by Ralph Cotton
Atop the roof, Madson and his three new gunmen stiffened at the sound of the explosion from downstairs. They saw Downes fly up backward in a spray of blood, bone and soft tissue. Their hands wrapped around their gun butts. They started to move forward toward the stairs. But Madson held them in place with a raised hand.
The three stood looking at Madson for a signal. He motioned them over to his desk and hurried around it himself and took his chair.
Sam stepped up into sight, one barrel of the shotgun curling smoke, the other barrel cocked, ready to fire. Blood from his wounded forearm had seeped through his stitches and his shirt and now made a thin line along his duster sleeve. He held his Colt up in his right hand, cocked and ready.
“Well, well,” said Madson from behind his desk, the three gunmen spread apart on either side of him, facing Sam. “Fritz thought he heard someone on the stairs.” He gave a tight grin. “Looks like he was right.” He stuck his cigar in his mouth.
“You just saw me ride in,” Sam said.
“Well, yes, that’s true, I did,” Madson admitted. “I wanted to make us all comfortable, you know . . . in case there’s anything you might want to talk about.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Madson,” Sam said. “I came here to kill you. It’s that simple.”
“Nothing’s ever that simple,” Madson said, leaning back a little in his chair. “You had to have a reason to want to kill Jon Ho and me.”
“How’s this?” Sam said. “You had Burke and Ho set up to kill me. Turned out Burke wouldn’t do it. So Jon Ho killed him.” He gave a shrug. “I killed Jon Ho—now I’m going to kill you.”
Tanner Hyatt cut in, saying, “You make it sound easy. Am I missing something? Don’t you see us standing here?” He gestured at the other two gunmen.
Sam ignored him; Madson gave the gunman a disapproving stare.
“There’s more to it than that,” Madson said to Sam. “I knew you were trouble when I first heard of you back in Agua Fría. Heard you wanted to join us, but something told me you’re nothing but a one-eyed Jack. Nobody was seeing your other side.” He stood up, a big Colt cocked in his thick right hand. “I don’t aim to die without knowing what for,” he said. “So spit it out. What is your game, Jones—or whoever the hell you are?”
Sam saw the Colt ready to rise toward him; the three gunmen saw it too. “I’ve got a right to know—!” Madson shouted.
But Sam’s first bullet hit him dead center before his words were finished. Madson staggered backward and fell over his chair. His Colt fired wildly through the canvas flapping overhead.
Sam spun and fired at Tanner Hyatt as Hyatt’s gun bucked in his hand and sent a bullet whistling past his head. Hyatt flew backward. Sam turned toward the other two gunmen, but held his fire, seeing their hands raised chest high in a show of peace.
“Easy there, Mr. Jones,” said Stillwell in a calm, soothing voice. “Let’s see if we can’t work this thing out between us like gentlemen.” When Madson went flying backward over his chair, Stillwell’s and Waite’s minds had drawn immediately to the horses readied for the trail and loaded with gold, hitched to a pole, waiting out back.
Sam eased down a little but kept his Colt cocked, ready. He looked from Stillwell to Waite.
“Is he speaking for you too?” he asked the gunman with a battered derby cocked at a rakish angle.
“Oh yes, indeed he does,” said Waite. “The fact is, we were leaving when that unfortunate thing happened on the stairs.” He gestured toward Downes’ mangled body lying on the other side of the roof. “Suits us to just leave, walk away from here and never look back.”
“Show me how slow you can pick those shooters up with two fingers,” Sam demanded.
“You’ve got it all, mister,” said Waite. They both eased their guns from their holsters with their thumb and finger and let them fall.
“What happened to the Montana Kid?” Sam asked.
“The Kid?” said Stillwell. He gave a slight smile. “He lit out of here happy as a twin-peckered billy goat.”
Sam took a breath and considered it.
Good, he told himself.
“Move out,” he said to the two gunmen, gesturing them toward the steps with his gun barrel. “I see you waiting for me down there anywhere, I’ll kill you both. That’s fair warning.”
