Ralph Compton Double-Cross Ranch

by Matthew P. Mayo

  Beyond, gathered in a humble cluster, tearful as well, stood her sister and her own family. Henry owed them much and had entrusted his fortune, such as it was, to his brother-in-law, to help with the eventuality of his not returning. All this went unsaid in the days leading up to this. But his plans were plain enough. They all considered him foolish and wrong to pursue the notorious Clewt Duggins and his gang of killers, so Henry had merely given up explaining why it was so important.

  One look at the dusty graves in the little cottonwood grove beyond the southern end of town, with their wooden markers leaning, curved and split from sun and wind—those were all the reminders he needed.

  If Henry could but stop Duggins, he had convinced himself that act might erase the terrible burden of guilt he carried daily from the job to now. He owed the dead at least that much. No matter what his family thought.

  With uncharacteristic haste, Henry Atwood kissed his wife tenderly, thumbed away two tears, rubbed his boy’s promising young head hard, nodded once to the silent family beyond, and mounted his horse. He looked once more on his family, nodded, did not even bother with a forced smile, and rode away leading his packhorse, northward toward California.

  Henry had been told by someone who had met someone who had sworn they heard that Duggins and his gang were headed that way. Henry had nothing more to go on, but it was enough. It would have to be.

  Chapter 16

  “Is dinner prepared, my dear?” Clewt fingered the fresh gash on his face, a smile betraying the cold glint of anger in his eyes.

  From across the kitchen, Sue Ellen returned the look of hatred from the chair in which she was lashed. Much as she had been the night before—wrists and ankles securely lashed, a stout length of torn sacking wrapped tight around her face, wedged in her open mouth so that any sound more intelligible than a growling howl she might make would be squelched. It worked. But it didn’t keep her from glowering.

  “Really, my dear, is this the way it’s going to be? I treat you well. Then you lash out and hurt me? I don’t think I can take much more of that. So, until you tell me what I need to hear—and you know exactly what that is—I have no choice but to keep you trussed up like a prize holiday bird. Is that clear?”

  Sue Ellen stopped struggling, and she looked at Clewt with what he took to be her attempt at genuine confusion. This was becoming ridiculous. He sighed a genuine long sigh. “Woman, look, ask any of those dolts out there,” he gestured toward the front of the house and the porch beyond where his men lazed. “They will tell you that I have a reputation as a man who does not suffer fools gladly. I would much rather shoot them. As it happens, I am inclined to shoot you just as easily as I would a man. And given how shabbily I have been treated by women in my life, perhaps I am inclined to shoot you down even more so.”

  He watched Sue Ellen’s face for any sign of reaction. “Do you understand me? And just because you have information I need does not mean that you are the only person with that information. Or that I will never find out the information on my own. For I will. What it does mean is that if you do not tell me where it is located, I will kill you.”

  He said it so conversationally that Sue Ellen wasn’t sure she heard him correctly.

  “Oh, yes, my dear. Do not think I will put up with any more of this.” He grazed the back of his fingertips along his tender cheek and shook his head. “It will not happen.” He saw the alarm on her face then. And he liked it. “Good, you look sufficiently worried. I’ll leave you to your thoughts. And when I come back in . . .” He pulled out her husband’s pocket watch, flicked open the cover, and looked at it. “In three hours, you will tell me what I want to know.”

  Clewt gingerly closed the pocket watch and slipped it back into his pocket. Then he lifted free his sidearm, checked the cylinder slowly, rolling it along his arm and eyeing along the barrel. “Or I will send you away, to the same place I sent your husband. Is that understood?”

  He looked at her as if in sympathy, head cocked to the side, mouth pulled down at the corners in a frown. “I see by the shock in your eyes that it is. But I still need you to tell me that you understand what I have told you. Wouldn’t want there to be any question down the road. So, do you understand what I have asked? A simple head nod will do, my dear.”

  He watched as Sue Ellen nodded, though it appeared she still had to uphold the pretense of appearing confused by his request. No matter, she would soon comply. Or he would make certain she never again threw another china cup, never again pleased a man in the way only a woman can, never again enjoyed a sunset or sunrise, or whatever it was that such refined women took pleasure from.

