Guns on the Border

by Ralph Cotton

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  PART 2

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  PART 3

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Teaser chapter

  Praise for the Novels of Ralph Cotton

  ‘‘Cotton writes with the authentic ring of a silver dollar, a storyteller in the best tradition of the Old West.’’

  —Matt Braun, Golden Spur Award-winning author of One Last Town and You Know My Name

  ‘‘Evokes a sense of outlawry . . . distinctive.’’

  —Lexington Herald-Leader

  ‘‘Disarming realism . . . solidly crafted.’’

  —Publishers Weekly

  ‘‘Authentic Old West detail and dialogue fill his books.’’ —Wild West Magazine

  ‘‘Gun-smoked believability . . . a hard hand to beat.’’

  —Terry Johnston

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, July 2007

  Copyright © Ralph Cotton, 2007

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Printed in the United States of America

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  eISBN : 978-1-4406-1962-5

  For Mary Lynn . . . of course

  Prologue

  Gray smoke curled from the barrel of Ranger Sam Burrack’s big Colt as his eyes scanned the shadowed alleyways along the dusty street of San Miguel. The street lay empty save for the single riderless horse that only moments ago had come charging at him with Dallas Fadden hunched low in the saddle, firing a pair of double-action Colt Thunderers as fast as his fingers could pull the triggers.

  Upon seeing Fadden come bolting forward, the ranger had dropped from his saddle and slapped the rump of his Appaloosa stallion, sending it out of the way. Jumping from atop the stallion might have made the difference, he told himself, always reflecting back as soon as he could on a fight, considering what he’d done right, what he might have done differently. He could fight in or out of the saddle, whichever he had to, but out was always better, given the choice, he reminded himself.

  As the ranger’s eyes searched, his hands deftly opened the Colt, dropped the one empty cartridge to the dirt, replaced it and snapped the chamber shut.

  He slipped the Colt into his tied-down holster, but loosely, knowing that he might suddenly require its use again. Some parts of hell even the devil didn’t travel alone, he told himself. His gaze moved warily outward, through the raging swirl of white heat surrounding the town, out across the harsh Mexican badlands.

  But this is not hell. These were poor and struggling people, no different from many of his own people on the other side of the border. In fact, was it not one of his own that had brought him here? All right, I’ll give you that, he sighed, silently replying to the voice inside him.

  After a moment he took the folded piece of paper from inside his riding duster and opened it as he kept an eye on the empty dusty street. From between two adobe buildings a skinny hound slunk out through the dust, picked up something from the dirt and raced away with it.

  ‘‘Dallas Fadden, you’re marked off,’’ the ranger murmured to himself under his breath. He looked at the list of names on the paper—thieves, rapists, arsonists, assassins, wanton murderers, degenerates all—the worst of the worst, his captain had proclaimed them. With a pencil stub that he pulled from under the brim of his pearl-gray sombrero, he drew a straight line through Fadden’s name.

  On the ground at his feet, Fadden lay at the end of a long streak of bloody dirt where his trail of lawlessness had ended. A bullet hole gaped in the center of his back. The thumb of his right hand had been clipped off by the same single bullet before it bored through his heart. Seeing the bloody stub, Sam looked off in the direction the skinny hound had taken, and realized what had caused the animal to venture out before the smoke and dust had even settled. Sam folded the paper and put it away.

  Thirty yards up the dusty street, an old man stepped out of a doorway, his thin arms raised high in a show of peace. ‘‘I bring you the caballo, por favor, guardabosques?’’ he said in a mix of Spanish and broken English. He stepped sideways in worn sandals toward the horse in the middle of the street.

  ‘‘Sí, gracias. Pero tan lentamente, señor,’’ the ranger replied in stiff Spanish, thanking him for his help and at the same time cautioning him to move slowly. Hell or no hell, Sam knew that in his job, death could strike just as swiftly from beneath a faded serape as it could from a holster, or a business vest, or a lady’s handbag. Death observed no borders and no age, and it gave no warning. But enough of that. Death had just come and gone, for now anyway—he hoped.
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  Stepping toward him with the horse’s reins in hand, the old man offered a thin, cautious smile and said with a slight shrug, ‘‘Lentamente, señor? How else can an old man like me move, except slowly?’’

  ‘‘Gracias,’’ Sam said, taking the reins as the old man held them out to him. His eyes moved up and down the man, seeing a battered tin star pinned onto his serape, but no sign of a gun butt protruding at his thin waist, and more important, there was no sign of ill intent in the time-weathered eyes. ‘‘You are the town sheriff, the guardia?’’ he asked the old man, nodding for him to lower his hands.

