by Ralph Cotton
“Begging your pardon, I meant to say I am a loyal employee, Ranger Burrack,” Lockhart replied. Again he averted his eyes away from the ranger’s, looking off toward the mining complex. “This day has been a very long and fearful experience for me. I have to admit I’m not thinking as straight as I ordinarily would be.”
Sam looked him up and down, then said, “This is the first time you’ve ever seen men killed, I take it?”
“Oh, yes,” said Lockhart, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“First time you’ve ever had to hide because there were men searching for you—men who would have killed you?” Sam asked, seeing a shiny wetness seep up along the inner edges of the young man’s eyelids.
“Yes,” Lockhart said, trying to control the strained sound that moved into his voice. As he stood looking away, Sam eased his Colt back into his holster. “Poor Mr. Sage was blown to pieces. I never imagined ever seeing something like that. It reminded me of stories my older brothers told me about the war.”
“Then I expect it has been a fearful day for you, to say the least,” said Sam. He paused, then tacked on, “But put it away now. Just be thankful it’s over.”
“Yes, you’re right. I’m very thankful.” Lockhart took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out, still staring away from the ranger.
Sam said quietly to him, “Now that each of us knows the other is not an outlaw, like Sabott and his men, I’ll be happy to lend you a hand.” He reached down as if to roll up his shirtsleeve.
“Begging your pardon, Ranger?” Lockhart said again, with no idea what Sam meant.
Sam gestured at the shovel lying on the ground next to the sack full of money. “I’m offering to help you bury the money,” Sam replied, “you know, for safekeeping?” He gave Lockhart a piercing look.
Again Lockhart looked away. But this time he did so only for a moment. Turning back to the ranger, he said in a firm tone, “All right, I’m going to be honest with you, Ranger Burrack. I don’t know if I was burying that money to keep from coming upon the robbers and having them take it from me, or if I planned to keep it buried long enough for me to come back and take it for myself.”
“I understand,” Sam said with a nod. “Maybe you was just burying it until you decided what it was you were going to do with it—sort of give yourself some room to think it out.”
“Well, yes,” said Lockhart, “now that you mention it, I suppose that’s precisely what I was doing.” His troubled brow seemed to clear in self-revelation. “Perhaps in my trepidation I simply needed to settle down and consider things more clearly?” He looked to the ranger for affirmation.
“Depending on your upbringing, I’d say that’s likely the case,” Sam interjected.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Lockhart, reckoning with himself. “I may have only been tittering on the edge of temptation. After some clearheadedness, I might just as well have chosen to do the right thing. I can’t say with any certainty that I was about to steal—” He paused abruptly, then asked in a guarded tone, “Am I in any trouble, Ranger Burrack?”
“No,” said Sam, “not with me anyway. I think you’ve been honest about what was going on in your head. I don’t think your conscience was going to allow you to make a bad decision.” He stopped in consideration, then said, “But if I were you, I wouldn’t go into so much detail when I got back to the complex. Just tell them what happened and give them their money. At that point if you shut up, you’ll be their hero.” He gave a faint smile. “If you start telling them about your thoughts and uncertainties, you could make them change their minds.”
With consideration Lockhart nodded and said, “Yes, you’re right. The less said the better, I believe.” He looked relieved. “Will you be riding with me back to the complex, to make sure the money arrives there safely?”
“Do I need to?” Sam asked pointedly.
“No, of course not,” said Lockhart. “I only thought that in your capacity as a lawman . . .”
“No,” said Sam. “This is a long way out of my jurisdiction. Besides, I’m not up here in any legal capacity. The fact is I’m traveling on a personal matter.”
“That’s real good to know,” a voice called out from the edge of the brush where Sam had walked into the small clearing. “Now, lift that Colt real slow-like. Drop it with two fingers, lawdog, and you might live to see the next sunrise.”
Jesse Sparks! The ranger recognized him right away, but he wasn’t about to say so. “Take it easy, Mister. I’m doing what you tell me,” he said, raising his left hand chest high in submission, his right hand going slowly but steadily to his holstered Colt. But instead of lifting the big Colt with two fingers, he slowly wrapped his hand around its butt and began to raise it.
