Showdown at Gun Hill

by Ralph Cotton

  Still staring hard at him, Ape said, “They’re both dead, that’s what’s going on down there. I just killed Max Bard the way Bo told me to.” He paused and said, “You saw them fall, didn’t you?”

  Dan Brody settled some.

  “Yeah, I saw them fall, but that doesn’t mean they’re dead,” he replied.

  “They’re dead,” said Ape with dismissal. “Go look if you don’t believe me.”

  “I’ll just do that, to make sure,” Brody said. “You keep me covered.”

  “You’ve got it, pard,” said Ape, still elated at having seen the two men crumple in the fire of the big gun. “Watch your step going down there.”

  “Obliged, I will,” said Brody. He stepped off the trail and started down the hillside. Before he’d gone thirty feet, Ape opened fire on him with the Gatling gun. Brody’s back exploded and flew away in bloody pieces. The impact sent him flying forward, almost torn in two.

  “You don’t tell me to shut up, fool,” Ape said down to the empty hillside, smoke curling up from the hot gun barrel.

  * * *

  The Ranger had heard the voices shout back and forth; he’d heard the laughter and the victory shout following the last long burst of gunfire. Then he’d heard silence for a moment, until it was shattered by a sudden shorter burst of gunfire. That’s it—kill each other, he said to himself, speculating, glancing over his shoulder into the darkness as he pulled himself onto the trail and headed toward the smoking chimney.

  Chapter 22

  On the trail, moonlight was giving way to grainy morning. The Ranger moved quickly but quietly toward the black silhouette of the smoking chimney fifty yards in front of him. Behind him the Gatling gun had been silent for the past few minutes while he put more space between it and himself. Winchester in hand, he froze and then dropped down over the rocky edge when he heard a voice call out to him from less than sixty feet away.

  “Ape . . . Dan Brody, is that y’all?” the voice said in the dim predawn light.

  Sam lay as still as stone. From the same spot another voice came out of the darkness.

  “Y’all best let us know it’s you, pards,” the second voice said. “Bo’s tight as a steel hatband—wants us to shoot first and ask questions later out here.”

  Sam stayed down and silent. He heard the voices speak to each other in a lower tone.

  “Don’t be fooling around, now,” one of the voices warned in the fading darkness. The two figures stood up from behind a waist-high rock, gray apparitions rising from some lower world. They looked all around. Sam knew they weren’t going to back off and decide there was no one out here. Morning was coming; he had to make his move.

  Get ready, he told himself.

  The other voice called out, “Jim’s right, we’ve got no time for foolishness—”

  But the voice halted as the Ranger rose onto a knee, took quick aim and sent a bullet through the figure’s chest.

  As the man fell away Sam levered a fresh round and swung the rifle at the gunman beside him. But the other man dropped out of sight and fired from behind the rock. The shot whizzed past the Ranger and raced away in the darkness. Realizing that the Gatling gun could join into whatever shooting fracas he found himself in, Sam stayed below the darker edge of the trail and moved along thirty feet in the grainy light without returning fire. From behind the rock two more shots blossomed.

  At a place where a dark rock shadow blacked out a wide stretch of the gray trail, Sam stayed in a low crouch and waited for a moment before venturing through rock and brush toward the rifleman’s position. Leaving his rifle leaning against a rock, he moved along silently with both hands free.

  Climbing along the hillside on all fours like a stalking cat, he wondered what had happened to the Gatling gun, hoping it wasn’t going to start firing any second. If it did he had little chance of getting away from both it and the rifleman here on the upper side of the trail. Luckily the big gun didn’t make its presence felt.

  So much for luck.

  He stopped on the hillside fifteen feet above the rifleman and stared down at him. As he kept his eyes on the man, he reached his right hand down and pulled a bowie-style game knife up from its sheath. With the knife poised and ready, he crawled a few feet farther down until he felt the steep ground slip under him. As a stream of dirt and gravel streamed down, the gunman turned around and looked up, and Sam leaped out and down on him.

