Crossing Fire River

by Ralph Cotton

  “These horses?” Oates said in mock surprise. He motioned Freedus and Iron Head forward. “Whatever might have happened to cause you men to lose your horses?” His speech was taunting and goading. “We heard gunshots in the night. Don’t tell me you were set upon by horse thieves.”

  “They’re unarmed too,” said Freedus with a grin of satisfaction.

  “My, my, but they sure are,” said Oates, shaking his head. “You four are some brave hombres, traveling this wild desert frontier without firearms.”

  “Stop mocking us, Oates,” Lupo warned. “I’m not in the mood. We followed a man riding Shanks’ speckled barb, leading Paco Zuetta’s horse behind him.” He capped the canteen and pitched it back to Anson, who caught it with his good hand, uncapped it and drank. Wallick and Lilly closed in around him, eager for their turn at a mouthful of tepid water.

  “You don’t say,” said Oates, with a wizened expression.

  “He caught us off guard last night,” said Lupo. “He spooked our horses and took all of our firearms.”

  “That’s a damned shame,” said Oates. “We came upon the same fellow’s trail. Lucky for him he was long gone, else we would have chopped him down, us not being off guard, as you say.” He gave a smug grin, adding, “It’d been a hell of a sight better for you boys.”

  Beside him, Bobby Freedus muffled a laugh. But his laughter stopped short as Lupo stepped forward and jerked the reins of his and Wallick’s horses from his hand. Backing away and handing Wallick his horse’s reins, Lupo turned his harsh stare from Freedus back to Oates. He gave a nod toward two bloodstained feed sacks hanging from Iron Head’s saddle horn. “I see you’ve managed to gather some bounty for yourselves.”

  “We have, indeed,” said Oates, changing from his teasing tone to a more civil reply. “This is Paco and Claw, trimmed back some for traveling, of course.”

  “Of course,” Lupo said flatly, watching flies circle and buzz above the two dark bloody feed sacks.

  “I expect if you was of a mind to you could sign as witness to us having brung them in,” Oates said. “It would keep us from hauling them around out here in this damned heat?”

  “You didn’t kill Paco and Claw, Oates,” Lupo said with confidence. “The gunman told us he killed them.”

  As the two spoke, Anson walked over to where Iron Head sat holding the reins to his and Lilly’s horses and reached out for them. The half-breed turned the reins over to him. Anson walked over beside Lupo.

  “I never said we killed them,” countered Oates. “But it makes no difference who did the killing. The Mexican government is paying bounty for them, dead or alive. There they are, dead as hell. It doesn’t matter how they got that way.”

  “Bounty money is bounty money, however you want to cut it,” said Bobby Freedus. He glared at Lupo and spit with an air of contempt.

  Oates gave Iron Head a nod and the half-breed lifted the sacks and pitched them to the ground, close to Lupo’s feet. The heads landed with a solid thud. Flies scattered.

  “Damn!” said Anson, jumping back from the bloody sacks. But Lupo didn’t flinch or back an inch. He stood rigid and kept a firm hold on his horse’s reins, keeping the animal from bolting.

  “All’s I need is for you to sign a statement as a representative of the Mexican government, identifying them,” said Oates. “Your word will be good enough in Mexico City, you and the general being such good amigos.”

  Lupo stared at him.

  “I expect that’s not too much to ask, us bringing your horses to you and all,” said Oates. Then he added in a lowered tone, “Nobody has to ever hear about how one man outgunned all four of yas. It’ll be our secret from now on.”

  “He didn’t outgun us,” Anson cut in sharply, his fists clenched at his sides.

  “He just as well have outgunned yas,” Oates, replied to Anson, keeping his eyes riveted on Lupo as he spoke. “I’d as soon a man shoot me as strip me of my guns and transportation.”

  “I will identify Paco Zuetta and Claw Shanks for you when we reach Chihuahua. It is the nearest town where they can pay you the bounty,” said Lupo.

  “Chihuahua? Damn,” said Oates, “that’s five or six days back and forth. We hadn’t intended on riding back just yet. There’s still wanted men to be hunted out here. Jake Goshen’s men are scattered everywhere along the border. We need to stay on them.”

