Gun Country

by Ralph Cotton

  The sun had sunk below the western hill line as Shaw led the speckled barb and Corio’s big bay horse down silently from among the rocks. Tuesday lay slumped on the big bay. Her back wound had all but stopped bleeding. But the bullet was still inside her and needed to be cut out soon, before infection set in.

  Shaw looked at her, trying to keep his concern from showing. She wore his swallow-tailed coat and nothing under it except for the bloody bandage and the strips of cloth holding it in place. “Do you think . . . we could both go?” she asked quietly. “To Paris, that is?”

  “Sure,” whispered Shaw. “Why not?”

  “That sounds fine . . . ,” she cooed.

  The young woman had remained in a weak half-conscious state all the way down the hill trail, yet she had managed to keep herself in the saddle. When Shaw stopped at a small clearing, he lowered her to the ground. “I need you to keep quiet now, Tuesday,” he whispered.

  She didn’t seem to hear him. “Are you . . . carrying the gold with you?” she asked, looking around bleary-eyed in the dimming evening light.

  “Don’t talk crazy,” Shaw whispered. “In fact, don’t talk at all. I wouldn’t be carrying that much gold around right now.”

  “Why are . . . we whispering?” Tuesday asked, even as she continued to do so herself.

  “Because Lindsey and Boxer Shagin are sitting at the Gatling gun less than fifty feet from us. That’s why I want you to keep quiet.”

  Tuesday gasped, and gazed out through the spindly branches of a creosote bush at the single wagon still sitting in the middle of the trail. She looked back and forth in horror at the bodies of the Lowe Gang lying where they had fallen.

  “Give me a gun, Fast Larry,” she said, her thirst for vengeance seeming to strengthen her. “I’ll kill them both.”

  “No,” said Shaw, reaching up and lowering her down from the saddle. “I want you to wait here, watch the horses and keep quiet.”

  “You’re going to kill them?” she asked, holding on to his forearms to steady herself while she sat back against a large rock. “I . . . I want to help.”

  “Shhh, be quiet,” said Shaw. He took a canteen down from his saddle horn, uncapped it and handed it to her. “If this doesn’t go well for me, slip away from here and don’t look back.”

  “But what about the gold?” Tuesday asked with a dull shine in her eyes.

  Shaw didn’t answer.

  “If something happens to you—” Tuesday began to say more on the matter, but Shaw raised a finger to his lips, coaxing her to keep quiet. Then he backed away and slipped into the cover of rocks and disappeared like a snake.

  In the wagon, seated behind the mounted Gatling gun, Boxer Shagin kept a steady gaze fixed through the falling darkness onto the trail ahead, in the direction the rebels had taken the wagons farther out along the high winding trail. “I heard something out there,” he said to his brother in a lowered voice. “I heard it a while ago, and again just now.”

  Lindsey Shagin sat staring in the same direction. “If it’s Mexicans, I doubt we’ll hear anything at all,” he said. “They’re just like Apache. You don’t hear nothing until it’s too late.”

  Boxer gave him a grim look. “Then why the hell did Madden leave us here, to get us killed?”

  “Straighten up, brother Boxer,” Lindsey said, correcting him. “It’s getting that time of evening when you always get spooked about what you’ve done during the day.”

  “I ain’t spooked, and I ain’t done nothing,” Boxer said in his own defense.

  “Yeah?” Lindsey grinned and gestured toward the bodies still lying strewn in the trail. “Try telling these poor dead bastards that.” Blood on the bodies of man and horse had blackened and dried in the heat of the day. “They’d say you’ve done plenty.”

  “Don’t start trying to make me feel bad, Lindsey,” said Boxer. “You killed them too. I killed them because it’s my job. It wasn’t because I didn’t like them or was mad at them. Anyway, look how dark it is. Ain’t we waited long enough? Can’t we get out of here now? We’ve got gold to spend.” He patted a pair of saddlebags lying at his side, their share of gold from the gun deal that Corio had given them before he’d left.

  Lindsey gave a dark chuckle at the nervousness in his brother’s voice. He shook his head. “You’re a real daisy, you are, brother Boxer.” He stood up from beside Boxer in the wagon bed and stretched and started to step over to the open tailgate. “Yep, a real daisy, short the petals of course. . . .”

