Between Hell and Texas

by Ralph Cotton

  A silence seemed to engulf the land as he waited for her answer. After a moment of thoughtful pause, Carmelita said, “There is plenty of room. Si, you can stay here.”

  “No,” he said, I mean with you. Can I stay here with you?”

  Carmelita gazed off along the Old Spanish Trail as if considering it further. A hot breeze swept a strand of dark hair across her face. She pushed it back with her fingertips. “Si,” she said at length, “You can stay here…with me.”

  After the incident with Cray Dawson in the Silver Seven Saloon, Henry Snead spent the next week recounting the story for anyone who would still listen. Martin Lematte had given the bartender a nod, letting him know that Snead’s drinks were on the house. Having Snead around telling his fight story was good for business, Lematte thought, whether Karl Nolly agreed with him or not. Lematte and Nolly noted that the story had changed some over the past few days. Now Henry had actually found a way to make it sound like Dawson had made the first move. No one could dispute Snead’s version, not even the ones who had been there the night it happened. It had happened so quickly, the only one who could give the details was Henry himself. And with Lematte backing his every word, Snead’s story became more and more daring each time he repeated it.

  “I can’t listen to any more of this,” Nolly said to Lematte, the two of them standing at the bar only a few feet away from Snead and a gathering of thirsty miners.

  “Stick around,” Lematte chuckled, rolling the black cigar in his mouth, taking a long draw on it. “He’s getting to the part where he saw Dawson going for his gun, but he knocked it out of his hand before he could get it cocked and aimed.”

  “No, thanks,” said Nolly. “I’ve got better things to do than listen to a rooster crowing over his own comb.”

  “The trouble with you, Nolly,” said Lematte, grinning, “is that you never look at the full line of possibilities life has to offer.”

  “I look at things for what they are,” said Nolly, half turning from the bar as he tossed back his drink and set the empty glass on the bar top. Nodding toward Henry Snead, he said to Lematte in a lowered voice, “That thick-headed fool better hope Cray Dawson doesn’t come back here and make him eat all his lies one word at a time.” He gave Lematte a quick look up and down, saying, “And you better hope Dawson doesn’t connect us to what happened here. I ain’t writing the man off. It wasn’t no small thing he did taking down the Talbert Gang. He ain’t to be taken lightly.”

  “You’re worrying too much, Nolly,” said Lematte with confidence, puffing his cigar. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll send out a couple of the boys to check on him. Word has it he’s staying at a shack north of here…the place used to belong to his family.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, send them on,” said Nolly. “I’d like to know what his moves are before he makes them. Just tell whoever you send not to go stirring things up any more than they already are.”

  “Consider it done,” said Lematte, dismissing the subject with the toss of a hand.

  “Good.” Nolly stepped away. As he raised his hat to put it on, he saw three men in black linen suits walk into the saloon and look around at the gambling and drinking with an expression of disgust. “Here comes the town council again,” he said sidelong to Lematte.

  “Yes, I see them. Let me handle them. It’s time I crack the whip on this bunch of town sheep…show them who’s running things now.”

  “Yeah,” said Nolly, settling back beside Lematte now that it looked like they might have some business to attend to. “I’ll just hang around here in case they decide to get hardheaded.”

  The three men stopped a few feet back from the bar as if coming any closer might distract them from their task at hand. “Sheriff Lematte, we need to talk to you,” said a tall, thin councilman with bushy gray hair and a wide handlebar mustache.

  “Well, of course, Councilman Freedman,” said Lematte with a broad smile, taking his time. He nodded at the other two councilmen, saying, “Howdy Councilman Deavers…Councilman Tinsdale. Step up to the bar, let me buy you gentlemen a drink.”

  “Naw-sir,” said Councilman Freedman, “we didn’t come here to socialize. We came here to straighten a few things out.”

  “Really now?” said Lematte, his smile fading, his expression turning harsh. “And just what things are there that need to be straightened out?” Lematte looked around the large saloon, spotting two of his deputies.

