by Ralph Cotton
“There’s a couple of women up ahead,” the driver called down to him. “Just sit still, I’ll handle it.”
“Like hell I’ll sit still,” Snead mumbled under his breath, rolling up the canvas dust blind. “I’m sick of everybody telling me what to do.” He poked his head out the window enough to get a look at Suzzette and Angel standing in the wagon. Then he ducked his head back inside before they had a chance to see him. “Well, ain’t this something,” he said to himself, his mind already at work inside its whiskey glow.
“Are you having trouble, ladies?” the driver called out, still glancing around for any sign of a trick.
“No trouble,” Suzzette replied. “We just want to leave this buckboard here and ride with you to Eagle Pass.”
“Well…” The driver let his words trail. “As you see I have no shotgun rider today. “Let me pull over and I’ll get your luggage aboard.”
“We’ll bring it to you,” said Suzzette, the two of them sitting down long enough for her to rein the horses forward, coming to a stop alongside the stage.
“That’s even better,” the driver said, grinning through his thick gray mustache. Suzzette and Angel stood up again, Angel lifting the first of their bags up to the driver. But before the driver could take the bag and set it atop the stage behind him, the door swung open and Henry Snead leaned out, hanging onto the stage with his left hand. “Not so fast!” he growled. “Everybody stay like you are!” In his right hand he held his Colt, cocked and pointed into Angel Andrews’s face.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” the stage driver asked, seeing the gun pointed at the women. “Is this a robbery?”
“No, it’s not a robbery, you fool!” said Snead. “So shut your mouth and do like I tell you.”
“Are you women with him?” the driver asked.
“Does it look like they’re with me?” Snead responded before either woman could answer. “Don’t make me tell you again to shut up! You meddling old bastard!”
“I’ll shut up, but there’s no need in that kind of language in front of these ladies,” the driver managed to say quickly, still getting the last word in.
“Ladies, ha!” said Snead. “Haven’t you ever seen these two before? Haven’t you ever been to the Silver Seven in Somos Santos?”
“I don’t frequent low places,” the driver said.
“If you did,” said Snead, “you’d realize that these are no ladies. They’ve laid down with every man in these parts.”
“Except you, Snead,” Suzzette said boldly. “Does that tell you something about yourself?”
Snead stared coldly at her. “You’re Cray Dawson’s sweetheart, ain’t you?”
“No,” said Suzzette, seeing something dark brewing behind Snead’s red-rimmed eyes. “I know Dawson…but that’s all there is to it.”
“Bull!” said Snead. “I understand you’re carrying his bastard kid in your belly! I expect if I had you under my arm he’d do about whatever I told him to do, wouldn’t he?”
“You’re drunk, Snead,” said Suzzette, noting that all the while he talked he never took the gun away from Angel’s face.
“Naw, I’m not drunk,” he said. “Not too drunk to see what’s just fell into my lap here.” He swung up out of the stagecoach and onto the wagon, grunting with the pain from his injuries, but managing not to stagger as he straightened up and steadied himself.
“Get back in this coach!” the driver said, “or I’ll take off and leave you!”
Snead looked up at him and laughed, saying, “Now there’s an idea, old timer! Why don’t you just get this rig on out of here? I’ll stay here and ride with these ladies!”
“I don’t know what you’ve got in that small mind of yours, Snead,” said Suzzette, “but whatever it is—”
“I ain’t going nowhere!” the driver said defiantly. “You get that gun down and leave these womenfolk alone!”
“I’ve listened to all I’m going to out of you, fool!” said Snead, turning his gun toward the stage driver.
Suzzette saw Snead’s knuckles turn white, saw his grip tighten, saw the killing look in his eyes. “No, wait, Snead! Don’t shoot him!” She looked up at the driver and said, “You go on! We’ll be all right. Don’t worry about us.”
“Are you sure, ma’am?” the driver asked. “I don’t like the looks of this. I ain’t leaving unless you ladies are safe.”
Suzzette saw the sawed-off shotgun standing against the seat beside him and realized that at any second he might make a grab for it. She knew Snead would kill him before his hand ever closed around the shotgun. “Believe me, we’ll be all right, Mister,” said Suzzette, sounding as tough and bold as she could. “Like he was telling you…we’re both whores. We know what he wants from us. Now get out of here!”
