by Ralph Cotton
“Quiet as death,” the doctor whispered in reply.
Chapter 15
The Ranger and Fatch Hardaway had also heard the gunshots on the trail in front of them. Before dark they had been following the trail dust they’d seen rising when the doctor and the two long riders had put their horses forward at a run. They had stopped at the spot where the Mexican soldiers had taken Ty and the others prisoner. Backtracking bloody footprints around the boulder into the brush, they had found the body of Heco in a swath of chopped brush. His machete lay three feet away, its blade unstained by blood.
They saw that the Mexican soldier’s throat had been sliced clean and deep, the thrust of cold steel expertly delivered. In looking at the gaping bloody wound, Hardaway rubbed his own throat and stepped back as if wary the same fate might befall him.
“Holy Jake and Ethel,” he said. “What do you suppose happened here, Ranger?”
“I have no idea,” the Ranger said, letting out a breath. He noted the side of the soldier’s head had been caved in at the temple. A bloody rock lay beside the body. “I’d say he never felt the blade, though.”
“What?” said Hardaway in mock surprise. “We’ve finally come upon something you can’t expertly opine on?”
The Ranger didn’t answer. Instead he turned and walked back to where their horses stood beside the trail.
“Now it looks like we’ve got federales sticking their beaks in the trough,” Hardaway said. “I don’t like that one bit. The things a man has to go through to draw reward money.” He shook his head. “No wonder bounty hunters are such dirty sons a’ bitches.”
As the Ranger lifted his reins and swung up into this saddle, he said, “At least we’re all headed in the same direction now. That’s worth something to us.” He looked back along the trail. “Even Garand and his men will be coming along sometime tonight, unless they stop short and take the night off.”
“I hope to hell they do,” said Hardaway. “I take no comfort in us all headed the same direction. It’s one thing if I take you to the Traybos’ hideout. I’d hate to think our trail leads Garand and his band of lousy railroad detectives there.”
“I understand,” said the Ranger. He stared at Hardaway, waiting for more.
“This trail runs up past the old ruins,” Hardaway said. “We need to swing off of it and head southwest to get to where the Traybos hole up.” He stepped up into his saddle and pushed his hat brim up. “Sorry to break that bad news to you,” he added. “I figure you’re getting as saddle-weary as I am.”
“I’ll get weary when we’re finished, Hardaway,” Sam said, nudging the barb forward. “We’re staying on these tracks. When they turn, we’ll turn with them.”
Hardaway sighed and nudged his horse forward alongside him.
They’d ridden on as the sun dropped out of sight over the hilltops and their shadows stretched long across the ground and turned black under purple starlight.
Another two hours had passed when they heard the gunshots split the silence on the trail ahead of them. The Ranger looked in the direction of the loud volley of rifle fire and the single shot preceding it.
“They didn’t run off. They’ve gone on to the ruins,” Hardaway said, both of them noting how close the gunfire sounded. They put their horses forward into a gallop and watched the black ribbon of trail fall behind them beneath the animals’ hooves.
• • •
Inside the ruins, Dr. Bernard and Wes Traybo had belly-crawled into position, rifles ready in their hands. They lay watching a clearing from beneath a hanging canopy of thick vines and heavy foliage clinging to the side of a single standing adobe brick wall. In the clearing surrounded by the remnant stands of adobe, stone and timber, a single guard strode back and forth, in and out of the circling glow of campfire light, his rifle cradled in the crook of his arm.
Just out of the circling firelight, the soldiers’ horses stood in a row, hitched to a long rope tied between two encroaching pines. Having scrutinized the clearing closely, Wes Traybo looked around at Dr. Bernard lying beside him. The doctor was calm and silent, his hands holding the rifle, cocked and ready.
Steady as an oak, Traybo remarked to himself.
His eyes went back to the clearing. He saw the guard make his turnaround at the edge of the firelight and start back across the clearing. But before the guard had taken two steps, Traybo and the doctor caught a glimpse of Carter Claypool slipping forward in a crouch, like some stalking panther out of the greater darkness. Claypool’s right arm went around the soldier’s face, muffling his mouth in the crook of his elbow.
