by Ralph Cotton
“Don’t do it, Fatch,” he ordered himself, cocking the rifle, taking aim. “Don’t do it! All you’re going to get out of this is shot all to hell! And you’re wounded already!”
Yeah, well, he thought, ignoring his own warning. “In for a penny, in for a pound, or however that goes,” he said aloud, taking close aim. He squeezed the trigger and felt the rifle buck in his hands. Behind him his horse jerked back from the sound of the gunshot, then settled and shook out its mane. Hardaway levered a round and took aim again, seeing both riflemen turn and fire blindly at the smoke above his cover of brush.
• • •
The Ranger didn’t waste a second. Seeing the riflemen turn their fire away from him toward the high brush, he struggled up into a crouch. He made it to his rifle and limped over to Wes Traybo, who was still trying to crawl to the cover of the cabin. Traybo left a dark trail of blood behind him. Blood ran down the Ranger’s leg from a deep graze across his left hip.
“Let’s try this again,” he said to Traybo, dragging him forward, struggling to get him to his feet as he looped Wes’ arm over his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of DeSpain turning back toward them, firing a shot that hit the ground close to Wes Traybo’s bloody back. L. C. McGuire had moved across the rocky yard toward the smoke rising from the high brush.
Before DeSpain got relevered and aimed, Sam had Wes up and staggering forward with him. They dropped out of sight behind a stack of wood on the rear porch as DeSpain fired again. His bullet thumped into the firewood.
“I’m coming now to kill yas. Here I come, you sons a’ bitches!” he sang out loudly, adapting his words to the tune of an old familiar hill song.
“You’re hit . . . too, Ranger. But you come for me?” Wes managed to say to the Ranger. “Why?” He gazed at the Ranger’s face, looking puzzled.
“I gave my word,” Sam said, jerking a bandanna from around his neck and jamming it into the gaping hole in the outlaw’s chest.
“But we—we tried to . . . kill you,” Wes said, his voice growing weaker.
“So I noticed,” the Ranger said grimly. He placed Wes’ bloody hand on the bandanna, hoping Wes could keep it there.
Wes gestured his fading eyes toward DeSpain walking across the yard, singing his crazy death song to them.
“They might . . . have just saved your life . . . shooting me,” the wounded outlaw said.
“It’s a thought,” the Ranger said. He tried levering a round into his rifle and found he was out of bullets. He felt his empty holster and saw his big Colt lying in the dirt across the yard where he’d fallen. He grabbed the short-barreled Colt from his waist and loaded it quickly with bullets from his gun belt.
“I’m coming now to kill yas. Here I come, you sons a’ bitches,” DeSpain continued to sing, his voice sounding closer. Sam was able to clear hear him lever his rifle now after each shot. “I’ll be riding six white horses when I come.”
“I’m coming now to kill yas. I’m coming now to kill yas. I’m coming now to kill yas, when I—” His lyrics stopped beneath the loud bark of the short-barreled Colt. The Ranger had stepped out suddenly from behind the stack of wood, leveled the short-barreled Colt and fired. One bullet, one blast of orange-blue fire.
DeSpain’s eyes flew wide open and stuck there; the Ranger stood with the short-barreled Colt curling smoke, still leveled at him. He watched a dark trickle of blood seep down from the bullet hole bored through the center of DeSpain’s forehead. The detective’s hat had sailed to the ground behind him, afloat on a red frothy mist.
The Ranger looked at Claypool’s Colt, not recalling if he’d ever fired a gun—including his own—that fired so clean and smooth, and with such perfection. Looking at the gun, he felt like telling it, Good job. Instead he looked off toward L. C. McGuire, who was still working his way from rock to rock, firing into the high brush. Sam started to pick up his rifle and reload it, gauging the distance toward the stalking rifleman. But before he could do so, he saw L.C. stand up to move forward, only to be knocked backward a full flip as a shot resounded from the brush.
“There’s that,” he said quietly, seeing Hardaway’s arm reach out of the brush and wave toward the cabin.
Stooping back down beside Wes Traybo, the Ranger looked at him, seeing him fading fast.
“You . . . got him?” Wes asked, barely speaking above a hoarse whisper now.
“I got him,” Sam said.
