Hard Ride to Wichita

by Ralph Compton

“Where do we look for him?”

  “Stormy told him where he was staying,” Luke said. “It’s a hotel not too far from here.”

  “You know which room?”

  “Yes, but she also said he’s moved on from there. Been hiding out since he stole that money.”

  “When do we have to get to him?” Red asked.

  “Soon. He’s leaving town pretty quick.”

  “He may already be gone.”

  “Then we should hurry,” Luke shot back.

  Red’s expression became intense as if he was locked in some sort of contest with the young man sitting across from him. “If he’s not at his hotel, then where do we find him?”

  “Stormy told me he’s a cardplayer and that he favors two saloons here in town.”

  “If he ain’t at either of them?” Red asked.

  “Then we go look at the stable where he’s keeping his horse. Before you ask, yes, I know which stable it is and, yes, I know what kind of horse he rides.”

  “This lady was mighty thorough.”

  Luke nodded. “I’d say she spends a lot of time sitting outside and sizing men up just like she did with you and me. She sees a whole lot and makes it her business to remember as much as she can.”

  “You put all that together while I was with Rose, didn’t you?”

  “Mostly.”

  Red sighed. “What if things don’t go well?”

  “Then you won’t have to worry about Wichita anymore because we’ll either be dead or too hurt to ride.”

  Even though Luke barely flinched when he said that, Red knew him well enough to tell when he was joking. “You think it’s funny now, but it might be a whole different story when things get rough.”

  “We’ve already seen things get rough.”

  “Not with someone who might be a real killer.”

  “If we can’t handle this, I’ll forget all about Wichita,” Luke said.

  “You swear?”

  “Yes.”

  Red held his hand in front of his mouth, spat on his palm, and stuck it out toward his friend. Luke spat on his own palm before shaking Red’s hand.

  “There’s no going back now,” Red told him.

  “I agree.”

  “What I mean is, you break a promise after this and that makes you no better than a mangy dog in the street.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “Once more.”

  “We don’t pull this off,” Luke vowed, “we go home.” Tightening his grip on his friend’s hand, he added, “But if we do pull it off, we ride from here on without looking back or otherwise second-guessing ourselves. That makes us look weak.”

  “This is all my fault,” Red groaned as he took his hand back. “I ain’t gonna leave you with so much time to think anymore.”

  Chapter 11

  Before leaving Stormy’s later that afternoon, Luke and Red had another drink. They passed it off as a way to bring them good luck for the venture they’d decided to undertake, but both of them knew they needed the extra dose of firewater to steel themselves for what lay ahead. Luke wasn’t about to turn back for any reason whatsoever because he was too invested in the outcome and Red just wasn’t cut from the cloth of a quitter. They tipped back their drinks, slammed their glasses down, and, better or worse, good idea or not, marched outside.

  After heading down the street and turning a corner, they were close enough to see the place that Luke had been searching for. Pointing to a shabby carriage house next to a cluttered lot, Luke said, “That’s the place where our man is keeping his horse.”

  “What’s his name again?” Red asked.

  “Carlo Procci.”

  “He an Italian?”

  “I guess,” Luke snapped. “What’s that matter?”

  “I don’t know. Just asking.” Dropping to a knee, Red ground his hands into a pile of mud and smeared some onto his face.

  Watching him with a mixture of confusion and disgust, Luke asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m gonna go in and say I’m a friend of his or some angry fella looking for him. I haven’t decided which. Either way, I can’t go in smelling like all that lilac water Rose rubbed on me. They’ll think I’m a dandy.”

  “Nobody would have mistaken you for a dandy,” Luke scoffed. “A ranch hand who wandered in to get his toes curled, maybe, but not a dandy.”

  “You want to do your own scouting? Just let me do this my way.”

  Luke took a step back and raised his hands, allowing his friend to approach the stable without another word.

  As he headed toward the stable, Red patted his belt to feel the Smith & Wesson still tucked where it always was. Although he’d fired the pistol plenty of times and knew it as well as he knew his own hand, the gun’s presence wasn’t inspiring the normal amount of confidence. Fortunately someone was already emerging from the stable so Red didn’t have to think about whether or not he was ready for a confrontation.

  “What can I do for you?” asked a lanky man in dirty brown pants and a dusty blue shirt. “Since you don’t have a horse with you, perhaps you’re interested in buying one? I got a few for sale.”

  “I don’t want to buy nothing,” Red snarled with a bit more ferocity than the words required. “I’m looking for someone.”

  “I don’t know what I can do about—”

  “He’s a customer of yours,” Red cut in. “Carlo Procci. You know him?”

  “I do know him.”

  Pulling his shirt from where it had been hastily tucked into his waistband, Red made sure the skinny fellow could see the Smith & Wesson as he said, “Tell me where to find him!”

  The other man hopped back as if he’d just found himself at the wrong end of a cannon. His eyes grew wide and his hands shot out to either side. “No need for that! He’s inside. Just go and see for yourself. I wasn’t about to make any trouble. Go on inside!”

