Lawless Trail

by Ralph Cotton

  “You know how they get down here, these beaners,” Garand said. “We would have had the Traybos’ tails bobbed and braided by this morning if it hadn’t been for soldiers poking in. One of them ran right out into the trail—couldn’t keep from running him over. Then that damn sergeant and his huffy attitude . . .”

  “Heh-heh-heh,” DeSpain cut in, chuckling under his breath. “I spit a plug right twixt his damn horse’s eyes.”

  “So I heard,” the Ranger said. He asked Garand, “What’s your plan now?”

  “My plan is to go straight on, kill the sons a’ bitches and get the money back,” Garand replied. “We were getting ready to leave when you showed up, you and Fatcharack here.”

  Fatch Hardaway glared at him but held himself in check.

  “What about you two?” Garand asked. “Don’t think you’re going to get ahead of us. This is still my show and I’m running it.”

  “No problem with me, Garand,” the Ranger said. “You’re in the lead. We won’t try to pass you up.”

  “That’s just fine. See that you don’t,” Garand said. He touched his battered hat brim, turned with his battered, bandaged men and left, Earl Prew thumping along on his rifle barrel behind the others.

  “That son of a bitch,” Hardaway said when the four walked out of sight toward a small livery barn. “He still thinks he’s cock of the walk.” He leaned his rifle against the wall, sat down on a cot and leaned back and adjusted his gun belt. “What now?” he asked.

  Sam walked a few feet to another empty cot and sat down. He took off his sombrero and leaned his rifle against the wall.

  “Get yourself some rest,” the Ranger said. “I’ll wait until they leave and go grain and water our horses.”

  “Gracias, you do that, Ranger,” Hardaway said sleepily, pulling his hat brim down over his eyes.

  • • •

  In the afternoon when the Ranger finished filing a thin, small X in both front shoes of Hardaway’s buckskin, he set the horse’s hoof down and patted its chest. Laying the flat bastard-cut file aside, he straightened and rolled down his shirtsleeves and buttoned them. He saddled Hardaway’s horse alongside his own and led both animals to a hitch rail and spun their reins around it.

  Having watched the Ranger mark the buckskin’s shoes, an old Mexican liveryman scratched his bald head and stared curiously. He watched until Sam walked out of sight toward the adobe building where Hardaway lay sleeping out of the day’s heat. At the open doorway, the Ranger leaned and watched the last of a long stream of trail dust rise and drift away on a hot breeze.

  After another moment he turned and walked inside to Hardaway’s cot. He planted a boot on the side of the cot and shook it until Hardaway sat up with his eyes blinking, his hat falling onto his lap.

  “Jesus, Ranger, what?” Hardaway said, trying to get his mind working clearly.

  “It’s time to go,” Sam said.

  “Go? Go where?” Hardaway looked around, shoving his hair back out of his face. He saw the Ranger pick up a canteen from a table and hook its strap over his shoulder and pick up a cloth bag.

  “Back on the trail,” the Ranger said.

  Hardaway yawned and wiped his face with his palms and tried to make sense of things.

  “Damn, it’ll soon be night out. I haven’t had a bite to eat,” he complained, sitting on the edge of the cot, shoving his hat back down on his head.

  “I brought you a canteen of hot coffee and a bag of food the nuns fixed for you.” He shook the canvas bag a little. “Get up. We’re leaving before dark. You can eat on the trail.”

  “Well, hell yes,” said Hardaway in a testy voice. “There’s nothing I like better than eating in the saddle, washing dust and bugs down my gullet with Mexican sage coffee.”

  “Then you are in for a treat,” the Ranger said with the thin trace of a grin.

  “Can I ask why you’re in such a hurry all of a sudden?” Hardaway said, standing, taking the offered cloth bag and the hot canteen.

  “We’ve got a long ride to where we’re headed,” the Ranger said, picking up his rifle from against the wall and checking it.

  Hardaway cocked his head sideways.

  “Wait a minute. How do you know how far we’re going? I’m the one leading you to the Traybos.”

  “We’re not going after the Traybos tonight,” the Ranger said, appearing tight-lipped about any further information.

