by Dunlap, Phil
Henry Coyote squatted on the front porch of the Wagner ranch house at dawn. When Cotton emerged, stretching and pulling up his suspenders, the Indian grunted a greeting, at least that’s what Cotton interpreted it as. The two of them had been friends for some time, especially since it was Henry who killed the man guarding Emily after her kidnapping by the Cruz gang. And it was Henry who brought her to safety and helped set in motion the downfall of a vicious bunch of cutthroats.
“What sheriff need with Apache?”
“I need your expert tracking skills, my friend. Someone took a shot at Jack night before last while he was at his desk in the jail. Nearly killed him. I need to find whoever did that and bring him in to answer for it. You willin’ to help out?”
“Always ready to help a friend. When we go?”
“Soon as you gather up your pony and that Spencer of yours. Meet you by the gate.”
Henry was on his feet and bounding off the porch before Cotton could open the door to say good-bye to Emily.
Cotton and Henry pulled up in front of the jail, remaining on their mounts. Cotton called out to Jack but got no answer. He dismounted and went inside. There was no Jack to be found. Cotton’s frown gave away his dark thoughts as to where he figured Jack was: still tangled up in Melody’s sheets. He motioned for Henry to dismount and come inside while he went to find his deputy.
“Wait here, Henry. I’ll be right back.”
Cotton wasted no time making tracks for the house at the end of the street, just around the bend. When he got there, he knocked on the door, then turned the handle and went in. He called out to Jack, and again was greeted by silence. After a couple minutes, he heard a shuffling and a yawn coming from the area of the bedroom. When he peeped in the door, Melody screeched something about bad manners and being sheriff didn’t give him the right to barge into a woman’s bedroom without an invitation.
He backed out, embarrassed at her scolding. He waited in the living room, hat in hand.
“Sorry, Melody. I’m lookin’ for Jack. He should be at the jail, but he isn’t. I just came from there. Do you know where he is?”
Melody stepped from the bedroom, half-naked, making no attempt to keep her robe closed. Considering the occupation she’d been in for the past dozen years or so, he wasn’t shocked by her lack of propriety. She walked to a chair and plopped down, reaching for a cigarillo that lay on the tiny end table. She stuck the thing in her mouth, struck a sulfur, and lit the end. She blew smoke his way as she scowled at him like a mother lion about to slap down one of her cubs.
“What makes you think I keep track of Jack all day and all night?”
“I didn’t come here for a fight, Melody. I just want to know if you’ve seen Jack, and if so, where can I find him?”
She took a drag on her smoke, held it a moment, then blew another cloud into the room. She glanced away for a second before answering.
“He crawled out of bed early this morning. Said something about following up on a rumor he’d heard at the saloon. That’s all I know. Now, you get the hell out of here and leave a lady to her—”
“Yeah, I know. I’m leaving. If you see Jack, tell him I’m lookin’ for him.” He let the door close only partially behind him. His long strides took him to the jail and the waiting Apache in only a couple minutes. When he walked in, he found Jack talking to Henry.
“Hey, Cotton, ol’ friend. Where you been?”
“Very funny, Jack. I been spendin’ the past several minutes getting berated by your whore.”
“I figured.”
“So, what’s this rumor you’ve heard?”
“A fella that just got off the stage this mornin’ let it slip—over a couple too many drinks, I might add—that there’s a new bank goin’ to open in the old stone Miners Union building. Says some wealthy dude from Fort Worth plans to attract a lot of the cattle money here by offering loans at a lower rate than the Apache Springs bank can compete with.”
“That’d likely drive Darnell Givins out of business.”
“That’s what I figured. Could be that’s why he’s doin’ it. Apparently there’s some bad blood between the man and someone here in town. Could be Darnell, but the fella didn’t give any name. I gather it goes back a spell, at least that’s the word floatin’ around.”
“You hear a name for this character?”
