Hanging in Wild Wind

by Ralph Cotton

“Ordinarily, yes,” said the ranger, “but today I belong where I’m standing.”

  “Now see here, Ranger,” said Clancy. He stepped forward, growing bolder as his anger flared. “You can’t threaten us and bully your way—”

  Clancy stopped in his tracks as the tip of the ranger’s rifle barrel jammed into his chest. Sam stared coldly at him and said, “You haven’t seen roughshod yet, mister. Keep up this lynching talk, somebody’s going to get hurt.” The hammer of his rifle cocked beneath his gloved thumb.

  Going to get hurt? Fred Elliot glanced through the broken window at the outlaw lying moaning in the street. Then he glanced down at Reese, lying at the ranger’s feet, gasping for breath. “Easy, Ranger,” he offered, sobered enough to see that the ranger was making no idle threat. “There’s not going to be a lynching here.”

  Sam stared at him. “It sounds like you’re starting to get my message,” he said, his bark still on, his demeanor still cold and unyielding. He gestured his free hand down toward the outlaw gasping at his feet. “Do any of you know this man?”

  The townsmen stood silent, afraid to reply.

  “Well, I do,” Sam said. He reached out a boot toe and nudged Reese over onto his side, just as the man had managed to get a hold on the brass bar rail and start to pull himself up. Reese let out a painful groan and rolled back into a ball.

  “His name is Vernon Reese. That one out there in the dirt is Chug Doherty. They are both known to ride with Silva Ceran, the same man the prisoners in your new jail ride for.”

  “Christ,” said Elliot, “then why are they talking up a lynching, if those are their cronies in jail?”

  “Just to stir up trouble between you men and the law, so they can keep this town and the law divided against each other,” Sam said. He looked down at the groaning outlaw and said, “Isn’t that right, Reese?”

  Reese could only make a pained face and let out a strained, gurgling sound. A string of saliva bobbed from his lips.

  “See? He won’t deny it.” Sam uncocked his rifle. Reaching down, he pulled the helpless gunman to his feet. He picked up Reese’s crumpled hat and stuffed it atop his head. “You and Chug get mounted and get out of here,” he said through clenched teeth. “Stop running your mouths.”

  “You’re just letting them go?” Clancy asked.

  “Yes, I’m letting them go. I’ve got nothing to hold them on,” Sam said, giving Reese a shove toward the open doorway.

  “But what if they bring Ceran and his gang here?” said Elliot.

  “Have you thought of that?” Clancy asked.

  “Yes, I have,” said Sam. “There’s a strong possibility they will bring him here, if he wasn’t coming here already.” He looked from face to face among the townsmen. Then he said to Elliot, “It’ll be up to me and Longworth to defend this town, unless you still want to send him packing . . . and me too.” He stared Clancy in the eyes, letting his message sink in.

  Chapter 19

  Longworth had walked out front of the sheriff’s at the sound of breaking glass coming from the direction of the cantina. He stood looking at the cantina, rifle in hand, and saw the outlaw in the dirt, trying to struggle to his feet. The young detective bit his lip and paced back and forth, fighting the urge to go running to the ranger’s side. But I said I’d wait at the jail, and that’s what I’d better do, he told himself. He stopped and watched, feeling better when he saw the second man stagger, bowed at the waist, out of the cantina and make his way to the hitch rail.

  When the two men struggled up into their saddles, they headed down the dirt street. But at the sight of Longworth facing toward them with his rifle at port arms, they turned their horses and crept away onto a back street, out of town.

  From the restaurant Shelly Linde stepped out with a fresh bucket of water in one hand and basket full of cloth in her other. On her way across the street to Longworth, she looked toward the cantina and saw the glass and broken window frame lying in the dirt. She’d heard the noise from inside the restaurant as she’d gathered spare cloth for bandages.

  “What was all that?” she asked as she reached Longworth.

  “It was the ranger,” he replied, as Sam walked out of the cantina and started down the street toward them.

  “Did he . . . ?” Shelly’s words trailed as she looked at the glass and pieces of wood in the dirt.

  “Yes,” said Longworth, “he threw one through the window.”

  “A townsman?” she asked, looking shocked.