  “There’s plenty that has to be talked about,” said Alex Freedman. “This town is being turned into a cesspool of gambling, whoring and crime! You were elected to uphold the laws of this town…not twist them into a way of fleecing honest citizens and keeping our modest womenfolk too frightened and ashamed to walk the streets!”

  “Is that so?” Lematte asked absently.

  “Damn right, that’s so!” said the enraged councilman. “And that’s just the half of it! I’ve found out about you, about what you tried to pull in Hide City! You didn’t get away with it there and you’re not getting away with it here! You’re not taking over Somos Santos!”

  “Is that a fact?” said Lematte, appearing a bit stung by the councilman’s words. “Let me get you to repeat all that to my deputies.” He raised a hand and drew three of his deputies toward the bar from amid the gambling crowd.

  One of the deputies, a young Arkansan named Joe Poole, carried a long black bullwhip coiled on his shoulder. A crooked cigarette dangled from his lips. On his wrists he wore leather riding gauntlets trimmed with silver studs. “What’s the problem, Sheriff?” Poole asked Lematte.

  “No problem, Deputy,” Lematte answered Poole, staring into the councilman’s eyes. “But hand me that whip and stand by. The good councilman here wants to tell you and everybody else what I can and can’t do in Somos Santos.” He gave Freedman a tight scowl, then said to Poole, “I might have some cleanup work that needs doing later.”

  “Sure thing,” said Poole, slipping the whip from his shoulder and pitching it onto the bar near Lematte’s right arm.

  “Now see here, Sheriff!” said Councilman Freedman. “I won’t be frightened off by you and your monkeys!”

  “Who you calling a monkey?” said Poole, adjusting the gauntlets on his wrists, taking a step toward Freedman.

  “Take it easy, Deputy,” said Lematte, picking up the bullwhip and letting it uncoil down to the floor. “I’m certain our good Councilman Freedman meant no offense. He’s simply gotten himself caught up in the fervor of the moment…wanting to reveal my failings in Hide City.” He shook the whip out loosely, giving the councilmen a flat, menacing grin. “Isn’t that right, Freedman?”

  “Well, I—” Freedman’s words cut short as he glanced around and saw the other two councilmen shy back away from him, leaving him standing on a small clearing of floor as a crowd began to gather around. “I did hear some things…” He swallowed a knot in his throat and continued, his voice having lost most of its strength and determination. “Enough to know that we won’t tolerate such a thing happening here.”

  Lematte stood puffing his cigar, letting Freedman talk while the other two deputies slipped up behind him. When they were in position, Lematte shouted quickly, “Grab him, Deputies!”

  The deputies, Hogo Metacino and Eddie Grafe, grabbed Freedman by his arms and held him. He struggled in an effort to resist their grasp. But only for a moment. Then, seeing he was powerless against the two men, he turned to Lematte and said, “You won’t get away with this! I’ll see to it you face charges for this if it’s the last thing I do!”

  “Careful now,” Lematte warned, “it just might be.” To Joe Poole he said, “Get a rope.” Turning to the two deputies holding Freedman, he said, “Tie his arms out along the bar.” He cracked the whip again as if loosening it up.

  “Sheriff, please, for God sakes!” said one of the other councilmen. “You can’t do this! Freedman is the head councilman for this town!”

  “Oh, I see. Then perhaps you’d like to take his plac
e?” Lematte asked.

  The two councilmen stepped back, a look of terror on their faces. They watched the deputies press Freedman against the bar and stretch his arms out along the edge. Deputy Hogo Metacino laughed and hooted aloud as he grabbed both tails of the councilman’s linen swallowtail coat and ripped the back open all the way up to the collar. He did the same with Freedman’s white shirt. “Somebody do something, please!” Freedman pleaded, trying to glance over his shoulder at the other councilmen.

  “Just to clear up any further misunderstanding about whether or not I already have taken over this town,” said Lematte, disregarding Freedman and cracking the whip again in the air beside him. “I want everybody here to see that I and I alone crack the whip in this town from now on!” As the deputies tied ropes around Freedman’s wrists and stretched his arms out along the bar, Lematte stepped in close to the trembling man’s face and said, “You want to know what went wrong for me in Hide City? I’ll tell you what went wrong! I was too damn easy on the town leaders. But I’m not making that mistake again, no sir!”

