by Ralph Cotton
‘‘I understand, boss,’’ Cherokee said in a stiff but humble tone.
Prew saw he’d struck a sour note with his right-hand man. ‘‘Here’s the thing you need to know about me, Cherokee,’’ he said, the two nudging their horses on. The men followed in a loose column behind them. ‘‘I don’t do nothing without a damn good reason.’’ He gave a tight short grin. ‘‘If I do something that doesn’t make sense right then, pay attention. It’ll all make sense later.’’
‘‘I got you, boss,’’ said Cherokee, wanting to dismiss the subject. ‘‘I shouldn’t have said anything. If you think those two turds are worth something, I guess I’m not obliged to argue it with you.’’
‘‘Good,’’ said Prew. ‘‘Now just sit tight, be patient, and help me carry all this gold.’’
‘‘I can do that right enough,’’ said Cherokee. He wondered how quick and easy it might be to set up Prew and gut him the way he had gutted Sibbs.
‘‘That’s what I thought.’’ Prew smiled knowingly and gazed ahead toward Plaza Fuerte.
A half hour later, reaching the outskirts of Plaza Fuerte, Prew and the others looked over to their right at the empty army encampment, where row after row of canvas tents billowed gently in the hot wind. Empty corrals stood with their gates swung open. ‘‘This is perfect,’’ Prew said with satisfaction.
Off to their right, a group of townsmen had gathered noisily around a makeshift arena constructed of weathered wooden fruit crates, fence rails and baling wire. As Prew led his column of men along the trail past the gathering, they looked at the townsmen and saw two roosters rise up with a flurry of wings, locked in battle.
‘‘Cockfight,’’ Thomas Russell said quietly to Braden Kerr, who rode beside him. ‘‘Nothing I enjoy more.’’
‘‘Yeah, me too ordinarily,’’ Kerr replied almost in a whisper, keeping an eye on Prew at the head of the slow-moving column. ‘‘But I keep getting a bad feeling about things. Prew’s going to hand us over to that lawdog. I just know it.’’
‘‘Not if we play it smart,’’ said Russell.
‘‘Play it smart how?’’ Kerr asked.
‘‘Just watch me and go along with what I do,’’ Russell said, glancing around to make sure no one was listening.
Prew’s men had stared at the cockfight for only a moment. Russell and Kerr watched them turn their eyes dutifully forward toward the busy stone street ahead of them. ‘‘I’m with you,’’ Kerr said to Russell under his breath.
‘‘Collars up, hats down,’’ Prew said sidelong to Cherokee as they drew closer to a large stone and adobe building standing at the center of a circling stone-paved street.
Half turning in his saddle, Cherokee passed the word back quietly among the men. Then, seeing only two young uniformed soldiers standing slumped at ease on either side of a large arched open doorway, he whispered gleefully to Prew, ‘‘Looks like el capitán didn’t leave much for us to deal with.’’
‘‘Just the way he said he would,’’ Prew whispered in reply.
Fifty yards from the bank, Indian Frank Beeker and Niger Elmsly drifted away from the column and took up positions on either side of the busy street. A few yards closer to the bank, Matt Harkens and Stu Wakeland did the same. Harkens wandered a few feet away from Wakeland, leading his horse to a watering trough and letting the animal drink while he kept watch on Prew and the others. Beneath the edge of his long riding duster, an inch of rifle barrel protruded with each step.
Seeing the rifle barrel, a young boy ran into a store where his father, a local farmer, had just hefted a bag of grain onto his shoulder. ‘‘Papa! Papa!’’ The boy tugged excitedly at his father’s trouser leg.
‘‘Not now, Jesus,’’ the farmer replied in their native tongue. But the boy followed him outside, all the while tugging and pleading in earnest until the man shouldered the bag over onto a mule cart.
‘‘Now, what is so important, child, that you couldn’t wait until I loaded our supplies?’’ he asked.
Gesturing his father down to him with urgency, the boy whispered into his ear as he nodded toward the men stepping down from their horses in front of the bank. When the boy had finished, his father straightened up with a grim look on his face. Seeing the men raise their bandannas over their noses as they walked toward the open doors with saddlebags over their shoulders, he said, ‘‘Quickly, Jesus, quickly!’’
He gave his son a push. ‘‘Go inside and do not come out! Tell the proprietor everything you told me!’’ Even before the boy ran across the plank walkway, the farmer reached into the mule cart and slid a battered French army rifle from beneath a folded canvas cover.
