Stampede at Rattlesnake Pass

by Clay More

  "I can see that for myself," replied Jake, irritably, entering the room and looking around. "All her things are here." Then he spied a red patch on the floor and bent to examine it. "Blood!"

  His eyes came up and fixed accusingly on Joe Holland. "How come you let a guest get kidnapped?"

  "K-kidnapped? No way, Mr. Scudder. I was down there all evening. Except for when I got that – "

  Jake grabbed his shirt front and pulled him close and thundered, "When you got – what?"

  Joe Holland gulped. "The message! I got a m-message to go over to the Busted Flush to see the sheriff."

  "What did he want?" Jake asked in exasperation.

  "N-nothing, Mr. Scudder. He . . . he wasn’t there, after all."

  A look of worry crept over Jake’s brow. "Who brought you this message?"

  "An Apache kid. Seen him around a lot, but I don’t know his name. He does all kinds of odd jobs for folk."

  Jake shook his head. "I don’t suppose I can get hold of this sheriff of yours?"

  "At this time of the morning? Not a chance, mister."

  Without another word Jake left the hotel and went straight to the livery stable. He had little difficulty in rousing the hostler, a middle-aged fellow who had sworn the oath against drinking.

  "Where is Miss Horrocks’ cowpony?" Jake asked, after informing him of his suspicions.

  "A guy with a bandaged-up ear took it out last night. He said he was taking her out to meet someone who knew something about her lost herd. The whole town has been buzzing about it. I thought it was all above board."

  "I don’t suppose you know where they were headed?"

  The hostler shook his head.

  Jake frowned and then asked the man to get his stallion ready. His best guess was that whoever had taken Elly wouldn’t be heading north. Some instinct told him that they would be heading south, towards Rattlesnake Pass. Hurriedly he mounted the stallion, then he tossed a dollar to the hostler. With luck he reckoned that he would be able to pick up the trail outside town. Elly’s cow pony, Trixie, had pretty distinctive horseshoes – he hoped that he would find them.

  * * *

  Rosalind had washed and was applying make-up at her dressing table when there came a soft tap on the door. Despite herself she stiffened as images of the men who attacked her and Scudder flashed before her mind’s eye.

  "It’s okay, Rosalind, it is only me," came Carmen de Menendez’s lilting voice.

  Rosalind heaved a sigh of relief and then crossed the room to let her employer in.

  Concern was written all over Carmen de Menedez’s face. "I just wanted to see that you were all right, Rosalind. I saw that Jake Scudder fellow leave as if his tail were on fire."

  Rosalind laughed girlishly. "He was a perfect gentleman, Miss Carmen. But he was worried about his lady friend. That’s why he took off like that."

  Then she realized that she had left the wad of money – an excessive amount of money for one night – lying on her bedside table. And she was sure that the saloon owner had seen it too.

  "A generous man," said Carmen de Menendez, with a humorless smile, as if divining Rosalind’s thoughts.

  "I . . . I – " began Rosalind.

  "You what?" asked Carmen de Menendez, reaching out and stroking Rosalind’s hair. "Tell me what, my dear."

  Suddenly, Rosalind felt pain as Carmen de Menendez grabbed her hair and cruelly yanked her head backwards. "Tell me, you little bitch!" she hissed. "Why did he give you so much money? What did you tell him?"

  "N-nothing, Miss Carmen. I swear. Nothing!" Her eyes were wide with terror as she saw the reflection in the dressing table mirror of her with her head pulled back and her throat exposed, and Miss Carmen staring at her with a look of stark animal fury.

  "That is just as well," the saloon owner said between grated teeth, as she tightened her grip on Rosalind’s hair.

  A scream threatened to erupt from Rosalind’s lips as she saw Carmen de Menendez reach across the dressing table and pick up her long scissors.

  "No! No, Miss Carmen, please," she begged. "Don’t cut my hair, please."

  A smile that was almost reptilian marred the beautiful saloon owner’s face, and she shook her head. "What made you think I would touch your hair, my dear?"

  Again the scream threatened to erupt from Rosalind’s lips as she saw the flash of steel in the mirror. But a moment later blood splattered the mirror, blotting out the image of her pitifully silent, terrible death.