  ‘‘Sí, I am Guardia Ramond Rayos.’’ His right hand brushed against the badge.

  ‘‘Then I think I owe you an apology, Guardia Rayos,’’ Sam said. ‘‘I didn’t know there was a lawmanin San Miguel, else I would have come to you first thing, in respect for your office.’’ He paused, then said, ‘‘I should have asked around first.’’

  ‘‘If you did not know, you did not know.’’ The Mexican lawman shrugged, resolving the matter. ‘‘I have been a lawman for all of my life, but I have been guardia for only a short time.’’

  But Sam knew that his show of respect did matter. They were both lawmen; each owed the other respect. ‘‘I’m glad to see San Miguel finally has someone to uphold the law,’’ he said. ‘‘Do you know this man?’’ He nodded at the body on the ground.

  ‘‘No, guardabosques— I mean, Ranger,’’ he replied, turning his words from Spanish to English for the ranger’s sake. ‘‘Should you ask if I or anyone in San Miguel would seek to avenge his death, I must tell you no.’’ He shook his head slowly as he spoke, looking down at the body in the dirt. ‘‘And we will miss neither him nor his money, which he threw around so loosely these days he spent here.’’ He paused and then, as if reconsidering, said, ‘‘Well, perhaps we will miss his money—but not him.’’ He looked back up at the ranger and asked, as if already knowing the answer, ‘‘He is a bad one, no? A man wanted for breaking the law in your country?’’

  ‘‘Sí, he was a bad one,’’ Sam answered. ‘‘He robbed and murdered a young couple back east, then fled west, robbing and killing many more before he crossed the border.’’

  The old Mexican lawman shook his head slowly. ‘‘And he brings himself here as if God has forgiven him and he can start his life anew.’’

  ‘‘Something like that, I suppose,’’ said Sam. ‘‘But it wouldn’t be long before he’d be back up to his old ways, if he hadn’t started already.’’

  ‘‘Here in San Miguel, he has been quiet and has kept to himself. Had he not been so I would have chased him from among us.’’

  Sam looked at him closer, deciding that the old man still had some iron in him.

  Seeing the ranger’s appraising gaze, Rayos said, ‘‘He would not be the first man I chased away—or shot, if I had to.’’ He nodded at Fadden’s body. ‘‘This one made no trouble. He drank much wine and mescal in the cantina. He spent time with womenfolk, who have befriended him only for his money. Yet always, he has appeared to be a lonely and haunted man.’’

  ‘‘Yep,’’ said Sam, ‘‘his kind often appear that way when called upon to show some restraint. They don’t feel natural unless they’re killing and plundering and running wild.’’

  ‘‘I have heard of you,’’ the old man said, as if recognition had just come to him. He touched a long, knobby finger to his temple. ‘‘You are the ranger who rides the badlands—who killed the outlaw they called Junior Lake. You killed him and his gang.’’

  ‘‘That was a long time ago,’’ Sam replied. ‘‘It seems like it anyway.’’

  The old Mexican lawman studied the ranger’s eyes, then said, ‘‘And you have killed many more since then. Am I correct?’’

  ‘‘Yes, you are,’’ Sam said flatly. ‘‘I have killed many more, too many as far as I’m concerned.’’ As he spoke, he checked the cinch on Fadden’s horse and tested the saddle by jerking it back and forth.

  The old Mexican lawman shrugged his bony shoulders and said, ‘‘But killing is part of our jobs, men like you and me, sí ?’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ said Sam, not wanting to talk about it. He touched a hand to the scar along his cheek in dark reflection. Killing had become more than a part of his job. Across the badlands and along the border, killing had become the job itself.

  With a slight hesitancy, the old lawman said, ‘‘There are those who say the same as you, that you have done too much killing.’’ Pausing for a second to see how the ranger took his words, the old man continued cautiously. ‘‘There are even those who say that all the killing has made you a little . . . loco?’’ He seemed to hold his breath, awaiting the ranger’s response.

  ‘‘I have heard that,’’ said the ranger. Bending and taking a firm grip on the back of Fadden’s damp shirt collar, he dragged the corpse almost to its feet and leaned it limply against the side of the horse. ‘‘What man, truly crazy, would admit to being so?’’ He offered only a trace of a wizened smile, as if having thought about the matter at great length.

  ‘‘Sí, that is so,’’ the old Mexican lawman agreed, his voice sounding relieved. He stepped forward, seeing what the ranger was about to do.

  Holding the animal’s reins in his free hand, Sam moved his grip from the shirt collar to Fadden’s belt and, with the old man’s help, shoved upward until the body slid over the saddle. ‘‘Gracias again, señor,’’ Sam said, the corpse’s arms dangling down the other side of the horse.