  Lematte stepped back ten feet and, without another word, unleashed a vicious lash of the long bullwhip. Freedman screamed long and loud as the whip cracked against the pale flesh on his back.

  A few feet from the bar, Karl Nolly said to Henry Snead, “Come on, let’s gather the rest of the deputies.”

  “Right now?” Snead asked, as if stunned by such a suggestion. Nodding toward the gruesome exhibition going on before him, Snead said, “I don’t want to miss any of this! I love this kind of stuff!”

  “I said, come on, Snead!” This time Nolly put more force in his words. Snead tore his eyes away from the spectacle just as another loud crack of the whip resounded above the councilman’s screams. “We need to get our other three men here in case somebody in this town decides to be a hero.” He looked back at the whip flashing through the air as they headed out the door. “Damn it, Lematte,” he said to himself. Then to Henry Snead he said, “Don’t worry, I expect you’ll be getting your fair share of this kind of stuff if Martin Lematte has any say in it.”

  On the boardwalk out front of the Silver Seven Saloon, Karl Nolly looked both ways along the dirt street and saw the other three deputies walking quickly toward the saloon. Two of the deputies, Delbert Collins and Jewel Higgs, carried sawed-off shotguns. The third deputy, Rowland Lenz, held a pistol cocked in his hand. As they approached the boardwalk where Nolly and Snead stood waiting, they had to walk wide of two horsemen who had ridden up to the hitch rail. The two horsemen, Moon Braden and Cleveland Ellis, watched the gathering of deputies with curiosity as they listened to the sound of the bullwhip and the screams it evoked.

  “What’s going on in there?” Delbert Collins asked Karl Nolly, nodding at the doors of the saloon.

  “Aw,” said Nolly with a trace of a cruel grin. “Our sheriff needed to teach a councilman a lesson in manners I reckon. You three get on in there and see to it no townsman gets out of control.”

  The three deputies walked inside as the two horsemen sat staring in astonishment. Finally Nolly asked in an impatient tone, “Is there something we can do for you?”

  “If the sheriff of this town is Martin Lematte,” said Cleveland Ellis, “I believe there is something you can do for us.” He nodded to his side, saying, “This is Moon Braden…I’m Cleveland Ellis. We heard Lematte was getting together some deputies to keep peace here in Somos Santos.” A dark grin crept onto Ellis’s face.

  “Yeah,” said Nolly, his voice becoming more friendly. “I’ve heard Lematte talk about you two. Step down and make yourselves at home. The sheriff is straightening out a councilman right now, but he won’t be a minute.”

  “Sounds like some serious straightening,” said Moon Braden. “We heard the screaming all the way from the edge of town.” The two stepped down, twirled their reins around the hitch rail, and stepped up onto the boardwalk.

  “Anything we can do to help?” asked Ellis.

  “Obliged, but no thanks. I believe we’ve got things covered pretty good,” said Nolly. “Who have you boys been working for lately?”

  “We just left a job poking steers for the Double D Spread,” said Moon. “The fact is, we got run off over some trouble we had with a big gunman named Crayton Dawson. Have you ever heard of him?”

  Nolly and Snead both grinned. “Yeah, I’ll say we’ve heard of him,” said Karl Nolly. He pointed at Henry Snead. “This man just beat the blue living hell out of him a week back, sent him crawling in the dirt.”

  Braden and Ellis looked Snead up and down, then Ellis gave Nolly a skeptical look. “This man?”

  Henry Snead gave Ellis a harsh stare.

  “Yes, this man,” said Nolly, dropping a palm firmly on Snead’s broad, powerful shoulder. “Meet Henry Snead, gentlemen. Mister Snead here spends his time lifting nail kegs just for the fun of it.”

  “The fun of it?” Moon gave a bemused look.

  “This man?” Cleveland Ellis repeated, pointing at Snead as if no one had adequately answered him before.

  Henry Snead wasn’t about to let the insult go twice unattended. “Damn right, this man,” he said, stepping forward in his own defense. “What of it?”