The hapless soldier struggled; his rifle fell to the ground. Claypool’s left hand came around him gripping a long knife. He buried the glistening blade to the hilt in his chest as the soldier walked backward limply on the tips of his toes. The soldier’s arms flailed, then fell and dangled as he disappeared from sight, swallowed by the night.
The two watched Claypool slip back into the flicker of firelight, catlike, pick up the discarded rifle and again fade into the darkness.
In the deafening silence that ensued, Dr. Bernard brought the rifle butt up and seated it to his shoulder. Taking aim down the long barrel, he moved the rifle’s sights across the doorless entrances and windows. Beside him, Wes Traybo did the same for a moment. Then he lowered the rifle and looked the clearing over again.
“It’s not a trap,” he whispered sidelong to Bernard. “Carter’s caught them sleeping.”
Bernard lowered his rifle, realizing that had it been a trap, had there been soldiers waiting with guns at the doors and windows, Claypool would have sprung it on himself. By now he would be lying dead in the dirt. He didn’t understand why, but he found something noble in all this—something strangely heroic in these long riders, these rogues and thieves.
“Cover us from up here, Doc,” Wes Traybo whispered beside him, cutting into his thoughts. “Get that six-shooter out and ready, in case the rifle doesn’t fire,” he offered.
“But I haven’t fired the pistol either,” Bernard said.
“Give yourself a fifty-fifty chance one of them works,” said Traybo under his breath.
“Right,” said Bernard. He nodded; he pulled the flap open on the holster, drew out the dead Mexican’s pistol and laid it beside his right hand.
Traybo watched as he raised the rifle to his shoulder again. This man had nerves like iron, he told himself.
The doctor looked around as Traybo raised into a crouch, ready to move away in the darkness.
“What are you going to do?” he asked in a whisper.
Traybo reached over and patted his shoulder.
“You did good just now, Doc,” he said. “Don’t worry. You’re going to handle it just fine.”
“I know that,” Bernard whispered a little testily. “But I need to know what to expect.”
“Whatever I’m going to do doesn’t matter. I’ll figure it out as it comes up,” Traybo said. “I’m getting my brother and my men out of there. Sound good to you?” Without waiting for a reply, he moved away in the darkness.
“Yes,” Bernard whispered to himself. “It sounds fine to me.” He held the rifle steady and waited.
Moments later he caught a grainy glimpse of Claypool circling in the shadows outside the firelight. Claypool moved silently, crouched low, the big knife in his hand, his short-barreled Colt holstered low on his hip. The doctor’s eyes followed the catlike figure until Claypool faded from vision, vanishing along the row of partially standing walls of unmortared brick and stone.
Where did he go? How could he possibly just—?
His thoughts were cut short by a loud but muffled grunt resounding from an open doorway. He ducked down, fearing the entire camp would be awakened by the sound. Yet he eased a little, realizing none of the sleeping soldiers had been disturbed by the sound, save for the unsuspecting soul who’d made it.
The young doctor grew restless, waiting, opening and closing his hands on the rifle stock until he consciously reminded himself to stop. Whatever was going on down there, he was part of it. And for now his part was to lie still and wait. . . .
• • •
In the shadowed glow of firelight through the open doorway, Claypool dragged the dead Mexican’s body out of sight. Bloody knife still in hand, he jerked his blanket from around the dead man’s shoulders and the straw sombrero from around his neck. He threw the blanket around his shoulders and the sombrero around his neck and quickly moved back into the doorway. He leaned against the wall, becoming the man he’d killed.
“It’s about damn time,” Baylor Rubens whispered harshly, watching from a dark corner as Wes Traybo slipped over the edge of a high window in the rear wall and dropped to the dirt floor. Rubens sat with his wrists still bound behind him. Beside him, the woman was in the same predicament. Ty Traybo lay in the dirt next to her, his head almost in her lap, his wrists also bound behind him. A long rope ran between each of their wrists and reached upward, tied on either end to an iron ring in the adobe wall.