  The gunman tried to swing his rifle up, but the Ranger knocked the barrel to the side as a shot exploded. Knowing the silence was broken, Sam swung the hard blunt end of the knife’s hilt around and slammed it against the side of the man’s head. The gunman melted to the ground, knocked out cold.

  Sam grabbed the smoking rifle and dropped down behind the large rock. He levered a fresh round into the rifle chamber and waited expectantly for the sound of the Gatling gun.

  Nothing, he told himself after a tense, silent moment.

  On the ground the rifleman groaned and batted his eyes. Sam recognized his face even in the shadowy light. He saw the bullet hole in the shoulder of his shirt, the lump of bandage on the wound under it.

  “Jim Purser,” he said barely above a whisper. “How are you healing?”

  “Huh? Okay, I guess,” Purser said dreamily. But he batted his eyes some more at the sound of his name and the inquiry about his shoulder wound. He opened his eyes, saw the big knife still in the Ranger’s hand and opened them even wider in fear. “It’s you!” He scooted back a foot on his rump and elbows. “Don’t kill me!” he cried out.

  “Shut up, Purser,” Sam warned him in his lowered voice. “Get that gun started up again, I’ll feed you to it.”

  “All right, Ranger, I’ll shut up!” Purser said, lowering his voice. He held his open hands up as if to fend off the big steel blade in the Ranger’s hand. “Don’t kill me!”

  The Ranger realized the man’s fear of the knife and deliberately kept it in sight. He also noted no Gatling gunfire. He reached out and slipped Purser’s revolver from its holster and pitched it aside.

  “How many are in the shack?” he asked, nodding toward the chimney smoke. He remembered how hard it was to get a straight answer from this man when he’d questioned him before in Resting.

  “Should be three in there, Ranger,” Purser said, giving it up freely this time, his nervous eyes glancing back and forth at the big knife. “There’s Bo Anson, a fellow named Gus Holt and Curtis Siedell. That’s all I know of, so help me God. If any showed up after I came out here—”

  “Take it easy, Purser,” Sam said. “Who’s manning that Gatling gun? How much ammunition do they have for it?”

  “There’s plenty of bullets from what I saw. The fellas manning it are Dan Brody and April Boyd—April goes by Ape. Which so would I if I was him. Bo’s holding Siedell for ransom. Said he’s going to kill Max Bard, Holbert Lee Cross, Kid Domino, the whole bunch of them for all that reward money.”

  Sam looked at him curiously. After a moment of consideration he said, “Ransom money and reward money, huh?” Then he just shook his head.

  “Yeah, I know,” Purser said as if reading his thoughts. “He’s crazy as a loon if you ask me.” He shrugged a little. “I didn’t see until after I brought the string of horses. Bo only tells you a little at a time, until it’s too late to turn back.” A trickle of blood ran down from the fierce knot where the knife hilt had struck him. He paused and glanced toward the knife again, as if trying to think of more information to give. Finally he shook his head. “I swear that’s all I know about anything, Ranger. If I come up with something else—”

  “You’re coming with me,” Sam said, cutting him off.

  “I’m being arrested?” Purser said, sounding a little relieved at the prospect.

  “We’ll see,” Sam said. “If the Gatling gun starts, or you let anybody in the shack know I’m coming, I’m not going to waste a
bullet on you.” He jiggled the knife in his hand for emphasis.

  “I won’t, Ranger. You’ve got my word,” said Purser in a serious tone.

  Sam stood up and pulled Purser to his feet. Purser staggered a little from the hard knock on his head. Sam nudged him along the trail, keeping watch for the big gun. Sam stopped for his rifle where he’d left it, and nodded Purser on toward the chimney smoke. He slipped the knife back down into his boot well.

  When they stood in the cover of rock and pine across a clearing from the shack, they both sank behind a large stone, Sam with his rifle ready in his hands. Two horses stood close to the shack, picking at clumps of wild grass. They looked rested now, but still dirty and hard ridden from the day before. Another looked around the corner at them and chuffed. Two more stood in a corral whose gate had been left open.