  “Chihuahua. That is my condition, take it or leave it,” Lupo said flatly. “I know we will all three sleep better along the trail knowing that you have an interest in our arriving there safely.”

  Squatting, Lupo opened one of the bloody bags, then the other. He looked in at the blue-black faces as he held his breath and squinted against buzzing flies. Recognizing the two outlaws, he stood and stepped back from the feed sacks, dusting his hands together. “It’s them, all right,” he said, making a face of disgust and revulsion.

  Oates sat silent for a moment, ignoring Lupo’s remark, but considering his offer. Realizing it would be pointless to argue the matter any further, he said, “All right, damn it. We’ll ride with you fellows to Chihuahua, if that’s what it takes for us to get paid.” He turned to Iron Head and gave a nod toward the two feed sacks. “Toss them heads away from here. The quicker we can get rid of them two stinking bastards, the better.”

  Iron Head slipped down from his saddle, picked up the two sacks and heaved one after the other out onto the sandy ground. As the half-breed remounted his horse, Oates gave a toss of hand toward the two bags and said, “So long, Paco. Adios Claw. . . . Hope both you sonsabitches find hell to your liking.” He turned back to Lupo and said in a tone of authority, “Mount up. Let’s get started. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.”

  Lupo ignored Oates, not about to start taking orders from him. He looked at Wallick, Anson and Lilly and nodded for them to mount up. As he swung up into his own saddle, he said to Oates, “You three ride ahead. We’re going to pick up our weapons. We’ll meet you along the trail.”

  “Your weapons?” Oates said with a wry chuckle. “If you’re going after the man who did all this to you, we best stick with you. Like you said, we don’t want nothing happening to you until we get our money.”

  “We are not going after him,” said Lupo. “By now he is well on his way to the border.”

  “He said he’d leave our weapons along the trail,” Wallick cut in.

  Oates gave a wide grin, so did Freedus. Iron Head sat staring with only a thin trace of a smile. “You amaze me, Easy John,” Oates said, managing to not laugh in Lupo’s face. “The man loosed your animals, shot one of your men and cracked the other’s nut for him . . . you think he’s left your weapons waiting for you?”

  “Yes, I think he has,” Lupo replied in a firm voice.

  “If it’s all the same with you, Easy John,” said Oates, “I propose we ride along while you collect those guns, just in case we have to keep this one man from eating you four boys alive.”

  Chapter 5

  On the trail back up into the rocky hillside, Lupo and Oates led the others until they reached a spot less than a mile from where they had been set afoot and weapon-less. Slowing his horse, Lupo looked up at the edge along the higher trail before them. Realizing what a perfect stretch of trail this would be for an ambush, he looked back at Booth Anson.

  “Anson, you and Wallick ride ahead, scout this trail for us,” he said.

  Oates smiled to himself, knowing the only reason for sending men ahead along this trail would be to draw any gunfire that might lie in wait. Anson knew the same thing, and he gave Lupo and Oates both a scowl of resentment as he and Wallick pushed their horses forward and passed them along the trail. “Wait for us where you find our weapons,” Lupo called out to them as the two rode away.

  Anson didn’t answer. Wallick gave only a wave of his hand in acknowledgment. Riding away, Anson said to Wallick under his breath, “Can you believe this? He might just as well come out and tell us we’re both expendable, far as he’s concerned.”
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  “That’s not why he sent us,” said Wallick. “He just wants to make sure there’s no—”

  “Aw, hell, smarten up, Wilbur,” said Anson, cutting him off. He gigged his horse’s sides and sent it up into a quicker gait.

  “I’ll try,” Wilbur said in earnest, shrugging and then gigging his horse in order to keep up with Anson.

  When the two had ridden three hundred yards ahead of the others on the narrowing trail, Anson turned in his saddle and said to Wallick with determination, “I ain’t going to Chihuahua, and I ain’t returning to Mexico City either, Wilbur.”

  “You ain’t?” Wallick stared at him, his dull eyes trying to understand. “But they’ll slap you back in that iron collar if you don’t go back.”

  “No, Wilbur . . .” Anson took a deep breath and tried to keep patient with Wallick’s slow-wittedness. “They can’t collar me if I’m not there. You see, the only way they could collar me if I am there . . . or you either, for that matter.”

