by Ralph Cotton
“Please . . . ,” she whispered.
Summers drove on with one hand holding the buggy reins.
“How far you think the wagon horses will go without a driver?” Ted asked, riding with his rifle across his lap.
“They can go for miles,” said Summers, “especially with the buggy whip tapping them now and then.”
He’d propped the doctor’s long buggy whip in a way that left the tail dangling an inch from the left horse’s rump. The slightest bump in the trail caused the limber whip to jump and slap the horse, an easy reminder to keep up the steady gallop he’d sent the team into with his gloved hand.
Ted grinned.
“A pretty slick move, the way I see it,” he said. “Only I’m thinking Dad Crayley ain’t going to see it the same way I do.”
“Probably not,” said Summers. “But it’ll give him and his men a nice early-morning ride while we get on out to the Swann spread.”
Ted kept his horse at the same quick but easy pace as the buggy horse.
“I hope Lonnie doesn’t get caught off guard by Rizale and Dallas Tate,” he said.
“He’ll be watching the trail from the hacienda,” Summers said. “I figure he knows to expect the worst, anything coming from the direction of Dark Horses.”
They rode on until at midmorning. Rena sat up awake as Summers pulled the buggy off the trail and over to a small water hole.
“Feeling all right?” he asked, taking his arm from around her shoulders and stepping down from the buggy seat.
“Much better,” Rena said.
She remained sitting up as Summers led the buggy horse to the water’s edge and slipped his rigging loose and watched the animal drink. While the buggy horse drank, Summers untied the dapple gray’s reins and led the horse up to the water between the buggy horse and Little Ted’s mount.
Summers walked back and stood beside the buggy.
“Do you have much to pack and take with you when we get to the hacienda?” he asked.
“Only a few clothes, my papa’s spurs to remember him by,” she said. “I want to put a wooden cross on his grave before I leave there,” she added, “because I know once I leave, I will never be there again.”
“I understand,” said Summers. “While you were in and out of consciousness, you said you have no other family. I can take you all the way to the Guatemala border. But where will you go from there?”
Rena gazed out across the water hole and into the southern sky.
“I do not know,” she said. “My papa and I have lived at the hacienda, thinking it would be our home from now on. When the Swanns are gone, my home will be too.”
“Señora Swann said she’s giving you some money,” Summers said. “I hope it’s enough for you start over with.”
Rena didn’t reply. Instead she looked down at her hands folded on lap.
“Where is your home, Will Summers?” she asked quietly.
“I travel a lot, Rena,” he said. “But when I’m not traveling I keep a small spread near Wind River—nothing fancy, but the roof keeps the weather out.” He smiled. “Nothing like the Swann hacienda, but it’s home, when I want to take my boots off a day or two.”
“And you live there—alone?” Rena asked.
“No, I don’t live alone,” Summers said.
“Oh,” Rena said. “You have someone, a wife perhaps, who waits there for you.” She sat silent. Summers heard a touch of disappointment in her voice.
“No, not a wife, Rena,” Summers said quickly. “A ranch hand. An old waddie named Tuck Mills. He was once a deputy for my father. Now he takes care of my horses while I’m away—keeps the bears and coyotes off the place.”
“Oh, I see,” Rena said, sounding hopeful.
“He keeps his own place out behind my corrals. It used to be a six-bed bunkhouse, so he’s got plenty of room there, just him.”
“I bet your place is beautiful,” she said, gazing clearly and steadily into his eyes. “I only wish I could see it someday, and you could show me around.”
There it was, he told himself. He didn’t have to get hit in the head. She was feeling better, no doubt about it. Her eyes were clear, alert. He was sure she still had some pain, a headache, and still would have off and on, according to the doctor. . . .
All that as it is. . . .
“Rena,” Summers said, not about to let a chance like this get past him, “when this is all over, there is nothing I would like better than to show you—”
His words stopped short as rifle fire erupted from the direction of the Swann hacienda.