“Yes, it is,” Stillwell agreed. “But you won’t see us down there. I’ll swear it on a Bible, or whatever.” He looked all around as if searching for something to swear on. Then he and Waite gave each other a look on their way to the rear stairs, both of them thinking of the gold waiting out back for them.
Sam turned as soon as the two were out of sight. He walked down the stairs, keeping an eye out for any stray gunmen still hanging around Shadow River. Stepping out front, he saw the two men just now coming to and looking all around for their bullets scattered on the ground.
“Huh-uh, don’t load them until I’m gone,” he said.
“You broke my damn teeth,” said a thick voice—the man who’d been smoking. “I like to have bit my damn tongue off.”
Sam made no reply. Instead he turned and looked at them, and at the Mexican bartender standing in the doorway.
“I left your shotgun upstairs,” he said.
The Mexican nodded.
Sam turned to the two recovering men, one holding a hand cupped under his bleeding mouth.
“You two know how to use shovels?” he asked.
They looked around on the ground.
“What shovels?” said the one still holding his groin.
Sam let out a patient breath.
“Any shovels,” he said. As he spoke, he fished two gold coins from his vest pocket.
“Hell yes, we do,” the man replied. “We’re not stupid.” He thought about it. “You’re wanting your pals buried?” His hand came out expectedly. He rubbed his thumb and finger together in the universal symbol for greed.
“Just that one,” Sam said, ignoring the gesture. He motioned toward Burke. “He was my pard,” he said quietly. He reached past the two men and gave the Mexican the coins. “Pay them when they’re finished, not one minute before,” he said.
The Mexican bartender closed his fist around the coins and nodded his agreement.
Sam turned and walked around the hitch rail to the horses and took the bodies down and laid them under the overhead canopy out of the bright white sunlight. He stood looking down at Burke’s cold dead face for a moment. His job here was finished, he reminded himself. He would meet up with Montana somewhere along the trail; he was certain of it. The three of them had gold hidden out there. He was sure the Montana Kid would take it sooner or later, do whatever outlaws do with gold.
Clyde Burke and the Montana Kid . . . He allowed himself a thin smile, thinking about them. Then he stopped himself and turned away. It was time to lead these horses out somewhere off the desert and unstring them. It was time for him to step out of this outlaw’s world and back over to the other side—to his side, the side of the law. He untied the string of horses, then unhitched the dun and the white-speckled barb. As he swung up into his saddle, he forced himself not to look back down at Clyde Burke.
Take them where? he asked himself, regarding the horses. He backed the dun and barb from the rail and nudged the string along with them. He didn’t know. . . . Maybe some grassy high meadow over where the hill country softened enough for horses to graze themselves full and run themselves strong and free. A place where everything wasn’t out to eat everything else? He chuffed drily. Where would that be? He didn’t know that either. The best thing was just turn them loose, give them a slap and watch them run.
The ground shuddered underfoot. He swayed slightly in his saddle, but then he caught himself and let the tremor pass without so much as slowing down for it. The dun nickered and blew out a breath but stayed steady and straight.
>
That’s just how it is here. You never know what to expect, he told himself. So expect anything. . . .
In seconds the desert hill country shivered and settled with a familiar hard thump. Sam nudged the dun forward and rode away, the white barb beside him, the string of horses close behind.
Horse trader Will Summers is back! Don’t miss a page of action from America’s most exciting Western author, Ralph Cotton.
DARK HORSES
Available from Signet in June 2014.
Dark Horses, the Mexican hill country, Old Mexico
The horse trader Will Summers stood with his rain slicker buttoned all the way up to his chin, his wet black Stetson pulled low on his forehead. His boots were muddy and soaked through his socks. His wet, gloved hand wrapped around the stock of his equally wet Winchester rifle. Behind him stood his dapple gray and a string of four bay fillies. The animals held their heads bowed against the rain.