“Yep, and you ain’t goin’ to like it.” Jack raised one eyebrow and gave Cotton a look.
“Well, spit it out. I’m growin’ older by the minute. At this rate, I’ll have gray hair before you get around to spillin’ what you know.” Cotton crossed his arms, giving Jack a squint suggesting his impatience.
“Bart Havens.” Jack waited for Cotton to explode. That didn’t happen, but the sheriff did begin rubbing his chin and frowning as he walked to the door and looked out.
“You’re right about one thing, Jack. I don’t like it.”
“But there ain’t a damned thing you can do about it, right? He does it all legal-like, don’t he? Kinda like before?”
“Since he’s probably lookin’ to square things with me, I reckon we’ll get a chance to find out.”
Chapter 5
The last time Bart Havens and Cotton crossed paths, Havens had paid several lowlife gunmen to try running the lawman out of town. Two tried, both paying the ultimate sacrifice for their inadequate knowledge of Cotton Burke’s skills with a Colt. The others skittered out of town like cockroaches before a fire. Cotton couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t starting all over again. Until he found out differently, he would operate on the assumption that Havens was somehow involved in the attempt on Jack’s life.
As Cotton and Henry rode up into the hills and the boulder field where Cotton and Jack had found evidence of the shooter the day before, Henry Coyote quickly locked on to subtle signs that had been overlooked by the sheriff and his deputy. Cotton saw a knowing look creep across the Apache’s face.
“You already know something I don’t, Henry. Ready to share your insights?”
“Don’t know insights, but know plenty about man with big gun.”
“Such as—”
“Small man, no higher than me. Not heavy, skin and bones. Need lay heavy gun on rock to steady. Give off smell of sickness, cough up blood. There, on rock.”
“Consumption? A lunger?”
“Uh-huh.” Henry bent down to trace the outline of the man’s boot print. He stood and took the reins of his pony, leading him through the rocks farther uphill. Cotton followed right behind the wily Apache.
On the down slope of the smallest of the hills, they both mounted up, and with Henry taking the lead, they rode across the desert to the northeast. Cotton knew he had the best tracker in the area; all he had to do was settle in and let Henry find the shooter. Until then, his mind wandered to when he and Bart Havens had first crossed paths, and the treachery that followed. It didn’t take him long to dredge up those tragic past events. He’d tried, and failed, to forget them. He still struggled with why he hadn’t killed Havens when he’d had the chance.
After about three hours of seemingly aimless wandering, Henry pulled up and pointed to a far-off shanty sitting in a copse of trees atop a rise about a mile and a half away.
“He go there.”
Cotton nodded but said nothing. He turned in the saddle and began picking through his saddlebags. He pulled out his field glasses. He raised them and sighted through the lenses, adjusting for distance and focus. He scanned the area around the shanty before finally speaking.
“I don’t see any sign of anyone. But we’ll approach carefully just the same. You ride out in a wide circle to the left. I’ll do the same to the right. Give a call if you spot anything or anyone.”
Henry said nothing as he kneed his pony to a walk to carry out the sheriff’s plan. Cotton did the same, pulling his Winchester from its saddle scabbard just in case. If this shooter had a rifle that could shoot accurately at long distances, he might just be sighting dow
n on the two of them at that very instant. By separating, he figured to cut the chances of both of them getting cut down.
The closer he got to the shanty, the more intensely Cotton scanned the area. About a hundred yards away, he dismounted, dropped the mare’s reins, and proceeded on foot, staying as low as possible and using as much brush as he could find for added cover.
He pulled up twenty-five yards short of the ramshackle building, cocked the rifle, and carried it aimed forward and ready. He moved slowly, looking left and right, listening for any sign of life. He heard nothing but the buzz of bees around the yellow brittlebush scattered over the landscape, and the occasional screech of a circling hawk as it zeroed in on its kill. He decided to call out.