“Good.” Wes gave a faint smile at the smoking short-barreled Colt in the Ranger’s hand. “Carter would have . . . liked that.” He coughed up blood. “Are you sure . . . you never rode long . . . ?” he whispered.
“Never did,” the Ranger replied.
“Too bad,” said Wes. “I’ll see you in hell . . . I reckon. . . .”
“Huh-uh.” The Ranger shook his head. “I’ll go a long ways to keep my word, but not that far.”
Wes managed to give a chuckle. “That’s a . . . good one,” he said. He sighed and closed his eyes.
The Ranger stepped from behind the stack of wood, walked over, picked up his Colt and slipped it down in his holster. He looked at Claypool’s short-barreled Colt in his hand.
“I’m glad I never stood in front of you,” he said quietly to the gun as if it were a living thing. He reloaded it and shoved it down behind his gun belt. He was standing reloading his Winchester when Hardaway rode up on his horse at an easy walk, his arm still cradling his bandaged belly wound. He led the Ranger’s speckled barb that he’d seen standing in the brush were Sam had left it.
“You’re hit, Ranger,” he said, noticing the blood on Sam’s leg, a bloody cloth stuck against the deep graze at his hipbone.
“I’ve been hit worse,” the Ranger replied. “How are you holding up, Fatcharack?”
Hardaway stopped his horse and gave him a cold stare.
“I mean Fatch,” the Ranger said. “That just slipped out.”
“All right,” said Hardaway. “It’s bad enough I’m in pain here. I don’t need aggravation to boot.”
“I understand,” the Ranger said.
Hardaway looked over at the body of Ty Traybo facedown on the dirt. He winced and shook his head. He nodded toward the stack of wood on the porch.
“He’s dead too,” the Ranger said. “Baylor Rubens is lying dead in the barn. So’s his horse.”
“His horse is dead too?” said Hardaway.
“Yep,” the Ranger said. “It looks like Rubens shot the horse, then shot himself.”
“That sounds odd, but I can see Rubens doing it,” said Hardaway. “He was always what you’d call peculiar. A good hand in a gunfight, though,” he added. He swung down slowly from his saddle, looking pained as he stood on his feet. “We’ve got burying to do,” he said.
“Are you able to handle a shovel?” the Ranger asked. “I don’t want you getting your wound bleeding. I see the mood it put you in.”
Hardaway cradled his wound. “To be honest with you, I really don’t feel much like shoveling. But the Traybos were good men. They deserve something. So does Baylor Rubens.” He gestured an arm toward the detectives. “These sons a’ bitches, I couldn’t care less. Let the wolves and coyotes eat them.”
“Why don’t you go inside, see what you can rustle up for us to eat?” the Ranger said. “I’ll get everybody underground. We’ll leave first thing come morning—give both of us time to heal over some.”
“What happens tomorrow?” Hardway said, testing to see where he stood with the Ranger.
“Tomorrow we ride to Cottonwood, get you paid,” said the Ranger.
“Are you picking up the bank money and riding through Maley on the way?” Hardaway asked.
“Yes, we are,” said Sam, stepping over and shoving his rifle down into his saddle boot. “Can you control yourself, seeing all the money?”
“Yeah, I’m good now,” said Hardaway. He sighe
d. “There was something about being around the Traybos, Carter Claypool, the whole bunch. It just got to me for a while—brought out the ol’ long rider still in me. But I’m over it now. I own the Bad Cats Cantina, but myself—” He shook his head. “Hell, I’m not what you’d call a bad cat anymore.”
Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack is back!
Don’t miss a page of action from America’s most exciting Western author, Ralph Cotton.
TWISTED HILLS
Available from Signet in February 2014.
The Badlands, Arizona Territory
Under a blazing desert sun, Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack slid two warm and spent cartridge shells from his bone-handled Colt and replaced them with fresh rounds from his gun belt. A thin sliver of smoke still curled in the gun’s cylinder. He closed the Colt’s loading gate and held the gun upright as he looked all around the rocky, dissolute desert floor. A mile out, trail dust rose and drifted across a stretch of flatlands reaching toward the border.
“Looks like your pal Pres Kelso decided it’s time to clear out of here,” he said down to the wounded outlaw lying beneath the sole of his left boot.