  “No,” said Longworth, “it was one of the strangers Porter was talking about.”

  “Oh,” said Shelly. She stood in silence for a moment as the ranger drew closer. Then she let out a breath. “Detective Longworth, I have something important I need to tell you.”

  “Call me Clayton, please, Miss Shelly,” Longworth said.

  “I will, if you still want me to after I tell you what I’ve got to say,” Shelly said. “Can we go somewhere and talk, please—somewhere private?”

  Longworth saw the serious look in her eyes. “Of course,” he said. He turned and directed her toward the empty boardwalk out in front of the sheriff’s office.

  “No, back here,” she said, directing him away from the boardwalk and toward a deserted alley running alongside the new buildings.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Longworth said with a bewildered look on his face.

  Sam saw the two of them headed for the alleyway and realized that she must be getting ready to tell the detective what had happened. To give them the privacy they needed, he swung wide around them and walked on. When he was well past them, he cut across the street and entered the sheriff’s office quietly, closing and locking the door behind himself.

  With the door locked, he leaned his rifle against the battered desk, walked to the Cullen brothers’ cell and gestured Cadden over to the bars. When they were only inches apart, the bars between them, Sam said in a quiet but firm tone, “Give me the key.”

  “The key?” Cadden looked bemused; he grinned. “Ranger, are you kidding? I don’t have the—”

  Sam’s hands streaked between the bars, grabbed Cadden by his ears and jerked him forward. The outlaw’s face and forehead banged against the iron bars with a deep twanging sound.

  Cadden almost went limp. But Sam shook him by his ears and said, “Want me to ask you again?”

  “No, stop!” Cadden managed to say while the bars still rang from the impact of his forehead. “I’ve got it right here under my shirt!” He hurriedly unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off of his left arm; the ranger turned loose one ear while he did so.

  The ranger looked at the large brass key ring that Cadden had slid up over his elbow. The cell key hung under his arm.

  In her cell, Kitty Dellaros stood watching, shaking her head in disgust at Cadden giving up the key, even though the doors were now chained and padlocked. “Damn tinhorn amateur,” she said under her breath.

  Sam took the key. He let go of Cadden’s ear but held him against the bars by the front of his shirt. Between the two of them, he said, “Now, what’s this I hear about you threatening to tell lies about my friend Shelly Linde?”

  “Hold on, Ranger,” Cadden replied in the same secretive voice. “It’s no lie. I was in Abilene. She was there working in a broth—”

  His words cut short; his face struck the bars again. This time the ranger jerked him forward by his shirt. “Are you sure you’re not mistaken, Cullen?” Sam asked into his bloody face. “We can discuss this for hours on end, if we really need to, to get it straightened out.”

  “I—I could be mistaken,” said Cadden. He felt the ranger grip his shirt tight, ready to jerk him forward again. “I mean, I was mistaken. It wasn’t her, I’m certain of it.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Cadden. If we need to discuss this some more,” Sam said close to his ear, “you let me know. I’m going to be right here, ready to help you talk it through.”

  An hour had passed before the ranger opened the front door and Longworth and
Shelly Linde walked inside. From the stunned look on Longworth’s face, the ranger could see that Shelly had told him everything and he was struggling with it. Now the ranger would have to wait and see if Longworth would tell him or cut him out. It made no difference to Sam whether or not Longworth told him. But what the detective did about it would reveal the kind of lawman he was going to be.

  “We just saw the horse doctor, Horace Stanton riding into town,” Longworth said to the ranger, avoiding his eyes.

  “Good,” said Sam. He pulled the brass key ring from his belt and handed it to Longworth. “Here. You might need this again someday.”

  Longworth looked surprised, but he took the key ring and inspected it in his hand. “Who had it?” he asked.

  “Cadden Cullen,” Sam replied. “He had it looped up over his shoulder, beneath his shirt.”

  “What do you suppose made him decide to give it back to you?” Longworth asked.

  “That’s anybody’s guess,” Sam said, staring back toward the cells as he spoke.

  Shelly busied herself with stoking a fire in the woodstove and pouring water from the bucket into a small kettle to boil. Longworth glanced at her, then said to Sam in a lowered voice, “Ranger, there’s some things we need to talk about.”