  “Hey, where are you going?” Boxer asked, sounding anxious. He reached up and snatched his brother by his arm.

  “To relieve myself before we ride. Damn, are you really that scared of the dead?” He pulled his arm from his brother’s grip.

  “You can go right there,” Boxer said, nodding down at the rear wagon wheel.

  Lindsey gave him a look. “Yeah, but you know me, I always prefer pissing against a tree when there’s one handy. Of course I could wait until it gets even darker, these bodies get up and start walking around and—”

  “Shut up and go on,” said Boxer, cutting him off, waving him away. “I don’t like talking that kind of nonsense. Hurry up and let’s get going.”

  Lindsey jumped down to the ground and walked away from the wagon, laughing under his breath. A few yards farther away, Shaw moved in close, walking along with him in a crouch in the cover of low rocks and brush. When the big outlaw stopped at an ancient cedar, unbuttoned his fly and began to relieve himself, Shaw rushed forward, his knife out of his boot well and gripped tightly in his hand.

  Lindsey heard the last few running footsteps coming toward him from behind. At the last second he swung around, but only in time to feel a hand clamp over his mouth and a blade slide expertly into his heart. His eyes bulged above Shaw’s hand; he sank back against the big cedar and slid down its trunk.

  When Shaw saw the outlaw’s bulging eyes turn dull and lifeless, he eased his hand from over his mouth. Silently he placed a boot on Lindsey’s chest, pulled the knife free and wiped the blade back and forth on the dead man’s slumped shoulder.

  On the wagon bed, Boxer looked around over his shoulder, seeing the figure walking toward him in the grainy evening darkness. Standing and dusting his trousers, he said, “Hurry up. I’m ready to get the hell to a cantina somewhere and spend some—oh, my God!” His words tuned into a loud yell as he began to see that this wasn’t his brother, Lindsey, at all. This was one of the bodies from the trail risen from the dead and coming at him.

  The front of Shaw’s shirt was black with dried blood from attending to Tuesday’s back wound. A long smear of the dark dried blood ran from his ear to the corner of his mouth. “Stay away from me!” Boxer screamed, his deep voice turning shrill in his terror.

  Shaw came forward at a run the last few yards and bounded up onto the wagon bed and onto the outlaw like a mountain cat. The big outlaw had become so paralyzed with fear that he hadn’t made a move toward the Gatling gun, or even for the Colt holstered on his hip. He caught Shaw in his big arms and fell backward onto the wagon. Shaw snapped his big head back, exposing his throat, and brought the knife into play with one vicious backstroke.

  From where she waited in the cover of rock, Tuesday had heard Boxer Shagin cry out. Then she sat in tense silence for what seemed to be a long time until she heard footsteps walking toward her across the rocky ground. In spite of her weakened condition, she managed to hold her derringer out at arm’s length, cocked and pointed, until she heard Shaw say, “Tuesday, it’s me. Come on, I’m getting you out of here.”

  “Getting me . . . out of here?” said Tuesday. “What about you?”

  “I’m staying until Bocanero’s men come back for the big gun,” said Shaw.

  “You’re going to give it to them?” she asked, looking at the saddlebags slung over his shoulder.

  “Yes,” Shaw said, “just as much of it as they can stand.” He stepped over to the horses and pitched the Shagin brothers’ saddlebags up be
hind the bay. He opened a bag, ran his hand in and brought up a palmful of Mexican gold coins. Tuesday’s eyes widened.

  “Is that . . . ?” She let her words trail.

  “It’s the gold I told you about,” Shaw said, realizing that in spite of his lying about the gold, he’d come out of it smelling like a rose. Letting the coins dribble from his fingertips back into the saddlebag, he asked, “How are you feeling?”

  “Not nearly as bad now as earlier,” she said. “I’ll be okay once I get . . . this bullet out.” She nodded stiffly toward the saddlebags. “That helps a lot.”

  “I hoped it would,” said Shaw. For all the blood she’d lost and for the bullet lodged in the back of her rib cage, Tuesday looked only a little worse for the wear.

  “There’s nothing like the glitter of gold . . . to put a whore at the top of her game, Fast Larry,” she said with a weak, tired smile. She held her arms out to him.

