Crossing Fire River

by Ralph Cotton

  “But what about those lawmen?” Anson asked.

  “To hell with them,” said Myra. “Unless I miss my guess, they’re the men I’m talking about.” She grinned in her excitement and jerked her horse around in order to follow Hewes and his men. “Either way, I’ll get to see somebody shot!”

  Wallick looked at Anson warily as the two turned their horses to follow her. “What if it’s us she sees killed?” he asked under his breath.

  “Shut up, Wilbur,” Anson said acidly. “Sometimes you just have to think positive and hope for the best.”

  The three followed Hewes and his men at a safe distance, the way scavenging wolves follow hunters on a game trail. . . .

  Two miles before reaching the outskirts of Banton, Bowden Hewes brought his men to a halt and motioned them in close around him. He knew when the three dead gunmen came back to him tied down over their saddles that this drifter was not someone to be taken lightly. He didn’t know what had happened out there in the sand hills, but the dead outlaws had been the drifter’s way of calling him out to finish things between them.

  But Hewes was no fool, he thought. He wasn’t riding in blindly. “Everybody, listen up,” he said. He paused for a moment, then asked, “I need three men to ride in ahead of us and check things out before all of us go riding in.”

  The men sat in silence for a moment. Finally Terrence Web asked bluntly, “Check out what things? He’s either there or he ain’t.”

  Hewes gave him a hard, silencing stare. “Are you giving me guff, Terry?” he said menacingly.

  Web shrank back. “No, sir,” he said meekly. “I didn’t mean to at all.”

  “If we come across him while we’re scouting,” Collie Mitchum asked, “do you want us to kill him before we ride back?”

  “Are you saying you’re one of the three, Collie?” Hewes asked.

  Mitchum shrugged. “Yeah, I’ll go. I’ve never seen a bummer yet that caused me a loose stool.”

  “That’s the spirit,” said Hewes with a proud smile. To the others he said, “I always said Collie makes a big pair of dents in his saddle.” He raised a finger and said, “A hundred dollars each for the three scouts if they bring this drifter’s head back on a stick. It’ll keep the rest of us from having to bother killing him.”

  Web, feeling he needed to do something to make up for questioning Hewes, said, “Count me in. I’ve been wanting to kill something for the past month.” He looked around with a grin. “A hundred dollars just sweetens the pot for me.”

  “Keep your hundred dollars,” Jesse Burkett said in a distorted voice through his still-swollen lips and his cracked, jagged teeth. “I’ll kill that drifter son of a bitch on the cuff.”

  “All right,” said Hewes. “Looks like these three all make big dents in their saddles.” He stepped his horse to the side and said, “Well make a camp over there behind the rise. Be back by daylight. If he’s not swinging from your saddle horn, then we’ll all ride in and shake that town until it spits him up to us.”

  Terrence Web asked, “What if we run into Bert Willis, Maddox and Cooder? Do we have to share our hundred dollars with them if we kill him?”

  “No,” Hewes said flatly. “But you can give them this message from me. Tell them all three I want their sorry asses out here pronto. They were supposed to be back yesterday. Tell them they’d better have a damned good explanation.”

  “We’ll give them your message,” said Mitchum. Turning his horse and riding away, he said under his breath to Web and Burkett right beside him, “But they ain’t helping me spend any of my hundred dollars.”

  From his hotel room overlooking the dirt street, Shaw watched the three riders appear out of the darkness into the flickering light of oil pots lined along the empty dirt street. They kept their horses at a slow, cautious pace, looking back and forth, seeing no one, hearing no sound save for that of a twangy piano playing halfheartedly at the saloon at the far edge of town.

  “Here they come,” Shaw said over his shoulder to the other three. “He only sent three men.”

  “Only three gunmen?” Jane asked in an exaggerated tone. She shook her head. “Three armed gunmen ain’t nothing to sneeze at. Especially if they’re Hewes’ gunmen.” She looked up from where she sat in a wooden chair, her right boot off, her bare foot crossed onto her knee. She held a pocketknife she’d been using to trim her toenails.

  “Get your boots on, Janie,” said Shaw, stepping back from the window. “It’s time for you to go to the wagon.”

