“What wages are you paying, may I ask?”
“You may, and the answer is five dollars a week, and a bonus of some description if we make a strike.”
“Give me two dollars more, and my daughter will help me. She’s a very intelligent girl.”
“How old?”
“Six.”
“Strong?”
“As I am myself. She’ll be no burden at all.”
“Assuming I choose her mother.”
“As you said. When might you be making up your mind, Mr. Brannan?”
“Oh, I should say sometime tonight. We’re anxious to be away. Are you able to conclude your affairs by morning?”
“I have none to conclude.”
“Very good. Your name, ma’am?”
“Zoe Dugan.”
“And your husband is where?”
“In a better place, I’m sure.”
He laughed. “I like your style, Mrs. Dugan. I believe I can recommend you to my partners. Are you positive this is the job for you? I want no backing down at the last minute.”
“You’ll get none from me.”
“Then pack your bags, and welcome aboard the limited company of Brannan, Brannan, Chadbourne and Yost. We call ourselves the El Dorado Engineers. Our approach to mining is strictly scientific.”
“How interesting. Should I present myself here in the morning?”
“You should, and must, if you’re to come with us. Is five o’clock too early for your girl?”
“She can rise at any hour.”
“Then we’ll meet, one and all, in the lobby.”
“Thank you.”
“And thank you.”
He came forward to shake her hand, and she saw his face more clearly. He had one eye of brown, and one eye of blue.
21
Before he could leave the state, Drew fell in with low company. He had no wish to become involved with Cecil and Carl, the Rucker boys. He changed his mind, at least temporarily, when they told him he was a dead man if he wouldn’t come with them to rob the stage near Croker Flats.
“It’s your horses we want, to tell the truth,” said Carl. The brothers rode sorry nags. “We could take ’em from you easy, but you can make the choice for yourself, I guess. There’ll be money in it for you.”
“Why not just trade your worst horse for the best of mine and leave me out of this,” reasoned Drew. The Ruckers had introduced themselves in an open and friendly manner before suggesting he join them in their proposed criminal act. Drew judged them to be several years older than himself, but not particularly bright.
“Could do it that way,” Cecil admitted, “but with the extra man along we can keep ’em covered much better. There’s a mean dog rides shotgun on this line.”
“Be better with three,” agreed Carl. “What’s your name anyway?”
“John Bones.”
“Bones? Naw, not Bones, not truly.”
“That’s my name, and I wear it with pride.”
The Ruckers were laughing softly.
“Heard of a dog one time, had that name,” Cecil recalled.
“Skinny dog,” said Carl. “Dave Mullen’s dog, weren’t it?”
“Naw, his cousin’s, and it was called Boney, not Bones.”
The conversation took place on a stretch of west Texas, a landscape without feature or scale. Drew had seen the brothers coming toward him for an hour or more before they finally met under a sky that bore on its invisible currents no trace of cloud.
“Hell,” said Cecil, growing impatient, “are you gonna throw in with us, you and the horses, or do we lay you out right here and now?”
He pulled a pistol from his belt for emphasis, and aimed it in Drew’s general direction.
Drew sighed. “Care to tell me more about the plan?” he asked.
The stage route lay two hours’ ride north of the place where he made his bargain with the Rucker boys. They rode together in amiable company, Cecil’s temper having improved the moment Drew agreed to participate.
“Got plenty of time yet,” said Carl. “She don’t come through till near about noon.”
Neither of the Ruckers possessed a watch, and Drew hoped they might arrive too late at the place designated for their attempt at robbery. There was no sign, when the stage road was reached, to indicate any recent passage of wheels, and Drew accepted the situation. He could always hope the Ruckers were cut down fast, leaving him to turn tail and gallop as far from the scene as he could. The road itself was nothing more than a dusty trace cut through a plain peppered with low sagebrush.
“Anyone on the stage will see us a long time before they get here,” he said.
“We thought of that,” declared Cecil.
“We come prepared,” Carl said. “You watch this.”
The brothers dismounted and made their horses lie down on their sides. “See? When it gets near the time, we throw a little dust over ’em too, and won’t nobody see ’em at all.”
“We’ll be right down on the ground alongside,” added Carl. They both looked to Drew for approval, and he saw they had, after coercing him into their little band, unconsciously made him their leader. A headache was beginning to gnaw at his temples.
“Boys,” he said, “I bring you bad news. My horses won’t lie down like that, either one of them.”
Drew had no idea if the animals Marion de Quille had provided would lie down on command or not, but the Ruckers apparently trusted his word to the extent that they didn’t consider trying to prove him wrong. Watching the consternation on their faces, Drew felt there was a reasonable chance he could dissuade them from their plan.
“You’ll have to do this some other day,” he advised.
“No, we sure can’t. We need money, don’t you?”
“Everyone needs money, but if my horses won’t lie down, we’re not going to be able to hide ourselves before the stage comes along, now are we?”
Carl’s face was made sad at the thought of abandoning their scheme for fast riches; Cecil’s face registered bafflement and anger. “Well, there’s got to be a way,” he said, talking loudly to reassure himself.
Drew shook his head and assumed a doleful expression.
