by Ralph Cotton
“We’d be a sight better off without it than we would be having it on us, if we run into a posse searching for it,” Mackenzie reasoned.
“Would we?” Harper asked, still holding the three bundles of money. He shook the wads back and forth for emphasis. “If something happens to all this after we leave here, we better hope to God nobody ever figures we seen it. Because they’d never believe we’d be foolish enough to just leave it lying here.”
“How come you got so danged smart all of a sudden, Tadpole?” Mackenzie asked, irritated and worried.
Harper gave a dejected look, then lowered his head and started to turn away.
“Wait, I didn’t mean nothing by that, Tadpole,” Mackenzie called out. “Dang it!” He rubbed his troubled forehead, needing to think things through clearly, but feeling too pressed to do so.
“Tadpole was right, what he said before . . . and he’s right what he’s saying now,” Brewer said quietly to Mackenzie. “If we leave this money lying here and something happens to it, we’ll be the ones answering for it, sure enough.”
Mackenzie shook his troubled head. He looked all around as if searching for a way to pull his herd out of a box canyon. “Bag it up,” he said with resolve, not facing Brewer or Harper. “We’ll take it with us to the next town where’s there’s a sheriff, turn it in there and explain why we did it this way.”
“What town is that?” asked Thorpe.
“There’s a supply town named Red Hill, thirty, forty miles ahead,” said Mackenzie. “They used to have a sheriff. I’m hoping they still do.”
“Hoping?” Harper said, with more insight than the others were used to hearing from him. “Even if there is a sheriff, he’ll more than likely—”
Cutting him off, Mackenzie said with a stare, “He’ll take our word for it. None of us are thieves, Tadpole. The law don’t condemn innocent men for trying to do the right thing.”
“Come on, Tad.” Brewer gave Harper a slight nudge toward the money. “Don’t crowd him right now, give him some room.” Without another word, the two stooped down and began stuffing the money stacks into the carpetbag.
Mackenzie walked a few feet away and looked out across the badlands below. He needed to think this thing through, he told himself, drawing a deep breath. But before a clear thought come to mind, Holly Thorpe called out to him, “Mac? What about these stray horses?”
The young trail boss looked around, appearing pressed and put upon by so much hitting him at once.
“Them,” said Thorpe, nodding toward Moore’s and Carnes’ horses, standing off the trail staring at them.
Whew . . . Mackenzie felt the pressure, yet he kept his voice calm. “Drop their saddles and turn them loose.”
But no sooner had he’d spoken than Harper called out from over beside the bag of money, “It’ll be a sure sign somebody else was here after the shooting if we turn them loose now.”
“Quiet, Tad,” Brewer said, still stuffing money into the bag.
“No, Tadpole’s right again,” said Mackenzie. He let out a tense breath. “All right, we’ll take the horses with us. Like as not, we’ll find the stage horses somewhere ahead. We’ll have to take them too.” He shook his head, looked back out across the rugged terrain and murmured to himself, “I just hope we can lay all this on the law before the law lays it all on us.”
In the thick brush alongside the trail, Buckshot Parks stayed hidden, watching and listening as closely as he could until the four drovers mounted and rode out of sight, leading Moore’s and Carnes’ horses along behind them. Then he ran out onto the littered trail, looked all around and kicked the unopened strongbox.
Damn it! Damn it all to hell! He had no idea how much money he’d just watched the four cowhands ride off with, but there was not a doubt in his mind that it was his money. After all, it had been him, Moore and Carnes who’d robbed the stage. He’d heard them mention Davin Grissin’s name. If that money had belonged to Davin Grissin, the four cowpokes had more trouble coming than they knew what to do with, he told himself. But all that aside, it was his money now, regardless who it had belonged to before.
Red Hill, huh? Hurriedly he walked to where the double-barreled shotgun lay in the dirt near Jim Blanton’s dead hand. He stooped over Blanton, picked up the weapon and searched Blanton’s body until he found four fresh loads shoved down in his vest pocket.