  Clewt turned from her and left the room, gently closing the door behind him. He ventured out onto the porch and beckoned to his men, all there less one—Paco, the Mexican. “First things first. Rufus, I want you to go fetch Paco. Drag his sorry hide to that last latrine off yonder behind the cook shed.”

  “Then what, boss?” said the dim Southern man.

  Clewt sighed again. “Do I have to tell you when to breathe and how much, Rufus? You walk around to the back, lift that low, wide doorway. There will be a pit back under there where all the . . . ah, worked-over food goes. Yes?”

  The men all laughed, though nervously, Clewt was pleased to note, and Rufus’s face colored a deep crimson. “Sure.”

  “Good. Now when you have that door lifted, you give ol’ Paco a kick and push him in there. Okay?”

  “But, boss, that’s . . .”

  “Yes, Rufus? It’s what?”

  The tall Southerner looked at Clewt, then at the other boys. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I’ll do it.”

  “Good.” Clewt turned to the other men, but Rufus continued to stand there with them. Clewt arched an eyebrow. “Well? Get to it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  More snickers from the others trailed the ungainly Southerner as he walked toward the front gate. He stopped, hitched up his pants, and changed his direction toward the horse barn. More laughter reddened his face again. He didn’t look over at them, but Clewt knew the man was in a fluster, and not a little bothered by the request. Good, keep them all guessing and keep them worried that they might be treated that way next. He didn’t want any of them thinking they were special or would be treated any way but poorly by the boss.

  “The rest of you, I’ll give you ten minutes to saddle up, load every weapon you have—including the ones you’ve stolen from Winstead’s collection. Don’t think I haven’t noticed everything you’ve laid hands on. Just make sure they’re loaded, sharpened, and ready for use. Then meet back here. Ten minutes. Now . . . go!” He clapped his hands and shooed them away as if they were troublesome children. All but Paddy skedaddled.

  As Clewt watched them hustle toward the barn, shooting him nervous backward glances, he half wished he was saddling up and going with them. But he had more important matters to attend to.

  “Say, boss?”

  Paddy, the Irishman, walked over to where Clewt stood on the long low porch of the ranch house, enjoying one of his dang dog-turd smokes. They looked just like something a sick coyote would leave behind and smelled twice as bad. But the boss laid into them as if they were going out of style.

  “What can I do for you, Paddy?”

  The boss seemed in a slow, jovial mood. Paddy hoped it lasted long enough for him to get out what he had to say. “This little run you’re sending us on.”

  “Yeah? I expect you see why it needs to be done.”

  “Sure, sure, the man’s a snooper and needs to be taught one of our famous lessons, right?” He smiled, but the boss’s smile drooped. I’m losing him, thought Paddy.

  “What are you getting at, Paddy?”

  Out came the smoke, down came the boss’s lizardlike eyelids. “I’ve been with you the longest of all the current crop of fools, right?”

  “Tell me something I’m not su
re of, Paddy.”

  He smiled, but again, the Irishman received little else but the cold-eyed stare. But he knew he had to plow on through, get said what he needed to, then ride on out and . . . nothing would have changed, he knew. But at least he would get it off his chest. At least the boss would know where Paddy stood, that he refused to be played for a fool.

  “So that means I should be in on a . . . a good haul, eh?”

  “Yeah, Paddy. But I’m confused. We’ve been over this. So why bring this up now?” Clewt sighed and tossed the smoldering nub of cigar to the porch floor. He stamped it with a boot toe. “Look, you have work to do, right? And so do I. It’s your job to deal with that rawhider who keeps on showing up, killing my men, and making me angry—and slowing us down from getting rich. And while you’re up to that, it’s my job to find out from Mrs. Winstead just where the treasure is. I expect, given the modest, though not all that bad, condition of the place here, that Alton Winstead must have quite a bit left of that fortune. A heck of a lot of it, in fact.”

