Dark Horses

by Ralph Cotton

  “No,” Summers said, “far from it. I accompanied Señora Swann here on her husband’s behalf, and I’m glad I could step in and help.”

  The don cast a guarded glance along the corral fence where Bailey and Lonnie stood side by side.

  “It is kindness that tells one when to step into a situation,” the don said. “It is wisdom that tells one when to step out.” He gave Summers a knowing smile. “You have a good eye for horses. How long have you been a horse trader, Will Summers?” he asked.

  “A little over a year,” Summers replied. “I tried a couple of other things first—carried a deputy’s badge, wrangled for a big spread. But I’m best at doing this.”

  “And how is horse trading working out for you?” the don asked bluntly.

  “Not bad,” Summers said. He wasn’t going to tell the man much about his business or himself.

  Sensing Summers’ reluctance, the don placed a hand on the young horse trader’s shoulder.

  “You have done yourself much good coming here,” he said. “I am a man who is always looking for good horseflesh, like Swann’s stallion and the young mares you brought here. I would like you to bring me any horses you find of this quality.” He nodded at the fillies and the stallion. “You will be made welcome at my casa. Let us see more of you, and your finely chosen horses.”

  “You can count on it, Don Manuel,” Summers said, shaking the man’s strong thin hand.

  “And now I must bid the señora adios,” he said elegantly. He nodded toward the barn where the wagon stood reloaded with furniture, the team of horses standing hitched to it, ready to go. “Your wagon and horses have been prepared for the trail.” He turned away and walked along the corral fence toward Bailey Swann, who saw him and walked forward to meet him, Lonnie Kerns walking a few feet behind her.

  Summers walked away and stood at the barn checking the wagon and horses when Little Ted and a Mexican houseman came from the outdoor cocina, Ted carrying a large white canvas bag filled with food and provisions for the trail. The houseman beside him carried a leather and canvas bag filled with cash, partial payment for the gold ingots. The cash was enough to pay the ranch hands and himself and give the Swanns some much-needed expense money. In a long folded business wallet, Bailey Swann carried a promissory note from the don, to be deposited in the Banco Nacional in Mexico City.

  “I hope you don’t get a mad-on at Lonnie over her the way Dallas Tate did at you,” Little Ted said to Summers, the two of them watching the don accompany Bailey Swann toward the barn, Lonnie following closely.

  “I’m not going to,” said Summers, not wanting to offer any more on the matter. He didn’t even want to tell Little Ted that nothing had happened between him and the woman. It was nobody’s business, he’d already decided. He wasn’t Bailey Swann’s judge. She had used him, but only as far as he’d allowed himself to be used. She’d offered herself to him, yet the Belltraes had shown up and prevented anything from happening between them. Looking back, he was glad they did. He hadn’t come here looking for a woman, especially not another man’s wife.

  “She is a fine-looking woman,” Little Ted said quietly. “I can’t say I’d blame you if you did get ugly mad—”

  “Bring the wagon out front, Ted,” Summers said, almost cutting him short. “I’ll bring the horses.”

  In moments Summers rode his dapple gray at a walk and led the other horses to the front of Don Manuel’s sprawling hacienda, Little Ted right beside him, riding along in the wagon.

  Before Summers could step down from his saddle and hitch his horse to the rear of the wagon, Bailey smiled up at him.

  “Don’t bother, Will,” she said pleasantly enough. “You’ve done so much already. Lonnie will be driving the wagon back for me.” She looked at Lonnie and said, “That is, if it’s all the same to you, Lonnie.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lonnie said dutifully. He glanced at Will as if to make sure it was all right with him.

  Will only looked at the two of them, nodded and touched his hat brim.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He glanced at Don Manuel, who stood watching. The don only gazed at him with a thin smile, his dark eyes caged, yet knowing.

  “Adios, Señor Summers,” said the don.

  Summers gave a nod and waved him adios.

  The don turned and waved at Bailey Swann seated in the wagon beside Kerns. She returned his wave and settled back onto the wagon seat.

