Nightfall at Little Aces

by Ralph Cotton

  “You know which one I want, Skimmer,” Beck said in a calm voice.

  “But he didn’t murder anybody!” Emma insisted. “I told you. It was me!”

  “Explain it to her, Beck,” Skimmer said.

  “He doesn’t want you to hang for murder, Emma,” Beck said grimly. “He wants to kill you himself.” As he spoke he wondered if he could swing his legs around fast enough, wrap them around Skimmer, and hold him while Emma made a play for the gun. If only she could know that was what he had in mind and be ready to make a move.

  “Go on,” Skimmer instructed, still wearing his half smile of satisfaction.

  Beck shrugged. “With me he wins either way. I hang for murdering his brother, he gets the railroad reward anyway. A bullet in my head, he still gets paid.”

  “So, you see, lady, it’s pretty damn generous of me to give your boyfriend a choice. Right, Beck?”

  “You’re all heart, Skimmer,” Beck said flatly, his mind racing, wondering if he could count on Emma if he made a move. He knew there had been a time when she would be ready, just waiting for him to make such a move, but that had been a long time ago. He wasn’t sure of her now. Should he do it? Go on, do it! he coaxed himself. If he didn’t try she was dead anyway. He felt himself tense, his legs ready. Do it! Do it! All right, here goes!

  But before he could make his move, Skimmer stood up and took a step back, the Colt leveling down toward Emma’s head.

  “No!” Beck shouted, seeing that nothing he could do would save her.

  “Shut up!” Frank growled at Beck. Cocking the gun slowly as if drawing everything out to his satisfaction, he said to Emma, “So long, widow woman, see you in he—”

  His words stopped short as a bullet exploded through his shirt from behind. Only a few drops of Skimmer’s blood hit Emma, but it sprayed Beck from head to toe.

  Emma gasped. Skimmer’s gun was still pointed down at her as he rocked back and forth, his hand still trying to pull the trigger. “No! No!” she shouted as she rolled away, covering Memphis Beck, as if to keep him from getting shot.

  Another bullet exploded from the darkness as if triggered by the sound of her voice. This one sliced through Skimmer and exploded out of his chest six inches from the first. “Damn you…lady!” Skimmer managed to say in spite of his life spilling down his chest into the dirt at his feet.

  Four more shots ripped through him in rapid succession. Skimmer sank straight down slowly, the bullets seeming to climb up his chest until the last one caused his head to explode.

  “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” Emma murmured nervously as Skimmer hit his knees and toppled forward onto the burning lantern. Beneath him the oil spread quickly into a bed of fire.

  Seeing the fire from the lantern oil lick up around Skimmer’s lifeless body, Beck said, “Emma, get the key! Hurry!”

  Upon hearing the gunshots from the main street out in front of the bullet-riddled sheriff’s office, Bobby Vane shouted, “What the hell?” He looked back along the street at the other men’s shadowed faces in the glow of the streetlamps.

  Knowing that Skimmer was the only man not out along the main street, Colonel Elgin smiled smugly to himself and shouted, “Frank Skimmer has found them! Get back there, every one of you…lend him a hand!”

  “Right away, Colonel,” said Jack Strap, turning to hurry toward the sound of gunfire.

  “No, not you, Strap!” said Elgin. “I’m keeping you and my best men around me….”

  Chapter 23

  At the far end of town, Sheriff Gale and the ranger had stepped down from their horses at the time the fierce shooting started in the alleyway behind Emma’s house. Just out of the glow of a streetlamp, the ranger saw the worried look on Gale’s face. “Oh no, Emma!” he shouted. He bolted toward the sound of gunfire and the orange fire of the broken lantern Skimmer had fallen upon. Sam tried to grab his arm and stop him, but Gale moved too quickly.

  “Don’t run in there, Sheriff. They’ll kill you,” the ranger called out to him, knowing their voices were being heard up along the street. But Gale would have none of it. He ran from the main street toward the sound of gunfire even as the gunmen who’d stayed with the colonel started firing in the ranger’s direction.

  “They’re not in the alleys!” the colonel shouted from farther up the wide dirt street to the men who’d gone running at the sound of gunfire. “They’re right here…on the street!”

