Blood at Sunset (A Sam Spur Western

by Matt Chisholm

Gaylor remembered. That damned marshal. He’d settle his hash for him. That would be another killing to Spur’s credit. He put his head in his hands and tried to think. Tabor watched him. He knew Gaylor and he knew that something was coming.

  He was right. Gaylor looked up at him out of badly focused eyes and said: ‘Get a few of the local men along if you can. Make it more respectable. But not Doolittle.’

  ‘Why not him?’

  ‘You ask too many fool questions. Because he was too damn friendly last night. For all I know he engineered the whole breakout.’

  ‘Aw, no,’ Tabor protested. The nigger an’ the Kid done that.’

  ‘Who brought ’em here? Huh? You tell me that. How come that goddam pesky marshal knew about Spur?’

  ‘Wa-al, I thought—’

  ‘Get this, Tabor – you don’t think. That’s why I’m the boss man around here. Now git.’

  Tabor got. As he went he reckoned he hated Gaylor almost as much as he feared him. If there wasn’t a good profit at the end of this whirl he reckoned he’d give it a miss.

  Gaylor staggered around the room, dressing. He found a half-bottle of whiskey and took a good slug of the fiery liquor from the bottle. It shook him to his socks, but it helped. Just for now. In the saddle on the trail he was going to feel like hell and he knew it. He dreaded the ride through the searing heat of southern Arizona.

  When he put on his hat, it was like hitting himself with a rock. He went downstairs and out onto the street. The cool air hit him. He sucked it into his lungs. He could hear the voices of the men as they readied the horses over at the livery. An idea hit him. He would ride Spur’s famous mare. It was said that she could ride down anything on four legs.

  He walked across the street, angling toward the livery. The yard was bright with lights. There seemed to be horses and men everywhere.

  As Gaylor approached, Stace Golite straightened himself from tightening a cinch.

  ‘I’ll ride Spur’s mare,’ Gaylor said. ‘Put my saddle on her.’

  Golite grinned.

  ‘Sure,’ he said.

  As he turned away, there came the sound of a horse trotting down the street. A tall man on a tall horse rode into the livery yard. As he came closer, Gaylor saw that it was John Cornwall, the United States Marshal. The lawman halted his horse and stepped down from the saddle.

  ‘Morning, Sheriff,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Getting organized?’

  The sheriff answered shortly. Another man came in from the street on foot. It was Tabor, come to say that he had managed to find three volunteers for the posse.

  Gaylor couldn’t help turning to Cornwall and saying: ‘We’re goin’ to git him an’ I’m goin’ to hang him, Cornwall.’

  ‘That,’ the marshal said coldly, ‘remains to be seen.’

  A man came yelling from the barn. Gaylor turned too quickly and nearly fell over. The world went around the wrong way and shuddered a couple of times before it steadied. The man was Stace Golite and he was excited.

  ‘What’s that?’ Gaylor demanded.

  ‘The mare’s gone,’ Golite told him.

  ‘Gone? How? Where?’

  ‘Old man,’ Golite shouted. ‘Come on out here.’

  An old man who looked like a stove-up cowhand shuffled forward and blinked at the sheriff in the lamplight.

  Golite said: ‘Tell it to the sheriff.’

  ‘Wa-al, Mr. Gaylor,’ the old man quavered. ‘I didn’t know I was doing nothin’ wrong. Heck, I reckon I’m so used to takin’ orders, I jest natcherly did like she said,’

  ‘She – who?’

  ‘Why, Miss Morales, a’course.’

  ‘Which Miss Morales? The town is full of goddam Morales.’

  ‘Juanita Morales, the cantinero’s girl,’ the old man said. ‘Come in here large as life an’ woke me in my cabin.’

  ‘An’ you gave her the mare, you old fool?’

  ‘Wa-al, she said as how it was town property an’ you sold it to her father. Saddle an’ all. So I gits up outa my bed and I saddled the mare for her and she rid off. Mighty pretty sight – pretty gal on a pretty li’l ole horse.’

  Gaylor made a sound of disgust and rage.

  ‘Stace,’ he said, ‘git along to Morales and git that horse. Fast.’

