by Ralph Cotton
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a bounty posse, Freeman,” Hardin called out beneath the roaring gunfire.
“Bounty posse?” said Manning. He winced slightly. “That’s what you make of it?”
“Yep, that’s what I’m seeing,” said Hardin, speaking loudly over the gunfire. “Leastwise I’ve seen no badges out there. I’ve heard no offer of surrender.”
“Jesus,” said Manning. “I knew riding for Orez would be tough, but damned if this don’t try a man’s patience.” He cocked the Spencer and called out to the closed door were Roach now lay dead, his limp body jerking, fresh gaping wounds still appearing from the relentless rifle barrage.
“Are they all right in there?” Hardin called out to Manning, beneath the heavy firing.
“I don’t know,” Manning replied. “Are you two all right in there, Wilson?” he relayed to the closed door.
“No answer,” he called out to Hardin when he heard no reply from the other room.
Turning, Manning ran in a crouch to the front wall and kicked the front door shut as bullets thumped into it. Then he peeked out the window, poked his rifle out through the gun port, found a target in the cloud of burnt gun smoke and falling rain and fired.
“Keep them busy, Evan.” Manning crawled over to the other closed window where Hardin had stood up and began pumping steady fire through the gun port.
“That’s the very thing I’m doing, Freeman,” Hardin called back in reply.
“Let’s see who we’ve got out here,” Manning whispered to himself, gazing out through his gun port, looking for a target through the silver-gray deluge. “One thing for sure,” he said to himself. “They won’t be burning us out of here.”
Manning took close aim at a brown derby bobbing behind the cover of a stack of weathered and broken barrels. Even as the gunfire thumped into the window shutter all around him, he waited until the derby rose fully into sight and squeezed the trigger. Shots homed in heavier on his position, but before ducking away he saw the red cloud of blood appear as the bowler hat flipped crazily away in the rain.
“You got him, Freeman!” shouted Hardin as the gunfire waned a little. “Nailed that dewberry dead as hell!”
Inspired, Hardin took close aim and blasted out a shot that struck an exposed shoulder and sent a man flipping backward from behind the cover of a broken-down wagon, his yellow rain slicker tails spinning end over end.
“These gun ports are the only way I’m fighting from now on,” Hardin called out with elation. “I believe we’re going to beat these bastards.”
“Pay attention over there,” Freeman Manning called out, seeing a bullet zip through a crack at the edge of Hardin’s closed shutter and send up a spray of wood and stone chips. Hardin had to jerk back a step from it.
“Hold your damn fire!” a loud gruff voice called out from the cover of a stack of seasoned firewood.
The rifle fire stopped.
“Who are we shooting at in there?” the voice called out to the adobe.
“Little late to be asking,” Manning replied arrogantly. “Are you giving up?”
A tense pause ensued. Then the voice called out, “The only man we’ve got paper on is Wilson Orez. We know you’re in there, Orez. We figured you would be showing up here. These others don’t have to die with you.”
“Bounty hunters, huh?” Manning called out. “How do you know we don’t have money on our heads?” As soon as he’d spoken, he eased backward across the room toward the closed door. Hardin kept an aim out through the gun port.
“Whoever you are, we’ll cut you loose in exchange for Wilson Orez,” the voice said. “Alls you’ve got to do is back out of the way so’s we can have at him. That’s all I’m asking. You’ve got five minutes to think it over.”
Manning knocked softly at the closed door.
“Are you hearing this, Wilson?” he called out to Orez. “This bounty hunter thinks we’re going to Judas you up to him. I’m just letting you know that ain’t going to happen. Me and Hardin don’t neither one play that way.” He waited and when he heard no reply, he said, “Wilson? Do you hear me?” He paused, glanced at Hardin. “Wilson . . . ?” he said again.
“Jesus,” said Hardin. “He’s gone, Freeman! He has run the hell out on us, leaving us fighting to save him!”
“Damn it all, I ain’t ready for this,” Manning said in stunned surprise. He took the door handle and swung the door open, revealing the empty room.