Henry Snead stood watching the stage pull away, the old driver looking back but making no attempt to reach for the shotgun. Snead aimed the pistol back at the two women but let it slump a little. He grinned, saying to Suzzette, “You’re pretty smart for a whore. I should have come on up and visited you back in Somos Santos.” Then his grin faded as his memory took hold. “I know you saw what your boyfriend did to me, in front of the whole town.”
“He’s not my boyfriend, Snead,” Suzzette insisted. “Try to get that out of your head, if you can.”
“Well then,” said Snead, raising the pistol again, “since he’s nothing to you, you won’t mind me shooting a few holes in his belly, will you?”
“I don’t want to see anybody get shot, Snead,” she replied firmly. “But when it comes to you shooting Cray Dawson, I’d say you’d have a better chance lassoing a wildcat. Dawson is a man, a real man. Don’t mistake yourself for one; it’ll tangle you up every time.”
“I hate a smart-mouthed whore,” said Snead, swinging the pistol toward her, his face telling her it took all of his control to keep from shooting her.
Suzzette cautioned herself to ease up off of Snead and see what it was going to take to get rid of him. “Hey, take it easy, Snead,” she said. “I thought we both knew I was teasing you.” As she spoke she took off her small feathered hat, pulled a long pin from her hair and shook it out. “Don’t you enjoy a little teasing now and then?”
Snead looked her up and down, thinking about her offer, seeing what she had in mind. For a moment he was tempted. But then he shook his head and said, “No, I ain’t being sidetracked. I’m going to Dawson’s with you riding close up beside me with the Colt tickling your ear. I’m calling Dawson out and killing him, deader than hell.” He bit his lip, then added as he remembered Lematte’s words, “I’m going to put your boyfriend’s head on a stick and take it to Somos Santos.”
Suzzette took her time answering, looking him up and down first. “Snead, do you really think I’ll take you to Dawson, even if my life depended on it?” She unbuttoned her top buttons and spread her dress open. “So come on, put that out of your mind. Here, take a look at these.” She cupped her breasts toward him, caressing them slowly. “Wouldn’t it be more fun, the three of us? In this wagon? Naked? Under those big ole shade trees over there?” She smiled seductively. “No charge?”
“God almighty!” said Snead, his breath quickening at the sight of her bare breasts. He shot a glance toward the trees as if considering the possibilities.
“Make up your mind, Henry,” Suzzette said softly. “We’ve got to get busy. We’ve still got a stage to catch.” She gave a slight nod toward the trail ahead.
Seeing Suzzette work on him, Angel joined in, saying, “This is going to really be fun. I’ll show everything Lematte taught me to do to him.”
Snead almost gasped aloud. “You don’t mean…?”
“That’s exactly what she means, Henry,” said Suzzette, cutting in. “I’ve seen her do it. Whew! I went all crazy inside just watching.”
Snead gave another nervous glance toward the trees. But then he seemed to shake the idea off and say, “I’ve got plenty time for that later.”
“No, He
nry,” said Suzzette. “There is no later.” She reached a hand around as if ready to pull off her dress. “If you want some of this, let’s get to it, before that stage gets too far away for us to catch up to it.”
“Uh-uh, there’s time,” said Snead. “As long as I’ve got this gun on you…I’m the one in charge of time.” He stepped over and grabbed Angel by her wrist and shoved her toward the seat. Then he shoved Suzzette into the driver’s seat and said, “You drive! And don’t forget, I’m right behind you.”
Suzzette started to turn the wagon in the opposite direction, away from the hacienda. But Snead cocked the pistol and jammed the tip of it against the back of Angel’s head. “Don’t try playing me for a fool!” he warned Suzzette. “Or I’ll blow her head off. I’ve heard where Dawson is staying. Now turn around and go that way! I’ll give you one more chance to do like I tell you. Your next mistake will get your friend a bullet in her head!”
“All right, Henry!” said Suzzette, seeing that he was on the verge of making good his threats. “I’m sorry, please settle down! I won’t try anything like that again.”