  “Oh? Well, just where the hell are we going tonight?” Hardaway asked.

  “We’re headed back to the ruins,” the Ranger said. “Grab your rifle.” He nodded toward Hardaway’s Winchester leaning against the wall.

  Hardaway walked to the rifle and picked it up. The Ranger watched him turn around with it hanging in his hand.

  “Why?” he asked bluntly, a confused look on his face.

  “Because that’s where the sergeant is headed,” said the Ranger.

  “The sergeant is resting in the infirmary,” Hardaway said.

  “Huh-uh,” the Ranger said. “He left here nearly a half hour ago. I timed it.”

  “What makes you think he’s headed back to the ruins?” Hardaway asked. “And what do you care if he is?”

  “He’s headed there because that’s where the bank money is,” the Ranger said, walking toward the open doorway. “We’re headed there for the same reason.”

  “Whoa, now,” said Hardaway. “All that bank money is lying back there at the ruins? I don’t believe it. The Traybos wouldn’t have left there without it.” He followed the Ranger out the open doorway and toward the horses.

  “They don’t know they left without it,” the Ranger said over his shoulder. “I believe the sergeant switched the money on his captain before the Traybos made their getaway. That’s why he didn’t want to go with us and get revenge for losing all his men. That’s also why he said he didn’t see any money bags back at the ruins.”

  “Damn,” said Hardaway, starting to realize the Ranger just might be right. “If he’s been gone a half hour, maybe we best kick it up some, before we lose him.”

  “I don’t want to follow him too close, take a chance on spooking him,” the Ranger said, reaching the horses and unspinning his barb’s reins. “But we won’t lose him.”

  “Yeah, why’s that?” Hardaway asked, unspinning his buckskin’s reins.

  “I filed an X on the front edge of his horse’s shoes,” the Ranger said. “He’ll likely not see them unless he’s looking awfully close.”

  Hardaway chuckled as he swung up into his saddle with his rifle and bag of food in one hand. He slid his rifle into its boot.

  “That is damn slippery of you, Ranger,” he said with a slight chuckle. “If the dumb bastard falls for it, shame on him. I reckon he deserves it.” He leveled his hat as they put their horses forward on the dusty trail.

  The Ranger didn’t respond. He adjusted his sombrero and gazed out along the trail ahead.

  Chapter 19

  In the gray hour of dawn, Sergeant Malero had stepped his horse quietly through strewn brick and stones and gone directly to the clearing where he had met Torez and the rest of the soldiers under the captain’s command. Once through the clearing, he stopped and stepped down from his saddle and led his horse to a spot at the bottom of a crumbling adobe wall where he had hastily buried the money in two brown woven grain sacks he’d rummaged from the man in charge of the feed supplies for their animals.

  Laughing under his breath, he fell to his knees on the ground and began scraping away with his bare hands at the dirt and debris he had scattered atop the hastily buried money. When his hands came upon the feed sacks, he stopped cold for a moment as if surprised. Then he sighed, took a firm grip on each bag and pulled them from under the loose dirt.

  “Ah, there you are, my precious darlings,” he said, chuckling tearfully, as if with both pleasure and pain. “Y
ou do not know how deeply I love you.” He kissed one of the sandy sacks, then spat dirt from his mouth. A string of saliva swung from his lips.

  “And now we must hurry,” he said to the sacks, still laughing to himself, his breath bated, sweat beading on his forehead even in the cool of morning. Standing, he staggered a little in place, lifted both sacks chest high and spoke to them as if they were alive and could hear and understand him. “I vow I will never leave you alone like this again,” he whispered.

  He lowered the sacks to his sides and started walking back to his horse, but then he stopped cold at the sight of the two armed figures standing in the morning gloom. Dropping the sacks on either side of him, he started to grab for his pistol standing on his hip beneath a holster flap.

  “No, no, you do not want to grab your pistol, Sergeant,” a voice called out, stopping him. The speaker stood shadowed beneath a wide hat brim in the silvery light. A shiny pistol hung down his side. “What you want to do is raise your hands before Iyo shoots a hole in you.”

