Showdown at Gun Hill

by Ralph Cotton

  Purser stepped his horse out from the cover of the sunken boulder and looked down at Holt on the ground, blood running out of his chest in a puddle beneath him.

  “That’s what you get, you son of a bitch,” he said to the body on the ground. He swung down from his saddle and started to step closer.

  “Stay back,” Sam said. He dropped the spent shell from his Colt, replaced it with a fresh round and closed the gate. Gun in hand, he swung down from his saddle and picked up the Remington, shoving it behind his gun belt. He stooped and rolled Holt onto his back and saw a letter sticking up from the pocket of his flared-open lapel. Purser eased in closer now that the Ranger had Holt’s Remington in his belt.

  Sam unfolded the letter and read it.

  “Here it is, in Curtis Siedell’s own handwriting,” he said. “Siedell’s instructing that two hundred thousand dollars be delivered out here by two of his rail detectives.”

  “Two hundred thousand dollars!” Purser said, stunned at such a high figure.

  “Let’s drag him off the trail,” Sam said, grabbing Holt by the front of his riding duster. Purser stepped in and took the dead man by his wrists.

  “Why’d you ask the quality of horses I brought Bo?” Purser said as they dragged Holt off the trail into some rocks and brush.

  “He only has three men with him, counting Siedell,” Sam said, thinking of no reason not to tell him. “He’s riding over here among the pueblo hill dwellers. He can’t just ride into their lair without offering them something.”

  “The horses?” Purser said, putting that much of it together. He paused and said, “But the hill dwellers don’t have much use for horses. They mostly travel on foot.”

  “They’ll ride horses all summer long if they’ve got them,” Sam said. “Come winter they butcher them and dry the meat.”

  “So the horses were food gifts for the hill dwellers,” Purser reasoned.

  “That’s what I figure,” Sam said. “These people have no use for money. But for something as useful as horses, they’d give Anson the run of the hillside. Like as not they’ve already spotted us and told him we’re here.”

  Purser looked higher up along the rocky hillside, at a flat cliff hewed level by hand, and black openings like dark eyes looking out across the lower earth.

  “Don’t look for them,” said Sam. “You won’t see them unless they want you to.”

  “I don’t want to think about getting killed and scalped in my sleep,” Purser said, but he stopped scanning along the hillside.

  “They’re peaceful enough,” Sam said, straightening and dusting his hands. “Anyway, here I come, peaceful or not.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Ranger,” Purser said as they walked back to their horses, “what do you care about freeing King Curtis Siedell? He’s a no-good son of a bitch.” He swung up atop his saddle and gathered the lead rope to the spare horse.

  “I care nothing for Siedell,” Sam said. “But he has a right to all protection provided by law. Like it or not, I’m part of that protection—I swore an oath to it.” He swung up atop the dun and turned it to the trail. “Anyway, I didn’t come looking for Curtis Siedell, or Max Bard or Bo Anson. I was on my way to Yuma on some other business. All this just fell in my lap. Now I’ve got to finish it.”

  * * *

  Atop a terraced cliff higher up and farther along the row of black abandoned mine entrances, Bo Anson looked down through his telescope. He watched the Ranger and Jim Purser in the circle of the lens as they rode into sight around a turn on the lower trail. Beside him a hill dweller stood with his slim, weathered arm extended, pointing out the two riders.

  “Take your arm down before I break it over my knee,” Ape Boyd said to the old Indian with a hard stare.

  “Leave him alone, Ape,” said a gunman named Bird Harkins, one of the men Bo Anson had sent ahead a week earlier to secure them a place among the hill dwellers. “Cole and me won these filthy savages over. We don’t need you coming in undoing everything.”

  George Cole, sitting beside him, nodded in agreement.

  “Bird’s right,” he put in. “That ragged old bummer is held high among these hole livers. Leave him alone.”

  “It’s hill dwellers,” Harkins corrected him quietly.

  “What’s the difference?” said Cole. “This old turd don’t know what I’m calling him anyway.” He gave the old Indian a wide smile and nodded. “Ain’t that right, old turd?”

