Midnight Rider (Ralph Cotton Western Series)

by Ralph Cotton

  “When did you get here?” Casings asked the gun-man.

  “I rode in with the Bonham and the Stillwater Giant about an hour ago,” Turley Batts replied. He looked at Spiller’s swollen forehead. “The hell happened to you?”

  “Low-hanging limb…,” Spiller said in shame.

  Batts laughed, making no attempt to hide his amusement from Spiller.

  “What did you hear us saying when we walked in here?” asked Casings.

  “Nothing worth saying again,” Batts said, cutting his laughing short. “But I heard Low-Hanging Limb here mention collecting money when you came through the door.”

  “That figures,” Casings said, glaring at Spiller.

  “I hope nothing has happened to spoil our little sideline?” Batts said. “I can use some quick pocket money until Grolin gets this big job of his set up.” He grinned and looked back and forth between the two gunmen. “We’re still three-way partners on everything, right?”

  “Jesus…,” said Casings, shaking his head. “Something’s come up, Turley,” he added. “We need to talk about our three-way-partners deal.”

  “Start talking, then,” said Batts, looking at Spiller’s swollen forehead again. “I’m nothing but attentive.”

  Inside the Lucky Nut, Andrew Grolin stood beside Rochenbach and gestured his cigar hand across the table toward a man who’d been hidden in the shadows of the dark saloon.

  “Rock,” Grolin said, “I want you to meet a friend and associate of mine. This is Mr. Garth Oliver.” To the big man he said, “This is Mr. Rochenbach—Rock to his friends.”

  The Stillwater Giant…, Rochenbach said to himself. He touched his fingertips to his hat brim. “Mr. Oliver,” he said aloud.

  “Pardon me if I don’t get up,” said the Stillwater Giant, his voice deep and gruff. “It makes most folks nervous when I stand all the way up.”

  “I’m not the nervous type,” said Rock, “but suit yourself.”

  “Word has it you worked for Pinkerton’s boys,” said the Stillwater Giant.

  “Yes, I did,” said Rochenbach, aware of Grolin watching, appraising his every word, every move.

  The large figure leaned forward into the flicker of lamplight, staring straight at Rochenbach from across the table without having to lift his eyes.

  “Good thing you’re not tonight,” he said with a cruel grin. “I’d be wearing you on my shoe soles.”

  “Maybe,” said Rock, “or maybe you’d be leaving town over the back of a mule.”

  “Oh…?” The Giant’s gaze hardened, but turned curious.

  Rochenbach studied his face, the broad, hooded brow, the wide, thick chin, jawbones the size and shape of apples.

  “There’s five hundred dollars on your head in Texas,” he said.

  Recollection came to the Giant’s face.

  “I’d damned near forgot about that,” he said. “How come you to know it?”

  “Old habit,” said Rochenbach. “I can’t walk past a post office without looking at wanted posters, thinking how easy it would be.”

  “Easy…?” said the Giant. He scooted his chair back and rose to his feet. Rochenbach looked up at him, judging him to be seven feet tall.

  Grolin stepped in and said, “Unless you know how to open a Diebold safe, you best mind your manners here.”

  Mind his manners… Rochenbach kept himself from smiling. Until he swung the door of the Treasury car door open for Grolin, his safety here was guaranteed.

  “In fact, go get yourself some rest,” Grolin said to the Giant. “I want to talk to Rock here alone.”

  “Whatever you say, Andrew,” said the Giant. He glowered down at Rochenbach. But he leveled his derby hat, turned and walked across the floor and out into the night air.

  “Have a chair, Rock,” Grolin said.

  The two sat down across the table from each other. No sooner had they been seated than the bartender appeared at Rochenbach’s elbow. He set a clean shot glass in front of him and filled it from a bottle of rye standing on the table.

  “How’d the collection go?” Grolin asked as the bartender walked away.

  “It didn’t,” Rock said, raising the shot glass and drinking half of it. “Edmund Bell is dead—so says his grave marker. The place has been standing empty awhile.”

  “Empty, huh?” said Grolin, studying his eyes closely. “What took you three so long?”

  “We stopped for coffee,” said Rochenbach.