  “That’s right. You ain’t gonna cause any trouble. That includes you going and fetching anyone else, you hear?”

  “I don’t know your business with that man inside and I don’t wanna know.”

  “You don’t wanna get no law either,” Red warned.

  The other man shook his head so vigorously that it seemed close to rattling off his shoulders. “There ain’t no trouble. I got no reason to stand in your way.”

  Now that the other man had proven so easy to shove around, Red didn’t quite know what to do with him. “All right, then,” he said while trying to maintain the same intensity he’d had a moment ago. “Sorry about the cross words.”

  Now the other man was confused. He squinted at Red and lowered his hands. “Ummm . . . you’re sorry?”

  “Just go.”

  “You want me to go now?”

  Too irritated with himself to say another word, Red grumbled angrily and stormed into the stable. As long as the skinny fellow didn’t follow him, he didn’t much care what he did.

  The stable was much longer than it was wide, which meant it was considerably larger than he’d first thought. Sunlight shone in through several large holes in the roof. Dust trickled down from various loose boards overhead as well as from a loft that seemed barely sound enough to hold the few bales of hay being stored there. The straw on the floor was so matted that most of it was stuck to the boards. Of the five stalls sectioned off by low walls, three had functioning gates and only one of those was occupied by a horse.

  Red stepped inside wearing a terse expression. His arms were at his sides, and his right hand was close enough to the Smith & Wesson to draw it the moment he thought it was needed. So far, the only distressing thing he encountered within the stable was the stench.

  “Hello?” he called out.

  There was no reply.

  Cautiously moving forward, Red glanced back and forth
at what was on either side. He saw the usual assortment of tools, feed bags, harnesses, and such that could be found in any stable and not much else. One trough was filled with water that would have made a swamp look like a crystal-clear stream. One stall must have been rented recently because it was almost fit for an animal to use. Midway through, he came upon the occupied stall. The light gray horse inside was chewing lazily on its feed and barely took notice of Red with its large, dark eyes. Its coarse mane was a mix of gray and black. After taking stock of Red, it snuffed and got back to its chewing.

  Red’s eyes were drawn to the saddlebags piled in one corner of the stall. Before he had a chance to wonder about why those bags had been left there, he spotted a man lying propped against the wall beside them. He was mostly covered by a blanket meant for the horse. Enough straw and dirt had either fallen onto him or been kicked onto him that he would have been easy to miss by an unaware passerby.

  “Hey,” Red barked.

  For a moment, Red thought the man half-buried in the straw was dead. Not only wasn’t he moving, but his entire body was twisted at such a strange angle that it seemed most likely he’d been tossed there like so much refuse. When Red tried to push open the gate to get inside, it rattled noisily on its hinges. He pulled the rusted latch and eventually had to kick the gate before it would swing aside for him. Only then did the man in the stall behave like anything more than a corpse.

  “Wha . . . ?” the man groaned.

  Red stood just inside the stall. “Are you Carlo Procci?”

  After making one attempt to lift his head, the man on the floor grunted and shifted beneath the blanket. His upper body was still skewed at a different angle than his head, and the one hand protruding from beneath the straw was balled up so tightly that it was hard to tell if it was his right or left.

  “I’m talkin’ to you!” Red said as he stomped forward. “You’d best answer me.”

  “Or what?” the man asked in a haggard voice.

  “Or . . . there’ll be hell to pay!”

  The man shifted some more until he was more or less lying on his back. Using the exposed hand, which now could be seen as his left, he pushed his hat back away from his face so he could get a less obstructed view of the other person in the stall with him. His nose was long, angular, and had been broken at least twice throughout his thirty-some years. Thin eyebrows and high cheekbones framed a pair of clouded blue eyes. The rest of his face was covered in thick layers of greasy whiskers that were too scattered and wild to be considered a proper beard. After looking at Red for all of two seconds, he let out a gurgling belch and set his head back down.

  “Did you hear me?” Red asked.

  “I’d be deaf if I hadn’t.”

  “Are you Carlo Procci?”

  “If I say yes, will you let me get back to sleep?”

  Red stood his ground and watched the man get situated on the floor. So far, his scouting plan hadn’t only backfired, but left him painted in a corner and unsure as to whether or not the man in the stall was answering his question or just trying to get some peace and quiet. “Is this Carlo Procci’s horse?” Red asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What would you say if I took it?”

  “He drinks more water than a fish and doesn’t like the rain,” the man replied.

  Red walked over to the horse, who barely acknowledged him as he reached out to take hold of its mane. Since his actions weren’t sparking much of anything from either of the other souls in that stall, Red let go of the coarse, wiry hair and moved back through the gate. From there, he went all the way to the rear of the stable to examine the other stalls.

  Unless there was another man hidden even better than the first one he’d stumbled across, it seemed that the one sharing the stall with the gray horse was the only other person in there. Red went back outside to find the skinny fellow right where he’d left him.

  “You say Carlo Procci is in there?” Red asked.

  Suddenly looking as if he was regretting staying put, the stable man said, “That’s right.”

