Valley of the Gun (9781101607480)

by Cotton, Ralph W.

  “I told you if I got a glimpse of him, he’d be dead,” Mattie said.

  “You sure did,” Sam said again, stopping, swinging down from his saddle. He held the dead shooter’s horse toward Haines as Haines turned from the buckboard and walked over to him.

  “Obliged, Ranger,” said Haines, taking the horse and looking it up and down. “This one will do.” He dropped the horse’s saddle and led the animal to the buckboard, standing it beside the other team horse.

  “We’re getting up out of here. You need to do the same,” Sam called out to him. He saw Breely’s body lying on the buckboard, a blanket tucked around it. “Any minute this place could turn hot again.”

  “I’m ready to roll!” Haines said, Sam’s words causing him to cut a wary glance up along the hill line. “Soon as I tie this string behind my wagon, I’m cutting out of here.”

  “We’ll stay here and cover you until you’re up out of sight in the hills,” Sam called out to him.

  “Much obliged, Ranger,” Haines called out in reply, his voice sounding worried.

  Sam and Mattie watched him work quickly while they both kept their eyes on the hillside in the direction where Sam had found the young ambusher.

  “Did you see any sign of another rifleman up there?” Mattie asked, scanning the hillside.

  “No, I think it was only the one shooter,” said Sam, keeping his words guarded. “But this is still a bad place to be in broad daylight. It looks like Dad Orwick is big on leaving gunmen behind to cover his tail.”

  “He’s always been that way,” Mattie said reflectively. She looked at Sam as he watched the upper hill line. “It could be like this the whole way,” she said with a slight warning. “A gunman waiting where you’re least expecting it.”

  “I’m always expecting it,” Sam replied. He turned his eyes to hers. “A place as open as this, I’d be expecting it even if I wasn’t trailing somebody.” He looked her up and down. “Are you all right?” he asked, sensing something pressing on her mind.

  “I’m fine,” she said, but Sam didn’t believe her. He kept his eyes on hers until she had to look away for a second. When she looked back at him, she asked, “The gunman . . . did my shot kill him right away? I mean, did he suffer?”

  There it is.

  “No,” Sam said firmly, “he never knew what hit him.” He looked away toward the hills again. He let out a breath. Instinctively, some inner voice had warned him not to tell her about the young shooter. He was thankful now that he’d heeded that warning.

  “I know he’s not the first man you ever shot,” he said, making a wry reference to his bullet-grazed shoulder. “Is he the first man you ever killed?”

  “Maybe,” she said guardedly.

  “‘Maybe’?” Sam’s eyes turned back to hers.

  “I mean, yes,” she corrected herself. “I’ve thought so long and hard, imagining how it would feel killing Dad Orwick. . . .” She let her words trail. Sam saw the pale, ill look on her face, now that her first taste of killing had set in.

  Oh yes, he thought, he was glad he hadn’t said much about the ambusher.

  “The way you’re feeling right now,” Sam said, softening his tone of voice, “that’s how you’ll feel every time.”

  “Really?” she said.

  “Yes, really,” said Sam. “It never feels any different . . . If you’re lucky, you just won’t think about it as much.” The two studied each other’s faces for a moment, then turned their eyes back the hillsides until they heard Haines call out behind them.

  “I’m gone here,” he said, having climbed quickly into the buckboard, let off the brake handle and settled onto the hard wooden seat. “Anything you want me to tell the guards at the mines, Ranger?”

  “Tell them to watch for me if they’re still riding out searching for the robbers,” Sam called out.

  “I doubt they’ll be riding out after this long,” Haines replied. “The boss might set a bounty on them. Send out Gayle Warden or some other big gun. Otherwise these thieves can pat themselves on the back for this one.”

  Mattie and the Ranger continued to watch the cliffs and hillsides as the buckboard and the string of horses moved away in a rise of dust. When the wagon disappeared behind the first tall stand of rocks, Mattie let her grip relax on her rifle stock.

  “Who’s Gayle Warden?” she asked Sam.

