by Ralph Cotton
Kill them both? Sure, why not? Maybe he’d kill Little Ted Ford and Lonnie Kerns while he was at it, and anybody else who had anything to do with them. That whole stinking bunch . . .
He nodded to himself and nudged his horse forward. The horse traveled up the steep mining trail at a walk for the next half hour. Tate kept an eye on the wagon tracks until he could see the row of Ansil Swann’s deserted mine shafts standing along a widened, terraced stretch of rock hillside. He stopped the horse and stepped down and drew his rifle from its saddle boot.
Rifle in hand, he led the horse the rest of the way and didn’t stop again until he stood at a weathered hitch rail inside the mine yard. Looking all around, he saw only the wagon’s tracks and the horses’ hooves in the dirt. Across the yard he spotted the tarpaulin-covered furniture sitting under the tin roof of the lean-to.
What the—? He stared curiously at the furniture, wondering why Bailey Swann would try to hide her furnishings and valuables from the collectors in a place like this.
“Hello the mines,” he called out. He looked all along the row of sealed mine shaft entrances, each of them with large stones spilling out of them. There were no wagon tracks, hoofprints or boot tracks in the gravelly dirt around them.
“Hello the mines,” he called again. He saw where the wagon had stopped and where it had swung to the lean-to. Nothing here made any sense to him.
Stupid sons a’ bitches.
He stood waiting for a moment, listening intently. The only reply he heard was his own voice echoing back to him as it fell away into the distance.
All right, they’re gone, he concluded. Walking over under the lean-to, he untied a corner of the tarpaulin and flipped it back. He stood looking at the stacked and piled-up furniture with a puzzled expression.
So much for the furniture. Where’re the bays?
He looked all around again, as if having found the furniture and household goods meant the bay fillies would be somewhere near. Trying to make sense of it all, he became so absorbed that when he heard a voice boom out from behind him he was caught completely off guard.
“Throw your hands up high, you son of a bitch!” the voice demanded.
Tate, startled beyond control, threw his hands up instinctively before he could stop himself. No sooner were his hands up than he realized what a mistake he’d made.
Damn it to hell. . . .
“This is Texas Ranger Boyd Matthews, again,” the voice called out, muffling a hard belly laugh. “I’ve found more charges of you and the milk goat—”
“This ain’t funny, damn you, Rizale!” Tate shrieked. He spun toward the two gunmen who stood at the edge of the trail, barely containing their laughter. Tate’s hand started to grab the butt of his holstered Colt. But seeing Gaines and Rizale, their guns already drawn, cocked and pointed at him, he stopped himself and tried to cool down quickly. Grin or no grin, he knew they would kill him where he stood.
“Damn, son,” Rizale said, chuckling, “that’s twice in a row!” The two of them walked forward, leading their horses. “I’m starting to wonder if the milk goat rumor ain’t true.”
“There is no rumor about it—never was,” Tate said, cooled down but still seething at Rizale for tricking him. “I don’t want it getting started,” he added with a bit of a warning tone.
“Easy, now,” said Rizale, still digging at him. “We know how some men don’t talk about their love life.” He raised a gloved finger and touched it to his lips. “I will not bring it up again.” He gave Tate a sincere look. The two stopped a few feet away and looked all around the mine yard, at the furniture under the lean-to.
“The hell are you doing here anyway?” Gaines asked, lowering the hammer on his big Remington Army and cross-holstering it. Tate noted that Gil Rizale kept his Colt in hand, still cocked.
“The question is,” Tate said in a testy tone, “why the hell are you following me?” He stared at Gaines.
Gaines shook his head, still grinning.
“Huh-uh, me first,” he said, his Remington holstered, but his hand resting on the bone handle.
Tate breathed deep and calmed himself down a little more. These were not men to get testy with, he reminded himself.
“All right, here it is,” he said. “The wagon tracks we saw? They belonged to the horse trader, Bailey Swann and her hired hands. I was following them.” He gestured toward the furniture. “This is their doing. I figure the Swanns are hiding their possessions from Finnity and Baines’ collectors.”
