Escape from Fire River

by Ralph Cotton

  Shaw turned and faced him, his swallowtail coat hanging open down his chest, his big bone-handled Colt standing tall and clean in its holster. He stared at the livery man without saying a word.

  Uh-oh . . . With an appraising look, noting both the gun and the stranger’s cool, confident presence, the livery man said in an apologetic voice, “Pay me no mind, Mister.” He chastised himself out loud. “Damn it, Radler. I expect swallowing a little dirt is better than having a bunch of it shoveled into my face.”

  “Is that your name, Radler?” Shaw asked the old man quietly. As he spoke he opened his coat enough to reach into a vest pocket and pull out a gold coin.

  “Yes, sir, it is,” said the old man. “Caywood Radler, if you want to know the whole of it. You can call me Radler; most folks do.” He caught himself and added nervously, “That is, unless you prefer calling me something else. I’m not what you call a stickler on formality. I go along with most anything.”

  Shaw flipped him the gold coin. “This is for me and the horse. I want a stall big enough for both of us while I’m here.”

  Radler caught the coin with his free hand and gave him a puzzled look. “Mister, we’ve got a hotel in Colinas Secas, a saloon and brothel, too. A man ain’t held to sleeping in a stable.” He looked Shaw over in the thin glow of the lantern.

  “I saw the hotel on my way here,” Shaw said in a flat tone. “I’ll take the livery.”

  “I do pride myself on running a good, clean livery barn,” the old man said as he stepped away and hung the lantern on a post. He hefted a wooden water bucket, carried it to the barb and set it down before the horse’s probing muzzle. He slipped the horse’s bit from its mouth, lifted its bridle and let it draw thirstily from the bucket. “But I don’t want you to feel like I said anything against the hotel.”

  Shaw only stared at him.

  “A fellow has to be careful what he says these days in Colinas Secas . . . or Dry Hills, if you prefer not to call the town by its Mex name,” he continued. “Either which name you want to call it is all right by me. I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea—”

  “What’s got you strung so tight, hostler?” Shaw asked, cutting him off.

  “I don’t want no trouble, is all, sir,” the livery man said. “I saw what happens to anybody who gets in you boys’ way—”

  “ ‘Us boys . . .‘?” Shaw asked, again cutting the frightened man short. “What boys is that?”

  “Why, Dexter Lowe’s boys, of course,” said the old man. He blinked in surprise. “Who else’s boys would I mean?”

  “Let’s stop asking each other the same question,” said Shaw. He began to get the picture. “I’m not one of Dexter Lowe’s men.” He studied the old man’s nervous, watery eyes. “Are Lowe and his men holing up here in Colinas Secas?” Dexter Lowe and his gang were one of the countless gangs that Shaw, U.S. Marshal Crayton Dawson and Deputy Jedson Caldwell had been sent to break up along the border badlands.

  Radler looked stunned, but he refused to offer a reply. “Look, Mister, I’m an old man. I’ve got no business meddling where I don’t belong. Lowe told us all what would happen if we said anything about him and his boys being here . . . so I ain’t saying nothing. For all I know you might be here to see if I can keep my mouth shut, like I was told.”

  “I understand,” said Shaw, the sound of his own voice making his head throb deeper in pain. He thought about his old battered U.S. Deputy Marshal badge. “Now what about that stall?” As he spoke he loosened the barb’s saddle cinch, lifted the saddle from the horse’s back and slung it over a rack while the barb continued drinking. He knew he could reach into his pocket, pull out his badge and ease his mind, but he wasn’t going to do that, he told himself.

  Showing Radler he was a lawman would settle the old livery man’s fear, but keeping the fact a secret seemed to always work to his advantage, he reminded himself, turning and pulling his ragged dust-coated bedroll down from behind his saddle.

  “This one here is freshly cleaned,” Radler said, gesturing toward the closest stall standing with its door open, its floor partly covered with clean straw.

  “I’ll take it,” Shaw said. He could feel Radler’s curious eyes on him as he beat the rolled blanket against a support post, then unrolled it and stepped inside the stall.

  “Yes, sir,” said the old man. “A fellow wants to sleep in the barn, who am I to wonder about another man’s peculiarities?” He stood watching until the barb raised its dripping muzzle from the empty water bucket. Giving the horse a nudge on its rump, he followed it inside the stall where Shaw stood fashioning his sleeping blanket into a hammock.

  “Now I’ve seen it all,” he said, watching as Shaw tied the gathered blanket ends along the stall rail. “Mister, you must be a man who has slept his share of nights with heathen animals.”

  Shaw turned around, sat down in the drooping hammock and leaned against the wall planks. “You don’t know the half of it,” he said tiredly. He took off the battered stove-pipe hat carefully and pegged it on a post atop the rail. The livery man winced at the sight of a blood-stained bandage covering the top of Shaw’s head.

  “Lord God!” the old man said. “Was you scalped?”

  “Scalping would have been a treat,” Shaw said. He touched his fingertips gently to the bandage. Upon seeing the bandage, the livery man noted that is was wrapped around Shaw’s head nearly down to his ears. But beneath the hat brim the otherwise white gauze wrapping had turned brown under a coating of trail dust.

  “Somebody shot you?” the old man ventured. “You was shot in the head and lived? My God, man! You must hurt something fierce!”

  “Only when I talk about it,” Shaw said, giving the man a look.

  “I understand; say no more.” Radler dropped his inquiry, growing less fearful now that Shaw was off his feet and making himself to home in the barn. “I’ll get this cayuse rubbed down right away,” he said. He couldn’t keep himself from staring at the bloodstained bandage.

  “Not yet,” said Shaw, stopping Radler from reaching down and picking up a handful of clean straw from the floor. “He likes to stand for a few minutes first, collect his thoughts.”

  “Really . . . ?” Radler eyed him, wondering whether he was joking. “Then he’s one hell of a horse.”

  “Yes, he is.” Shaw fished another coin from his pocket and flipped it to the old livery man. “Before you rub him down and grain him, suppose you go to that saloon and bring me back a bottle of rye.” He winced at the pain in his head.

  “Oh, you need whiskey for all the torment you must be in,” said the old man.

  Instead of replying, Shaw said, “Stand it on the post for me while I catch some shut-eye.”

  “Want me to wake you up as soon as I return with it?” Radler asked.

  “That wouldn’t be a good idea,” Shaw said firmly. Turning and slinging a dusty leg up onto the hammock, he sank down, folding his hands and carefully tucking them behind his bandaged head.