Showdown at Gun Hill

by Ralph Cotton

  “I see the judge’s point,” Sam said, looking back and forth between the two outlaws. “If the railroad didn’t put the rumor of big cash shipments out there, nobody would try to rob it.”

  Stone, who’d been listening closely to the Ranger, took the opportunity to cut in when Sam paused.

  “Maybe if their inside man did a better job, he wouldn’t send them riding into a trap,” he said to Sam, knowing he had the outlaws’ full attention.

  “I see your point too, Sheriff,” Sam said.

  Fish gave Bowlinger a look that stopped him nodding at the two lawmen’s conversation.

  “Who said we’ve even got an inside man?” Fish said in a wary tone. “Could be the information just gets out there on its own somehow.”

  Sam just stared at him.

  “I see,” he said, “sort of the way cattle round themselves up and do their own branding?”

  Fish cursed under his breath.

  “I ought to know better than try to converse with a lawman,” he grumbled.

  “That’s right,” Sam said. “We’re not here to converse. Our only interest is taking you both to Yuma—let the court deal with you.” He turned toward his bay as the horse raised its dripping muzzle from the water.

  “Oh . . . ?” Fish said, as if surprised. “You mean you don’t want to try making us tell where the Bard Gang hides out?”

  “I already know,” Sam said. “Close enough anyway.” He reached out and rubbed the dun’s wet nose as he spoke. The horse twisted its lip back and forth, liking it.

  “Ha! You’re wishing that was true, Ranger,” Fish said. “You don’t know anything. If you did you’d be spurring that hammerhead right now, trying to get there.”

  Stone caught the thread of what the Ranger was doing; he stood still, listening, watching.

  “If I were a betting man,” Sam said, “I’d wager I could leave here right now and be there in four days, five at the most.” He studied the two swollen faces as he spoke, checking their reactions.

  The two looked stunned, but just for a second, just long enough that the Ranger knew he’d struck a nerve. But Fish wasn’t to be bluffed. He chuckled as he gripped his bandaged wound.

  “And I would take that bet, Ranger,” he said. “Good try, but you’re a long ways off target. Besides, leaving some men behind like they did, Max Bard and Holbert Lee Cross won’t take any chance on one of us talking. They’ll pull stakes and go looking for a new place to hole up. I wouldn’t know where to find them now myself. The colonel’s too damn stuck on himself to figure that out.”

  “Maybe he figured that’s so,” Stone cut in. “Maybe he just wanted to see you two die real slow-like.”

  “That’s more how I see it,” Fish agreed. He directed his attention to the sheriff. “Say . . . didn’t I hear somewhere that you’ve been turning yourself into a bear or coyote or something?”

  Stone gave the Ranger an embarrassed look.

  “I might have thought that,” he murmured, humiliation lowering his voice.

  Fish chuckled and said, “Hellfire, Sheriff, it ain’t nothing to be ashamed of if you did. I’ve been that loco drunk myself, on mescal and peyote and the like.”

  “Mescal and peyote . . .” Bowlinger shook his head, thinking about it. “I once thought I was somebody else for going on a week,” he put in. “I couldn’t find my horse or nothing else.” He looked back and forth between the two lawmen.

  Sheriff Stone looked away, not wanting to say he only drank rye, albeit lots of it. Seeing the conversation unravel, Sam took his dun by its reins and led it toward the filled canteens on the edge of the water. He cupped his hands and washed his face and spat a stream of water. Then he raised a cupped handful of water and drank it down without letting the two outlaws out of his sight.

  “Time to go,” he said, standing, lifting the canteens by their straps. He handed two canteens to Stone and hung the other two on his saddle horn. Watching the prisoners, he swung up into his saddle, his rifle still in hand. “Fish,” he said, “we both know Bard’s not going to change his hideout. He’s got too nice a setup over in the hill country.” He nodded toward the border. He watched Fish’s expression tighten.

  Bowlinger said without thinking, “There’s plenty of other good hiding places. He don’t have to—” His words halted as he saw the scorching look in Fish’s eyes.

  Fish looked back at the Ranger. Sam gave a faint, wry smile.