  With bullets whistling blindly past his head, Sam dived farther out of the streetlamp glow, onto a boardwalk, and ran in a crouch around the corner of a building. There was nothing he could do for the sheriff now. All he could think about was staying alive.

  Fifteen yards away Jack Strap and the Romanian came to a halt beside a stack of shipping crates out in front of the Little Aces Overland Stage Company. They had hurried ahead of the colonel and surrounding top guns, remembering how the ranger had left them afoot up on the high trail.

  “Here’s our chance to even old scores, Vlak,” Jack Strap said, hugging his back against the wooden crates. He peeped around the corner and called out to the darkness where he’d seen the ranger leap away from the outer edge of the lamplight, “It’s Jack Strap and Vlak Blesko, Ranger! We haven’t forgotten about you!”

  Sam looked around the corner of the building without answering. Seeing the crates where the voice came from, and seeing the dark shadowy silhouettes moving from cover to cover along the street beyond, he raised his rifle to his shoulder. He knew he would have to shoot and run, to keep the gunmen from homing in on his muzzle flash.

  Behind the crates, Strap asked in a whisper, “Are you ready, Vlak?”

  “I’m ready,” Vlak replied. Yet as the two prepared to make a run toward the spot where they’d last seen the ranger, they saw Mike the Fist Holland step out into the grainy edge of lamplight on the other side of the street. No sooner had the detective made the move than a shot from the ranger’s rifle knocked him backward to the ground.

  Without hesitation, the Romanian saw the flash of the ranger’s gun barrel and returned fire, rapidly. But before his third shot struck the corner of the building where the ranger had fired from, a shot thumped into the wooden crate from a different position. “He has already moved!” said Vlak.

  “Then move with him, damn it!” said Strap. As soon as he’d spoken, he leaned around the corner of the crates and fired wildly along the dark street.

  This was how it would be, Sam told himself, levering another round into the rifle chamber as he watched a shadowy figure move along the boardwalk toward him. He could hold off his share of the colonel’s men. But in the distance he heard the shots continue from the alley behind the Vertrees cottage. He hoped the sheriff could do as well….

  In the alley, Joe Graft lay on his back, his hands clasped to the gaping wound in his chest, breathing heavily through his recently broken nose. “Who the hell…shot me?” he murmured to himself, staring up at the starless sky.

  Curtis Clay did not answer, although he sat only a few feet away, deftly reloading his big Remington.

  Scattered throughout the alleyway on both sides, and through the empty brush-covered lots on each side of the Vertrees cottage, the detectives fired back and forth wildly. Streaks of orange-blue fire split the darkness. Clay’s eyes caught glimpses of the gunfire, but only dimly, as he closed the Remington’s cylinder, stood up in a crouch, and centered his hearing on his next target.

  “It came from Joe, over here!” said Fletus Belton, running through brush firing as he raced toward his downed companion. But no sooner had he shouted and fired than Clay’s shot slammed into his chest, picked him up, and flung him backward into the brush.

  The detective’s gunfire grew heavier upon seeing and hearing the shot that killed Belton. But Clay wasn’t worried. He stooped down and walked away in a crouch, knowing by heart the thin footpath that he himself had worn into the ground through many years of him and Little Dog walking the vacant lots of a night. When he’d gone a few yards, working his w
ay closer to the buggy, he turned and listened closely to the sound of footsteps running through the brush toward him.

  In the darkness Carlos Richards cursed aloud as he ran in the direction of the bullet that had silenced Joe Graft. He saw the sudden flash and heard the explosion, yet he hardly knew what hit him when Clay stood up, unseen, only twenty feet in front of him and fired.

  Clay heard the sound of Carlos’ body tumble through the brush and come to a silent halt.

  Shots exploded anew from the rest of the men as Clay moved away, calmly, unhurriedly inside his pitch-black world. In the darkest night only the blind have eyes, he told himself somberly.