  Golite went to his horse, swung into the saddle and rode off to the street.

  Gaylor staggered around the yard venting his temper on the men, giving orders that were unnecessary and generally getting in the way. The marshal watched with sardonic amusement.

  The posse was ready for the trail when Golite rode back into the yard. Gaylor saw that he did not have the mare with him.

  ‘I told you to bring that goddam horse,’ he shouted and regretted the shout because it made his head thunder.

  Golite said: ‘Old Morales didn’t know nothin’ about no horse.’

  ‘Did you ask the girl?’

  ‘She was went, Wayne.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘How could I know? Why even her ole man don’t know that.’

  Cornwall said: ‘She took her to Spur.’

  They all turned and stared at him.

  ‘For Chrissake,’ the enraged Gaylor shouted, ‘who’s side are you on?’

  ‘The law’s,’ Cornwall told him. ‘If you saddle a horse, Sheriff, I suggest we get started. We want to get as far as we can in the cool.’

  Gaylor stared at him, wanting him dead.

  He pulled himself together and said to nobody in particular: ‘Saddle my sorrel.’

  Jim Tabor went into the barn.

  Ten minutes later, just as dawn was showing its cold gray face over the world, they rode slowly out of town, eleven men, ten of them bent on the demise of one Samuel P. Spur, each man on a fresh horse and two pack horses loaded with supplies.

  Outside town, they picked up Billy Colorado, an Apache ‘breed who earned an occasional crust from hunting and tracking. Billy lived in a jacal with a wife whom he beat, five children whom he neglected and enjoyed no visible means of support. But somehow he managed to obtain more white man’s firewater than was good for him. He had been warned the night before that his services would be needed and that the pay would be good, so he was now in a fairly sober condition. He was a shaggy man with a hungry look and eyes that persistently refused to meet those of his fellow men. Anybody with sense would trust him about as far as they could throw him. He met them riding a pony that looked as if it wouldn’t last out the first mile.

  He went to work right off, sniffing along the edge of the creek like a hound-dog. He wasn’t put off by the fact that the men who had made the sign he was following took to the water. Within the hour he found where they had come out onto dry land. He now mounted his crowbait and set off into the east at a lope. The posse followed, most of them hating the necessity of sitting a horse while suffering hangovers, but more bitterly hating the man who was the main cause of them being astride a horse at all.

  After traveling at a steady pace for a couple of hours and when the sun was turning itself into an instrument of torture, they reached the hills. By this time most of the drinkers had sweated the booze out of them. They were left with headaches and bad tempers. There wasn’t much gay conversation among the members of the posse. John Cornwall, the federal man, kept himself to himself and rode in silence. As soon as they reached the hills, Gaylor gave the word for Shad Morrow and Roily Damon to scout ahead, one on either side of the trail. It was not long before Billy found the spot where the three fugitives had stopped to release Spur from the irons. The breed grinned delightedly. The process had delayed the men they were after for hours. They could not be too far ahead. The posse perked up a little.

  They pushed on.

  It had begun to look as if the trailing part of the day’s work wasn’t going to give them too much trouble when Billy ran into a little difficulty. They reached rock that constituted a miniature malpais and though the ‘breed cast around for over an hour he failed to find the spot where the runaways had escaped
onto soft ground. The hunted men had taken time off to wipe out their tracks and they had done so with some skill.

  The posse halted, sought what shade they could, sweated and swore. As the minutes dragged by Gaylor’s temper grew shorter. He cursed Billy and the ‘breed continued his search with a somewhat frantic air. He searched on foot, going carefully over every inch of the exit ground and came up with precisely nothing. Then he mounted his pony and rode a circle in the hope of cutting sign. He had the same result. He now rode circle again, this time going wider. Noon was approaching with the searing sun and a sky of burning brass.

  This time, Billy had more luck. He picked up the sign going north. He whistled up the posse and headed north. But travel was more difficult now and the going slow. Gaylor fumed.