  She closed the pocketknife, put it away and pulled on a dingy, toeless sock. While she pulled on her boot, Dawson and Caldwell walked to the door. “We’ll have you covered,” Dawson said over his shoulder to Shaw.

  Shaw watched the buckskin-clad woman stomp her boot into place and snatch her battered hat from a wooden table beside her chair. Shoving it down onto her head, she gave Shaw a wink and a grin and said, “I’ll have you covered too—just don’t shoot at me by mistake.”

  On the empty street, Terrence Web was the first to see the three wooden coffins leaning against the front of the barbershop, their lids standing beside them. Upon recognizing the bodies of Bert Willis, Parker Maddox and Fred Cooder inside the coffins, he jerked back hard on his reins and caused his horse to rear slightly in protest.

  “Whoa!” Web called out, settling his horse as it made a full circle turn.

  “Jesus . . . ,” said Burkett as he and Mitchum also spotted their dead comrades. The men turned their horses to face the barbershop. “I guess they won’t be needing a good explanation after all,” he added.

  The three corpses had been washed, dressed and properly attended to by Wheatis Buckley. Their cheeks had been circled with rouge, their lips reddened with lipstick, their skin coated thickly with paraffin. A single stitch of black thread held their eyes shut, another in the center of their lips kept their mouths from gaping. Their shirt cuffs had been sewn to the front of their shirts, keeping their hands crossed at their wrists.

  “Get down from these saddles,” said Jesse Burkett in his distorted voice. He slid his rifle from its boot on his way to the ground, eyeing the dark shadows of doorways and alleys in the flicker of oil light.

  “What’d you see?” Web asked, keeping his voice low. He slid down from his saddle with his Colt coming up from its holster and cocking instinctively. He scanned the empty street.

  “What I see is, we’re sitting ducks here,” Burkett said, the sight of the three dead gunmen having made a sudden sobering impression on him. “Spread out. This drifter is watching us right now. He got us in his gun sights.”

  From the dark shadow of an alleyway, Shaw said in mild, even tone, “You’re right, I’ve got you covered. I have ever since you rode up onto the street.”

  “What the hell is your game anyway, Mister?” Web asked, stepping forward. His Colt was half raised, ready to fire. “Are you looking to be cut in on something? You’ve heard maybe there’s some loose gold lying around?”

  “Shut up, Terry,” Burkett warned.

  “Yep, I’m after the gold,” Shaw said, stepping closer, getting too close for the gunman’s comfort.

  “That’s close enough, drifter,” said Burkett, recalling how quickly and unexpectedly this man had busted him in the mouth with a rifle butt.

  But Shaw kept advancing. To Shaw’s right, Collie Mitchum stepped sidelong, taking up a good position for himself. “I mean it,” Burkett warned. His right hand slapped closed around the butt of his revolver, his other hand gripping his rifle.

  But Shaw kept walking.

  “That’s our gold, in case you don’t know it,” said Web, still talking to Shaw as he came ever closer. “You’ve got no claim to it.”

  “I’m a lawman,” Shaw said. “I saw the setup in Hewes’ barn. I’m taking over the gold.”

  “You’ll play hell,” Web said.

  “What kind of lawman goes around butt-whipping a man, and killing them like they’re dogs?” Web asked.

  “The
kind who’s been sent to clean up along the border,” Shaw said quietly, still coming.

  “If you’re a lawman, where the hell’s your badge?” Web asked.

  “I’m not that kind of lawman,” Shaw replied to Web as he stopped in front of Burkett.

  “That’s too close,” said Burkett, nervously taking a half step backward, his left arm up, holding his rifle in front of him as if it were a shield.

  “Who killed these men?” Web demanded, sounding outraged.

  “Who do you think?” Shaw said to Web without taking his eyes off Burkett.

  “What’d they do?” Web demanded. “A lawman can’t go around killing men for no reason. What lawman would do something like that?”

  “You’re looking at him,” said Shaw, his eyes still on Burkett. From the far end of the street Jane rode forward in a freight wagon from the livery barn.

  “You best have some answers,” said Web. “There’s going to be—”

  “Shut the hell up, Web,” said Burkett through his swollen lips and busted teeth. He kept his eyes locked on to Shaw’s. “Can’t you see what this man is fixin’ to do here?”