  The old Indian only stared with a blank expression. He hadn’t told any of them he understood their language. He watched and listened, and kept his arm up a few seconds longer before dropping it to his side.

  Ape glared at Harkins.

  “That’s twice you’ve butted in, tried to tell me what to do. Do it again, I’ll kill you,” he growled.

  “Save all your threats, Ape,” said Harkins. “I ain’t easily impressed. Besides, somebody had to say something, you pissing off the cliff like that. What about the poor Indians walking on the next level down?”

  “What about them?” Ape said. “Let them think all their rain-dancing paid off—”

  “That’s enough, all of you!” Bo Anson roared, jerking the telescope from his eye. “We’ve got that damn Ranger riding up on us. Jim Purser is with him.”

  “How’d they find us?” Harkins asked, surprised.

  Anson just stared at him without reply.

  “They followed your tracks, you raving idiot,” Siedell cut in, getting his fill of the outlaws—finding them a far different breed than the guerrillas he’d ridden with back when he and Max Bard’s gang rode side by side.

  The men appeared to not even hear Siedell amid what he considered their mindless banter.

  “Jim Purser . . . damn,” Cole said to Anson. “Has the Ranger got him cuffed?”

  “Doesn’t look like it to me,” Anson replied. “You and Bird get down the switchback somewhere and kill them before they get up here.”

  “Bo!” said Ape, as if stricken by a great idea. “What about I just go get the big gun, carry it down and chop them to pieces?”

  Listening, Siedell just bowed his head and shook it slowly in disgust.

  “Jesus,” he whispered under his breath.

  “No, Ape, the big gun stays up there, to cover me,” Anson said, lifting his eyes upward toward the top of the cliff line above them. “I want it in your hands, in case these two bite the dirt.”

  Harkins and Cole looked at each other as they stood up and picked up their rifles.

  “We’re not going down, Bo,” Harkins said with confidence. He glared at Ape and added, “And we don’t need no Gatling gun to send one Ranger on the road to hell.”

  “Yeah, Ape,” Cole taunted as they headed for the open front of the ancient chiseled-out Spanish mine, “maybe you’ll have us a pot of coffee boiled when we get back—we’ll tell you all about it.”

  “Son of a bitch . . . ,” Ape snarled as the two walked out and down along the footpath. The Indian looked at Anson, got a nod from him and turned and walked away behind them.

  Against the stone wall Curtis Siedell sat handcuffed, his boots and hat missing. He slumped even more now that he knew the Ranger was coming up the path. Any hope of him convincing Anson to take him somewhere to a bank and get the ransom money was gone now. With the Ranger here, a gun battle was coming. He’d seen his share of battles years ago. His only hope now was to stay down and stay alive.

  “Get up on top, Ape,” Anson said. “Make sure the tripod will let you aim that Gatling down along this path before the Ranger gets here. Stay up there and be ready for him.”

  When Ape left at a trot toward the Gatling gun set up atop the cliff line, Anson turned, picked up a rifle and looked over at Siedell.

  “And now here we are, just a couple of ol’ long-rider outlaws turned businessmen.” He gave a thin smile behind hi
s thick mustache and a week’s worth of beard stubble. “Would you call this an emergence of sorts or an out-and-out takeover?”

  “I call it me struggling all my life to make my fortune, and having a thieving, murdering scoundrel come take it from me,” said Siedell.

  “Ain’t that how big business and outlawing both work?” Anson grinned. “You spend part of your life stealing what you can, and the rest keeping the next thief from stealing it from you?”

  “Wise thinking, Bo,” Siedell said, keeping the contempt and sarcasm from seeping into his words. “If I had my hat on I’d tip it to you.”

  “You’re taking it awfully well, King Curtis,” Anson said, “me gutting you for two hundred thousand dollars.” He eyed Siedell with suspicion.

  “What choice do I have?” said Siedell. “If you kill the Ranger, I’ll have to suck up my loss and take it like a gentleman. As long as I’m alive, I’ll figure a way to make back my losses.”

  “Should I have asked for more?” Anson said.

  “No, two hundred about clears my table,” Siedell replied. “My people would refuse to send any more than that amount.”

