by Ralph Cotton
“You know what struck me a while ago?” Bailey said quietly in a somber tone. “Instead of taking this poor woman to Dark Horses, one of us should ride in and bring the doctor back here.” She looked at Summers. “It makes more sense, doesn’t it, Will?”
Summers looked at her.
“No. Who’s going to attend to her until the doctor arrives, if he comes back here at all?” he said.
“Well, I will, of course,” said Bailey. “I do know how to attend to someone who needs attending.”
“That’s good to hear,” Summers said. “Your husband is upstairs. He needs attending real bad.” As he spoke he walked to the wagon and hitched the dapple gray to the tailgate.
“Oh . . . ? Real bad?” She worked keeping at keeping a pleasant expression.
“Yes, real bad,” Summers repeated. He stepped up into the wagon bed to check on the unconscious woman. “Looks like he’s been there a long time. He needs water and food . . . among other attending. I expect you’ll want to get on up there.”
“Well, you know . . . I suppose—” Bailey Swann was at a loss. Struck speechless, she touched nervous fingers to her hair. “You know something . . . This is not what I’m best at doing. . . .” She looked toward the wagon as if she hoped Rena might rise and attend to her husband for her. “These are such unusual circumstances. I find myself unprepared.” She looked at Bedos’ body lying on the ground. She looked up at the window to Ansil Swann’s office in horror.
Summers and the two ranch hands stood silent, staring at her, Summers standing over Rena in the wagon bed.
“Why are all of you looking at me?” she said, almost shrieking her words. “What have I done wrong? Nothing, that’s what!” She looked back and forth, her eyes welling up and glistening. “I am not a house servant!”
“I’ll go see to Ansil,” Lonnie said finally. He unhooked a canteen from the hook on the side of the wagon and walked toward the hacienda.
“Ted,” said Summers, “are you up to riding with me, scouting the trail ahead till I get this woman to Dark Horses?”
“Right you are, Will,” Ted said, proud to have been chosen. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Let me remind you again, Little Ted,” said Bailey, “you still work for the Swann Ranch. You will take orders from me, and only me. Are we clear on that?”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I don’t work for you no more,” Ted said. “I’ve seen how little you care for people when they need your help, or when they’re not serving your interests.” He walked toward the wagon and looked up at Summers. “If it’s all the same with you, Will, I’d feel better taking my part of the money now.”
“How dare you, Little Ted!” said Bailey. “I resent you implying your money is not safe here with Lonnie and me.”
Little Ted ignored her and stared up at Summers.
Summers looked at Bailey, then down at the small ranch hand.
“It’s your money, Ted,” he replied. “Take your part. We’ll take the rest into the house for Lonnie and Bailey here to hide.”
“Obliged, Will,” said Little Ted.
“I have a personal draft from Don Manuel that is a larger amount than either of you has ever seen!” Bailey said. “So, go, Little Ted, take your paltry share. Take it and get out of here. You’re fired!” She turned to Summers. “You can take your share too, as far as I care.”
Summers looked at her for a moment.
“Yes, ma’am, I think I will at that,” he said. He looked up and saw Lonnie at the window to Ansil Swann’s office. “Have you got everything covered here, Lonnie?” he called out. “If you do, Ted and I are taking our cut and headed for town. Have you got any problem with us doing that?”
“None at all,” Lonnie replied. “Sorry I’m not going with you, but somebody’s got to attend to Ansil and look after the place.” He looked at the dead on the ground. “I need to bury Bedos and drag this one off somewhere before these buzzards eat him where he lies.”
“We’re out of here,” Summers said. He slapped the reins to the horses’ backs and put the wagon forward, Ted Ford riding along beside him.
Chapter 21
At dusk Gil Rizale and Dallas Tate rode into Dark Horses, seated low in their saddles. Having ridden all day in the scorching Mexican sun, both men and their animals were drawn instinctively to the stone-sided well in the heart of the town. The two spilled down from their horses’ backs and knocked any number of gourd dippers out of their way. They fell upon the short stone wall and plunged their faces, hats and all, into the cool water. A bottle of bourbon slipped from the sling on Tate’s shoulder and bobbed like an ocean buoy.