“I know!” Carl shouted, and began to perform a shuffling, kicking dance in the dust.
“What the hell idea you got there, Carl?” demanded Cecil. “Quit that and tell me!”
Carl tripped himself and fell. He sprang up again and began knocking dust from his hat.
“It’s real simple,” he said. “Boney here waits by the side of the road with his horses, only he won’t be mounted, he’ll be standing next to ’em, like they’re lame, see, and when the stage comes along he lifts his hand like he wants it to stop for him, and when it does, we come up out of nowhere and take ’em by surprise!”
Cecil’s look of doubt faded instantly. “By God, Carl, that’s right! That’ll do her! Hear that, Bones?”
“I heard.”
The Ruckers grabbed each other’s forearms and began a whirling dance, shouting and whooping in celebration. Their horses, made nervous by the spurs being whipped past their noses, regained their feet without being told to, and stood shaking dust from themselves with rapid twitchings of their hide. Drew wished they were nervous enough to dash away toward the horizon, obliging him to set out after them.
Allowing his eyes to wander in the direction of his wishes, Drew noticed a distant plume of dust to the west; the approaching Croker Flats stage. He nudged his horse sideways, so the plume lay behind his shoulder. With luck, the Ruckers would fail to see it until too late, and wouldn’t be able to blame Drew for lack of attention.
“Lookit!” Cecil broke off dancing and pointed. “Here she’s comin’!”
“Too soon!” howled Carl. “I bet they seen us already!”
“Maybe not,” said Drew; from his higher elevation he could make out the top of the coach and the two flyspecks of its driver and guard. They, being higher still, could certainly see him.
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“Shitfire!” Cecil spat. “Now what do we do? They seen us yet, Bones, you think?”
“Well, I’d say so. Thing to do now is pretend like we just happen to be on the same road as them. You’ll have to cancel your raid and set it up again some other time—that’s what I think.”
“We already set it up for right now,” Carl whined. “Hell, now we’re gonna have to do it all over again.”
The brothers mounted their horses and slapped dust from themselves while the stagecoach drew nearer.
“See Middlebusher?” asked Carl, whose eyesight was less keen than his brother’s.
“He’s up there on top, same as usual,” said Cecil. To Drew he said, “Man’s the next thing to a rattlesnake, just pure bad through and through. Loves to kill ordinary folk if he can. Stage line keeps him on so’s no one tries to rob ’em. He got Rufe, that’s our friend, jest a couple months back. Deserves to die, Middlebusher does.”
“But not today,” Drew suggested.
“Anytime atall,” corrected Cecil, his face hard.
The stage was slowing as they spoke, and came to a dusty halt directly in front of the trio. Several passengers stared at them from the windows, one of them a woman. Drew looked at Middlebusher, the one with the shotgun, and was surprised at the man’s bland appearance, just a skinny fellow with a long mustache, nobody to look at twice.
“Ho there, boys,” called the driver. “We thought you was laying for us till we seen who it is. How’s your mama, Carl—still got the misery?”
“Doin’ real poorly, thank you.”
Drew knew then, with a sinking heart, that he had been coerced by something even worse than amateurs; the Rucker boys were local amateurs. Their stupidity was beyond belief. They would have had to kill everyone on board the stage to avoid being identified as the perpetrators. Drew felt himself break into a light sweat at the thought of what had been avoided. It had been the narrowest of escapes for them all, and it had been accidental, nothing more than a misjudged sense of time.
“Middlebusher!” Cecil yelled. “You sorry turd, when you gonna lay down and let a wheel roll over your goddamn yellow back!”
“Afternoon, Cecil,” responded Middlebusher, seemingly unfazed by the insult. The woman inside was heard to gasp at Cecil’s language.
“You better run next time I see you, you sorry piece of shit.”
“Got a lady on board don’t want to hear you talk that way, Cecil,” said Middlebusher. “You mind your tongue now, boy, or I might have to mind it for you.”
It was a mild enough warning to Drew’s ears, but Cecil chose to be insulted. He snatched up his pistol and aimed at Middlebusher. “Throw down the shipment!” he barked.
“Awww now, Cecil, don’t be making the same mistake Rufus done,” advised the driver. “Just you cool off about that.”
“You shuddup, Will. What you think we’re doing out here—huntin’ jackrabbits? You throw it down directly.”
“Don’t have no shipment this trip, Cecil. The express box went yesterday, and I ain’t lying.”
“You are too!”
“He isn’t,” said Middlebusher.
“I believe I’ll kill you right now,” Cecil told him.
“All right,” said Middlebusher, leaving Cecil confused.
The driver said, “You boys cool off now, and don’t make this any worse’n it is already.”
“This is between him and me,” Cecil insisted.
“Not if I say it isn’t,” said Middlebusher, sounding tired. His shotgun was aimed nowhere near Cecil, Drew was glad to see, since he was right beside him.
“He’s just joking,” Drew said. “Cecil, put the gun down, please, and quit this nonsense.”
