by Ralph Cotton
“Damn you, Lawrence,” Jane whispered. Her eyes were full of tears as she lifted her head and gazed out at the body lying sprawled in a rise of dust.
As Heaton went down, the other rider cut sharp and raced away across the basin floor. Farther back out of range, Cantro and the others watched as the second shot exploded and a long second later the rider flew sideways from his saddle and slid to a halt, dead in the dirt.
Cantro scanned the hillside above the sunken water hole and said to Stroud, “Just as we expected. They want us to pay dearly for this water, eh?” He looked back at the men who had taken turns beating on Jane. “I expect there’s some vengeance in the works too.”
“We can’t stay here long, sir,” Stroud said just between the two of them.
“Right you are, Arnold,” said Cantro. He swung away from the ranks, rode a few yards and looked back along the trail behind them. “This blasted dust,” he said under his breath, unable to see how close the soldiers had gotten to them over the past hour. Riding back to Stroud he said, “Whoever Jane Crowly’s friend is, he thinks he can hold us here until the soldiers begin nipping at us from the rear.”
“What will it be, sir?” Stroud asked.
“Or else he wants us to charge,” Cantro continued, “so he can pick some of us off before he makes his getaway. He knows we don’t want to kill him until he leads us to the gold.” He grinned and shook his head. “I wish I had a dozen men like this one. . . .”
Sitting on the hillside, Shaw watched Cantro and his men ride off to the left without coming any closer into rifle range. “He’s not going to charge us, Janie,” he said, sounding almost disappointed. “He’s going to get some distance, ride into the hills and come at us from some cover. Good plan,” he said, “better than letting me pick his men off, and better than fighting the soldiers out on the open desert.” He stood up and offered a hand down to Jane. “Let’s go, Janie. Cantro’s tipped the odds back into his favor for now.”
“Just go on without me, Lawrence,” Jane said, too ashamed to look up at him. “I’m no damned good for nothing or nobody. Leave me here. . . . I’ll feed myself to the coyotes.”
“We don’t have time for this, Janie,” said Shaw.
“I mean it, Lawrence,” she said, staring away from him. “I can’t even kill the sonsabitches who beat me like a dog. What kind of weak, sorry fool am I?”
“You’re no fool, Janie,” Shaw said. “And I’d call you anything but weak.”
“Then can you please tell me what the hell is wrong with me?” she pleaded. She turned up her battered face to his.
“Janie, it’s no easy thing, killing a human being. I’d think there was something wrong with you if it came easy to you,” said Shaw. “Can we get going?”
“You would?” she said, without making a move toward leaving. He saw tears stream down her bruised, puffy cheeks.
“Come on, Janie, get up,” Shaw coaxed. “There’s worse things than not being able to take a man’s life. If I could go back and change anything, I wish I could be that way myself.”
“Bull!” Jane said, but she took his outstretched hand and rose to her feet. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“Think what you will, Janie,” Shaw said, the two of them climbing over a crest of rock and heading back down to their horses. “We’ll talk more about it later. Right now we’ve got to get out of here.”
“The only person I ever shot and killed on purpose was a woman, you know,” she said, almost sobbing again. “The poor Widow Edelman . . . and I shot her in the back!”
“I know, Jane,” said Shaw. “You did it to save my life, and I’m grateful to you for it.”
“Well, it’s the damned truth,” she said, as if Shaw had somehow discredited her for mentioning it.
There was no talking to her, Shaw told himself. Being with Jane had been a mistake—a mistake that could be fixed only one way, he thought.
Chapter 23
Once in their saddles, Shaw and Jane left the deep draw at a run. Skirting along the base of the hills across the hard rock surface, they kept watch for any sign of the wagon crossing the sand basin. When they finally saw the wagon tracks and the hoofprints of the team horses and Dawson’s and Caldwell’s saddle horses, Shaw pointed them out and the two swung over and rode alongside them.
“It’s about time,” he called out to Jane, the two of them not even slowing down. Instead Shaw looked back along the base of the hills for a moment as gunfire began to erupt from around the water hole. “I hope the wagon has already made it across and headed up into the hills,” he shouted. “They’ll be sitting ducks out on these sand hills.” He looked forward, his eyes following the wagon tracks. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll all kill each other back there.”
