Riding Shotgun

by William W. Johnstone

  Red Ryan made up his mind. “All right, everybody, back in the coach,” he said.

  Stella Morgan smiled and said, “Red, are we continuing our journey to Fort Bliss?”

  Ryan saw the look of triumph on Carter’s face, and much as it troubled him to do it, he said, “Yes, Stella, we are.”

  The woman got up on tiptoe and kissed Red on the cheek. “Thank you, Red. You’re a brave, wonderful man.”

  “Thank Buttons,” Red said. “This is his idea.”

  * * *

  Buttons Muldoon swung the stage away from the charnel house that was the bloodstained northern slope of Ketchum Mountain. Red Ryan looked back at the scattered bodies of the troopers, tangles of blue against stone. How still they were, how quiet and uncomplaining in their endless night . . . dead men don’t bewail their cruel fate. That is a luxury reserved only for the living.

  His heart heavy, Red lowered the rim of his derby against the sun and turned his attention to the trail ahead, aware of the rhythms of the horses and the creaking coach.

  Four hundred miles to Fort Bliss.

  He tried not to think about it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The four Roper brothers were scavengers who feasted on the misery and bad luck of others. So far, apart from one isolated farmhouse, their hunt for plunder had been disappointing. Behind them they’d left a dead sodbuster, his young wife who’d begged for death long before the Ropers finished with her, and a baby boy abandoned to die in his cradle. Pickings had been mighty slim, twenty-three dollars and eighteen cents in cash, a nickel watch, a shotgun, a gold wedding band, and a woman’s flowered straw hat that Barney, the youngest Roper, took a fancy to and wore in place of his ragged peaked cap.

  “Seth, I say we head back to El Paso,” Eldon Roper said, addressing the oldest brother. “There’s nothing for us out here.”

  “There’s nothing for us back in El Paso either, except a noose for Jake,” Seth said.

  “She was only a whore,” Jake Roper said. “Hell, she told me she liked it rough.”

  “But not so rough that you broke her damned neck,” Seth said. “You don’t know your own strength, boy.” He reached into his saddlebags and brought out a bottle. After taking a swig he gave it to Barney. “Pass it around.”

  Barney took a drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then said, “Seth, you reckon them rumors we heard about Apaches are true?”

  “You seen any?” Seth said. A mirror image of his brothers, he was a tall, heavily built and handsome man with hard, black eyes and the predatory instincts of a lobo wolf.

  “You know we ain’t seen any,” Barney said.

  “Folks say all kind of things that ain’t true,” Seth said. “Do you recollect the story of the boy who cried wolf? How many times have we heard somebody say, ‘Run! Run! the Apaches are out!’ and it was all a pack of damned lies?”

  “So, what do we do, Seth?” Barney said.

  “Keep on going until we reach the Brazos. Bound to be settlements around there, and maybe sodbusters ready to be picked clean.”

  “Ranches too,” Eldon said.

  Seth shook his head. “No, you damned fool. Remember what I’ve always told you, that we steer well clear of ranches. Ranches mean punchers and punchers mean guns. Heed what I say, we don’t want to get into a shooting scrape with a tough rancher and a bunch of riled-up Texas waddies. Just no future in it.”

  Seth grabbed the bottle from Eldon and put it back in the saddlebags. “The way my thinking is inclined, is to find us a nice, fat farm, one with women on it, and winter there,” he said. “Come spring, we get rid of the women and ride on.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” Eldon said. “Barney, Jake, what about you?”

  The brothers nodded, and Jake said, “Hell, we only need one woman, come to that.”

  “One like that last little gal, you mean?” Seth said. “Share and share alike, that’s the motto of the Roper brothers, ain’t it?”

  Jake grinned, let loose a wild rooster crow, and yelled, “Share and share alike, that’s—” Whatever the man was going to say was choked off as, a stupid expression on his face, he looked down at the feathered arrow that had entered his throat just above the Adam’s apple and protruded three inches out the back of his neck.

