by Ralph Cotton
“I have, Sheriff,” said the young gunman, sincerely. “I’ve learned to give some thought to character. Some men have it. Some never will. I’m obliged that you slowed me down and taught me that.” He touched his fingertips to the brim of his newly acquired hat, turned, walked out the door, and closed it behind himself.
The two stood watching the closed door for a moment. Finally, Foley said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a gun slip a holster that fast in my life.”
“I do know . . . and I can tell you straight up, I never have,” said Caldwell, as if still in awe.
Chapter 9
Two days out of Crabtown, headed southwest along a ridgeline overlooking Little Mexican Creek, Rodney Dolan ducked low in his saddle at the sight of three riders crossing the wide shallow water. Reining his horse quickly away from the edge he said to the others, “Everybody stay! It’s that damn marshal!”
“Whoa!” said Kuntz, veering his horse so quickly that a short spray of loose dirt spilled off the edge and rained down.
“Damn!” Dolan said, sarcastically. “Why don’t you just call out to them? Tell them we’re up here, you fool!”
“Sorry, Rex,” said Kuntz. “I reckon this horse cuts too sharp for his own good sometimes.” As he spoke he patted his horse’s withers.
“Give him a crack of a pistol butt twixt his eyes, next time,” Dolan growled. “We’ll be lucky if Thornton and his law dogs didn’t see that.”
Shears stepped from his saddle, handed Kuntz his reins, and moved close to the edge in a crouch. He peered down and watched the three horsemen continue across the shallow creek without looking up. “I don’t think they saw anything.” He crept back to his horse, took his reins from Kuntz, and remounted. “Think they picked up our trail, or just happened to be riding in this direction?”
“I don’t know,” said Dolan, “but unless they’re sleep-riding they know there’s three riders on the trail ahead of them.”
“Maybe we can shake them when we get to some flatter ground.”
“We could get back down to the Mexican and ride in it until we find a place where we won’t leave any prints,” Shears offered.
“Ha!” Dolan scoffed. “Good luck shaking an old dog like Thornton once he’s gotten this close. We was lucky in Crabtown, but we can’t keep ducking and hiding forever.” He stared at the two for a moment, then said, “I don’t think we’re going to see much peace until we get rid of Thornton and his men once and for all.”
“Us three against them three,” said Kuntz. He shook his head slowly. “That’s bad odds.”
“The odds might be bad now, but they damn sure ain’t going to get no better.” Dolan looked along the path they’d taken up the hillside from the creek, knowing that soon the marshal and his men would be riding along this same edge. “What we need is to find some good high cover, lay up, and pick their eyes out,” said Dolan.
“Cover is fine,” said Shears. “But I don’t like standing off three lawmen up here, without a place to put a horse into a run if we have to get away in a hurry.”
“Neither do I,” Kuntz agreed, looking warily back along the narrow trail.
“This ain’t something we can spend all day jawing about,” said Dolan. He gazed toward a tall wall of rock farther along the trail. “Follow me,” he ordered, jerking his horse around on the trail.
Two hundred feet below, Thornton’s hand still rested on his Colt as he stepped his big dun up out of Little Mexican Creek. The spill of dirt was all he’d needed. Things would be coming to a head pretty soon. He had spotted Dolan, Shears, and Kuntz during the night through his field lens. These were three of the men he’d been trailing. Where was the fourth?
When the dirt and loose rock had spilled down from the cliff above, he’d seen Ragsdale and Nutt start to turn their attention upward instinctively; but he’d stopped them, saying quickly and quietly, “Don’t look up, you’ll tip them off!”
Now, out of sight in the shade of the cliff along the inner edge of the creek, Nutt said, “Maybe that wasn’t them at all.” He looked back and forth anxiously between the two. “Some critter might have caused that dirt slide, do you think?”
“Damn, Clifford, look at you!” said Ragsdale with a dark chuckle. “You’re not going into a nervous frenzy on us, are you?”
“I asked a simple damn question is all, Porter!” Nutt snapped in an angry trembling voice. “I ain’t nervous about a gawdamn thing!”
