by Van Holt
Badilla looked at him in that blank, deadly, almost smiling way and then spoke to his men and they wheeled their horses and moved off with the herd.
Curly pushed his hat back off his sweating forehead with the muzzle of his gun and sat his saddle looking after them for a minute. Then he holstered the gun and said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“He won’t ever pay us the rest,” Cash said.
“Don’t be greedy,” Curly said. “We’ll be lucky if he lets us keep the horses and our hides.”
They headed for the canyon that led all the way to the Hatcher ranch. The canyon floor was almost level and during the summer rainy season it often seemed to Curly that the water ran uphill as much of the way as it ran downhill. But most of the year there was no water in the canyon, just sand and rocks and a few stunted shrubs.
They pushed the horses along the canyon at a fast trot and sometimes at a gallop. But it wasn’t long before they saw a cloud of dust behind them and it was a little closer each time they looked back.
“We can’t outrun them!” Cash yelled. His lean dark face was streaked with dust and sweat and there was an unusual excitement in his eyes. As a rule he stayed pretty calm no matter what happened. He reined alongside Curly, looking back over his shoulder. “They’ll kill their horses if they have to!”
“We could let them have this bunch back,” Curly said, nodding at the Mexican horses. “Then we could outrun them.”
“Are you crazy?” Cash asked as if shocked at the suggestion.
“Then I guess we’ll have to fight to keep them,” Curly said. “Hell, I reckon it’s about time we eliminated the middleman anyway. We’ll never get rich the way we’re going.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I reckon the same thought occurred to them.”
“You got a plan?” Cash asked.
Curly peered ahead through the dust and saw where some boulders had tumbled down from above, almost blocking the canyon. Some stunted shrubs grew among the rocks, making the spot even more ideal for what he had in mind.
“That looks like a good spot,” he said. “We’ll let the horses keep going and maybe Badilla will think we’re still with them.”
They herded the horses through the narrow gap past the old rock slide and then rode at them waving their hats and slapping at their rumps with coiled ropes. The horses broke into a gallop down the canyon and the dusty riders pulled back to the rocks, tied their mounts out of sight and took cover among the boulders near the bottom of the slide.
Curly took out his heavy .45’s one at a time and added a sixth cartridge in the chamber normally left empty as a safety precaution.
“You boys got plenty of ammunition?” he asked.
“Enough,” Cash said, sounding a little nervous. He was the only one who had a rifle, an old Henry. The other boys and Curly had only revolvers. Parson had his long double barrel shotgun. He was back behind the others, his black stovepipe hat sticking up above a rock, his beard muddy with sweat and dust.
Curly glanced around at him. “You better be careful with that scattergun, Parson. Back there, you’re liable to hit us.”
Parson’s mouth trembled when he spoke. “I ain’t never killed a man before, Curly. And I don’t know as I want to start now. Not to protect stock that don’t rightly belong to us.”
“Who does it belong to?”
“Uncle Willy,” Parson said, his eyes damp. “You boys stole them horses from him and sold them to them Mexicans. They sold them to somebody else and then stole them back again, just like we’ve been doing. How long do you think the Lord will let us ignore his commandments and get away with it? There’ll be a day of reckoning, mark my words.”
“So far he ain’t had much to say about it,” Curly said. “And I reckon if anyone stops us it won’t be him.”
“Them damn greasers,” Comanche Joe grunted, looking over his rock at the approaching dust. Curly noticed how much like a Comanche he looked, with his swarthy round face and shoulder-length black hair. He had his long-barreled Smith & Wesson gripped in his hand and looked out of place on the ground, squat and bowlegged like he was. He belonged on a horse.
Beanbelly was peering over another rock with an almost animal fear in his eyes. He had taken off his hat to make less of a target and his thinning dark hair was plastered to his skull with sweat. Curly noticed that he had already cocked his big Remington .44. No two of them had the same kind of guns. Cash had a Colt, but it was an old .44 rimfire that used the same cartridge as his Henry. A good gun, but the cartridge wasn’t very reliable.