Jane also looked back toward the gunfire, batting her boots to her horse’s sides. “You’re traveling with the wrong damned person if you expect any good luck to come looking for us.”
Shaw didn’t reply. They rode along the trail of the wagon and horses until a rise of sand stood sheltering them from the hills alongside the water hole. Knowing they were out of sight and out of range for the time being, Shaw slowed the speckled barb’s pace and cut away from the wagon trail to the top of another higher sand rise, where he could look down across the rolling land ahead of them.
Kneeling with the telescope steadied on his raised, crooked forearm, Shaw scanned back and forth slowly through the waver of heat and harsh glare of fiery silver-white sunlight. Finally he stopped scanning suddenly and eased the lens back on a retake and said, “Got them.”
“Good!” Jane said. “How far are they from the other side?”
Shaw grimaced. “Seven or eight miles,” he said. “Too far to outrun Cantro or the soldiers, unless they start running real soon.” He stood and dusted sand from his trousers. “We’ll start sending them warning shots.”
“How hard can they run anyway with a load that damned heavy?” Jane asked. “If they’re not careful they’ll run them wagon horses to death.”
“I know,” said Shaw. He shoved the telescope into his saddlebags and swung up into his saddle. “But we’ll give them the warning. Juan Lupo will have to decide how hard to push the horses.” Behind them the fighting back and forth had grown closer and more intense, sounding as if the fight had left the water hole and was moving in their direction.
Before Shaw could ride forward, Jane grabbed the speckled barb by it’s bridle and said out of the blue through puffed, swollen lips, “In case the worst befalls me and I don’t make it through this, I want to tell you now that I’m sorry I put you on the spot. You know, all that talk about love and whatnot?”
“Forget it, Jane,” Shaw said. He couldn’t believe she’d bring it up at a time like this.
“I was out of my head, hurting, scared,” she said. “I know you don’t love me.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t expect you to. Hell, who’d love a peculiar ole prairie cur like me?”
“Janie, this can wait. We’ve got to go,” he said firmly.
“I know I’ve got a damned dirty mouth and my manners are crude and unladylike,” she continued without pause. “I know I don’t toe nobody’s mark but my own—” She stopped short and looked at him more closely. “That’s it, ain’t it . . . it’s my cursing all the damned time. That’s what has distanced you from me.”
Shaw just stared at her, not knowing what to say.
“Because if that’s it, I can change, Lawrence!” she pleaded. “I know I can change . . . and I will change. I swear I will. . . . You just watch and see.”
“I don’t want you to change, Janie,” Shaw said. “It won’t make any difference.”
“You say that because you don’t think I can,” said Jane, still holding on to hope. “But if it means you and me will be together—”
“Enough . . . ,” Shaw cut in. He took her wrist and made her turn loose of his horse’s bridle. “Janie, look at me. I think the world of you. But do I love you? No, I do
n’t. I mean, not in the way we’re talking about.” He took a quick glance back in the direction of the gunfire, then went on. “The only woman I ever loved is dead. I wish I could forget her and love somebody else, anybody else. But I’ve tried, and I don’t, I can’t, and that’s the whole of it. So there.”
She stared at him through swollen slits of eyes. “I see,” she said quietly, without attempting to mask her hurt and disappointment.
Shaw paused for a moment, then gave a curt nod in affirmation of his words and said, “Now . . . can we get going?” He swung his rifle up from his lap, pointed it skyward and fired two shots as they rode forward down the tall sloping sand hill and back onto the trail of hoofprints and wagon tracks.
Ahead of Shaw and Jane Crowly, Dawson, Caldwell and Juan Lupo heard the two rifle shots and looked back toward the sound. They had been hearing the distant sounds of gunfire and had no doubt that a running battle raged all the way back to the water hole. But the two deliberate rifle shots sounded much closer and seemed to carry a different meaning.