  Shaw picked her up and helped her up into the saddle atop the bay. “Think of me while you’re in Paris,” he said.

  “Wait,” said Tuesday, “aren’t you coming with me, aren’t you going to . . . catch up to me when you’re finished here?”

  Shaw gave her a serious look. “I might never get finished here, Tuesday. You need to get somewhere and get that bullet cut out.”

  “But I thought you and I—”

  Shaw cut her off with a raised hand as his attention drew toward the trail where he’d heard the slightest sound of hooves on stone. “There’s no time to talk about it,” he said in a whisper. “Get out of here, they’re coming.” He slapped the bay on its rump and sent it hurrying away in the opposite direction of the approaching hooves.

  As Tuesday Bonhart rode away quietly, Shaw jumped up into the wagon bed and stepped over Boxer’s body. Looking down at only a half dozen stacks of ammunition lying beside the Gatling gun, he murmured, “Madden Corio, you cheap bastard.” But then he saw a half dozen grenades and nodded in satisfaction. That helps. . . .

  He took off the tall stovepipe hat and filled it with the grenades. Then, heavily loaded hat in hand, he stooped down, cradled the Gatling gun in his arms and stood up with it, tripod and all, as the sound of the distant hooves drew closer.

  On the trail, Sepio Bocanero halted his six-man detachment long enough to light torches before riding into the empty clearing where he knew the wagon with his last Gatling gun and his hand grenades awaited him. “Raul, light a torch for me also,” he said to the tall Mexican riding at his side—one of his top officers, who had been with him at the exchange of gold for guns earlier.

  “But, Sepio,” said Raul, “is it wise for you to ride in there like some ordinary soldier?”

  “It is wise if I say it is wise,” Bocanero snapped. “Now light me a torch and bring it to me. If I am to remain a leader, my men must see me lead, not wait in the shadows. Besides, there is nothing for Madden Corio to gain by pulling a trick at this stage of the game.”

  “As you wish,” said Raul. He turned and took two lit torches from the men as they busily passed them around and lit them one from the other until the trail was aglow in flickering light. The men watched respectfully as Bocanero took a torch from Raul and nudged his horse ahead of the others.

  “Follow me,” Bocanero commanded.

  The men waited for only a second until Raul quickly nudged his horse up beside Bocanero and waved them forward. With nothing to fear, the seven men rode into the wide spot in the trail and looked all around, paying close attention to the dead still lying scattered on the ground. As Bocanero spurred his horse over to the wagon and looked over into the bed, Raul said to two men, “Paco, Migio, your horses will pull the wagon. You two will take turns driving—”

  Raul stopped short as Bocanero turned his horse quickly at the sight of Boxer Shagin lying in the empty wagon bed, his throat cut deep and wide. “No, Raul! Put out the torches! It is a trap. Put out the torches!”

  You caught on quick, Bocanero. . . .

  In the darkness on the hillside above them, Shaw lobbed a grenade far to the right of the clearing. Before it even exploded he lobbed another far to the left, pressing the men between the two. The other two grenades he tossed into the middle of the clearing among the panic at the center of the trail. Then he settled in behind the Gatling gun and braced himself for its impact.

  He held one hand firmly on the big gun’s handle and his other hand on the firing crank. He clicked the safety lever off with his thumb and started cranking, bringing the lead-belching monster to life.

  On the trail, stunned by the blasts of grenades, the men tried to retaliate and defend themselves, but their rally had come too late. The gun raked across them in the glow of torchlight, making a terrible sound of lead thumping, ripping and slashing through human meat and bone. In the torchlight Shaw watched the blood fly. He saw dirt kick up high from the trail and splinters and chunks of wood explode from the wagon.

  Some of the men ran, almost making it out of the flickering light. But almost wasn’t good enough. Shaw swung the gun along with them. He followed them, cranking steadily on the firing handle until the big gun hammered the helpless men in place and left them lying dead on the ground, scattered among the corpses left from earlier in the day.

  In a moment it was over. Shaw could not recall any of the men getting a shot off before the Gatling gun ate them alive. Looking down at the five remaining stacks of ammunition, the half a stack remaining atop the gun and at the two grenades lying at his feet, he said to himself, “I guess this was enough after all. . . .”