  “Like I said, Fish,” he repeated, “four days, five at the most.” He backed his dun and watched the two handcuffed, wounded outlaws struggle up onto their horses. Stone gave him a nod of approval and swung up himself.

  “Get in front,” Stone said to Fish and Bowlinger. Then he backed his horse a step and motioned them forward.

  * * *

  Holbert Lee Cross and Pete “Kid Domino” Worley had spotted Max Bard’s rise of trail dust as soon as horse and rider wound into sight on the desert floor. At least they thought it was Bard. Their leader had started out as a black dot at the head of the rising dust. It took a while longer before he grew into a recognizable form against the harsh glare of sand and wavering sunlight. Neither man commented upon seeing him. They sat their horses in the cover of rock and watched him ride.

  When Bard drew close enough for the two to be certain it was him, they both relaxed a little and stayed out of sight up on a rocky hillside.

  As the rider drew nearer, Cross stepped his horse to the edge of the sandy trail and looked all around. Then he raised his rifle sidelong and adjusted it back and forth until sunlight reflected sharply off the shiny steel chamber. He counted three flashes and lowered the rifle.

  “Think he saw it, Holbert Lee?” Worley asked.

  Cross looked at the younger outlaw but didn’t answer at first. Instead they sat and watched as their leader veered the colonel’s stallion and a spare horse on a lead rope beside him in their direction.

  “Yeah, Kid,” Cross finally said, “he saw it.” They turned their horses and rode down at a walk to meet Bard on the hill trail. Cross led Bard’s other horse beside him.

  Near the bottom of the hill, they found Bard sitting on a rock, the reins of the colonel’s stallion and lead rope to the spare horse, a blaze-faced chestnut, in hand. In his other hand he held his rifle and an open canteen of water he’d been sipping from.

  “We’ve had no shortage of riding stock this time out,” Cross commented, looking the spare horse up and down. A canvas bag lay tied down on the chestnut’s back.

  “These corral horses are scattered everywhere,” said Bard, capping the canteen. “I figured it was a good idea to bring him along. He was following us anyway.” As he spoke, he walked over to the canvas bag on the chestnut’s back.

  “How’d it go, Max?” Cross asked, watching him rummage down into the bag.

  Bard pulled up a bottle of whiskey and a package of medical gauze and supplies.

  “It went like I expected,” he replied. He walked over, pitched the bottle up to Cross and the medical supplies to Worley. “The whole town’s shook up. The colonel and his men are on our trail.”

  “You took a hell of a chance riding in on that stallion,” Cross said.

  Bard gave him a short grin.

  “I had to see how it rides,” he said. He watched Cross shake his head, raise the bottle and take a deep swig. He continued. “We’ve got dead there. They’ve got Fish and Rudy. The colonel took them along with him, following our trail.”

  “Damn it,” Cross said under his breath. He sidled his horse over beside Worley and handed him the bottle. “Fish won’t tell them nothing. Rudy might.”

  “The colonel took them along so he can hang them out here, keep from too many townsfolk seeing it,” Bard said.

  “Since when did townsfolk start caring about watching outlaws hang?” said Cross.

  “The colonel likes
to play it safe, I suppose,” said Bard. He looked back across the stretch of desert he’d just crossed. “For two cents I’d stick here and pick their eyes out when they get here.”

  “I’ve got that two cents,” Cross said.

  Bard looked at Worley.

  “What about you, Kid Domino? You up for it?” he asked. He looked at the dark dried blood on the young outlaw’s shirt, his neck, down his ear. Worley wiped a hand across his lips, following a deep drink of whiskey.

  “I’ve got nothing planned that can’t wait,” he said with a weak grin. He handed the whiskey down to Bard, who took it, swirled it in the bottle and took a drink.

  Corking the bottle, Bard studied the settling whiskey as he considered the matter. He knew the colonel and his men were on their trail; he knew they would be showing up here, either on the hill trails or on the desert flats he’d just crossed.

  This is perfect ambush country.

  “Well, what do you say, Max?” Cross finally asked.

  Bard let out a tight breath. “No, we’re going on. I hate to start out doing one thing and end up doing something else.”