  He wasn’t about to tell Anson that giving up two hundred thousand wouldn’t hurt him. He’d cut the pay of his employees and up the price of shipping on his rails, and get that money back in no time—a lot less work than what Anson had gone through to take him prisoner and set all this up. What low-class thieves like Anson didn’t realize, Siedell reminded himself, was that the only thievery worth committing was the kind where the laws of commerce protected its own.

  Damn fool . . .

  “You do realize that my detectives will not hand over the money unless they see I’m alive, and they’re able to secure my release, don’t you?”

  “That is understandable,” said Anson, liking this kind of talk, businessman to businessman. He pointed at Siedell for emphasis and said, “You realize that if it comes down to me and that Ranger and holding a gun to your head to get myself out of here, you’re a dead man.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Siedell. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”

  “Yeah, I thought you’d feel that way,” Anson said. He stooped, picked up a pair of boots and pitched them both over at Siedell’s bare feet. “Pull them on. Where we’re headed I want you to be able to keep up.” As he spoke he picked up a torch leaning against a rock. He pulled a long wooden match from his shirt pocket.

  Siedell nodded, picked up the boots one at a time and pulled them up over his bare feet. No sooner had he gotten the boots on than he flinched at the sound of a rifle shooting from down on the lower hillside.

  “Hurry yourself up, King Curtis,” said Anson. He wagged his rifle barrel toward a black mine shaft entrance that led through the stone wall off to their right. “It sounds like the fight has commenced. This will take us down onto the trail. I’ll catch the Ranger by surprise.”

  “Down there?” Siedell said, looking at the shaft opening with apprehension. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t get ate up by rattlesnakes.”

  “Snakes, huh?” Bo Anson gave a flat, mirthless grin as he struck the match and lit the head of the torch. “Just think of it as a family reunion,” he said. “Now get moving.” Outside on the lower trail, another shot resounded.

  Chapter 24

  The Ranger and Jim Purser both pulled their horses back and swung them off the trail when the rifle shot zinged past their heads and kicked up dirt on the hard trail behind their horses’ hooves. Before the shooter could get a fresh round levered and get another shot off, Sam swung his dun off the trail, Purser right beside him. With only enough short rock cover for themselves, they shooed their horses and the spare away and ducked down.

  On a ledge only fifty feet above the trail in front of them, a second shot rang out. They hugged the ground as the bullet chipped fragments of rock into the air. A puff of gray smoke billowed atop the cliff, revealing the shooter’s position.

  “Stay here, Purser. Don’t try to leave,” Sam said, rising into a low crouch.

  “Leave?” Purser said, his voice shaky. “Where else am I going to go, Ranger?”

  Sam didn’t answer. He took off his tall sombrero and rose just enough to look around and find another low rock closer to the trail. He knew once he sprang into sight, there was no turning back. He’d have to be ready to turn a dangerous move into an opportunity. As he waited, another shot rang out.

  Here goes. . . . He leaped up, running forward, his rifle against his chest in a flat port arms, the barrel pointed toward the cliff where more gray smoke drifted sidelong on the air. Atop the cliff the rifleman sprang up, seeing his running target. But as he took aim, certain the Ranger would keep racing toward cover, to his surprise, Sam came to a fast, sliding stop, his rifle springing up to his shoulder, his head cocked over to his right, taking quick aim.

  The shooter, having given his running target some lead, the way a hunter would give lead to a fleeing elk, suddenly realized his rifle sights had jumped ahead of the halted Ranger by three yards. Uh-oh, this is no elk! He jerked his rifle sights back onto his target just in time to catch the Ranger’s bullet in the center of his chest. Sam saw the man fall away as a shot from his rifle exploded and thumped into the ground five feet to the Ranger’s right.

  Sam ran on to the rock and dived behind it as another rifle reached out over the cliff and fired down at him.

  Two riflemen up there? Looking up, he saw a man hurrying upward, hand and foot, along a steep, rocky path to the next terraced level ten feet higher up. Sam started to take aim, but before he could he saw the man’s boots go out of sight up over the edge.

