Shadow River

by Ralph Cotton

  “I know you wasn’t joking. I was just surprised hearing it, is all,” Burke said. “I knew he was crooked as a snake. But I never figured him and the peddler woman for gunrunning.”

  “Well, figure it,” said Madson. “So, as far as killing Segert goes, I suppose I should thank Jones for it. But still, there’re things about the man that bother me.”

  “I’ve said as much as I can say for him, boss.” Burke gave another shrug, took another sip of bourbon. “What more can I say?”

  “Nothing, I suppose,” said Madson. “But there is something you can do for me.”

  “Name it,” Burke said. Downing his bourbon, he set the glass on the desk. He had done a good job getting through all this without mentioning the rifles, the gold or the fracas they’d had with the federales because of it.

  Madson drummed his thick fingers on the top of his desk. Then he stopped and sighed as if having come to a hard decision.

  “Here it is, Clyde,” he said. “Jones has tried too hard for too long to ride with us. Soon as we’re finished with this job, I want you and Montana to kill him.” He paused for a second to study Burke’s eyes. “I don’t trust the son of a bitch, and that’s all there is to it.”

  Burke sat in silence for a moment as a hot breeze licked at the canvas overhead.

  “Jesus, boss,” he said quietly. “Jones is my pal, Montana’s too.”

  “So?” said Madson. “Haven’t you ever killed a pal? It’s no different than killing a stranger, except they’re more surprised, more apt to beg you not to.” He gave a cruel grin.

  Burke just stared at him.

  “If I say no to doing it? Where does that put things between us?” he asked.

  “It puts us where we are now,” said Madson. He tapped a thick finger on the side of his head. “Except I’m going to always remember asking you and Montana to do something for me and you turned me down.”

  “And what about Jones?” Burke asked.

  “He’ll still die, you can count on it,” said Madson casually. “Rhodes wants to kill him. Him and Wilbert will do it.” He paused, then added, “They’ll do it slower and make it more painful. But Jones has a seat at my table. He’s dead no matter who kills him. I figured him being a pal, you and Montana might make it easier on him.”

  “Damn, I need to do some serious thinking,” Burke said. “If I do it, and I’m not saying I will, I don’t know if I’d tell Montana until afterward. He might not stand still for it.”

  “He’ll stand still for it, or I’ll kill him too,” said Madson. “But you decide whether or not to bring him in on it.”

  “I never thought I’d be considering killing Jones,” Burke said. He shook his head in regret.

  “Take your time, Clyde,” Madson said softly. “I don’t want to push you into anything.” As he spoke, he reached out and slid the bottle of bourbon back across the desk to Burke. “Have another drink before you give me your answer.”

  • • •

  Sam and the Montana Kid made a camp on the outskirts of Shadow River at the swift water’s edge. While they waited for Burke to join them, they spent the afternoon graining, watering and grooming their trail-weary horses. Afterward they bathed, washed their trail clothes and groomed themselves. As their clothes dried on a rack made of cottonwood limbs standing near the fire, they sat with blankets around their waists, cleaning their firearms.

  When they’d finished cleaning their guns, they put their clean clothes on damp. They ate warmed jerked goat meat and beans they’d cooked in a small pot atop the open flames. They sat in the broken shade of a weathered acedera tree as the sun stood low on the red western sky. When a lone coyote appeared slinking on the desert skyline against the falling sunlight, Montana looked at the remaining beans turning cold in the pot. He rubbed his palms on his knees.

  “A few more minutes if he’s not shown, those beans are gone,” he said.

  Sam didn’t reply. He sipped coffee from a tin cup and imagined what Burke and Madson might talk about so long.

  A few minutes later, Burke’s horse clopped along the hard-surfaced trail at a walk, from the direction of town. Sam and Montana saw Burke slumped low and swaying in his saddle. When the horse walked on without stopping or turning off the trail toward the camp, Montana trotted out and led the animal in by its bridle.

  “Drunk?” Sam asked quietly, standing as Montana brought horse and rider to a halt across the campfire from him.

  “Smells like it,” said Montana. “Else he’s died and refused to fall.”

  Sam stepped around the campfire and helped Montana lower Burke from his saddle.