  Grolin considered the matter, then shrugged and said, “Well, it wasn’t time wasted. I’ll present my marker against the place to my attorney, have him take possession.” He grinned.

  Rochenbach finished his rye and slid his glass away. He saw no sign that Grolin had only been testing him. Good enough, he told himself. Now he needed to get away from Grolin and take care of an important piece of business before the night was over.

  “Did Casings or Spiller talk about collecting my gambling debts on the way there?” Grolin asked.

  “No,” said Rock, “should they have?”

  “Just curious,” said Grolin. He leaned in a little and lowered his voice. “I think they cut a little off the top for themselves when they can get by with it.”

  “That’s business between you and them,” said Rochenbach. “When somebody else handles your money, it often sticks to their hands.” He shrugged. “But you already know that.”

  “Yes, I do,” said Grolin. “I was hoping if you saw anything out of the ordinary, you’d tell me,” said Grolin.

  “I’ve told you all I can tell you,” said Rock.

  Grolin studied his face for a moment, then said, “All right. Get some rest. I’m sending you out on a practice run tomorrow—see if you know the Diebold Bahmann safe as well as you say you do.”

  “You do realize I don’t open safes for exercise and self-fulfillment,” said Rock.

  “You get a cut of everything you put your hand to for me,” Grolin said.

  “In that case, I bid you good night,” Rock said, turning, walking out the door.

  But instead of going into the hotel, he ducked into a darkened alleyway and hurried along in a crouch until he reached the rear door of the telegraph office. He produced a ring of lock-picking tools from inside his coat. Looking back and forth quickly in the darkness, he bowed over the door lock like some dark creature of night attending its prey.

  Time to report in, he told himself as the lock clicked and the door opened an inch. He glanced both ways again, then opened the door far enough to slip inside as silent as a ghost.

  Chapter 6

  It the gray darkness of morning, Denton Spiller, Pres Casings, Turley Batts and the Stillwater Giant walked abreast along the empty street, making their way to the livery barn. As they arrived and started to go inside, a fifth man, an outlaw named Lonnie Bonham, came trotting along behind them on foot.

  “Wait up!” Bonham called out, causing the four to stop at the barn door and look back at him. He trotted forward and stopped, his rifle hanging in his hand.

  “Well…?” said Spiller, looking the younger outlaw up and down.

  “He’s not there,” said Bonham.

  “You went on up to his room?” asked Turley Batts.

  Bonham gave him a searing look.

  “He’s not there,” he repeated. “I checked inside Turk’s Restaurant on my way here. He’s not there either.”

  “Now what?” said Spiller, looking all around. “I don’t like being nursemaid to this bastard.”

  “Maybe he went to the Nut first thing,” said the Giant. His voice sounded like the rumble of low cannon fire deep inside a large cave.

  “Maybe he fled away in the dark of night,” said Batts. He grinned and said to the Giant, “You said him and you had some words…?”

  Giant gave him a wide, big-toothed grin.

  “Yeah. It wouldn’t be the first time I scared somebody off by just staring down at them,” he said.

  “He strikes me as a runner, this law dog,” said Bon
ham.

  The four looked at him curiously. Batts spit and shook his head.

  Bonham shrugged slightly. “I mean… I’ve never met him,” he said, “but from what I’ve heard yas say—”

  His words shopped short as the barn door swung open, barely missing Spiller’s shoulder on its way. In the open doorway, Rochenbach stood with his horse standing saddled and ready beside him, it reins in his gloved hand. He led his horse forward through the open door.

  “Jesus!” said Spiller, surprised, his hand almost going to his holstered Colt.

  “We were just talking about you, Rock,” Casings said, also caught by surprise.

  “Yeah, I heard,” Rochenbach said flatly. He looked at the Giant. Then he looked Turley Batts and Lonnie Bonham up and down.

  “We—we never met last night, Rochenbach,” Bonham offered clumsily. “I rode in with Stillwater. I’m Lonnie Bonham. Most folks call me Lon. This is Turley Batts.”

  Rochenbach nodded at the two and touched his fingertips to the brim of his new slouch hat.

  “Ready to ride, Lon?” he said quietly, walking past the five, stopping, turning to his horse.