“Don’t fire till I give the word,” Curly said. “We’ll wait till they’re so close even Beanbelly can’t miss.”
“That’s taking a chance,” Cash said. “They’re liable to ride right over us.”
“Not in these rocks,” Curly said.
“You mean you aim to start shooting without giving them no warning or anything?” Parson asked hoarsely.
“That’s right,” Curly said.
“But that’s murder!” Parson cried.
Curly frowned, “I call it self-defense. There’s thirteen of them and five of us. Our only chance is to even up the odds a little. And keep one thing in mind, Parson. We won’t be fighting to protect some stolen horses. We’ll be fighting to save our own skins.”
“Here they come,” Comanche Joe grunted, as the Mexicans rounded the bend in the canyon.
“Get down,” Curly said, “and stay out of sight till I give the word. Then give them everything you’ve got, but try to make your shots count. And make sure none of them don’t get past us no matter what happens, or we’ll catch it from both sides.”
They crouched behind the hot rocks with the sun beating down on them and the racket of the approaching horses swelling like thunder in their ears. The dark bandits were coming at a gallop and in a few more moments would be on top of them.
Curly was about to give the signal when Beanbelly stuck his head up and fired over his rock at the gaunt riders. It was a clean miss and the Mexicans all went for their guns.
“Now!” Curly yelled, and shot the nearest rider out of the saddle. He had hoped it was Badilla, but it was another tall Mexican.
Comanche Joe fired and killed a horse by mistake and muttered a curse as the horse tumbled, throwing its rider. Then Cash’s rifle spoke and his bullet jerked a big sombrero from a Mexican’s head, killing the Mexican.
The others didn’t swerve as Curly had expected, but galloped straight at the rocks, bent low over their horses’ necks and reeling crazily through the dust and smoke and sunlight.
Curly stood up blazing away with both guns and emptied two or three saddles. Cash’s rifle spoke again with deadly accuracy and Comanche Joe and Beanbelly were firing their pistols rapidly but without much effect. Then old Parson raised up with his shotgun and blasted a sinner into hell.
Badilla and five of his men wheeled their horses and galloped wildly for some rocks about a hundred yards away, near the mouth of a narrow side canyon. The others lay dead or dying on the ground and Cash emptied another saddle before they made it to the rocks.
“If you had to shoot somebody in the back,” Curly said, “why didn’t you make it Garcia?”
“Which one’s he?”
“That big heavyset young Mexican about my age.”
“Then he ain’t all that young,” Cash said. “But maybe I can still get him.”
“Hell, let them go,” Curly said, his dark face solemn. “Every coward deserves a chance to run.”
“They ain’t running,” Cash said. “They’re just trying to reach them rocks.”
Just as Badilla and his men reached the rocks, a tall man on a black horse came out of the side canyon and trotted slowly toward them, as if he was just out for a leisurely ride and minding his own business. Yet it was clear even
from a distance that the five Mexicans saw something sinister and alarming in the sudden appearance of the black-garbed stranger on the sleek black horse. They sat their own scrawny nags with their heads turned sideways watching him with a kind of superstitious dread, and the little gesture one of them made crossing himself seemed to be the only movement in the frozen ominous hush that had settled in the canyon following the roar of guns and the thunder of galloping horses.
“It’s Ringo,” Curly said softly, holding his breath.
The tall Badilla suddenly turned his horse toward Ringo and whipped up his gun to fire at him. But before he could get off a shot, a gun roared in Ringo’s fist and the lanky Mexican reeled out of the saddle. From the ground he tried again to lift his gun, but a cough shook him and then he lay still.
The other Mexicans, stunned for a moment by their leader’s death, now went into a wild panic. To get away from Ringo, two of them galloped their horses straight back down the canyon toward Curly and the Hatchers. The other two started to follow them, then circled wide around the dark-garbed stranger and spurred their horses for the border.