“Huh-uh, lawdog!” said Sparks. “I said with two fingers!”
“Sorry,” Sam said in a calm tone of voice, easing the barrel of his Colt up until it pointed at the surprised gunman. “You should have made that more clear.” He cocked the Colt with the flick of his thumb.
Lockhart stood watching, stunned, his face pale, his mouth agape.
“Damn it, I did make it clear!” Sparks said indignantly, as if it made any difference. He flinched as he squeezed the trigger on his Remington. The ranger saw the flinch and fired a split second first. Their shots exploded in chorus.
“Oh my!” David Lockhart shouted as the gunman flipped backward, the bullet through his upper chest leaving a bloody mist in the air where he’d stood.
Sam looked all around, fanning the Colt back and forth, in case Sparks was not alone. As he scanned the brush, he heard Lockhart murmur in disbelief, “I’m—I’m shot, Ranger Burrack!”
Sam turned in time to see Lockhart sink to the ground. Blood spewed wildly from between his fingers as he clutched his chest. “Take it easy, young man,” Sam said, realizing that was the same thing he had told Jesse Sparks only a moment earlier, and now Sparks lay dead on the rocky ground.
“I . . . will try,” Lockhart said, the strength of his voice waning as he slumped over to one side. “I need to get the . . . money back to . . .”
His words ended as he lay down on his side. The blood that had spewed from between his fingers slowed to a trickle. “Oh no,” said the ranger, stooping down and looking into Lockhart’s glazed-over eyes, “another innocent man dead . . . over stolen money.”
He looked back toward the trail, knowing that somewhere below, Memphis Beck and his party were riding to catch up with him. Well, that would all have to wait for now, he told himself. He raised Lockhart’s body from the ground and carried him over his shoulder to where the mule stood staring at them through caged eyes.
In the mining complex, one of the miners, Harvey Matthews, looked up from clearing the debris and adding any of Sage’s loose parts to a nearby pile for burial. Seeing the ranger ride in, the grain sack of money and the body of David Lockhart draped over the mule he led behind him, the miner said to his nearest comrade, “Krooper, take a look at this.”
“What the . . .” Squinting in the afternoon glare of sunlight, Lars Krooper studied first the ranger and his spare horse, then the body bobbing along on the mule behind him. “It looks like our clerk, Davey, is . . . dead,” he said, with hesitation. Recovering quickly he said, “Somebody go find Duckwald, and hurry it up!”
By the time Sam arrived in the street and stepped down from his saddle, a group of miners had gathered to meet him. Three empty freight wagons sat where the men had left them, having ridden them from town upon hearing the tremendous dynamite explosion earlier. “I’m Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack,” he said. He opened his coat enough to show the badge on his chest, knowing the crowd was upset and edgy over what had happened to their complex as well as their payroll money. “I found this man up near the trail. He told me he worked here.”
“I’m Felix Duckwald, mining engineer,” said a short, powerful-looking man wearing a black wool overcoat. He stood forward from the others. “He did work here. It’s Davey Lockhart.
What happened to him, Ranger?”
“He was up there,” Sam said, gesturing a nod back toward the high trails. “He was hiding this sack of payroll money from the thieves when I found him,” Sam said. “He got shot down a few minutes later by a gunman named Jesse Sparks.”
“The poor lad,” Krooper said respectfully. He walked forward, untied the sack of money and dropped it to the ground. He motioned for three of the men to come forward and carry Lockhart’s body away. As he looked at Sam and saw the wide blood-stain on his shoulder where he’d carried Lockhart’s body, he said, “We’re obliged to you, Ranger. We’ll be able to pay everybody this month. That will give us time to have more sent to us before next month’s payday. Our corporation has more money than it knows what to do with, but getting it on time can be a problem.”
“I’m not the one who saved the money,” said the ranger, gesturing toward Lockhart as the men lowered him and carried him away. “He did.”