“What the hell is this?” said Evert Dad Crayley. He stood slowly from his cushioned rocker on the porch out in front of the Dark Horses Hotel. He and the gunmen standing around him stared diagonally across the stone-tiled street as Rizale’s and Tate’s horses stuck their sweaty muzzles into the well itself instead of into a runoff trough designed for just that purpose.
“Were these filthy sons a’ bitches raised out of doors?” Dad said, jerking his cigar from his mouth. On his left Dad stood Hico Morales and Jasper Trent. On his right stood Leon Yates and Lajo Alvarez.
“Hico, go bring those fools over here before our jackrabbit loco sheriff sees what they’re doing and shoots them both. I’d like to hear what Rizale has to say about the Swanns.” He paused and watched, curious as to where Rodney Gaines might be, and why Dallas Tate was now riding in his place.
As Hico stepped down from the porch and started toward the well, beside Dad, Jasper Trent spat a stream of tobacco and nodded toward the far end of the street.
“Speaking of jackrabbit crazy,” he said, “here comes our Sheriff Endo right now.”
“Damn it all,” said Dad. “Does he see them?” He swung his head toward Endo Clifford, who walked poker-stiff up the middle of the street. “Hell, of course he sees them,” Dad answered himself. “He ain’t missed seeing a thing ever since he stuck that badge on his chest.”
“He still ain’t got it through his head that he works for the same folks we do?” said Yates, his fingers tapping on the butt of his holstered Colt. “He still thinks Ansil Swann’s footing the bills here, or something?”
“Nobody knows what he thinks,” said Dad with disgust. “There are some men in this world you can’t figure, because there’s just not enough to figure with.” He shook his head. “Nothing you say ever sticks. It’s gone before you said it.”
“We can kill him most anytime you give us a nod,” Yates said, his fingers still tapping.
“Yes, you can,” said Dad, “and most likely will.” He let out a patient breath. “But not today.” He took a draw on his cigar, let out a stream of smoke and blew on its red fiery tip. “I’d like to finish a smoke without getting blood slung all over it.” He smiled thinly. “Besides, we’ve got Thomas Finnity coming to town any day now. We need to make a good showing of this spit-in-your-eye Mexican dung hill.”
He eyed Rizale and Tate following Hico across the street, leading their tired horses behind them, Rizale limping, both of them wounded and bandaged. Water still dribbled from their horses’ muzzles. From the other direction Endo Clifford continued walking, poker-stiff, veering away from the well and stalking toward the hotel, the same place Tate and Rizale were headed.
“Everybody stand down, for now,” Dad said. He looked at Rizale and Tate. They stopped and tied their horses to the hotel’s hitch rail.
“Pay attention, both of you,” Dad said. “The sheriff’s getting ready to give you a hard time about how you watered your horses. Keep your mouths shut and don’t go for your guns.”
Rizale shrugged, looked at Tate, then back at Dad.
“All right, whatever you say, Dad,” he replied.
The two stood watching as Endo Clifford walked closer, staring at Rizale and Tate. But instead of
coming up to them as Dad expected, Clifford turned a sharp right, walked stiffly into a nearby alley and disappeared.
“See? He just walked on,” said Dad to Trent and Yates. “How can you figure an idiot like that?” He looked at Rizale and Tate with a scowl. “Were the two of you raised by polecats?”
“What’d we do?” Rizale said.
The rest of the men chuckled.
“Hell, never mind,” said Dad in disgust. “Where’s Gaines?” He looked around the street as if Gaines might appear.
Rizale shook his head with regret. “Poor Rodney is dead, Dad.” He gestured toward Tate. “The three of us rode to the Swann spread after seeing their ranch hands running a load of furnishings along the high trails. Thought we’d take a look-see. Turns out they hadn’t got back yet. Only ones there was Ansil and his houseman, the old Guatemalan.”
Dad gave a grin. “Ansil’s fit to be tied over us taking his stuff, I imagine?”
“Hard to say,” said Rizale. “The old man ain’t got the mind of an iron skillet.”
“Oh?” said Dad, cigar in between his fingers. He looked to Tate as if for confirmation.