The two coming down the canyon began firing when they were still about sixty yards off. But the distance narrowed rapidly and it was clear that they meant to ride past Curly and the Hatchers and get away down the canyon, where they might set up an ambush and pick them all off with their saddle guns.
“Cash,” Curly said.
Cash raised his Henry and knocked the nearest rider out of the saddle.
Then the rifle jammed and the other Mexican came on at a hard gallop, the curved brim of his big sombrero bent back by the wind, his teeth bared in a tense snarl. He saw Curly grinning at him and he leveled his gun at the big man. Curly quit grinning and flung up his own gun, blasting the Mexican off his horse. The riderless horse galloped on down the canyon.
“It’s a good thing you boys brought me along,” Curly said, reloading his pistols. “Or you’d soon be helping old Shorty feed the buzzards.”
“Ha!” Cash said.
“Only two got away and one of them had to be Garcia,” Curly said, looking off up the canyon. “Sooner or later he’ll cause me trouble. I can feel it in my bones.”
“What do you call this?” Cash asked. “It sure wasn’t no picnic.”
“He’ll blame me for it too. Seems like I get blamed for everything. But he seemed to hate my guts before this happened. I don’t know why. Maybe he just don’t like gringos.”
He finished loading his guns and watched Ringo ride up on his black horse. Ringo had holstered his own gun and still gave the impression that he was just out for a leisurely ride. He drew rein and sat his saddle watching the big rustler in an idle way. But Curly thought he saw the cold gleam of a smile in those clear blue eyes.
“You sure took your time getting here,” Curly said.
“Just happened along and didn’t want to butt into something that wasn’t any of my business,” Ringo said. “But I guess that tall Mexican thought I was on your side or something, me being a gringo and all.”
He turned in his saddle and glanced about at the bodies that littered the canyon floor. Then his glance returned to Curly’s grinning face. “Is this how you’ve been mending your ways, Curly? You look to me a lot like a man who’s enjoying himself.”
“I’d forgot what it’s like,” Curly said. “I reckon a little excitement now and then don’t hurt anyone.”
“Looks like it hurt someone,” Ringo said, looking past him.
Curly turned his head and saw Beanbelly standing beside old Parson, who lay stretched out on the ground. One of the Mexicans must have drilled him when he raised up with the shotgun.
“I reckon it just ain’t old Parson’s day,” Curly said. “He hit bad?”
“Bad enough,” Beanbelly said, sort of smug and casual about it. “He’s dead.”
Curly went to look for himself and saw that Beanbelly was right for once. Parson had been shot clean through the heart. But since he had to die, Curly was just as glad that he had died quickly and hadn’t lingered long enough to figure out who was to blame for this last misfortune. Of course, Curly had no way of knowing whether old Parson would have blamed him for getting him into this predicament, or the Lord for not getting him out.
All three of the Hatcher boys seemed remarkably unmoved by their pa’s death. They might have been looking at a dead steer, for all the feeling they showed. They probably figured Parson was about as well off dead, considering his age and his bad health. They were still young enough to think that older people were just marking time while they waited for the undertaker. And if there was no undertaker available or anyone to bury them, well, the wolves and buzzards had to eat the same as the worms.
Curly turned to find Ringo still in the saddle, watching him with intense blue eyes.
“Old Parson took a bullet.”
“So I gathered,” Ringo said, and began rolling a cigarette. There was a sudden whinny from the rocks and Ringo’s black lifted its head and answered.
“That horse you stole from the Apaches is getting too friendly with my horse, Curly,” Ringo said. “I’m jealous.”
“I notice your horse don’t seem to mind,” Curly said.
Ringo glanced down with obvious affection at the black’s small pointed ears. “He’s just a poor dumb animal who doesn’t know any better. It’s my job to see that he doesn’t fall in with bad companions, the way I did.”