“From us, in other words,” Rizale said, “soon as we take the job with Dad Crayley.”
“Well, yeah, I suppose so, putting it that way,” said Tate. He looked down at his boot toes.
“Why?” Gaines asked. “Are you trying to get the jump on a job with Crayley? Make the rest of us look bad?”
“Naw, it’s not like that,” said Tate. He cleared his throat and shrugged and looked back down at his boots.
“Ha!” Rizale laughed, rearing back. “I told you, I told you,” he said to Gaines, beaming. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“You told me,” Gaines confirmed.
Tate looked back and forth between the two. Gunmen or not, they weren’t going to ridicule him and treat him like a fool.
“What do you mean, you told him? You told him what?” he demanded, glaring narrow-eyed at Rizale.
Rizale eased his chuckling laugh down a little and tried to get serious.
“I just told him when we found you passed out that you’re known to have a great fondness for womenfolk, that’s all,” he said.
“A great fondness for women . . . ?” Tate cocked his head and gave him a strange curious look. “What the hell does that mean?” His voice rose. “Yes, I do have a fondness for women. What are you trying to turn that into?”
“Whoa, son, whoa!” said Rizale. “It’s not a bad thing I was saying. It’s just that you’re known to get a little . . . steered off course, womanwise.” He held his free hand in front of him and zigzagged it back and forth. His other hand still held his short-barreled Colt. “Nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Yeah,” said Gaines, “it ain’t like he called you a squirrel or something.”
Tate saw the look the two passed back and forth to each other. But he let it go and simmered down some more.
“Anyway,” he said, “she’s done with me and I’m done with her.” He sighed. “She’s taken up with the horse trader.”
“Let me ask you something,” Rizale said. “She’s done with you. You’re done with her. Why are you following her?”
Tate thought about it and shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “What else can I do . . . ?” He let his words trail.
Gaines and Rizale shook their heads in disgust and stepped closer to the furnishings under the lean-to. Rizale lifted the edge of the tarpaulin more and took a closer look.
“They brought all this out here, to keep us from taking it for Finnity and Baines?” he said. “I can’t believe that. There’s a trick in the works here. I just can’t get it figured.”
“If this was my stuff, why would I leave it out like this?” said Gaines, looking around again.
“I was asking myself that,” said Tate, “when you came in with your funny stuff.”
“All right, no more funny stuff,” said Rizale, a serious look coming to his face. “We’re already working for Dad. He sent us to see what you’re up to, make sure you’re not in cahoots with the Swanns anymore.”
Tate just stared at him.
“Don’t evil-eye me, Dallas,” Rizale warned. “I can still unload this gun right into your belly. Comprende?”
Tate nodded and raised his hands slightly, knowing his limits with these two.
“Okay, I expect I would have done the same if I was Dad Crayley,” he said. “But I’m through with the Swanns—both of
them.”
“So you say,” said Gaines. “But how do we know it’s true?”
“Ride there with me,” said Tate. “They’ll be getting back there by now. I’ll show you I’m through with them.”
The two gunmen looked at each other.
“How do you know they’re headed back?” said Gaines.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” said Tate. “Anyway, the ground’s all stone, hill line and hardpan dirt the next fifty miles. You can’t track nothing from here. They went back.”
“He sounds awfully cocksure,” Gaines said to Rizale. “Think we ought to ride to Swann’s ranchero with him?”
“Hell, son,” Rizale said to Gaines. “You know me. I’ll ride any-damn-where, with any-damn-body, to do any-damn-thing.” He laughed and spun the short-barreled Colt on his thick finger. The Colt looked small, almost like a toy in his huge hand. “Only thing is, you best show us something when we get there,” he warned. “I hate riding somewhere for nothing.”
“Follow me,” Tate said flatly. With no more to say on the matter, he gave Rizale an even gaze, turned and mounted his horse and put it forward with a touch of his boots.
