One Man's Fire

by Ralph Compton

  “I’ve had plenty of time to sort through what happened at that ranch. Plenty of time spent in a cage with my thoughts. Nobody even tried to come back for me or fire a single shot at the men who pinned me down. You and the others may just as well have been on your way out before I was bushwhacked!”

  Jake sighed as his face took on a more contemplative and melancholy expression. His hand remained squarely on the grip of his gun. “Can you really blame us?”

  “You’re damn right I can. I was the one who got his head cracked open. I was the one who was locked up like an animal and I was the one who nearly got his neck stretched!”

  “You’re also the one who got away to have this conversation right now,” Jake said with a raise of his eyebrows. “Ain’t that something?”

  Eli wasn’t even close to being affected by the change of tone. “That doesn’t matter. I was left to my own devices. Anything I did after that is my affair.”

  “All right, then,” Jake said. “How’s this? You’re the one who put us all in jeopardy by acting as if bullets bounced off your skull. Either that or you’re the one who didn’t much care whether you lived or died.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t try to act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, Eli. We’ve all seen it for some time. Even Cody saw it and his head’s full of rocks.”

  “Saw what?”

  Jake leaned forward a bit, as if to narrow the world down to just him and Eli. “Saw that look in your eyes whenever a gun went off. While we were looking for a place to find cover or kill the man pulling the trigger, you were charging into the path of the bullet. You’re the first one to step up when another man draws his weapon.”

  “When Hank does something like that, it’s a good thing,” Eli pointed out. “Why should I be chastised for it?”

  “Because Hank’s returning fire. He’s looking for a resolution. That’s what all of us are doing. We’re trying to get our job done and get away so we can come up with another job.”

  “So, what do you think I’ve been doing?”

  Now Jake began pacing within the room. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. Near as I can tell, you’re trying to get to the end of this life so you can see what else is next. Considering the sort of mud hole this world can be, I don’t rightly blame you. Still, that kind of behavior don’t exactly make it easy to be around you sometimes. If you weren’t such a good thief or close to magic when it comes to cracking a lock, I would have cut you loose after our first few rides together. And don’t give me that horse manure about you getting those headaches. It takes more than that to make a man charge into gunfire with a smile on his face.”

  Eli’s voice was so weak, it almost seemed to be detached from the lungs that gave it life. “That’s not true.”

  Shaking his head, Jake replied, “We all choose this way of life for a reason. Some men have demons. Some are too stupid to know any better. Some are just too mean to live like civilized folk. But you’re different. You’re a smart fella, Eli, and you see a lot more than most anyone else around. That’s what makes you such a good thief. That’s also what made you lose hope.”

  Eli turned around, the desire to get Jake out of his sight overpowering the instinct to keep the gang leader where he could keep track of him. “What would you know about that?” he snarled.

  “Because I make it my business to size a man up in a short amount of time. It’s how I ran at the front of an outlaw gang without getting shot in the back. It’s how I know which people to threaten, which to sweet-talk, and which to kill.”

  “Is it also how you decide who you’ll cut loose so they could be jailed or worse?”

  Surprisingly enough, when Eli turned back around, he saw Jake was nodding. “Yeah,” the gang leader said. “It is.”

  “So you handed me over to those men from McKane Trust and Loan?”

  “Where’d you hear about that?”

  “Never mind,” Eli snapped. “Is that what you did or isn’t it?”

  “They don’t work for the McKane Company, but they do represent some mighty big interests in this territory and several others along with a few states back East.”

  “Don’t make me ask again,” Eli said as he closed his right hand around the grip of his .38.

  Without wavering, Jake said, “They made an offer to Hank when he was scouting that iron wagon in Omaha. I don’t know if Hank approached them or if he was found out, but the offer was made for us to hand over one of our own in exchange for allowing us to ride away.”

  “Ride away from what? We hadn’t even fired a shot at that wagon when Hank was scouting.”

