by Ralph Cotton
“Obliged,” he said again. Considering the dangerous closeness of the gunmen on the wanted posters, he said, “I’m thinking I might travel faster on my own—leave Sheriff Stone to heal up here a few days.” He gave her a questioning look.
“He’s welcome here. Whether he’s a white man or a Plains Indian, I believe a man changes into something else when he’s unhappy with what he is, his conditions and circumstances in life,” she said. She paused and studied the Ranger’s face as if awaiting his opinion.
Sam picked up his rifle leaning against the desk and his sombrero lying atop it. “I knew an old prisoner who spent his life behind bars. He told me that he kept from losing his mind by making up a life for himself outside the walls. Over the years he put himself somewhere on a little spread in New Mexico—made himself up a wife, children, everything he ever wanted in his real life but knew he’d never have.” He paused in reflection, then said, “They found him dead one morning inside his cell. Said he had a peaceful smile on his face. I think about him. I always wonder where he really died. In that cell, or somewhere in New Mexico with his wife and family gathered round him.”
Sheriff Deluna watched him shake his head slightly.
The Ranger straightened and leveled his sombrero across his brow.
“My point is, I don’t judge who turns into what, or who goes where when they die.” He nodded toward a gun rack where a few shotguns and rifles stood in a row. “Keep Sheriff Stone sober. If Max Bard or the colonel’s men come around causing trouble, Stone will do his part. He’s good with a gun.”
“Don’t worry, Ranger,” said Sheriff Deluna. “You leave him here, I’ll keep him sober if I have to break his drinking arm.”
“I don’t know if he’d be happy to hear that,” Sam said, turning to the door, “but I am.”
Bexnar, the Mexican badlands
Dawg Merril flew through the dusty blanket that draped the doorway of the town’s Riendo Gato—Laughing Cat—Cantina. The blanket wrapped around him as he hit the hitch rail between two resting horses, bounced high and landed in the dirt street. The horses shied against their tied reins. Dust billowed. Dawg lay thrashing and wallowing, trying to get untangled from the heavy clinging wool as Ape Boyd stepped out of the Laughing Cat. A bottle of mescal hung from his left hand. In his right hand he held a big Starr revolver leveled toward the blanketed man. His bare head was shaved bald save for a foot-long braid hanging from above his left ear. The music and voices fell silent behind him.
Boyd’s fellow gunmen, Roland Crispe and Mexican Charlie Summez, who were drinking outside the cantina, stepped back to give him a clear target.
“Kill him quick, Ape,” said Crispe. “We’re having a conversation here.”
Ape Boyd snarled as he stepped away from the hitched horses and cocked and pointed the big Starr.
“Nobody calls me April and lives,” he shouted at the frantically struggling gunman.
In spite of Dawg Merril’s best efforts, the blanket refused to free its grip around his head and shoulders.
“Damn it, Ape!” shouted Dawg. “I wasn’t trying to goad you. I was just saying with a name like April, no wonder you sooner go by Ape!” He ripped and clawed and pulled at the blanket. The blanket seemed to have a mind of its own. It appeared to only cling tighter as he tried to force himself free.
Ape snarled even louder and looked in disbelief at the two drinking gunmen.
“You believe this? He’s already said it again!” he bellowed, enraged.
“We heard it this time, Ape,” Mexican Charlie said. “It’s his own damn fault.”
“Yeah,” said Crispe, “and we are talking here.”
“You sons a’ bitches!” Dawg shouted, thrashing more intently until he heard the sound of the big Starr cocking and realized the blanket would never turn him loose in time. “Damn this to hell,” he bellowed. He grabbed his Colt from its holster under the blanket and began firing blindly at the sound of Ape’s voice. Ape grinned venomously and took a side step. He fired shot after shot into the blanket at Dawg’s chest, each shot causing Dawg to falter back another step. When the fifth shot raised another puff of dust on the blanket, Dawg staggered in place. His Colt fell to the dirt at his feet. As if adding insult to injury, the blanket slid freely down off his face, his bloody chest, and fell in a pile at his feet.
Dawg stood wide-eyed as the blanket fell and the life spilled out of him.
“I’ll be . . . gawddamned,” he said, not believing his dose of foul luck.