  Summers nudged his dapple gray forward and led the wagon and Little Ted toward the trail, Bailey’s and Lonnie’s horses walking along behind the wagon, their reins hitched to the wagon’s tailgate.

  • • •

  The wagon moved along smooth and easy and without delay throughout the morning. It was noon before Lonnie Kerns brought the loaded rig to a halt and the party gathered alongside a water hole on the bottom slope of a hill. Summers stood looking off along the trail ahead of them, watching two large buzzards circling high in the distance. At the water hole Lonnie and Little Ted unhitched the wagon horses and led them forward to the water’s edge. Summers’ dapple gray and the other three horses stood beside the team horses drinking their fill. Seeing Summers standing alone, Bailey stepped down from the wagon seat and walked over to him.

  “Will,” she said hesitantly, “I hope I haven’t done a foolish thing, having Lonnie drive the wagon. I certainly didn’t intend for it to upset you.”

  “It didn’t, ma’am,” Summers said, turning his eyes away from the buzzards to the woman.

  “‘Ma’am,’ is it now?” Bailey said. “I thought we were closer than that, after all we’ve been through together.”

  Summers just looked at her for a moment, deciding whether or not to tell her that he saw through her games. Deciding not to mention it, he finally responded.

  “You’re right. We’ve been through something,” Summers said in a gentler tone. “Pardon me, Bailey.”

  “Of course, and thank you, Will,” she said. “I was afraid that choosing Lonnie to drive the wagon, with me beside him, might have you upset.”

  “No,” Will said, “it’s your wagon. You’re the boss. You can choose who you want to drive it,” he said.

  Seeing that Summers was sincerely not upset by Lonnie taking over the job of driving her, she took another try at recruiting his help for the next load of ingots to Don Manuel’s.

  “Oh, Will, I do wish you were coming with us this next trip,” she said. She wrapped her arm in his. Lonnie stood staring from the water’s edge. “I feel safe with you at my side—”

  “I’m not going to,” Will said sharply. “Another trip is pushing your luck. The gold’s not going anywhere. You can wait a couple of weeks, a month. Let the dust settle. These two will stick around and go with you when you’re ready.” He gestured toward Little Ted and Lonnie.

  “Yes, I know they will,” she said. “Lonnie has already given me his word. But it’s not the same. I want you, and I don’t mean just to deliver more gold. I want you with me, near me.” She squeezed his forearm. “How much plainer can I make it?”

  “For how long?” Summers said, unmoved. “For a month, a year? You’re a married woman, Bailey. What about your husband?”

  “You’ve seen my husband’s condition,” she said. “How long do you say he’ll be around? He’s old, Will. I don’t love him. I never did. But he doesn’t matter. He’s already dead to me. This money, the gold, it’s not enough. I want it, but I want it with you.”

  Summers shook his head.

  “How much is enough?” he said. “You said this trip would be enough now to clear your husband’s debts—or enough to go somewhere and start over if you choose to.”

  “It’s true. The one load is enough to make things right,” she said. “But why would I settle for that now that I know there’s more, just lying there for the taking?” She smiled and hugged his arm to her. “There is no
such thing as enough,” she whispered. “Only losers and fools settle for a portion when the whole treasure trough is laid before them. You’re a young man, Will. That’s what makes me want you so badly. But you still have things to learn. No man of wealth and substance ever looked at anything and said, ‘That’s enough.’”

  Summers slipped his arm from within hers.

  “I’ll remember that,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll remember it as a lesson to live by or a lesson to avoid. But I’ll remember it.”

  “All right,” she said, turning angry, “be a young fool, then. See where it gets you. Lonnie and Ted have agreed to go with me back to the mine. You can take your money tonight when we make camp and leave in the morning when we reach the fork in the trail.”

  “I think it’d be wise to go back to the hacienda first,” Will said. “At least long enough to get the cash off the wagon and put up safe somewhere.”

  “I have had more dealings with large sums of money than you,” she said haughtily. “I think I know what I’m doing.” She turned and walked toward the wagon.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Will said quietly. “Everybody knows what they’re doing till they find out they’ve done it wrong.”