“Uh-oh!” said Little Ted. “Sounds like Lonnie’s got his hands full.” He grabbed his horse by its reins and pulled it away from the water. “We’d best get there and help him.”
Summers started to walk down to the buggy horse and his dapple gray. But before stepping away he looked up at Rena.
“Promise me you will please hold that thought, Rena,” he said.
She offered him a tired smile and relaxed in the buggy seat.
“I promise, Will,” she said. “Please promise me you’ll hold it too.”
• • •
Lonnie Kerns stood with his rifle out the gun port in the window of Ansil Swann’s office. He had been in the office attending to Ansil when the shooting erupted and Rizale and Dallas Tate charged the hacienda on horseback. Downstairs, Bailey Swann had first seen the two men galloping down from atop the low rise. She’d hurried, drawn the bolt on the closed front door and run upstairs, shouting at Lonnie.
Lonnie standing at the gun port saw it was Dallas Tate. He recognized Rizale as one of the gunmen who drifted in and out of Dark Horses at Dad Crayley’s beck and call.
“What do you want here, Tate?” he’d called out. But it was Rizale who answered.
“Whatever we damn well feel like taking,” he’d shouted, raising his rifle from across his lap and firing.
That had been nearly an hour ago. Rifle shots continued to roar from the cover of sage and mesquite brush and thump against the hacienda all around the window of Ansil Swann’s office.
“I’m running short of bullets,” Lonnie called out over his shoulder. Bailey stood with the front doors of the large gun cabinet open, checking each firearm and every drawer for a box of bullets.
“I know there’re bullets here!” she said. “I just have to find them!” She looked at Ansil, who sat slumped in his wheelchair behind his desk, his eyes staring blankly at the floor. On the floor lay two empty cartridge boxes that Lonnie had already used up.
“You’d better find some quick,” he said. “I’ve got to hold them off until Little Ted and Summers get back.” He kicked an empty box away as another bullet thumped against the thick, closed wooden shutter.
Bailey came upon a locked door inside the lower part of the cabinet.
“I might have something here,” she called out. Having no key, not taking the time to search Ansil’s desk for one, she picked up one of the rifles she’d taken out of the cabinet, raised it and struck the iron butt plate down solidly onto the lock and sent it flying away in two pieces.
“Hurry,” Lonnie said. “I’ve got four rifle shots left. My Colt’s not going to hold them back far enough to keep them from burning us out.”
“Got some!” Bailey called out joyfully, throwing open the cabinet door and seeing box upon box of ammunition stacked neatly.
“Good,” Lonnie said. “Load yours and give it to me. I’ll stall my last four shots until you get it ready.”
Bailey hurried, shoving bullet after bullet into her Winchester. While she worked, Lonnie watched the yard. As Gil Rizale rose into a crouch from behind a stand of brush, Lonnie took close aim and fired on him. But his shot fell short, hit Rizale’s bootheel and blew it apart as Rizale ran, limping for cover closer to the front porch.
“Damn, son!
” Rizale called out, falling into his new covered position. “I hope you’re wearing a pair of big Texas lathe-mades. When this is over they’re mine!” He rose enough to fire two quick shots and fall back into cover. He paused for a moment, then called out to the upstairs window, “You’re not doing much shooting up there, son. Could it be there’s something amiss?”
Lonnie didn’t answer. Instead he looked over his shoulder at Bailey.
“Hurry up. They’re gaining ground on us,” he said.
“Could it be you’re short of ammunition up there?” Rizale said. As he spoke he took close aim through a clump of brush on the small open cross in the thick shutters.
“We’ve got plenty. Come see,” Lonnie shouted. He held his fire.
“It’s loaded!” said Bailey, hurrying to the window with the rifle held out to Lonnie.
From the brush, Rizale’s rifle roared just as Lonnie reached out for the loaded Winchester. The bullet bored perfectly though the gun port opening and nailed Lonnie high up in his right shoulder. The impact of the bullet sent him staggering sidelong and falling atop Swann’s big polished desk.
“Oh my God!” Bailey shouted, running to him.