  “Get the back end of the house raised,” Burke shouted, thick-tongued and mindless, the two holding him up between them.

  “Yep, he’s drunk himself slack-jawed blind,” said Montana.

  The two sat Burke down a safe distance from the fire lest he toppled face-forward into it. Montana stood over him, a hand on Burke’s limp shoulder, while Sam pulled the saddle from atop the tired horse, brought it over and dropped it on the ground behind the drunken gunman’s back. Two bottles clanked together in Burke’s saddlebags.

  Montana turned loose of Burke’s shoulder and gave him the slightest nudge. Burke collapsed backward, his mouth agape toward the grainy purple sky. His hat pitched backward off his head.

  “He’s not going to want those beans,” Montana said. He reached a finger down under Burke’s chin and lifted his mouth shut.

  Sam dropped Burke’s hat over his face. While he unrolled the blanket from behind Burke’s saddle, Montana ate the cold beans out of the pot from the flat side of his boot knife.

  “I’ve seen him drunk enough he couldn’t scratch one ear with both hands—but never like this,” he said, chewing the cold beans.

  Sam flipped the dusty blanket out and up with both hands and let it settle down over the passed-out gunman. He slipped Burke’s gun from his holster and shoved it behind his saddle under the edge of his saddlebags to keep it from getting rolled in the dirt.

  “Well,” said Montana, “I’ve got his horse.” He set the empty pot down and rubbed his knife blade back and forth across the sandy ground. “I’d hate to be wearing his head come morning.” He turned and led Burke’s horse over to the water’s edge to let it drink its fill.

  Sam cleaned up around the low, glowing fire, scraped the bean pot clean and washed it out with a few drops of canteen water. He slung the pot dry and put it away.

  When Montana led Burke’s watered horse away from the river’s edge to grain it and wipe it down beside the other horses, Sam started to rub out the glowing embers of the campfire with his boot. But before he did, he turned as Burke mumbled in his sleep.

  “Jones? Jones . . . ?” Burke said, mouthing the name from within his drunken stupor. His hat had fallen from over his face.

  Sam turned and stepped over to him. But he saw that Burke was still knocked out, only rattling some senseless whiskey litany. Sam picked up his hat, started to place it back over his face.

  “I don’t like sneaking, boss . . . ,” Burke mumbled under his whiskey-sodden breath. “Don’t like it. . . .” He shook his head.

  Sam stopped and listened. He watched Burke wrestle with something dark and troubling, even in his drunken mind.

  “All right. All right . . . ,” he argued. “Didn’t I say I would, damn it?”

  Instead of laying the sweat-stained hat back over Burke’s face, Sam dropped it on the ground beside him. Seeing Montana walk back from the horses, Sam walked over to the glowing firebed. But Burke fell silent.

  “What’s he mumbling about?” Montana asked. “I heard him all the way over there.”

  “Nothing,” Sam said, “just whiskey-drunk. Let’s get some shut-eye.” He reached his boot out and dragged the embers back and forth until they died and the camp darkened beneath a wide starlit sky.
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br />   • • •

  Late into the night, Montana sat up, awakened by Burke’s snoring and the replying yelping howl of a curious coyote. Looking all around blurry-eyed, he saw the silhouette of Sam against the sky, keeping watch on a clustered group of red eyes moving back and forth, blinking in the direction of the darkened camp.

  “Coyotes?” Montana whispered, easing over close to Sam in a crouch, his rifle poised in his hands.

  “Yeah, most likely,” Sam whispered back to him.

  A long rattling snore rose from Burke’s bedroll, followed by mumbling, drunken mindless jabber.

  “Is this drunken fool bringing wildlife in on us?” Montana asked, gazing at Burke’s outline lying stretched out in the dirt.

  “They hear him,” Sam said. “But his snoring isn’t bringing them in. They’re drawn more by scent than sound.”

  “If they draw from scent, they must think somebody broke a keg of whiskey and left it,” Montana whispered.

  “The thing is,” Sam said, “if coyotes are hearing him, so will anybody else happening by.” Standing up in a crouch beside Montana, he moved toward the snoring, mumbling Burke, Montana right beside him. They stopped over Burke. Sam raised the passed-out gunman’s hat two feet and dropped it back down over his face.