  Clewt smiled and clapped Paddy on the shoulder, gave it a shake in a friendly manner. “Look, Paddy, we’re in this together.” He leaned forward, narrowed his eyes, and looked right then left. “It’s me and you. Okay? That’s the way it always has been, that’s the way it always will be. Why in the heck do you think we’ve each lasted this long?”

  Paddy shrugged, not taking his eyes from the gang’s leader.

  Clewt backed up, extended his arms wide. “Because we’re a team, man! Those other fools are just that. Fools. I’m not afraid to say it. Neither of us would be where we are today if it weren’t for the other. And I hope, if you’re the one to find the treasure, that you’ll remember old Clewt. And likewise, if I happen to be the lucky one, then you can be certain I’ll hold off counting it up until you show your homely face, eh, Paddy?”

  Paddy stared at Clewt, finally forced a smile, knowing that what the man just said to him was nothing he hadn’t heard the likes of before. The man was notorious for telling people just what they wanted to hear, then doing whatever he needed to do to make off with whatever it was that happened to be at stake, be it a woman or a fortune or a horse or a bottle of snake oil to make the night pass quicker.

  “Okay, then, boss. I’ll make sure the boys do what needs doin’; then we’ll be back and we can help you find what it is we all came here for.”

  Smiles had all passed, and the two men, old friends, of a sort, eyed each other for a long moment, each understanding the other’s rough intentions and not daring to admit it, maybe not wanting to. Paddy broke, finally turned toward the barn to saddle up his Appaloosa. “Okay, then, we’ll be back . . . boss.” He nodded once in a curt manner and went to catch up with the boys.

  Paddy cursed himself silently, for he hadn’t done what he had intended, which was to make certain somehow that the boss wouldn’t kill her and leave him with nothing more than a handful of dead people and a tired horse.

  As Clewt watched Paddy head off to the barn, he shook his head and spoke to himself in a low voice. “Ain’t no way you’re going anywhere but in the outhouse. Maybe join Paco down there, rooting for treasure.” His husky laugh bookended the visit that had just happened between two old acquaintances.

  He sat down in the chair he had begun to favor, a fancy rocker that he guessed, from its size and thicker spindles, was the one of the two rockers on the porch that Alton Winstead had used. It made him feel good to be able to take advantage of every little thing that vile demon had left behind. A smile crept onto his rough face. Once he had the last bit of information he needed—the location of the rest of the treasure—then and only then would he allow himself to savor the very last thing of any worth that Alton had left behind. That thing was in the house behind him, struggling in her chair and wondering, he just bet, how she was going to escape.

  Clewt laughed as he watched Rufus ride his horse out to the gate, tie it, then struggle with Paco’s dead body. He lifted it, got the corpse’s head slapped against the saddle; then the horse fidgeted. The body pitched forward, landed with a thud that Clewt heard even from a distance. Then big gangly Rufus lost his footing and fell forward onto poor dead Paco.

  “Oh, you dang fool boy,” said Clewt, snickering into his hand.

  Rufus offered up a strangled cry like a young girl might make on being offered a box full of snakes. He tried twice more, and on his third attempt managed to drape the dead man over the saddle. He clamped a long arm over the canvas-wrapped body while he cursed at the horse and finally got the reins untied.

  It was a long time before he made his way back to within shouting distance. Clewt couldn’t resist. “You know, you could have just dragged him—I daresay Paco wouldn’t have minded at all. Especially not where he’s headed.”

  As he trudged by, Rufus, red-faced from his exertions, nodded but didn’t look up. “Yes, boss.”

  “Oh, Rufus?”

  The tall man stopped, swung his long face toward Clewt. “Yeah, boss?”

  “When you’ve finished with Paco, stick around. Don’t go with the other men. I have need for you here. The other boys are already saddled and headed out—loaded for bear.”

  “Bear, boss?”

  “In a manner of speaking, Rufus. They all are going on a hunting trip.” Clewt leaned back and dug a cigarillo out of his vest pocket. He giggled as he scratched a match to life and lit the little black cigar. I have no real reason to be so blamed happy, he thought. But I can’t help it. That unexpected and very annoying Ty Farraday will soon be got rid of, the woman of the house will come to her senses and see that I will not be bested, no matter the person, no matter the weather, no matter a single thing.