  * * *

  With a patience and endurance alien to a white man, the eight Mescaleros had been lying in wait for two hours, fully aware that the four men riding good horses would eventually come to them. A distance away, in the hollow between a pair of shallow hills, two of the younger warriors stayed with the war ponies and would not take part in the ambush.

  Short, stocky men with broad faces and barrel chests, the Apaches seemed to rise out of the ground, out of the blasting heat that was a living thing . . . out of the depths of hell.

  An arrow took Eldon, a bullet smashed into Jake, killing them both, and to save his own skin, Seth Roper gave Barney to the Mescalero.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he shot the youngster’s horse out from under him and then savagely rowel-raked his own mount into a wild gallop. The sudden move surprised the Indians, and by the time they recovered and shot at Seth, he was bent over in the saddle beyond their range. The warriors didn’t pursue . . . not when there was good sport to be had close at hand.

  When Barney’s horse fell, he jumped clear and landed on his feet. He saw Seth gallop into the distance, trailing dust, and knew with a spike of anger mixed with terror that his faithless brother had sacrificed him. Barney turned and ran, stumbling through the long grass in the high-heeled boots he’d once taken from a murdered puncher. Made on a narrow last, the boots were for riding, not walking, certainly not for running. He staggered on, screeching his fear, cursing his faithless brother.

  The grinning Apaches thought this splendid and teased him mercilessly, driving him around and around in circles. The young warriors ran alongside Barney Roper, beating him with their bows and riding quirts, and when he tripped and fell they kicked him to his feet again. Barney’s first serious wound happened when he tried to draw his gun, unhandy in the pocket of his ragged Union army greatcoat. As he fumbled the Remington clear, a young Mescalero slashed at his hand with the razor edge of a hunting knife. Barney shrieked as he saw his severed right thumb and forefinger fall to the grass at his feet. That shriek, torn from the white-hot depths of his pain and terror, was destined to be the first of many.

  Finally tiring of the chase, the Apaches settled down and worked on Barney for a long, long time with fire and hooks and pincers and red-hot steel, and after seven hours of torture that took him to the screaming, screeching, gibbering pinnacles of torment, he died cursing his brother, his God, and the mother who bore him.

  Later the Mescalero talked among themselves for a while and agreed that the white man had died badly. They were sorely disappointed because no power had been gained from Barney Roper’s cowardly death.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Red Ryan watched the rider appear from out of a dancing heat haze and swing his horse toward the stage. The team was resting, and the passengers stretched their legs, the women walking back and forth through the long grass, talking.

  “You see him, Buttons?” Red said.

  “I see him. White man. Civilian. Maybe one of Colonel Grierson’s missing scouts.”

  “Could be,” Red said. “Well, let him come and hear what he has to say.”

  “Keep your scattergun handy,” Buttons said. “He may be a road agent.”

  Red smiled. “He’s a bold one if he is.”

  Lucian Carter stood beside Red, and his eyes searched into the distance.

  “Somebody coming,” he said.

  “We see him,” Buttons said.

  “Apache?” Carter said.

  “No. He sits his horse like a white man.”

  “So how does a white man sit his horse?” Carter said, displaying the sneering, superior smile that set Red’s teeth on edge.

  “He don’t have the same confid
ence in his mount as an Indian has,” Buttons said.

  “And it shows,” Red said. “At least some of the time.”

  “Like now,” Buttons said. “And that is one tuckered-out hoss the feller is riding.”

  Red Ryan cradled his Greener in his arms as the rider came within talking distance and drew rein. “Howdy,” Red said, prepared to be sociable, but he didn’t like the look of the man. He’d seen frontier trash before . . . and looked into the cold eyes of killers . . . and this man was both.

  “And a howdy right back,” the man said. “Name’s Seth Roper, and I’m headed for the Brazos. Got kinfolk there on my Ma’s side.”

