Red Moon

by Ralph Cotton

  Chapter 2

  Four miserable souls inside a mud-locked stagecoach huddled together as the storm ruled sky above and earth below in the breadth of its fury. In the mud outside, a strongbox and another larger leather-bound valuables crate lay with their lids gaping open. Rainwater had long filled both open containers, forming small waterfalls down over their sides.

  “I’ve never seen it blow so bad or rain so hard,” said Dan Long, the stagecoach driver. “And this is a desert,” he mused, and shook his wet head with irony.

  “I’ve seen it blow on and off like this as long as ten, twelve days in a row,” said Maynard Dawson, the shotgun rider.

  “Do tell,” said a soft, feminine voice from the seat facing opposite the coachmen.

  “Oh yes.” Turning from the canvas-draped coach window, Dawson dug his fingertips spiderlike into his thick gray beard as he warmed to conversation. “I’ve seen a hard turn of weather set in like this. No telling how long it might last.” He looked at two sets of watching eyes and continued. “Once when I was just a boy growing up in—”

  “Damn it, Maynard,” said Dan Long, seated beside him. He growled in exasperation. “Remind me to never ask you nothing, ever again.”

  “What’d I do?” Dawson asked.

  “All’s I asked was has it let up any?” said the driver. “You took off with it like we asked you to give us a speech.”

  “I was explaining myself for the lady’s sake, Dan’l,” Dawson said evenly.

  “Yes, but I’m betting the lady would appreciate not hearing all your blather,” Long said. As he spoke, his eyes softened as he and the shotgun rider turned in unison to the young Southern dove seated opposite them.

  “It’s quite all right, fellows,” said the dove, Jenny Lynn Beaumont, most recently from Atlanta, Georgia. “I enjoy taking in knowledge at every opportunity.” She gave the two a thin, enduring smile. She sat nursing an unconscious hardware drummer, his battered head resting in her lap. She kept the bleeding on his brow minimized by dabbing the swollen cut with a wet length of cloth she’d torn from the hem of her petticoat.

  The two coachmen looked at each other. Maynard Dawson almost sighed with pleasure at the sound of her soft Southern accent.

  “I could listen to you talk all day about thimbles or coal buckets either one if you was a mind to,” he said. “With all respect, that is, ma’am,” he added quickly, jerking his wet hat from his head in afterthought.

  “Lord, Maynard, you couldn’t keep your mouth shut to save your life,” Long said.

  “What’d I do?” Dawson asked again.

  “You’ve gone and embarrassed the young lady,” said Long.

  Jenny Lynn gave the two a demure look and lowered her eyes to the battered drummer. She dabbed gently at a trickle of blood. The drummer came around a little and rolled his eyes.

  “Are—are we there yet?” he asked through thick swollen lips.

  The two coachmen looked at each other. Dawson shook his head, grimly forecasting the wounded man’s chances.

  “Shhh, you lie still, Mr. Weir,” said Jenny Lynn, still dabbing at his cuts and welts. “Everything is going to be just fine.” She paused, then said, “Do you hear me, Mr. Weir?”

  “We’re almost . . . there, you say?” the drummer murmured sluggishly as he drifted back to sleep.

  Still shaking his head, Dawson stared at the knocked-out drummer and said under his breath, “Miracle he ain’t dead already, a licking like that. I never seen such a pistol whipping. For a minute there I was wondering if—”

  “Hold it. What was that?” said Long, sounding hushed all of a sudden.

  Dawson gave him a curious look. “That was me saying I never saw such a licking.”

  “No, you fool,” said Long, throwing back the long canvas window cover against the lashing rain. “Out there. I heard something out there.”

  Dawson looked up at the sound of rain ripping across the thin veneer and wooden rib coach roof.

  “I don’t know if you heard anything for all this racket,” he said. But even as he spoke, he fished the two-shot derringer from his vest pocket, twisted around in his seat and looked out with Long from behind the rain-pelted canvas.

  “Back there,” Long said, rain blowing in their faces. “Is that a rider?”

  They stared through the sheets of rain and a silvery mist looming along the trail.

  “Maybe it’s one of our horses come back to us,” Dawson offered.

