Escape from Fire River

by Ralph Cotton

  “Two hours, three at the most,” said LaPrey.

  “Where are you . . . taking me?” Jane asked, her face resting against Shaw’s chest as he hurried along with her in his arms.

  “To LaPrey’s Cantina and Brothel,” LaPrey answered. “Is that all right with you, Jane Crowly?”

  “A brothel . . .” Jane tried to chuckle, but it came out as a cough. “Riding with Lawrence . . . a person might end up anywhere.”

  Chapter 14

  By the time Shaw, LaPrey and the twins had gotten Jane Crowly settled into a bed in one of the brothel rooms of the cantina, the people of Mal Vuelve had the burning adobe under control. Sipping from a water gourd, Jane said to Shaw, who stood at the side of her bed, “That sneaking son of a bitch meant to burn me alive.” Her voice sounded stronger than it had earlier. Malina had changed the bandage on her chest.

  On the other side of the bed, LaPrey said through smeared purple lipstick and melting makeup, “I cannot tell you how many times I have stayed awake at night, in fear of River Johnson wrapping me in my blanket and burning me up in my sleep.”

  “Well, he’s out of business now,” Shaw said. “I have to admit he slicked me good, standing out front, looking as much like a doctor as any I ever saw.”

  “What put you wise to him?” Janie asked.

  “Lucky for both of us, Clute here happened to mention that the doctor is away right now,” said Shaw. “Otherwise, you’d be burned to a crisp and I would’ve walked into a load of buckshot.” He gave LaPrey a nod of gratitude.

  “Obliged,” Jane said to the Frenchman.

  “I am only too happy to be of assistance to you, Fast Larry, and you, Jane Crowly,” said LaPrey with a hint of a French accent.

  “Okay, Dr. Shaw,” Jane said, feeling better enough to take on her skeptical attitude, “what’s the verdict? How bad am I hit? If I drank whiskey, would it pour out quicker than I can pour it in?” She started to sit up on the side of the bed, but Shaw stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder.

  “Lay back and settle in,” said Shaw. “You’re doing good, but you lost enough blood to keep you off your feet for the next few days.”

  “The next few days?” Jane protested. “That’s no clear answer. How many days is ‘the next few days?’ ”

  “Three days,” Shaw said.

  “Bull, you made that up,” Jane said as Falina stepped in from beside her sister and adjusted a thin pillow beneath her head.

  “Maybe so,” said Shaw, “but three days it is. I want your wound healed enough to not start bleeding all over again. We can’t have you out there weak and sick and getting yourself hurt.”

  “Well, hell, all right, if you say so . . . ,” Jane grumbled, but gave in and relaxed, staring up at the cracked adobe ceiling.

  Shaw had looked at Jane’s wound closely before Malina covered it with fresh cotton cloth bandaging. The bullet had broken the skin but traveled around a rib without going into her chest. It had struck her at an upward angle, but had cracked the bone and took a downward turn around her side cage and exited from her lower back. Shaw traced its path by following the purple bruise line it drew around and down her rib cage.

  “I’m leaving you here with the twins while I go on ahead and try to head Burke and the Mexicans off before they get out on the desert floor. Maybe the doctor will be back and take a look at you before you leave.”

  “I’m not accustomed to people heaping so much concern and attention on me,” Jane said. She sighed. “I suppose I best get used to getting shot now and then, riding with you.”

  Keeping the conversation serious, Shaw overlooked her quip and cautioned her, saying, “When you get back on the trail, you keep a close watch for federales as well as outlaws. Burke and his pals have stirred the Mexican troops up enough to make it dangerous for anybody riding the trails right now.”

  “I’ll watch my trail both ways,” Jane said. “You be careful yourself.” She reached a hand out to him.

  “You can count on it,” said Shaw. He took her hand gently for a moment, squeezed it slightly and turned it loose. Turning to the twins and LaPrey, he said, “And I’m counting on the three of you to take good care of her.”

  “You don’t have to tell them that, Lawrence,” said Jane. “Damn it all to hell, you’re embarrassing me.”

  Shaw added, “If she tries to get out of bed too soon, knock her in the head with something.”

  “There,” Jane said, grinning crookedly, “that’s more like it.”