“I understand,” said Krooper. “I’d like to say the corporation appreciates his sacrifice, but to be brutally honest . . .” He let his words trail, then shrugged and capped them off with, “You know how corporations are—they can’t afford to care for the individual, now can they?”
“Oh, is that how it is?” Sam said flatly, not trying very hard to veil his disapproval.
“I talk too much,” Krooper said apologetically, seeing the look on the ranger’s face. Changing the subject quickly he said, “Did young Lockhart get to say anything about how this happened? Why they killed our poor manager, Mr. Sage?”
“No,” said Sam, keeping it short and in Lockhart’s favor. “He was on his way back here with the money when Sparks came out of nowhere and tried to get the drop on us. I killed Sparks, but a wild shot hit your man Lockhart.” He shook his head with regret. After a second of consideration he asked, “You said some of the money. How much more was taken?”
“Judging from this sack,” said Krooper, “I’d say this is a fourth of the cash that was in the safe, perhaps a little less.” He pointed at the large safe still lying on its side in the dirt street. “From the looks of things, I have to deduce that these robbers are not the best at what they do.”
“Oh? What makes you say so?” Sam asked, gazing at the safe lying unscathed, aside from a layer of settled dust and its door blared open in the dirt.
“The rascals used enough explosives to blow this safe out the front of the building. Yet they failed to place it in such a way as to blow the door open.” He shrugged his thick shoulders. “It appears that the door was actually opened quite easily.”
“You don’t say.” Sam looked around, finding the gathering of the robbers’ horses’ hooves and following them off along the dirt street. He took a deep breath. “If there’s nothing I can do here, I’ll be taking my leave,” he said.
“Of course, Ranger,” said Krooper. “Will you be tracking these men down, even though I realize it’s not your territory?”
“I’ve been tracking them down, but on a whole other matter,” said Sam, stepping back to the two horses. He swung up into his saddle. “When I catch up to them, I’ll see to it any of your stolen money is returned to you.”
“We appreciate your help, Ranger,” said Krooper, “but from the number of hoofprints, there appear to be ten or more men involved in this. Should we send a few miners along to assist you?”
“Obliged,” said Sam, touching the brim of his pearl gray sombrero, “but I work better alone.” He wasn’t going to mention his reason for tracking the robbers, or the fact that Warren Memphis Beck, leader of the infamous Hole-in-the-wall Gang, would soon be joining him in the hunt. There were things better left unsaid, he told himself, turning his mount and the spare horse behind him back toward the trail.
PART 4
Chapter 18
Afternoon shadows had fallen long across the ground by the time the ranger had ridden back across the stretch of rocky ground between the Havelin Mining complex and the trail on which he’d been following Sabott and his gang’s hoofprints. No sooner had he turned his horse upward along a narrow path than he saw Memphis Beck step out and wave his hat back and forth, twenty yards ahead of him.
When Sam rode closer, he saw Hector and Clarimonde ease their horses out onto the trail. Clarimonde led Stanley Lowden’s horse by its reins. Lowden lay low in his saddle, his battered face drawn and colorless. “We followed your trail from where we found Sparks’ body,” said Beck. “I didn’t want to risk riding any closer to the Havelin mines. I figured the blast we heard came from there.”
“Yep,” said Sam. “Sabott and his gang robbed the payroll. They made a mess of it, killed the manager, a couple of miners.” He shook his head. “They didn’t get much of the money. I found an office clerk burying some of it up off the trail. That’s where I met Sparks. He tried to take the money. I killed him, but a stray shot killed the clerk.”
Beck shook his head too, and said quietly, “This stuff never happens when me and my men . . .” Seeing the look of disdain in the ranger’s eyes, he didn’t finish his words. Instead, he shrugged and said respectfully, “Sorry, Ranger, I was just thinking out loud.”
Sam let it pass. He looked around and asked, “Where’s Hook-nose?”
“He wandered off during the night,” said Beck. “Made his getaway, just like we figured he would.”
“On foot?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, he’s on foot. We’ll reach Sabott long before he will.”