  “We’d been burning a path through three territories in as many months,” Jake mused as if he were fondly remembering a string of pretty ladies he’d courted. “Some of those payrolls we helped ourselves to were connected to larger companies, and rich men can afford to cast their gaze in a whole lot of directions. It was only a matter of time before some of those rich men decided to get together and do something about men like us. But there was money that never stopped flowing from one town to another.” Jake was actually laughing when he added, “I heard tell that some larger company was shipping their money to one spot for safekeeping, so I thought I’d hit it. I already had Hank to do my scouting and a few men like Cody drifting in and out of the gang to add firepower. All I needed was someone to crack open the safes and lockboxes. That’s where you came in.”

  The two men were slowly pacing in a circle, always keeping each other in sight. “It turned out better than I could have hoped,” Jake continued. “The only thing that changed from job to job was that a few more guards were tacked on for us to burn through or a bigger safe was wrapped around all that cash. You saw to them safes and the rest of us burned through the guards.”

  “You never thought those rich men would catch on?” Eli asked.

  Jake rolled his eyes at that and said, “It was bound to happen. If we could keep nabbing that money, there was no reason to stop.”

  “It wasn’t that much money. We usually walked away with enough to live on and gamble or waste on liquor and women, but not much more than that.”

  “The money ain’t the point! You know that! It’s not as if men like us will just get enough stashed away and go buy a farm,” Jake said as if he were spitting out each distasteful word. “That company pegged us as foolish cowboys without the gall or brains to hit them more than once. Every time we took one of them strongboxes and you cracked it open was sweeter than the last! I saw that in your eyes too, so don’t deny it. In fact, the only thing that ever gave you any joy apart from drinking enough whiskey to ease them headaches was cracking open a lock of some sort. It’s what you were made to do.”

  Unable to deny that statement, Eli said, “Every time we took a strongbox, that company took more notice of us.”

  “Eh, they don’t matter. I never even cared about the name of that company until I was told about that place across the street.”

  “We don’t need to know the name of the men we steal from,” Eli said. “What matters is when too many of those men get together to hunt us down. Too big a price on our heads could be a death sentence. You let us all ride straight into the fire, Jake.”

  “One man’s fire is another man’s incentive. I’ve ridden with gangs that had the run of a town or two and all it did was make them lazy enough to be picked off by any lawman with enough sand to come looking for them. That company, whatever it’s called, was full of itself, had too much money, and needed to be taken down a peg. We got to pluck some low-hanging fruit until it was time to find a way out. Handing you over just happened to be that way. The man who spoke to Hank while he was scouting that iron wagon laid it all out for him. A bounty was about to be placed on our heads that was big enough to bring every scalp hunter this side of the Mississippi after us. It was also big enough to put a sizeable dent in those rich men’s coffers. If we agreed to part ways on their terms, they’d steer us toward someone else’s
low-hanging fruit and they wouldn’t have to pay up on that bounty.”

  Eli scowled. “The head of some fat company came up with this?”

  “No!” Jake said with a smile that bordered on triumphant. “It was the men hired to provide security for them rich men. The ones conducting business here in Cheyenne. They got sick and tired of losing men and chasing us all over creation. I’m betting things would have been different if they’d found all of us sniffing after that iron wagon instead of just Hank. Since they couldn’t clean us out then, they did the next best thing by striking a deal.”

  “And handing me over?”

  “That was a way for them McKane fellas to save face and make it look like they did something to earn their fees. They capture one of us, get their hands shook when the robberies stop, and get to be the ones hired by those rich men to guard the funds being brought into Cheyenne. Actually,” Jake said with a beaming smile, “it ain’t a half-bad plan.”

  “It is when you’re the sacrificial lamb.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s a mighty big shame.” The two men had come to a stop with Eli’s back to the door and Jake’s to a window. “You became a dangerous man, Eli, and not in the good sense. You took on that ghostly look in your eyes that a man gets when he forgets his reason to keep living. That sort of thing happens to most of us at one time or another. But you hung on to it. I think it’s because you look around so much.”