• • •
Out front, behind the broken-down wagon, the bounty hunter leader, Sterling Warner, checked the gold railroad watch in his wet, gloved hand and put it away under his rain slicker. A stream of water ran steadily from the front-guttered brim of his tall Montana-crowned hat. He tweaked the point of a white walrus mustache in contemplation.
“You’ve got two minutes left,” he called out to the adobe through the falling rain. The wind had begun to rise again, turning the rain at an angle. Distant thunder began creeping closer. “Gal-damned if it’s ever going to quit raining,” he murmured to himself. “A man’s a fool being out here.”
“Wilson Orez is not here, Mr. Bounty Hunter,” Hardin called out in reply. “Now where do we stand?”
“He is, you lying son of a bitch. There’s no way he could’ve got away ’less he’s swum off. I’ve got men guarding the barn.”
A shot roared from the adobe window’s gun port and thumped into the side of the wagon.
“Do not call me a lying son of a bitch!” Hardin shouted.
“I called you a lying son of a bitch because you are a lying son of a bitch!” said Warner. “You need to understand that it’s only going to make things worse on you when we ride roughshod through that mud hut and trample it down. You hearing me, Wilson Orez?” he shouted even louder for the benefit of Orez, who he was still convinced had to be listening. “Are you going to put your men through this?”
“He is not here, damn it!” shouted Manning. “What do you need to hear from us?”
Warner jerked his watch back out from under his slicker, checked it and put it away.
“Time’s up,” he called out with finality. “You’ve had your chance to be on the level. You chose not to. Now we’re going to—” He stopped and turned suddenly when his nephew, Madden Warner, came splashing through the mud from the barn. “Damn it, Madden! You nearly got yourself shot, running up on me all of a sudden.”
“Sorry, Uncle Sterling,” the young gunmen said, sliding to a halt in the mud, out of breath. His rifle barrel almost jammed into his uncle’s eye. Warner swatted it away. “I checked the barn like you told me to do. Jack Heaton is dead. His throat’s been cut from ear to ear!”
“Damn it,” said Warner, gripping his rifle tight. He looked off through the rain to the adobe, then back to his nephew.
“What about the horses?” he asked quickly. “Are there any horses gone?”
“There’s two horses gone, uncle,” Madden said solemnly. “Darcy’s in the barn too. Said he mistook Haco for one of them and shot him in the head and belly—Haco crawled up on his paint horse and lit out of here. Darcy’s going to bleed to death himself if we don’t get his shoulder wound patched up.”
“Good, loving God! He shot Haco?” said Warner, stunned.
“That’s what he said,” Madden replied. “Head and belly.”
“I’ve never seen nothing go this bad this fast in my whole damned life,” Sterling Warner said.
“How do we know it was Wilson Orez who took the two horses?” Madden asked. “Maybe he sent one of his men to throw us off. Maybe he’s still inside there. Maybe he ain’t left.”
Warner just stared at him for a moment.
“You’re right about one thing, nephew,” he said with an air of regret. “He has not left. I’ll bet on that.” He looked all around warily in the blowing rain.
“Uncle,
” said Madden, “what if we—?” His words stopped short with a deep sudden grunt. He fell forward against his uncle with a stunned, pained look on his face. Warner saw the hilt of the big knife standing in his back between his shoulder blades.
“Damn it, brother Clarence,” he said quietly. “Looks like I’ve gone and got your boy killed.” He stooped and let his dead nephew fall to the ground. Standing, no longer paying attention to the adobe, he gripped his rifle in his wet hands and turned cautiously, looking back and forth, knowing he was next.
Hearing the sound of hooves splashing through the silvery downpour to his left, he swung his rifle quickly toward it. But when he saw the riderless horse splash past him, he realized too late that he’d been tricked. As he swung his rifle back in the other direction, three rapid shots hit him hammerlike in his chest, slamming him backward to the wet, muddy ground. He looked up, struggling for his last few breaths.
“Oh no,” he gasped, seeing Orez step into sight. He watched him reach down and jerk his knife from his dead nephew’s back. “You’ve killed me, Orez . . . ain’t that enough?”