  Web got it. “Not to me he ain’t!” he shouted, raising his Colt quickly, already cocked and ready.

  Even with Web’s gun already out of the holster, Shaw’s Colt streaked up and fired. The bullet bored through the gunman’s forehead and slammed him backward up onto the boardwalk and into the three coffins. The coffins fell sideways like dominoes, spilling the three bodies out onto the boardwalk.

  In front of Shaw, Burkett saw his chance to make a move. But before he could lift his Colt or swing his rifle, Shaw’s big Colt snapped upward. The gun barrel struck Burkett under his chin, lifted him onto his tip-toes and sent him backward onto the ground.

  Without stopping, Shaw’s Colt finished its swing in a high arc, settled out at arm’s length and sent a bullet slamming into Collie Mitchum’s chest. Mitchum got off a wild shot as he fell on the ground backward, dead.

  Jane had seen the fight begin, but it was all over in what seemed like a second. It had happened so quickly she’d had no time to stop the wagon and watch, or even duck down as the third outlaw’s bullet sliced through the air over her head. “Dang!” she said, her mouth open in awe, the wagon still rolling along on the empty street.

  Shaw stepped back and looked off along the street in the direction the gunmen had ridden into town. Smoke still curled from the tip of his Colt. His eyes searched the darkness beyond town. Then, seeing nothing, hearing no retaliation from anyone lurking in the shadows, he lowered the Colt and looked toward an alley where Dawson and Caldwell had stood waiting to back him up.

  “That went smoothly enough,” Caldwell said to Dawson.

  “It always does when he’s around,” Dawson replied. The two remained out of sight as Jane Crowly eased the wagon to a halt beside Shaw and looked down at the dead lying all around.

  Chapter 21

  From the corner of an alleyway across the street, Myra Blount swooned headily at the sight of the bodies lying bloody and broken in the flickering firelight. “It’s not what I thought it’d be like,” she rasped, clinging to Anson. “It was so fast! They just flopped down like rag dolls. . . .”

  “I saw it,” said Anson, guiding her back into the sheltering darkness. “Now, let’s get out of here before somebody sees us.” Wallick stood farther back in the darkness, holding their winded horses. They had ridden hard, circling wide around Hewes and the rest of the men when they’d seen these three men ride on into Banton.

  “Wait! Not yet,” said Myra, halting, looking back toward the street, where Jane had stepped down from the wagon.

  “You saw what you said you wanted to see,” Anson whispered harshly. “It’s over now.”

  “I saw what I wanted to see, but I heard some things I want to hear more about,” she said, pulling herself loose from him with a hard shove. “Didn’t you hear them talking about the gold?”

  “It’s just nerves talking, Myra,” Anson said impatiently, wanting to leave before they were discovered lurking on the fringes. “It’s the way men talk before they commence killing one another.”

  “Don’t try telling me what men do or don’t do,” Myra shot back at him. “I’ve got more than my share of knowing about men. If that stolen gold is around here somewhere, I want to find it and take it off their hands.” She gave a wicked grin. “If you boys are too short in the wick to help me, then cut out. I’m sticking.”

  Anson just stared at her, considering things for a moment. Wallick called out in a worried voice, “Are we going or staying, or what?”

  “Shut up, Wilbur,” Anson said over his shoulder. Then to Myra he said, “If I thought there was anything to that talk about gold I’d be all over it with you. But I don’t believe there is.”

  “Your time is so important you can’t stick around and find out?” she asked with a teasing expression.

  “I’m not scared, if that’s what you think,” Anson said.

  “Then stand still and keep quiet,” said Myra.

  On the street, Jane walked forward and watched Shaw stand up with Burkett’s Colt in his hand. “Lord! I never seen nothing like that in my life, Lawrence. Had I batted an eye I would have missed it.”

  “It always goes fast,” Shaw said flatly. He dropped the bullets from Burkett’s Colt into his hand and slipped the empty gun back in Burkett’s holster. The gunman lay groping in the dirt, trying to find his way back to consciousness.

  “Yeah, but not that fast,” Jane added. They both watched Burkett try to push himself to his feet.

  Shaw reached out and gave the bleary-eyed gunman a hand. “Shake it off, Burkett,” he said, pulling him to his feet. “You’ve got work to do.”