Suzzette turned the wagon in the direction of the hacienda while her mind raced, wondering what to do. “Henry, you’re not really going to kill Dawson over him giving you a beating, are you? I mean, you gave him a beating; he didn’t come back and kill you.”
“That’s right,” said Snead, taking out his bottle of whiskey as the wagon rocked along the rough trail. “And that was his big mistake. I’m going to kill him, and I’m going to kill him so slow he’ll beg me to hurry up and get it over. I want to hear some screaming, and plenty of it.” He threw back a drink and said, “Before I kill him, I’ll be sure and remind him it was you who brought me to him.” He chuckled aloud.
“I see,” said Suzzette, as if Snead’s words had just made her mind up about something. Angel caught the change in her voice, but Snead didn’t. “Hang on, Angel,” she said sidelong, quietly between them. Then she said to Snead, “You want to hear some screaming? Then let’s get this rig rolling. I’ll get you there the quickest way I can.”
“Hey, damn it, slow down!” Snead said as the wagon began rolling faster and faster along the high trail.
“Slow down?” Suzzette said in a tight voice. “I thought you were in a hurry to do some killing!” She raised a whip from its place beside the seat and swung it out to snap above the horses’ backs, speeding them up.
“Cut it out, or I swear,” said Snead, “I’ll put a bullet in her!”
But as Suzzette glanced over her shoulder she saw Snead’s hat blow off his head as he rocked back and forth unsteadily on his knees in the wagon bed. Seeing Snead turn around and watch his hat sail away, Suzzette turned in her seat, raising her right foot, saying, “I’m sorry, Angel! You’re getting off here!”
“Suzzette, no!” Angel shouted. But it was too late. Suzzette’s kick sent her out of the wagon and tumbling across the rough, rocky ground.
“Stop, you crazy whore!” Snead shouted, bouncing back and forth in the wagon bed. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
“Fire at will, Henry.” Suzzette laughed with abandon. “This is one day no man is going to make his demands on me. You wanted to hear screaming, start screaming!” she shouted, giving the horses the whip, sending them off the trail and across the rocky ground. The wagon bucked high in the air and slammed down with bone-shattering force. Henry could barely hang onto his pistol, let alone aim and fire it.
Staring forward as the wagon pitched and bucked in its dizzying speed, Henry saw where the broken land ended. He knew that beyond this rocky stretch of land lay nothing but thin air and a drop of over two hundred feet, straight down. “Oh, no!” he screamed. “God, no! Stop it!” But as he screamed he froze, dropping his pistol and clutching the sides of the wagon as if doing so would bring it to a halt.
A hundred yards away Angel Andrews stood in her torn, dirt-streaked dress. Her hand to her bloody head, she watched the wagon sail out off the edge of the earth. For a second the horses appeared to swim in midair. But then gravity took hold and the poor animals went down, their dying screams intermingled with Henry Snead’s.
“Suzzette!” Angel screamed, limping as she ran toward the spot where the wagon had left the earth. Among the rocks along the edge of the cliff she saw Suzzette’s dress flutter on a hot Texas breeze. “Oh please, Suzzette!” she cried. “Please be alive!” She raced past strewn luggage that had spilled from the bouncing wagon. Coming to a halt among the broken, jagged boulders lining the cliff, she saw Suzzette lying motionless. “Oh no!” she said, her hands to her face as she moved forward slowly. “Oh, Suzzette. Why did you do this?” She saw Suzzette’s eyes turn to her as she kneeled down beside her. “Why, Suzzette?” She sobbed. “The baby!”
“Shhh…” Suzzette managed to put a bloody hand on Angel’s forearm. “There was…no baby, Angel. I made…it up. I wanted Crayton so bad…I thought maybe…” She struggled to find the right words, but couldn’t. “Well, you know…how it is.”
Seeing her friend fade, Angel said, “Suzzette hang on! Please! Don’t die!”