  “Not a chance,” said Long. He stared long and hard, then changed his mind and said, “But it might be.”

  “Sit back, let me out,” said Dawson, raising his wet hat, placing it back atop his head. He started leaning, making his way past Long toward the door.

  “What are you doing, Maynard?” Long said, sounding shaken at the prospect of a rider showing up on them.

  “While you make up your mind if it is or ain’t one of the horses come back, I’m going to see for myself,” Dawson said, throwing open the door into the blowing rain, splashing down into the muddy water covering the trail. Holding his hat down in place with his left hand, the small derringer in his right, he pushed forward, struggling to stay upright against the crushing wind.

  “What do you see out there, Maynard?” Long shouted through the raging storm.

  “Not a blasted thing,” shouted Dawson in reply. “A horse—No, wait. It’s horses. I see some horses, is all.”

  “Are they ours?” shouted Long. “I surely hope they’re ours.”

  “Wait,” said Dawson. “There’s a man leading them, on foot.” He raised the derringer arm’s length and called out to the obscure figure leading three horses toward the coach, “Hold it right there, mister, or I’ll shoot you dead.”

  Lightning licked and glittered; a hard clap of thunder seemed to break the sky in half and drop part of it to some lower level.

  “Don’t shoot,” called a voice. “I’m Ranger Sam Burrack, sent from Nogales.”

  “Says he’s a lawman, Dan’l,” Dawson called out toward the flapping window canvas. He lowered the derringer a little and tried squinting through the harsh silvery swirl of rain and wind. Sheet upon sheet of rain lashed against him.

  “Ha!” Long said, pulling the canvas back a little. “Now they send a Ranger?”

  “Come on in slow and easy. Let me see you good,” Dawson called out. “We’re armed to the teeth here,” he bluffed. “I’d better see a badge stuck on you.”

  The Ranger walked in closer, both he and the roan bent against the storm even as wind and rain slackened for a moment. When he stopped five feet from Maynard Dawson and looked at the small derringer pointed at his chest, he slowly raised a short-barreled shotgun and held it out butt first to the coachman. Lightning twisted again, casting a wide rose-blue streak beyond the black horizon.

  “My badge is under my raincoat. But here, I’m guessing this is yours,” the Ranger said, his voice lowering along with the storm’s intensity. “I found it in the mud alongside the trail.”

  Thunder slammed off the unseen walls of heaven.

  Dawson took the shotgun as a thin braid of water ran the gutter between the barrels.

  “Ranger, we are dang glad to see you,” he said as the wind seemed to draw a deep breath and blow even harder. He pocketed the derringer and wiped a hand down the shotgun barrel. “I thought I’d never see this baby again. I’m much obliged.” He gestured the Ranger toward the stagecoach door. “Coming in, Dan’l,” he said to the canvas window cover. He swung the door open.

  Stepping in out of the blow, Sam looked around the dark, confined coach. He saw two sets of wary eyes turned to him, and the bloody man’s head lying in the young dove’s lap.

  “Howdy, Ranger, I’m Dan Long,” said the stagecoach driver in a raised voice. “This is Miss Beaumont. You couldn’ta got here soon enough to suit us. I hope you have so
me strong thread and a good sharp needle.” Thunder exploded like cannon fire. Long flinched, then continued. “We need to get this fellow’s head sewn up in a few places.”

  “I believe I do have some supplies for that purpose,” Sam said above the rain’s gravelly roar. He tipped his wet sombrero to the young dove, then eyed the knocked-out drummer’s head on her lap.

  “It made no sense, beating this man so bad, Ranger,” said Long. “It was the leader who did all the beating. His men just watched him do it.”

  “That was Wilson Orez doing the beating,” Sam said. “Orez had his own reason.”

  “Wilson Orez?” said the coachman. A fearful look clouded his brow. But he swallowed a tightness in his throat and put his fear aside. “Still, they made nearly fifty thousand here today, gold coin and cash greenbacks. They had nothing to be upset about.”

  “Fifty thousand?” Sam said. He gave the coachman a look.