  “Whoa now,” said Ellis. “No offense intended. I was just making sure I got all the particulars right.”

  “I can make it more clear to you.” Snead expanded his chest like a game rooster.

  “Well, you sure have got all the particulars right.” Nolly grinned broadly, cutting in on Henry Snead before things got out of hand. “Snead here made him look bad in front of the whole saloon.”

  “Anybody who put a hurting on Crayton Dawson is A-OK in my book,” Moon Braden offered, hoping to smooth over anybody’s injured pride. “I’ll be glad to hook up with Lematte again. I’ve stared up a steer’s ass so long I was starting to worry about myself. It’ll be good to get back to some decent work. I just hope it goes well this time…not like it went for us over in Hide City.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Nolly. This time is different. Lematte even has a big hired gun coming to town to keep things pinned down for us, in case anybody tries to muscle in after we get this town going the way we want it to.”

  “A big gun, huh?” said Cleveland Ellis. “Who is it?”

  “It’s a big secret,” said Nolly. Lematte hasn’t even told me yet. But it will be somebody good, you can bet on it.” He pointed a finger at the two and added, “But I can tell you one thing; you don’t have to worry about Crayton Dawson any more. He don’t want to tangle with us.”

  Moon Braden and Cleveland Ellis looked at one another, then back at Karl Nolly. “Who said we was worried about Dawson?” asked Ellis. He patted the Colt on his hip. “The fact is, we plan on killing him, first chance we get. Ain’t that right Moon?”

  “Sure is right,” said Moon, a grin coming across his whisker-stubbled face. “First chance we get, he’s graveyard dead.”

  “Graveyard dead,” Nolly chuckled. “I admire a man with confidence.” Looking them up and down, he wondered if their confidence was founded on anything more than tough talk. “It doesn’t bother either of you, the things folks are saying about Dawson killing three men at Turkey Creek?”

  “I’d have to see the three men before I’d be greatly impressed,” said Cleveland Ellis. “I heard one was an idiot who stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  As they spoke, the two councilmen came dragging Freedman out of the saloon between them, his arms draped limply over their shoulders. Freedman moaned pitifully, his head bobbing slightly on his chest. His back was a glistening pulp of blood and tortured flesh. “Lord!” said Moon Braden, “He looks like a skinned possum!”

  “I heard how things went wrong for Lematte in Hide City,” said Nolly. “He doesn’t intend to let the same thing happen here. We’re keeping this town under our thumbs.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Ellis. “Suppose we can buy ourselves a drink now that all the bullwhipping is over?”


  “Not if I can help it,” said Martin Lematte, stepping out onto the boardwalk straightening his coat sleeves. He offered the two newcomers a friendly smile as he pulled out a handkerchief and blotted his sweat-beaded brow. “Your money is no good here today. Drinks are on the house.”

  “Howdy, Lematte,” said Cleveland Ellis, returning Lematte’s grin. “It’s about damn time somebody bought me a drink. I was beginning to think me and Moon smelled bad.”

  “Nonsense!” said Lematte, “You smell no worse than you ever did. Come on inside, take a look at our setup…I might even manage to round you up a couple of women to straighten the kinks out of your backs.”

  “Moon,” said Ellis as they walked into the saloon, “I like this place already.”

  PART 2

  Chapter 7

  Cray Dawson watched Carmelita stand up from the bed naked and not bother to pick up a robe, or a sheet, or anything else to cover herself. For some reason that bothered him. He had no idea why, since there was no one within miles and there were no secrets their bodies had held back from one another. The first two days he’d been here had been little more than blur. He recalled her washing him with a cool, wet cloth. He had glimpses of her spoonfeeding him warm broth and soup and raw eggs and goat milk until his stomach grew more acceptable to holding down solid food. He had been like a man with a terrible fever, and he could not accurately say when that fever had broken.

  But in the middle of the third night, as his strength and his senses came back to him, she had slipped into the bed beside him, naked, and held him against the length of her until she felt his needs awaken and press against her warm flesh. “Rest, relax, I will be gentle,” she had whispered warmly into his ear. And so she was…