by Ralph Cotton
“What makes you so sure of it?” The Ranger rounded a finger inside the tin cup, looking down into it, taking his time, inspecting it. He added in a lowered tone, “I’ve had that sort of thing happen before. A boy grows up some, gets to wondering about his pa…thinking about the man that put his daddy in jail.” The Ranger shook his head in concern. “You never know what might come of it.”
A silence passed as Durant gazed away, then back into the crackling low flames. His eyes turned deep and lost for a moment. He seemed to shiver. Then he said in a tight tone, “My son is dead, Ranger. There. Are you satisfied?”
The Ranger and Sheriff Tackett let Durant’s words sink in. Somewhere a lone coyote cried out from the desert floor. “I’m sorry to hear that, Willis,” the Ranger said at last, lowering his voice even more. “I truly am….”
A cool night breeze moved in across the sand flats, smelling of scorched earth and dry juniper. Again the coyote called out, its voice lingering high up in the darkness. The Ranger stepped over Willis and put his tin cup inside his saddlebags, thinking about all that Durant had said, trying to imagine what was going on in his head. Had he been hunting for Wandering Joe? If so, why? He’d said Wandering Joe had some information he needed. What sort of information was it?
The Ranger moved nearer to Willis Durant. He looked down at Durant’s bowed head, and, playing a dark hunch, he asked in a soft voice, “And the boy’s ma? The Ute woman? She’s dead too, isn’t she?”
Durant didn’t answer. He lifted his face and only stared up into the Ranger’s eyes.
“Isn’t she, Willis?” The Ranger stared back until Durant’s dark eyes could take no more.
Durant turned his face away. “Go to hell, Ranger!” A muscle twitched in his tight jaw. “Yes, she’s dead too! What of it? It’s no business of yours.”
The Ranger slid his glance over to Tackett, then back to Durant.
“Jesus,” Tackett whispered. Then he sat quiet, watching, listening, seeing how far the Ranger could push the man, how much he could get Willis Durant to give up.
The Ranger went on in a quiet, relentless tone. “Your woman’s dead. Your boy’s dead. And here you are on your way to prison, to have to think about it the rest of your life. Don’t tell me Wandering Joe had something to do with killing them? What kind of low, lousy animal would be riding with the man who killed his family—?”
“He didn’t kill them! All right?” Durant flashed a smoldering glance at the Ranger. “Wandering Joe had nothing to do with it!”
“But he knew who did, didn’t he?” the Ranger pried. “That’s the information he had, right?”
Durant only stared straight ahead, but the expression in his eyes said the Ranger was right.
“Who are they, Durant? Tell me their names,” the Ranger said, still in a quiet tone.
“I’m not telling you! Now get out of my shirt about it! I’m warning ya!”
Warning…? The Ranger watched Durant struggle forward, trying to rise onto his feet, his hands cuffed behind him, hampering him, slowing him down.
“That’s enough, Durant. Take it easy.” The Ranger reached out with his dusty boot toe and shoved him back against the saddle on the ground. “You don’t have to say no more about it. If you want the ones who killed your woman and son to go free, I reckon it’s your choice.”
“Damn you, Ranger!” Willis Durant trembled in rage. “I see what you’re trying to do. But that’s all you’re getting from me. I’ll kill the ones who did it. They’re my business! My business alone! Not yours or anybody else’s!”
“Ordinarily I’d agree with you on a thing like that.” The Ranger stooped before him, still speaking in a low, calm tone. “But the fact is, you’re not going anywhere, Willis Durant. So put escaping out of your mind. Either you tell me who killed them, right here and now, or they’ll go free. How’s that going to feel to you…seeing their faces night after night, all them long years in prison?” Across the desert floor, the coyote called out once more through the darkness, its voice raised as if in protest against the stark land and the endless sky above it.
“How do you think it would feel to me, Ranger,” Durant said under his breath.