  “Get up here, Purser. You’re covered, but hurry,” he called back over his shoulder.

  “Yes, I will, Ranger,” Purser called out sharply. He sprang up and raced forward, sliding down into the dirt beside the Ranger.

  “There’s another one up there,” Sam said.

  “I know,” Purser said. “I saw him take off.”

  Sam looked all around, farther along the trail and up the side of the rocky hill right behind them.

  “These old Spanish mule-cart trails are going to stay switchbacks until they get up to the mine paths,” he said.

  “I thought you’ve never been here,” Purser said.

  “I haven’t,” Sam said. “But I’ve been to some just like it. The Spaniards laid all these old mining sites out the same way.” He nodded up the bare stone hillside to where the open mines appeared to glare down on them. “A man could die quick searching from one mine opening to the next with a Gatling gun breathing fire down on him.” He paused, then said, “It’s up there somewhere, watching, just waiting for us.”

  “What are we going to do?” Purser asked with a pale worried look on his face. “We leave the horses here, the Indians will have them and be gone before we can get back down and stop them.”

  “We’re going on up the switchbacks until we get to the first mine,” Sam said. “I’m leaving you and the horses there while I find the big gun.” He studied Purser closely, seeing the wheels starting to turn in his mind.

  “All right, I got that,” Purser agreed, nodding. But he paused and then asked, “What if the gun starts shooting at us while we’re headed up the switchbacks? What will we do then?”

  “We’ll get out of its way,” Sam said flatly.

  * * *

  Anson and Siedell had traveled down through the mine shaft to a fork where another shaft led them out onto the switchbacks three levels down the hillside. When they stepped out onto the trail, Anson spotted the Ranger and Purser leading their horses up the trail toward him. Pulling Siedell back out of sight into the mine shaft opening, Anson peeped around an edge of stone and watched the two walk inside the first dark opening a quarter of a mile downhill from him. He glanced up atop the hillside to where he knew Ape was waiting with the Gatling gun ready to fire.


  “It’s all going my way.” He chuckled to himself.

  Inside the first mine shaft, Sam and Purser tied their horses’ reins around the iron wheel spoke of an ancient upturned ore cart.

  “All right, Ranger,” said Purser, sounding more than happy to be left behind with two saddled horses at his disposal, “good luck up there. I’ll be waiting right here—rooting for you, you can count on it.”

  “I know I can,” Sam said. He reached out and snapped a handcuff around Purser’s wrist. As Purser stared in stunned surprise, Sam snapped the other cuff around the same iron wheel spoke the horses were hitched to.

  “Hey, what the—” Purser said. He jerked his cuffed hand back and forth as if testing the cuffs. “You can’t leave me handcuffed here. What about all these Indians? They’ll cut my throat and take these horses.”

  “These hill dwellers are peaceful folks,” Sam said. “But you’re right about them taking the horses.” As he spoke he pulled the big Remington from his gun belt and stuck it down into Purser’s empty holster. Purser looked down at the gun, started to put his hand on the butt. “Touch that Remmy while I’m still here and you’ll feel life make a sudden stop,” Sam warned.

  Purser pulled his hand up from the gun butt as if it were red hot.

  “What if you don’t come back, Ranger?” he said.

  “I’ll be back,” Sam said, “especially knowing you’ll be right here ‘rooting’ for me.” Facing Purser, he backed out of the shaft opening, rifle in hand, and started walking up the trail. He kept close to the stone facing of the hillside, moving steadily but cautiously from one shaft opening to the next, expecting at any moment to hear the Gatling gun exploding and see its rapid flashes light up the blackness.

  At the entrance to the mine shaft where Anson and Siedell stood out of sight, Anson gave his handcuffed prisoner a shove farther back inside. Siedell stumbled backward and sat down hard on a large rock.

  “You stay right there until I finish this,” Anson said. The blackened torch that he had extinguished leaned smoking against a wall. Anson knew Siedell had no matches, and he knew the man wouldn’t attempt to go back inside the black meandering mine shaft without a light in his hand. “Make any noise, I’ll start carving off fingers and toes,” he warned.