by Ralph Cotton
When they first heard the sound of distant gunfire coming from the direction of Gun Hill, they’d quickened their horses’ pace and ridden nonstop until they spotted a group of riders appear on the flatlands below them.
“Any of them look familiar?” Stone asked, watching him observe the riders through his battered telescope.
“I’ve seen them before,” Sam replied sidelong. “I’m sure you have too. It’s the railroad detectives who’ve been patrolling the new rail spurs.”
“The colonel and his men . . . ,” Stone said, squinting out with his naked eyes but seeing only rising dust and tiny figures loping along in front of it. “They were coming to Big Silver a lot, but lately I haven’t been seeing them sneaking around much.”
Sam heard a suspicious tone.
“You figure they’re up to something?” Sam asked. He lowered the lens and looked at Stone.
“They always are,” Stone said. “They protect those new rail spurs like the tracks are made of gold.” He paused, then added, “I don’t mind telling you I have a low opinion of the rail barons and the kind of people they hire to protect their interests.” He stared at Sam. “What about you?”
“I’m used to them,” Sam said quietly. “The rail guards are all right—just workingmen. But if you’re talking about the detectives, Curtis Siedell in particular, I agree.”
“Siedell is a snake,” said Stone, “and so are his detectives.”
Sam raised the lens back up to his eye.
Stone gave a little chuckle.
“I see you don’t like name-calling, Ranger,” said Stone. He gave a shrug. “Ordinarily I don’t either. But snake is one of the better names I can think of for Siedell. I’ve heard many stories of how he’s robbed and cheated people—”
“Stories don’t count. Unless a court finds him guilty of something, my job is to— Whoa,” Sam said, cutting himself off. “They’ve stopped. One of them just knocked a man from his saddle.”
Stone stared out, still unable to see anything with his naked eye.
“Looks like the man on the ground is wearing handcuffs,” Sam said, watching closely. He scanned the other riders and saw one of them with a bloody chest, swaying back and forth in his saddle. As he watched, Sam saw the man get shoved from his saddle by a rider who’d sidled up to him. Watching, Sam noted two coiled ropes hanging from the shover’s saddle horn. Each rope had a noose dangling from its end.
“What’s going on now?” Stone asked, still squinting, still seeing nothing clearly.
“I think we’ve got a hanging getting ready to take place,” Sam said, lowering the lens again.
“A hanging?” said Stone. He looked all around the wide desert flatlands. Far to the east he spotted a hillside strewn with up-reaching saguaro. “I’m out of my jurisdiction or I’d be given to know why.”
“I’m not out of my jurisdiction,” Sam said. “It’s my duty to ask what it’s about.” He lowered the lens and closed the telescope between his palms. Looking Stone up and down, he asked, “Are you up for a hard ride?”
The sheriff, feeling better, straightened in his saddle and gathered his reins.
“You bet I’m up for it,” he said.
Before he turned his dun to the trail, Sam reached out a closed gloved hand and said, “Here, in case you need them.”
Stone held his open hand out; Sam dropped six bullets into his palm.
“Obliged, Ranger,” he said, a little surprised.
“I figured if you’re going to be pointing that shooter, you need something in the chamber,” Sam said. “Let’s hope you don’t have to draw it.”
He spun his dun away from Stone and batted it forward into a gallop across the loose sand. Stone drew his horse in alongside him and loaded his Colt as they rode.
* * *
On the desert flatlands halfway up the tall saguaro-clad hillside, Colonel Hinler, his black-suited detectives and the lesser dressed rail guards stood circled around the two wounded, handcuffed prisoners lying in the sand.
Hinler and Duke Patterson stood crouched over the two. When one of the wounded prisoners moaned and gripped his bloody chest, Patterson punched both him and the other man in the face. Blood flew.
“Shut up and pay attention here, outlaws,” he said. “You don’t want to miss your own hanging.”
One prisoner defiantly spat blood at Patterson. The second prisoner clawed a bloody hand up at him. Patterson ran a forearm across his blood-splattered face and cursed. He drew back his fist, but before he could punch either of the men again, Hinler leaned in and nudged him aside.