  The three stood beside the bed and watched Shaw turn and leave the room. When he had disappeared across the cantina floor and walked out onto the street, Jane said to LaPrey with a sigh, “I suppose this would be a good time to get caught up on some serious drinking, wouldn’t it?”

  “No!” said LaPrey with a startled look. “Not in my place! I do not want Fast Larry Shaw finding I have let him down!”

  “Just checking, Clute,” Jane said with a quiet chuckle. She settled back onto her pillow and looked up at the twins. “My, but you two are some beautiful angels,” she said with a sigh. Then she closed her tired eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  She did not hear Shaw riding by only moments later atop his speckled barb. He looked at River Johnson’s body as two old men carried it off the street. He gave a glance toward the cantina and nudged the barb into a faster pace. Leading a fresh horse behind him, he rode away onto the same hill trail Burke and his men had taken, leaving a drifting cloud of dust in the air behind him.

  Fifteen miles along the steep hill line, Burke brought the Alevario brothers and Antonio Lero to a halt and gazed ahead, saying, “What have we here?” They stared at a narrow rope bridge that stretched across a deep gorge thirty yards ahead of them. In the middle of the trail stood a rifleman. He stared back at them, his feet planted firmly.

  “It is one of the Paylo Gang,” Sergio said. “They are always taking over bridges and ferries and charging people to use them.” With a shrug he added, “But we will kill them and go across.” He turned and started to gig his horse forward, Ernesto and Antonio flanking him. But Burke stopped them.

  “Hold back, Sergio,” he said. Then he looked back in the direction of Mal Vuelve for a moment as if in contemplation. “Are these Paylo boys any good?”

  “Good in what manner?” Sergio asked. “They will kill to get what they want, as most men will.”

  “Then they’ll kill for money,” Burke said, answering his own question.

  “Si, all men will kill for money,” Sergio said, his brother and Antonio nodding their agreement with him.

  Burke gave a thin smile. “Follow me; keep me covered,” he said, nudging his horse forward. “They’re bound to have heard about the stolen gold.” A few yards closer he called out, “Howdy!”

  Instead of returning Burke’s greeting, the rifleman answered, “That’s near enough, pilgrims. Read the sign and start scratching through your pockets. No money, no crossing.”

  Smiling, Burke eyed a large wooden plank sign with words crudely carved in misspelled English. “One dollar toel fee,” he read aloud, managing to discern the word “toll” from it. He grinned at the gunman. “That’s a steep fee. You own this bridge, I take it?”

  “Take it or leave it,” said another rifleman who stepped up from a path beside the bridge. “Yeah, you could say we do own it, now leastways.”

  “Los testículos of these hombres,” Sergio whispered sidelong to the others with a dark chuckle. “They charge Mexicans to use Mexican bridges and tell them so in Ingles.” To Burke he whispered, “Are you sure you do not want us to kill them?”

  “I’m sure,” said Burke. He reached into his trouser pockets, pulled out a stolen gold coin and said, “This is the only size coins I have. How else can we cross?”

  Sensing something underway, two more riflemen stepped into sight. The four spread out across the mouth of the bridge in a show of strength. The last man to step up, a tall Mexican with a scraggly black beard, replied matter-of-factly
to Burke, “You can ride to the next switchback. It is twenty miles.”

  Burke appeared to consider his situation. “Well, it looks like you’ve got us,” he said finally. He gave the coin a pitch and watched it land at the Mexican’s feet. The tall man glared at Burke, stooped and picked up the coin and examined it closely. Squinting at Burke curiously, he passed the coin over to a broad-shouldered Texan, Fitz Paylo.

  “I thought that might grab your attention,” Burke called out. “How much would it take to buy this bridge from yas?”

  “This bridge ain’t for sale, pilgrim,” said the first rifleman.

  “Hush up, Ted,” said Fitz Paylo with a short, stiff smile. “Of course it is. Let’s hear what the man has to say.” Holding up the shining coin, he called out to Red Burke, “To a man carrying these babies, we might be willing to let this bridge go at a bargain.”

  “There’s plenty of those shiny babies waiting to be had where we’re headed,” said Burke. “My question is, does the Paylo Gang have the kind of sand it takes to help me collect it?”