  Billy was puzzled. Why should men escaping from the law so close to the Mexican Border be heading north? All the runaways he had ever followed had headed south. It was almost a tradition. He was a little put out. But he persisted. Like a good hound, he was warming to the task. One at least of the men ahead of him was an expert in covering tracks and Billy felt that he was now on his mettle. As he went on he came to the conclusion that the men he followed were now moving with less caution. They had a certain objective in mind and were no longer trying to throw off pursuit. They had delayed the posse for a while and that was all they intended. He knew that if they had wanted, the fugitives could have delayed them still more. His conclusion that they had a definite destination in mind was strengthened when the sign curved east again and then abruptly turned south.

  It didn’t take Billy long to come to a further conclusion. The art of tracking lay not only in the reading of sign and the ability to stay with it, but in getting yourself into the mind of the man you were following. If you could read his intentions, you no longer had to read his sign. You could cut off corners and gain time. And it was time that a pursuit needed, for men running away could always travel at a much greater speed than men following their tracks. Billy decided that the three escapees were headed for old Rube Daley’s mine.

  He rode back to the posse to report his conclusion to Sheriff Gaylor.

  The man received this news violently. Rage and fear showed on his face.

  Gaylor was badly frightened. One slip now and the whole of his sweet little set-up in this neck of the woods could be ruined forever. He didn’t forget that a United States Marshal was in the company. If that man got a look at old Rube’s mine he might add two and two together. He hoped to God that Morrow and Damon made their move soon. He, Gaylor, had to get to the mine fast and it looked as if he would be forced to take Cornwall along with him.

  ‘We’ll head for the mine,’ he told Billy. ‘You scout ahead.’ Billy didn’t like the sound of that too well. He knew the kind of men they were up against. Their guns were without peer. In his imagination, he saw himself very dead and he didn’t fancy that possibility at all. He protested, claiming not illogically, that a dead man could not profit from pay however generous it might be. However, Gaylor prevailed upon him, illustrating the fact that the closer danger was the greater. With the warning that he would be skinned alive if he didn’t get off his lazy butt, he rode forward timidly, sniffing at death.

  He reached the shelf on which the cabin of the old smuggler stood and looked around. He looked from cover and discovered no movement. He stayed ten minutes to make sure and it was as well that he did, for, just as he was about to go back to his hidden pony, his sharp eyes caught a movement. He had to wait no more than a few moments before two men appeared. They were walking silently and with great caution. They were as aware of danger as he was. After a good look around, they disappeared into the mine.

  Billy retreated softly, found his pony and walked it carefully to a safe distance before mounting. He now rode back to the posse to report what he had seen.

  Gaylor received the information with mixed feelings, pleased that he could catch Spur and Cusie Ben in the mine, worried by the fact that the Cimarron Kid was missing and that Cornwall might see what was in that mine. He ordered a cautious advance. It was not long before he had the area of the mine surrounded by men with rifles. If the two men issued from that cave, they were caught or dead. He would play the situation by ear and hope that he would have a legal opportunity to kill them so that Cornwall could see that justice had been done. Cornwall now came to him.

  ‘Sheriff,’ he said, ‘I don’t like this. If Spur and the Negro are in that mine, I want somebody to go in to talk with them and give them a chance to surrender.’

  Gaylor didn’t like the sound of that.

  ‘They could be killed. Spur and the nigger killers.’

  ‘You misjudge Spur. I insist you try it my way first.’

  Gaylor thought about that and came to the conclusion that it might not be such a bad idea after all. He left Cornwall and sought out his two regular deputies, Golite and Tabor. When the two of them heard what was expected of them, they turned pale under their tans.

  ‘Christ,’ Golite said, ‘I don’t like this one little bit.’

  ‘I see it this way,’ Gaylor said, ‘you play it like this.’ He talked urgently. They nodded. They didn’t look much happier. But they agreed to go. Golite fetched a lamp from the shack, they lit it and entered the mouth of the tunnel with the gravest misgivings. The posse watched in awe, crouched among the rocks, hiding behind trees, all feeling vulnerable to the famous guns they might have to face. Everybody was so occupied with his own thoughts and tensions that they did not notice that the two gunmen deputies. Morrow and Damon, were still missing.

  Time ticked by.