“Forget about me,” Lonnie said. “Get to the window and start shooting. Keep them backed away from the house.”
Bailey did as she was told. She ran to the window while Lonnie untied his bandanna from around his neck and tied it around his upper arm. On the ground, Dallas Tate had taken advantage of the lack of gunfire and stood in a crouch and ran to join Rizale closer to the front yard.
“Dallas Tate, you bastard!” she shouted, pulling the trigger. Her shot sliced through the air only an inch from Tate’s nose. Tate dived behind a dried downed pine and hugged close to the ground. “I saw what you did while my servants were here alone.”
“So what? Can you blame me, after the way you treated me?” Tate shouted out to her. “I suppose now you’re telling Lonnie the same things, how much you love him. How you only wished somebody would kill Ansil with an ax handle, make it look like a mule kicked his brains out.”
Rizale cackled out loud, hearing the two.
“Son,” he called out to Dallas Tate, making sure Bailey heard his voice, “every married woman tells a fellow she wishes he’d kill her husband. That’s just part of the courting process with a trifling woman.”
A bullet from Bailey’s rifle sliced through the brush where Rizale lay.
“Whoa, now,” Rizale said with a laugh, “sounds like I struck a vein on that one.”
Bailey looked over her shoulder, at her powerless husband, then at Lonnie.
“Dallas is lying, Lonnie,” she said, “and this gunman doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“I don’t care what he says, ma’am,” said Lonnie. “All I want to do is keep the three of us alive and hope Summers and Little Ted show up before these two manage to get to the barn.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Bailey said. “Dallas knows there’s lamp oil there.”
“Enough oil to burn us to a cinder,” Lonnie said as he walked to the gun cabinet, holding his wounded arm. He took up a box of ammunition and began loading another Winchester.
Bailey turned back to the gun port and began firing. As she finished firing a round and levered another bullet in the rifle’s chamber, she saw Will Summers and Little Ted ride over the low rise and charge straight for the house. Behind them, she saw Rena bring the one-horse buggy to a halt on the low rise and drop down out of sight.
“Here come Will and Little Ted,” she called out over her shoulder to Lonnie.
“Not a minute too soon,” Lonnie said, hurrying to the gun port at the next window from her. Looking out, he saw Summers and Little Ted riding hard, firing into the brush where the two gunmen were lying in cover, hidden from the hacienda. But Lonnie knew they were easily seen by Summers and Ted Ford riding down on them from the other direction.
“We’ve got them in a cross fire now,” Lonnie said. He raised the Winchester in his hands, his wounded shoulder not about to keep him from the fight. “Don’t let up until these two are dead, or begging to surrender.”
Chapter 24
Summers and Little Ted split up as they rode down onto the stretch of brush and short rock. Seeing them, Dallas Tate rose into a crouch and tried to run forward, but bullets from the two upstairs windows sent him diving him back into the brush. As he tried backing up from the rifle fire from the hacienda, the firing from Summers and Little Ted nipped at the brush all around him.
Ten yards away, Gil Rizale was having the same trouble.
“We’re in a bad fix, son!” he yelled at Tate, throwing his empty rifle aside, managing to raise his short-barreled Colt and get off a shot as the bullets whistled in on him. “Looks like that fine bourbon will have to wait.” A bullet sliced through his upper arm; another bullet cut across the top of his shoulder, trailing blood.
“Bourbo . . . ?” Tate shouted at Rizale, above the pounding gunfire. “I didn’t come here for no damn bourbon, you stupid son of a bitch!”
“By God you should have, son!” Rizale screamed, laughing hysterically, bullets hitting him high and low like angry hornets. Blood flew. He sank to his knees, facing the two riders, still holding up his cocked and pointed Colt in his bloodied hand. “Just one more shot, Lord!” he shouted. “Damn it to hell! Just give me one more—” His words stopped short. His head snapped forward, bowed quickly as a rifle shot from the hacienda windows nailed him in the back of his head, lifted his hat, sent it spinning in a yellow-red ribbon of blood, bone and brain matter.