“It’s true,” Tate said. “We knew he’d been ill. But I think Mrs. Swann was hiding it from us.” He shook his head, one arm in the sling but his hand holding the wet bottle of bourbon he’d just pulled from the well. Water dripped to the ground. “Ansil’s a gone duck—stroke is what I’m thinking.”
“Anyway,” said Rizale, cutting in, “the old Guatemalan commenced stabbing Gaines in the face. We couldn’t get him stopped. Finally I killed the old man.” He gesture at his grazed leg. “His daughter did this . . . and that.” He pointed at Tate’s bandaged shoulder and chest.
“Let me make sure I understand,” Dad said. “The old man carved Gaines up. The young woman handled you two . . . by herself?” He gave them a look of disbelief. “Jesus!” he added. “Do I want men like you working for me?”
“It was something you had to see to understand, Dad,” said Rizale.
“I bet it was,” said Dad. He looked at Tate. “So, the old man is down and you want to come work for me?” He wore a thin, unreadable smile. He nodded at the bottle of bourbon in Tate’s hand. “I see you managed to liberate some of Ansil’s excellent corn renderings?”
“Well, yes, I did at that,” said Tate. He swished the bourbon in his hand. “I couldn’t see it left lying out there, something other than a white man getting his hands on it.”
“Come closer,” Dad said coolly and evenly, flagging the two in with his hand. As the two stepped forward and stopped again at the porch’s edge, he said, “Drunk a lot of it, did you?” He still smiled.
Rizale sensed something in the works and stayed silent. But Tate wasn’t as perceptive.
“All I could, and then some,” he said proudly.
“Oh. . . .” Dad nodded, still coolly and evenly. Then his words started to turn sour as he continued, saying, “Let me ask you something, you son of a bitch. Didn’t you know that bourbon now belongs to Finnity and Baines?” As he spoke, Yates stepped forward and snatched the bourbon bottle from his hand.
“You’re going to pay for that bourbon,” Dad said. He took the bottle from Yates, uncorked it, took a drink and stared, red-faced, at the label.
“I had no idea we—” said Tate. He shut up when Rizale shook his head warning him to.
“All right,” said Dad, “both of you get over to the doctor’s. Tell my boy Darren to get his hind end up out of there so’s you two can get patched up.” He shook the bottle of bourbon. “You got any more of this put away?”
“A few more bottles in our saddlebags, Dad,” said Rizale. “You want them?”
“Hell yes, I want them,” said Dad. “Bring them over here before you go to the doctor’s. You’ll be lucky I don’t tell Finnity what you’ve done. This is just a bottle of knock-down to you. To Finnity and Baines it’s Swann’s marketable assets, just like everything else of the Swanns’.”
Dad watched as the two hurried to their saddlebags to retrieve the bourbon.
“Here,” he said, handing the bottle of bourbon to Yates. “Take yourselves a shot and give it back. Some things Finnity and Baines don’t have to know about.”
• • •
It was after dark when Will Summers drove the wagon onto the stone-tiled street and stopped out in front of the large adobe-and-clapboard house where a brass-trimmed medical shingle read L. L. LABOE, M.D. Beside the wagon, Little Ted stepped down from his saddle and looked back and forth along the empty street. Somewhere a dog barked twice, then seemed to lose interest. Farther up the street, torchlight broke the darkness and the town’s cantina and two Texas-style saloons spewed music and laughter into the soft Mexican night.
Summers set the wagon brake handle and stepped down from the seat, Ted from his saddle.
“We might should have come in through the back alleys,” Ted said in a guarded tone, knowing the men who had done this to Rena were very likely in the Dark Horses saloons or cantina at that very moment.
“Huh-uh,” said Summers, hurrying around the wagon and scooping the young woman up in his arms. “We’ve wronged no one here. We’ve got nothing to hide, especially not Rena here.” He walked up a stone walkway and up three steps onto the front porch. Ted hurried around him, got to the door and knocked on it twice. Then he opened the unlocked door and walked inside as a lamp came on inside.
