“Not that heavy.”
“Paper money don’t weigh much,” Buttons said. “Hey, look. They’re dragging something out of the barn. What the hell is that? Can you see?”
“Nope, but I’ll guess it’s Barnabas Leighton. Plant one stiff, you might as well plant the other at the same time. Get it done with.”
“What do you think, Red, should we mosey on over there, pay our respects?” Buttons said.
“No, I don’t think we’d be welcome. And if what Luna Talbot took from the coffin is as valuable as I think it is, we might even get shot.”
“Well, she gave us our five hundred, so we’re out of here at first light,” Buttons said. “We’ll have a story to tell about the West Texas ranch where only women ride for the brand.” He grinned. “Lady cowpokes . . . wranglerettes . . . buckerooettes . . . don’t that beat all?”
“Yeah, some lovely ladies who do their own share of killing and hanging. I reckon the Talbot ranch is one tough outfit.”
* * *
Lanterns burned in one of the many box canyons of the steep and rocky Quitman Mountains and drew Crystal Casey like a moth to the flame. Twenty-three years old that summer, she was a former San Francisco whore who’d been taken in by Luna Talbot and made a competent rider. But despite that kindness, her loyalties lay elsewhere . . . with the man she’d met in a Barbary Coast brothel and who’d recently reentered her life—Johnny Teague.
Gunman, killer, and outlaw, Teague had come down from the New Mexico Territory and entered Texas like a blight. He and his gang had robbed, plundered, and killed their way across the state, and the Rangers had branded them “the most vicious band of desperados in the history of wrongdoing on the frontier.”
But the night Crystal Casey rode into his camp in the canyon, Teague had even bigger fish to fry . . . that is, after he’d killed a man. Unlike many gang bosses, Teague always made it clear to newcomers that anyone could shuck the iron and challenge him for leadership. Over the course of two years of banditry, two gunmen threw down the glove and Teague killed them both. But on the night in question came the most serious challenger yet.
“Pure pizen on the draw and shoot, quick as the snap of a bullwhip,” was how, in 1936, retired Teague gang member Dave Quarrels described Sabine River Sam Canning to the Ohio newspaperman A. B. Boyd. Canning, who’d run with Wes Hardin for a spell and had been top gun in the Colfax County War up in the New Mexico Territory, had killed seven men, and Johnny Teague was aware of his reputation.
Nobody considered Canning a bargain, and Teague would take no chances with him.
Crystal Casey dismounted and yelled, “Johnny, I have news,” as she ran toward him.
Standing tall and grim in the flickering firelight, Teague didn’t turn in the girl’s direction. “Not now.” He motioned to the man facing him and smiled. “When he’s dead, you can tell me all about it.”
“But Johnny—”
“Later, Crystal,” Teague said. “I got something to do here first.”
“Better listen to the little lady, Johnny,” Canning said, small, wiry with dead gray eyes. “Just step aside, and you won’t get hurt. Them’s words of wisdom.”
“The day I step aside for a tramp like you, Sammy, will be the day I hang up my guns and retire,” Teague said.
“Big talk, Johnny,” Canning said. In the fire glow his thin, black mustache made him look like a limelit stage villain in a bad melodrama. “But the time for talking is done. I’m taking over. We need some new leadership around here.”
“It’s your prerogative at any time, Sammy,” Teague said. “That’s how it’s always been and always will be. Now, shuck the iron and get to your work.”
Dave Quarrels would later say that Sam Canning’s face changed the instant his hand dropped for his holstered Colt. “He knew even before he grabbed his gun that he was beat, that Johnny Teague was too fast for him and that he was a dead man. I seen John Wesley Hardin on the draw and shoot. I seen Wild Bill Longley on the draw and shoot and I still say that Johnny Teague was the fastest gun that ever was. Yes sir, fast as chain lighting was Johnny.”
But the fight was not quite as the then eighty-six-year-old Quarrels remembered it.