Raising a quieting gloved hand toward the two, Thornton gazed sidelong up the rocky cliff side. As if thinking aloud, he said, “They saw us. They know we’re onto them now. But they don’t know that we know they saw us,” he added. “Maybe that’s all the advantage we need.”
“What are you talking about, Marshal?” Ragsdale asked, sounding a little nervous himself.
“They’ll be waiting for us up there, you can count on it,” said Thornton. He looked back cautiously along the trail they’d been tracking the three men on. “I wonder what happened to the fourth man. We don’t want him closing in behind us.”
“This could be a trap! I don’t like riding into a trap,” Nutt said, sounding more rattled by the minute.
“Nobody does, Clifford,” Thornton said, trying to calm the frightened man. “And we’re not going to if we can keep from it.”
At the base of a steep rock wall, Dolan slid his horse to a halt and looked up. “This is it, boys. Up there is where we make our stand.” Eighty feet up, a short scrub pine clung to a thin ledge. He looked both ways along the trail. In either direction lay a long clear stretch that would provide no protection once the lawmen were on the trail beneath them. He gave a cruel grin. “They won’t have a chance to get out of rifle range even on horseback, us lying up among the rock.”
“Yeah, but how the hell do we get up there?” Kuntz asked, looking dubious at the jagged wall of rock streaked with patches of dirt and sparse clinging vegetation.
“We climb,” Dolan said flatly. “And we better do it pretty damn quick, if we want this to be a surprise attack. They’ll be rounding the trail most any time now.” He looked back, checking for the lawmen’s dust.
Shears slid down from his saddle and pulled his horse along by its reins toward a break in a line of thick brush alongside the trail. “I wish Peru was here. We’re going to need some good shooting to get this done.”
Dolan and Kuntz followed the black horse thief onto a steep elk path leading up to the first narrow ledge that widened back beneath the rock wall. They tied their horses to a weathered downfall pine beneath the overhanging cliff, jerked their rifles from their saddle boots, and hurried upward. Gripping rock, roots, and at times climbing hand over hand until they reached the next broken ledge, the three collapsed for a moment, their breath heaving in their chests.
“If I didn’t . . . want to kill this law dog before . . . I sure want to kill him now,” Dolan gasped in a breathless halting tone, “making me . . . do all this.” He waved his rifle in both directions. “Get spread out! One that way . . . one the other,” he demanded. “Don’t shoot . . . until I give the order. We’ll wait until . . . they’re right beneath us. Then we’ll pour it on them!”
Dolan watched the two hurry away in opposite directions and take up positions overlooking the thin trail below. Satisfied they had wisely taken advantage, he lay back and breathed deep, catching his breath, waiting, estimating it would only be a matter of minutes before the three lawmen rode into sight.
But when an hour had passed with no sign of dust rising along the trail, Dolan grew restless, peeped up over a rock as if to make sure the lawmen had not slipped past them, then looked in both directions along the long length of trail. Perfect cover for a perfect ambush, he told himself. Now where were the lawmen?
Almost before the question slipped across his mind, as Dolan backed away from the cliff edge, Thornton’s voice boomed down to him from the top of the rock wall another sixty feet up. “You horse thieves down there. We’ve got you covered. Drop your
guns and raise your hands.”
“Damned if we will!” Dolan shouted in surprise, swinging his rifle up against his shoulder. Even as he fired, rifle shots from above pounded the ground around his feet, keeping him from running closer to the wall and out of their line of fire.
“You’re not going anywhere, horse thief,” Thornton shouted down to him, sounding confident from his higher position.
“Shoot them, boys!” Dolan shouted defiantly to Shears and Kuntz. “Don’t go down easy!” As he shouted he scrambled over the edge of the cliff, rifle in hand, with bullets whizzing past him. Turning, firing up at the lawmen, he noted the blood on the back of his glove where it had run down from under his duster sleeve. “What the—” He turned his hand back and forth, then felt the warm blood running down his chest. “Ah, hell, I’m shot.”
The heavy firing from the high ridgeline lulled for a moment. Thornton called down, “Have you boys had enough? We can rain fire upon your worthless asses for as long as it takes.”