“Bring her back here, hombres,” said the elderly white-haired doctor, seeing the unconscious woman. He stood in a hallway in a long bed shirt, holding up the oil lamp to see what the night had brought him. “Horse kick or snake bite?” he asked as Summers walked past him and followed his guiding hand into a side room.
“Neither,” Summers said. “She’s shot and stabbed, and wrung out by the heat and elements.” He laid her onto a high-standing surgical gurney and stepped back. Little Ted stood inside the door, his hat in hand.
“Is she your woman?” the doctor asked, stepping into a pair of trousers and pulling them up beneath his nightshirt. He pulled suspenders up over his stooped shoulders. He took wire-rimmed spectacles from his pocket, hooked them behind his ears and wrinkled his nose to adjust them. They watched him step over and pour water from a pitcher into a pan.
“No,” Summers said, “she’s one of Ansil Swann’s house servants. We found her along the trail like this.”
The doctor dipped a corner of clean white cloth into the water and leaned in over Rena. As he did so, he glanced around at Little Ted beside the door.
“You work for the Swanns, don’t you, young man?” he asked, then turned back to Rena’s bullet-grazed head, lifted the bandage from it and examined it closely. “Ted Ford, I believe?”
“Yes, that’s me,” Little Ted replied, first looking to Summers as if making sure it was all right to say so.
The doctor glanced around at Summers.
“I’m Dr. Lyman Laboe,” he said. Looking Summers up and down appraisingly, he said, “You must be the horse trader, Summers something or other—the one with the shotgun who peppered Darren Crayley?”
Summers only stared at him for a moment.
“Oh, don’t cull up on me, young fellow,” the doctor said with a slight chuckle. “I see all the bruised, maimed and punctured flesh that passes through Dark Horses. Far as you getting to shoot Darren Crayley goes, you must have won a lottery to get at the head of the line.”
Summers relaxed a little.
“I’m Summers . . . Will Summers,” he said. “I did shoot him. But he pushed me to it.”
“Not quite how he told it, but probably close enough,” said the doctor. He stepped over, picked up his black medical bag and opened it on the gurney. He said to Little Ted, “I heard you or Lonnie shot Tubbs?”
“Are you going to charge me his bill?” Ted asked.
“No, he paid it,” said th
e doctor.
“Yep, one of us shot him,” Ted admitted. “I sort of hope he’s not dead.”
“He’s not,” the doctor said. He checked Rena’s heartbeat with a stethoscope he fished from his medical bag. When he’d finished, he sighed and went back to cleaning the bullet graze. He said, “It might interest you to know that Dallas Tate was in here, him and Gilbert Rizale—both wounded, both drunk.” He shook his head. “Drunk enough to admit that it was Swann’s house servant who shot them.” He gestured at Rena. “I’d be very surprised if this is not her.”
Neither Little Ted nor Summers replied. The doctor shook his head slowly.
“I ought to warn you,” he said. “I heard them saying they were going back there, soon as they could get horses under them.”
“We can’t let that happen,” Summers said to Ted.
“If I know Rizale, he’ll go back,” the doctor said. “I know there’s enough bad things afoot at the Swann spread as it is. Rizale is just going to make it worse, the way I figure. Finnity and Baines is out to get what’s owed to them. They don’t give a hoot what Rizale or any of their gunmen do, so long as they get what’s coming to them.” He frowned. “It’s a terrible way to do business. Me being a doctor, it’s my job to shore up and anticipate how bad things are going to get.”
Summers considered things for a moment.
“You’re looking at the worst of it, for my part,” he said. “We’re getting this woman taken care of, that’s all. Soon as she’s all right, we’re out of here with her.”
“Not looking for revenge, are you?” the doctor asked.
“No,” said Summers, “all I’m looking for is the border. I came here on business, took care of it. Now I’m headed home.”
The doctor appeared not to hear him. He continued cleaning the young woman’s wounds.
“You know, this town was Ansil Swann’s experiment,” he said. “He wanted to see this become like an American town, like Springfield or even Denver City—not as big, of course, leastwise not right away. I know he’s got himself in financial trouble, but I’m hoping he’ll pull out of it.” He smiled down at Rena as he attended to her. “He’s a determined man. I don’t see this knocking him off his feet for long.”