Summers read a bullet-riddled sign he’d picked up out of the mud. He slung it free of water and mud and read it again as if he might have missed something.
Bienvenido a Caballos Oscuros . . . , he said silently to himself.
“Welcome to Dark Horses,” he translated beneath the muffling sound of pouring rain.
But how far? he asked himself, looking all around. The rain raced slantwise on a hard wind. Thunder grumbled behind streaks of distant lightning. Night was falling fast under the boiling gray sky. The horse trader frowned to himself and looked up and down the slick hillside trail.
To his right he looked along a boulder-clad hillside to where the long rocky upper edge of an ancient caldera swept down and encircled the wide valley below. The lay of the rugged land revealed where thousands of years ago the lower valley had been the open top of a boiling volcano. Over time, as the belly of the earth cooled, the thin standing pipe walls of the volcano had weathered and aged and toppled inward and filled that once smoldering chasm. All of this before man’s footprints had ventured onto this rugged terrain.
Behind the fallen honeycombed lava walls, over those same millennia past, dirt and seed of all varieties had steadily blown in and sculpted a yawning black abyss into a rocky green valley—a valley currently shrouded beneath the wind-driven rain.
On the valley floor, snaking into sight from the north, Summers recognized Blue River—El Río Azul. The river’s muddy water had swollen out of its banks and barreled swiftly in and around bluffs and lower cliffs and hill lines like an unspooling ribbon of silk. As he studied the hillside and the valley below him, a large chunk of rock, gravelly mud and an unearthed boulder broke loose before his eyes and bounced and slid and rumbled down to the valley floor.
Whoa. . . . Summers turned his eyes back along the wet hillside above him, knowing the same thing could happen up there at any second. It didn’t matter how much farther it was to Dark Horses; he had to get himself and the horses somewhere out of this storm—somewhere safer than here, he told himself. Blowing rain hammered his hat brim, his boots, his slicker and the glassy, pool-streaked ground around him. Lightning twisted and curled. Behind it a clap of thunder exploded like cannon fire.
“Welcome to Dark Horses,” he repeated, saying it this time to the dapple gray who had pressed its muzzle against Summers’ arm.
The gray chuffed, as if rejecting both Summers’ invitation and his wry attempt at humor. Behind the gray the four black-point bay fillies milled at the sound of thunder. Then they settled and huddled together behind the gray. The fillies were bound for the breeding barn of an American rancher by the name of Ansil Swann.
Dry, the fillies’ coats shone a lustrous winter wheat red, highlighted against black forelegs, mane and tails. But the animals hadn’t been dry all day. Summers intended to rub them down and let them finish drying overnight in a warm livery barn. Get them grained and rested before the new owner arrived in Dark Horses to take delivery. But so much for his plan, he thought, realizing the storm would no doubt pin him down out here for the night.
“Let’s find you and these girls some shelter,” he murmured to the gray. The gray slung water from its soaked mane.
But where?
Summers looked around more as he gathered his reins and the lead rope to the fillies. Swinging himself up across his wet saddle, he reminded himself that he’d seen no sign of a cliff shelter anywhere along the ten or so miles of high trail behind him.
“We’ll find something,” he murmured, nudging the gray forward. The fillies trudged along single file behind him, their images flickering on and off in streaks of lightning.
He rode on.
For over an hour and a half he led his wet, miserable procession through the storm along the darkened hillside trail. Twice he heard the rumble of rock slides through the pounding rain ahead of him, and twice he’d had to lead the horses off the blocked trail around piles of stone wreckage. But what else could he do? he reasoned. Stopping on this loose, deluged hillside was out of the question.
Find shelter or keep moving, he told himself. There was no third choice in the matter.
Beneath his wet saddle the gray grumbled and nickered under its breath at each heavy clap of thunder. Yet the animal made no effort to balk or pull up shy even with its reins lying loose in Summers’ hand. Following the gray’s lead, the four fillies stayed calm. For that Summers was grateful.