On their way into the bank, Cherokee Jake and Clifford Elvey grabbed the unsuspecting guards right and left, snatched their rifles from their hands and shoved them into the building. The two frightened young soldiers fell to the floor with stunned expressions. Before they could retaliate in any manner, rifle butts swiped across their heads, knocking them senseless. ‘‘Not exactly crack troops, are they?’’ Cherokee chuckled to Elvey, speaking behind his bandanna mask.
Seeing the looks of panic and fear on the faces of the bank customers and tellers, Prew stepped forward with two big saddle Colts held out at arm’s length and shouted in Spanish, ‘‘This is a robbery! Nobody move!’’
A woman shrieked and fainted. Two men reached and grabbed her before she hit the hard stone floor. Prew grinned and said sidelong to Cherokee, ‘‘This is a dream come true.’’ Then louder, ‘‘Everybody fill their bags. Let’s go! Hurry it up!’’
Filling the bags quickly with gold coins and bundles of pesos, the men returned to where Prew, Cherokee and Elvey stood holding their guns on the frightened customers and tellers. ‘‘Somebody take these,’’ said Ethan Crenshaw, wobbling with the weight of an extra pair of saddlebags he’d carried in.
Without turning to face him, Prew said angrily, ‘‘Can’t you see we’ve got these people covered? Hand them to somebody outside!’’
Turning with the others and hurrying out the door, Crenshaw hefted the saddlebags to Russell, who stood beside Kerr, the two of them holding everybody’s horses.
‘‘Sure thing!’’ said Russell. Taking the heavy saddlebags and throwing them onto his shoulder, he gave Kerr a knowing look. ‘‘Take these reins,’’ he said quickly.
Kerr grabbed the reins as Russell shoved them at him. He watched Russell step quickly around to the side of his horse, swing the bags up behind his saddle and tie them down tightly.
‘‘Hey, damn it! Give me my horse!’’ shouted Dan Farr, poking Kerr with his gun barrel. Kerr turned, shoved his reins toward him and hurriedly passed out the rest of the reins to the other riders as they ran from the bank with their gold-filled saddlebags.
Then, standing with only his own reins in hand, Kerr looked up at Russell, who’d mounted his horse and sat looking down at him. ‘‘Well! Are you coming with us?’’ Russell shouted. He deliberately stalled as Prew and the others swung their horses around.
‘‘Yes indeed!’’ Kerr said, seeing what Russell had in mind. He swung up into his saddle and gigged his horse around beside Russell’s. The two of them raced away from the rest of the fleeing riders. Cutting across the stone street, the two ducked into an alley and disappeared.
As the riders thundered along the street, sending pedestrians, wagons and buggy traffic scurrying out of their way, the armed farmer raised up from behind a stack of wooden crates and fired on the robbers. A few feet away, two more armed townsmen rose up and fired, one with a big Spanish revolver, the other with a shotgun.
At the rear of the column of riders, Matt Harkens felt shotgun pellets nip at his thigh. His horse whinnied in pain and tried to veer to the side, but Harkens managed to keep the animal running straight as a rifle shot whistled past his head. In front of him, Crenshaw and Bud Stakes turned in their saddles and sent a hail of pistol shots toward the farmer and the townsmen, giving Harkens cover until he caught up with them.
&nbs
p; ‘‘Where’s the other two?’’ Stakes called out, slowing his horse enough to let Harkens catch up to him. He saw the blood on Harkens’ thigh, and the red pellet wound on the horse’s side.
‘‘I don’t know,’’ said Harkens, riding hard, bent low in the saddle. ‘‘Dead, I guess!’’
At the cockfight, the townsmen had turned from their bloody sport toward the harsh sound of gunfire resounding off the stone streets of Plaza Fuerte. As the riders thundered along the trail toward them, the men drew pistols and ran toward the trail. But before they arrived, the oncoming riders slowed and circled in the dirt trail.
‘‘Nail a couple of them!’’ Prew shouted, still wondering about the gunfire behind them. ‘‘We’ve got to get out of here.’’ Almost before the words had left his mouth, pistols swung up from holsters and fired in one long volley.
‘‘Whoo-eeee!’’ shouted Cherokee Jake as two men crumpled to the ground. The others turned and ran for cover. In the fighting ring, two bedraggled roosters circled, locked in a death waltz, oblivious to the world of man surrounding them.