  Bailey planted a hand on her hip. “I don’t think I need to hear any homespun advice. I’m managing pretty well.”

  “Yes, you are,” Summers agreed dismissingly, looking off toward the buzzards in the distant sky. There were now four of the big birds circling, two more flying in from farther away. He looked over at Lonnie and Little Ted, who had also been watching the buzzards circle all morning. “I’m going to ride forward, see what’s waiting up ahead.” He nodded at the circling scavengers.

  “I’m going with you,” Little Ted said.

  Summers gave Lonnie a look.

  “Go ahead,” Lonnie said. “It’s not that far. We’ll be all right this close.”

  Summers and Little Ted walked to their horses. Bailey joined Lonnie at the water’s edge.

  “This is good,” she said with a smile. “It gives us more time to be alone and talk.”

  Lonnie only smiled. They both watched as Summers and Little Ted rode away.

  Chapter 19

  Ezra and Collard Belltrae rode their horses down from a stone cliff, hidden by a hillside of tall, sparse pine and a thicker colony of scrub cedar brush. In moments they moved their horses onto a valley floor where the dark shadows of buzzards above circled slowly on the wild grass at their feet. A hundred yards out they saw a big roan standing alone, saddled, its reins hanging when it raised its head from grazing and stared at them.

  “Holy Jorn and Alice,” said Collard, looking at the figure lying half-hidden in the grass ten feet from the roan. “Bust my hide if that’s not a woman lying there.”

  Ezra grinned and nudged his horse on a walk in order not to spook the grazing roan.

  “I’ll say for a fact it’s a woman,” Ezra replied, “without even lifting its leg.” He gave a little laugh of delight at their good fortune. “Pa always told us, ‘You’ll never go wrong following buzzards. . . . ’”

  “‘They might not eat the best, but they never go hungry,’” Collard said, finishing their father’s quote for them. They both chuckled.

  Ezra’s grin turned into a puzzled look.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “We’re not talking about eating a dead woman, are we?”

  “Jesus, no!” said Collard, giving his brother a strange curious look. “What goes on in your mind, Ez? I’m talking about following these buzzards and coming upon a roan worth fifty dollars standing or twice that butchered out to the hill people—not counting braided out.”

  “So was I,” said Ezra, stopping his horse a few feet back from the woman in the wild grass.

  “Anyway, how do we know she’s dead?” Collard said, crossing his hands on his saddle horn, getting comfortable.

  “We don’t, yet,” said Ezra, swinging his horse over slowly and sidling close enough to the roan to reach out and gather its loose reins. “But we’re going to know, soon as you step down and check her over.”

  Collard stepped down from his saddle and walked over to the woman and stooped down beside her. He laid his hand on her breast to feel for a heartbeat, then jerked his hand up, startled, when the woman groaned and turned her head to the side.

  “Damn it! Scare the bejeez out’n me!” he said down to the dazed woman. He saw the dirty, bloody bandanna tied around a head wound and recognized Rena. “Hell, Ezra, it’s that Mexican house girl of the Swanns’!” He looked closer at Rena. “She’s been shot,” he called out. “Stabbed too,” he added, looking her over closer.

  “Now what?” Ezra muttered under his breath. He stepped down from his saddle and led his horse and the roan over to where Collard squatted beside the woman. He looked at the woman, then up at the circling buzzards, then back down. Seeing her move her head a little and groan again, he stepped back and unhooked the canteen from his horse and uncapped it.

  Collard stared at the wounded woman intently.

  “Keeping her alive is worth something to us. Think of what we can do to her if we’ve a mind to,” Ezra said, stooping down beside Rena with the canteen.

  Collard gave him a dark serious look.

  “You don’t mean we’re going to . . . ?” He let his words trail and held out a stiffened forearm.

  Ezra shook his head as he poured a trickle of water onto his palm to apply to her dried and cracked lips.