  “You’re Red Sage Burke, ain’t you?” said Fitz Paylo, cocking his head slightly for recognition. He squinted in the harsh glare of the sun.

  “Yep, that’s who I am,” said Burke. “Are you the leader here?”

  “Yep, I’m Fitz Paylo,” the gang leader replied. He gave a wide sweep of his gloved hand. “This is just one of my enterprises. I’ve got bridges, ferries and whatnot everywhere I go.” He grinned. “I’m what you might call a toll baron.” He gestured toward the other three. “These are my associates, Teddie Hugh, Morgan Gadler and Mexican Carlos.”

  “Are you in or out, Toll Baron?” Burke asked with a flat stare.

  “Do I look loco to you, Burke?” said Paylo. “Hell yes we’re in. I been smelling the air in every direction ever since I heard about that robbery last year, trying to get a sniff of that gold. Who do you want killed?”

  “Every poor mother’s son that gets in our way,” Burke said. “Is that easy enough?”

  “It is to us,” said Paylo. “Let us gather up our gear and horses; we’ll shut this operation down and skin out of here.”

  “Not so fast,” said Burke, him and the others sliding down from their saddles. “Let’s all take a look at this bridge first.”

  “What the hell for?” said Paylo. “When you’ve seen one bridge, you’ve seen a dozen.”

  “Never know,” said Burke, “I might want to go into tolling bridges myself someday.”

  Gathering warily, the entire group of gunmen walked out onto the bridge and stood in a long line gazing down into the deep, treacherous chasm beneath them. At the distant bottom a narrow stream of water rushed along and disappeared out of sight around a turn. “Damn,” said Burke, spitting and watching it plunge to the water below. “How far do you suppose that is?” he asked Teddie Hugh, leaning out and staring down beside him.

  “How the hell would I know?” said Hugh, leaning with him, gazing down.

  As quick as a snake Burke grabbed his belt and kicking ankle and hurled him over the rope edge. Hugh bellowed loud and long, flailing his arms and legs wildly. Paylo and his men instinctively started to make a move, but they found themselves staring into the three Mexican’s revolvers. “Take it easy, hombres,” Sergio warned them in an easy, calming voice, beneath Hugh’s final blood-curdling scream.

  “Whoo-iiii! Look at him go,” said Burke, staring down, the rope bridge swaying a bit with all of their weight. “Uh-oh! He’s landed,” he chuckled, hearing Hugh’s voice stop as he splattered on the rocky edge of the stream. He turned to Paylo; his smile was gone. He said in a serious tone, “When I tell a man howdy, I expect a reply.”

  The men stood in silence for a tense second until Paylo finally let out a breath and said, “I know what you mean. I’m much the same way myself.”

  “All right, then,” Burke said, closing the matter. He looked down at the thick rope and plank weaving that lay beneath their feet. “Where’s the best place to cut these ropes some if we wanted to make sure they’d break on somebody coming along behind us?”

  “Right back there where it starts,” said Paylo. He turned and hurried along, walking upward from the sagging belly of the bridge until he stood at the entrance pointing down at four thick ropes supporting the swaying plank floor. “Cut these main ropes more than halfway in two. As soon as some weight gets on, down she’ll go, quicker than ole Ted Hugh.”

  “Let’s get across, partner,” Burke said with a grin of admiration. “Then leave a man to cut these ropes where you tell him to. He can ride around the long way and catch up with us.”

  “You got it, partner,” said Paylo.

  “Good,” said Burke. “Now let’s get moving . . . go get that gold I’m talking about.”

  Chapter 15

  It was late evening by the time Shaw reached the swinging bridge. He stepped down from his saddle and led the two horses across without incident, more concerned with keeping his eyes on the shadowy darkness rather than the bridge itself. When he’d walked across the bridge and climbed back onto his saddle and rode away, he heard a creaking sound along the ropes and planks. But he only looked back in mild curiosity. With no reason to think the sound was anything other than normal, he nudged the speckled barb beneath him and rode on.

  Throughout the night he stopped only long enough to change horses or allow the animals to water themselves. The rest of the time he pushed on, keeping the animals at a quick pace in the thin light of a half-moon amid a blanket of glittering stars.