Turning his horse restlessly, Prew saw the three straggling men come riding up. Harkens had a hand pressed to his bloody thigh. ‘‘What happened?’’ Prew shouted at Stakes and Crenshaw.
‘‘Some damn townsfolk ambushed us!’’ said Crenshaw. ‘‘They buckshot Harkens here. He held them off him while he got away.’’
‘‘Where’s Russell and Kerr?’’ Prew asked, staring back along the trail.
‘‘My guess is the townsfolk got them,’’ said Harkens. ‘‘They were right behind me when we mounted.’’
‘‘Are you going to be able to ride?’’ Prew asked him bluntly.
‘‘Hell, yes, I can ride!’’ said Harkens, knowing the consequences of not being able to ride. ‘‘Ain’t that what I’m doing?’’ He slapped his wounded leg. ‘‘This is just a couple or three buckshot pellets, is all.’’ He gestured at the horse’s side. ‘‘Ole Henry here took a couple himself. But we’re both fine as can be.’’
‘‘Then you best keep up,’’ said Prew. Dismissing the matter, he looked at Crenshaw’s single pair of saddlebags and said, ‘‘Ethan, who’d you hand the other saddlebags to?’’
‘‘I handed them to Russell,’’ said the lanky gunman. As soon as he’d said it, he realized his mistake and looked back toward town. ‘‘Damn. They’re laying back there in the street beside him,’’ he said.
‘‘In a pig’s eye,’’ Prew said. He stared from one side of the street to the other, looking for a rise of dust. Seeing none right then, he looked over at where the townsmen had taken cover. ‘‘Let’s get the hell out of here before these cockfighters decide to turn into heroes.’’ He batted his heels to his horse’s sides and rode away, firing shots toward the hiding townsmen.
High above, on the same ridge where he’d waited since Prew and his men had ridden past him into Plaza Fuerte, the ranger watched through his field lens. Hearing the gunshots had piqued his interest. Now, seeing Prew and his mercenaries riding back along the trail below, he counted silently. ‘‘You’re coming out two riders short,’’ he said under his breath.
Raising his lens to the trail on the other side of town, then to the trails on either side, he searched for the missing riders. Just as he’d begun to think that the missing two might be dead or captured, he homed in on Russell and Kerr. ‘‘There you are,’’ he whispered. The two looked back on the town as they raced along a flat trail headed east, toward the same line of hills he stood upon.
Lowering and collapsing the lens, the ranger shook his head slowly and walked to the horses. ‘‘It looks like we’ve got company coming,’’ he said to Black Pot and the paint. He picked up their reins and walked them up a steep path to the rocky trail. ‘‘Why don’t we just ride over and meet them?’’
Chapter 17
Ten miles from Plaza Fuerte, Prew brought the riders to a halt on a tree-studded hillside fifty yards off the trail. As the column followed him and Cherokee Jake up the hillside, Ethan Crenshaw leaned in his saddle and said quietly to Bud Stakes, ‘‘It looks like I’m in big trouble now.’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ said Stakes, ‘‘and I hope I’m not in trouble along with you, for stopping to help Harkens.’’ As he spoke, he watched Prew’s back. ‘‘A man hardly knows what move to make around here. Anybody else I ever rode with would applaud helping a fellow who’s shot—but not so with this bunch. Prew looked like he was about half sour on the idea.’’
‘‘And look at me,’’ said Crenshaw. ‘‘All I did was hand a man some saddlebags to carry. Now I’ll be lucky if I don’t get shot and dumped along the trail.’’
‘‘Not trying to side against you, Crenshaw,’’ said Stakes, ‘‘but I learned long ago in Texas you never give the horseman any bags of money to carry.’’
‘‘I realize that,’’ said Crenshaw, ‘‘but mistakes can happen.’’
Stakes continued as if he’d not heard him. ‘‘First of all, you know the horseman is going to be the last man leaving town. That means if he gets shot, there goes the money.’’
‘‘Yes, but—’’
Stakes cut him off. ‘‘No buts to it. The other reason is you can’t watch behind you every second. The last man out can cut and run with the money without you knowing it till it’s too late. Which in this case he did, or they did—Russell and Kerr, that is.’’
‘‘You don’t believe that circumstances matter?’’ Crenshaw asked.
‘‘Sure, I believe circumstances account for a lot,’’ said Stakes, the two riding up into the trees, at the center of the column.