As he crumpled to the dirt, Ape Boyd blew smoke from the tip of his gun barrel and holstered it. To the side, Crispe and Mexican Charlie both nodded, then turned away and went back to their conversation. Crispe rounded a finger back and forth in his ear as the shots still echoed out across the Mexican hill line.
Stepping out of the Laughing Cat into the harsh smell of burnt powder, Hugh Kirchdorf looked all around and fanned the smoke with his hand.
“Did you have to shoot him from right here, Ape?” he said, gesturing all around the endless badlands. “We’re not cramped for space.”
Before Ape Boyd could answer, Mexican Charlie said quietly, “Hold on, pards, looks like we’ve got company coming.” He nodded at a single figure riding out of the wavering desert heat into the far end of town at a gallop, leading a bareback spare horse beside him.
“Reload, Ape,” said Kirchdorf. “Might be some more shooting for you.”
“Me?” said Ape. “Why me?”
“Because your gun’s already dirty,” said Kirchdorf, giving the big man a look. “Is that asking too damn much?”
“Huh-uh, fellas,” said Roland Crispe. “Don’t nobody shoot this one. It’s Bo Anson himself, just who we’ve been waiting for.”
Chapter 10
More gunmen filed out of the Laughing Cat and stood watching as Bo Anson kept his horse at a walk the last few yards, then stopped and looked down at the body of Dawg Merril lying bloody in the dirt, the blanket in a pile at his feet.
“I heard shooting,” Anson said in an offhand tone. “I expect this was it.”
“Howdy, Bo,” Crispe said, stepping over quickly and taking the lead rope to the spare horse from Anson’s hand. “Yeah, that was it all right. Ape warned him not to call him by his full name. You know Dawg. He always was thicker than molasses.”
“And Ape thinned him,” said Anson, swinging down from his saddle, taking a closer look at Dawg’s body.
“That’s pretty much the gist of it,” said Crispe. “Ape’s real sensitive about his name. Hell, everybody knows it. I figured Dawg knew it too.”
“If he didn’t, he does now,” said Anson. “Get him drug out of here,” he said to Mexican Charlie. As he spoke he led his tired horse to the hitch rail that had launched Dawg Merril out to his hapless fate. “Everybody gather up, I’ve got news for you.”
Crispe tied the spare horse to the rail and stood by, waiting to hear what Anson had to say. The others drew in closer around them.
“Things are starting to move a little faster than I thought they would,” Anson said. “I left the colonel at the rock valley. We’re going to catch up with him and his detectives along the border. They’ve got Parker Fish on the run—wants as many guns as he can get, hoping Fish might lead him to Max Bard.”
“Ha, that’s not likely,” said Crispe.
“But it suits our purpose, Roland,” said Anson, “so we play this thing the way we find it. Colonel wants top guns, we’ve got him covered.”
“You mean the colonel’s hiring all of us, Bo?” Crispe asked, appearing surprised at their good fortune.
“That’s right, Roland,” said Anson, eyeing him sharply. “Just like I told you he would. Have you got any more doubts?”
“I never doubted you, Bo,” said Crispe. “I was just curious is all.” He grinned beneath a finely trimmed mustache. “I knew you were good for wh
at you said.”
Anson looked at the body in the dirt.
“Looks like we’ll be a man short now,” he said.
“Not hardly,” Hugh Kirchdorf cut in. “The Cady brothers rode in here last night looking for gun work. I always said they’re dumb enough to tattoo a rose on a grizzly’s ass if somebody held its head. We told them to stick around, just in case somebody fell out on us, like this.” He cut his eyes toward Dawg’s body as Mexican Charlie dragged it from the street. Then he jerked his head toward the inside of the Laughing Cat. “I told them to wait for us at the bar while we palaver out here.”
“Well, then,” said Anson, “let’s not keep these tattoo artists waiting.”
Kirchdorf lowered his voice as he glanced toward the open cantina door. “I might ought to tell you one thing, Bo. They had a run-in with Ranger Burrack and that sheriff who thinks he’s a wolf. Ignacio is still limping smartly from it.”
Anson looked at him coolly.
“A wolf, you say?” Anson replied. “Now I’m intrigued.”