  “No, Collard! You raving lunatic,” he said. “And you wonder what goes on in my mind.” He gave Collard a frown as he touched the tepid water to Rena’s lips. “We’re not animals—leastwise, I’m not.”

  “Neither am I,” Collard said. “I just figured while she’s knocked out—”

  “Shut up, Collard. I don’t want to hear such talk. The woman’s badly hurt,” said Ezra. “What I meant was, if we can keep her alive, nurse her along a little, we can sell her to one of the brothels south of here.” He poured a thin trickle on water into Rena’s slightly parted lips. “I’ve thought of it different times, but the old man was always too close.”

  “Yes, we could do that, come to think of it,” said Collard, “sell her, sell her horse.” He reached out a rough hand as if to feel her partly exposed breast. Ezra shoved his hand away.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said angrily. “Have you never seen a woman before?”

  “Woman, horse, it doesn’t matter. I’m just checking what we’re selling,” Collard said.

  “Well, just don’t, damn it!” said Ezra. “She is in bad shape. We’ll have to get her well if we expect to make anything.”

  “If she dies we keep her hair to braid,” said Collard.

  “Yes, but we want the whole woman,” said Ezra. He reached in to pour more water on Rena’s lips. “Braid her hair . . . ,” he growled under his breath. “You pitiless wretch.”

  “Papa . . . ?” Rena groaned in a weak whisper. Water trickled pink from her swollen lips.

  “We’re not your pa, little lamb,” Ezra said, wiping a wisp of hair aside on her bruised forehead. “But we’re the next best thing. We’re going to take you somewhere where they’ll look after you—” His words stopped short at the sound of a Colt cocking close behind him.

  “Get your hands off the woman,” Will Summers said in a tone that offered nothing but sure death if they refused.

  Both of the Belltrae brothers’ hands sprang up chest high.

  “Whoa!” said Ezra as they rose in a half crouch and turned facing him. “You might not believe this, Will Summers,” he said, “but I recognized your voice—sure did.”

  “Step away from her,” said Summers. As he spoke, Little Ted Ford came riding up at a gallop, having seeing what was going on from farther up the hill than Summers had been. He bounced down from his saddle with his pistol in hand.


  “I know this looks bad, Summers,” said Ezra, “but we just come upon her. Followed those buzzards just hoping for potluck and here she was.” He raised his eyes to the buzzards overhead.

  “That’s the gospel truth,” said Collard. “We would not harm a hair on this young woman’s head.”

  “Over there,” said Summers, wagging them away from Rena with the barrel of his cocked Colt. He said to Little Ted, “Check her heartbeat, Little Ted.”

  Little Ted started toward Rena. She groaned; he saw her try to raise a hand.

  “She’s alive, Will!” he said, hurrying forward. “Come see. I’ve got these two covered.”

  “Of course she’s alive,” said Collard. “Brother and I saved her life, the truth be known.”

  “You’re all heart, fellows,” Summers said, stepping forward as Little Ted walked closer to the Belltraes.

  “Señor . . . Summers,” Rena whispered in a failing voice as Summers kneeled beside her. He picked up the canteen that Ezra Belltrae had left lying on the ground beside her.

  “Just help yourself to our water there, Summers,” Ezra said, a little grudgingly, as Summers poured water into his cupped palm and let it trickle into Rena’s mouth.

  “You . . . you found me,” Rena said.

  “Hey, over there,” said Ezra, leaning a little. “He didn’t find you. We did.”

  “I did,” said Collard, “to be exact on the matter. So, if anybody here deserves some appreciation . . .”

  Rena didn’t seem to hear or see the Belltraes. Her eyes opened and closed slowly. Her blood-crusted hand found Summers’ hand and held on. “Don’t . . . leave me,” she whispered.

  “Don’t worry, Rena,” Summers said. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to leave you. You’re safe now.”

  “So, this is what we get for all our good intentions,” Collard said to Ezra. “Remind me never to do nothing good for nobody ever again—”

  “Shut up, both of you,” Summers said. He looked over his shoulder and saw Ted standing too close to them. “Ted, get back some before one of them—”