“No.” Orez shook his head slowly, water running down the front of him. “You came to kill me. I have to show the next ones that coming for me is bad medicine.”
Chapter 11
In the pouring rain, a pale, grainy evening had begun to overtake an already dark day when the Ranger stopped the roan atop a stony bluff. Behind him he led a horse he’d found wandering the flood land with one of the men Orez killed lying tied down naked over its saddle. On the terraced land below him, he saw a ragged canvas tent pitched against the side of a hill above a wide yet shallow stream of runoff water. Beside the tent sat a buckboard wagon with a tarpaulin covering its load. A team of horses stood hobbled and huddled against a tall pine, their heads and front shoulders out of the rain.
As a new round of lightning glittered and twisted on the distant black horizon, Sam nudged the roan forward, his newly borrowed Winchester in hand, the dead man’s horse staying close behind him. Descending the bluff, crossing the shallow stream, he saw the front fly of the tent open and two railroad men step out into the rain. They stared at Sam as they closed and buttoned their raincoats. One of the men held a shotgun at port arms.
“Hello the tent,” the Ranger called out, slowing the roan almost to a halt. He saw their eyes go over the dead man.
“Hello yourself,” said the man with the shotgun. “What brings you out on a day like this?”
“I’m an Arizona Territory Ranger,” Sam called out, nudging his roan forward at a slow walk. “I’ve been in pursuit of a wanted outlaw named Wilson Orez the past week. Ever heard of him?”
“A Ranger, huh?” said the man with the shotgun. He looked a little relieved. The shotgun sagged in his hands. He noted the top of the naked corpse’s raw scalped head.
“Wilson Orez. I’ll say we’ve heard of him,” the other man said. He looked again at the rain-soaked body, its hands hanging pale and blue toward the ground. “That’s not him, is it?”
“Jesus, Odell,” said the man with the shotgun. “You think a Ranger would do something like that?”
“No, it’s not Orez,” Sam said, dismissing the matter. “It’s a man who rode with him. They had a falling-out.” He stopped the roan ten feet away.
“I’d say so!” said the man with the shotgun. “Why’s his hands split nearly up to his wrists?”
“You’d have to ask Wilson Orez about that,” Sam said, tired, slumped a little in his wet saddle. “It’s some kind of Apache warrior sign. His feet have been cut the same way,” he added. Seeing the man step closer and reach out to the corpse, he added, “You don’t want to raise his face, take my word for it.”
The man jerked his hand back from the body as if avoiding something venomous.
“Good Lord,” he said, staring with a grimace at the dead man’s hands. They had been split between the man’s second and third fingers, almost up to his wrists. “I would steer clear of any man who’d do another like that.”
“I think that’s the message he’s supposed to get from Orez,” said the other man. “Right, Ranger?”
“That’s how I take it,” Sam said, swinging down from the saddle in his swallow-tailed coat.
The two looked his clothes and footwear over, his floppy hat hanging wet with rain. Noting his youth, the man with the shotgun eyed him closer.
“Say, are you the young Ranger we’ve heard about?” the man with the shotgun asked.
“It’s possible,” Sam said. “I’m Samuel Burrack.” He touched the brim of his soaked hat.
“Yep, it’s you all right,” said the man with the shotgun. He lowered the shotgun the rest of the way. “I’m Bob Ailes. This is Odell Colson. We were scouting the best place to stick a rail spur across the border before this wash blew in on us. The whole thing took us by surprise, even though we had time to see it coming.”
“I understand,” Sam said. “Did you happen to make any coffee between rains?” He looked over at a blackened, washed-out campfire.
“It’s in the tent,” said Colson. “We’ve got hot beans and sowbelly too, believe it or not. Rail scouts are well fed, if not well paid.”
“It’s nigh onto dark, Ranger,” said Ailes. “Will you tent with us tonight? It’s small and it stinks, but it’s dry . . . so far anyway.”
Sam could tell that even though good manners demanded they make the offer, he wasn’t about to impose.
