Santa Fe Showdown

by Jory Sherman

  Lew sat up straight and hauled in on the reins. Ruben planted his hind feet and clawed the ground with his front hooves to keep from sliding back onto the road. Lew fired at the nearest man, who was turning his horse, trying to flee. The Colt thundered in his hand, the hot powder from blowback prickling his face, but he saw the man stiffen as a small puff of dust lifted off the back of his vest.

  The remaining man turned and fired at Lew. But he was on the run, and his shot went wild. He shouted something to his partner and they both disappeared into the pines bordering the road.

  Lew rode down, wary, listening to the sound of retreating hoofbeats. He heard rocks breaking loose and rolling downhill, the crash and snap of broken limbs as the two men made their escape.

  When he was close to the sobbing woman, he waited until the noises faded away, then holstered his pistol and swung down out of the saddle. He tied Ruben to a scrub pine on the other side of the road and walked over to the man he had seen lying there. He stooped down and floated his hand over the man’s closed mouth, his nostrils. He looked at his chest. He was not moving. He was not breathing. The man had flecks of gray in his sideburns and in his moustache. His hair was turning snowy, too, but he did not look old. His eyes were closed, and there was blood all over the front of his linsey-woolsey shirt. Lew saw the dark hole just above his belly. There was blood at the corners of the man’s mouth and on his chin, but he must have died pretty quick, or there would have been more.

  He stood up and walked over to the woman, who was now crumpled in a heap, her head in her hands. She was sobbing deeply, and he saw that she was much younger than the man. Her hands were small and girlish, and there were flecks of blood on her plain cotton dress. Spatter, he believed, from being close to the dead man when he was shot.

  “Miss, or ma’am. What happened here? Can you tell me?”

  “Is—is he dead? My pa?”

  “The man on the ground? He’s your pa?”

  She nodded, still sobbing.

  “Yes,” Lew said. “He is dead. I’m real sorry.”

  She looked up at him then, her eyes red-rimmed, bleary, her face streaked with tears. Her body shook as she tried to control the sobbing.

  “They—they were…those men…those rude, mean, men.”

  “Do you know them?”

  She nodded, and then her eyes got wild. They opened wide as if she were looking into the face of terror, as if she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs.

  “No, I mean, they…they looked at me. In town. They said things. Bad things. But I didn’t know they would…”

  She broke down again. She squeezed her eyes shut, real tight, as if she were making fists with her lids. Tears eked out anyway, and she shook all over as she tried to stifle her sobs.

  “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  His words seemed to jar her back to reality. She looked over at the dead man, then at Lew.

  “Dead? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m right sorry.”

  “He—he’s my father. Oh dear.” Then she looked over at the man Zane had shot. She shuddered.

  “He was the worst,” she said. “His name is Calvin, I think. Calvin Weems. Yes, that’s him. He—he tried to get me to go in the hotel with him in Pueblo. He—he’s the one who shot my father. Just rode up and shot him. Oh, oh, I can’t bear it.”

  She started crying again, and Lew stood there, helpless against her paroxysm of grief, unable to find words of comfort at such a dark time in her life.

  “You want me to bury him? I don’t have a shovel, but I can dig a shallow grave and cover him with rocks so the critters won’t get at him. I mean, you don’t want to just leave him out here for the buzzards and coyotes, ma’am.”

  She stopped crying, and he helped her to her feet. Her dress was torn and there were dirty smudges on her neck and face. He noticed her fingernails were broken. So, she had fought hard.

  “Do you know who the other two men were? The ones with Calvin Weems?”

  She nodded. “I heard their names in town. They’re bad men. Robbers, I’m sure.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “The tall thin one is Fritz Gunther. They called him Fritzie. The other one, the short one, they called Hatfield. Billy Hatfield, I think.”

  “You might want to look around and find a nice resting place for your father. And maybe go through his pockets and get anything you want to keep.”