Teague opened the ball all right and made his play just a fraction of a second ahead of Canning. Playing catch-up, Canning went for his gun and cleared leather. But Teague held on to his edge and fired first. His bullet was low and to the left, entering Canning’s body just under his right rib cage, exiting in the lower back, staggering the little gunman. Canning knew it was a killing wound but stayed in the fight. He fired back, missed, and took a second hit dead center in the chest. Canning shot again, and Teague winced as the bullet burned across the meat of his left shoulder. His teeth clenched in anger and determination, Teague rapidly got his work in, three shots, all hits, that triggered his Colt dry. But Canning was shot to doll rags. Wounded twice in the chest, side, and twice in the belly, the gunman dropped to his knees, stared into Teague’s eyes for a moment, and then fell flat on his face, dead a split second after his bloody mouth bit on dirt.
After the roaring racket of the gunfire, the ensuing silence was as quiet as the nave of a midnight cathedral.
Then from behind a drift of gun smoke, Teague said as he thumbed cartridges into his Colt, “Boys, too much ambition is a dangerous thing. Sammy learned that lesson the hard way.”
Crystal ran to Teague and threw herself at him and said, “Johnny, are you hurt? Your arm is bleeding.”
“I’m fine. It’s only a scratch, so don’t fuss at me, woman.” He holstered his gun. “So what was in the coffin, apart from the stiff? Was it what I expected?”
The girl smiled. “Yes, it was in his hand, rolled tight and sticking up so Luna would see it.”
“Are you sure it was the map?”
“Yes, I’m sure. What else could it be? I saw her take the paper and look at it and then shove it between her tits.”
“Woman hides a thing there, it means it’s important.” He frowned in thought for a while and then said, “It’s got to be the map to the Lucky Cuss mine. Got to be.”
A man with a hard, serious face stepped over Sam Canning’s body into the firelight and said, “Is this why you led us into these godforsaken badlands, Johnny? For a map to a gold mine?”
“Not just any map, Tom,” Teague said. “The Lucky Cuss will make us all rich.” He smiled. “Sam too, if he’d lived long enough.”
Tom Racker was fifty years old, a close, personal friend of the dour Frank James and as bad as they come. A hired killer who used a gun, knife, poison, arson or whatever came to hand to get the job done, he’d murdered fourteen men and two women, and none of them disturbed his sleep of nights, or so he claimed.
“Johnny, you know how many treasure maps I’ve seen in my time?” Racker said. “Dozens, I tell ya, and not one of them played out. It’s easy to draw up a map to a lost gold mine and sell it to some rube for fifty dollars. Hell, I’ve seen it done. In Dodge, a feller by the name of Wyatt Earp drew up a map to a silver mine in the New Mexico Territory and then pissed on it and let it dry in the sun to age. He sold it to a railroad brakeman for a hundred dollars and then skipped town. I seen that with my own eyes. How do you know your map is any different?”
Teague’s gaze swept over the nine men facing him, all of them hardened killers, all of them figuring that what Racker had said made sense. And Johnny figured right along with them that his killing of Canning had not set well with most of them and he had some fast talking to do or face a mutiny. Bad grub, no whiskey, and the hostile desert around them made men’s tempers short, and they were quick to anger.
Teague said, “Boys, I can’t say the map to the Lucky Cuss is sure enough genuine, but it came from a ranny by the name of Morgan Ford who lived in a town called Cottondale, up El Paso way. Ford claimed he struck it rich and after that never worked a day in his life.”
“Who says, Johnny?” Racker said.
“A feller called Solomon Pa
lmer says. He once did a job for me in El Paso and later he told me that he was headed back to Cottondale on account of how he’d recently been hired by Ford’s niece to look after the old man and box him when he turned up his toes. Palmer had passed himself off to Luna Talbot as a preacher, so she trusted him.”
A tall, loose-geared man wearing a black-and-white cow skin vest spoke up. “I recollect Palmer from El Paso. He’s a small-time cardsharp and goldbrick artist and a damned liar. I wouldn’t believe a word he says.”
“Luke, I know what Palmer is. That’s why I hired him,” Teague said.
“Hired him for what?” Racker said.
Teague smiled. “As a lookout.”
“A lookout?” Racker said. “Looking out for what?”
“Looking out for the husband of a married lady I was sparking. Her husband was the town blacksmith and he could tie a bowknot in an iron horseshoe. A bad man to catch me in the sack with his wife.”
Men laughed, the tension eased a little, and Teague took advantage. “Listen up, boys. There were a lot of folks in El Paso who’d lived in Cottondale, and there was plenty of talk about the Lucky Cuss and how Morgan Ford would disappear into the Cornudas Mountains for weeks at a time and return with a poke of gold big enough to keep him in whiskey and whores for a year.”
