by Ralph Cotton
“We need to rest here for a while, Mr. Hatton,” said Coots, circling the prints so as not to disturb them as he let the horse walk on the water’s edge. He swung down from his saddle without waiting for Hatton’s reply.
“We must push on, Mr. Coots,” said Hatton, “if we’re to catch up to this wounded deputy and ride these scoundrels down.”
“We’ll neither catch up to him nor ride these scoundrels down if we don’t rest these animals,” Coots said.
“Yes, you’re right, Mr. Coots,” Hatton relented, worn out from the all-night ride. “But we’ll only rest awhile. Whichever one of these scoundrels the deputy is after, I’m confident his trail will take us to the leader eventually. These dogs are constantly splitting up and rejoining.”
Coots looked around and said absently, “All in time, sir. Get your horse and yourself watered and rested.” As he spoke he looked down in the grainy morning light and saw the broken saddle horn lying at his feet by the water’s edge.
“Well now, look what we have here,” he said. Stooping, he picked up the severed saddle horn and turned it in his hand. “The saddle horn that the deputy had his prisoner cuffed to.”
Hatton looked at the broken saddle horn. Then he looked around at the hoofprints again. “Whoever he met here set him free.”
“Yes,” said Coots. “It just might be that he made himself some new friends. These water holes almost all have their own cutthroats and thieves lurking about like coyotes. There’s no telling what kind of snakes we’ll end up having to kill across these badlands.” As he spoke, he looked all around the vast, barren lands and gripped his rifle in his gloved hand.
“Then kill them we will, Mr. Coots,” said Hatton. “It doesn’t matter to me, so long as our bloody trail guides us to Big Chicago.”
“Wait, sir,” said Coots all of a sudden, raising a hand to silence Hatton.
Seeing the attentive look on Coots’ face as the teamster stared outward toward the hills to the west, Hatton asked, “What is it, Mr. Coots?”
“Gunshots, sir,” Coots said sharply, answering but wanting Hatton to keep quiet so he could pinpoint the direction of the faint and faraway explosions.
“Yes, gunshots . . . ,” said Hatton, listening until he located the sound for himself on the thin, still desert air. “Do you suppose the deputy has caught up to those snakes and needs our help?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Coots, standing and dusting the seat of his trousers. “I hope he doesn’t need our help.” He stood staring off in the direction of rifle shots being exchanged somewhere up in the hills. “I judge those shots to be a day’s ride away. At best we’ll only get there in time to see who won.”
Chapter 16
On a wooden balcony above a weathered plank and adobe saloon, Emmen Shay and his brother, Brady, stood looking off in the direction of Saverine Pass, the source of the gunfire they’d heard moments earlier. On the dirt street below them, two of their town guards walked back and forth with shotguns cradled in their arms. The guards gazed off in the same direction as the earlier rifle shots.
“I can send out some riders, Emmen,” said Brady Shay.
“Naw, I think not, brother,” said Emmen, the decision maker of two. He rolled a thick cigar in his lips beneath a wide black mustache. “Like as not, it’s Chester Goines and Curly Joe’s old gang. I’ve been expecting him.”
“That was a lot of shooting,” Brady said in a warning tone.
“Yes, I know,” said Emmen. He stepped over to the dusty balcony rail and rested a hand on it. “We protect these jakes while they’re here in the Roost. Let’s not make a practice of protecting them on their journey back and forth.” He let out a stream of smoke. “It is a big desert, after all.”
“Aye, it is at that,” said Brady. “I was only thinking about this Teacher fellow, the assassin who killed Curly Joe.”
“What about him?” Emmen asked, drawing deeply on the cigar.
“I was wondering if perchance this could be him and some paid railroad gunmen riding our way.”
“My information has it that Sherman Dahl always works alone,” said Emmen with confidence.
“I hope your information knows when a man might decide to change his mind,” said Brady. “The law is getting stronger with each passing day.”
“And we should be thankful for it,” Emmen said, reaching up a hand and brushing dust from his pin-striped suit coat. “What would our services here be worth if the law became weak and stopped hounding a man?”
“I’m only saying we should be extra careful,” Brady cautioned. “Look what’s happening to the other Robber’s Roost.” He gestured a nod toward the northwest. “The Pinkertons and railroad detectives have all but put it out of business this past year.”
“Yes,” said Emmen, “but tell me, brother, do you find it merely a coincidence that during the same past year our business here has nearly doubled, while the other Robber’s Roost has gotten beaten into the ground? Think about it, b’hoy.” He grinned and tapped a finger to his silver-gray temples.
Brady returned Emmen’s sly grin. “I’m a worrier—that’s for certain,” he said.
“I know you are, brother,” said Emmen, trying to relax and enjoy his cigar. “Why don’t you go find the new redhead and help her sharpen her skills? You sound like a man in need of twirling his rope.”