  He left her alone while she bent down and kissed her father on the forehead, then on the lips. He watched as she removed his money pouch from under his belt and a small prayer book from his shirt pocket. She got up and walked over to the side of the road and looked both ways, then stepped into the scraggly timber, brushing past the scrub pine and skirting the prickly pear that grew on the hillside.

  Giant fluffy white clouds floated up over the rimrock above, glided out over the road, blocking the sun. Thunderheads, born from some far valley deep in the Rockies, kept billowing out toward the vast plain, casting him and everything in shadow. He walked to the slain man’s horse and looked at the brand. He didn’t recognize it. He went through the saddlebags and found .44/40 pistol and rifle cartridges, a cloth sack full of hardtack, another with dried beef jerky, a small tin of coffee, an empty airtight with the closed end blackened—probably what he cooked his coffee in—matches, a can of peaches, and a spare canteen that was full of liquid, water or whiskey, he guessed. There was a rifle in the boot and another canteen dangling from the saddlehorn. At least the woman would have a horse to ride if she wanted to find her cart and mule.

  “Down here,” she called, and Lew stepped away from the sorrel gelding and walked down through the scrub. She stood in a grassy spot shaded by a large rock that was flat on one side. He stepped on the grass and thought he might dig into it a couple of inches.

  “This’ll do,” he said, and knelt down. He took his knife from its scabbard and stuck the point into the earth and made a large oval to mark the dig. She watched him, her eyes wet with tears.

  “What’s your name?” she asked. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Lew,” he said.

  “Just Lew?”

  “Lew, ah, Wetzel. And yours?”

  “Marylynn. Marylynn Baxter. My father’s name—it’s Rex William. Rex William Baxter.”

  “I’ll bring him down directly. I can’t go very deep. There’s hard rock under the grass. You might want to start gathering rocks to put over him. Just line them up by that big rock yonder. Give you something to do, and we’ll need them.”

  “Thank you, Lew. You’re very considerate.”

  He kept digging, and when he had a sufficient chunk of earth removed, he got up and walked back up to the road. He could hear the chunking sound of rocks as she gathered and dropped them in a pile.

  More clouds barreled over the ridges, and the temperature began to drop a degree or two. He lifted the body of Rex Baxter and slung it over his shoulder and started back. He had looked at the country below the spot where Marylynn had chosen to bury her father, and it was rugged, filled with rolling hills and empty as a hollowed-out gourd. Plenty of places for those killers to hide, but he didn’t think they were anywhere watching them. No telling where they had gone, but they had some choices. They could ride out on the plain, go back to Pueblo, or continue on over the pass.

  Marylynn was still gathering rocks when he returned with the body of her father. He set him down in the shallow grave he had dug, put the man’s booted feet together, crossed his hands over his chest, and made sure his eyes were closed.

  “I wish we had a blanket to put over him,” she said. She searched her pockets for a kerchief or some piece of cloth to put over his face.

  “You might not want to look,” Lew said.

  A hawk floated past them, skimming the air on wafting currents, its head moving back and forth, its wings outstretched. Marylynn didn’t see it, but Lew watched it float down toward the plain, following some invisible river of air.

&nb
sp; Lew untied the bandanna from around his neck. It was grimy and soggy from sweat, but he laid it over Rex Baxter’s face while Marylynn watched. Then he began to throw the dirt he had dug over the body, starting at the feet to give her time to look away when he got to the face. He was surprised when she helped him place rocks over her father’s corpse, and he knew it must have been hard for her.

  When they were finished, there was a mound of rocks marking the grave and covering Baxter’s body.

  “I don’t have a cross to put here,” Lew said, feeling awkward.

  “Daddy don’t need no cross. He was a God-fearing man, put store by the Holy Bible. You rest easy, Daddy,” she said. “I love you.”

  Lew was touched by her words. He had taken his hat off to show respect, and he put it back on, felt the nakedness of his neck with the bandanna gone. But he had another in his saddlebags. It was fairly clean, perhaps a bit dusty.