“Go to hell, up there!” Dolan heard Kuntz call out from his position in the rocks. He heard a shot resound from Kuntz’s rifle.
“Thataboy, Hank, damn their hides,” Dolan said to himself. He jerked his glove from his hand and ran it inside his duster. He sighed as he felt the source of the blood flow, a numb two-inch-wide hole where the bullet had exited his right breast. Taking a sweat-crusted bandanna from around his neck, he wadded it up along with his bloody glove and shoved both inside his duster and jammed them into the wound to slow the bleeding.
“Come down and fight, you cowardly sons a bitches!” Dolan heard Kuntz shout. He heard him fire another shot. Then he heard a heavy volley of fire and realized the three rifles had turned their attention in Kuntz’s direction.
Catching a glimpse of someone moving on his right along the outer edge of the trail, Dolan swung his rifle barrel in that direction and saw Shears throw up his free hand and say, “Don’t shoot! It’s me!”
“What are you doing here?” Dolan shouted as the three rifles fired steadily. “Didn’t I tell yas to stay in position!”
“That was when we was going to ambush them!” Shears responded, crouching down beside them. “I figured now that they’s ambushing us I better get out of there!” He stared down along the trail in both directions while rifle fire from the high ridgeline pounded Kuntz’s position. “There ain’t no way to get out of here without getting shot to pieces.”
“See,” said Dolan, “I was right. This is one fine spot for an ambush.”
“I wish Peru was here,” Shears said. “We could use a good gun hand.”
“To hell with Peru,” said Dolan. “He made his bed, he can lie in it.”
Shears gave him a puzzled look and jacked a fresh round into his rifle chamber. As Dolan had spoken he’d adjusted the wadded-up glove and bandanna inside his duster. Seeing the blood on his hand when Dolan pulled it from inside his duster, Shears said, “Jesus, Rex! You’re shot!”
“Tell me something I didn’t already know,” Dolan said with a wince, starting to feel the effects of his wound and the loss of blood.
Noting Dolan’s condition, Shears said, “Hell, man, you’re dying on me!”
“No, I’m not, damn it,” said Dolan. “Don’t count me out long as I can fire a gun.” His eyes swam a bit as he spoke. Shears heard a dazed slur in his voice.
“Have you lost your mind? Hell, you already counted out of it!” said Shears. “I’m giving us up. Peru is the one they want anyway, for killing those Ute horse traders. Hell, even that was self-defense!”
“You’re not giving us up, so shut up and start shooting, darkie!” Dolan warned him.
“Darkie?” said Shears, looking stunned at first, but then offended. “I know you’ve lost your mind now!” Laying his rifle beside Dolan, he stood up and stepped over onto the trail. Hands held high, he walked forward shouting at the ridgeline above the rifle fire, “Hey, we’re through here! We’re giving up, all right?”
The rifle fire that had been firing steadily on Kuntz’s position stopped. Thornton called down to him, “Stay right there.” Thornton looked down, back and forth, seeing Kuntz’s body lying stretched out alongside the trail in a dark puddle of blood. Unable to see Dolan off the edge of the trail, he called out, “Where’s the third man?”
“He’s right back there, shot bad,” said Shears, thumbing back over his shoulder.
“The fourth man?” Thornton called out.
“He’s gone,” said Shears, lying for Peru. “He’s been gone ever since we saw yas there the other day in Crabtown. He got scared and run.”
“Hear that, Clifford?” Ragsdale said to Nutt, giving Thornton a sidelong look of contempt. “They was there under our noses.”
Thornton ignored the deputy’s remark and called down to Shears, “Which one of yas killed those horse traders south of here?”
“He killed them, Marshal. But it was self-defense. Those traders threw down on him first. Anyway, those horse traders worked with us, bought all our stolen livestock . . . seven stole some with us themselves.”
“That’s enough out of you!” Dolan shouted from over the edge. Managing to lay his rifle down over a rock, he took a blurry-eyed aim. “I ain’t sitting here listening to you talk to these damn law dogs!”
“Dolan here is shot bad,” Shears called out, hearing Dolan’s voice growing thicker and weaker. “Will you get down here and give him some help now that we’ve given ourselves up?”