Standing, shotgun loaded and in hand, Parks searched all around until he found a canteen he’d seen lying in the dirt earlier. He picked it up, shook it, determined it was half-full and slipped the strap over his shoulder. He looked back and forth for his horse. Not seeing the animal, he pressed his fingers to his mouth and let out a loud whistle.
Hearing no sound of the horse’s hooves or the breaking of brush and twig, he’d turned to leave when he heard a deep moan coming from the direction of the leaning stagecoach. He turned and walked warily over to one of the businessmen who had fallen from inside the tipped stage.
“Are you still alive, you bloody sumbitch, you?” Parks asked, staring down at the blank dead eyes. He kicked the bloody face and watched it wobble limply back and forth. The blank eyes remained unchanged. They continued staring straight ahead.
“All this craziness has got me hearing things,” Parks said. He looked at the expensive new derby hat lying in the dust near the body, with only a streak of dust on its rolled-edge brim to prove it had been in a stagecoach crash.
“Well, now, I don’t mind if I do,” said Parks. He stooped down, picked up the derby and slapped it against his thigh. He shoved it down atop his bare head, turned and looked back and forth along the trail again. He gave another loud whistle, then walked away, following the hoofprints on the ground, tracking his money.
Three hours later, in the fading afternoon light, Millard Kinnard rode around a turn in the trail and came upon the ghastly sight so suddenly that it caused him to jerk back sharply on his reins and startle his horse. The frightened animal reared, nickered loudly and turned in a full circle on its rear hooves. While perched high and hanging on to the horse’s mane, Kinnard got a close-up, wide-eyed look at the dead, the crashed stage and the money box lying in the trail.
The frightened schoolmaster let out a loud shriek as his horse came down, its direction reversed, and raced back along the winding trail toward Albertson, out of control.
At the bottom of a hill where a fork led in one direction toward town and in another out toward the badlands, Maria and Sam both stopped at the sound of hooves and the shouting, pleading, cursing voice of the schoolmaster approaching them.
“I’ve got him,” Sam said quickly, the two sidling off the trail to keep the racing horse from veering off the trail into rocks and brush.
Maria reined back and watched as the ranger’s white barb with its black-circled eye shot out like a dart and swung alongside the spooked animal. In a second, Sam had reached out and slowed the animal to a walk and turned it alongside him and headed back along the trail. The man in the saddle straightened with a worried and embarrassed look on his sweaty face. He appeared relieved to see the badge on the ranger’s chest.
“My goodness! I thought this horse was never going to stop!” Maria heard him say as the two drew to a halt in front of her. Seeing Maria, the man reached to tip his hat, only to realize that his hat had flown off somewhere back along the winding uphill trail.
“What spooked it?” Sam asked, seeing Maria offer the man a curt nod.
The schoolmaster turned to Sam as he fished a handkerchief from his lapel with a nervous hand. “Ranger, a terrible thing has happened up there,” he said, nodding toward the uphill trail. “The stage to Albertson has been crashed and robbed, there are dead everywhere!”
“Calm down, mister,” the ranger said, looking off in the same direction. “Who are you? What were you doing up there?”
“Oh, excuse me, I’m Millard Kinnard, I’m the schoolmaster in Alberston,” said Kinnard in a shaky voice. “I was on my way to Wakely to advise them in star
ting a school there. And who are you, sir, ma’am?” he asked.
“I’m Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack. This is Maria,” Sam said. As he spoke, he sidled in, lifted the flap on one of Kinnard’s saddlebags and looked inside. Seeing only three leather-bound books and some food wrapped in canvas, he dropped the flap and stepped his horse back. “How far up the trail is the stage?”
“A mile, I estimate,” the schoolmaster replied. “This horse has been running so long, everything is a blur to me.” He looked back and forth between Sam and Maria, then looked at the white barb with the black spot circling one of its eyes. Recognition came to him and he said, “Oh my. You’re the ranger, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am,” Sam said. “I’m going to ask you to ride back up there with us, show us what you saw.”
“What I saw?” Kinnard looked frightened at the prospect. “Ranger Burrack, I hardly see how riding back up there with you is helpful in any way. Shouldn’t I ride back to Albertson and tell everyone what has happened?”