  “On a lathered hoss, huh?” Buttons said.

  “Ran into Apaches a couple of miles back. Had to make a run for it,” Roper said. His eyes roamed, dismissed the two army wives, and settled on Stella Morgan. “See you got some mighty fine womenfolk with you.”

  Red ignored that and said, “Which way were those Apaches headed? We figured they were raising hob well east of here.”

  Roper shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know which way they were headed, and I was too busy running from them to care.”

  Red gave the rider a second look, measuring the man. Roper wore a black frock coat over a collarless shirt, gray with ingrained dirt around the neck, and pants shoved into the tops of expensive boots. He carried a holstered Colt on his hip, a Winchester under his knee and looked as though he knew how to use both.

  In all, Seth Roper cut an ominous, dangerous figure, black hair, black eyes, and in Ryan’s snap judgment, black heart.

  But apparently, that was not how the man appeared to Lucian Carter.

  “We’re headed for Fort Bliss up El Paso way,” Carter said. “With the Indians on the warpath and all, you’re welcome to ride along. We can always use another gun.”

  “That may be true, but, mister, it will cost you two hundred dollars to ride in the stage,” Buttons Muldoon said.

  “He can ride on top until his horse is rested,” Carter said.

  “Fifty dollars to ride on top,” Buttons said. “One mile or four hundred, it don’t make no difference. That’s the policy of the Patterson company, and I am its agent.”

  Seth Roper stared at Buttons, the cold, fixed stare one man gives another before the draw and shoot. But Buttons had been up that trail a time or three before and would not be intimidated.

  Finally, Roper said, “All right, I’ll ride along part of the way with you. I’ll let my horse rest a spell here and catch up.”

  Prepared to take the man at more than face value, at least for now, Red said, “Nolan’s Station is forty miles ahead of us and we should reach it before dark. Maybe Emmett Nolan will trade horses with you.”

  “Mister, nobody takes this horse,” Roper said. “Not now, not ever.”

  “Just a suggestion,” Red said, the man falling in his estimation again.

  Roper swung from the saddle, lit a cigar, and then walked his horse to where Carter stood. The two of them drew off a few yards and immediately began a whispering conversation.

  “Them two got cozy right quick,” Buttons said to Red.

  “Yeah, seems like.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know what they’re saying?”

  “None of my business.”

  “Maybe it is your business.”

  “No, the safety of this stage is my business, and right now I’m more worried about Apaches than I am about conversations.”

  “Red, you really think the Apaches will hit us?” Buttons said.

  “I wish I knew the answer to that question, but I sure as hell don’t,” Ryan said.

  He turned to the passengers. “Everybody back in the stage. Next stop Nolan’s Station. Antelope steak and beans for dinner, I’m sure, but Nolan’s wife makes the best bear sign in Texas.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tired horses and hilly country slowed the stage, and by the time Nolan’s Station came in sight Buttons Muldoon had lit the side lamps against the fading daylight. Seth Roper had caught up an hour before and rode point. The man seemed as concerned about Apaches as Red Ryan was, and he carried his Winchester upright, the butt on his thigh, his head moving constantly.

  Suddenly Roper raised his arm and called a halt.

  Buttons drew rein on the team and said, “What the hell . . .”

  Roper turned his horse, rode back to the stage and said, “Something is happening at the station, and it don’t look good.”

  “Hell, there’s always happenings at a stage stop,” Buttons said, scowling at the man.

  But Red Ryan’s gaze reached across distance and he said, “It’s Apaches, Buttons. Looks like they’re looting the place.”

  “Have they seen us?” Buttons said.

  “Not yet, but they will,” Red said. He made up his mind, bent over in his seat, and called out, “Carter, climb up here on top. You ladies get down between the seats. Roper, you lead us in. We’ll charge at a gallop right down their damn throats.”