  “Huh?” Burkett staggered in place like a drunkard. His chin had already swollen around a gash made by Shaw’s gun barrel. As his memory awakened, he felt around on his chest for any bullet wounds. “Who . . . ? What . . . ?” He stared all around at the bodies on the ground. A look of distress came to his face.

  “That’s right,” said Shaw, “you’re the last one standing. I had to kill these two.” He gestured toward the bodies of Web and Mitchum. The other three bodies lay in the dirt, prepared for burial, their wrists still crossed, stitched to the front of their shirts.

  Shaw’s words had an awakening effect on Burkett, even through the pain throbbing in his chin and his previously busted mouth. A fire came into his eyes. “You should have killed me, Mister!” he shouted in his thick, distorted voice. His hand snatched the Colt from his holster and leveled it at Shaw. He clenched his broken teeth in spite of the pain. He wore the look of a man who had just felt the power of taking control.

  But Shaw shook his head and said, “Burkett, don’t make me smack you again. You’re running out of face.”

  “Mister, get set to die!” Burkett growled.

  “Your gun’s not loaded,” Shaw said calmly. “Drop it back in your holster.”

  Burkett cocked the Colt. “You’re bluffing,” he said.

  Shaw angled his head in curiosity. “Why would I be bluffing about that? It’s either loaded or it’s not.”

  “Yeah, you idiot,” Jane cut in. “Put the gun away. If he kills you, I’ll be the one having to drive the gut wagon back to Hewes.”

  But Burkett would have none of it. He pulled the trigger. Nothing. He cocked and pulled it again. Still nothing. Again, nothing. Looking at Shaw, he let out a breath, lowered the Colt into the holster in defeat and said to Jane and Shaw, “What gut wagon?”

  “This gut wagon,” said Jane, gesturing a hand, “with these bodies in it.” She gestured around at the ground.

  Shaw stared at him intently. “Take them to Hewes. Tell him these are for Raul.”

  “All this over one dead vaquero?” Burkett said, shaking his head slowly. “Hewes won’t buy it. You said it was about the gold a while ago. Which is it, Raul or the gold?”

  “Tell Hewes to take his pick,” said Shaw. �
�I rode out to his place. I saw what he’s getting ready to do with the gold. I’m taking it over. Tell him he can ride in and try stopping me right here, or else I’ll be coming across Fire River to kill him.”

  “That’s bold talk for one gunman with nothing but a loudmouthed she-man on his side,” said Burkett, giving Jane a scornful look.

  “You son of a bitch—” Jane took a step toward him, but she was stopped by nothing more than a strong look from Shaw.

  “Those odds have served us well so far,” Shaw said calmly. “I think we’ll keep playing them.” Burkett hadn’t seen Dawson and Caldwell, Shaw’s aces in the hole. Jane gave a thin, proud grin, liking the idea of being included with Lawrence Shaw, Marshal Dawson and Caldwell the Undertaker.

  “Then you’re a fool, Mister. Bowden Hewes has enough men with him out there to ride through and level this town with one pass,” said Burkett.

  “Tell him to choose,” said Shaw. “He can die right here tonight, or in his own front yard.” He took a step backward and gestured a hand toward the ground. “Load up and haul them away.”

  In the alley, listening, Myra turned to Booth Anson and said, “There, did you hear that about the gold, or is this too much for you to take in all at once?”

  “I heard it,” Anson replied. “But there’s only three of us. What can we do against Hewes and his bunch?”

  “If this lawman or drifter or whatever the hell he is keeps killing them, pretty soon there’s going to be none of Hewes’ men left to worry about,” said Myra, turning and walking quickly toward Wallick and the horses.

  “Wait up,” Anson whispered. “Where are we going?”

  “You heard him,” said Myra. “The gold is at Hewes’ place. “We’re going after it while these fools all kill one another.”

  Hewes and his men had mounted and rode forward at the sound of the gunfire coming from Banton. By the time they’d ridden a mile closer, they saw the black outline of the wagon rolling toward them. “Watch out for a trick of some kind,” Hewes said. He and the rest of the men reined their horses to a halt, spreading out as they did so, their revolvers and rifles in hand.