  On the right of the man speaking, Malero saw a thin young Mexican aiming one of the French rifles at him.

  Malero raised both hands slowly and cocked his head.

  “Is that you, Carlos?” he said with surprise.

  “Sí, it is I,” said the Mexican. A large, dried bloodstain circled a bullet’s large exit hole in the right shoulder of his tan uniform shirt. He motioned the young rifleman forward alongside him as the two stepped closer through scattered brick and stone. “I told my friend Iyo that you would be here in time, and in time, here you are.”

  “But, Carlos I—I thought you were dead,” said Malero. “I saw you fall from your horse.”

  “Now, why did you think that, Sergeant Malero?” the soldier said mildly. “Just because you emptied your pistol at me?”

  Malero tried a friendly laugh and spread his hands wide as if to give the man an embrace if he walked in close enough.

  “Eh! What does it matter why I thought it?” Malero said through a wide grin. “The main thing is you are alive, and for that miracle I must thank God!”

  “I thank God that your aim was bad,” the soldier said, not sharing the sergeant’s congenial attitude. “You shot my horse, my hat from my head and the man riding beside me, before a bullet finally struck me as I turned to flee from you.”

  “Ah, then it is a good thing you fled,” said Malero. “Before I mistakenly killed you.” He raised a finger, pointing out the positive side of the matter. “Always in battle there is confusion. We kill each other . . . but in the end we all see our mistake and we reconcile—”

  “Lying in the dark, in the dirt, bleeding,” Carlos said, cutting Malero short, “I asked myself, ‘Why would my own sergeant want to kill me?’”

  Malero shrugged and looked all around, as if baffled himself about the answer to such a question.

  “Then it came to me,” Carlos continued, tapping a finger to the side of his head. “It is because I gave to you those feed sacks.” He nodded at the sacks on either side of Malero’s feet. “At first I thought, ‘Why does my sergeant want two large feed sacks? Like the rest of us he carries very little out here.’ Then I decided you needed the sacks so you could switch the gringo money to them. You wanted me dead in case the matter of the money ever came up.” He gestured toward the sacks of money on the ground. “Now I see that I was right.”

  “I always said, ‘That Carlos, he is the smart one,’” said Malero, still trying to lighten the gravity of his situation.

  Carlos looked at the young man beside him with a slow nod.

  “Who did you say your friend is?” Malero asked, hoping to focus them on anything besides killing him—long enough for him to figure his next move.

  “This is Iyo,” said Carlos. “He found me in the dirt and saved my life.” He patted a thick bandage unseen beneath his shirt.

  “I see,” said Malero, sounding serious and concerned. “You owe him much gratitude.”

  “I do,” said Carlos. “Iyo also found his brother and his cousin lying dead at the water hole back along the trail the other day. They were good horse thieves—looking for a horse and a gun to steal for him, so he could ride across the border with them. But some heartless son of a puta they were robbing killed them both before Iyo even got the opportunity to prove himself.”

  “It is too bad.” Malero shook his head in regret. “Yet, I must say, it is always better to already have yourself a horse and a gun when you arrive here. This trail is so fast—too fast for some. And it is so terribly harsh and brutal for those whose spirit is not yet prepared for how quickly the world can turn on its heels when guns are pointed and men’s tempers—”

  “Stop giving to us all of your malarky, Sergeant,” Carlos interrupted, raising the cocked pistol in his hand. “Give us instead the sacks of money lying at your feet.”

  “Carlos, Carlos, my good soldier,” said Malero, taking up a voice of authority. “As to this money, let me explain something—”

  All right. He was going for the holster flap, he decided. That’s all there was to it. He wasn’t certain whether the flap was fastened or loose. But it didn’t matter. There was no other move to make. “I must hold on to this money and protect it, in case the people it belongs to come looking for it—”

  Sergeant Malero never got the chance to make his move. The last thing he saw were two blasts of fire from the rifle and the pistol in the two men’s hands. He hit the ground dead, before the echo of the gunshots had rolled out of hearing.