  Burke puffed a breath in and out and groaned. The drunken snoring fell silent.

  “That won’t stop him for long,” said Montana. No sooner had he said it than Burke let out a long gurgling snore.

  “Think if we knocked him out with a rifle butt?” Montana said, only half joking.

  “Go on back to sleep,” Sam whispered in reply, ignoring Montana’s suggestion. “I’ll sit here for a spell and keep him quiet.”

  “I’ll sit and help,” Montana offered.

  “Go on to sleep,” Sam said. “I’m all right here. Anyway, it’ll be coming up daylight in a couple more hours.”

  “Obliged, I’ll owe you one,” said Montana. He moved back over to his blanket, wrapped it over himself and went back to sleep.

  A few minutes later when Burke began to snore again, Sam gave him a sharp nudge, quieting him. In another moment a familiar rumble moved along under the desert floor. Sam waited in anticipation, but the tremor seemed to have dissipated and stopped.

  “Good enough . . . ,” he whispered to himself. In front of him, the red eyes had appeared to freeze for a moment in the wake of the tremor. Yet, as he sat in silence, he soon watched the red eyes play in and out of sight along the desert floor. He knew the younger coyotes among the pack were curious about the shadowy sight of him, about his scent, the scent of man and horse, and all the accompanying scents that man brought along with him.

  Using the coyotes as a warning system, he watched them as he relaxed, resting without sleep. But after a while, when he saw the pack suddenly break up and disappear, he stretched out on the ground, rifle in hand, and stared and listened out into the silent desert night.

  He waited and waited, relying strictly on the coyotes’ behavior. Had they simply decided it was time to go on, they would have drifted away slower, one and two at a time. But they weren’t walking away, they were fleeing, he told himself. Nothing made creatures of the wild flee like the coming of man.

  And there they were.

  He saw the silhouettes of horses and riders emerge against the sky, cross the crest of low sand and submerge once more back down into the lower puddle of blackness. He counted eight, six of them riding single file, two riding abreast, thirty yards out. Indians, white men? Mexicans . . . ? He had no idea. They had risen and fallen steadily, none of them clearly enough to be identified by horse, hat or clothing.

  He lay flat and still, gauging by the speed of their passing how far they were. He continued listening closely, his finger on the trigger of his cocked rifle, hoping that Burke, Montana and their horses stayed as quiet as stone until whoever was out there had long gone on their way.

  As motionless as a dead man, he held his lone vigil across the roll and the sweep of the sandy terrain, of stone and upreaching cactus. He remained in place even as a dim wreath of light swathed the land and mantled the eastern hill line gray-gold on the far edge of vision.

  Behind him, Montana rose just before dawn and ventured forward, rifle in hand.

  “Jones?” he said quietly. “Are you all right there?” He remained as crouched as he’d been earlier.

  The silence broken, Sam looked back over his shoulder and let the hammer down on his Winchester.

  “I’m all right,” Sam replied quietly. “We nearly had some company. The coyotes warned me.” He pushed himself to his feet and dusted the front of himself. “Stay back twenty feet and keep me covered,” he added. “Let’s go out and see what they’re riding.”

  “I’ve got you,” Montana said. “I’ll wake this drunken sot up too, if I can.”

  As Sam walked out across the sand, Montana stepped over and shook Burke by his shoulder.

  “I’m awake,” Burke said after Montana’s third hand shake. “Jesus, who hit me?”

  “Nobody hit you,” said Montana. “Wake up. Somebody rode by. Jones is gone out to see who’s out there. We need to lag back and keep him covered.”

  “Aw, man, Montana,” Burke groaned, sitting up, holding his throbbing, hammering head with one hand while he fished for the bottle in his saddlebags with his other.

  “Get it done, Clyde,” Montana said. “He might walk himself right into a gun battle.”

  “I’m coming,” said Burke. He stared at the half bottle of bourbon with a confused look on his face. Finally he shook his head and took a long swig, the conversation with Madson coming back to him. “I made a bad mistake,” he said.

  “Come on, tell me later,” said Montana. “Jones needs backing.”