“I hope so,” said Sam. Looking at Stanley, he asked Beck, “How’s he holding up?”
“He’s half out of his mind,” said Beck. “He needs bed rest if he’s ever going to get any better.”
“Is he slowing you down?” Sam asked.
“He’s starting to more and more,” said Beck. “I’m afraid if we push him too hard, we’ll kill him.” He nodded toward Clarimonde. “I’m sending him to Havelin with Clair. She can take him there on her way back to the hole.”
“You’re sending her back?” Sam asked.
“Yes,” said Beck. “It’s for the best. The farther we have to track Sabott, the more dangerous it’s going to get for her traveling with me.”
Sam looked at Clarimonde and asked Beck, “What about detectives scouring the countryside?”
“They don’t know anything about her yet,” said Beck. “There’s no reason for them to suspect her of having anything to do with me. Once she gets back inside the hole, it’ll be safer for her than it will be out here.”
“What about you, Hector?” Sam asked the young Mexican lawman.
“I stay with you for as long as you need me,” he replied. “When your stallion is in your hands, then I will take my brother’s horse and return to my country.” As he spoke he patted the paint horse’s neck with his gloved hands.
Sam nodded. “Gracias, mi amigo,” he said. “As soon as I saw the dead lying in the dirt at Havelin Mines and the young clerk Sparks killed, this became about more than getting my stallion back.”
“S’í, I understand,” said Hector.
Beck looked back and forth between the two lawmen and said, “Now that I see how far Sabott has led his men, I have a better idea what he’s got in mind, and why he stole all of our dynamite.”
Sam and Hector listened intently.
“This time of year, a lot of ore money and government livestock money is being shipped into the Dakotas, and Wyoming Territory by rail express. It used to ship only as far north as Cheyenne. But last summer the rail company completed nearly three hundred miles of new track, reaching up out of Cheyenne. After a long winter, there’s always a lot of business, land developers, livestock brokers and such, all redeeming their script for hard-cash money.”
Sam considered it for a moment, then said, “So, you’re figuring that’s where Sabott and his gang are headed?”
“Yes, I’d bet on it,” said Beck. “Some of his men have ridden with my men here and there. They all know about the new rail spur.”
“And I
suppose you’ve given lots of thought as to the best place to make a robbery along that rail spur?” Sam asked knowingly.
“It just happens that I have,” said Beck. “There’s a low spot a few thousand yards before the trains reach a water stop called Noble Siding. If it was me and my men, that’s where we’d make our play. I’d catch the train on its uphill climb.”
Sam gave him a questioning look. “If you knew all this, why didn’t you say something before?”
“We were headed that direction anyway,” said Beck. “I just wanted to give it time, be more sure of it before I mentioned it.” He gave a slight grin. “The fact is, I’d given thought of hitting it this spring, myself, but after that long summer me and my men had in Mexico, I decided to put it off awhile. I knew once I told you about it, I’d have to mark it off my list.”
Sam stared off toward the high trail, giving it some thought. “I expect if anybody knows what a thief is up to, it’s another thief.” He caught himself, looked at Beck and said, “No offense intended.”
“None taken,” Beck said, still with a slight smile. He sat quietly with his wrists crossed on his saddle horn.
“If that’s Sabott’s plan,” Sam said, “that’s my plan too.”
Two nights earlier when Bream “Hook-nose” Cleaver had slipped away in the night, he’d been worried that Beck might try tracking him down. Instead of taking the long way across a stretch of open land, he’d ignored the pain in his wounded hand and managed to climb the side of a steep, rocky cliff. At the top of the cliff, looking down and across the land in the first morning light, he realized the climb had saved him miles of walking along the meandering switchback trails.
“I’ll be danged,” he murmured, out of breath, but surprised and pleased with himself that he’d done something right. With his wounded hand throbbing, he pushed himself to his feet and began walking, keeping a lookout back over his shoulder for Beck and Hector, not realizing that the outlaw and the Mexican lawmen couldn’t care less that he’d disappeared in the night.