“Preston Kelso . . . was never my pal, Ranger,” the wounded man, Curtis Rudabell, replied in a pained and halting voice. “I only rode . . . with him this one time. He’s a . . . son of a bitch. . . .”
So it was Pres Kelso . . . , Sam ascertained to himself. That was what he’d wanted to know. Looking at the outlaw’s bloody chest, realizing Rudabell wasn’t going anywhere, the Ranger lifted his boot off of his shoulder. He stooped down beside him, picked up the smoking revolver sitting at Rudabell’s side and held it in his free hand. He picked up a tobacco pouch made from a bull’s scrotum, with Rudabell’s initials carved on it. He tipped up the brim of his pearl gray sombrero and took a long breath. Twenty yards off lay the horse Rudabell had ridden to death.
“Feel free to take anything of mine you might need,” Rudabell said with bitter sarcasm.
“Obliged,” Sam said, his own sarcasm more veiled. As he spoke, he shoved the tobacco pouch behind his gun belt. He felt a few coins down inside the bag mixed with some chopped tobacco.
“Sons of Mother Nancy . . . I’m left for dead . . . ,” Rudabell muttered under his failing breath. “Blast Kelso’s eyes. . . .”
“I could have told you he’s a runner,” Sam said.
Rudabell clutched his bleeding chest.
“Yeah . . . but you didn’t tell me though, did you?” the outlaw said bitterly, his voice weakening as he spoke. He stared at his gun in the Ranger’s hand. “Tell the truth. . . . I nearly got you, didn’t I, Ranger?”
“To tell the truth, Curtis,” the Ranger said quietly, “no, you didn’t. Fact is, you didn’t even come close.” He looked all around again, feeling the scalding heat of the sun pressing hard on his shoulders through his shirt, his riding duster. “Can I get you something . . . some water?” he asked.
Rudabell gave him a sour look. “Got any . . . whiskey?” he asked.
“Not a drop,” Sam said.
“That . . . figures,” said the dying outlaw. He reflected for a second, then said, “You reckon . . . there’ll be whiskey aplenty in hell?”
“Never gave it much thought, Curtis,” the Ranger said. “Seems like a tough place to go drinking.” He stayed patient.
“I bet I’ve . . . drank in worse,” Rudabell commented.
“Where’s Pres headed in old Mex?” the Ranger asked. He knew the odds were long on the outlaw telling him anything, but it was worth a try.
“He’s headed . . . to Cold Water, Ranger,” Rudabell offered without hesitation.
“Agua Fría . . . ,” the Ranger said.
“Yeah . . . that’s right, Agua Fría . . . ,” said Rudabell. He gave a deep, wheezing chuckle, his teeth smeared red with blood. “I hope you bust out and . . . follow him there.”
“I intend to,” Sam said, wanting to get as much information as he could from Rudabell before he died. “Why do you hope I follow him there?”
Rudabell didn’t answer, his eyes drifting shut. Sam shook the outlaw by his shoulder.
“You’ll see . . . ,” said Rudabell, his eyes managing to reopen and focus on the Ranger. “My kind of people . . . have taken over Agua Fría.” He gave a waning grin; his eyes closed again. “Ranger, guess what . . . ,” he whispered. He managed to grip Sam’s forearm, as if to hold on and keep from sliding off the edge of the earth.
“What?” the Ranger replied, letting him hold on, feeling his grip diminish with each passing second.
“There is whiskey in hell . . . I see it, plain as day . . . ,” Rudabell said. He let out a breath, which stopped short and left his mouth agape.
Lucky you, Sam thought wryly.
He shook his head, reached out, touched the barrel of Rudabell’s gun beneath the outlaw’s beard-stubbled chin and tipped his gaping mouth shut. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of Rudabell’s lips and ran down his cheek toward his ear.
Sam stood up and looked off at the trail of dust roiling in the distance, seeing it disappear over a low rise of rocky ground. Lowering his Colt into its holster, he took off his sombrero and ran his fingers back through his damp hair. He shoved Rudabell’s Smith & Wesson down behind his gun belt. On the ground lay a set of saddlebags stuffed with cash from the Clifton-American Mining Project.
