Showdown at Hole-In-the-Wall

by Ralph Cotton

  Clarimonde ran over from where she’d been standing near the horses. “I thought I’d heard an echo,” she said, staring at the man on the ground. Most of his clothes had been ripped from his body by tough pine branches as he bounced and tumbled down through the treetops. His face, hands, chest and legs were covered by cuts and scrapes; bits of pine splinters and needles stuck into his bloody flesh.

  Looking up and all around, Memphis Beck said, “I see no angle that would have allowed him to fall here, unless an eagle dropped him.”

  “An eagle . . .” Cleaver looked up warily, searching back and forth along the skyline.

  “No, Hook-nose,” Beck said, seeing that the gunman had taken him seriously, “an eagle didn’t drop him.”

  Glancing up as he felt for Stanley’s pulse, the ranger said, “It sure looks like something dropped him, or threw him out this far from the ridgeline.” He turned back to Stanley with another look of disbelief in his eyes. “He’s still alive.”

  “What?” said Beck, gathering closer, Hector and Cleaver right beside him. Clarimonde hurried in with a canteen she grabbed from one of the horse’s saddle horns. Pouring a dribble of water onto a cloth, she touched the wet cloth gently to a large, bloody blue knot on Stanley’s forehead, hoping the cool water would revive the young man.

  “I sure hope this ole boy lives,” Cleaver quipped, shaking his head, “at least long enough to tell us how he managed to fall out of the sky that way.”

  Watching Clarimonde wipe blood and tree bark from the unconscious man’s face, Hector asked anyone listening to him, “Do you suppose he was hiding up this tree? Maybe he was there all along, even before the explosion?”

  “That’s as good an explanation as any,” said Beck, considering it, “but I don’t think so.” He looked up into the tree on the steep hillside above them.

  With Clarimonde taking charge of looking after Stanley, Sam pulled back a little. Looking up at Hector and Beck, he said, “We might never learn what happened to him. But for money I’ll wager Conning Glick had a hand in it.”

  “Yep,” Beck agreed, “this has the Dutchman’s name written all over it.”

  Hovering over Stanley, busy at work with her cool, wet cloth, Clarimonde said over her shoulder, “Shhh, he is coming to.”

  Sam, Beck and Hector gave one another a surprised look and drew in closer. Stanley lolled his head back and forth limply and batted his eyes beneath a troubled brow, like a man awakening from a bad dream. While Clarimonde continued attending to the battered young man, the ranger took the lead. Leaning in close, helping Clarimonde raise the young man’s battered head onto her lap, Sam said in a firm, clear voice, “Stanley . . . Stanley Lowden. It’s Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack. Can you hear me? Can you see me?”

  Even in his semiconscious state and his bruised and battered condition, Stanley seemed to stiffen all over a bit at the sound of the ranger’s voice. “Arizona Ranger . . . oh . . . no,” he managed to say in a weak, rasping voice.

  “Good, he can hear me,” Sam said to the three onlookers. To Clarimonde, who had begun feeling all over Stanley’s chest and sides, Sam said, “Are you finding anything broken?”

  Clarimonde only shook her head, too intent on her work to speak right then. “Listen to me, Stanley,” Sam said. “You fell out of a tree on us. What happened to you? Can you tell us?”

  Seeing the ranger hovering over him, Stanley closed his blackened eyes, hoping it would all go away. But he knew it wouldn’t. Then he opened his eyes when he heard the ranger ask, “What about your wife? Where is she? Is she with Glick the Dutchman?”

  Sam and the others saw the look of fear in Stanley’s eyes as he struggled with saying, “I-I’ve got . . . to get to . . .”

  Feeling the young man try to sit up, the ranger pressed him down with a firm but gentle palm. “Easy there, young fellow, you’d better lie still until we see that you’re not all busted up.”

  “I’m . . . all right,” Stanley insisted, struggling a bit against Sam’s restraining hand.

  Turning to Clarimonde again, Sam said, “Well, what’s it look like?”

  Clarimonde raised her hands from Stanley’s torn and shredded trouser legs. “His boot is missing and he’s got a badly swollen ankle—sprained, no doubt. But I can’t find any broken bones anywhere.”