  They walked back up to the road together. He helped her through the rocks and brush. He was surprised to find that she wasn’t as frail as she looked. There was steel in her arms, and he knew she was probably used to hard work back wherever she had come from.

  “You’ll ride that outlaw’s horse,” Lew said.

  “What about him? Shouldn’t we…”

  “Bury him?”

  “Well, yes.”

  He helped her into the saddle and saw that she knew what to do when she picked up the reins and held the horse in check.

  “The buzzards and critters will take care of him. Don’t you fret yourself about that no-good.”

  She gave him a sharp look, and he turned away, walked to his horse. His hands were sore from the digging and handling the rocks. He had a nick or two that had drawn blood, but those would heal fast. He mounted up, turned his horse toward her.

  “You know, Lew,” she said, “I was very touched by your giving up your bandanna to cover my daddy, and when you took your hat off, I knew you were a caring man. But that dead man there was a human. You have a cold spot in you that I don’t quite understand. I’m sorry.”

  “Yes’m,” he said. “I reckon I do have a cold spot in me. Truth is, that man killed your daddy, and he doesn’t deserve a decent burial. Maybe that’s the justice spot in me, small as it is.”

  “Justice? What do you know about justice?” she asked.

  Her question surprised him.

  “Not much, Marylynn. Just that it seems to be scarce as hairs on a frog.”

  They rode toward the pass, neither speaking. By late afternoon, there was a chill in the air and the sun had vanished under the thick carpet of clouds that were turning dark on their undersides. Lew was watching every crook in the road, riding ahead toward every rise, wondering if the two men who got away might be waiting to jump them somewhere up ahead. He saw that the dead man had tied a slicker behind the cantle of his saddle, and he knew that Marylynn might have to put it on before the day was done.

  The light began to fade and there was no sign of the mule or cart for all those slow miles as the road climbed toward Raton Pass, which was smothered in black clouds.

  And, no matter where Lew looked, there wasn’t a sign of life.

  6

  THEY RODE INTO CLOUDS, LEW AND MARYLYNN, MIST SLICKING their faces, dark clouds as far as the eye could see. The road was steep and rocky, the footing hard on the horses with their iron shoes wet and the rocks slippery as if they had been slimed with oil. But Marylynn never complained. There was no sign of her cart, nor were any of her goods strewn along the way. The underbellies of the clouds had darkened even more, and there was the subtle tang of rain in the air. They could taste it. They could feel it, but they hadn’t heard so much as a mutter of thunder, nor had lightning bolted from the black sky.

  Lew saw talus slopes rising steep to the right of the road, looking like the ruins of some ancient citadel, and tall pines shrouded in brume, as if they grew not from the ground but from the sky. The road was littered with wagon and animal tracks, yet they saw no other parties making the journey either way. A bad sign. Perhaps experienced travelers knew better than to approach the high pass late in the day and made their camps well below the place where the road steepened.

  He saw the flash an instant before he heard the whipcrack of the rifle. He shoved Marylynn to one side, which may have saved her life. The shot came from somewhere up ahead on the right slope, but he could not tell from where, exactly.

  “Hug your horse,” he yelled to her and grabbed her reins just short of the bit and jerked the animal off to the left. He hunched over himself as another rifle shot pierced the stillness with a resounding snap. He heard the whine of a bullet as it caromed off a rock. Sparks flew and the shards stung his horse’s legs so that it bucked and lashed out with its hind legs at an unseen enemy.

  “Easy, boy,” Lew said, and rode his horse and Marylynn’s into the trees and brush below the road. Two more shots followed in rapid succession and he heard the bullets cut swaths through the trees over their heads.

  They were firing blind now.

  “Lew, I’m scared,” she said when he halted her horse.

  “You stay here with the horses. Dismount and stay low, behind some rocks if you can.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to sneak up there and see if I can find whoever’s shooting at us. I may be a while.”

  “Be careful,” she said.