Anson walked into the cantina and over to the tile-topped bar, the rest of the men following him. Seeing him approach them, the Cady brothers, Lyle and Ignacio, straightened and faced him, whiskey glasses in hand. In the front corner of the Laughing Cat, the band stopped playing again. The accordion player sighed and waited with restraint.
Anson motioned for the bartender to set up fresh bottles of rye and mescal. Then he tilted his head and eyed the Cady brothers.
“Howdy, Lyle . . . Ignacio,” he said. “Roland says you two are looking for gun work.”
“Howdy, Bo,” said Lyle.
“We are,” Ignacio said, coming right to the point. He tossed back the rye from the glass in his hand and set the shot glass on the bar for a refill. “Whatever you’ve got going, either side of the border, we’re up for it.”
“What’s Edsel Centrila going to say about you two cutting out on him?” Anson asked.
“We didn’t cut out on him. He cut out on us,” said Ignacio. “We went after the sheriff over in Big Silver for crawfishing on a deal they had going. The sheriff had been drunk so long he didn’t know his name from a bean label. But he was riding with that damn Ranger, Sam Burrack.”
“The Ranger got the drop on Iggy here,” Lyle put in. “Cracked his shin with a rifle butt. Threatened to crack his other one.”
Ignacio just looked at his brother stiffly.
“The Ranger’s bad about that,” said Anson.
“He truly is,” Ignacio confirmed. “Anyway, we spotted the two of them across the hill line in Resting. They brought in one of Max Bard’s men, Rudy Bowlinger, in handcuffs. I figure the woman sheriff there has him sweating his liver out in that jail wagon she keeps out back.”
“This is all interesting, but what’s your point, Iggy?” Anson said.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, Bo,” said Ignacio, “but if you’re riding for Max Bard, I figure it might be mine and Lyle’s interest to tell you about it.”
“Riding for Max Bard . . .” Anson seemed to ponder the matter for a moment. “The thing is we’re not riding for Bard, Iggy,” he said. He grinned. “Fact is, we’re heading over to ride for the colonel, see how he is to work for.”
Ignacio and Lyle both looked stunned.
“Riding for the railroad, for the colonel?” Lyle said. “Wearing a detective badge?”
Anson only smiled, watching their reaction.
“There it is, boys,” he said. “You want to throw in with us, you’re both welcome. You never know what strange twists and turns my trail might take. I’ve got two men out rounding us up some fresh Mexican horses. You can fill their places till they catch up to us.”
The brothers gave each other a puzzled look. Yet as they considered it, it came to them that Bo Anson had to have something up his sleeve.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, Bo,” Ignacio said. “But if it’s gun work with money in it, Lyle and I are just your pace.”
“Good decision, Cady brothers,” Anson said in a mocking tone. “Now drink up. We got to hurry and meet up with the colonel.” He looked at the band and spun a hand in the air to get them started. Then he said to Lyle and Ignacio, “We’ve got just one little stop to make on the way there.”
“You mean going to Resting, taking Rudy Bowlinger?” said Ignacio.
Bo Anson grinned. “I wouldn’t mind him hanging over a saddle, taking him to the colonel when we meet along the trail.”
“I hear you,” said Ignacio. “Can I ask one favor of you? When you get Bowlinger, will you oblige Lyle and me to kill that Ranger and Sheriff Stone?”
“Kill whoever it suits you, Cady brothers,” he said to both of them. “I like seeing men keep their hands in the game.”
* * *
The Ranger first caught sight of Colonel Hinler and his detectives from a high ridge overlooking the rock valley. He’d spotted them from his lofty perch as they rode through wavering heat and glaring sunlight and moved his dun along at a walk, sticking with them along a stone ridge from above as they crossed a flat rocky stretch and headed up a narrow trail. At a place where he knew their trails would intersect, he sat atop the dun on the shadowy side of a rock wall and waited until the hooves of two horses came forward, their riders scouting the terrain.
As the two detectives rounded the turn, the Ranger stepped the dun out and sat midtrail staring them down, his Winchester rifle leveled at them across the crook in his left arm.