  Gaylor started to lose patience. He toted his rifle and worked his way toward the mouth of the tunnel. The horrible thought had hit him that the two fugitives in the mine could have taken Golite and Tabor prisoner. They would think that would give them some lever, but they would be wrong. There was a good deal at stake here for the sheriff and he would have sacrificed his two cohorts, maybe not without regret, for they were useful men, but certainly without hesitation.

  He reached the mouth of the tunnel, crouched back in what cover he could find just to one side of it. No sooner was he there than he heard a sound from within the mine that stiffened the hairs on his neck. He knew that it was a muffled yell. It continued. It could only mean danger for him. Maybe the two killers were coming in his direction now. He drove a shot into the darkness. The yelling stopped. Silence hung over the scene.

  What the hell do I do now? Gaylor thought.

  He didn’t doubt that Spur and the Negro had seen what Rube had hidden in his mine. They would have to die. Today. Why the hell didn’t Morrow or Damon settle Cornwall’s hash? He couldn’t make a move to kill Spur and Cusie Ben until Cornwall was taken care of.

  Time edged forward again. Gaylor had never felt more uncertain and furious in his life. He heard several muffled explosions from within the tunnel. He heard lead sing past him. The men in there were giving out their warning. If anybody set foot inside the mine, it would be the worse for them.

  Gaylor turned when he heard footsteps.

  Cornwall was walking out from cover, approaching the mine.

  ‘Keep back,’ Gaylor warned.

  Cornwall ignored him, ran to the side of the tunnel opposite Gaylor and said: ‘I’m going to try and talk to them.’

  ‘You’re wastin’ your breath,’ the sheriff told him.

  Cornwall said: ‘I’ll try just the same.’ He raised his voice to a shout— ‘Spur, you in there?’

  The answer was a shot. It sang across the shelf, hit rock and sang viciously.

  ‘Spur,’ the marshal yelled.

  There came another shot. Not from inside the cave this time. Dust sprouted from near Cornwall’s feet. He jumped back in alarm, gun ready, eyes searching the heights above. Joy jumped in Gaylor. His two hidden guns were coming into action.

  There came another shot. A look of utter surprise came over Cornwall’s face. He clutched at his side, staggered two paces forw
ard and fell on his face.

  Gaylor was about to run forward, his first objective had been reached. Cornwall was out of the game. But before he could make a move, there came more rifle shots from above and he heard lead searching through the rocks and trees in which the posse was hidden.

  Alarm knifed through him. Had Damon and Morrow gone out of their heads? He heard the yells of alarm from the posse. He stood up, searching around for the position of the marksmen, saw a light drift of smoke far above him to the east.

  Just then to his amazement a stutter of shots seemed to cover the hillside. Different note answered different note. He knew that there were several riflemen at work up there. He was mystified. Then he thought of the Kid. His two men had run into the Kid.

  The firing petered out.

  One of the townsmen burst from cover and ran fast toward the marshal, turning him over onto his back. He raised a concerned face to Gaylor.

  ‘He’s hurt bad, Sheriff. Give me a hand, boys.’

  They came out from cover hesitantly, but in a moment they were carrying the wounded marshal back into cover. Gaylor ordered Kruger and Shultz to cover the mouth of the cave. They pumped a few shots into the darkness and waited. The shooting from above was not resumed.

  Somebody yelled: ‘Somebody’s comin’.’

  Gaylor turned and saw two men wending their way down the hillside. It was Morrow and Damon. He walked into the rocks and found one of the townsmen trying to staunch Cornwall’s bleeding.

  ‘How bad is it?’ Gaylor asked, concern in his voice.

  ‘Rib-cage,’ the man said, ‘an’ he’s bleedin’ like a stuck hog.’

  ‘That’s too bad,’ Gaylor said, ‘he was a good man.’ Past tense.

  He walked back into the open, keeping clear of the mine-entrance. Morrow and Damon rode up.

  Morrow said: ‘It was the Kid shot Cornwall.’

  ‘Did you get the Kid?’ Gaylor demanded.

  ‘No tellin’,’ the gunman replied. ‘Thought I winged him. But he rid off.’

  ‘Spur an’ the nigger’s in the mine,’ Gaylor said. ‘They have Tabor and Golite in there.’

  ‘Hell,’ said Damon.