“Have yourself a smoke, Duke,” he said to Patterson. “I want to speak to these fellas one last time. Maybe they’ve changed their minds.” He patted the burly detective’s shoulder as he ushered him out of his way.
“Yes, sir, Colonel,” Patterson said, wiping his face again.
“Let me explain what’s going to happen here,” Hinler said, leaning down closer to the two prisoners. He gave the two a cruel grin as he studied their black swollen eyes. “You’re going to die here, what we call a horizontal hanging. Meaning we tie your neck to this cactus”—he nodded at a tall saguaro cactus standing beside them—“and your feet to your horses’ saddle horns. Can you see how that works?” He grinned and looked closer at them for any sign of fear or regret, but he saw none.
The two only stared, ready for whatever fate had planned.
“If you want to die really slow, feel your bones pull apart as we draw these horses away,” the colonel continued, “we can see to it that’s the way you go.” He studied each one’s eyes in turn. “Or, if you want to clear the slate before you leave here, tell me where your pards hide out these days, we can smack these horses with a quirt and make them dig in quick.” His grin widened. “Pop your heads off. You’ll be dead before God gets his boots on, so to speak.”
One of the prisoners, an older outlaw named Parker Fish, who had spat blood in Patterson’s face, gestured the colonel down closer.
“Watch him, Colonel. He’s a spitter,” Patterson cautioned.
“Speak up, Fish,” the colonel said, leaning only inches from the bloody swollen face.
Fish coughed and gathered the breath to speak.
“We been . . . hiding out . . . ,” he said haltingly, “down in . . . your aunt Lucy’s undergarments. . . .”
A muffled laugh rippled across the rail guards. The black-suited detectives gave them a hard, sharp stare.
“Oh, that’s real funny, Fish,” said Hinler, straightening, adjusting his dusty vest over his stomach paunch. “Be sure and tell it to the devil when he’s got you both turning on the spit.” He ended his words with a kick to Fish’s shoulder. Fish only grunted and rolled onto his side.
“Get the nooses around their necks!” Hinler shouted. “Get their horses ready. Let’s see what these game birds look like when their bellies burst open.” He kicked at Parker Fish again, but missed, almost fell. Then he stepped back angrily as two detectives stepped forward and twisted the nooses around the men’s necks.
“I’ve been sugary-kind up until now,” Hinler said down to the prisoners. “Now you’ll see my dark-ugly side.” As he spoke, two rail guards tied the other ends of the ropes to the saddle horns on the outlaws’ horses. He turned to the two guards as they stepped forward and took the horses by their reins. “Remember, men, slow and steady, like mules pulling cedar stumps.”
From among the detectives and rail guards, Leon Foley looked away as the ropes drew tighter around the cactus, around the two men’s necks. As the two men rose slightly off the ground, their hands still cuffed behind them, Foley closed his eyes tight.
“I can’t watch this,” he said under his breath. “I ain’t cut out for this kind of work.”
“Keep the horses moving slow, men,” Hinler called out to the two rail guards. “We don’t want th
ese thieving saddle tramps to miss a thing.”
The cactus made a creaking sound as the two ropes tightened.
The colonel stood with his feet spread, his hand clasped behind his back, as if at parade rest. He smiled with satisfaction as the horses took another slow, measured step. But then his smile vanished quickly as he heard the rifle shot behind him. He felt a blast of air streak between his knees from behind and saw a puff of dust rise in front of him. He spun toward the sound of the shot and grasped the ivory-handled butt of his shiny Remington. But he froze when he saw the Ranger and Sheriff Stone sitting atop their horses on a slope above him. The Ranger’s Winchester was at his shoulder, cocked and ready. Aimed at the colonel’s chest.
“Back those horses off now, Colonel,” he demanded, thirty feet away, “else the next bullet takes an eye out.”