“Whoooa . . . !” shouted a detective named French Devoe, caught off guard, his horse almost rearing with him. Beside him Detective Leon Foley stopped his horse suddenly and threw both hands in the air.
“Both of you gather up and come forward, easy-like,” the Ranger said calmly. “Raise your shooting irons and let them fall.” He’d made sure his duster lapel was open enough to show the badge on his chest.
“Just a damn minute, Ranger,” said Devoe. “We’re lawmen, same as you. You’ve no right telling us—” His words stopped short as he saw the Ranger’s hand tense around the rifle—heard the metallic sound of the hammer cock.
“You’d be wrong thinking I’ll tell you again, Devoe,” Sam said in the same even tone.
French Devoe looked surprised, almost proud that the Ranger knew his name. He sat frozen in place as beside him the younger detective, Foley, lifted his pistol from its holster and dropped it to the ground.
“Do I know you, Ranger?” Devoe said. He formed a cautious half smile. Sam saw trouble with this one.
“Not as well as you’re going to,” Sam warned.
Devoe gazed off as if something had caught his attention. But Sam knew what that meant. The detective was getting ready to reach for his holstered Colt.
“I’m just thinking—” Devoe said. His hand plunged for his gun butt. He didn’t finish his words. Instead he flipped backward in a bloody mist as the Ranger’s rifle barked and slammed a bullet through his high right shoulder.
Beside Devoe, Foley’s horse sidestepped, spooked. Foley kept his hands high. He swayed in his saddle with a frightened look on his face.
“D-don’t shoot!” he pleaded even as Devoe landed on the rocky trail in a large puff of dust. “I’m covered here! See?”
“I see,” Sam said, a ribbon of smoke curling up from his rifle barrel. “Rein your horse down before you lose him.”
The younger detective moved his hands enough to tighten the reins hanging loose in his right hand. Sam cut his eyes from him back to the wounded detective lying in a heap on the ground, his Colt glinting in the dirt three feet away.
“Crawl away from the gun,” Sam called out to him.
“Go to hell, Ranger! I’m shot bad!” Devoe shouted, half enraged, half sobbing. He heard the rifle bark again. Dirt and rock kicked up an inch from his knee.
“Jesus, Ranger!” he shouted.
He scooted and crawled sideways hard and fast and stopped ten feet away from the Colt lying on the ground. “The hell do you want with us?” he said.
Sam didn’t answer right away. He took two fresh cartridges from his duster and replaced the two he’d just fired. He looked over at Leon Foley.
“Step down,” he said. “Take a canteen over to him. Check him out.”
He watched the young detective step down from his saddle with a pale sickly look on his face and lift a canteen by its strap.
“You all right, young man?” Sam asked. He tilted his head in curiosity. The young detective had tried to step over to Devoe, but halfway there he stopped and weaved, bowed slightly at the waist.
“I’m going . . . to wretch,” he said.
“Good Lord, not here, Foley!” Devoe shouted, shying away. But Foley couldn’t stop himself.
Sam looked away a little as the young man gagged and heaved and emptied his stomach in the dirt three feet from Devoe. When he’d finished, he wiped his hand across his mouth and stepped forward with the canteen extended toward Devoe.
“For God sakes, Foley, stay where you are,” said the wounded detective, scooting farther away, clamping a hand on his bleeding shoulder.
Sam sat watching as he heard hoofbeats coming up the trail at a gallop toward the sound of the rifle shots.
“Take the canteen, Devoe,” he said. “Let him stick a bandanna on the wound for you.” He leveled the rifle back at French Devoe as he spoke. The wounded man eyed the rifle, then took the canteen from Foley with reluctance.
“Tell your men to take it real easy, Colonel,” Sam called out toward the riders, hearing their horses slow to a walk and come up into sight on the rocky trail. “I’m Ranger Sam Burrack. I’m here looking for a man carrying a brass-scoped rifle.”
The colonel put his horse forward at a walk, his men spreading out around him on either side. He looked over at French Devoe on the ground, at Foley standing over him. He eyed the sickness in the dirt with a sour expression.
“What is the meaning of this, Ranger Burrack?” he said, stopping his horse fifteen feet from the Ranger. “What gives you the right to shoot a duly appointed rail detective? This man is a lawman the same as you.”