller than Glick. He was young, broad-shouldered and land-hardened from the life they led. Yet he appeared to have let this old man buffalo him somehow.

  ‘‘I—Yes, I understand, Mr. Glick,’’ Stanley stammered, taken off guard by the quickness of Glick’s action. He cut a glance toward Shala and saw the look on her face. He should have done something right then and there; he shouldn’t haved allowed Glick to treat him in such a manner. But now it was too late; the moment has pa
ssed him by. He started to say something, but before he could, Glick turned him loose, smiled flatly and patted his lapel.

  ‘‘Good, young man,’’ Glick said in a wet, gravely voice. ‘‘If I seem a little harsh, it’s for your own good.’’ He grinned at Shala, including her. ‘‘You both have grown on me over these weeks. In spite of the trouble you’ve caused me, I’ve come to think of you as a couple of innocent children—like family, so to speak.’’ He stared pointedly into Stanley’s eyes and added, ‘‘You do know that, don’t you, young man?’’

  Like children? His children . . . ? Stanley swallowed an uncomfortable tightness in his throat and avoided Shala’s eyes. ‘‘Yes, I know that. We both know that.’’ He paused, then said, ‘‘I realize I didn’t do things exactly the way I was supposed to. Things didn’t go just the way we had them planned—’’

  ‘‘Stanley,’’ Glick said, cutting him off, his voice turning more harsh again, ‘‘you shot the wrong man.’’

  ‘‘I know I messed up bad, but it wasn’t all my fault, Mr. Glick,’’ Stanley said, the very same words he’d used all winter when Glick brought up the subject. ‘‘I kept watch on the high pass—the one you said he’d be using.’’

  ‘‘You shot the wrong man, Stanley,’’ Glick repeated in a stronger tone.

  ‘‘I know that, Mr. Glick,’’ said Stanley. ‘‘And I’m sorry as hell I did. But I’ll make it right. I swear I will.’’

  ‘‘Oh, I know you will.’’ Glick gave flat, sly grin, reached up with his pale, cold hand and patted the young man’s jaw. ‘‘I’ll be right by your side to make sure you get it done right. This Ranger Burrack has to die now. The only thing worse than shooting the wrong man is shooting the wrong man and not killing him.’’ He pinched Stanley’s jaw roughly. ‘‘Eh? Am I right?’’

  ‘‘Yes, you’re right,’’ Stanley said, feeling himself shrink smaller and smaller in his wife’s eyes.

  Glick turned loose the young man’s cheek and pointed his blue-veined finger in warning. ‘‘Mind you, any more mistakes and I’ll have to sternly correct you, just as if you were my own children.’’ From beneath his hairless brow, his yellow eyes moved from Stanley to Shala, looking her up and down. ‘‘That goes for the both of you.’’

  From the window above, Sam observed the interaction between Glick and the Lowdens. ‘‘It looks like the Dutchman is trying to teach these lovebirds to eat out of his hand,’’ he said to Beatrice Prine.

  ‘‘I’d say it’s more like he’s training them to jump through his hoops, if I know the Dutchman,’’ said Beatrice. She paused in consideration, then said in a wary tone, ‘‘Now that I see Glick with these lovebirds, I’m even more concerned for you riding up along the high trail alone. I’ve known my share of gunmen and assassins, but there’s something about Conning Glick that makes my skin crawl.’’ She rubbed her forearm. ‘‘Maybe I should send No Toes along to watch about you—you know, just until you reach Hole-in-the-wall?’’

  ‘‘I’m obliged for your concern,’’ Sam said, ‘‘but No Toes’ job is here, looking after you.’’ He gave a wry smile. ‘‘How could I live with myself if something happened to you while your bodyguard is off watching me?’’

  ‘‘But, Sam—’’

  The ranger held up a hand. ‘‘I’ll be all right,’’ he said. He nodded toward the door. ‘‘Come on now, walk me downstairs. ‘‘I want to thank all your doves before I leave.’’