‘‘Well, I should say so,’’ Crenshaw added, seeming somehow relieved.
‘‘But what I believe doesn’t matter,’’ said Stakes. ‘‘I ain’t the one who’ll blow your head off over it.’’
Behind them, Harkens chuckled, having overheard their quiet conversation. Looking back at him, Crenshaw growled, ‘‘What’s so damn funny, Harkens? I don’t recall you doing any laughing when we lagged back to save your ass from them wild-eyed Mexican townsmen.’’
‘‘Sorry, Crenshaw,’’ said Harkens. ‘‘I shouldn’t have laughed. But the fact is nobody is going to get shot over this. Hell, Prew needs good men to get things done down here. I wouldn’t worry about it if I was you.’’
‘‘You really think so?’’ Crenshaw asked.
‘‘If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t have said it,’’ Harkens replied.
Crenshaw looked at Stakes for confirmation. Stakes shrugged and said, ‘‘There you have it.’’
Crenshaw felt a little relieved. But his relief was short-lived. Upon entering the wooded hillside, Prew led the riders into a circle and came to a halt straight across from Crenshaw. ‘‘Boy, that was some wingding there for a while,’’ Crenshaw said, trying his best to force a smile through the worried look on his face. He raised his bulging saddlebags from his lap, having to use both hands, and heaved them to the ground.
Prew and Cherokee sat staring at him blankly. The rest of the men followed suit, not wanting to respond in any way that would offend Prew. Crenshaw said nervously, ‘‘I was just thinking, since I made what you might call a little mistake back there, why I don’t just take less of a cut than the rest of—’’
One of Prew’s big Colt saddle pistols bucked in his hand as the shot picked Crenshaw up and flung him backward from his saddle. He hit the ground doing back flips like some limp and mindless circus clown; then he lay facedown as still as stone. His horse bolted and raced away along the sloping hillside.
Prew said to Dan Farr, ‘‘Go get his horse and bring it back.’’
‘‘Right away, boss.’’ Farr turned his horse quickly and sped after the runaway animal.
The men sat silent, watching, waiting, not knowing what to expect next. Prew said to Stakes, ‘‘Bud, take your rifle, put a few shots in his back, roll him over and do it again.’’
Stakes looked puzzled. ‘‘Why, Prew, he’s already dead.’’
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The big Colt bucked again. Stakes flew from his saddle, rolled and stopped flat on his bloody chest. ‘‘Oh Lord,’’ he groaned, trying to push himself up from the ground with both hands. ‘‘I’m a . . . mess here.’’ Before his horse could bolt away, Indian Frank Beeker jumped his horse forward, caught the animal by its reins and held it in place.
‘‘Harkens?’’ Prew said quietly, the Colt smoking in his hand. He jerked his head toward Stakes.
‘‘Yes, sir, right away, boss!’’ Harkens replied, his words running together in his haste. He yanked his rifle from its boot as he answered and levered a round into the chamber.
A hundred yards away, Dan Farr had caught up to the fleeing horse. He held its reins firmly as both his horse and the runaway reared at the sound of more gunfire. ‘‘My God! Are they killing one another?’’ he asked aloud, hearing shot after shot resound from the trees. He quickly calmed both animals and raced back to the others.
‘‘That settles everything,’’ Farr heard Prew saying as he hurried in leading Crenshaw’s horse behind him. Farr looked across the circle and saw Harkens tying down the heavy saddlebags he’d swung up onto his horse’s back. Then he stepped back, rolled both bodies over onto their backs and shot them some more. Rifle smoke loomed around him in a gray cloud.
‘‘Bud?’’ Farr said, staring at Stakes’ bullet-riddled body on the ground. The men sat staring in silence.
‘‘He’s some kin of yours if I’m not mistaken,’’ Prew said in a calm even tone. ‘‘Your brother, wasn’t he?’’
‘‘Huh?’’ said Farr, looking up from the body and over at Prew, who sat holding the big saddle Colt.
‘‘Whoa!’’ he said in shocked surprise. ‘‘Half brother! That’s all he was,’’ Farr said quickly, raising a hand as if to ward off any hasty response on Prew’s part. ‘‘We got along, Bud and me, but just barely. There was times I could have killed him myself.’’
‘‘So, I shouldn’t have to worry about you getting all whiskey-bent and wanting to take some revenge for me killing him?’’