Brady smiled and had turned to walk away when another blast of gunfire resounded from the direction of Saverine Pass. The Shay brothers looked at each other. “All right,” said Emmen, “send out Carter and a few men, have them check out the pass.”
“That I will,” said Brady. He turned and walked away as another rifle shot resounded in the distance. . . .
Eleven miles from the outlaw town, on a steep cliff above Saverine Pass, Bobby Candles and the three desert bandits hurried back along a thin footpath as rifle shots ricocheted off the rocks surrounding them. “Damn them to hell,” shouted Lodi, squeezing a bloody graze on his upper arm, “and damn you too, Candles! You said this would be easy pickings!”
Candles, Dad Lodi, Frank Dorsey and Dirty Foot had ambushed the outlaws two days earlier and been engaged in a running gun battle ever since. “I never said they’d walk up and hand the money over to us, did I?” Candles shouted in reply.
“We should have killed him when we had him hanging from his horse’s belly,” said Dirty Foot, hastily reloading his rifle while Frank Dorsey huddled beside him reloading his big Smith & Wesson revolver.
“No,” said Frank, “he’s right. There’s some big money here.” He gestured toward Delbert Garr’s dead horse, which was lying stretched out on a narrow trail beneath them. “Some of it’s right down there in those saddlebags.” He finished reloading and cocked the big revolver. “I’ve never seen anybody fight this hard over a dead horse!”
“Cover me,” said Candles to Dad Lodi. He inched away from beside Lodi and searched back and forth for a place to run to. Having lost his guns when Deputy Lane had taken him prisoner, he carried an older battered Walker Colt that Lodi had lent him when they’d ambushed Big Chicago and his men.
Hearing Candles and watching him begin to slip away, Lodi turned his Colt toward him and demanded, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Candles only stopped for a moment. “To get the saddlebags, damn it,” he said. “You heard Frank. Do you think these gunmen would be fighting this hard over a dead horse?”
Lodi looked embarrassed. But he remained huddled behind a foot rock. “All right, but don’t try anything funny.”
“If I could think of something funny,” said Candles, bullets whistling past them from the rocky hillside on the other side of the trail, “I’d sure as hell try it.”
“Get going, Candles,” said Dorsey. “We’ve got you covered. Wait till they reload, then go.”
Candles gave a nod toward Dorsey. Then he ducked down for a moment until the firing from the other side reached a lull. Here goes. . . .
From the other ste
ep hillside, Big Chicago said guardedly to the five men strewn out behind rocks surrounding him, “Get ready. When he gets to Delbert’s horse, pound him, then clear out of here before we all die of thirst.”
“I’d like to stay here and skin Candles alive for causing this,” said Delbert Garr, who lay beside Chicago, his shirt dirty and torn, his hat missing, his forehead bloody and knotted. He’d been riding the horse at a fast pace along the trail when the rifle knocked the animal out from under him.
“How much money is down there?” Chicago asked, looking down at the dead animal lying in a wide puddle of blood.
“Two stacks of a thousand each,” said Garr. He grimaced. “Too damn much money to let a buzzard like Candles get his hands on it.” He paused, then said, “To think the sumbitch would shoot at me, after we rode together.”
“Probably feels like you turned on him when we got so much money among us,” said Chicago.
“Well, I did. But damn,” said Garr. “I didn’t try to kill him. That was your men’s doings, none of mine.”
“Some folks don’t even try to understand things,” said Chicago. He shook his head. “You know, this money comes off of your end.”
Garr spat and made a sour face. “That figures.”
“There he goes!” said Chicago. “Get him!” He threw his rifle up over the rock and began firing repeatedly as Candles appeared on the steep hillside and ran, slid and tumbled toward the narrow trail below. “There, Bobby!” he shouted through the hail of gunfire. “How do you like that, you son of a bitch!”
But Candles didn’t hear him as he dived headlong at the dead horse and rolled up against its belly as bullets thumbed into the carcass from the other hillside. “Damn!” Candles said, feeling bullets zip past him and thump into the saddlebags as he reached over to retrieve them.
“Keep him covered, pards,” Dad Lodi said to the other two desert bandits. “He’s got the bags!” The three fired repeatedly as Candles ducked back down against the dead horse’s belly with the saddlebags hugged to his chest.
“I’ll be damned, he made it,” Garr said bitterly, seeing Candles run five fast steps from the dead horse to the covered edge of the trail, where he stopped to prepare for his run back up the rocky hillside.
“He’s still got to make it back,” said Chicago. “You, Paul and Buddy are going to pound him before he gets out of sight into the rocks.” As he spoke, he began easing back away from Garr. “Thatcher, Russell and I are riding on. We’ll be up above you in the rocks so when these snakes follow you in, we’ll cut them to pieces.”
“Yeah, all right,” Garr said absently, still watching Candles, still upset over his share of the money now being in Candles’ hands.