  “He’s a bounty hunter who does a lot of work for mining companies, railroads and such,” the Ranger replied. “They hire him because he’s familiar with Old Mex. He made a name for himself killing a few loudmouth gunmen over in Sonora and Mexico City—they call him the Iron Warden there.”

  Mattie shook her head slowly as they both walked to their horses and took up their reins. All that remained of the buckboard and horses was a drifting cloud of dust. On the ground lay the dead team horse, a simmering feast for the creatures of prey. Overhead, two buzzards had already begun circling wide and slow.

  “Bounty hunters, lawmen, posses, mining guards,” she said, stepping up into her saddle. “This world you live in is something a person must see for herself in order to believe it.”

  “Some folks see it and still don’t believe it,” Sam replied quietly, “times when it spills off the badlands and into their civilized world.” He gave another look around. “Let’s get off these flatlands,” he said.

  In his saddle, he nudged the dun toward the short rocks at the water’s edge where Mattie had washed her long johns and left them on the ground. Without stopping, the woman veered her horse over to the rocks, reached down from her saddle and picked up the wet undergarments. She draped them out over the dapple’s rump to dry as they rode on.

  Higher along a rocky hillside, the Ranger picked up a single set of hoofprints and the two of them followed the prints the rest of the afternoon. When they stopped and gazed at a small, weathered shack sitting in a clearing ahead of them, Sam sniffed the air closely.

  “Over here,” he whispered to Mattie.

  She followed him without a sound. They reined their horses off the thin path and out of sight behind a stand of thick, mature pines that stood like ancient columns between heaven and earth. As they stepped down from their saddles silently, Sam drew his big Colt and cocked it down his side.

  “What is it?” Mattie whispered.

  “Cooking smoke,” Sam whispered in reply.

  “I don’t see it,” Mattie said, glancing all around.

  “Because it’s gone,” Sam said. “Somebody cooked up some rattlesnake, then put the fire out.”

  Mattie sniffed the air closely. A look of recognition came to her face.

  “Now I smell it,” she said.

  Sam nodded and said, “Stay here with the horses. I’ll move in close and see if they’re still there.”

  “Be careful—” she said, catching herself but stopping a second too late.

  Be careful? Sam just looked her up and down.

  “You know what I mean,” she whispered.

  “I’ll try,” Sam said in a lowered voice.

  He crept through the pines toward the shack in a crouch, his six-gun in hand. Circling the small clearing, he stepped out and approached the shack from the side, keeping himself unseen. He tested the plank porch before putting all his weight on it. Once he determined it was all right, he moved to an open window and peeped inside for any sign of life.

  He saw no fire in the small hearth, only a bed of waning red coals. But he did see a tin skillet of rattlesnake meat lying on a wooden table. A blackened coffeepot sat in the hearth coals. The aroma of snake meat and coffee wafted faintly—just as he’d thought, he told himself, easing silently to the open front door. Nobody left coffee and a skillet of snake meat to go to waste.

  Stepping inside the door, Sam walked to the rear window and glanced out, noticing a fatigued h
orse tied to a pine sapling at the edge of the clearing. No sooner had he seen the horse than he heard the creaking of a roof plank and glanced up at it.

  Here he is, Sam told himself.

  He eased closer to the skillet on the table, picked it up and shoved it onto a low, glowing bed of ashes, his eyes upturned, listening. With his gloved hand, he reached into the skillet, picked up a small gray-white chunk of back meat and put it in his mouth.

  Chewing slowly as if to keep from being heard, he waited in a tense silence until he heard the roof creak again, footsteps moving diagonally upward toward the center. Then he stopped chewing and fired three quick shots almost straight up, stair-stepping each shot higher toward the roof’s peak.

  “Aiiii! Son of a bitch!” a voice cried out in pain.

  With his Colt raised, Sam followed a loud thumping sound down the roof with the tip of his smoking barrel. Where the noise stopped, he fired again. This time he heard the man fall off the edge of the roof and land heavily on the ground outside the rear window.