  As soon as Skimmer’s body had fallen forward and begun burning, Emma had wasted no time reaching in quickly and getting the key from his hip pocket as the flames grew dangerously close to her hand. As shots began erupting, she’d managed to loosen the cuffs from Beck’s wrists and tossed them aside as he rose to his feet, bullets whistling past them.

  “Let’s go!” he shouted, grabbing her arm, shoving her up into the buggy, and scrambling in right behind her. Slapping the reins to the buggy horse, Beck sent it bolting forward, his horse hurrying along behind. Looking back, she saw Sheriff Gale run into the firelight of Skimmer’s burning body and look all around for her, calling out, “Emma? Emma?” He stared in the direction of the buggy as if having seen her, and now searched the darkness she’d disappeared into.

  Looking back at him, she saw him suddenly bolt upright, his arms spread wide as a bullet sliced through him.

  “Oh no, the sheriff’s hit!” she said.

  “We can’t go back, Emma,” Beck said, giving her only a sidelong glance in the darkness as he continued slapping the reins to the buggy horse. “He knew his risks, he took his chances.”

  “I know,” she said, turning her face forward with determination. “That’s what Dillard always told me.” Behind them bullets still exploded, but the sound soon began to grow distant as the buggy rolled on, away from town where streaks of fire split back and forth across the night.

  On the street, the ranger had noticed the waning of gunfire as a glow of orange flame and greasy black smoke spiraled upward from Skimmer’s burning body and the surrounding dried brush, wild grass, and bracken across the alley. He’d heard the sheriff cry out for Emma Vertrees and he’d heard his voice cut short.

  Sam knew what that meant, but he had no time to slow down and see about the sheriff right now. If Sheriff Gale had gotten himself wounded or killed trying to protect the woman he loved, so be it. Sam understood. But whether Gale was wounded or dead, the ranger’s purpose now was to keep from joining him.

  Sam knew the clock was ticking. The cover of night was his only advantage against so many men. But at the end of the night, the advantage would fall to the detectives. He needed to thin down the odds while he could, he reminded himself, raising his rifle to his shoulder, ready to fire and keep moving.

  Up the street Filo Heath stood beside the colonel. He’d abandoned his photo equipment for the night and taken a rifle from his saddle boot in order to join the fight. Feeling secure in the cover of total darkness where the streetlamps had been put out, he ventured a step forward and took it upon himself to call out, “Ranger, when this is over I promise to take a nice photo of you tied to a board and mail to your fam—”

  “Filo, shut up, you fool!” the colonel shouted. But his words came too late. A blossom of gunfire exploded, not from the end of the street where the ranger had been firing from, but from the mouth of the alleyway almost straight across from the colonel and his remaining top gunmen.

  “Oh!” Filo said, sinking down sideways onto the ground. He caught himself with his free hand, his other hand clasping the bullet wound in his side for a moment. “I’m…shot,” he said in disbelief. Then he turned limp in death and fell into the dirt.

  “You damn fool!” the colonel raged, even as he and the others fled from Heath’s body and took cover beside a building. Lowering his voice, the colonel said, “I saw the shot, it came from over there. Who the hell is it?”

  “Blast whoever it is!” Pale Lee shouted, firing as he did so.

  As the men fired across at the alley, Curtis Clay had already turned and hurriedly felt his way along the building, back into the alley. As the men fired on Clay, from his end of the street the ranger quickly sent round after round of rifle fire into their midst, one grazing Pale Lee’s leg. The other shot hit the colonel in his left shoulder. He staggered backward, leaned against the side of the building, and caught his breath.

  “All right, that’s enough of this!” the colonel demanded when the impact of the rifle shot began wearing off. “I want this place lit up like a noonday sun!” He felt all around until his hand closed on Pale Lee’s arm. “Get some men and build a fire, set the empty building ablaze. We can’t keep stumbling around in the dark…it’s not working!”

  “Set it on fire, Colonel?” said Pale Lee. “What are the railroad owners going to say when word of it gets back to them?”

  “To hell with the railroad owners!” the colonel shouted, enraged. “It won’t matter if we’re all dead! Set it ablaze and let any townsmen know they’re to stay back and let it burn.” He bowed his head and shook it closely, grateful no one could see him in the pitch-dark. “All of our detectives…our whole damned posse, and we haven’t managed to kill two lousy lawmen….”