“Shaw and Jane?” Caldwell asked Dawson and Lupo, the three of them stopping for moment and gazing intently into the swirling heat that prevented them from seeing clearly so far away without benefit of Caldwell’s field lens, which lay in the wagon seat beside Juan Lupo.
No sooner had Caldwell asked than two more shots resounded one after the other. “Yep,” said Dawson, “I’d say it’s them. Judging from the gunfire going on behind them, I’d say Shaw is telling us to hightail across the open ground and find ourselves some cover, pronto.”
Lupo raised Caldwell’s telescope, pulled it open and searched back until he saw Shaw and Jane top a rise of sand. “Si, it is them,” he said, “and they are headed for us as if the devil is on their tails.”
“And we best head on across here in the same manner,” Dawson said as two more rifle shots resounded. “All right, Shaw, we hear you,” Dawson muttered to himself. “Don’t waste all your bullets warning us. . . .”
In the distance behind the wagon, Shaw slipped his smoking rifle back into its boot, pulled open the telescope and gazed out through it. “Looks like they got the message, Janie,” he said, watching the wagon begin to move much quicker across the sand, the horses and the rolling wheels stirring up a rising cloud of dust.
“Good,” Janie said, “with all this damned gunfire back here I was afraid they’d think it’s just the Fourth of July.”
From the swirling white heat ahead of them two shots exploded from Dawson’s rifle, acknowledging Shaw’s warning. Shaw gave a tight grin. “Now cut straight for the hills. We’ll meet you there. . . .”
When the wagon reached the base of the hills and started up a steep, rocky trail, Dawson looked back and saw two black dots that were Shaw and Jane Crowly riding toward them on the wavering blanket of silver-white sand. In the distance beyond the two black dots he heard the sounds of gunfire as the Mexican soldiers and the Border Dogs fought fiercely along the desert floor.
“This trail is much too steep and rocky for these horses,” Juan Lupo called out over his shoulder, bouncing and swaying in the hard wooden seat.
“We don’t have time to search for a better trail,” said Dawson, his and Caldwell’s horses climbing the trail on either side of the wagon and riding past him to scout the rough, treacherous hillside.
At a rough fork overgrown with mesquite brush and short, coarse cedar, Juan turned the wagon and bounced along another fifty yards until Dawson waved back and stopped him. As Juan brought the team horses to a halt and set the brake handle, Caldwell rode over to Dawson and said, “We might just as well have left Cantro a sign pointing the way here.” He gestured at the two clear wagon tracks running back from the wagon.
“This is as far as we’ll ever make it, unless the soldiers and Cantro’s men kill each other off on their way here,” said Dawson. “The five of us won’t stand much of a chance here,” he added, judging their defensive position.
Stepping down from the wagon, Juan Lupo walked up to the two of them, his rifle hanging from his hand. “Perhaps we would fair better if we made a run for it and took our chances on the desert floor,” he said quietly.
“We might yet,” said Dawson, looking down through the sparse cover of scrub cedar and pine and seeing Shaw and Jane’s horse running along in the hoofprints and wagon tracks they’d left behind.
Lupo started to say more on the matter, but a commotion caused the three of them to turn their guns toward the steep hillside in time to see a battered stove-pipe hat roll out onto the rock trail. Dawson called out into the brush and tangled cedars, “You in there! Come out with your hands high!”
“Don’t shoot! We’re coming out!” a frightened voice called out from within the brush.
The three lawmen watched as Cactus John and Paul Harrod stumbled out onto the trail, their hands in the air. “Who the devil are you?” Lupo asked, amazed to see two men on this remote trail.
“I’m Cactus John Barker,” said the cantina owner, looking back and forth, hoping to be recognized. “If any of yas have ever been to the Raw Leg in Trabajo Duro, you’d know that it’s my place.”
“I’m the Bird,” said Harrod, standing beside him bareheaded, his stove-pipe hat lying on the rough ground at his feet. “I’m with him.” He gestured toward Cactus John.
“What the blazes are you doing out here?” Lupo asked, eying them both closely.
“That’s the same question I’ve been asking myself this past week,” said Cactus John. “I agreed to ride out with the federales to see if I can help them find the polecats who shot up the Raw Leg and burned down the church and brothel in Suerte Buena.”