“It’s only a mile,” said Sam. “You’ll have plenty of time to ride back to Albertson afterward.”
A look of realization came to the schoolmaster’s eyes. “Do you think I might have had something to do with this, Ranger Burrack?”
“No,” Sam said cordially, “I’m not thinking that at all, and I won’t think it unless you start trying to stall us.” He nodded toward the trail. “Now, what do you say? You want to ride up with us?”
“Oh yes, of course,” said Kinnard, “anything to help.”
As they turned their horses, Maria reached out with her gloved hand and offered Kinnard an uncapped canteen of water. “Oh yes. Thank you, ma’am,” he said, grasping the canteen and drinking from it eagerly.
They rode upward until they reached the turn in the trail. Along the way the ranger and Maria had both kept an eye toward the trail beneath them, seeing zigzagging wheel marks, hoofprints, boot prints and drag marks, getting a picture of what had gone on. Before rounding the turn and stepping down from their saddles, Sam said quietly to Kinnard, “Stay back a little,” which the schoolmaster did gratefully.
Kinnard stood back with his eyes averted while Sam and Maria walked among the dead and the debris, recognizing Moore’s, Carnes’, Baggs’ and Blanton’s bloody bodies. When Sam reached the spot where the colonel’s body lay in the ditch alongside the bottom edge of the rock wall, he called out to Maria, who had walked over closer to the stagecoach.
“This is Colonel Tanner over here,” he said. “That explains things a little. Between him riding as a passenger and Jim Blanton riding shotgun, I’d say these two took on more than they’d bargained on.”
“Sam,” said Maria, “the colonel had Sergeant Tom Haines with him.”
“I know,” Sam said, looking down at dark bloody paw prints in the dirt.
Kinnard had ventured closer. “Who—who is Sergeant Tom Haines? The colonel’s orderly?” he asked.
“No, Tom Haines is his dog,” Sam said. He followed the dog’s paw prints in reverse, over to where Maria stood crouched between the leaning stage and the rock wall. Looking in, Sam saw her hold up the cut leash in her hand. On the ground lay a wide dark puddle of blood. From the dark puddle the dog’s paw prints had led to the colonel’s body, then off into the brush.
Kinnard asked, “Do you suppose the dog is . . . ?”
“Dead?” said Sam, looking off into the brush. “I don’t know. He might be wounded, wandering around out there somewhere. He won’t last long if he is.”
Walking to where Moore lay dead, his black left boot missing, Parks’ heelless brown boot lying in the dirt, Sam said quietly, his Colt still in his hand from when they’d ridden in, “There’s another one somewhere.”
Maria eased over closer and looked down with the ranger. “This is the heelless boot print we saw back there along the trail?”
“Yep,” said Sam. He looked around, glimpsing only Kinnard’s high-topped shoes. As he walked to the edge of the trail he asked the finicky schoolmaster over his shoulder, “Is there a sheriff in Albertson now?”
“No,” said Kinnard, “Peyton Quinn is acting as a temporary sheriff. If you want to consider him a sheriff, I’m certain he won’t mind.” His voice carried a heavy note of unveiled sarcasm.
“Quinn the gunman?” Sam asked skeptically. “I never knew of him upholding the law.”
“Nor has anyone else,” Kinnard said in the same dry tone. “But he was appointed to office by Davin Grissin. If you know Mr. Grissin, you must realize that he is the final authority over anything that goes on in Albertson these days.”
Sam shook his head and made no comment on either Peyton Quinn, Davin Grissin or the town of Albertson itself. Instead he said, “Ride back, tell everybody what happened here. Bring back some help and a team of horses to pull the stage. I’ll lay the dead inside once I pull it up onto its wheels. Tell them Maria and I might already be gone, searching for the other robber.” He noted the fading light. “But if they see a campfire, tell them to approach it wisely.”
“Yes—yes, right away, Ranger Burrack,” said Kinnard, already stepping back into his saddle, anxious to get under way.