By noon the following day they were halfway back to town. They’d run out of water, and their horses had begun moving in shorter, more labored steps. They pulled off the trail and stopped at the sun-bleached adobe of an old Mexican goat herder who made his home at the edge of the desolate sand flats. The weathered adobe stood where a steep natural cut bank rose up forty feet and the land spread back on a higher level, covered with sparse clumps of grass and scattered mesquite brush.
The goat herder had spotted them from atop his rise of land and stood waiting for them with a gourd full of freshwater as they made their way up to him. Lank goats had gathered about him as the riders came forward, but now they moved away, seeming to shy from the sight and smell of death on the string of tired horses walking behind the Ranger’s white barb.
By the time the three riders had checked their horses down in front of the old Mexican, the goats had drifted back into a black angle of shade beside the adobe. They watched from there with their heads lowered, twitching their scraggly ears.
“Aw, Ranger,” the old man said smiling, handing up the water gourd. “I see so many riders pass here five days ago on the flat lands…and I ask myself, why would these loco gringos be out on the land in this kind of heat?” His smile widened. He stepped around, looking at the bloated bodies beneath a shiny swirl of blowflies. “But now I see why. It is never too hot for the law, and the lawless, eh?”
“Yep, that’s a fact.” The Ranger drank from the gourd, then stepped down, handing the old man the lead rope to the grizzly string of sweaty horses with their bundles of sour swollen flesh atop them. “They hit the bank back in town last week. I’ve been riding with Sheriff Tackett here…tracking them down across the desert.” He brushed a hand up and down his sleeve, and dust billowed. “Can you put us up for the night? Our horses are blown pretty bad.”
“Sí, of course I put you up…for the price of your story.” He fanned a hand back and forth, wincing at the terrible smell of death. “Go water your horses first. I’ll bring these dead desperados in when you are finished.” He squinted one eye shut and pointed his finger at the bodies as if it were a pistol, clicking his thumb up and down.
Tackett and Willis Durant stepped down from their stirrups and followed the Ranger as he led his white barb toward the low stone wall of a water reservoir beneath a cottonwood tree. Recognizing Willis Durant beneath the layer of grimy sweat and thick dust on his face, the old Mexican called out to him, shaking his head, “Santa Madre! I do not believe my eyes! Willis Durant! What have you done, mi amigo? Surely you have not gone back to your desperado ways?”
“Don’t concern yourself about it, old man,” Durant said without turning around.
Ten feet from the stone reservoir, a small burro walked in a slow languid circle, turning the long pole that ran from its back to a squeaking waterwheel. Gourd after gourd of muddy water rose from a dark hole in the ground. The water poured into an overhead trough and ran over and down into the stone reservoir. The Ranger pulled up a wet plank that stood damming the trough and allowed water to run out into another trough, this one on the ground at their feet. The three tired horses stepped in and lowered their muzzles into the muddy water, drawing long and deep.
“Seems like everybody’s as surprised as we are, Durant.” The Ranger passed him the gourd full of clean water. “Reckon you’ve let a lot of folks down.”
“I did what any man would do,” Durant said. He raised a drink of water with his cuffed hands. When he let them down, he stared into the Ranger’s eyes. “I’ve heard you’ve got a woman yourself, Ranger. Tell me what you would have done…under the same circumstances.”
“Well…” The Ranger considered it for a second. “I wouldn’t go rob a bank, that’s for certain. Can’t see how breaking the law would solve anything.”
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br /> Durant didn’t answer right away. Instead, he passed the gourd on to Tackett, who took it, drank from it, then dipped his bandanna in it. Tackett pressed the wet bandanna against his brow, up under his dusty hat brim.
“The law is the last thing on a man’s mind when something like that happens,” Durant said, once he’d thought about it and let out a breath. “What man gives a damn about the law when his family’s been butchered like animals?”
The Ranger could see Durant was still boiling inside with rage. But at least Durant had let down a little. He’d began talking about it. That helped. Now that Durant had started talking, the Ranger needed to keep him talking, get the whole story out of him somehow.
“You stepped way out of line, Durant,” the Ranger said, just to keep the conversation going. “No man has a right to go against the law, to settle things for himself, no matter how bad he’s been wronged. Had you used your head, the law would have been after your family’s killers right away. Instead, you put yourself outside the law…got yourself in more trouble than you can get out of.”