  “You do what suits you, but I’m going back,” said Wallick. “I’m not taking any chances.”

  Anson looked at him, too puzzled by his words to know how to reply. After a moment, Anson shook his head and said, “We did what was asked, Wilbur. We brought him this far. We would have shown him deep into Texas had he wanted to ride on. But now he’s wanting to turn back to Mexico City. What does that mean for us? Do we get thrown back in jail because we didn’t track the whole Goshen Gang across the border?”

  It was too much for Wallick to sort out all at once. He pondered and wrung his head back and forth with a puzzled frown. “Now I don’t know what to think. Maybe you’re right,” he admitted.

  “You’re damned right I’m right,” Anson said with conviction. “Ma Anson raised no fool. I’m staying far away from that iron collar. They want me, I’ll be across the border, cooling my hocks. If you want to stick with me, you’re welcome to.”

  “You mean make a run for Texas or somewhere?” asked Wallick.

  “Jeez, yes, Wilbur,” Anson said in frustration. “What have we been talking about here?”

  “What’ll we do over there?” Wallick asked dully, nodding ahead as they rode along.

  Anson stared at him for a moment. Then he kept a patient voice and said, “Never you mind for now. But I’ve got plans, Wilbur, you can count on it. When they took that collar off me, they let lightning out of the bottle.”

  “Lightning in a bottle!” Wallick laughed. “That’s funny, Booth. I like that you’re always saying funny stuff like that.”

  “Whoa, Wilbur, look here,” Anson said, veering his horse to the side of the rail ahead, where their rifles and revolvers lay piled on a rock. “I’ll be damned. He did leave our guns for us, just like he said he would.” Anson slid down from his saddle and looked all around warily. “Keep watch for a trick of some kind,” he said in a whisper.

  Wallick stopped his horse and looked all around the craggy hillside above them. Anson snatched up his Colt right away, checked it and found it unloaded. “The sonsabitch stripped my bullets.” He shoved the Colt down into his empty holster, then picked up his rifle and checked it. “Empty! Damn it,” he cursed, looking back and forth along the hill line above them.

  Wallick slid down and picked up his guns and checked them. “Mine to,” he said. He reached for Lupo’s revolver, but Anson said, “To hell with it. They’re all unloaded. Let’s get out of here before we get ourselves jackpotted again.”

  “This is going to make Lupo madder than hell,” said Wallick, dropping Lupo’s revolver back onto the rock beside Lilly’s weapons.

  “I’ve not yet seen Easy John get mad about anything and, believe me, I have scouted him out just to see how far I could go,” said Anson. He grinned, stepping back into his saddle and turning to the trail, slipping his rifle down into its boot. “Anyway, I don’t give a damn how mad he gets, I don’t expect to ever see his face again.”

  Wallick swung up into his saddle, leaving the other unloaded guns lying on the rock. “You mean all them times you needled him, it was just to see what it would take to make him mad?”

  Anson gave him a smug look and said, “Let’s just say, I like to know the boiling point of any man holding my collar and chain.” He gigged his horse forward.

  “You sure are something, Booth,” said Wallick, gigging his horse along beside him.

  “Stick with me, Wilbur,” said Anson. “You ain’t seen half of what I’m up to.” In moments the two had ridden out of sight, leaving dust from their horses’ hooves hanging in the still-hot air.

  Shortly after the fine trail dust had settled, Lupo, Oates and the others rode up and stopped, looking down at the rock where the remaining weapons lay in the glittering sunlight.

  Gazing after the two fresh sets of hoofprints leading off away from them, Oates said, “Looks like that scout of yours might have had a pressing engagement elsewhere.”

  Bobby Freedus chuckled to himself.

  Lupo only hung his head, staring down at the hoofprints, seeing a double X stamped into the front shoes of both horses. Then he breathed deep and gazed off in the direction Anson and Wallick had taken. Riding up beside him, Lilly stepped down from his saddle and began picking up his and Lupo’s weapons and checking them. “I can’t say that it comes as any surprise to me,” he said to Oates, handing Lupo’s revolver up to him.