  Chapter 21

  Shaw walked down into the flickering light of the fallen torches still lying about on the ground. He picked one up and walked among the dead, his Colt hanging loosely in his right hand. At the rear of the wagon he saw Sepio Bocanero lying hatless and bloody on the ground. The dying rebel leader had managed to prop himself up on one arm, and draw a long Remington revolver from his holster. He struggled to raise the pistol, but his failing strength would not allow it.

  “Uh-uh,” Shaw said, clamping a boot down onto Bocanero’s wrist. “Turn it loose.”

  The wounded Mexican opened his fingers from the pistol and looked up at Shaw with a string of bloody saliva swinging from his lips. “Do you . . . know who I am?”

  “I’ve got a pretty good hunch,” Shaw said.

  “Then you must know, I can make you rich . . . ,” Bocanero said, his voice broken and shaky.

  “Don’t you get it, Sepio? It’s all over.” Shaw raised his boot from Bocanero’s wrist and kicked the Remington away from his hand.

  “It is not over,” Bocanero demanded. “I am the leader of my people. I am like a king . . . like God to them!”

  “No,” said Shaw, “you’re no king, or God.” His gun hand rose slightly. “You’re just one more gun-buying bandit who died bloody in the dirt.”

  The big Colt bucked once in Shaw’s hand, then dropped back to his side, smoking and silent. Looking around, he walked to the outer edge of torchlight and gathered two of the soldiers’ horses to pull the wagon. When he’d hitched the animals and led his barb out from the rocks and hitched it to the rear of the wagon, he stepped up into the bed and rolled Boxer Shagin’s body out onto the dirt beside Bocanero.

  Moments later, Shaw had carried the Gatling gun and the grenades back down from among the rocks and loaded them onto the wagon. Hitched to a wagon for the first time, the two saddle horses writhed, kicked, neighed and grumbled. But finally, realizing what was being asked of them, the animals settled into their task and moved out along the trail.

  Before Shaw and his wagonload of guns, grenades and ammunition had gone a thousand yards, he caught a glimpse of a single rider on a horse standing in the middle of the dark trail, silhouetted by the moon. Silently he stopped the wagon as he drew his Colt and held it ready at his side.

  “Fast Larry?” Tuesday Bonhart called out in a wary tone from the darkness. “Is that you?”

  Shaw let out a breath. “Yes, it’s me, T
uesday. What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, Fast Larry!” Hooves clicked lively toward him from the darkness as she rode into sight. “I knew it was you! I knew you’d be all right!”

  “How did you know?” Shaw asked.

  She reached down to him for support from her saddle to the wagon. As Shaw helped her over from the saddle to the wooden seat, the swallow-tailed coat opened down the front, revealing her naked breasts above the cloth strips holding the bandage to her wounded back.

  “Oh, don’t forget my bags,” she said, wagging a dainty but bloodstained finger toward the saddlebags behind the bay’s saddle.

  “But how did you know it was me?” Shaw asked again. He reached over, loosened the saddlebags and hefted them over to the wagon floor between his boots.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I heard all the firing, and then I heard the single pistol shot . . . and something just told me that you were okay! I knew it was you!”

  “What if it hadn’t been me?” Shaw looked at her pointedly, a little peeved because she hadn’t done as he’d told her to.

  “But it is you!” Tuesday, said, looping her arms in his and snuggling up against him in spite of the pain that was beginning to grow stronger in her back now that the numbing impact of the shot had begun to wear off. “Don’t be cross with me, Fast Larry,” she said, feigning a pout. “Don’t forget I’m an injured gal.” After a pause, she said, “Anyway, I didn’t want anybody cutting into my back but you.”

  Shaw let out another breath. “All right, I’m not cross. There’s an extra shirt back there in my saddlebags.” He nodded toward the barb hitched to the rear of the wagon. “I’ll get it for you.”

  “Not right now,” said Tuesday. “Let’s get away from here. I like being close to you this way without my blouse on.”

  Shaw shook his head.

  “Am I being too lewd, for a whore with a bullet in her back?” She smiled in spite of her pain and the weakness she still felt from the loss of blood.