  “All right, go ahead,” said the ranger.

  “This isn’t going to be easy . . . ,” Longworth said. He paused in silence for a moment, a troubled look on his face.

  Sam finally said, “If this is going to take a while, maybe we’d best wait.” He gestured a nod toward the door where the sound of hoof beats had just stopped at the hitch rail.

  Longworth let out a breath. “Yeah, maybe we better. It might take a while to talk about this and get it all off my chest and clear the air.”

  “Oh . . . I didn’t realize the air need clearing,” Sam said. “Is everything all right?”

  “With you and me? Yeah, everything’s all right,” said Longworth. They heard boots walk across the boardwalk from the hitch rail.

  “Okay, then,” said Sam. “Anytime you’re ready to talk, just let me know, Detective.” He paused, then said, as if in secret, “But remember this: sometimes getting things off your chest does clear the air. Other times all it does is leave a mess on the floor.”

  Longworth gave him a curious, questioning look.

  “It’s just something to think about,” Sam said quietly as the two heard the knock on the door and turned toward it.

  Shelly Linde opened the door and stood aside as a black man in a frayed and faded green suit walked in, a shotgun in the crook of his arm.

  “I’m Dr. Horace Stanton, DVM,” he said, looking all about the new office and back at the cells. “The blacksmith’s boy fetched me. Said you are in need of medical services here.”

  “Yes, we do. Please come in, Doctor,” said Longworth. He and the ranger both stepped forward to meet the man. “You already know Miss Shelly Linde,” said Longworth. “She’s volunteered to assist you.”

  “Much obliged, Miss Shelly,” the doctor said, bowing slightly and sweeping his tall, battered top hat toward her.

  Shelly smiled and nodded, but continued preparing the hot water and bandaging.

  “I’m Detective Clayton Longworth. This is Arizona Ranger Samuel Burrack.” Longworth gestured a hand toward the ranger, then toward the cells. “These are your patients back here.”

  “Pleased to meet you, gentlemen,” said the doctor. He carried a frayed canvas bag hooked over his shoulder by a wide leather carry strap. Nodding toward his shotgun, he said, “The blacksmith’s boy also said there is talk of a lynching here. So I heeled myself appropriately.”

  “It’s true there’s been some lynching talk, Dr. Stanton,” said Longworth. “But I don’t think you have anything to worry about. The ranger here has quieted it down considerably.”

  “Indeed . . .” The doctor eyed the ranger up and down appraisingly. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Ranger Samuel Burrack,” he said, “and I hasten to add that it’s all been good.”

  “Obliged, Doctor,” Sam said modestly.

  “But I like to clearly set forth from the start that in regards to lynchings, I will tolerate no man, white or colored, to lay hands upon me, sir,” the doctor said in a serious voice.

  “Duly noted,” said Longworth, reaching out and taking the big double-barreled shotgun from the doctor’s hand and leaning it against the desk.

  “That being said”—the doctor swung his canvas bag down from his shoulder and held it in hand—“I will proceed with treating your prisoners.” He glanced around at Shelly Linde as he turned toward the cells. “Miss Shelly, if you please . . .”

  “I’m coming right behind you, Dr. Stanton,” Shelly said.

  At the door to the Cullen’s cell, the doctor and Shelly stood aside and watched as Longworth unlocked the padlock and unwrapped the chain. Cullen eyed the brass key ring stuck down behind Longworth’s gun belt and gave the ranger a look. Sam stared back coldly at him. Cullen looked away from Sam and focused a hard stare at the black doctor.

  “Say, what the hell is this?” Cadden said, appearing offended.

  “It’s the doctor,” said Longworth. “He’s here to treat all of you.”

  “Like hell,” said Cadden. “He’s not laying hands on us Cullens.”

  The doctor had started past Cadden toward Price, who lay sprawled on his cot. But he stopped and looked at Cadden. “What? You have a problem with me attending you, young man?” he asked coolly.

  “You’re damn right I do,” said Cullen. “No horse doctor is treating me and my brother, especially not some Negro horse doctor.”