  Lew pulled his rifle from its scabbard and slid from the saddle. He saw some boulders stacked in a pile where another, larger rock had stopped some long-ago landslide. He pointed to it and gestured for Marylynn to take cover there. He showed her where to tie the horses.

  He saw her pull the outlaw’s rifle from its boot and was surprised. She lit down and tied up the horses, then crept to a spot behind the rocks. He saw her cock the lever-action Winchester and breathed a sigh of relief.

  At least, he thought, Marylynn could defend herself.

  He hunched low and crabbed across the road, cocking his rifle on the run. He made noise with his boots, dislodging gravel, but he didn’t think the sound would carry. When he reached the other side, he began climbing. He wanted to get above the two shooters. He was convinced there were two, since the rifle shots had sounded slightly different. That was confirmed when two more quick shots exploded ahead of him. He heard the swish of the bullets tearing through brush and pine needles. He started angling toward the spot where he had first glimpsed the orange flash.

  It was rugged going. The slope was steep and rocky, covered with tangled brush. He tried not to dislodge rocks, but some did roll downhill. Again he hoped the sound would not carry far enough so that the shooters could hear him coming.

  It was quiet for a while, and Lew kept climbing and angling toward where he thought the bushwhackers might be.

  There was a talus slope blocking his way. If he stepped into it, the loose rock could start moving and slide him down to the road. He’d be helpless and an easy target. He would have to go above it, and that would take time. He grabbed a bush and pulled himself up another foot or two. The slope was steeper than it had looked from below.

  He climbed higher, then realized that he’d be in the open during the last stretch before he reached the stunted pines above the strewn talus. He listened before moving on, listened and waited until his breathing returned to normal. Then he edged up the slope, crabbing sideways to keep from dislodging rocks or losing ground because of a misstep.

  He grabbed the trunk of a wind-stunted pine and hauled himself up above the loose shale. He crawled behind the tree and caught his breath. A rock dislodged below him and started rolling. It gathered speed and then made a lot of racket as it tumbled downhill toward the road. He drew one of his legs up.

  That’s when he heard the rifle bark again. The bullet struck just above the spot where his leg had been, ripping a furrow in the earth not a foot away from his hiding place. Lew’s heart felt as if someone had squeezed it, and his stomach roiled with winged insects. Two more s
hots zeroed in on him, and he knew he had to move even higher. The tree was so small it afforded him little protection. Sooner or later, one of those boys would wing him and he’d be in a heap of trouble.

  He couldn’t see the two men, but he had marked where the shots had come from and had a pretty good idea where they were. No chance for him to take a shot, though. He had to get out of there, and quick, before the two men flanked him or rushed him.

  The quiet was unnerving. He expected to hear probing shots from the two men, but their rifles were silent. He scrambled to higher ground, traversed the most dangerous stretch, and started looking for the rocks that marked the hiding place of the bushwhackers.

  Lew dropped to his belly when he caught sight of the spot where the two men had lain in ambush. He was quiet, but one or both of them must have seen him, because the stillness exploded with the crackling sound of two rifle shots very close together. The brush above Lew rattled as bullets tore through the leaves. He heard the brittle sound of branches breaking. The two rifles fired again and bullets plowed gouges in the earth just below him. Dirt spattered his face and he rolled downhill a few feet and took up a position behind a small boulder. Bullets spanged against it and he knew the two men had him cold.

  Lew started digging a hole, clawing his fingers through the dirt so he could nestle still lower and try for a shot. Otherwise, he was a dead man.

  He finished digging a small depression as the shots continued on a sporadic basis, bullets thumping into the ground all around him. He decided he’d better adopt a ruse, or they would bracket him and rush him before he had a chance to defend himself.

  When the next bullet came close, Lew cried out, as if he were wounded. He continued to dig and then slunk into the hollow he had formed with his bare hands. He laid the rifle out in front of him, levered a shell into the chamber, and waited.

  “We got him,” one of the men said. There was glee in his voice.