Only when the schoolmaster was out of sight did Sam and Maria give each other a knowing look. “Please tell me I heard him wrong,” said Maria. “Davin Grissin has appointed Peyton Quinn, the hired killer, as temporary sheriff for the town of Albertson?”
“I’m as surprised as you are,” said Sam. “But if he shows up wearing a badge, I’m obliged to treat him the same as I would any other lawman.”
“You mean with ‘respect and cooperation’?” Maria asked, having a feeling she already knew what his answer would be.
“With cooperation for now,” the ranger replied, already turning away from the matter of Peyton Quinn. His eyes darted from the dead and to the debris strewn on the ground. “There’s been a lot gone on here,” he added quietly. “You saw all the tracks, the overlapping, the different group of riders.”
“Sí, I saw them,” Maria said. “But I decided that you didn’t want to say too much while the schoolmaster was here.”
“You were right.” Sam walked closer to the leaning stage and looked down at the boot prints and scrape marks in the dirt beneath the rear freight compartment.
Chapter 5
As the ranger pulled back the canvas cover and looked down at the opened secret compartment, Maria said, “I always wondered: What good is a secret hiding spot when everyone knows where it is?”
“I’ve often wondered that myself,” the ranger replied. He gave a thin smile and gazed off along the trail. After a pause he said, “We both know there were other folks who came along and found this stage before the schoolmaster did. Why do you suppose those folks didn’t want anybody to know?”
Maria considered it. “They got spooked. They thought they would be blamed for what happened here?” She stirred the toe of her boot on the ground amid the disheveled dirt where the stack of money had fallen, as if discerning something from the earth itself. “They were not thieves, or else they would not have left the strongbox lying here unopened.”
Sam looked at the strongbox, the boot prints around it. “Sometimes folks don’t start out to be thieves, but temptation falls upon them so sudden and powerfully it makes them do things they ordinarily wouldn’t do.”
“Sí, I understand,” said Maria. She gestured a gloved hand toward the strongbox. “But here lies the sudden temptation you speak of. What would make them turn away from the money in there?”
“Maybe there was more money lying here.” Sam nodded at the dirt beneath the toe on her boot.
“Perhaps . . . ,” Maria mused, pondering the notion. She looked between the open hiding compartment lying empty and its plank panel cover lying beside it. “But why would they not take all of the money—this money too?”
“Because these folks aren’t thieves, remember? At least they haven’t talked themselves into it yet. They’re still thinking about it—fl
irting with the notion, so to speak.”
Maria only nodded.
As the ranger spoke he walked over to the broken-heeled boot and the ripped flour sack lying beside it in the dirt. He looked down at Moore’s stockinged foot. He left the broken boot where it lay, but he picked up the flour sack and shook dust from it. “Now, the fellow who wore this,” he said, running his gloved hand inside the ripped sack and poking his fingers out the eyeholes, “is a thief to the bone.”
“Aw,” Maria said, seeing that the dusty sack was a bandit’s mask and making a connection, “Stanton ‘Buckshot’ Parks?”
“Yep, I’m betting on it,” said Sam. “He’s known to be partial to these old-fashioned train robber flour sacks. Most robbers have stopped using them. Having one in his saddlebags could get a man hanged under the right circumstances. It’s easier using a bandanna since everybody wears one anyway.”
“You said Buckshot Parks wouldn’t be able to sit still long.” Maria gave a slight smile and shook her head. “He would stoop to riding with the likes of these two after all the big gangs he rode with?” She pointed back and forth from Moore to Carnes.
“Like I told you, he’s a born thief. He’s got to be up to something all the time. He can’t help himself.”
“And now,” said Maria, “is he riding with whoever came along and found this stage wreck?”
“That’s a good question,” said the ranger. “Is he riding with them, or he is riding after them, shadowing them?”
“How do we know these others have whatever money was in the hiding compartment instead of him?” Maria asked.
“We don’t,” Sam said, considering it. “But my hunch is, if Parks had his say over things, this box would be lying here open and empty—”
The ranger cut his words short when he heard a sound from the brush. Together he and Maria swung their guns around at the same time. “Who’s there?” Sam demanded. “Come out with your hands up and empty.”