  “Hell no, he’s not ready to ride!” Spiller cut in, sounding irritated. “None of us are. You can see we just now got here.”

  Rochenbach just looked at him. He swung up into his saddle and turned his horse toward the main street.

  “Why don’t I ride on ahead, make sure there’s no low-hanging limbs?” he said.

  Casings and Batts stifled a laugh; Spiller fumed, the side of his forehead still raw and swollen.

  “Hey. You don’t even know where we’re headed, fellow,” the Giant called out to Rochenbach in his big, booming voice.

  “Central City,” Rochenbach called back without turning in his saddle.

  The Giant gave the others a bewildered look. They returned it.

  “How’d you know that?” the Giant called out.

  “I didn’t,” Rochenbach said, his horse moving on at a walk.

  “This son of a bitch,” the Stillwater Giant growled under his breath. “I wish Grolin would let me bounce his head around a little.”

  “Damn it to hell,” said Spiller, “Grolin said not to let him out of our sight. Hold up, Rock! Give us a few minutes!” he shouted.

  But Rock’s horse turned the corner out of the alley and onto the main street.

  “Damn it!” Spiller said, hurrying into the barn with the other four. “How are we supposed to deal with this man? It’s like trying to corral a hardheaded tomcat!”

  “Come on, Dent, hurry up,” Casings said. “We let him get too far out of sight, Grolin will have our hides on a pole.”

  Spiller sidled in closer to Casings and whispered between them, “What’s wrong with him? I thought we’re partners, the three of us.”

  “I don’t know,” said Casings. “I’ll talk to him first chance I get.”

  They quickly bridled and saddled their horses and led them out of the barn.

  “Hell, he’s halfway to Central City by now!” said Spiller. As he swung up into his saddle, he said to the Stillwater Giant, “Why the hell did you tell him where we’re headed?”

  “I didn’t tell him!” said the Giant, but he didn’t sound completely sure of himself. Turning to Casings, he asked, “Did I, Pres?”

  In his saddle, Casings gathered his reins and tightened his hat down onto his forehead.

  “Yes, you did,” he said. “But it wasn’t your fault. Not exactly anyway.”

  “He played you, Giant! Didn’t you see it?” Spiller said harshly, jerking his horse around toward the main street. “Let’s go, before we lose him altogether and have Grolin down our shirts!”

  They booted their horses forward at a fast gallop along the alleyway and onto the street. A pedestrian had to leap out of their way as the five rounded the corner and raced away along the street out of town. A watchdog appeared out from under a boardwalk in front of a mercantile store, barking and jumping back and forth on the end of a chain as they galloped past.

  At the corner of the next alleyway, Rochenbach sat just out of sight, his wrists crossed on his saddle horn. When the five had passed in a thunder of hooves, he tapped his dun forward and fell in twenty yards behind them at an easy gallop.

  “Where the hell is he?” Spiller shouted at Casings, the two of them riding hard in front of the Giant.

  Beside the Stillwater Giant rode Turley Batts, followed by Lonnie Bonham.

  Bonham rode along as hard as the others. But when the younger outlaw happened to look back over his shoulder for no particular reason at all, he saw Rochenbach following them leisurely.

  “Jesus! He’s riding behind us!” he said, already reining his horse down as he shouted to the others.

  The other four slid their horses to a halt and spun them in the middle of the street.

  As he stared at Rochenbach, Spiller’s hand went instinctively to his gun before he caught himself and turned it loose.

  “Damn it, Pres,” he growled to Casings, who sat his horse beside him. “See what I mean, this son of a bitch?”

  Casings shook his head and kept himself from chuckling aloud.

  “Come on, Dent. Can’t you see he’s just doing all this to get to you?” he said as Rochenbach rode closer and reined his dun down into an easy, sidelong gait.

  “I’m just about there, Pres,” Spiller said, barely under control. “I’m just about there.…”

  Rochenbach stopped in the street ahead of them and looked back.

  “Are we going or what?” he said quietly.

  The Giant booted his horse forward.

  “I’m about there with you, Dent,” he said sidelong to Spiller.