Suzzette found the strength to say, “Tell Cray that he really missed out on something…when a whore loves a man…she’ll go all out for him, eh?” Her eyes drifted in a weak gesture toward the edge of the cliff and at the luggage strewn everywhere. She offered a thin, dying smile, then said, “No…don’t tell him anything…except that I’m glad…for him.” She sighed and said, as if she were speaking to him, “Oh, Cray, it hurts so bad…”
Angel watched Suzzette’s eyes roll slightly upward, then close as if she’d fallen asleep. For a long time she sat as if in a trance with Suzzette’s head in her lap, until finally she felt a firm, gloved hand on her shoulder and heard the voice of Alvin Decker say, “Ma’am…let’s get the young lady up from here and take her home, all right?”
Angel wept as Decker helped her to her feet. “She and I were going to Missouri,” Angel said brokenly. We were quitting the business, you know?”
“I understand,” Alvin Decker said softly, walking her a few feet away while Barney Woods scooped Suzzette’s pale, limp body into his arms and carried her back toward their horses.
Chapter 23
“We only saw the tail end of it,” said Barney Woods to Cray Dawson back at the hacienda. He spoke quietly while Carmelita attended to Angel Andrews’s cuts and scrapes with a clean, wet towel. “But it was that snake, Henry Snead. I recognized him right before she kicked this woman out of the wagon. We just couldn’t get there in time to do any good. The next thing we saw was her whipping them horses toward the edge of the cliff, then we saw her throw herself off of it at the last second. But it was going awfully fast by then. I don’t know why a woman would do something like that. She had to know it was traveling too fast for her to jump off.”
Dawson stood over Suzzette’s body with his head bowed. “This poor, good woman,” he whispered. “She did it to keep from bringing Snead to me. She wouldn’t take a chance on him killing me.” Dawson shook his head slowly.
“Maybe this ain’t the best time to bring it up,” said Woods, but the fact is, things ain’t going to get no better around here until somebody takes care of Lematte and his bunch. He knows there’s vengeance coming for what happened to Bouchard and the boys.” He gestured toward Suzzette’s body. “This sort of thing will keep on happening till we get settled up.”
Dawson looked at Woods for a moment, then lowered his eyes back down to Suzzette. He lifted her cold, limp hand and held it in his. “She was put on the wrong side of this thing the minute Lematte saw that she knew me. Any way you cut it, I played a hand in her death.”
A silence passed as Woods and Decker looked on. Dawson laid Suzzette’s hand gently down at her side and said to the two drovers, “Where were you two headed when you saw them?”
Woods and Decker looked at one another shyly. Then Decker said, “All right, we’ll be honest with you, Crayton. We got fed up and was headed to Somos Santos.”
“Without Shaney and the rest of the men backing you up?” said Dawson. “You would have gotten yourselves killed.”
“We did wrong,” said Woods. “Now that we’ve settled down we realize it. But then, look what happened here.” He looked down at Suzzette and shook his head slowly. “We all waited; now this poor woman is dead.”
Dawson looked over at Carmelita, then said to Woods and Decker, “You’re right. We’ve waited long enough. Go tell Shaney and the rest of the men that we’re going into Somos Santos tomorrow. We’ll ride in at noon while the sun is high overhead.”
“Now you’re talking!” said Woods, getting excited at the prospect. “We’ll be here to get you early in the morning and ride in without stopping.”
“I’ll be ready,” said Dawson. As if in afterthought he said to Decker, “Alvin, I need you to do me a favor.”
“Just name it, Cray,” said Decker.
“I need another horse. Stony has been favoring a hoof. Can you leave your horse here and ride a saddle mule back to the Double D? He’s out back in the barn.”
“Sure thing,” said Decker. “I’ll go get him and leave my horse at the rail.”
“Much obliged,” said Dawson. “Now get on out to the Double D and let Shaney know our plan.”
“We’re on our way,” said Decker, raising his hat and putting it on as the two turned and headed to the door.
No sooner than the two drovers had saddled the red mule and ridden out of sight, Carmelita came over and stood beside Dawson as he stared down at Suzzette Sherley’s body. “Tomorrow, you and the Double D men are riding into Somos Santos?” she asked in a lowered voice.
“Yes,” said Dawson, “tomorrow. You heard those two. They were headed there today on their own. It’s got to be settled before anybody else dies.”