Racker said, “So at death’s door Ford made a map to his mine . . .”
“And now it’s between Mrs. Talbot’s tits,” Crystal said, a not-very-intelligent girl trying to be helpful. “Since he’d no other kin, he wanted his niece to have it.”
Racker ignored that and said, “How do we get the map, Johnny?”
Teague turned to Crystal Casey. “How many hellcats does Luna Talbot have at her ranch?”
“Twenty, Johnny. Twenty-one if you include Mrs. Talbot.”
“I include her. I hear she’s the worst of them.”
“She’s very strict,” Crystal said.
“And good with a gun,” Teague said.
“Very good. She was taught to shoot by her husband. He was a lawman.”
“Yeah, Pete Talbot. I’ve heard of him.” Teague turned his attention back to Tom Racker. “We could ride into the ranch and grab the map from between the Talbot woman’s tits, but we’d leave too many men dead on the ground and I don’t want that.”
“Then how do we play it?” Racker was irritated. “I’ve had about enough of kicking my heels around this place.”
Teague smiled. “Patience, Tom. Luna Talbot has the map, and my guess is she’ll use it right away. Crystal, the ranch has had a few bad years and she needs the money. Ain’t that so?”
“Yes, Johnny. I heard Leah Leighton, the segundo, say things were tight.”
Teague nodded. “Hear that, Tom. Things are tight. If she wants to stay in business, I reckon Luna Talbot will go after the gold pretty damn quick.”
“And where does that leave us?” Racker said.
“For the time being, right here. Crystal will keep us informed. When Luna Talbot goes prospecting, we’ll be right behind her.”
“Anywhere you look, there’s miles of open country,” Racker said. “She’d spot us for sure.”
Teague smiled. “That’s why I keep a breed on the payroll. Ain’t that right, Sanchez?”
“I can follow her without being seen,” Juan Sanchez said. The spawn of a Mexican bandit father and a Chiricahua woman, Sanchez had lived and raided with Apaches. His horse’s bridle was braided with forty scalp locks, most black but a few of them blond or red. He dressed flashily, like a vaquero and, unusual at that time in the West, wore two guns and was quick and deadly on the draw and shoot.
“You heard Sanchez, Tom. He can scout for us,” Teague said. “The varmint is half bronco Apache.”
“I know what he is,” Racker said. “Johnny, I don’t want bad blood between us, but you got three days. After that, if the Talbot woman doesn’t leave her ranch, I’m pulling out of this hellhole and others will come with me.”
“Aha,” Teague said.
“Aha,” Racker said. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I guarantee we’ll be gone from here before your three days are up. Crystal, get back to the ranch and keep your ears to the ground. I want to know what’s happening, so don’t let me down.”
The girl nodded. “I won’t, Johnny. Now I must get back before I’m missed.”
After the girl galloped into the night, Teague said to Racker, “We’re all gonna be rich men, Tom.”
“You got three days to prove your claim, Johnny.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Buttons Muldoon had already turned in, but Red Ryan wasn’t yet ready for sleep and stood outside the door of their room at the east wing of the bunkhouse. The moon rode high, silvering the night, and out in the badlands hungry coyotes yammered. He built another cigarette, thumbed a match into flame and then let it drop to the ground as the plodding sound of a tired horse reached him out of the darkness.
His eyes already accustomed to the gloom, Red stepped into shadow and saw a woman ride to the barn, dismount, and lead her paint horse inside. She emerged a few minutes later, looked around, and then ran across the yard to the bunkhouse. He heard a door quietly open and close . . . and then silence.
He frowned in thought. Why was the young woman riding so late? Had she met a lover out there in the desert? That was highly unlikely. There were few men around that part of Texas. Few anybody. Perhaps her horse could tell him something. Red crossed to the barn and stepped inside. The lathered paint stood in a stall nearest the door. He’d come a fair way at a run and judging by the blood on his flanks, the woman had put the spurs to him. Red shook his head.
He searched around, found a piece of sacking and a brush, and worked on the pony for a solid twenty minutes before he was satisfied. A further search revealed a bag of oats, and he gave the animal a generous scoop.
Red patted the paint’s neck and said, “That’s the best I can do for you, little feller. Eat, and then sleep well.”