  Not a good sign . . .

  “Bo Anson,” he called out, “it’s Ranger Sam Burrack. Send Curtis Siedell out unharmed. Don’t make me come and get him.”

  Jesus! Purser gave him a taken-aback look, not used to hearing anyone speak that way to Bo Anson.

  Sam waited; he had little doubt his order would be followed. His hope was to get Siedell out alive by any advantage he could take. He was certain this was going to end up bloody, but he had to see it through the right way all the same.

  After a long tense moment Sam looked at Purser, who had a puzzled expression on his face.

  “I—I don’t think anybody’s in there,” Purser said.

  “Neither do I,” said Sam. He pulled Purser up in front of him and gave him a slight push toward the shack. “If I walk into a trap that you’re in on, you’re the first one going down,” he warned.

  When they walked onto the plank porch, Sam flattened against the wall beside the door, reached over with his left hand and shoved it open. Purser stood on the other side of the door with a worried look on his face.

  Sam stepped into the open doorway, his Colt out at arm’s length, cocked and ready. He relaxed when he saw the shack was empty.

  “Nobody home,” he said quietly under his breath.

  “Damn Bo’s hiding. I can’t believe he done me this way,” Purser said. “I haven’t even been paid for those horses yet.” He shook his head in regret. “And they’re all real good horses.”

  “Believe it, Purser,” Sam said. “I warned you about the bunch you’re keeping company with. Do you believe it yet?”

  “I wasn’t looking to join a men’s choir, Ranger,” Purser offered. “It might be that Bo got so busy, he forgot about me being here.”

  Sam lowered the Colt and gave him a skeptical look.

  “That was going to be my next guess,” he said.

  “Really?” Purser said.

  Sam didn’t answer. He looked all around the shack and let out a breath. An empty ammunition crate stood on a wooden table.

  “Where are they headed?” he asked.

  “Ranger, I swear I don’t have any idea!” Purser said quickly, nervously. “Had I known they weren’t here, I would’ve told you first thing when you had that pigsticker pointed at me. Big knives give me the shivering shits—that’s the truth. I’d sooner get shot any day—”

  “Think real hard, Purser,” Sam said, letting his shoulder drop a little as if ready to reach down to his boot.

  “All right, I am!” Purser said.

  Seeing it was going nowhere, Sam said, “You had a dozen horses when you left Resting. How many did you bring up here?”

  “All twelve,” said Purser. “That’s how many Bo asked for. That’s how many I brought him.”

  Sam considered it. He scanned the empty shack again, seeing what looked like a shiny new oil tin. He picked up the tin, felt a film of oil under his thumb and shook it.

  Empty. . . . Looking around again, he saw no oil lanterns or lamps. On the floor he saw a smudged broken lamp globe.

  “How many supplies did they have?” he asked.

  “I brought along enough grub and horse feed to last a small group a week or two,” Purser said, “but it’ll last a lot longer than that if they stick an elk or a few rabbits into the mix.”

  Sam motioned him toward the door with the barrel of his big Colt. Purser walked onto the porch.

  “What’s on the other side of this hill?” Sam asked, stepping back over into the doorway, looking out at the long hill line.

  “I don’t know,” Purser said. “I heard Bo mention some old played-out mines over there, go back to the days of the Spaniards. Maybe some old pueblo dwellers—Mayans from the old days.”

  Sam looked at him, running possibilities through his mind. He stepped out of the doorway and motioned Purser off the porch. Purser walked down and looked at Sam expectantly.

  “How much water did you bring with the supplies?” Sam asked.

  Purser gave a shrug.

  “None, except my own couple of canteens,” he said. “Bo never asked me to bring any.”

  Sam nodded as if coming to a conclusion. He looked down at layer upon layer of hoof and boot prints on the ground, unable to untangle them. He shook his head a little.

  “Let’s grab a couple of those horses and get out of here, Purser,” he said.

  “Wait, where am I going, Ranger?”

  “With me,” Sam said.