  “Hell, Max, we got ambushed ourselves,” said Cross. “We didn’t ask to get skunked out on this job.”

  “It makes no difference if we kill the colonel or he and his men kill us,” said Bard. “It’s no skin off Siedell’s rump. He still gets no sting from it.”

  “Likely he never will,” Cross said in a weary voice. He rested his gloved hands on his saddle horn and let out a breath. “So, you call it. Stick here and shoot who we can, or cut out of here and get ready for what comes next?”

  “I’m still out for King Curtis Siedell,” said Bard. “I want him to pay for what he done.”

  “So do I,” Cross said stoically.

  Worley sat watching, listening, knowing that this was all about things that had happened before his time, all the way back during the last days of the civil conflict.

  Finally Bard said again, “No, we’re going on. We’ll circle wide of Gun Hill and try to find Dewey Lucas and Russell Gant.”

  “What about Fish and Rudy?” Worley cut in.

  Bard and Cross gave each other a look.

  “Forget them, Kid,” Bard said. “They were as good as dead the minute the colonel sank his claws in them.” He turned to the stallion and rubbed its hot, sweaty muzzle. The spare horse stood beside it. “One good thing,” he continued, “all these loose horses running around out here is making it tougher for the colonel to figure which prints belong to us.”

  “Aw, ain’t that too bad?” Cross said with a wry grin. “I hate putting the man to all this trouble.”

  “I still want to kill him,” Bard said seriously. He swung up atop the stallion and took the spare horse’s lead rope from the saddle horn.

  “There’s plenty of colonels just like him waiting to take his place,” Cross said. “Siedell knows that.” The three of them turned their horses to the high trail, headed back into the cover of rock and scattered pine woodlands. “He runs out of retired colonels, there’s always majors, captains and so on, down the line.” He gave a wry grin. “We can’t kill them all.”

  Bard looked back at Worley and Cross.

  “Who says we can’t?” he said over his shoulder.

  Chapter 7

  In the evening sunlight, Sheriff Stone led the prisoners up a narrow path to the crest of a hill line. Sam brought up the rear and kept an eye on the prisoners and their back trail. The sheriff realized the Ranger still didn’t trust him a hundred percent, but the more sober he became, the better he understood. He would not have come on this trip on his own, yet regardless, he had to admit that the longer his sobriety held out, the better he was starting to feel. Being back on the job, gun in hand, helped, he reminded himself. It helped a lot.

  There were still twinges and shakes in his hands and chest. Dark, destructive thoughts still set upon him once in a while, like some ugly spirit that followed him until it found an opportune time to strike. At those times, he believed he would have traded his soul to the devil for just one long pull on a bottle of rye.

  “We’ll stay up here overnight, Sheriff,” the Ranger called out as the four of them topped the hill. As Stone reined his horse down and turned it to face the prisoners, he looked all around for a sheltered place to make a camp amid a sparse scattering of pine woods.

  “Think you can uncuff us long enough to relieve ourselves, Ranger?” Rudy Bowlinger asked, shifting uncomfortably in his saddle, gesturing toward the sparse woods. “You can keep an eye on us from here. We won’t go nowhere. You’ve got our word.”

  “You’re not talking about a one-hander?” Stone asked, studying the outlaw suspiciously.

  “No, sir, Sheriff,” Rudy said. “This is a two-hander if I ever had one—unless you want to stay a good distance from me the rest of the trip.”

  “Kind of you to give us your word, Rudy,” Sam said before Stone answered. “But we’ll just cuff one hand to a pine sapling. You’ll do okay.”

  “I don’t get a very good feeling for that, Ranger,” Rudy replied. He shifted uncomfortably again. “But I’ve got no time to jaw over it.” He looked serious. “I’ve got to go.”

  “All right, Sheriff,” Sam said to Stone, “let’s get over into the shade.”

  Stone led the three forward, keeping his horse to the edge of a clearing so they wouldn’t be exposed in the open sunlight. When they were inside the shelter of tall older-growth pines, they stopped the tired horses and stepped down from their saddles.