  “I know it sounds crazy, that much money traveling by stage in a strongbox,” Long said. “But Keyes City Bank said they needed the money. I knew they’d be better off breaking it up over five or six runs. But bankers only listen to other bankers. So there it is.” He shrugged. “I still can’t figure Orez pistol-whipping this man like this.”

  “Orez wanted to make sure you’d get busy taking the wounded man back to Nogales instead of following him and his men wherever they’re headed.”

  “I can see his reasoning when you put it that way, Ranger,” said Dawson, squeezing into the coach behind him. “Not that we could have gone chasing after them anyway, them driving all our horses off in front of them. Our search party could’ve when they come and found us, but not us.”

  “Us with no guns to boot,” Long threw in, beginning to see the outlaw’s purpose in beating the drummer senseless.

  On the dove’s lap, the drummer groaned, coming around a little and trying to raise his head.

  “This man needs attending to,” said Jenny Lynn. She pressed the man’s head back down firmly and wiped the wet cloth back over his forehead. “I fear his head may be cracked deep inside.”

  “I’ll just get the thread and medical supplies from my saddlebags, ma’am,” Sam said.

  “Poor fellow,” Maynard Dawson put in, looking down at the bloody drummer, knowing it was only by the luck of the draw that it was not him lying there beaten senseless. “I’ll check around up under my seat. I just might have a bottle of rye some passenger left by accident.” He caught the stern look Dan Long gave him and added, “You have to admit, it comes in handy, times like this.”

  Without answering him, Long said to the Ranger above the roar of the storm, “While you’re taking care of this one, Maynard and I will go search for the other four horses. Looks like this blow ain’t going to let up any time soon.”

  The Ranger only nodded as he backed out the door in a crouch into the hard, pelting rain. Once he was outside, the two coachmen hiked their coat collars up and stepped out behind him.

  “You’re going to be just fine, Tunis Weir,” Jenny Lynn said quietly to the bloody man cradled in her lap. Her words fell away beneath a hard slam of incoming thunder.

  • • •

  The storm continued to rage outside while, in the light of an oil lantern, Jenny Lynn held the dazed man’s head still as the Ranger closed and stitched shut a half dozen deep cuts on his battered head. Before Sam started his work with a needle and a length of coarse thread, the young dove poured several good stiff belts of rye into the drummer’s gaping mouth, which he drank eagerly.

  Sam sat watching, waiting, needle at ready.

  “All set, Mr. Weir?” the dove asked. The man looked up almost contentedly through bleary eyes at the lovely young face and the bottle of rye looming over him.

  “Yep, sew me on up,” he managed to say in a thick, slurred voice.

  The young dove poured a final swig of rye into the drummer’s mouth and watched him swallow it. When he let out a whiskey hiss and settled down with his eyes closed, Jenny raised the bottle to her lips and took a large swallow. Lowering the bottle, she handed it to Maynard Dawson and wiped a thin wrist across her mouth.

  “Sew him up, Ranger,” she said firmly as lightning flashed around the edges of the window cover, and she sat looming over the drummer, her weight ready to press him down if need be. Thunder split apart like stone in the sky above them.

  Chapter 3

  A full hour later as the storm continued to rage its way past them like an army at war, the Ranger finished drawing the last stitch taut beneath his bloodstained fingertips. When he leaned back and gave the young dove a nod, she patted the man’s trembling shoulder and sat back against the coach seat. Across from her the two coachmen sat staring, soaking wet from having searched without success for the other four horses.

  “We’re all done, Mr. Weir. You’re going to be good as new,” she said quietly down to the swollen, battered face in her lap.

  “I know it,” he replied in a halting, trembling voice. He managed to reach a hand out in search of the rye bottle. Dawson leaned forward and gave it to him. “I expect I’ll be leaving now?” he asked.

  “He’s out of his head,” Jenny Lynn whispered to the Ranger. Patting Tunis Weir on a shoulder, she said, “You poor dear man, you won’t be going anywhere. Lie still now.”

  “The stitches have stopped you from bleeding as bad,” Sam said to the wounded man. “But we still need to get you back to Nogales and have the doctor look at you—make sure nothing’s broke.”