“It’ll be dry enough for me under your wagon tarps,” he said, gesturing toward the supply wagon.
“No, we won’t hear of it,” said Ailes. “You take the tent. I’ll sleep under the wagon tarps. If it’s dry enough for you, it’s dry enough for me.”
Sam shook his head.
“Obliged, but I can’t let you do that,” he said. “I need to be out here where I can watch over my dead man. I don’t want wolves scenting him and coming in on us. The weather has them stirred up.” He nodded at the torn shoulder of his coat. “I’ve had trouble with them already.”
“Wolves? Jesus . . . ,” said Ailes, trailing off. “We don’t need trouble with them.” He took on a look of consternation. “Maybe we ought to let you do what you know is best. There’s extra rolled-up tarpaulins in the wagon bed with our supplies. You’re welcome to cut a piece off one and wrap your dead man in it. Let us know what else you need.”
“This will do it, thanks,” Sam said, rounding his wounded left shoulder a little, feeling the stiff soreness of the doctor’s stitches.
He led the roan and other horse, body and all, over to the pine, took out two short lengths of rope and hobbled the horses to keep from hitching them to a tree while lightning was still in the sky. He untied the body and swung it down to the ground until he could cut a length of canvas to wrap it in. The two railroad men stood watching as he walked back toward them, one boot, one dress shoe and the long, mud-splattered swallow-tailed coat.
“Wolves?” Ailes whispered.
“You heard him, pard,” Colson whispered in reply. “Let’s hope he clears out of here first thing come morning.”
“Lord, yes, let’s hope so,” Ailes whispered.
“Let’s try some beans and coffee,” Sam said, walking back toward them in the falling rain.
The railroad men looked at each other.
“Well, here we are,” Ailes whispered.
They fell in beside Sam and splashed through the mud to the tent and went inside.
Over tin plates of beans and cups of hot coffee, the three men ate, while outside the buildup of wind, lightning and thunder began to roll in again.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” said Ailes, “why are you wearing one shoe and one boot, Ranger?”
Sam sipped his coffee and told the two how he had lost everything. He recounted the ravine flooding and the trail washing out beneath the stagecoach. The two men
watched and listened intently.
After a moment, Colson ventured to ask, “With your shoulder wounded, why are you hauling the dead man around? You’ve got enough to look out for without worrying about wolves. Can’t you stick him in under some rocks somewhere?”
“Yes, I can,” Sam said, “and I will, first thing. I found him not far from here. I was looking for a good place to cover him up when I spotted your tent.”
“The hillside gets rocky a mile or so around this trail,” said Ailes. “I’ll help you rock him over in the morning.”
“Obliged, but I’ll take care of him. I’ll be leaving before daylight,” Sam replied.
“Why?” said Colson. “Orez can’t get along no faster in this than you can. Besides, you’ve got no tracks to follow. The weather is all on his side as it is.”
Sam wasn’t going to explain what drove him on toward his prey. It was something most people would not understand. Instead he sipped his coffee and said, “The weather is on nobody’s side except the man who won’t stop for it. Orez doesn’t stop for it. I can’t afford to stop either.”
“Seeing that man’s handiwork, I’d stop altogether, go home and get me some other job,” said Ailes, shaking his head. “This is gruesome work you’re doing, no offense.”
“None taken,” Sam said, yet he turned silent, thinking about it. He knew everything Orez did was intended to turn back anybody following his trail. But it was going to take more than carving up a corpse to get rid of him. He had determined so much earlier when he’d found the stark blue-ivory body wandering the flooded badlands. What Orez didn’t know was that Sam had been watching; he’d seen both the men die. He knew the man had been dead when Orez did the cutting. That sent him a different message altogether.
Carving up a dead man didn’t impress him, didn’t strike fear in his heart. He knew it was strictly for show. He had a gut feeling that something was wrong in Orez’s world. Whatever threat Orez tried to send out wasn’t working, he told himself. If he stuck close, he’d find out what was wrong, and whatever it was, he’d find a way to use it against him.