Curly shrugged. “I’d ask you to get down and give the poor dumb animal a rest, Ringo. But we’ve got to be going.”
Ringo raised his blue eyes. “So have I,” he said, striking a match on his thumbnail. He lit his cigarette, nodded silently, and rode back the way he had come, turning into the narrow side canyon.
A little later, as Curly and the Hatcher boys were riding on down the main canyon with Parson across his saddle, they were surprised to see a dark horse and rider up on the rim about a half mile ahead, watching them.
“He’s sure been doing some riding!” Cash exclaimed.
Curly studied the distant horse and rider, squinting against the sunlight. “I don’t think that’s Ringo. The horse don’t look quite right somehow.”
“How can you tell that far away?” Cash asked.
“Comanche Joe? What do you think?”
The long-haired boy studied the horse and rider in silence for a moment, then shrugged. “Can’t tell.”
“I saw somebody on a dark horse like that last night,” Curly said.
“Prob’ly Ringo,” Cash said.
“No, Ringo was with me.”
“Maybe it was Mad Dog Shorty then. Most horses look dark at night.”
“I figger Mad Dog Shorty was dead before then. That was midnight or after and he left town not long after dark.”
“He’s gone,” Comanche Joe grunted.
Curly looked along the rim and saw no sign of the dark horse and rider. “Just like last night. Whoever it is gives me the creeps.”
“I don’t know who that was last night,” Cash said. “Prob’ly just some drifter or ridge rider, if it wasn’t Shorty. But I think the one we saw up there was Ringo. I don’t know how he got up there that quick. But who else would be riding a dark horse and wearing dark clothes like him?”
“You could be right,” Curly said, studying the rim with worried eyes.
They found the horses at a waterhole and camped there for the night, unaware that two tall lean men in black squatted on the rim of the canyon watching their campfire in silence.
After a time the two men got on their horses and rode quietly away across the windy desert. Neither spoke for a while, but one of them was so angry he chewed the corner of his mustache and his frosty blue eyes glittered in the moonlight.
“I wish to hell I hadn’t made you that promise
,” the angry one finally said, keeping his voice low more from habit than any fear of being heard. “They stole them horses and then ambushed the Mexicans who came after them to get their animals back. I rode by there and saw bodies lying all over the place.”
“I rode by there myself,” Ringo said, “and I don’t think Curly had much choice. He was outnumbered and he didn’t have any help on his side that he could rely on in a stand-up fight. In his place I might have done the same thing.”
“I’d believe almost anything you told me, Ringo, but I won’t believe anything good that anyone tells me about Curly. And it seems to me that you’re going to have to make up your mind which side you’re on and who your friends are.”
“Don’t ask me to choose between you and him, Wyatt,” Ringo said, “Not at this late date. Curly and I have ridden a lot of miles together.”
“That’s something that’s always puzzled me,” Wyatt said. “How did you manage to put up with him?”
“Curly’s easy to be around,” Ringo said. “And he’s about the only one who can put up with me when I’m having one of my off days.”
“But how can you trust a man who lies so much?”
“How can you trust a doctor who’s sick all the time?”
“The man you’re referring to never was a regular doctor. Just a dentist. But what’s that got to do with it?”
“I just don’t like the man,” Ringo said.
“I feel the same way about Curly. He’s a shining example of everything I’ve always hated. If I hadn’t given you my word, I’d go back there right now and finish what I started that day at that waterhole. It’s what any man would do who’s interested in seeing justice done.”
“But you gave me your word, Wyatt,” Ringo said, “and I’m holding you to it.”
Wyatt sighed. “It goes against the grain to let that grinning rascal get away with that, the way he’s got away with everything else. But I reckon I’ll keep my promise as long as you keep yours. But the minute you break your promise or breathe a word to anyone about me even being in this part of the country, all bets are off and I’ll go hunting Curly.”