  At the first ray of dawn on the horizon he crept forward and stopped at the edge of a steep crag. His spare horse drawn up close beside him, he sat partially hidden by a stand of scrub cedar and pine. Watching closely, he counted seven men as a ghost-like procession filed slowly around a bare ledge on a trail beneath him.

  Seven men . . . ? Somewhere, Burke had managed to take on three more riders. Shaw didn’t bother to speculate as the where, or when, or how the outlaw had come upon three more guns. He knew why. It was because of the gold, or the promise of gold, he surmised. Gold had a way of drawing men to it like a magnet drew nails.

  Patting the necks of both horses in turn, he whispered, “Good boys . . .” Then he backed the horses silently, turned and rode on at a lessened pace until grainy morning light seeped down from the higher edges of cliffs and rock ledges above him.

  Judging the men to be no more than an hour’s ride ahead of him now, Shaw took it easier. He could see they were headed for the desert floor. He wanted to trail them for now, keep them in his sights and be ready to strike when he had the advantage. That would be on the open desert floor, he told himself. Seven men would not expect to be attacked by one rifleman in miles of open rolling sand.

  Their mistake, he thought, nudging the barb forward.

  At midmorning he’d followed their tracks down a long trail that turned to sand and eventually spilled onto the great desert basin. There the tracks had gathered as Burke and the men had stopped for a moment. Then the hoofprints stretched out again and wound off through endless sand hills dotted with mesquite brush and barrel cactus.

  Shaw stopped long enough to draw his rifle, check it and lay it across his lap. He had no idea where Dawson, Caldwell and Juan Lupo were out there. But judging from where he’d known them to be before the storm, he calculated they could not have gotten much farther than this wide stretch of desert lying before him. Not with a wagon full of gold, he told himself.

  He stared across the desert and saw a small, thin outline of hills at the end of his vision. In his saddlebags he carried a telescope. But there was no need to dig it out just yet. He knew that these were the hills he and Jane had trailed down and crossed before the storm caught them. This was good enough for now. He had Burke’s trail, and Burke was looking for the same thing he was. Burke and his men were no more than an hour in front of him still.

  This was scouting, he reminded himself, tapping his boots lightly to the horse’s sides. Keep an
idea of where the party you’re scouting for might be, and take on any threat that gets near it. He gave himself a grim smile and rode on. . . .

  At a narrow wash cut deep between two steep mounds of sand, Mexican Carlos pressed an empty canteen in a soft, shaded strip of darkened sand, and stepped all of his weight down near the open cap. After a few heavy steps a small puddle began to form in his boot prints.

  “A Mexican can find water in hell, blindfolded,” said Fitz Paylo, watching from where he sat in the thin shade of a large half-sunken rock.

  “I expect anybody could after that gully washer the other day,” said Burke, sitting beside him, sipping tepid water from a canteen. “But it ain’t like we need it.” He sipped again and spit a stream. Raising his voice for Mexican Carlos to hear, he added, “We’ve got plenty of agua fresca to get us across!”

  “My people know that an hombre must search for fresh water when he does not need it, in order to be able to find it when he does need it,” Mexican Carlos replied, still pressing his boot sole down on the canteen.

  “How fresh is it, if you’re squeezing it up out of the ground?” Paylo mused.

  “His people . . . ?” Sergio said quietly, he, Ernesto and Antonio watching stone-faced.

  “He is no Mejicano, this one,” Ernesto whispered to the other two. “No Mejicano squeezes water from the dirt when the needles of plump cactuses are sticking him in his rump at every turn.”

  The three nodded in silent unison.

  “I think you are right—he is no Mejicano,” Sergio replied, after a moment of keeping his eyes on the theatrical stampings of Mexican Carlos. “No Mejicano names himself ‘Mexican.’ ”

  “Unless he is an idiot,” Antonio put in, speaking in Spanish in a lowered tone.

  “He is trying too hard to show us what he is,” Antonio said. His hand went to the revolver stuck behind his belly sash. “I think I will shoot him and watch him die. If he crosses himself . . .”

  “No, wait, mi amigo!” said Sergio, seeing that Antonio was serious. “Let this idiota do his dance in the sand. When we find the gold, perhaps we will need him.”