The detectives and rail guards alike froze, seeing the rifle aimed at Hinler. The two guards stopped the outlaws’ horses before the colonel told them to. Feeling the tension on their saddle horns, the horses stepped back instinctively; the two stretched-out outlaws lowered to the dirt, gasping.
“How dare you even threaten me, let alone fire a weapon at me, Ranger!” the colonel shouted, enraged. His hand kept a tight grip on his shiny pistol butt, but he made no attempt to raise the big Remington from his holster. “I will have your hide for this, so help me, God!”
“Shut up, Hinler,” said Sheriff Stone. “Do like he says or I’ll settle your hash myself.” He held his Colt leveled and cocked toward the colonel. “I’ve wanted to shoot you more than I’ve wanted goose for Christmas.”
The rail guards stood in rapt silence, but the detectives started to make the slightest move. Stone swung his Colt toward them. “I’ll settle for a couple of you black-suit plugs, though,” he said. The detectives froze again and stared.
The bloody prisoners gagged and coughed and wrung their heads back and forth, trying to loosen the nooses around their necks.
“Get the nooses off those men, pronto,” Sam called out to the two rail guards.
Leading the horses around by their reins, the two guards hurriedly stooped and took the nooses off the prisoners and tossed the ropes aside. They loosened the other ends from the saddle horns and pitched them away.
Seeing the Ranger lower the cocked Winchester an inch from his shoulder, the enraged colonel took a step toward him, shaking his finger in the air. His other hand still gripped his ivory-handled Remington.
“This is a justifiable hanging, Ranger,” he shouted. “You and this whiskey sop have no right interfering here!”
Before the Ranger could stop him, Stone swung his Colt around and fired two rapid shots. The first shot kicked up dirt and stopped the advancing colonel in his tracks. The second bullet hit the spot where the colonel’s next step would have been had he not jerked his foot back a split second sooner.
Sam gave Stone a sidelong glance, holding his Winchester ready.
“Easy, Sheriff,” he whispered.
“Easy, my ass,” Stone whispered in reply. Then he called out, “Colonel, if you think I won’t kill you pine-box dead, take another step. I dare you.”
The colonel stood where the two bullets marked the dirt in front of him. He raised his hands chest high; the detectives did the same, amazed at the sheriff’s gun handling. “Raise that Remmy with two fingertips.” He shot the Ranger a knowing glance and said under his breath, “The way you’re supposed to—and pitch it away,” he added, raising his voice again.
“I thought you couldn’t remember anything,” Sam said between the two of them.
“It’s coming back to me,” Stone said sidelong. Then he said to the detectives, “All of you do the same—pitch them away.”
“That’s good to hear,” Sam said, swinging down from his saddle, lowering the rifle as he drew his Colt and walked forward as the detectives raised their sidearms and did as Stone told them to.
As Sam passed the colonel, he picked up the big Remington and unloaded it, walking toward the prisoners and motioning the colonel to walk in front of him. With his hands up, the colonel walked along, cursing and grumbling as he went.
“You’re making a big mistake, Ranger,” he said. “These men tried to rob the express car at the new rail station in Gun Hill. They killed innocent bystanders! Wait until those people hear that you stopped this.”
“Bet they didn’t get any money, though, did they?” Sam said knowingly.
“Fortunately, no,” the colonel said.
“Because there was no money to be had, was there?” Sam said.
The colonel fell silent.
“You’ve been baiting these rail spurs with empty strongboxes and letting the word out that there’s big money being shipped to the mines.” He paused, then said, “Wait until those townsfolk hear what you’ve been doing.”
“This is railroad business, Ranger,” said the colonel. “Mr. Siedell has a right to do what needs to be done to protect his interests.”
Sam stopped him a few feet back from the two prisoners. Looking down at the outlaws’ battered faces, the bloody untreated bullet wounds, he shook his head.
“Let me remind you that hanging is not an illegal act, if justified, Ranger. The territory law is clear enough on that.”
“Here’s another law, Colonel,” Sam replied. “If I happen upon a hanging in progress, I’m sworn to stop it and make an inquiry. If I feel it necessary, I’m obligated to take the accused to a place where charges will be filed and a territorial judge will preside over the case.”