Silently, Wes stepped over and sliced the rope with a knife from his boot well. Then he moved from one to the next and sliced through the rawhide stripes holding their wrists.
“I’d kill for a long shot of rye, right here, right now,” Rubens whispered, rising, rubbing his numb wrists. He stepped over, stooped beside the dead Mexican and jerked a revolver from behind a loosened holster flap, turning it in his hands. “I’ve had my eyes on this gun for the longest—”
“Shut up, Baylor,” Claypool whispered harshly. “I’ve got one coming this way.” With his bloody knife ready, he looked back out onto the campfire light at the figure walking toward the doorway. Damn it! Don’t come over here, he silently pleaded.
“Hurry up, over there,” he whispered across the darkness to Wes as quietly as he could.
Wes Traybo heard him as he and Rosetta pulled his brother to his feet.
Ty awoke enough to start to say something, but Rosetta’s hand clamped across his mouth, stopping him. Ty grew more coherent and saw what was going on. His eyes moved back and forth between his brother and the woman. He nodded and looped his arm over Rosetta’s shoulders.
“Es una hermosa noche, eh, soldado raso?” said the soldier approaching the doorway.
Here we go, Wes told himself, helping Rosetta and Ty across the dark room toward the other side of the doorway.
“Sí,” Claypool replied to the soldier, “es una hermosa noche.” As he straightened and kept his knife tucked at his side.
“Quién es usted?” the soldier asked, stopping quickly a few feet away, not recognizing the voice from the dark doorway.
“Soy Ramón,” said Claypool with a shrug. He prepared himself to leap forward and make his strike. This was starting to go bad, and it wasn’t going to get better.
“I do not know a Ramón,” the soldier said in quicker Spanish, his rifle leveled and cocked toward Claypool. “Step forward. Let me see your face!”
Claypool did as he was told. He took a step forward. But as he did so, he drew the blade up from his side and, quick as a whip, sent it whistling forward. Before the soldier could duck away from it, the big blade sank halfway to its hilt in the center of his chest. Claypool moved fast, making a grab for the rifle before the Mexican could get off a dying shot. But he didn’t make it. The rifle exploded straight up as the Mexican staggered backward to the dirt.
“Get moving,” Wes said to Rosetta, giving them a push toward the doorway. Get horses for yourselves and a couple extra. Shoo the rest of them out of here. We’ll meet you along the trail.”
“Sí,” Rosetta said, hurrying away with Ty hugged against her side, even though Ty appeared to grow stronger with each step.
As Wes spoke, the sound of gathering soldiers had already begun filling the quiet night. Outside the doorway, Claypool had pulled his knife blade from the dead soldier’s chest and wiped it back and forth across the tan uniform shirt. He picked up the soldier’s smoking rifle and pitched it to Baylor Rubens, who had already started hurrying forward to retrieve it.
“Here, Baylor, shoot somebody,” Claypool said.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Rubens said, levering a round into the rifle’s chamber. “They killed Bugs, you know,” he said, raising the rifle as he sidled over to Wes Traybo.
“We saw his body,” Wes said. “I knew you or him was dead when we heard the rifle fire. What do you want to do about it?”
“I figure on killing every one of these sons a’ bitches,” Rubens said in a gruff tone.
“Sounds right to me,” said Wes. “But do it on the way to getting our money back.”
“Right,” said Rubens. “The capitán has both bags. Follow me,” he said.
As the soldiers’ boots began pounding from the surrounding adobe structures, a shot from the overgrown hillside hit one of them high in his leg and sent him rolling in the dirt clutching his thigh. Rubens looked questioningly at Wes as he and Claypool started retreating into the shadows of the crumbling walls.
“That’s Doc, up there,” Wes said. “We found him on our way here. He’s covering us.”
“Suits the hell out of me,” said Rubens. Bullets began slicing through the air.