  “What?” Eli let out a frustrated breath. “This was a bad idea to talk to you like this. There’s nothing you can say to make things right. I suppose I just wanted to hear what was going through your head when you hung me out to dry after I thought we’d become something close to friends.”

  “You never thought that,” Jake said. “We were good partners. That’s all it ever was. You’re always looking at things so closely. You figured out all you needed to know about me after the first day or two we rode together. I could tell that much just like I could tell you never stopped looking at every last thing around you. When you’re fidgeting with the tumblers of a lock, that’s a good thing. When you’re studying every aspect of this harsh world and everyone in it, that ain’t so good. Sometimes you gotta let things slide. Like that Amazing Willhelm dandy we saw at the Birdcage when we went through Tombstone. Remember him?”

  Although he’d been ready to draw his pistol and put an end to the ill-advised conversation, Eli was intrigued by the random change of subject. “You mean the fella who did them tricks?”

  “That’s the one. He made cards disappear from one hand and they’d show up in another. He wasn’t that good, but he was a hoot to watch.”

  “He was terrible,” Eli grunted.

  “That’s because you were watching too hard,” Jake said while pointing a finger at him. “Sometimes you just need to kick your feet up and let some things pass. You never let anything pass, Eli. That’s why you’re always troubled and that’s why getting gunned down might seem like a real good way to put this harsh existence behind you.”

  “Jacob Welles, known murderer, bank robber, and horse thief, is trying his hand at philosophy. Now, that’s a hoot.”

  “You might not wanna die, but you ain’t too fond of livin’,” Jake said simply. “I seen that plenty of times in the faces of men like me who want to ride hard and go down in a blaze of glory. It’s a hell of a way to leave a mark on this world. Get one thing straight. I didn’t want to hand you over to them company men. That is, not until we took down that iron wagon. Until that day, I was about to tell Hank to stick his plan where the sun don’t shine and find another piece of fruit to pluck. But when you rode up to the side of that wagon, stared into that opening, right down the barrel of the rifle being pointed out of it, and didn’t get yer head blown off, you were disappointed.”

  Eli started to interrupt, but was cut short by a swiftly raised hand. Holding out that hand as if he were stopping someone from crossing a street, Jake said, “And when you had the drop on that man back at that ranch, you hesitated. You hesitated when you had a clean shot. A shot that could have allowed you to get back on your own two feet and get to the rest of us. The Good Book says the Lord will help thems that helps themselves. I was right there and if I saw you make the first move to help yourself, I would’ve helped you. What I saw was a man at the end of his rope with no interest in pulling himself up. I got no use for a man like that in my gang other than as something to trade to get the rest of us out of hot water. Was that the answer you were after when you dragged me into this room?”

  “Actually…yes. It was.” When he heard footsteps coming up the stairs down the hall, Eli figured the rest of the answers he’d been after would be on the way as well. Surely Heather would have found someone in the billiard hall who knew something useful.

  “So, where does that leave us now? More importantly,” Jake added with a mischievous smirk, “are you gonna tell me how you got out of that jail cell?”

  “Maybe some other time. I assume you’re in town for the money that made it to McKane’s Trust and Loan, so let’s see what we can see about that place.”

  “How’d you know to look for us here?”

  Jake’s growing curiosity didn’t bother Eli as much as the approaching footsteps. They would arrive at the door in a matter of seconds, and there was no telling what Jake would do once he got his hands on Heather.

  “I’ll tell you about it once we’re done with this job,” Eli said. “Until then, you’ll just have to trust that I need money and—”

  “And some men to watch your back if them law dogs come after you again, huh?”

  “Right,” Eli said in a voice that was loud enough to carry through the door. “Just move along now.” Hoping Heather heard him and heeded his advice, Eli lowered his voice once again. “Move along with the task at hand, that is.”

  The footsteps outside paused near the door and then moved along. Eli let out a relieved exhale.

  “You ain’t gonna put a bullet through my back, are ya?” Jake chided.

  “Not until this job is over.”