  “Why? Are you arresting me after all?” he asked.

  “No,” Sam said. “But I can either take you with me or shoot you and leave you here. Make up your mind, quick.”

  “Let’s get those horses,” Purser said without hesitation.

  * * *

  In the midmorning sunlight the Ranger and Jim Purser rode two of the loose horses down to where Sam had left the copper dun hitched out of sight from the trail. Purser had found a worn saddle and bridle lying in the corner of the shack. Sam had ridden bareback with a rope hackamore and a short length of lead rope. When Sam stepped down from the horse’s back, he handed Purser the lead rope.

  “Keep this horse as a spare,” he said. “We might need him where we’re headed.”

  “Oh? Where’s that?” Purser asked, watching Sam step up into the saddle and turn the dun toward the trail.

  “We’re headed over to the old Spanish mines,” Sam said. “I’ve got a hunch that’s where Anson is headed.”

  “A hunch?” Purser said. He gave the Ranger a doubtful look.

  Sam looked away toward a deep rock pass in the distant hill line.

  “It’s more than a hunch,” he said, not about to tell Purser any more than he felt he should. “We’ll get to that pass and see if we find tracks there.” He paused, then said, “You brought Anson some fine-looking riding stock. Is that what he asked for?”

  Purser looked at him curiously.

  “He never said,” Purser replied. “He must’ve figured they’d be good horses.”

  “If he wanted them for a robbery he wouldn’t have just figured they would be good horses. He would have made sure you knew they had to be the best,” Sam said, the two of them riding along the rocky trail.

  Purser fell silent, considering it, leading the spare horse alongside him.

  As they rode on, the Ranger checked the rocky ground beneath them at every minor turn or fork in the trail. After the better part of an hour, the tangle of hoofprints had fallen away gradually until a fresher set of tracks showed clearly above all the older ones. The fresh tracks led them to the mouth of the deep rocky pass that wound through the stone hillside.

  They rode for the better part of an hour across rugged terrain and reached a standing pool fed by runoff water from the stone cliffs to their left. As they watered themselves and the animals, Sam looked to their right at a low stone dam where water seeped over the top and snaked away along the hillside. Studying the fresh hoofprints along the pool’s edge, he saw that the riders had taken that direction.

  So fa
r so good.

  He took down his canteens from his saddle horn and filled them while the dun drank beside the other two horses. When the horses were watered, Sam adjusted the dun’s cinch and swung into the saddle. He waited until Purser was in front of him with the spare horse in tow. Then he raised his rifle from its boot, laid it across his lap and nudged his dun along behind him.

  Chapter 23

  Following the hoofprints along an ancient upward trail running along the hillside, Sam and Purser stopped at the sight of the single rider rounding in and out of view down the trail toward them.

  “Recognize him?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, it’s one of Anson’s men—name of Gus Holt,” Purser replied.

  Sidestepping their horses off behind a boulder, they sat and waited quietly as hooves clacked on the hard, stony surface. As the rider drew closer, Purser’s mount made a slight chuffing sound, but Purser reached down and patted the horse’s withers to keep the animal quiet. He saw the Ranger give him a look.

  “I don’t owe these jakes a thing, Ranger,” he whispered. “After the way they treated me, Anson and his men can go to hell.”

  Sam only nodded and waited.

  When the rider rounded the boulder and came into sight, the Ranger stepped his dun out, his Colt raised and cocked, ready to fire.

  “Stop right there, Gus Holt. Don’t try it,” he said, seeing the man grab for a Remington revolver at the sound of his name.

  The gunman didn’t heed the warning. He reined his horse down hard and yanked the Remington up, cocking it on the upswing, moving fast. But not fast enough. The Ranger’s big Colt bucked once in his hand and sent the gunman flying back off his saddle. The man’s gun flew from his hand as he back-flipped off the horse’s rump in a mist of blood and landed facedown on the trail. The startled horse reared a little, ran forward a few steps, then circled and stooped. Sam sat for a few seconds with his smoking Colt still out at arm’s length, making sure the fight was over.