  “Obliged, Ranger,” he murmured through swollen lips. He took a shorter drink from the bottle and handed it to Jenny Lynn, who in turn gave it to the shotgun rider. Dawson took it as he continued staring down at the drummer, engrossed.

  “I once sewed up a dog’s neck,” he said as if in awe.

  “It ain’t the same,” Long said sarcastically.

  “I know it,” said Dawson. “I’m just saying, is all.” He started to raise the bottle to his lips, but Long yanked it from his hand, corked it and placed it on the seat beside him.

  “Keep your head clear, Maynard,” Long said. “We’ve got plenty to do without you getting wallowing drunk on us.”

  “Wallowing drunk?” said Dawson. “When did I ever get—”

  “Will those two horses pull this stage back to Nogales?” Sam asked Long, cutting Dawson short.

  “They’ll do it, but they won’t be fit for nothing for a week afterward,” Long said.

  “We can go search for the others again if you want us to,” said Dawson.

  “The longer we sit around here wiggling our toes, the worse the flooding is going to get in every direction,” Long reminded his shotgun rider.

  “Don’t leave on my account,” Tunis Weir blurted out mindlessly in a half-conscious whiskey stupor.

  “Shush now, Mr. Weir,” Jenny Lynn whispered down to him, carefully stroking his lumpy, stitched-up forehead. “You go on to sleep—let them talk.”

  The Ranger and the two coachmen had turned at the drummer’s sudden outburst. Now they huddled together at the closed door, the rain lashing at the window cover and pounding sidelong on the wooden coach door. The thunder and lightning quieted down for the moment.

  “We can search for the other horses as we go,” Sam said, picking the conversation back up where they’d left it.

  “What about that roan? That cayuse of yours?” Long asked the Ranger. “Will he back to a load?”

  “I expect he’ll do it, but he’s not going to like it one bit,” Sam said. “Neither will I.” He looked back and forth between the two sopping-wet coachmen. “I’m going to need him rested and ready.”

  “You can stall him there at our relay station a day or two,” Long offered.

  “Huh-uh,” Sam said. “Soon as we get to Nogales, I’m heading back out.”

  “Out in all this?” Long said as if in disb
elief.

  “Yep, that’s my plan,” Sam said. “This can stop any minute. I’m not that far behind. I don’t want to quit his trail.”

  “Quit his trail? There’s no trail,” said Dawson. “It wasn’t raining this hard when Moses built his ark.”

  Sam and Long just looked at him.

  “Moses?” said Long.

  Dawson’s face reddened in the candlelight.

  “I know who it was,” he said. “Anyway, this whole stretch of desert is going to be mud soup for the next week, and that’s if this gully washer plays itself out in the next few hours.”

  Without reply, Sam crouched and backed out of the stage door. While the wind lulled, he held his bloodstained hands in front of him and washed them in the cold, falling rainwater.

  Fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money for a stagecoach to be carrying, all in one run, he considered to himself. But his thoughts were taken from the matter as he noticed the empty strongbox and valuables crate lying in the mud. Strung out a few feet behind the coach were a women’s carpet travel bag and a larger man’s leather satchel lying half-sunken in a brown puddle of water.

  He walked to the two cases, picked up the woman’s thinly loaded carpetbag and clamped it up under his arm. Picking up the man’s leather satchel, noting a clasp open on one end and the cover flap turned back, he couldn’t help seeing the butt of a bone-handled Colt standing in a holster, the gun belt wrapped around it. He glanced through the rain toward the stagecoach, then reached into the satchel, lifted the Colt from its holster and turned it in his hand.

  The big Colt glinted in the grayness of the storm. Sam noted the clean, well-oiled feel of the gun as he pulled back the hammer and turned the cylinder with the ball of his thumb. He found the gun’s action smooth and firm like that of his own—a well-attended tool of the killing trade. He saw that the gun’s front sight had been expertly removed from its barrel, making for a snag-free draw.

  A drummer, huh?

  He glanced again toward the coach as he slid the gun in and out of its custom low-cut holster, noting how easily the holster gave it up. All right, he reasoned, a drummer might carry such a gun. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen a man carry more gun than he needed, especially a man who spent much of his life traveling the frontier on business.