  “Gracias,” Lupo said quietly, taking the gun and shoving it down into his empty holster.

  “Well, I don’t know what you expected, Easy John,” Oates gloated to Lupo, “taking a handful of jailhouse rats and thinking they would hunt down one of their own kind.” He glared at Lilly as he made the cutting remark. He spoke with a hand on his holstered gun butt.

  Lilly ignored Oates and asked Lupo, “Does this change anything? Are we still headed for Chihuahua, or back to Mexico City, or are we going after Anson and Wallick?”

  Oates cut in, “If it was me, I’d go after them and swing them from a scrub oak. You can’t let people do you that way. Word gets around, Easy John—you ought to know that.”

  “What about your bounty?” Lupo asked quietly, as if already knowing the answer.

  “Sign some paperwork for me to take,” said Oates, “like I wanted you to do to begin with.”

  Lupo smiles slightly to himself and turned his horse back on the trail. “We go to Chihuahua,” he said.

  “What? And let these two get away?” Oates asked, finding it too incredible to believe.

  “They won’t go far,” said Lupo. “They are not hard to follow.” He didn’t mention the stampings on the horses’ shoes, although the double Xs were clear enough if a person wanted to concentrate on seeing them.

  “You act like you almost wanted this to happen, Easy John,” said Oates, still using the name that Lupo did not seem too happy with. Narrowing his brow with a look of suspicion, he called out as Lupo rode away, Lilly right behind him, “You didn’t have things planned this way, did you?” He gigged his horse along behind Lupo, Iron Head and Freedus right behind him.

  “No,” Lupo said without looking back, “I did not plan on them running away. But I would have been a fool had I not considered the possibility.”

  Beside him, Lilly gave him a closer look as they rode on side by side. “What’s he talking about, having this planned?” he asked quietly between the two of them.

  “Nothing. He is simply letting his mouth air itself out,” Lupo replied sidelong without looking at him.

  “What did you mean, they wouldn’t be hard to find?” Lilly asked with a trace of his Scottish accent. “If we’re through out here, why can’t they ride on? Why can’t we be shed of them? We’re better off without them anyway, are we not?”

  “You ask me four questions without taking a breath, Mr. Lilly,” said Lupo. “Which one would you most like me to answer?”

  Lilly’s lips clenched shut. “Whichever suits you, sir.” He stared straight ahead.

  Lupo said patiently, “They will be easy to follow bec
ause both of their horses wear store-bought double X shoes from Arizona Territory.”

  “Oh?” Lilly gave him a curious look. “Did you plan it that way when you brought the three of us horses?” As he asked, he looked down at his own horse’s hoofprints behind him.

  “Planned or unplanned, it is a fact, and we will use it when the time comes to find them,” Lilly said. “Then he said, “Do not bother to look. Your horse is not wearing double X shoes.”

  “Oh,” said Lilly, feeling better for some reason. He relaxed in his saddle.

  “Yours is wearing three Starbach shoes with a single star stamped on the front edge of them.”

  Lilly grumbled under his breath, recalling how his horse had slipped a shoe a week earlier. He’d had one forged and replaced outside of Sonora. “Blast it all,” he murmured to himself. Then he said to Lupo, “I thought you and I had formed a trust between us these weeks on the trail.”

  “We have, Mr. Lilly,” said Lupo. In an offer of explanation he said, “It does not matter whether I had the horses shoed in such a manner. Would you not have taken note of such a thing yourself?”

  “I didn’t take note,” Lilly offered. “But from now on I will.”

  Lupo gave only a slight smile, still staring straight ahead as they rode on.

  Lawrence Shaw didn’t know at what point the endless Mexican badlands beneath the speckled barb’s hooves became Arizona Territory. He did not even consider the question. Yet he recognized the small supply town when its rooftops and tent points rose up slowly from the sand lying in the distance before him. He also recognized the tiny black speck that he’d spotted an hour earlier as it moved toward him at the head of a rising column of dust.

  As the black speck turned into a freight wagon drawing closer, pulled by three mule teams, Shaw had directed the barb with a tap on his knees and led the other animals into the broken shade of a family of saguaro cactus. There he slipped down from his saddle and waited, resting his animals until the buckboard drew closer.