  Seth Roper was a frontier ruffian, but he was smart. He knew very well that the stage couldn’t outrun the Apaches and it would be a disaster if they were caught out in the open. Attacking with only four fighting men didn’t seem like a good idea either. Roper thought about making a run for it on his own, but dismissed the idea. He’d very quickly reached an understanding with Lucian Carter, one desperado to another, and the stakes were too high for him to turn his back on the money involved.

  “Ready when you are, Ryan,” Roper said. “I hope you’ve got the belly for a fight.”

  “When it comes to fighting, you can try me any time, Roper,” Red said, irritated by the man’s arrogance.

  Roper laughed and said, “One day I might just take you up on that.”

  The stage rocked as Lucian Carter climbed on top. He braced his legs against Stella Morgan’s large steamer trunk, drew his guns, and said, “Ryan, I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”

  Buttons hoorawed the horses into motion and yelled over his shoulder at Carter, “No, he don’t!”

  * * *

  The Apaches were preoccupied, three with Nolan’s woman, four others leading horses out of the barn, and they didn’t heed the stage until it was right on top of them. One of the Indians with the horses whooped in alarm when he saw the thundering, dust-clouded coach bearing down on him. He snapped off a shot from his rifle . . . and the fight was on.

  Buttons hauled the team to a shuddering halt and immediately a tall warrior with a broad, painted face came at Red Ryan through the following dust cloud, a Colt in his fist. The Apaches were not noted revolver fighters, and the Indian’s shot missed, splitting the air close to Red’s left ear. Red let the man have both barrels of the Greener in the face, and the Apache’s features instantly disappeared in a scarlet mess, like a raspberry pie dropped on a bakery floor. Red threw down his shotgun, drew his Colt, and jumped from his seat. Events flickered fast around him, a real-life magic-lantern show that revealed images for just a fleeting moment before they were gone. Red saw an Apache fall to Carter’s roaring guns, and then another . . . damn, the man was good! Roper fought his rearing horse and then fired at a half-naked warrior who’d just rolled off Mrs. Nolan. Surprised by the attack, dulled by his lust, the Apache grabbed his rifle, climbed out of the wagon bed, and staggered to his feet. Roper shot the man down and then spurred his mount toward a couple of warriors who stood in the doorway of the barn, both of them firing, making a fight of it.

  Red left those two to Roper and met a pair who’d been ravishing the now-unconscious woman. The range was close. A bullet burned across the meat of Ryan’s left shoulder and another kicked a startled exclamation point of dust inches from his boots. Red Ryan’s name was always mentioned when men talked about shootists and the new breed of Texas draw fighters, and that evening at Nolan’s Station he proved himself worthy of his reputation. At a range of just five yards, he thumbed off two shots and dropped both Apaches. One was dead when he hit the ground, the second, p
art of his left cheekbone torn away by Red’s bullet, gamely tried to work his Winchester but the effort proved too much for him and, his black eyes glittering with hatred, he spat his defiance at Ryan, kneeled, and waited for the bullet . . . that never came.

  The young warrior had sand and Red was willing to let him die on his own terms.

  But Buttons Muldoon didn’t see it that way.

  As far as he was concerned a wounded Apache buck with a rifle close by was an imminent danger, and three bullets from his revolver hammered the Indian into the ground.

  “Taking chances, ain’t you, Red?” Buttons yelled, his Remington trailing smoke.

  “I guess I’m getting soft in my old age,” Ryan said.

  “And you only thirty-five,” Buttons said. “Don’t get any softer, not when Apaches are around.”

  Red took in the gunsmoke-shrouded scene, his gun ready in his hand. But the Battle of Nolan’s Station, as it would come to be called, was over. Six Mescaleros were dead and one wounded. That quickly became seven dead when Lucian Carter put a bullet though the head of the injured warrior.

  Then Seth Roper called out, “Ryan, you better come over here.”

  The gunman stood beside the wagon where Maud Nolan lay on her back. As he walked toward the woman, Red saw that she was plump, pretty . . . and out of her mind.