He was about to step out of the stall when the four clicks of a cocking Colt froze him in place.
“Step out of the shadow where I can see you.” Luna Talbot’s voice. “I can drill you from here any time of the day.”
“Don’t shoot. It’s me. Red Ryan.”
“What the hell are you doing here this late, shotgun man?” the woman said.
“I was taking care of an abused horse,” he said. “One of your ladies doesn’t know how to care for her mount after she’s ridden him into the ground. You ought to have taught her better, Mrs. Talbot.” He heard Luna lower the Colt’s hammer and then slide it back into the holster.
She stepped to the stall and ran her hand over the paint’s back and shoulder. “He’s still hot. How long has he been here?”
“About twenty minutes or so. He’ll be all right. I brushed him down real good.”
“Who rode in on him?” Luna said.
“I don’t know who it was. A woman. One of your’n, I guess. Unsaddled the paint and then she fogged it for the bunkhouse.”
“Crystal Casey rides this horse,” Luna said. “Was it her you saw?”
“I don’t know who I saw. Just a woman running in the dark.”
“It had to be Crystal.”
“Seems like.”
“She had visited someone.”
“Seems like,” he said again.
“Who?”
“Beats me.”
Luna bit her bottom lip, deep in thought, and then said, “Red, can I trust you?”
“Hell, no.”
“Is Muldoon to be trusted?”
“Hell, no.”
“No matter. I have to put my trust in someone. I think the word has gotten around.”
“What word?” Red said.
“I can’t tell you . . . not now. Maybe later after I talk with Crystal.”
“It’s something to do with the coffin from Cottondale, isn’t it?”
“It’s everything to do with th
e coffin from Cottondale,” Luna said.
Red smiled. “All right, so there was money in it, and outlaws can smell greenbacks from two hundred miles away.”
“Not money . . . something else, something even more valuable,” Luna said.
“Now I’m interested. Suppose I tell you I can be trusted to keep my mouth shut? Is that enough?”
“Enough for the present. All right. I want to talk with you and Buttons Muldoon,” Luna said. “Tomorrow morning after breakfast.”
“Then make it early,” he said. “We’re pulling out at first light, headed up Fort Concho way.”
“I’ll tell Bessie to have breakfast ready early,” Luna said.
“Yeah, and tell her it was Buttons Muldoon’s idea, not mine.”
The woman smiled, stepped to the door, and then looked back. “Red, thank you kindly for taking care of the paint.”
“Glad I could help. He couldn’t do it for himself.” He watched Luna walk into the moonlight, a fine-looking woman becoming one with the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The same moonlight that tangled in Luna Talbot’s hair lay lightly on the steep slopes of the Cornudas Mountains sixty miles to the north as Jacob Brook led his burro into a valley between two peaks that lay just south of the New Mexico Territory border.
A talking man with no one to talk to, Brook, as was his habit, addressed the burro. “We’ll camp for the night among them rocks over there, Thomas Aquinas, and bile us up some coffee. How does that set with ye?”
The burro, an animal with a philosophical turn of mind, hence the grand name that Brook had given him, said nothing, stoically carrying his burden of hard rock mining tools and a few meager supplies without complaint.
“Glad you agree,” the old man said. “High time we rested our old bones and got some shut-eye.”
Jacob Brook was eighty years old, but he figured he might be a year or two younger, or older, he didn’t rightly know. He’d fought in the War Between the States in the 4th Mounted Volunteers, 1st Regiment, Sibley’s Brigade, was wounded in the Red River Campaign and thereafter walked with a limp. He’d been prospecting since the war ended but he’d never hit pay dirt. He hoped all that was about to change. The West was a gossip mill, and there were vague rumors that a man called Matthew or Mitchell Ford had lived like a king in Cottondale after striking it rich in the Cornudas. Well, Cottondale was a ghost town, and folks said Ford was dead and had taken the secret location of his gold mine to the grave with him. But Jacob Brook figured where there’s smoke there’s fire, and if the rumors were true, a fortune in gold was his for the taking. He’d never had much, never hoped for much, but a strike after all these years could put him in a rocking chair on the front porch of some big-city hotel with a fat cigar in one hand, a glass of champagne in the other. As he had told Thomas Aquinas so many times, their luck was about to change.
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