“Hello, the cabin. If there’s anybody in there, now would be a good time to come out, before I give the place some ventilation, the lead kind.”
Hearing no response, he figured he’d put a bullet through the door for good measure. It certainly wouldn’t reduce the property value any. The roar of his Winchester elicited no response except a cloud of smoke. No sound came from within.
“Henry, you see anything?”
The Indian slipped from the back of the building, looking cautiously around the corner. He looked at Cotton sheepishly with his hands in the air.
“I see nothing but bullet that go by. Miss me by this much.” Henry held up his hands to indicate a distance of about a foot. It was Cotton’s turn to look sheepish.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you were out back. Shouldn’t have squeezed off a shot in the first place.”
“It okay. Maybe miss by more than I say.” Henry broke into a wide grin.
They both walked to the door of the cabin. Cotton kicked it in and shoved inside, looking left and right. Henry pushed by him, sniffed the air, and grunted. They went back outside, where the odor of stale smoke and rotting wood wasn’t so prevalent.
“Man with big gun come here. Meet other man who make smoke. Wear perfume, like white squaw.”
This man amazes me more every time I’m with him, Cotton thought.
“Any idea how long ago they left?”
“No. But go different directions.”
“Can you tell which way the shooter went?”
“Maybe back to Apache Springs.”
“He might be trying to get another shot at Jack . . . or me. I’d better make tracks to assure that doesn’t happen. With what you’ve told me about him, he should be easy to spot.”
“What about other man?”
“You follow him as far as you can without attracting attention. Maybe we can get an idea of what he’s up to if we know where he hangs out. Come back to town as soon as you know anything. But do not confront him or let him know you are following him.”
Henry Coyote gave a nod, mounted up, and spun his pony around in the opposite direction of Apache Springs. Cotton watched as the Indian picked up the trail, locking on to it like a hound dog.
Cotton went straight to the jail as soon as he got back. Jack wasn’t there, but he probably wouldn’t be hard to find. Cotton crossed the street, stomped onto the boardwalk, and pushed through the swinging doors to the saloon. Along one side of the narrow room, at the end of the bar, leaned Jack. He was chatting with Melody, talking and laughing like they’d just met for the first time. When he saw Cotton, Jack broke off his conversation and walked toward the sheriff.
“What’d you find?”
“We tracked the shooter to a vacant shanty above Cedar City. He met up with some other owlhoot. They split up with each goin’ in a different direction.”
“How do you know all that?”
“I was with Henry Coyote, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Dumb question.”
“Yeah.”
“Where do we go from here?” Jack said, ignoring the fact that Melody had gone to the back room with the bartender.
“We keep our eyes open for a skinny ‘lunger’ with a big gun.”
“You sayin’ he’s got that consumption, like Doc Holliday?”
“That’s what Henry says. Pretty uncanny what all the Indian picks up on.”
“That’s for sure.”
“I figure the man was headed back this way for the same reason he came in the first place: to kill someone. I’m the likely target, given that Bart Havens could be involved, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t attract some stray lead, so stay alert.” Cotton turned and walked out of the saloon and down the street to the bank. He had an itch that needed scratching and he figured the bank president was just the person to see about it.
“You’re thinkin’ that rumor about Havens might be true?” Jack asked, as he followed Cotton through the batwings, then peeling off to go back inside.
“I’ve seen it before.”
When he reached the Apache Springs Bank and Loan, Cotton saw Darnell Givins sitting at his desk, thumbing through a newspaper. He pushed through a low swinging gate and sat down in front of the president.
“Mornin’, Sheriff. What can I do for you?” Givins said.
“Heard a rumor, and I wondered if maybe you’d heard the same.”
“I try hard to ignore rumors, Sheriff. Usually nothing more than nonsense.”
“If this one’s true, it could spell trouble for you, me, and the whole town.”
“Okay, I’m listening. What is it?”
“You ever heard of a man named Bart Havens?”