  Stepping over to the window, Sam began chewing again, the big bull rattler not being the most tender he’d ever eaten. He looked down on the ground at the bloody man, who was struggling toward a fumbled rifle a few feet away.

  “Don’t try for it,” Sam warned him, his Colt ready to fire again. “You’re shot bad as it is.”

  The wounded man stopped reaching for the rifle and rolled onto his bloody side. He stared up at the Ranger with clenched teeth, his mouth bleeding.

  “Damn you to hell, look at me!” he shouted. “Shot straight up! Blown off the got-damn roof!” He clutched at the inside of his upper thigh, where a stream of heavy blood spewed between his fingers. “I hate to even guess where that bullet went.” Seeing Sam chew the snake meat, he sobbed pitifully, “I’ve carried that rattler all day, looking to sup on it.”

  “It won’t go uneaten, I promise,” Sam said as if offering the man consolation.

  “I swear to God, if this ain’t the awfulest damn mess I’ve ever seen!” the man raged and sobbed. He looked down his chest at another bullet hole pumping dark blood with each beat of his slowing heart. “What did you shoot me for anyway?” He jerked his shirt open and let a broken bundle of stolen money spill out onto the dirt.

  “I think you know,” Sam said. “What’s your name?”

  “Burt Tally,” the wounded man mustered.

  “Where are all your pards meeting up, Burt Tally?” Sam asked.

  Tally took on a stubborn look, but only for a second.

  “Aw, to hell with it,” he said with a bloody cough. He swiped a handful of bloody money up into his fist and let it fall wistfully onto him. “I don’t owe them nothing.” He relaxed the side of his face down onto the dirt. His voice turned shallow, weaker. “They’re all meeting at Munny’s.”

  “Where’s that?” Sam asked. Seeing the man succumb to death, he said louder, “Where is that?”

  “I know where it’s at,” Mattie said from the open door behind him.

  Sam swung around at the sound of her voice. Catching himself, he lowered his Colt.

  “You should have waited outside,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she said. “But I do know Munny Caves. They’re caves Dad’s men have been using for years.”

  Sam lowered his Colt into its holster.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Starving,” Mattie said, stepping over to the skillet warming on the bed of coals. She picked up the skillet and set it on the table.

  With no chairs, the two sat on the edges of the rickety table and converged on the warm meat with their fingers. They ate until the snake meat sated their hunger. Then they found a battered tin cup and shared coffee, not bothering to go to their horses and get their own cups.

  When they were finished, they sat resting for a moment, the Ranger’s gloves off, lying across his knee. After a silent pause, Mattie sighed and pushed the tin skillet away from them.

  “I know what you saw at the water hole today,” she said quietly. “I hope that’s not what you’ll see every time you look at me. I don’t want pity.”

  Sam only nodded, not knowing what to say. Finally he raised his eyes from the hearth and said, “It won’t be what I see, Mattie. What I saw today will only remind me that you’re a strong woman for what you’ve lived through. Strength is always to be looked at with respect, never with pity.”

  She gave him a faint, tired smile and said, “A strong woman, yes, but never a very good child bride. I fought that old devil every time he forced himself on me. The whippings always followed. I was one of his captive wives for twenty-three years. I bore seven children. All of them from unwelcome seed, yet they are my children nonetheless.” She looked away again and said, “For a time I told myself I couldn’t leave because my children were too young. . . .”

  “I understand,” Sam said. He saw her eyes glisten and fill, but her voice remained strong, as if willing itself so.

  “But one day, young children or not, I knew I must leave, or else take my own life. Either way, my children would no longer know me. Either way, there would be other wives to look after them. I chose to live, Ranger.” She paused, then said, “You’re a man of the law. Did I do wrong?” Now she turned her eyes to him; a single tear spilled down her cheek.

  Sam reached his hand over, rubbed the tear away with his thumb and cupped her cheek. He knew that as a lawman he had no say or right of judgment in such matters. But if he knew that something he said could offer her comfort, who was he to deny her that?

  “Mattie, it’s never wrong to choose living over dying.” He brushed a strand of silver–gray hair back from her face. “That’s what those seven children would tell you too.”