  Burke staggered to his feet, jerked his Colt from its place under the edge of the saddlebags and hurried staggering along behind Montana.

  They walked forward warily until they saw Sam wave them toward him. When they reached him, he had stooped down over the tracks of unshod horses.

  “Apache,” he said quietly. “The tremors must’ve sent them down here. Ordinarily they stay up where it’s easier to leave no hoofprints.”

  Burke looked back toward the camp, seeing the horses in the grainy rising light of the desert.

  “Jesus, I was knocked-out drunk,” he said. “’Paches riding this close?”

  “Don’t worry, Clyde,” Sam said. “I had you covered.”

  Burke gave the two of them a hangdog look.

  “Obliged, again, to you, Jones,” he said.

  Sam saw a dark expression pass across Burke’s drunk- en, bloodshot eyes. What is it? Remorse, shame? He wasn’t sure, Sam told himself. But he was sure it had to do with meeting with Bell Madson. He watched Burke look away, avoiding both his and Montana’s eyes as the hungover gunman pushed his hair back from his face.

  “Let’s get some coffee and goat meat in our bellies,” said Sam, pushing the matter aside, rather than tipping Burke that he saw what was at work here. “We’ve got a long ride to Agua Fría.”

  “I’m wondering,” said Burke, “do we need to be robbing something this soon? We’ve all three got gold laid up. Why are we doing this? We could be off celebrating.”

  “I’ve never heard you talk this way before a robbery, Clyde,” said Montana. “Did you fall off your saddle and hit your head?”

  “Naw, damn it, Montana,” Burke said, catching himself, looking away again. “I was just wondering, is all.” He shrugged.

  “Well, don’t wonder on an empty belly,” said Montana. “It’s the worst thing a man can do.”

  Chapter 18

  At daylight the three drank coffee boiled over a low smokeless fire and ate more goat meat, this time with hardtack from the supplies. Sam and Montana kept a watchful eye on the rolling desert floor in the direction
of the unshod horses. Burke sat near the fire, blanket-wrapped but still shivering, his arms hugging around his drawn knees. He drank his coffee laced heavily with rye whiskey to still the drumbeat in his head and the feel of snakes and squirrels fighting in his belly.

  “How’d your palavering go with Madson?” Montana asked.

  Burke shook his bowed head and cut his bloodshot eyes to Montana and Sam.

  “I wish you hadn’t asked,” he said in a shaky voice. He sipped the strong hot liquid and lowered his head again.

  Sam and Montana looked at each other.

  “Yeah, but I did ask,” Montana pressed. “So, how did it go? I see there was no shortage of beverage on hand.” With a thin smile, he continued tormenting the suffering gunman. “Did he get you drunk and take advantage? Because if he did . . .”

  “What—? Hell no,” said Burke, jumpy and shaking. “I mean, yeah, sure we drank us some of his fine bourbon. He told me all about the robbery, our jobs and all.” He paused, then let out a breath and said to Sam, “Look, Jones, you’re not going to like it—neither did I. But Madson’s got you relaying fresh horses for us.”

  The three fell silent. Sam sipped his coffee, deciding how to best respond to Burke’s words. Finally Montana ventured a comment.

  “Did he say why he’s doing that?” he asked as if outraged. “Did you tell him what a good man Jones is?”

  “Hell, of course I told him about Jones,” Burke said. “He said just because you and I know Jones is a good hand doesn’t mean that he does.” Burke shrugged. “I couldn’t very well tell him about Jones without spilling what we were up to out there, now, could I?” he posed, getting irritated and red-faced.

  Montana considered it, realizing Burke was right.

  “Damn it, this stinks like rotten fish!” he said. “If Jones is staking our horses, then so am I.” He finished his coffee and slung the grounds from his tin cup.

  Burke swung his bowed aching head back and forth slowly, his rye-laced coffee steaming in his hand.

  “Jones, Montana’s right. This is a stinking deal for you. I wouldn’t blame you if you rolled up and rode off. Maybe we’d meet you down the trail and stick back together someplace.” He turned his bloodshot eyes to Sam, but only managed to look him in the face for a second. He looked away.