“Well, all right, then,” Rizale said to Gaines. He grinned and turned to his horse. Between himself and Gaines he said in a lowered voice, “Let’s see what the squirrel’s got in mind.”
• • •
Late in the afternoon, Bedos Reyes walked from the empty bunkhouse to the hacienda, where Rena stood cooking dinner for the two of them. On the fiery grill of an open adobe-and-stone chimenea, beef sizzled. Beans and peppers bubbled in a pot. Off to the less-heated side of the grill top, a smaller pot of beef gravy with small bits of beef and mild, chopped desert herbs sat simmering.
On his way to where Rena stood cooking, he caught sight of two riders rise into sight and stop their horses. The two sat watching as he hurried his steps to Rena.
“Set the food aside quickly,” he said. “There are two men coming. I think one of them is Dallas Tate.”
Hearing the sound of concern in his voice, Rena turned, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Dallas Tate?” she said. She gazed long and hard at the two men. They sat as still as stone, looking small against the evening sky. She frowned as they sat staring back at her. “Yes, Papa,” she agreed finally. “I believe it is him.” She turned quickly back to the food on the grill. She stabbed the beef with a long fork and pitched it up onto the next highest rack above the flames. She set the pot off the grill, from above a bed of glowing mesquite.
“Señora warned us that this one might come back,” said Bedos. “I will get the shotgun from inside the front door and meet them. You get upstairs at the gun ports, like always.”
“Yes, Papa,” Rena said, hurrying, taking off her apron as she crossed the yard to the porch, her father right behind her. As she bounded up the porch steps, she stopped at the front door and gazed out at where the two sat staring. “Why is Dallas waiting there?” she said. “Why does he not come in? He knows we see him. He knows his way around here.”
“I don’t know why he waits,” Bedos said, bounding up the porch steps behind her. “He knows that the longer he waits, the more prepared for him we will be.” Bedos stepped past his daughter, opened the front door and ushered her inside. “Go up, close all the shutters,” he said, nodding at the stairs leading to the long row of upstairs windows. “Stay with Señor Swann in his office.”
Bedos watched as his daughter hurried off up the stairs. Turning, he picked up a shotgun from beside the door, checked it and walked from window to window, closing shutters. At the window nearest the front door, he looked out through the gun port and saw the two men still sitting, their wrists crossed on their saddle horns.
“What are they waiting for?” he asked himself out loud. He stood watching in silence for a long moment. “I have never liked you, Dallas Tate,” he murmured to the distant figure, “and I have never trusted you.” His voice rose in the empty room. “Of all the men this Swann puta has taken to her breasts and her thighs, I have disliked you the most.”
He stood watching, waiting, the shotgun ready, his strong aged hands opening and closing around its wooden stock. He glanced around, up the stairs, knowing his daughter was up there waiting at the window port in Ansil Swann’s office. There was nothing to fear here, he reminded himself. Two men could not ride in and take over this hacienda. It was built to withstand an attack by the desert Apache, or the Mexican rebels. They would be all right. He waited.
“Why don’t you come on?” he asked again through the gun port. This time, as if hearing his words and acting on them, the two nudged their horses into a walk and rode forward slowly. “All right,” Bedos said, “you want to show me you are in no hurry, that you are bold and fearless? Then so am I.” He opened the front door halfway and stood staring out at the two as they drew nearer to the house.
“Hola the house,” Dallas Tate called out, seeing the old Mexican step out onto the porch with the shotgun up across his chest. “Bedos. It’s me, Dallas,” he said.
“I see who you are, Señor Tate,” Bedos said. “I am told that you are no longer welcome here. So vamonos.” He stood firm.
Tate grinned at Gaines seated on his horse beside him; then he looked all around, seeing no sign of the ranch hands, or of Summers or the woman.
“I saw Señora Swann on the trail this morning, moving furniture. We cleared the air between us,” he lied, straight-faced. “She told me to come get my things from the bunkhouse.” He grinned. “I thought she’d be back by now. Where’d they go? She told me. I forgot,” he said, fishing.