“I told you to shut up, Injun!” said Dolan, getting delirious from the loss of blood.
Injun? Shears started to turn and look back at him, calling out, “Rex, we’re going to be all right. They’re coming down to help us. Just settle down and throw out your rifle—” His words stopped short as Dolan’s rifle exploded.
“Well, there you have it,” said Thornton. He raised his field lens to his eye for a better look, staring down at Shears, who’d fallen to the ground, then struggled up onto his knees. He watched as Shears swung his head back and forth like an injured bull, a long string of blood dangling from his lips. At the edge of the trail Dolan crawled forward, leaving a trail of blood. He collapsed reaching out toward Shears’s body.
Thornton let go of a tense sigh and lowered his field lens. “He was so concerned about his pards, he ended up killing the one who tried to save him.”
“I expect our next stop is back to Crabtown, pick up the fourth man’s trail?” asked Nutt, standing, rifle in hand.
“No,” said Thornton, “we’re through here.”
“But the fourth man killed those horse traders,” Nutt insisted.
“Like as not this one was lying to save himself,” Thornton said. “If the horse traders were really working with them, then good riddance to them.”
“I don’t understand—” Nutt started to protest. But Thornton cut him short.
“You don’t have to understand,” Thornton snapped. “You just have to do what I tell you.” He nodded toward the bodies of the outlaws. “Gather them up. We’re headed home.”
Chapter 10
At the bar inside the Crabtown Palace Saloon, Madden Peru stood alone, looking down at his left boot propped on the brass bar rail along the floor. He wondered why one of his newly acquired boots showed no wear across its top, but had been terribly worn down unevenly on the inside of its sole. Peculiar, he thought, the things you find out about a man after you’ve killed him. He’d never known until now that Shaw had anything wrong with his leg. Of course he’d never seen Shaw except for that one time, the time when he’d shot him dead through the heart.
Peru raised his glass of whiskey and downed it in a gulp. There were lots of other things he didn’t know about Shaw—things he’d never know now. He ran a hand across his mouth and considered the matter, wondering if he and Shaw might have been friends had they met under different circumstances—him not being out to steal the man’s horse, that is.
At the far end of the bar, Jedson Caldwell gave Peru a nod and
got one in return. The story of Peru being the man who killed the fastest gun alive had traveled like wildfire across Crabtown, and beyond. Caldwell had mentioned it to Victor Earles, knowing that soon enough the story would have spread from the diners at the restaurant who’d heard Peru make his claim the night Sheriff Foley arrested him. He couldn’t have kept the story quiet if he’d tried. Besides, Caldwell reasoned, him and Victor being the town’s barber and assistant, it was almost their duty to pass along any such news that came to them.
This was the second night after Peru’s release from jail, Caldwell reminded himself, watching as two local miners approached Peru, bought him a drink, and struck up a conversation. Caldwell looked on, glass in hand, surprised and satisfied at the way Peru conducted himself. “Obliged,” he’d heard Peru tell the miners, accepting the drink, acknowledging in a lowered nonboisterous tone that yes, he was the man who had killed Fast Larry Shaw.
“We both saw Shaw shoot down two hired gunmen at Willow Creek,” one miner said. “We never saw anything so fast in our lives, right, Orville?”
“Right you are,” said the other miner, raising his drink to his lips. Before sipping he said to Peru, “We’ve been all over the West. How come we never heard of you before, mister, fast as you are?”
Caldwell, hearing the conversation clear enough without eavesdropping, looked down and studied the whiskey glass in his hand.
Peru shrugged, drank his shot glass empty, and set it on the bar top. “It’s a big country, I reckon,” he said, not knowing how else to answer such a question.
“How did Shaw take it,” the other miner asked, excitement glinting in his eyes, “the minute that bullet hit his heart? I mean did he just drop dead or carry on some? Could you tell he knew he was dying?”
Peru just stared at the miner for a moment, feeling as if personal ground was being trod upon. “Mister, we both threw down. . . . I killed him before he killed me. That’s all a drink buys you.” He touched his fingers to his hat brim, turned from the bar, and walked toward the batwing doors.