“You mean Red Burke and his pals,” said Dawson.
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Cactus John, looking surprised. “How’d you know?”
“A friend told us,” said Dawson. He looked at Harrod and said, “Pick up your hat.”
“Thank you,” said Harrod, stooping and snatching the hat from the ground. He wiped and straightened its battered brim. “We ran away late last night when the fighting started all the way up there.” He pointed upward toward the top of the hills. “How we ended up on this trail is anybody’s guess.”
“This trail runs up to where?” Dawson asked.
“I heard Cantro say they’d come from Suerte Buena,” Cactus John replied, “so it must run that far at least . . . probably farther, all the way to the other side of Ciudad de Almas Perdidas. But don’t go taking my word on it. Hell, I’ve been half lost ever since I left Tejas.” He grinned and lowered his hands a little. “Is it safe to say that if you fellows were going to kill us, you already would have?”
“We’re not going to kill you,” said Caldwell as he stepped down from his saddle. He searched the two men in turn and lifted a four-shot derringer from Cactus John’s vest pocket.
“A fellow in my line of work learns to always keep a little shooter nearby,” Cactus John said with a grin.
“Would a wagon this size make it up the trail?” Lupo asked, looking for a way out of their present quandary.
“Not with me in it,” said Cactus John. “I’d jump out first. It’s rough and steep and half missing in spots. I’m surprised we didn’t break our danged necks riding it all night.”
“But a man can amaze himself when there are guns firing at him,” Harrod cut in, placing his hat atop his head and tugging it down.
“Who is the leader of the federales?” Lupo asked, his mind at work.
“A young captain by the name of Fuerte,” said Cactus John. “A good enough fellow, but a little too ready to start shooting, for my money.”
Lupo looked at Dawson and Caldwell and said with relief, “I know this captain. I met him in Mexico City. He is known as a man to be trusted.”
“Even under these circumstances?” Dawson asked, careful not to mention the gold in front of strangers.
“That I will not say for now,” said Lupo. He asked Cactus John, “How many men does Cantro have
riding with him?”
“I didn’t do a head count,” said Cactus John, “but I’ll put it at twenty or more. Of course I won’t guess how many he lost last night.”
Harrod cut in, saying, “I hate to impose, but do you have any water to spare, maybe a bite or two of something to eat? We’ve been going all night and most of yesterday with nothing in our bellies.”
“Si, we can spare you some food and water,” said Lupo, raising his canteen and pitching it to him. “But I will warn you, after you eat you should get out of here. There will be more fighting before this day is over.”
“You won’t have to warn me twice,” said Cactus John, holding his dusty hand out for the canteen when Harrod finished with it. “We’ve got horses cooling up there.” He gestured toward the steep hillside. “As soon as we can shove something down our gullets, we’re all for hitting the high trail back to Trabajo Duro. I came here thinking it was my civic duty.”
“Civic duty—huh!” said Harrod. “If I ever do something like this again, I want somebody to kick me squarely in the rump. There’s nothing civil about Old Mexico, and I know it.”
Chapter 24
As Shaw and Jane topped a rise of sand on the last mile-long stretch toward the hills, two rifle shots resounded from less than a hundred yards away. When Shaw saw one bullet hit the ground near the speckled barb’s hooves he knew the rifleman was too close for comfort. The other shot fell short and went unnoticed. As Jane turned and looked at him with concern in her eyes, he slumped suddenly in his saddle. “I’m not hit. Keep going. I’ll be right along.”
Jane caught on to his idea. “You’d better be,” she said, kicking her horse and heading on, hoping to get herself out of the rifleman’s range. As soon as she rode away, Shaw lay slumped on the barb’s neck and rode the animal down over the crest of a sand hill. When he knew he was out of sight, he slowed the animal and leaped from the saddle. He hit the ground and lay there. But the barb circled and rode back and stuck its muzzle against his face. “Get out of here,” Shaw hissed, slapping it away from him. The barb jerked its muzzle away, ran off a few yards and stopped and looked back at him.