  ‘‘You are most welcome, Ranger,’’ the old man said. He stepped back, a bit winded from exerting himself in the heat of the day. Leveling his straw sombrero, he said, ‘‘It is not usual that someone kills someone in my country and takes the corpse away with them. We in San Miguel are grateful for not having to bury him. That is why I bring you the horse, even though keeping the horse here would give value to our town in some small way.’’

  ‘‘I see,’’ said the ranger, getting the message.

  He took a gold coin from his vest pocket and handed it to the old lawman. In doing so he noted the tight look of humiliation on the old man’s face. Yet the old man accepted the coin all the same, the ranger also noted as he took a coiled lariat from Fadden’s saddle horn and shook it out.

  ‘‘The money is not for me, Ranger,’’ Rayos said humbly. ‘‘It will go to feed the people of San Miguel when our crops have failed, as they always do.’’

  ‘‘I understand,’’ said the ranger as he tied Fadden’s corpse firmly to the saddle. Dark blood dripped in a long string from the bullet hole in Fadden’s chest. Nearby, two ragged-backed cats had slipped forward as if from out of nowhere. They sat staring intently at the bloody dirt.

  Changing the subject, Rayos gestured at the ranger’s duster lapel and asked, ‘‘Was that the list I saw in your hands? The list I heard so much about from the bad ones who you hunt?’’

  ‘‘It’s easier for me to keep a list than it is to have to keep running these lowlifes’ names through my mind,’’ Sam replied. He ran the length of leftover lariat forward, slipped the horse’s bit from its mouth and looped the lariat around its muzzle, fashioning a lead rope. ‘‘When I finish what I’ve done, one way or the other, I mark off the name, fold the list and put it away. I don’t think about who’s next or what I’ll have to do until the time comes.’’

  ‘‘Ah, I see,’’ said the old Mexican lawman. He gave a thin, tired smile. ‘‘Then you are not so crazy as some might think, eh?’’

  ‘‘I sure hope I’m not, Sheriff Rayos,’’ Sam replied. He pulled on his left trail glove. Then, stopping before pulling on his right glove, he asked solemnly, ‘‘Are we squared with one another?’’

  ‘‘Squared?’’ Rayos asked, his bony arms hanging loosely at his sides.

  ‘‘I’m asking, is there anything else we need to talk about, or get settled between us?’’ Sam said.

  ‘‘No. We are squared,’’ said Rayos.

  ‘‘Good,’’ Sam s
aid with a nod. ‘‘Then I would be much obliged if you’d lift that pistol from the back of your trousers and sport it frontward while I ride out. It’s the guns I can’t see that concern me the most.’’

  ‘‘Of course, Ranger!’’ Rayos’ smile widened. He looked surprised. ‘‘I must beg your pardon. I did not know who you were when I put it back here.’’ As he talked he reached behind his back beneath the long hanging serape and slowly pulled out a battered older-model army Colt by its butt with his thumb and finger.

  ‘‘I would have done the same thing, Sheriff Rayos,’’ said Sam, stepping over to Black Pot, his Appaloosa stallion, and leading Fadden’s horse by the rope.

  ‘‘Oh? Then lawmen like you and I must think alike, eh, Ranger?’’ said Rayos, sounding proud to associate himself with the ranger, and with lawmen in general.

  ‘‘Yes, I would say so, Sheriff Rayos,’’ Sam replied. He pulled himself atop the Appaloosa and adjusted his sombrero against the blazing sun. On the ground the two ragged-backed cats slipped forward and lowered their muzzles to the fresh blood in the dirt.

  ‘‘And you must come back to visit San Miguel someday,’’ said Rayos as the ranger turned both horses to the dusty street, heading them east. Seeing the ranger look back with a dubious expression, Rayos called out, ‘‘I mean return only for a visit. So you can see San Miguel in a different light, not just as a place to carry out your job.’’

  The ranger nodded, touching the brim of his sombrero. ‘‘Obliged, Sheriff. I might take you up on that offer.’’

  ‘‘Adios until then,’’ Rayos called out, raising a thin flat palm to the ranger and waving it back and forth slowly, even though the ranger’s gaze had already turned toward the trail ahead.

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  The half-breed, Caridad, had seen trouble brewing between the two men for days. But like the rest of the people in the small town of Esperanza, she had remained silent and distanced herself from them. ‘‘Estos son hombres peligrosos, Caridad,’’ the defrocked monk, Sabio Tonto Montero, had whispered under his breath to her the day the band of Americano mercenaries rode in from the east.