  The gang leader laughed and began moving toward Eli as well as the door. “I should get back to my room. Cody should be back any time and I think you’ll like what he’s bringing along with him.”

  Not only were the footsteps still moving along the hallway, but they were too slow for Heather to be anywhere but directly in Jake’s line of sight the moment he emerged from the room. Before that could happen, Eli grabbed the handle. “I thought I heard someone out there,” he said to Jake. “Why don’t I surprise Cody myself?”

  Before Jake could say anything or move in closer, Eli squared his shoulders to the door to block as much of it as possible from the gang leader’s view. He then pulled the door open and thought of what he might say to Heather to get her into another room without tipping his hand to Jake. Whatever words he might have prepared became lodged in his throat when he saw someone else standing outside the room.

  “There you are,” Saunders said with a relieved smile. “Did you find Jake yet?”

  “You should probably move along,” Eli stammered, still hoping to salvage the situation before it toppled out of his reach.

  “I couldn’t find anyone outside and thought you might need some backup,” the sheriff said. “We might as well stick together.”

  Everything behind Eli was deathly still. He took a quick glance over his shoulder to find Jake standing a few paces behind him and angled so he could see the hallway over Eli’s shoulder. “I remember you, law dog,” Jake said. Shifting his eyes to Eli, he added, “Now, this is another surprise.”

  Judging by the look on Jake’s face, he didn’t enjoy this surprise nearly as much as the last one.

  Chapter 23

  “He a friend of yours, Eli?” Jake asked.

  Eli felt all of the warmth drain from his body. While some folks might have compared that to someone walking over his proverbial grave, this seemed more as if someone had found that grave, stood on it, and done a raucous jig. “He�
��s the one that told me you came to Cheyenne.”

  “That’s a shame. Figured you were just smart enough to track me down.” Jake nodded slowly and flexed the fingers poised above his holstered .44. “Guess I gotta cut you loose a second time.”

  Saunders stood in a sideways stance while looking over Eli’s shoulder into the room. “Not if I have anything to say about it,” he announced. “I made him come with me to find you. He didn’t have a say in the matter. Both of you are coming back with me to answer for what you done. There ain’t nothing to say about that either.”

  As Jake glared at the men in front of him, Eli could hear another set of footsteps coming down the hall from the direction of the stairs. “Heather!” Eli shouted, since there was no more need for subtlety. “Get away from here!”

  Rather than retreat, the footsteps charged toward the door.

  Saunders pivoted on the balls of his feet to face the end of the hall.

  Most disturbingly, Jake didn’t budge.

  In the hall, two bodies collided like a pair of rams locking horns over a disputed mate. It didn’t take long for Eli to realize that one of those bodies was most definitely not Heather’s. It was the patch over one eye that caught his attention first, telling Eli that Hank had gotten the drop on Sheriff Saunders.

  Knowing Jake wasn’t above taking a shot at an enemy’s open back, Eli skinned his gun and twisted around to catch him in the act of drawing his Smith & Wesson. Jake snarled a string of obscenities at him, even as a wild shot from Eli’s .38 hissed past his left side. Both men dived for cover behind the biggest thing in the room, landing on the floor on either side of Heather’s bed.

  Jake’s foul language continued as he pumped a few shots under the bed and into the floor to cause a commotion in the room below. Since one of those rounds sent splinters flying only an inch or so away from him, Eli rolled away from the bed and scrambled to get his feet beneath him.

  At the door, Saunders was fighting for his life. Even though he’d already drawn his Army Colt, Hank was too close to put it to much use as anything other than a club. He fired a shot at first, which only sailed past its target and down the hall to set off a chorus of women’s screams. From then on, Saunders pounded the side of the pistol against Hank’s shoulder, back, ribs, or anywhere else he could land a blow. When he attempted to knock the Colt against Hank’s temple to put the outlaw down, Hank pressed his face against the sheriff’s neck to allow the weapon to sail over him while only scraping the back of his head. Not one to waste an opportunity to do some damage, Hank sank his teeth into the lawman’s neck in a crude but effective attack.