  From his latest position beside the telegraph office, the ranger watched flames grow from the size of three torches into licking flames. He could have fired on the torches as the three men carried them into the building, but he wasn’t ready to give up his new spot just yet. He knew the colonel had the rest of his men watching closely for him as the torch men rushed inside the empty land title building.

  Besides, he told himself, he needed time to reload and let the colonel and his men wonder where he’d disappeared to. Lying still, he took a few minutes, a few deep breaths, and reloaded his rifle while he watched the flames grow and swell, reaching out the windows and up the sides of the vacant building. Then he levered a round into the rifle chamber, looked up along the roofline, which would soon be the only part of town not exposed by firelight, and moved away as quietly as a ghost.

  From the vacant lot to the right of Emma’s cottage, Curtis Clay stopped and stooped down long enough to sniff the smell of burning wood and listen to the crackle of the growing fire coming from the main street. He still held the big Remington in his right hand. His left hand cupped his forehead, where blood ran down freely from the gash in his forehead.

  “You did well, Curtis Clay,” he murmured to himself, standing in a crouch and moving along now on the familiar footpath back toward his shack. He grinned and chuckled aloud at the throbbing knot beneath the deep bloody gash. “For a blind man in a gunfight…you did a real fine job.”

  When he got to the shack, he slipped inside and stood for a moment listening for the sound of anyone behind him. Once satisfied that no one had followed him, he stepped across the shack toward the gentle batting sound of Little Dog’s tail tapping on the bed. “Ah, I hear you there, awake,” Clay said quietly. “You must be feeling better, wagging your old ragged tail.”

  Sitting down on the side of the bed, he laid the Remington down and said to the dog, “Well, I busted my fool head on something out there. But it’ll be all right. It’ll be sore for a few days, but it’s worth it, Little Dog. You and I can convalesce together.”

  He sat slumped in silence for a few minutes, his bloody forehead in his left hand, his Remington hanging from his right, almost touching the floor. Finally he said in a more gentle, serious tone, “I saved the woman, Little Dog. Saved her just like I always knew I could when the time come.”

  Tears welled up in Clay’s cloudy sightless eyes with pride. “I helped the lawmen too…I sure enough did. Nobody’ll ever know it. I’ll never tell. But I did my part for Little Aces…for our town, just like anybody would.” The tears spilled and ran freely down his face with the fres
h streaks of blood. “Lord have mercy, yes.” He laid his hand on the dog’s side and rubbed it gently as it licked his hand. “I sure enough did….”

  Chapter 24

  The colonel’s men had set the fire and left the building quickly, knowing they would make good targets amid the firelight. Once away from the fire, they’d taken cover and waited, silent, watchful, the flames reflecting in their guarded eyes. “Think maybe he gave up and left?” a new man whispered beside Bobby Vane.

  Vane just gave him a look.

  “Well, he could have,” the young man said.

  “Who are you?” Vane asked quietly.

  “I’m Chris Denver the Third,” the young man said. “I rode in the other day with Detective Hodges and the others.”

  “Denver…Oh yeah,” said Vane, “you’re the one whose pa is friends with one of the rail owners.”

  “Yes, that’s correct,” said the young man, his tone turning stronger now that his name had been recognized.

  “Your pa wanted you to get some dirt on your hands, so to speak, between classes?” Vane gave a smug grin.

  “I suppose getting some practical experience is part of it,” said the young man.

  “Practical experience…” Vane shook his head and spat, looking along the shadowy street at the dead lying strewn in their grim twisted repose. After a silent moment of staring at the crackling, licking flames, Vane said, “How’s it working out for you so far?”

  “I have to admit, I find it a bit distressing,” the young man said. “This ranger is willing to kill and die over two men who would have hanged anyway? That makes no sense to me.” He shook his head slowly, deeply pondering the matter as firelight flickered in his wire-rimmed spectacles.

  “Unless you scratch really deep for it, most things men fight and die for make no sense, especially to men who won’t kill or die for anything. That’s the practical experience your pa was looking for, I’m guessing.”