  And when I get what I came after, I will take care of the rest of these fools, maybe keep one along for good measure. The very man I cannot let the others think I am making too much of a pet out of. Keep him from whining or warping just yet.

  Chapter 17

  Stub carried Ty into the yard of the Rocking T at a hard gallop, lather worked up on the Morgan’s gleaming hide, the pack pony keeping up behind, its own body covered in sweat. Ty’s hat, pulled down low, shielded the rancher’s tight, grim face.

  Uncle Hob peg-legged out of the barn, a pail half filled with oats in one hand, and a three-tine hay fork in the other. Ty was pleased to see the man wore his old service revolver strapped high on his left side, just the right height for his drawing arm.

  “What’s this all about? You fixing to ride that fine Morgan to an early grave, boy?”

  Ty rode over to Hob and dismounted. “I don’t think we have much time, Uncle Hob.”

  “You stirred up a hornet’s nest, boy, didn’t you...?Heh-heh. Couldn’t have taught you better if’n you were my own.”

  As he led Stub to the corral rail and began stripping off the saddle, Ty said, “Yes, I do believe I stirred up a nest, all right. And what’s worse, I saw no sign of Sue Ellen. I have to go back, but judging from their reaction to my dumping off that dead man at the gate to the Double Cross, I’d say they’re not going to welcome me in through the front door.”

  “I’d say you’re right about that, boy. But what’s the hurry?”

  Ty stopped uncinching the saddle for the moment and looked over the horse’s back at Hob. “I hope I’m wrong, but my hunch is they’re going to ride this way, looking for me. If we thought last night was a shooting party, I think we’re in for a real corker. I hope I’m wrong.”

  As he expected, he saw not fear and shock on the old man’s lined face, but a spreading grim smile and gritted teeth. And a glint in his eyes that he’d not seen on Hob in a long, long time.

  “Oh, I hope so, too, boy. But hope never got anybody nowhere. Work and planning’s the only things that pay off in life. Now tell me, boy. How many are there and how ruthless do they seem?” Hob rubbed his hands together as if he were kindling flame between his horned old palms.


  Despite the possible dire situation, Ty couldn’t help but chuckle at the old lawman. He was genuinely excited at the prospect of trading shots with that foul pack of gunhounds.

  “Near as I can tell there are six left, plus their obvious ringleader, fella goes by the name of Clewt Duggins.”

  Hob’s smile slid like fat off a tipped griddle. “You . . . you sure about that name, are you?”

  “Yeah, why?” Now he had Ty’s attention.

  “Well,” Hob’s bony old Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, “if’n that’s the case, we’re going to need all the guns we can lay hands on. Plus a whole lot of luck.”

  Ty finished tugging the saddle of Stub’s back. “Hob, just out with it, will you? You know of this Clewt fella? You sure it’s the same hombre?”

  “I guess it must be. Who else would go by that name? No, has to be him. Describe him to me.”

  “Well, he’s about my height, dark hair he keeps combed back, dresses like he wishes he was a dandy, but he doesn’t quite have the manners for it. There’s a long scar down his left cheek, but both his cheeks are pocked anyway, probably from childhood, I’d guess. Oh, and he’s got a wooden leg!” Ty smiled and nodded. “But he’s got you beat, Uncle Hob.”

  “How’s that, you insolent boy?”

  “His tree’s full length.” Ty winked and lugged the saddle to the barn, shouting over his shoulder. “Walk with me, tell me what you know about this Duggins fella.”

  “Oh, he’s a snake in the grass. Lower than one, in fact. If he is the man I recall, and I’d guess he is, then we best take care. Murderous snake, he is. Last I heard tell, he was in a Mexican jail for all manner of thievery. Why they didn’t do us all a favor and kill him while they had the chance, I’ll never know. I’ll tell you more later. Right now, I’m off to the house to get out everything we have that shoots.”