  “Then he’s one lucky fellow,” Sam commented. He took the canteen from Clarimonde and held it to Stanley’s parted lips. “Did you hear that? You’re no worse for wear, for a man falling from a tree that high.”

  Stanley sipped lightly from the canteen, coughed and caught his breath, water trickling down both cheeks. Batting his eyes, Stanley looked up at the tall pine with its broken branches and murmured, “Ranger Burrack . . . you don’t know . . . the half of it. . . .”

  “I bet,” said Sam. He handed the canteen to Clarimonde, and continued saying to Stanley, “Collect yourself for a minute, then tell us how in the world you managed to come flying down on us.”

  Cleaver chuckled darkly and put in, “Don’t try telling us an eagle dropped you.”

  Stanley tried once again to rise up, saying, “I’ve . . . got to go. Shala . . . needs me. . . .”

  “Shala is his wife,” Sam said to the others. Then to Stanley he said, “You’re not going anywhere, the shape you’re in.”

  “He’s got . . . my wife, Ranger!” Stanley said, his strength coming back.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Sam said, holding him down more firmly. “But until your foot gets well enough to walk on, you’re not going anywhere.”

  “Oh God, Shala,” Stanley pleaded toward the high trail, “what am I going to do?”

  “For starters you’re going to use this time to tell me what happened last fall when I took a bullet in the back riding the same trail I saw you and your wife riding.” Sam stared at him sternly.

  “This is not the time for him to be answering questions,” Clarimonde said, leaning in close to the Ranger’s ear.

  “This is exactly the right time,” Sam insisted, keeping his unyielding gaze on the young man’s bruised, lumpy face. “It’s cleanup time, Stanley Lowden. Sprained ankle or not, I promise you’ll never leave here until you tell the truth about who back-shot me.” Sam patted his chest with his gloved hand. “You think it over, young man, because that’s a promise you can believe in.”

  He started to pull back and turn away, but Stanley didn’t need to think it over. “Wait, Ranger . . . please,” he said in a raspy voice. “Are you going to . . . kill me if . . . I tell you?”

  “Dang,” Cleaver cut in with a dark chuckle, “that’s a confession if I ever heard one.”

  “Shut up, Hook-nose,” Beck said.

  But Hook-nose went on, saying to Stanley, “Kid, you best clear the air with him now while you’re too hurt to kill. Even a lawdog wouldn’t shoot a man as sorely—”

  “One more word, Cleaver,” Beck warned, cutting him off, “and I’ll hang this coffeepot over your head.”

  Hook-nose fell silent and took a step back, out of Beck’s reach.

  “I won’t kill you, Lowden,” Sam said. “But that’s a sight cleaner deal than you gave me, if you’re the one who did it.”

  Stanley let out a wheezing breath. “I did it, Ranger. Just me . . . nobody else.”

  Nobody else? Sam studied his swollen eyes, wondering why he’d said it that way—nobody else. But he didn’t want to push the matter right then. “I see,” he said, realizing that while this might be some form of the truth, it was neither the whole truth nor nothing but the truth. Not by a long shot. “Why’d you do it? Are you wanted for something in my territory? Have I killed some kin of yours?”

  “No.” Stanley managed to shake his head a little in spite of the pain it caused in every joint. “It was . . . all a terrible mistake.”

  “Ha!” said Cleaver. He started to offer another flip comment, but remembering Beck’s warning, he shut up quickly as Beck shot him a glance.

  “The Dutchman, Glick. He wanted me
to . . . kill, Memphis Warren Beck . . . but I shot you instead.”

  Beck and the ranger looked at each other. Beck stooped down, pushed his hat up and said, “I’m Memphis Beck. So, you were out to kill me?”

  “Jesus,” said Cleaver, unable to resist as he saw the look on Lowden’s face, “talk about finding yourself between a rock and a hard spot.”

  “So, the Dutchman paid you to kill Beck, but you shot me by mistake?” Sam said, getting a picture of it in his mind, already starting to piece things together. “You don’t strike me as an assassin, Lowden. But go on,” Sam coaxed. He wanted to keep the young man talking until he figured out what had really happened up on the high trail at the end of last summer.