“All I knew is that I had to get to these men,” Durant said. “Had to find them any way I could. Wandering Joe Gully knew where they were.”
“Oh? And did he tell you?”
“No, he didn’t. I…I never got the chance to ask him.” Durant stalled before he answered—just long enough that the Ranger could tell he was lying. “I still don’t know where they are, Ranger. That’s the truth.”
“Then I reckon you never will know,” the Ranger said, not wanting to push too hard all at once. That was enough for now. Give the man time…he’d come around. He’d given up a lot already.
The Ranger pulled the white barb back from the trough. The big horse slung muddy water from its muzzle and shook out its damp mane. “If you ever change your mind, decide to tell me who they are…I’ll listen. Otherwise, you’ll just have to live with it from now on.”
The Ranger hitched the white barb in the shade of the cottonwood tree, walked over to the old Mexican, and took the lead rope from him. Flies swirled. Durant stood watching the Ranger through caged eyes while the Ranger and the Mexican watered the rest of the horses and led them off away from the others to loosen the bodies from their backs and drop them on the ground.
When an hour had passed, and Tackett had seated Durant against the cottonwood tree, stepping back to keep him covered with his pistol, Durant still stared after the Ranger, watching him talk with the old Mexican. The two of them walked to the black spot on the ground with their arms loaded with mesquite and sun-bleached twigs and kindling. The Ranger caught a glimpse of Durant staring at him now and again as he and the old man laid out the makings for a cook fire.
“Willis Durant is a serious hombre,” the old goat tender said. “I would not want to face him with a pistol in his hand.” He looked over at Durant, thirty feet away. “I think he does not plan on you taking him back to town.”
The Ranger only nodded. But the old Mexican was wrong, he thought. Durant would make a break for it if he could—sure he would. But making his getaway was not what he was thinking about right now. Durant had something more to say…maybe not about where the men were who’d killed his family. Not just yet. But he had to say something. Right now he just needed to talk about what had happened. The Ranger had a notion that Durant hadn’t talked about this with anybody. Now that he’d talked about it a little, maybe he needed to get the whole story out—to keep it from driving himself crazy.
That evening when the air began to cool and a cook fire licked up at the rack of sizzling goat meat, the Ranger sliced off a blackened piece of rump onto a tin plate, took it over to where Durant sat with his cuffed hands on his lap, and set the plate beside him. Without looking Durant in the eye, he said in a quiet tone, “Here you are, Willis. Eat that and I’ll bring you some more.”
Without another word, the Ranger had straightened up and started to turn away when Durant said in a shaky voice, “They…they took turns with her, Ranger…before they killed her. Hear what I’m saying?”
The Ranger stopped and lifted his hat brim, but still did not look into his eyes. “Yeah, I hear you.”
“The boy came in…tried to stop them. They…” His voice stopped and could not finish.
“Eat your dinner, Durant,” the Ranger said, stepping back and putting the man off for now. “I’ll bring you some coffee.”
But before the Ranger had walked away another step, Durant said, raising his voice, “They were friends, Ranger. Hear me? They were supposed to be my friends…those two.”
“Oh?” The Ranger only stopped, still not turning toward him. “Try not to think about it right now, Willis. It ain’t helping you none.”
He walked back to the fire and carved off a slice of meat for himself onto another tin plate. Tackett and the old Mexican goat tender stepped in beside him, carving off meat onto their own plates. Grease dripped and sizzled in the low flames. “I heard what he just told you, Sam,” Tackett said, shaking his head as he sucked grease drippings from the tip of his thumb. “Reckon he’ll give it all up?”
“We’ll have to wait and see,” the Ranger said. “He’s one tough knot, that’s for sure. But it’s eating at him pretty hard. He might spill it before we get back to town.”
“I hope he does.” Tackett spoke through a mouthful of meat. “Whoever the men are, I’d hate to see them get away with something like that.”