  She breathed deep and let her cheek relax against his hand, liking the warmth of it. She felt herself want to lean closer to him across the table. Sam sensed it and felt the same. Yet they both stopped themselves and straightened and stood up from the table’s edges.

  “All right, then,” Sam said. He nodded toward the rear window. “I’m going to go drag him away from here. We’ll spend the night here where there’s a hearth to shield a fire. Tomorrow you can lead us to Munny Caves.”

  “It’s a long ride from here. We’ll need our rest,” she said.

  “I’ll get his horse and ours and bring them inside,” Sam said, turning toward the open door.

  “Sam?” Mattie said.

  He stopped and looked back at her.

  “I should tell you. There’s been no other man since Dad—I doubt there ever will be.”

  “I understand, Mattie,” Sam said. They eyed each other closely before he turned away and walked out the door.

  PART 2

  Chapter 9

  Inside Dr. Lanahan’s large clapboard house in Whiskey Bend, Lightning Wade Hornady lay propped up against his pillow on a narrow bed in the corner of the small room he now shared with Sheriff Fred Hall from Goble. Hornady still wore an ankle cuff and a three-foot length of chain that held him to the bed frame. He was feeling better, stronger, yet he didn’t want anyone to know it. He’d started making his escape plans the minute the doctor assured him he would most likely live, in spite of his wounds and his loss of blood. That was all Hornady had needed to hear.

  He’d convinced himself that with another day or two of rest, he’d be able to break the single-rail bed frame as if it were made of matchsticks, climb out the window and make his getaway. Of course, now he had this son of a bitch to deal with, he thought to himself, drawing deep on a cigarette he’d rolled. He blew out a stream of smoke and stared at the back of a tall wicker-trimmed wheelchair facing the room’s only window. A double-barreled shotgun stuck out from the side of the wheelchair.

  “You know, Sheriff Hall,” Hornady said matter-of-factly to the back of the wheelchair through a looming cloud of smok
e, “I can’t think one solitary thing says you have to stay here and do DeShay’s job for him. I can see you’re in pain here.”

  “Never you mind my pain, Wade Hornady,” he heard Sheriff Hall say gruffly. The convalescing lawman sat in the wheelchair gazing out the window through bloodshot eyes. A wooden leg support held the sheriff’s plaster-casted broken foot straight out in front of him. Above the cast, the sheriff’s purple, swollen toes appeared to almost throb in pain.

  Staring unseen from his bed, Hornady gave a thin, devilish grin.

  “I’m only thinking of you, Sheriff,” Hornady replied. “I know for a fact that a man always feels better at home in his own bed. I always say that’s where true healing starts, and not a minute before.”

  “I know you’d like that, Hornady—you and me leaving here, heading back to Goble, just the two of us on the trail,” Hall said to the wavy windowpanes in front of him. “But you’d do well to remind yourself that just as bad as you want to bash my head in and cut out—that’s how bad I want to cock both hammers and blow your breakfast all over the wall.”

  “Whoa, you’ve got me all wrong, Sheriff,” said Hornady, puffing his wrinkled cigarette, stifling a nasty laugh. As he spoke, he struggled to sit up on the side of the bed and looked down at the bandage on his chest, only a dot of dried blood in the center of it. “Getting shot has caused me to restudy my whole wasted life. I’m looking forward to making amends, walk the straight and narrow from now on—maybe try to show others the right path, so to speak.”

  “That’s real good to hear,” Hall said in a sarcastic tone. “Does making amends mean you’ll be offering back the money that you sons a’ bitches stole from our bank in Goble?”

  “Oh, about that . . .” Hornady wasn’t able to completely hide a slight chuckle in his voice. “All the time I’ve been an outlaw, I can’t say I’ve ever supported any type of return policy. I’ve always believed a man keeps what he earns in this hard world, no matter how he’s earned it.”

  Hall could take no more of it. He swung the wheelchair around recklessly and gave a hard roll toward Hornady’s bed.