Chapter 16
Stepping out of the roofless adobe where he slept, Captain Torez moved into the firelight with his nickel-plated revolver raised and ready. He looked all around courageously. Two riflemen stood guard over the sacks of money.
“Where is Sergeant Malero?” he asked. “He should be here by my side.”
“He was here, but now he has left,” said one of the riflemen. “He said he must check on a matter of urgency.”
“Damn it!” said Torez. “Here is his urgency.” Looking around, he didn’t see the prisoners. He only saw two wounded soldiers crawling across the dirt, the body of the dead rifleman lying out in front of the adobe where the prisoners were kept. He heard the pounding of hooves and stood stunned as the last of the soldiers’ horses disappeared into the night.
“They are escaping, Capitán!” said one of the riflemen flanking him a few steps behind.
“I see that, you imbécil!” shouted the captain. As he spoke, he caught a rifle flash in the growth on the hillside. A soldier fell on the ground, yelling. “They are up there!” Torez shouted, turning his revolver and firing on the orange-blue flash of fire. Yet, on the hillside, Dr. Bernard had already backed into the foliage and moved away in a low crouch to his new position.
Torez’s soldiers sought whatever cover they could find around the darker edges of the campfire.
“Capitán!” shouted the soldier Juan. “They are everywhere! They ran that way.” He gestured his rifle barrel in the direction of the darkness behind the adobe where prisoners had been.
“I don’t give a damn which way they ran,” shouted Torez. He gestured his gun barrel upward along the hillside. “They are up there in the sin valor vines! Charge the hillside! Get up there and kill them. Kill them all!” He stared back and forth and yelled, “Sergeant Malero! Where the hell are you?” But he heard no reply from anywhere around the clearing.
Turning to the two riflemen just as a bullet from Dr. Bernard thumped the ground at his feet, Torez jumped and hurried back into the open doorway of his dark adobe. Stepping away from a revealing shaft of pale moonlight cutting slantwise through a rear window, he stood in his long johns and jerked on one of his boots and spoke.
“You, go catch our horses for us,” he said to the rifleman standing at the doorway. “If you see my sergeant, send him to me!”
“Sí, Capitán,” said the rifleman. He stepped outside warily and ran in a crouch around the dark fronts of the adobes, leaping over piles of scattered brick.
“You, guard the money with your life!” he bellowed at the
other soldier, gesturing his pistol barrel toward the two sacks lying in a corner. “Nothing must happen to the money!”
When the soldier only wobbled in place and remained silent, the captain straightened rigidly, boot in hand, and stared at him angrily.
“Are you deaf, you fool? Do you not hear me?” he bellowed in the young soldier’s face.
Only then did he see the soldier’s dead eyes staring in stunned surprise at something far away from the captain, or from anything of any mortal importance. The soldier’s body sank to the ground. Shaken, Torez dropped his other boot when he saw Carter Claypool standing behind the fallen soldier, his bloody knife in his hand.
Beside Claypool, Rubens’ hand raised his confiscated revolver to the captain’s head from three feet away.
“This is for Bugs, you stiff-necked turd,” he growled. He started to squeeze the trigger. But Wes Traybo’s hand came out of nowhere and clasped tightly over the gun’s hammer, stopping him.
“Wait, Baylor,” he said. “We’re going to have the good captain here go with us to our horses—see if his men like him enough to not shoot holes in him.”
“Horses?” said Rubens.
“Yeah, Baylor, our horses,” Wes said with a dark little chuckle. “Did you think we walked here?”
“Baylor needs a drink, sure enough,” Claypool said as he turned the captain around roughly and gathered a handful of his long johns at the nape of his neck.
“Thank you, Carter, for noticing,” Rubens said wryly. He looked back around at Wes. “Tell me what you want, before I get too damn sober to do it.”
“Get on the other side of the window with me,” said Wes. “Carter, shove the captain to us,” he said to Claypool.
Outside they heard the sound of soldiers breaking through foliage and vines as they climbed the dark overgrown hillside.
“I—I have no clothes, no boot,” the captain pleaded. “Let me dress. It will only take a—”