  Walking forward, Iyo stopped a few feet back from the sacks of money. He flipped the empty cartridge from the smoking French rifle, replaced it and held the rifle at port arms, the way Carlos had shown him.

  Carlos grabbed the sacks in either hand and held them up with a squeal of delight. He turned a full circle, up on his toes. Then he stopped and faced Iyo with a wide grin.

  “What did I tell you? Eh, Iyo, mi amigo? Look at this. I was right! I was right!”

  The thin Mexican watched him jump up and down on the balls of his feet. “No horse thieving for you! We are rich, you and me! Do you hear me? You are rich, Iyo!”

  Iyo gave a modest smile and nodded dumbly. “Sí, I am rich now,” he said.

  • • •

  At the sound of gunfire, the Ranger and Hardaway had reined their horses to a quick halt and sat gazing up the trail through the silvery morning light. They were close enough to the ruins that they saw birds rise from their perches in high treetops and bat away from the loud rolling echo.

  “I can’t say for sure about the pistol,” Hardaway said in a hushed voice. “But that’s one of the federales’ rifles. I’ve heard enough of them lately that I can guaran-damn-tee it. The French ought to stick to making bubbly wine and women’s drawers and leave everything else alone.”

  The Ranger just gave him a sidelong look, then gazed back up toward the ruins, stepped down from his barb and stooped and looked closely at the hoofprints in the dirt. He touched his gloved fingers to the mark of a shoe with the two small lines filed on it. The hooves turned off the trail and cut through a stand of tree, brush and cactus.

  A shortcut to the ruins? Sam asked himself. It stood to reason that soldiers would know every path in and out.

  “What do you think, Fatch?” the Ranger asked. “Is there one or more than one in there?” Standing, he gazed again toward the ruins, this time along a thin path through the tangle of cactus and woodland growth. Along the path he saw freshly tramped weeds and brittle broken brush.

  “I’d say somebody got their clock stopped up ahead. But I don’t want to guess how many’s in there,” Hardaway said. “A man draws lots of folks to him when he’s got that kind of money at his reach and grab. Anyway, I’m still plumb dumbfounded that you ever figured what the sumbitch was up to.”

  Sam nodded to himself and stepped back into his saddle.

&n
bsp; “Let’s go in on this path and see where it leads us,” he said.

  “Suits me,” said Hardaway. He drew his rifle from his saddle boot and laid it across his lap.

  They rode onto the path quietly and followed it over a hundred yards before they heard a horse walking toward them loosely and loudly, with no apparent regard for being heard.

  Stopping behind a large pine, the two waited until the rider came into sight. The Ranger’s eyes took in the French rifle lying across his lap and the gun belt and flap holster draped over his thin shoulder. Behind the young, skinny rider, the two sacks of money were stacked one atop the other and tied down with stripes of tan bloodstained cloth, the color of the Mexican soldiers’ uniforms.

  “Hola,” the Ranger called out suddenly.

  He and Hardaway appeared so quickly, the young man had no time to make a fast retreat. He froze; his horse stopped on its own, as surprised as its rider by their sudden appearance.

  “Hola,” Iyo replied warily. His eyes moved back and forth like well-oiled bearings. He knew he was in trouble, but he had no idea what kind or how bad it was.

  “I’m Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack. We’re searching for Sergeant Malero and those sacks of money you’re carrying.” He pointed as he spoke, seeing no need to beat around the bush about it.

  “No hablo inglés . . . ,” the young man said.

  Before the Ranger could reply, Hardaway sidled his horse up quickly and called out, “You better learn to hablar inglés in two seconds, or I’ll split your head like a melon.” He started to lever a round into his rifle chamber, but the Ranger reached over quickly and clamped a hand over his, stopping him.

  “Wait. Hold on, boss, por favor! I speak inglés! I am Iyo Julio Montoya.”

  “See how that went?” Hardaway said to the Ranger, relaxing his hands on his rifle.

  The Ranger called out to the young Mexican, “Where is Sergeant Malero? How did you come by that money?”

  “The sergeant is dead,” said Iyo. “So is the soldier, Carlos, who killed him with me.”