  Watching the men ride toward him, Rochenbach turned his horse back to the trail ahead. He knew he had them stirred up like a hornet’s nest. That had been his intent. But now it was time to let them cool out a little, get himself on Casings’ and Spiller’s good side. That shouldn’t be hard to do since he’d kept his mouth shout about them to Grolin.

  It was nearing noon when the six riders moved off the trail and rested their horses in a dry wash under a tangle of brush and rock. The Stillwater Giant stepped down from his tired horse’s back and turned to a shoulder-high cluster of rocks that stuck into the side of the wash.

  “Look at this!” Batts said in amazement as the Giant yanked a small boulder out of the cluster, turned around with it against his wide chest and dropped it on the ground. It landed with a powerful thud.

  “Daaa-mn…!” said Bonham, he and the others watching the Giant sit down on the rock and dust his big hands together.

  The Giant grinned and flexed his powerful arms inside the sleeves of his coat.

  “Anybody else need a rock to sit on?” he offered. As he asked, his eyes went to Rochenbach and stayed there. “If you do, I can pick one up and throw it on the ground for you easy enough.”

  Rochenbach ignored him. He had stepped down from his saddle a few feet away from the others, rifle in hand, and poured a small amount of water from his canteen into the crown of his slouch hat. He stooped onto his haunches and held the upturned hat to the dun’s muzzle.

  The horse drew the water in one breath and stood licking the inside of the hat when Casings walked up and kneeled down beside Rochenbach.

  “Pay no mind to the Giant,” he said quietly. “He’s used to people naturally kowtowing to him because of his size.”

  “Size…? I didn’t notice,” Rock said.

  “Right.” Casings grinned. “Fine dun you’ve got here, Rock,” he said. He reached out and patted the dun’s neck.

  “Yep,” Rochenbach said. He turned slightly toward him, knowing the outlaw hadn’t walked over to talk about his horse or the Giant. He stared at him expectantly.

  “Okay,” said Casings, “the thing is, Spiller is asking me what’s got into you since our talk on the trail back from Bell’s place.” He paused. “I told him it was because you overheard the group talking about you
while you were in the barn.”

  Rock didn’t answer. Instead, he shook his slouch hat off, placed it atop his head and stood up, his rifle in the crook of his arm.

  “That was it, wasn’t it?” said Casings, standing up beside him.

  Before Rochenbach could answer, the Giant called out from where he sat watching the two.

  “Hey, Rock, you need a rock. I can get you a rock, if you want a rock, Rock,” he said, goading.

  Rochenbach stood staring back at the Giant as he said sidelong to Casings, “Is something wrong with his mind?” As he spoke, he stared past the Giant at the big hole in the wall of the wash where the boulder had been.

  Casings chuckled and replied, “No, he just don’t always know what’s going on around him. It makes him act peculiar.”

  Rochenbach’s eyes narrowed, looking past the Giant and to the side of the wash. “Then he’d better start paying attention,” he said.

  The Giant stood up and called out to Rock in a surly tone, “Don’t talk about me over there, law dog. I will jerk you up by the top of your head and stick my arm down your—”

  His words stopped short; his eyes widened in terror as Rochenbach threw his rifle up to his shoulder, pointed straight at him.

  “Wait, Rock!” Casings shouted.

  But Rock paid him no attention as he took aim and squeezed the trigger. The other men scattered in every direction.

  The Giant’s mouth opened wide in fear as he saw the shot explode from Rock’s Spencer rifle. He heard and felt the bullet whistle past his head. Behind him, crawling down the fresh-turned earth where the Giant had unseated the boulder, a large bull rattler had raised its head, ready to make a strike at the back of the Giant’s neck.

  “Holy God!” shouted Casings, seeing Rochenbach’s bullet snap the big rattler’s head off in a bloody mist.

  The snake’s thick body flew up from the side of the wash, spun whipping in the air and landed limply over the Giant’s right shoulder just as the Giant had started to draw his holstered Colt.

  Seeing the snake suddenly dangling down his chest, the Giant screamed shrilly in spite of his usually deep, powerful voice. Instead of snatching the dead snake and tossing it away, the Giant lost all control of himself and jumped up and down on his tiptoes, screaming, his big hands flopping uselessly beside him.