Since he’d retrieved the money, he reasoned, maybe this was a good time to pull back and do some thinking.
For the past year, he’d heard of various thieves and killers taking refuge in and around the town of Agua Fría. It was time he checked things out there. Under the Matamoros Agreement, the Mexican government gave United States lawmen limited rights to cross the border in pursuit of felons in flight from American justice. But after what he’d just heard from Curtis Rudabell, which was nothing less than a dare, he wasn’t going to follow Pres Kelso there. Not today.
He’d head there later—maybe a week, maybe longer. And when he did go to Agua Fría, he wasn’t going to be wearing a badge. Huh-uh. He got the feeling that wearing a badge would be the same as wearing a bull’s-eye on his chest. He looked himself up and down, the pearl gray sombrero hanging in hand, the long duster. He looked over at his Appaloosa stallion, Black Pot; then he gazed back down at Curtis Rudabell.
“Obliged for the warning, Curtis,” he said to the dead outlaw. He stooped enough to grip Rudabell by his shirt collar and drag him off toward a pile of rock.
• • •
Preston Kelso rode hard and straight, nonstop, until he reached the shelter of a rocky hill line. He wasn’t sure if he had yet crossed the border, but when he swung his sweat-streaked bay around and looked back through the billowing dust, he saw no sign of being followed. What the hell—? Only a vast and empty stretch of desert floor lay behind him. Nothing moved on the arid rocky ground, save for the black shadow of a hawk circling high overhead.
“Ha . . . ,” he chuffed to himself in surprise. So much for all the brave and relentless lawmen along the border.
He smiled to himself; but then his smile fell away quickly, as his fear subsided and his memory sharpened.
The money . . . !
He turned quickly in his saddle and looked down at his bay’s sweaty dirt-streaked rump.
Damn it to hell . . . ! He let out a breath in exasperation, realizing Rudabell had been carrying the money—not just some of the money, but all of the money.
“Damn it to hell!” he repeated, this time out loud, looking back again in the direction of the place where he and Rudabell had the running shootout with a lone lawman. “Curtis, you lousy dog,” he murmured, “if you don’t show up with that money, you’d better be deader than a cedar stump when I find you.”
He jerked the bay’s reins, turning the horse hard-handed, as if it were to blame. He slapped the long ends of the reins to the winded animal’s
side and spurred it forward at a run. The bay chuffed hard in protest, but shot forward, resuming the same fast pace beneath the scorching desert sun.
“You fall dead on me, cayuse,” he warned, “and I’ll eat your tenders and leave your carcass for the night feeders.”
He gave a dark laugh and pushed the tired animal a full hour farther until they reached a water hole at the base of a low rocky hill line. After both horse and rider had drunk their fill, Kelso started to step up into his saddle when he heard the chilling sound of a snake rattling its warning from a pile of rocks less than five feet away. Instead of swinging the already frightened bay away from the sound, he instinctively turned, snatched his Colt up from its holster, and fired into the rocks, blindly. The bullet ricocheted three times off the rocks, whined back toward Kelso’s head, and zipped past the bay’s ear.
The horse, badly spooked by the sound of the snake followed by the blast of the Colt and the whining bullet, reared in panic and jerked free of Kelso’s grip.
“Whoa!” Kelso shouted. But the bay bolted fast, its reins sliding through Kelso’s hand before he could stop it.
Seeing the bay bounding away from the water hole and the hillside, out across the desert floor he’d just crossed, Kelso swung his smoking Colt up in anger. He fired two wild shots at the fleeing animal before he stopped himself and let his smoking Colt slump at his side.
“You’re going to let me down too . . . ,” he shouted at the animal, walking forward, seeing the bay slow to a halt less than a hundred yards away. The bay turned quarter-wise to him and stared back, its head lowered, its reins hanging to the ground. Kelso saw the horse scrape a front hoof on the rocky, sandy ground.
“Stay right there, you flea-bitten bag of bones,” he murmured to himself. “I will beat you god-awful fierce.” Even as he spoke, he closed the distance between himself and the bay with his left hand held out, as if offering it some sort of treat. The bay turned its stance a little more toward him, its muzzle pushed out in curiosity. A hot breeze lifted its dusty mane.