  * * *

  It was late morning by the time Jake Scudder confirmed in his own mind that the trail he was following was indeed leading towards Rattlesnake Pass. There were three horses and Elly’s cow pony, and they were clearly following a back trail, rather than the main way towards the Pintos.

  "Those devils better not have harmed a hair on her head," he mused to the back of the stallion’s head. Then he cursed himself for being caught out by that drugged brandy. "Maybe I should have waited and gotten that no-account sheriff and his deputy to come, too. Three of these rustling hombres may be hard to handle."

  He urged the stallion onward towards the pass, trying hard to pick the tracks of the kidnappers from the churned up floor of the pass, which still bore the evidence of the stampede of three days before.

  Then behind him he heard the cadence of rapidly approaching hooves and the whooping and shouting of a group of men. The noise seemed typical of a group under the influence of more than a little tonsil paint. Jake wheeled the stallion around and waited for them to turn the last bend. He rested his hands on the pommel of his Texas rig as he recognized two of the men – the Silver City sheriff and his deputy. Both of them were swaying slightly, as were another three riders, while another rode calmly and impassively by their side. This man he also recognized – it was the young Apache, Nantan.

  "You look like a posse," Jake said, a few moments later when they had all reined to a halt in front of him. "I reckon somebody must have told you about the jaspers kidnapping the girl."

  Sheriff Slim Parfitt turned his head and very deliberately spat at a boulder. "Kidnappers, you say?" He looked at the others and laughed.

  To Jake’s consternation the others, except for the irritatingly impassive Nantan, whom he intended having words with, all burst out laughing.

  "Oh, we are an official posse, right enough," said the sheriff. "But we ain’t after any kidnappers." He nodded nonchalantly to the others. "No, sir. We are after a murdering dog called Scudder!"

  Jake was taken entirely by surprise. Before he realized it, he was covered by five guns.

  "Shuck your weapons or die in the saddle!" barked the sheriff. And as Jake tossed his gun and his Winchester to the ground the sheriff urged his horse close and suddenly lashed out with his gun, catching Jake a raking blow across the face. "And that’s just something for resisting arrest."

  Jake shook his head and dabbed his broken lip with the back of his hand. "What are you talking about? Arrest for what?"

  "For the murder of that little saloon girl that I saw you with last night. An ugly mess you made of her with her own scissors."

  "Let’s string him up now, sheriff," said Deputy Hank Bott.

  "Or how about we shoot him here like a dog?" suggested a barrel-chested man with a straggly moustache.

  A tall, lanky man in an ill-fitting Stetson produced a whiskey bottle from his saddlebag. He uncorked it, took a swig, then handed it to his neighbor. "Or then again we could set him loose and have some sport."

  His neighbor, a man with dirty corn hair and a patch over one eye, grunted. "Good idea! What say we give him ten minutes start?"

  Jake said nothing, realizing that anything he did say would only inflame the situation and probably lead to his death all the sooner. He needed to stay alive, and that meant that he needed to stay quiet and think.

  Sheriff Parfitt nodded and took the whiskey bottle. "The idea has merit, Brooster. I reckon I could do with a coffee, so we could give him as long as that. Then we either shoot
him or string him up, depending on whether or not we find a tree or cactus handy."

  "Haven’t you forgotten something, Sheriff?" Jake asked as the lawman slaked his whiskey thirst. "I haven’t been formally arrested, far less had a trial of any sort. And I assure you that I haven’t killed anyone - especially not a woman."

  Sheriff Parfitt’s hand tightened on his gun. "You are a liar, Scudder. I saw that poor girl’s body. We are all the trial you are gonna get, you murdering dog."

  Nantan had moved between the sheriff and his deputy. He tugged the sheriff’s sleeve then leaned over and whispered in his ear. After a moment the sheriff roared with laughter as he clapped the young Apache on the back. "Damn! Nantan, you have more uses than a whole cathouse of women. You get going and we’ll see to this feller."

  As Nantan dismounted and then disappeared up into the rocks the sheriff gestured with his gun for Jake to dismount. Then he reached into his saddle bag and drew out a short shovel, which he tossed at Jake’s feet.