  “You knew we had a horse doctor coming, Cadden,” said Longworth. “Everybody here knew it.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Cadden lied. “An even if I did, I had no idea it would be a Negro.”

  Dr. Stanton had already stopped at Price’s cot and slipped off his faded green suit jacket. “As you wish, sir,” he said to Cadden. He rolled down the shirtsleeve he’d just rolled up and turned back toward the iron-barred door. “On to the next cell, Miss Shelly,” he said.

  “Jesus . . . Wait, Doctor,” Price said in weak, pleading voice. “Don’t . . . listen to . . . that idiot.”

  Cadden looked over at him and said, “I’m sorry, brother, but you have to draw a line somewhere.”

  “I’m dying . . . Cadden, you damned fool,” Price Cullen rasped.

  “What’s it going to be, mister?” the black doctor asked Price. “Is a colored horse doctor going to treat you, or do you prefer to die in your own blood?”

  “White doctor . . . black doctor, horse doctor . . .” Price gasped and said in a failing voice, “I don’t . . . give a damn. . . . Doctor, please . . . help me. . . .”

  At the Belleza Grande Cantina, Mama Jean stood a fresh bottle of rye on the bar in front of Fred Elliot, Joe Clancy and the rest of the townsmen. The men strung along the bar had fallen quiet, and drank almost in silence ever since the ranger had rifle-butted Vernon Reese and thrown Chug Doherty through the large front window.

  “I have to say, I never in my life seen nothing like that,” said a townsman named Robert Samples. He shook his head.

  “Nor did I,” Clancy said as he refilled Samples’ shot glass and his own from the new bottle.

  “I did,” said Elliot, his hat off and lying atop the bar, the long welt on his forehead still purple and swollen.

  “I’m both stunned and mortified,” said Clancy. He raised his shot glass and drank half of it.

  “Hear, hear,” said Elliot, halfheartedly raising his shot glass. He sipped the glass empty and set it down with a sigh.

  Clancy looked, bleary-eyed, around the quiet cantina, and saw the bowed heads and slumped shoulders. Then he sipped down the rest of the glass and let out a long breath.

  “Well, that’ll do it for me,” he said. “I’m headed home for some supper and hot coffee—try my best to forget this day ever happened.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute!”
said Samples. He was younger than both Elliot and Clancy, and he hadn’t started drinking as early in the afternoon. “You mean you’re just going to pretend none of this ever happened?”

  “Yes, something like that,” said Clancy.

  Another younger townsman named John Rader cut in and said, “We’re just going to be shoved around and put in our place by one damned tinhorn territory ranger, because he don’t like us talking about taking the law into our own hands?”

  “Yes, we are, exactly,” Clancy said with a whiskey slur, picking up his bowler hat and setting it atop his head.

  “Hell, I’m not,” said Rader.

  “Me neither,” Samples put in. “You old folks go on home, if that’s what suits you. Us younger men will do what’s right for Wild Wind.”

  “Jesus, here we go again,” Fred Elliot muttered to himself. He turned and faced Samples and Rader. “That tinhorn ranger, as you call him, threw a man twice his size through the front window.”

  “So?” Samples said defiantly.

  “Doesn’t that tell you young bucks anything?” said Elliot.

  Samples and Rader looked at each other, and both shrugged. “Don’t let that ranger sneak up on us the way he did those two?” said Samples.

  John Rader turned to some other, younger townsmen who had gathered at the cantina, drawn by the earlier commotion and all the broken glass in the street. “Everybody who ain’t heeled, get heeled.” He said to Mama Jean, “Keep ’em coming, Mama. We’ve got some planning to do.”

  “Hell, I can’t go home now,” said Clancy, seeing the rest of the crowd starting to come back to life. He took off his hat and laid it back on the bar beside Fred Elliot’s. “Mama, set me up,” he said.

  Chapter 20

  Silva Ceran stood at the spot where Clayton Longworth had crushed his hand trying to change the wheel on the freight wagon. Having followed the tracks of the ranger and the woman to the spot, he looked all around and saw the wagon tracks wind away alongside two riders on horseback. He nudged his boot toe against the discarded wagon wheel lying on the ground. He saw the crudely filed X on the busted steel wheel band, but it meant nothing to him.