But the old Mexican would have none of it. He stepped forward to the top of the porch steps.
“You and your amigo turn your horses and go, or I will shoot you both,” Bedos said with resolve.
Tate’s grin melted; his expression turned harsh.
“I came here offering to be real friendly, old man,” he said. “I know you and your pretty daughter are alone here. Don’t push your luck with me.” He turned to Gaines as if in afterthought. “Did I mention his daughter, Rena? She’s hotter than a pepper sprout.”
“Really? A pepper sprout?” said Gaines. “I’d be obliged to make her acquaintance.”
Anger flared in Bedos’ eyes. His grip on the shotgun tightened.
“You will die if you go near my daughter!” he warned, stomping down the porch steps. He stood with his feet spread, ready for a fight. “By the saints, I will—” His words stopped short as the front slammed shut from inside and the iron latch fell into place. He spun and ran up the steps to the door and pounded his whole body against it. “Open this door! Rena? Is that you? Open the door this instant!”
“Uh-oh,” Dallas Tate said from his saddle. “Bedos, ol’ pard, it looks like you’ve let a wolf into the meat house.” As the old Mexican pounded on the door, the two drew their guns and sat waiting.
From inside the hacienda they heard heavy boots running up the stairway. Then they heard a rifle shot resound inside the rifle port, followed by Rena’s scream.
“I got her, sons,” Rizale called out through the gun port. “She damn near shot me. What do you want me to do to her?”
“I will kill you!” Bedos raged, swinging the shotgun around at the two. But Tate and Gaines only sat smiling at him, as if they knew he wouldn’t shoot.
Tate wagged his gun at Bedos.
“Get that shotgun out of your hands, Bedos, before I tell my pal up there to lift his knife and go to work whittling on your family tree.”
“Do not hurt her, Tate!” the old man shouted. “She has done nothing to you!” As he spoke he threw the shotgun aside.
“That’s not true, Bedos,” Tate said. “Before I took up with Señora Swann, I tried sticking my hand up her dress and she strongly rebuffed me.”
“That was plumb mean, her doin
g that,” said Gaines.
“I know it was,” said Tate. “But I’m here to set things right today.
Upstairs, the window shutter in Ansil Swann’s office opened.
“What do you want me to do to her up here?” Rizale called down, sticking his head out.
“Bring her down,” said Tate. “This food smells so good, I know they’ll be inviting us to stay for supper.”
Rizale chuckled and drew his head back inside, holding Rena to his broad chest.
“You heard him, little darling,” he said, pressing his pale hairless face to the side of Rena’s throat. “Let’s go see what you’ve got cooking.”
In his wheelchair, Ansil Swann sat slumped, his eyes as blank as a dead man’s.
“How does this lump of wood get up and down the stairs for supper?” Rizale asked the woman on the way out of the office.
“My—my father carries him,” she said in a frightened tone. “I roll the empty chair.”
“Ha!” said Rizale. “I can show you a quicker way than that.”
Chapter 17
As Rena finished preparing dinner, adding more beef to the grill and slicing more peppers into the pot of beans, Dallas Tate and Rodney Gaines stood out in front of the house, staring at the open front door. Between the two Bedos stood with his hands tied in front of him, a large knot on top of his bare head. They’d watched Rizale drag a six-foot-long wood sled from the barn into the hacienda. The wood sled was what the ranch hands used to lower firewood down from the steep rocky hillsides.
“How long do we have to stand here waiting on him?” Tate asked Gaines, glancing toward the chemenea, the sizzle and smell of grilling meat.
“Hard to say,” said Gaines. “He comes up with an idea, he can’t put it off. He has to show somebody right away.”
From inside the hacienda they heard Rizale’s voice cry out to them, “Watch this!”
The two stopped talking and turned their full attention to the front door. Between them Bedos crossed himself with his tied hands and murmured something under his breath.