A bullet had thumped low into Dallas Tate’s side. He’d remained standing, but staggered in place, seeing Gil Rizale fall forward into the stiff mesquite brush.
Bourbon . . . ? What the hell did he mean, bourbon?
“Jesus,” Tate murmured under his breath. He hadn’t come here for more bourbon. Was that what Rizale had thought?
“Don’t shoot,” he called out to the two riders in a halting, wounded voice. His held his Colt pressed to his side wound in his bloody right hand. The pain was hot, sharp and deep.
Only a fool would have come for the bourbon, he told himself. That was nonsense! He watched Little Ted step down from his saddle as Will Summers rode over to where Rizale lay dead on the ground.
“Throw the gun away, Dallas,” Little Ted said in a stiff, serious tone. “Don’t make me shoot you.” He held his Colt up leveled and cocked; his rifle hung smoking in his left hand.
“Shoot me? Ha,” Tate said scornfully. “You little, sawed-off son of a bit—”
Ted’s Colt bucked in his hand. The bullet went straight through Tate’s upper chest, above his heart. Tate sank backward to the ground on one knee, his Colt still pressed to his side. The world swirled and danced before his eyes.
“All right . . . damn it,” he said. He stayed on the one wobbly knee and tried to pitch the Colt away, weak now, not even certain if the gun left his hand. He didn’t care. To hell with it. He knew he was dying. Yet he couldn’t get Rizale’s words out of his mind. Come here for the bourbon? What kind of fool would have done that?
He tried to look back over his shoulder toward the hacienda, but his waning strength wouldn’t allow it. He hadn’t come here for the bourbon, for God’s sake. No. He’d come here for . . . His thought trailed. Wait a minute. What the hell had he come here for? He tried to come up with the reason and he almost got it. But before it became clear another bullet from Ted’s Colt sent him backward with a solid thump to his forehead.
Little Ted stepped forward the last few feet and looked down at Tate. Then he looked over at Summers, who was walking toward him, down from his saddle and leading the dapple gray’s reins through the rounds of mesquite, sage and juniper.
“I told him to throw his gun away, Will,” he said. “He wouldn’t do it.” He gave a troubled shrug that matched the look of
regret on his face. “He must’ve thought I wouldn’t do it.”
“Well, he’s not thinking it now,” Summers said, walking in closer. He stooped over Dallas Tate’s body, took the Colt from his bloody hand and pitched it over near Ted’s feet.
“What’s this for, Will?” Little Ted asked, looking down at the bloody gun.
Summers didn’t answer. Instead he looked toward the hacienda and saw Bailey Swann running down from the front porch and across the yard. Behind her Lonnie Kerns stepped onto the porch and stood looking after her.
Little Ted stood watching; he shook his head and opened his smoking Colt.
“And here she comes, wondering who to turn to next,” he said quietly, reloading the Colt as he spoke.
“I’m riding back to get Rena,” Summers said. “She doesn’t need to be driving a buggy yet, the shape she’s in.”
Little Ted nodded. He’d closed the gate on his reloaded Colt and spun the cylinder. Powder smoke puffed and drifted away from his gun hand.
“Go ahead,” he said confidently. “I’ve got everything covered here.”
Summers turned, climbed into his saddle and rode away toward the low rise. Seeing him leave, Bailey slowed to a halt and stared after him for a moment. Then she turned to Ted, who stood reloading his Winchester.
“Oh, Little Ted, thank God you’re here. I saw what you did. You were outstanding.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Ted replied, touching his hat brim. “But don’t be wasting your attention on me. I know I’ll always be Little Ted to you.” He turned away from her and walked toward his horse. He gave Lonnie a wave of his gloved hand on his way.
• • •
When Dad Crayley and his men had tracked the empty wagon seven miles out of their way along an old, seldom-used trail, they found it sitting in a stretch of rock surrounding a small water hole. The team of horses stood grazing on clumps of wild grass, having drunk their fill.