“Nobody asked you!” Cecil shouted at him, taking his eyes from the stage, and it was in the split second when Cecil turned to look at Drew that Middlebusher raised and fired his shotgun, blowing away the side of Cecil’s neck. The second barrel was discharged into Carl’s chest. Both the Ruckers were on the ground before Drew was aware of the sharp pain in his upper arm. Looking down, he saw three small buckshot holes in his sleeve. The blood had not had time yet to soak through the cloth. If the shotgun had had more than two barrels, Drew would also have died, important parts of himself mangled or removed by Middlebusher.
“Throw that piece down, son,” the driver advised Drew.
Drew lifted his Colt slowly from its holster. “I had nothing to do with this,” he said. “They told me if I didn’t come with them and let them use my horses, they’d kill me.”
“Expect us to believe that!” screamed the woman inside the coach. “Get him!” she instructed the men in the driver’s seat. “Get him before he does it again, like those Ruckers!”
“Calm down there, Mrs. Christy.…”
“I won’t be! I won’t! Get that one too, why don’t you!”
“Boy,” said Middlebusher, carefully reloading his weapon, “you drop that pistol and get off the horse.”
“Better do it,” the driver said.
The days he spent behind bars at Croker Flats were not uncomfortable, the regimen being considerably more relaxed than that of the Houston jailhouse. Drew’s wound was slight, and adequately dressed. He was allowed whatever reading material was available, principally a series of school readers and a battered Bible. He surprised himself by browsing among the passages he had rejected following the attempt on his life by Morgan Kindred. It helped pass time that would otherwise have moved with the speed of dripping molasses.
His jailer was not unfriendly, nor overtalkative. Drew was awaiting the arrival of the circuit judge, who would decide his guilt or innocence on the charges brought against him by the stage line. A number of citizens had paid him visits in his cell, curious to see the well-spoken boy accused of attempted robbery. Most of them went away convinced by his cherubic face, his earnest manner and his story of intimidation by the Rucker brothers, who were known as misfits and troublemakers and plain fools. Drew’s prospects for dismissal appeared fair to middling, and he did not despair at finding himself again in the circumstances he had so recently escaped from. Judge Craven, he was told, was not an unreasonable man.
Middlebusher came to call, and smoked his pipe awhile.
“Reckon you’ll get away with it?” he asked Drew.
“I’m not looking to get away with anything. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You say.”
“That’s right—I say.”
“Won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“On account of I say different.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“That’s another lie just come out of your mouth.”
“You sound very sure about that, Mr. Middlebusher.”
“Got good reason to.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his pants and held it up for Drew to see. “Happened to see a few of these posted up around Fort Stockton. That’s where the line ends up, in case you didn’t know.”
Drew recognized himself in the drawing reproduced under the banner REWARD. It was worth a hundred dollars.
“Got nothing to say?” inquired Middlebusher.
“No.”
“Drew Dugan, otherwise known as Drew Gentles. Says here you shot a man’s arm off.”
“I shot him, then a doctor took the arm off.”
“Is that right. Figure you’ll stand much of a chance if I show this to Judge Craven? He’s a tough old son. Hates to ride the circuit on account of his piles. Bad-tempered feller because of the pain. No time for outlaws at all. Hangs ’em outright, generally.”
“Does he hang innocent people?”
“What’s that to you? You’re guilty as hell.”
“You say.”
“And I’ll say it to old Craven, sure.”
“I can’t stop you.”
“That’s right, you can’t.”
Middlebusher left, and Drew began to worry. With his true identity revealed, he would almost certainly be foun
d guilty, and even if he wasn’t, he would be returned to Houston to face charges there. Drew began trying to think of ways in which he might escape, but without a friend like Marion de Quille on the outside, there seemed little hope.
Three more days passed, then Judge Craven arrived in Croker Flats. He disposed of petty disputes first, then ordered Drew brought before him. Drew was fetched from his cell and brought across the street to the hotel that substituted for a courthouse, where he found a considerable audience gathered to witness his trial. Several young ladies among the audience gazed at him with open sympathy. He took his place on the chair of the accused.
Testimony was taken from the stage driver and from Middlebusher, and the woman passenger as well, since she was a local citizen, therefore still available for an appearance in court. Drew wished some of the other passengers were present to offer a potentially less damaging version of events, but they had all passed through to Fort Stockton.
Middlebusher and the woman told the judge it was abundantly clear that Drew was in cahoots with the Rucker boys. The driver was less sure, and ended his testimony with the unverifiable claim that “The boy looks honest to me.”
All relevant witnesses having been heard from, the judge allowed Drew to tell his own story, which he did with succinctness and not a little humor, directed mainly at the Ruckers’ stupidity. The judge had to call for quiet several times during Drew’s testimony. While defending himself, Drew had to avoid distraction in the form of a girl in the front row of chairs, who insisted on waving her fingers at him, despite her mother’s frequent slaps on the wrist.
When Drew was done, the judge eased himself back and forth on his chair, adjusting the cushion he sat on, then cleared his throat to address the room.
“I find the defendant not guilty by reason of everyone in this county knows the Ruckers. They’re mean and dumb enough to do exactly what the defendant described. This young man is a victim of circumstances, and lucky to be alive, being as Lew Middlebusher is a more than fair hand with a scattergun. Case dismissed.”
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