“Me too,” the Ranger said, lifting a piece of meat from his plate. “But I can’t crowd him about it, I’ve seen that. It’s all up to him.”
Tackett worked a fingernail between his front teeth and spit out a fleck of gristle. “It’s a terrible thing, a man losing his family. I reckon I’d feel the same way he does…wouldn’t want somebody else to kill them, not if I could get to them first. Would you?”
“I don’t like thinking about things like that, Tackett.” The Ranger took a bite of meat and glanced around the endless darkening land. He resented Tackett asking him such a thing. He had no idea what he would do in such a situation. So why even think about it? From beneath the cottonwood tree, Willis Durant stared at him, his dark eyes seeming to smolder—shining deep and determined in the coming darkness.
Chapter 2
There were fourteen riders in all atop the ridge, but now four of them turned their horses and rounded out of sight, into a long dry wash, headed down toward the rails below. A few yards above the flatlands, these four riders took positions back out of sight, above the spot where they could leap out on top of the freight cars without being seen. Their horses stepped back and forth on restless hooves, sensing, knowing something through the tension of the reins—through the feel of the men on their backs.
The ten other riders sat on their horses, strung out atop the stony ridge at a point where they could spot the train as it came out from between the high buttes, leaving behind its billowing wake of wood smoke and steam.
The men could see the train, yet no one on the train could spot them—not from here. Major Martin Zell had sent two riders all the way to the high buttes a thousand yards away to make sure of it before taking this position. Major Zell knew his business. He should—he’d been at it long enough. Behind the line of riders sat a gray-bearded old man in an empty tandem freight wagon. His name was Dirkson, and he watched the others through steely eyes.
The mood and manner of the riders was somber and quiet—no play among these men. They attuned themselves to the work at hand and had no questions about their part in it. When Major Zell robbed a train or raided a town, he did so with military precision. Each man atop the stony ridge knew his job to the letter. Once they hit this train, there would be little talk, and no time wasted.
They’d come here to rob the army munitions car near the rear of the train—nothing else. They would break the coupling and send the rest of the train forward. The four Union soldiers guarding the munitions car would have to be killed. Then Zell and his men would have plenty of time to load their w
agon, disappear across the sand flats, and on across the border.
The operation would go as expected, same as always, Major Zell thought, watching the train below them come out of the long curve where it had reduced its speed. He checked the watch in his hand—right on time—then flipped the watch shut and stuck it into the pocket of his low-cut Mexican vest. “Barnes, prepare your men to descend onto the left flank.”
“Yes, sir, Major,” a younger man’s voice called out. Part of the line broke away, four horsemen in a row, falling their animals back a step, turning them, and then moving quickly and quietly off toward a narrow trail. When the last of the four had moved out of sight, Major Zell turned and nodded to one of the men on his other side. “Parker, you and your three men take position.”
“Yes, sir.” Payton Parker shot the major a caged glance and turned his horse, three men dressed in Mexican attire turning with him. When the four had moved off along another trail in the opposite direction, old man Dirkson in the freight wagon adjusted his loose-fitting straw sombrero down on his head, slapped reins to the backs of the four mules, and moved the heavy tandem wagon out behind them.
“I’ll trouble you for a chew now, Mr. Bowes.” Major Zell held out a gloved hand.
Liam Bowes laid the twist of tobacco into Zell’s hand with a crisp snap and spread a straight, tight grin. He sat with his ornate Mexican sombrero back off his head and resting across his squared shoulders, held by a hat string around his neck. His iron-gray hair lifted on a hot breeze. When Major Zell had taken a bite from the twist of tobacco and handed it back, Bowes took a bite himself and put the tobacco away. “How’s the arm, Major?”
“Fit as ever, Mr. Bowes.” Zell slapped his right hand against his left shoulder. “Let us proceed.” Zell backed his horse a step, then looking around as if to make sure no one was watching, he spoke in a lowered voice, one hand resting on the cavalry saber on his hip. “Watch your backside, Liam. If all goes well, this should be our last raid on American soil. You know the superstition about a soldier in his last battle.”