  "Pick it up, Scudder, and start walking. You are going to have some digging to do."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Carmen de Menendez despised Sheriff Slim Parfitt, just as she actually despised most men. Yet she knew that he lusted after her and would damned well sell his soul if she so much as hinted that he might one day share her bed. It was, of course, an idea that repelled her, but as long as he was useful to her she was willing to play the game and string him along.

  The screaming show that she put on when she ‘found’ poor little Rosalind’s body was, she felt, a masterstroke. Half of the wastrels in town witnessed it, and she massaged the fool of a sheriff’s ego so much that he got deputy Hank Bott to whip up three of the most immoral bar-dogs in town to form a posse.

  They assembled at the bar of the Busted Flush Saloon.

  "Why don’t you take Nantan?" she suggested, tremulously, as if the shock of finding Rosalind had shaken her to the core. "He is a good tracker."

  Slim Parfitt accepted the suggestion with alacrity. "That was my very thought," he said, taking a final swig of his complementary whiskey bottle that Carmen de Menendez had instructed Manolito, her head barkeeper, to give to each member of the posse. "He will run that murdering hombre down in no time."

  Carmen de Menendez watched the posse ride off, then quickly went to her private rooms, making it clear that she was going to rest and did not want to be disturbed for the rest of the day. Then she sent Leticia, her personal maid, to go and bring her horse from the livery. Then while Manolito arranged for drinks on the house, she slipped out the back of the saloon. She slung her saddle bag on the bay and slid a well-oiled Winchester into the boot.

  Carmen de Menendez was a well-armed and capable woman who was not prepared to let anyone get in the way of her ambition or her destiny.

  * * *

  Rubal Cage had left his horse ground-tethered on the other side of the rise from the Rocking H ranch-house, then once darkness had fallen he made his way to the bunkhouse. Knowing as he did that it would be empty he had settled down to a peaceful sleep in Bill Coburn’s superior bed in the ramrod’s room.

  At first light he made his way across the yard to the ranch-house, whose geography he had a vague recollection about. He let himself in by one of the downstairs windows that had been left open overnight to let some fresh air in. Once inside he grinned to himself as he realized that he had hit the jackpot on his first attempt.

  Johnnie Parker was slumbering peacefully in the big brass bed. Rubal Cage crossed the room and drew out his Colt .45. He pressed the barrel against Johnnie’s temple as he simultaneously clamped a hand over his mouth.

  "Not a sound, Parker!" he whispered between grated teeth. "You surprised me by still being alive, but so help me I will finish the job I started the other day if you so much as squeak." Then when Johnnie made a slight nodding movement of his head to indicate his acquiescence, he asked, "Just how come you're still here? When I shoot a man I expect him to die."

  Johnnie eyed him disdainfully. "Maybe I wasn’t ready to die, Cage. And maybe I will live to see you hang, you miserable – "

  Rubal Cage clamped his hand over Johnnie’s mouth again and pressed the gun muzzle harder against his temple. "I’ll give you one chance, Parker. Keep quiet until I say so, or you go to meet your maker right now."

  Once again Johnnie nodded, then watched as Cage silently stepped across the room and positioned himself on the other side of the door, as if he had heard a step outside.

  A split second later the door burst open and Yucatan stepped in with a handgun in his right fist. "Mister Johnnie, are you – "

  He never finished the sentence as the butt of Rubal Cage’s gun thumped down on the back of his neck and the big man went sprawling face down on the floor.

  Rubal Cage prodded him with his foot. "Didn’t you ever learn to knock before you come in a room?" he said with a sarcastic laugh. "Because that is what you can expect from me if you don’t." He picked up Yucatan’s gun before Johnnie Parker could even think of getting out of bed.

  "Now how about we have a little word with the man of the ranch-house," he said with a malevolent grin.

  * * *

  Scudder had half-expected to feel the fatal thud of a bullet in his back as he labored to dig the hole with the small shovel. A strong, muscular man at the peak of fitness, yet his breathing was becoming labored in the heat of the mid-day sun as he stood in the hole that was now the depth of his shoulders.

  "Don’t stop yet!" ordered Sheriff Parfitt. "You ain’t hit water yet!"