Good work. . . . He patted a wet hand on the gray’s withers as they pushed on.
Moments later at a narrow fork in the trail, he spotted a thin glow of firelight perched on the hillside above him.
“Thank God,” he said in relief. He reined the gray and pulled the string of fillies sidelong onto the upward fork.
During brief intervals between twists of lightning, his only guide through the pitch-darkness came from the sound of rain splattering on the rocky trail in front of him. Three feet to his left the trickle and splatter of rain against rock fell away silent. So did the trail itself. The caldera valley lay swaddled in a black void over three feet below.
Summers had no idea what awaited him around the firelight above him, but whatever situation awaited him could be no more perilous than this trail he was on. Or so he told himself, pushing on blindly in absolute darkness, water spilling from the brim of his hat.
• • •
Another hour had passed before Summers had worked his way up the rocky trail through the storm and the darkness. High up where the slim trail ended, he stopped and stepped down from his saddle at the entrance to an abandoned mining project. Following the glow of firelight that had drawn him like a moth, he led the horses out of the rain and under a stone overhang trussed up by thick pine timbers. Wet rifle in hand, he tied the five animals to an iron ring bolted to one of the timbers and stood in silence for a moment listening toward the flicker of fire along a descending stone wall.
Hearing no sound from within the hillside, he ventured forward into the mouth of the shaft.
“Hello the fire,” he called out. He waited, and when no reply come back to him through the flickering light along the stone walls, he called out again. Still no reply. “Coming in,” he called out.
He looked back at the shadowy horses standing in the dim, sparse light. Then he walked forward, his rifle lowered but held ready in his hand.
Twenty feet into the cavern he heard a horse nickering quietly toward him, the animal catching the scent of an encroaching stranger.
“Hello the campfire,” Summers called out again. But he did not stop and wait for a reply. He walked on as the flicker of firelight grew stronger. He stopped again when he came to a place where the shaft opened wide and smoke from a campfire swirled upward into a high broken ceiling. A smell of cooking meat wafted in the darkness. A small tin cooking pot sat off the flames on the edge of the fire. A spoon handle stuck up from it. Having not eaten all day caused Summers’ belly to whine at the scent of food.
Looking all around, he heard the chuff of the horse and saw the animal standing shadowily among rocks on the far side of the campfire. Then he swung his rifle quickly at the sound of a man coughing in the darkness to his right. The cough turned into a dark, raspy chuckle as Summers saw two dark eyes glint in the flickering fire.
“Bienvenue . . . mon ami,” a weak, gravelly voice said in French from the dark corner outside the firelight. Then the voice turned into English. “Do you bring . . . a rope for me?”
Summers heard pain in the voice. He stepped closer.
“I’m not carrying a rope,” he said, already getting an idea what was going on here. “I saw your fire. I came in out of the rain.”
“Ah . . .” The voice trailed.
Summers waited for more. When nothing came, he stepped in close enough to look down at the drawn, bearded face. “Are you hurt?”
“I am dying, thank you . . . ,” the voice said wryly, ending in a deep, harsh cough.
Summers looked around at the fireside and saw a blackened torch lying on a rock. He stepped away from the man, picked up the torch and stuck the end of it in the flames, lighting it. Then he stepped back over and held the light out over the man lying on a bloody blanket on the stone floor. The man clutched a hand to a blood-soaked bandage on his chest.
“Are you shot?” Summers asked.
“Oui . . . I am shot to death,” the man said with finality. He stared up at Summers. “Are you not with them?” He gave a weak gesture toward the world outside the stone cavern walls.
“Them . . . ?” said Summers. “I’m here on my own.”
“The man with the bay horses?” the man asked.
Summers gave him a curious look.
“We saw you . . . ,” the man said.
We . . . ? Summers looked around again into the darkness beyond the circling firelight. Nothing.
“Yes, that was me,” he said. “Is somebody hunting you, mister?”