  “Scraggly-looking man with a gray horse?”

  “Yessir. He paid extra to bunk down in that stall with his horse. I suppose he couldn’t afford no room at a hotel.”

  Red glanced back inside the stable as if someone else might appear, shrugged, and walked away.

  “You conduct your business with him?” the skinny man asked.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Chapter 12

  “So,” Luke said as soon as Red was close enough to hear him, “was his horse in there?”

  Red crossed the street to where Luke was standing and took a look over his shoulder as if to make sure the stable was still there. “I guess so.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I asked where to find Carlo Procci and was told he was inside.”

  “That was your big plan?” Luke asked. “Ask if he was there? Anyone could have done that.”

  “Then you should have done it yourself!”

  “So, what did you find out? You think he’ll be a problem?”

  “Nah,” Red told him. “If that’s Carlo Procci in there, he won’t be any problem at all. He ain’t much more than a vagrant sleeping in a dirty horse stall.”

  “If that’s Carlo Procci? You’re not even sure?”

  “I was just supposed to go in and scout. That’s what I did. Far as I know, that’s Carlo Procci and his horse in there.” Red stepped aside and swept his arms toward the stable. “You want to proceed with the rest of the job you took for no good reason? Be my guest.”

  Rather than start fighting about why he’d taken Stormy up on her offer again, Luke walked past him and headed straight for the stable. After a few more steps, he could hear his friend keeping pace behind him.

  By the time he’d made it to the stable, Luke had worked up quite a head of steam. Red was only chuckling under his breath behind him, which got under his skin to no end. The skinny fellow who was touching up the paint of a sign advertising the stable’s daily rates saw them coming and immediately became nervous.

  “Excuse me,” Luke said in a choppy, impatient tone. “You know a man named Carlo Procci?”

  The skinny fellow started to say something, but choked it down again. He then glanced over to Red and closed his mouth tight. Looking back to Luke, the fellow set down his can of paint, placed his brush on top of it, turned around, and walked away.

  Luke pulled open the narrow door built close to the larger twin doors at the front of the stable. Wincing as he was hit by the smell of manure that needed to be cleaned out and moldy hay that needed to be swept away, he looked to his friend and asked, “Where is he?”

  “In the stall with the horse,” Red replied.

  Before asking which stall that was, Luke saw there was only one with a horse in it and walked over to it. The gate to that stall was still ajar after Red had been there, and the gray horse on the other side of it didn’t seem the least bit interested in taking a run for its freedom. The man who’d been lying on the floor had since kicked off his blanket and was sitting with his back against the wall and his long, lanky legs bent so his feet were flat against the ground.

  “Are you Carlo Procci?” Luke asked.

  “Why’s everyone so damn interested in me today?” the man grunted.

  “Are you or aren’t you?”

  The man snapped his eyes up toward both young men and said, “I’m him. What do you want that’s so important I can’t finish the sleep I started?”

  “You owe Miss Stormy some money.”

  “Miss Stormy, huh?” Carlo chided. “Did she send you over here promising a discount to put a scare into me? Go on back and tell her you did just fine. I’m petrified.”

  “Whatever her real name is, you know who I’m talking about. She’s the one that owns
the cathouse down the street.”

  “Hard to miss that place,” Carlo said.

  “You owe her some money,” Luke continued. “And I’m here to collect.”

  Placing his hands on his knees, Carlo looked back and forth between the two young men. “You’re the best she could find?”

  Luke nodded. “We’re bounty hunters.”

  That brought Carlo to his feet in a rush. It wasn’t a scramble to pull himself up, but more of a flicker of motion that ended with him standing at his full height before either Red or Luke could do much about it. Although he was still filthy, Carlo didn’t seem nearly as scattered as he had a moment ago. Instead of the tired vagrant Red had found sleeping with his horse, Procci was an armed man who stood several inches taller than both of the younger men.

  It took a moment for Luke to digest the fact that Carlo was on his feet. The fact that Carlo wore a gun strapped around his waist sank in a moment later.

  “How much money do I owe Miss Stormy?” Carlo asked in a tone that made the last two words sound like a lewd joke.

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  “What’s your cut? Ten percent? Twenty?”

  “Twenty,” Luke replied.

  “Guess it stands to reason,” Carlo said. “You get what you pay for.”

  Tired of being regarded as if he was something better suited to drink from one of the dirty troughs in another stall, Red pulled himself up by his bootstraps and said, “It don’t make one bit of difference what you think of us.”

  “Good, because I sure don’t think you’re bounty hunters.”

  “All that matters is that we’re here,” Red told him. “And that you owe a lady some money.”

  “Lady?” Carlo sneered. “Have you met Stormy?”

  “Yes,” Luke said sternly.

  Carlo eased his hat back far enough to scratch beneath it. “I suppose she conducts herself a lot better than some of the dogs in heat that work for her. There’s a piece of work named Rose who makes a rough stretch of road look like a primrose path.”

  Red’s brow furrowed and he took half a step forward. “What did you say?” he growled.