“The town killer? Who hasn’t? What’s this got to do with me?” Givins said, his face turning ashen.
“I hear he may be fixin’ to start up some competition for your bank.”
The stricken look that came over Givins was unmistakable. He drew his handkerchief from his coat pocket and began mopping his suddenly moistened brow. He obviously hadn’t heard that particular rumor, and it wasn’t sitting well.
“I pray you’re wrong, Sheriff. I certainly do.”
Chapter 6
“Where you goin’, Melody?” Jack asked as he watched her gathering her belongings and stuffing them in several bags and a trunk.
“I’m taking a little trip back to Gonzales. Got some business I need to clear up. I plan to be back in a couple weeks. You can live without me for that long, can’t you, honey?” She smiled coyly and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“I’ll make do. What kind of business you got?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”
“Sounds pretty secretive.”
“No, no secret. Just don’t want to put a hex on my deal, that’s all. Don’t fret. I promise I’ll be back soon. Don’t forget, I need you as much as you need me,” she said, fastening the last strap on her trunk and scooting it across the floor to the door. “How about hauling that over to the stage office for me?”
Jack bent over to lift the trunk. His eyes got wide as he straightened up instantly.
“What the hell you got in there, gold bars?”
“No, just some of my—”
“Yeah, I know, your women’s necessities. I’ll have someone from the stage line bring a cart over.” Jack left the house rubbing his sore back and muttering something about “women” and “necessities.” He didn’t understand either one.
As he was passing by the bank on his way to the stage office, Jack saw Cotton emerge with a serious look on his face.
“Hey, Cotton, what’s got you lookin’ like you was snakebit?”
“I told Givins about Bart Havens and the rumor about a new bank starting up. He’s the one who looked snakebit. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of him about what he would do if the rumor turned out to be true. I got the impression he couldn’t cover the withdrawals if many folks made a switch to another bank.”
“That’s not something the folks around here would take well,” Jack said. “A failed bank could make for some pretty temperamental outbursts, and that usually means someone gets hurt.”
“You don’t have to remind me. Let’s get back to the jail.” Cotton looked up and dow
n the street as they made their way back to the sheriff’s office.
Jack was chattering about something, but Cotton wasn’t hearing any of it. He was lost in the past and his last encounter with Bart Havens. That experience had left him with a bad feeling about what Havens might be capable of should their paths ever cross again.
It all started about five years back, in another town, but with similar circumstances. The town was named Benbow Creek, named appropriately after the town’s only Civil War hero, a colonel who died defending a hill nobody had ever heard of. The town had one bank. Bart Havens came in and started another bank, using tactics that were questionable, but never anything clearly illegal. After about a year, the town’s original bank closed its doors, costing its stockholders everything they’d invested and then some. Cotton was the town marshal in Benbow Creek, and while he could do nothing to stop the migration of depositors from one bank to the other, he could put a stop to a sudden increase in violent crime in town, seemingly always against those who’d chosen to back the original bank by keeping their deposits there. Over a period of six months, Cotton caught a half dozen gun-toting troublemakers in the act of setting fires, breaking into stores, or beating some storekeeper or businessman half to death in some dark alley. He was able to take two of them to trial, where they denied any ties to Bart Havens, even though everybody knew them to be habitual liars. The other four he was forced to shoot, two of whom died. He felt no regret, except that he was positive Bart Havens was behind every dastardly deed, and he set out to prove it. Before the dust settled, Havens had been run out of town, losing everything. And now Cotton could see the seeds of the same scenario all over again. He wasn’t eager to watch a man like Havens get away with ruining a decent businessman and, in doing so, putting a lot of families in financial jeopardy if they didn’t toe his line.
“. . . and so, I’m not sure what I’ll do with myself while she’s gone. Got any ideas, Cotton?”
“Huh?”
“I said, got any ideas what I can do with myself while she’s gone?” Jack squinted at Cotton like he’d lost his hearing.