  “Yeah,” said Beck, getting interested, “how much did he pay you to kill me, five hundred, a thousand? I know that old wolf-bait is tight with a dollar. But I hear the railroad has come up with some hush-hush reward money on me, since they can’t legally prove anything—”

  “Eight . . . dollars . . . ,” Stanley said, closing his eyes, anticipating the sort of response his words would bring from both the ranger and Beck.

  Beck stood in stunned silence for a moment. Then finally he said, “Well, then. Was he going to pay you all of that at one time, or stretch it out over the next few seasons?”

  Lowden kept his swollen eyes shut in his humiliation. “That was my . . . livery bill. I was . . . desperate. Glick paid my fees. I’ve been . . . down on my luck.”

  “And this livery fee of yours cost me a bullet in the back,” Sam said, contemplating the dark irony of it. He noted that Stanley was not mentioning his wife in any way. So he asked, “Where does your wife fit into this? Was she your backup? I know you’re both game hunters, skinners and trappers.”

  “No! No!” Stanley replied quickly. He shook his head vigorously in spite of his pain and stiffness. “Shala had nothing to do with . . . any of it. I swear she didn’t. It was all me. . . . I did a stupid thing . . . listening to Glick, taking help from him.” He tried to sit up again. This time it was Clarimonde who pressed him back down.

  “Lie still,” she warned Stanley. “We do not yet know what you might have damaged inside yourself.”

  “Ma’am . . . I’m obliged,” said Stanley, “but I’ve . . . got to get up and around. He has my wife.”

  “The Dutchman has your wife?” Memphis Beck asked, staring coldly at the injured young man.

  “Yes,” said Stanley, his voice getting stronger as he realized the situation Shala was in, alone with the Dutchman. “He’s had designs on her . . . all along.”

  “I’d say he’s got her where he wants her now,” said Cleaver with a wicked grin.

  Beck gave him a hard glare.

  “All right, I’m through,” Cleaver said. “It’s none of my business anyhow.”

  “How’d he get her away from you?” Sam asked. He would put nothing past Glick the Dutchman, especially after having seen the bodies of the detectives he was certain Glick had poisoned.

  “He pulled a tree over . . . with me on top of it,” Stanley said. “Then, he shot me out . . . like a rock from a slingshot.”

  “Good God, boy! You trusted the Dutchman, knowing he wanted your woman?” Hook-nose Cleaver muffled his laughter, managing to keep quiet under Beck’s solemn stare.

  Sam looked up the steep hillside along the edge of the high trail. As far-fetched as it sounded, it was the only thing that made sense. He pictured the young man being launched out into the wide canyon at such an angle that instead of falling, he would have arced downward into the limber treetops and been slung back and forth until gravity took over. But when he began boring down through the tall pine, the branches and limbs broke his fall enough to save his life.

  “Well, you’re alive,” Sam said. “There’s few who can say that after crossing paths with Conning Glick.” He glanced at Beck.

  Before Beck could comment, Stanley was suddenly stricken with a sharp pain in his chest. He moaned aloud and clutched his naked, bruised and bloody breastbone. “Oh God, I’m hurting something fierce in here,” he said.

  “You see,” said Clarimonde, “pain does not always come right away. You might have some broken ribs.”

  “Ma’am, I can’t have broken ribs,” Stanley said with a heavy wince. “I’ve got . . . to get going.” But even as he tried to rise again, this time with no one stopping him, he only tilted upward a few inches before sharp pain flattened him.

  Sam and Beck both stepped away as Clarimonde attended to the injured young man. “What do you make of it, Ranger?” Beck asked.

  “I think Glick has worked things out with these two just about the way he wanted it.” He looked at Stanley, then said to Beck, “I’m still riding on ahead after Sabott. I’ve got my stallion to consider.”

  “What about his wife?” Beck asked.

  “If I run across Shala Lowden and the Dutchman, I’ll invite her to leave with me, and I’ll send her back to her husband—if that’s what she wants to do. Otherwise . . .” He let his words trail.

  “Yeah, I understand,” said Beck. He started to warn Sam to watch his back up there, but he stopped himself. He didn’t need to tell the ranger to watch himself around the Dutchman. Instead he said, “We’ll see you on the high trail, Ranger.”

  “You can count on it,” Sam replied.