  The other members of the posse went into hysterics at this and another whiskey bottle did the rounds.

  "How deep a grave do you plan on me digging?" Jake asked.

  "A grave?" Sheriff Parfitt repeated with mock surprise. "What makes you think you're digging a grave?"

  Jake raised an eyebrow but said nothing, which provoked another outpouring of laughter from the posse members.

  The sheriff suddenly let out a gasp as Nantan silently appeared, as if from nowhere and held out a sack.

  "Damn it, Nantan, why do you have to sneak up like that?" Sheriff Parfitt barked, holding his hand up for Nantan to keep the sack. "And no, I don’t need to see it yet." Then turning to Jake he snarled:

  "Toss that shovel out here and put your hands behind your back."

  Jake obeyed and felt someone tie his hands behind him. Then he watched as the barrel-chested man with the straggly moustache picked the shovel up upon a gesture from the sheriff and began piling the sand into the hole around Jake.

  "I thought you said this wasn’t a grave, Sheriff," Jake said sarcastically.

  "It isn’t a grave unless you want it to be," returned Parfitt with a sly grin.

  Ten minutes later only Jake Scudder’s head remained above the surface, which had been tamped down by the other posse members.

  "All right, Nantan," said the sheriff. "Time to show the man his new friend."

  Jake watched in horror as the young Apache opened his sack and held it steadily for a moment before darting a hand inside and catching hold of something. A moment later he withdrew his hand, which was clutching the unmistakable wriggling body of a diamondback rattlesnake.

  Jake was all too aware of the film of perspiration that had developed over his brow and the thump of his rapidly beating heart. He watched in horror as Nantan held it behind its flat, triangular head and dexterously tied a loop of rope about its tail, just above its rattle. Then he signaled to Deputy Bott, who tied the other end of the rope to a wooden stake that he had already hammered into the ground about six feet away.

  And then Nantan slowly lowered the snake to the ground, stretching its rope to its full extent.

  "You devil!" Jake gasped, straining his head back as far as he could. He was all too aware that the distance of the stake from his head had been carefully gauged. At full stretch the rattler would be able to reach within a couple of inches of his face. If he relaxed he faced a painful death.

  She
riff Parfitt and the posse positively dissolved into hysterics at the sight of the angry snake and the clearly petrified Jake Scudder.

  "Hope you have a strong neck, Scudder," laughed the sheriff. "Because that is what you would have needed if we had just hanged you. At least this way you’ve got a chance – if you can outlast the rattler!"

  Hank Bott, the deputy grinned. "Of course, in this heat you are both going to get mighty dry without water or shade."

  Jake was too engrossed with simple survival to reply. That the reptile was full of hate and anger was all too obvious.

  "Must say it is getting hot," Sheriff Parfitt said, removing his hat and wiping his brow with the back of his hand. "You might think about all the discomfort you're causing us, Scudder," he said accusingly.

  The impassive Nantan tugged the sheriff’s sleeve and whispered in his ear. The sheriff grinned and nodded. "Reckon that makes sense, Nantan," he said. "Coffee and chow sounds a good idea. We'll give the bastard a bit of time with his executioner, and then we'll be back. No sense in us all burning in this heat."

  He knelt beside Jake’s head and grinned. "And in case the snake doesn’t get you, just remember that I’ve got six bullets in this Peacemaker of mine – and any one of them will be enough to put you out of your misery if you just care to holler."

  * * *

  Elly had not felt like eating the rancid bacon or drinking the thick black Arbuckle’s coffee that the two men gave her. However, she was all too aware that she would need her strength and her wits about her no matter what happened. They had locked her in the dark, windowless back room of a cabin in the Pintos that she had little doubt would be almost impossible to find. A solitary guttering candle was her only illumination.

  The fact that the men made no attempt to cover their faces alarmed her no end. Even more disconcerting, they didn’t even bother to conceal their names from her. And indeed, she was almost sure that one of them had worked for her father for a while, until he had fired him.

  "Damn it, Hog," she heard the younger one, the coarse featured one with a lazy eye, say as he closed and bolted the door behind him, "she’s a looker. Why for two cents –"