“There . . . you son . . . of a bitch,” Parker Fish wheezed, and chuckled in a weak voice.
“Give it . . . to him, Ranger,” the other prisoner said in a broken voice.
“Shut up, both of you,” Sam said. He turned and stared at the two rail guards holding the outlaws’ horses.
“Are we in trouble?” one guard asked.
“No,” Sam said. “Not if you get these men some water and get them washed. I’m taking them into custody. I’m sure that’s what an upstanding man like Curtis Siedell would want.” He gave the colonel a flat stare. “Come to Yuma and make your charges, Colonel. That’s how the law works.”
“The law, ha,” Hinler returned with sarcasm, his tone growing louder with his rage. “All the law does is mollycoddle these thieving reprobates!”
“Everything all right over there, Ranger?” Sheriff Stone called out, keeping his Colt aimed at the detectives. “If not, let me know. I’ll clip an ear off from here.”
The colonel stiffened at the sound of the sheriff’s voice.
“I don’t think he likes you, Colonel,” Sam said, seeing the fear in Hinler’s eyes. “You might want to keep your mouth shut while we get these men ready to ride.”
Hinler backed up a step. He stood watching as the Ranger and Stone prepared the two prisoners for the trail.
“Are we going to stand here and let them take these prisoners from us, Colonel?” Patterson asked quietly at Hinler’s side.
“Yes, we’re going to abide by the law for now,” Hinler said in the same guarded tone, “but taking them doesn’t mean they’re going to keep them.” The two gave each other knowing looks. “It’s a big, mean desert out there, Duke. A lot can happen.” He paused, then said, “Take Anson along with you. It’s time he showed me something.”
Chapter 6
It was afternoon when the Ranger and Sheriff Stone rode away from Colonel Hinler and his band of railroad detectives and rail guards. The prisoners’ wounds had been attended to and bandaged. Their hands were uncuffed from behind their backs and recuffed in front of them, making it easier for them to negotiate the dips and rises of the sloping sand hills as they crossed the desert flats. On the far side of the flats they stopped to rest their horses at a stone-lined water hole bedded in a hillside thirty yards up a rocky trail.
The Ranger sank a ro
w of canteens into the water to let them fill and stood back and watched as man and horse quenched their thirst. The first to finish drinking was the younger of the two prisoners, a wiry Texan named Rudy Bowlinger. The Ranger had seen his face on Texas wanted posters for the past two years. But the face looking up at him from the water’s edge was battered, swollen and barely recognizable.
“Ain’t you drinking, Ranger?” Bowlinger asked, his wet hair clinging to his forehead. “It’s a long hot ride to Yuma.”
Sam only stared at him, not liking the sudden familiarity the wounded outlaw tried to establish. He knew that in spite of his saving the two men from the slow death the colonel had bequeathed them, they would kill him and Stone without batting an eye if the opportunity presented itself.
“Sounds like you’re feeling better, Bowlinger,” said Sam, with no attempt at masking his distrust of the wanted man.
“Call me Rudy, Ranger,” Bowlinger said with a swollen, twisted grin. He raised a careful hand and cupped his bruised jaw. “All us ol’ boys heal fast. You know that.” He paused, then added, “What’s the chance they won’t hang us once we get to Yuma?”
Sam considered it as Parker Fish and the sheriff pushed up from the water. Fish spat a stream of water and wiped some from his face. Having heard Bowlinger’s question, he lay anticipating the Ranger’s answer. Stone rose to his feet and stood listening too.
“Hard to say,” Sam replied to Bowlinger. “I know the judge is not real happy with how Siedell has been letting the colonel set up these fake cash shipments. He feels like it has drawn unnecessary violence from robbers like yourselves—gotten lots of innocent people killed.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Bowlinger said with his swollen, twisted grin. “There’s something don’t seem right about it, baiting us that way.” He looked at Parker Fish.
“I’ve never gone on a robbery in my life that I thought didn’t have any money to it,” Fish said.