  Before Sam could walk away, Beck said, “Don’t you think it’s strange, how the Dutchman nearly had you killed, thinking it was me?”

  “Yes, I expect it is,” Sam said. But he offered no further comment on the matter.

  Beck and Hector stood watching as he stepped up into the barb’s saddle and rode away in the direction of the path leading up the steep hillside toward the high trail, leading the spare horse behind him.

  Chapter 13

  Night would fall before Glick rode the last few yards up the trail toward the faint glow of firelight tucked back into the sheltering maze of rock. Before turning back to meet Shala at the spot where he’d told her to be, he’d prowled around just off the trail, watching for any of Sabott’s men who might ride back, looking for the two missing outlaws.

  “Looks like Angelo Sabott ain’t missing you boys enough to come looking,” he said to the bloody head bag. He looked down at the bag as if half expecting a reply. But the bag only hung in dripping silence, the weight of the two heads causing it to resemble the dissected scrotum of some large, primitive beast.

  After a moment, Glick turned his eyes from the gruesome bag and rode on with a bitter expression. At a rushing creek, he stepped down, swung the bloody bag from his saddle horn and pitched it to the ground. “Now, if you boys will allow me, I’ll just take a few personal minutes here, to make myself more presentable to my lady friend.”

  Stripping to his waist, he kneeled, took off his hat and scalp wig, laid the articles aside and dipped cold water up to his pale face. Halfway through, he snapped a cold, harsh stare toward the head bag and said, “What’s so funny? Do you look any better, you sawed-off sonsabitches?”

  Spitting cold water from his lips, Glick reached over, opened the bag and rolled both heads out onto the rocky ground. He propped both heads upright, shut Boland’s gaping mouth and spread McQuin’s long, bloody blond hair on either side. “I’ll tell you both something that will break your hearts. Neither one of yas will be sleeping against what I will this night.” He winked at the lifeless, blank faces and cackled under his breath.

  On the other side of the creek a lone wolf had ventured out at the scent of blood. Glick scurried to his feet, grabbed a rock and hurled it at the wary animal, sending it running back into the evening gloom. “Thieving bastard! Go make your own friends!” he shouted.

  Then turning, he cursed continually under his breath as he gathered short twigs and branches and hurriedly built himself a small fire, showing no concern for any of Sabott’s men who might yet happen upon him and his grisly prizes. “I’ve got water and a fire,” he murmured sidelong to the two heads. “Let her wait awhile longer
whilst I prepare myself. The longer she waits, the more she’ll want me.” He drew his knife from his boot well and stabbed it into the ground in front of his two morbid companions. Looking back and forth from one face to the other, comparing them, he finally settled on McQuin, saying almost in a whisper, “Well, now, ain’t you the pretty one.”

  Across the creek the wolf slunk back to the edge of a cedar row and watched in rapt curiosity, cocking its head first to one side, then the other. . . .

  Two hours later, as Shala lay against a rock, out of the firelight, she heard the first clop of Glick’s horse’s hooves on the hard rocky path thirty feet below. Instinctively, she slipped her finger inside the trigger guard of her rifle and slowly, quietly, pulled the hammer back with her thumb.

  Catching the slightest click of metal against metal, the Dutchman called out in a hushed voice, “Hold fire, young lady. It’s me, Conning.”

  “Mr. Glick?” Shala said quietly, squinting into the darkness, trying to get a look into the shadowy trees and large, sunken boulders surrounding the path all the way down to the trail. “Stanley?” she said, making out only one blackened silhouette moving in and out of sight through the broken strips of blue moonlight.

  “No, it’s just me, young lady,” the Dutchman said, riding ever closer, the clop of hoof and the sound of his voice growing clearer.

  “Mr. Glick, where’s Stanley?” Shala asked, taking on a concerned tone.

  “Call me Conning,” Glick said.

  Shala noted his tone of voice. “Mr. Glick, tell me right now, where is he? Where’s Stanley?”

  But Glick offered no reply. He rode up the path until he stepped his horse around a large rock and into the glowing firelight. Then he gave her a sad grin and said with regret, “I’m afraid Stanley couldn’t handle the strain of man hunting. Before we even finished building the trap, he was gone.”

  “Gone?” Shala lowered her rifle hammer and stepped over from against the rock. “You mean he left?”