  “I’ve got these two,” Stone said as Sam pulled out the key to the handcuffs. Sam only looked at him and laid the key in his outstretched hand. He could tell the sheriff was feeling better. He saw fewer tremors in his hands, less stress pain around his eyes.

  “Let’s go,” Stone said to the prisoners, stepping back, keeping his hand on his holstered Colt.

  Sam took down his canteen and watched, rifle in hand, as the three walked away along the edge of the clearing toward a stand of rock and brush. As he raised the canteen to his lips, he saw a quick flash of sunlight among the taller hillsides to their right and instinctively called out Stone’s name in warning. But his warning came too late. He saw the first rifle shot hit Rudy Bowlinger and send him staggering sidelong in a broken, twisted waltz. Blood flew before the sound of the distant shot resounded on the towering hillsides.

  “Get down!” the Ranger shouted in reflex. He dropped the canteen and raised the Winchester to his shoulder. As he took cover behind a thick pine, he returned fire. With no target other than the direction of the flash of sunlight among the higher rocks, he knew he needed to offer some defense, anything to deflect the shooter while the sheriff and Parker Fish scrambled across the rocky ground for cover.

  Another rifle shot reached down, then another. Sam didn’t take time to see what damage the shots might have caused. He levered and fired round after round into the high stony hillside. Two more shots pounded down as the sheriff and Fish hurried out of sight behind a large boulder. Sam heard one of the shots ping and ricochet away. He leaned back against the pine, his smoking rifle levered and ready. He looked over at the horses, seeing their position was safe enough unless someone was deeply committed to killing them.

  He waited in a tense ringing silence for a few seconds, realizing the shooters had run out of targets now that the sheriff and Fish were out of sight. Then he ran to the horses, grabbed his telescope from under his bedroll and hurried to a spot behind a rock where he could scan the upper hillside. As he stretched out the telescope and raised it, he called out toward where the sheriff and Fish had taken cover.

  “Stone? Are you two all right?” He started scanning the lens among the rocks. He caught sight of three figures running through a stand of brush toward waiting horses. One carried a rifle with a long brass scope atop its barrel. All three wore long dusters and their heads
were topped with black cavalry-style hats. Within the flapping lapels of the riding dusters he saw the black suits.

  Hinler’s rail detectives . . .

  When Sheriff Stone didn’t reply, Sam lowered the lens for a moment and called out again. Still no reply. He closed the lens and shoved it down in the back of his belt, looking all around warily. Without another word, he inched his way around the perimeter of the clearing and stopped when he got to the boulder he’d seen Fish and the sheriff crawl behind.

  When he eased a look around the edge of the boulder, he saw Sheriff Stone lying facedown in the dirt, a wide circle of blood on his back, more blood in the dirt beside him and a bullet wound in Stone’s back. As the wounded sheriff tried to push himself up, Sam looked around and hurried to him in a crouch. He saw no sign of Fish. When he stooped down to help the wounded lawman, he noted the discarded handcuffs lying in the dirt; he also noted Stone’s empty holster.

  “Watch yourself . . . Ranger,” Stone said in a strained voice, struggling up from the dirt.

  “I’m watching for him,” Sam said in a lowered tone, looping his arm around the sheriff’s shoulder. “Are you able to get up?” Blood ran down the sheriff’s back.

  “I’m doing it,” Stone said with pained determination. He hobbled along beside the Ranger, leaning against him. “Get us . . . to the horses . . . before he makes a run for it,” he warned in a weakening voice.

  But even as they struggled forward, Sam and the wounded sheriff heard Fish shouting at the horses, trying to shoo them away. They heard the sound of a horse’s hooves as the fleeing outlaw batted his boots to the horse’s sides and sent it galloping away along the rocky hill trail.

  “I—I lost a prisoner,” Stone said in a struggling voice.

  “You’ve been ambushed and back-shot, Sheriff,” Sam said, helping him get to the place where they had left their horses. He helped Stone lie down onto his side. Looking around, he saw the sheriff’s claybank barb and his own copper dun standing only a few feet away. Fish hadn’t been able to spook the animals. The outlaw had raced away with Bowlinger’s horse beside him, Stone’s loaded Colt in his hand.