Hoping to stall Candles in place a moment longer while Thatcher went and got his horse, Chicago shouted down to him, “Good job, Bobby! You’re faster than a damn jackrabbit!”
Candles ducked down quickly at the bottom edge of the trail and looked in the direction of Chicago’s resounding voice. “I was there, Chicago,” Candles said. “I figure this is my share you were holding for me.”
“And right you are, Bobby,” said Chicago. “But you could have been more amiable about it. You didn’t have to show up with a raging mad-on at everybody.” He gave a dark chuckle under his breath.
“I got the mad-on when your poltroons, Thatcher and Russell, tried burning me down back at that relay station,” said Candles.
“I had no idea they did something like that,” said Chicago. “Now I’m upset with them both.” He looked up and saw Thatcher standing on a flatter stretch of hillside, holding the reins to his horse. “Still, wasn’t this something we could have squared between us? Did you have to resort to violence?”
“I felt like I did,” said Candles, searching the hillside for his best run at it.
“And who are these three jakes you’ve allied yourself with?” Chicago asked. “Anybody I know?”
“Some pals of mine,” said Candles, “I ran into them on my way—”
“I’m Dad Lodi,” the dusty bandit called out, preferring to speak for himself. “These two are Frank Dorsey and Pie Sucio.”
“It means Dirty Foot,” the Mexican cut in on his own behalf.
“I see,” said Chicago, easing up the hillside toward Thatcher and his horse as he spoke. “Well, I wish I could say I’m pleased to meet you three, but under these circumstances, you’d know I was just being courteous.” He paused for another look toward Thatcher. Then he said as if on second thought, “Hey, wait. I’ve heard of Dad Lodi, and Frank Dorsey! You two rode with Matt Warner and some other fast-playing gunmen.”
“That, we did,” said Dad. He and Dorsey gave each other a cool look.
“What about me?” Dirty Foot called out. “Have you heard of me?”
“No, afraid not,” said Chicago.
“Maybe you heard of me, but forgot, eh?” Dirty Foot pressed.
“I believe I would remember, Mr. Foot,” Chicago said, backing up the path as he spoke.
“He’s slipping away,” Dad Lodi said to Dorsey and Dirty Foot, catching a glimpse of Chicago as he turned and began climbing in earnest the last few yards. Lodi took a close aim and pulled the trigger just as he saw Chicago step out of sight.
Chicago let out a loud yelp and flung himself out of sight behind the large rock where Thatcher stood holding his horse. Shaking his foot like a man with a bee in his boot, Chicago fell to the ground, gripping his ankle with both hands.
“Damn it! Look what they did!” He cursed, seeing where the bullet had sliced the heel off his battered black boot.
“Give me your hand,” Thatcher said, hearing the shooting begin again.
“Yes,” said Chicago, taking his gloved hand and pulling himself to his feet. “Let’s get out of here and get set up for them along the pass. I don’t want them hounding us once we get inside the Roost.”
Thatcher said, “The kind of money we’ve got here, you’d think the Shays would take our side, help us kill Candles and his pals.”
“I’ve know the Shays a long time,” said Russell. “They won’t take sides between gangs like us. The only side they ever take is against a posse or a band of detectives if any shows up.” He swung up into his saddle beside Thatcher and Chicago and added, “Which is why none ever shows up.”
“I don’t give a damn whether or not the Shays take our side, so long as they don’t take sides with Candles,” said Chicago. “We’ve got him outgunned and he knows it. If he’s smart, he and his saddle tramps will take the two thousand and cut out.”
“Yeah, Delbert Garr’s two thousand,” Thatcher put in with a short laugh. The three hurried along, the rifle and pistol fire resounding heavily behind them. . . .
The firing slowed to a stop almost as soon as Bobby Candles made it back to the safety of the rocks where the three desert bandits awaited him. Flinging the saddlebags to the ground, he opened the flaps and pulled out two bundles of cash and shook them back and forth. The three bandits’ grim, weathered faces softened a bit as their eyes widened at the sight of so much money. “Lord God . . . !” Dorsey mumurmed.
“All right, pards! Who was telling you the truth about the strongbox money?” he said. He broke the bands on the stacks of case and fanned the money on the rocky ground.
“Sí, you told the truth!” said Dirty Foot. “You are a saint, mi amigo, a living saint among men!”
“And I’m telling you the truth when I say there’s a hell of a lot more split up among their saddlebags, just waiting for us.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve stolen something you didn’t have to skin and eat before the law showed up,” said Lodi. He ran his rough hands across the money.
“Was it worth fighting from the saddle the past couple of days?” Candles asked.
“Now that we know there’s this kind of money, it’s worth from now till next summer if we had to,” said Dorsey.
“Yeah, but we’re not going to have to,” said Candles, feeling bold
and in charge now that he’d delivered on the deal the way he’d said he would. “We’re going for more.”
“They’re pulling away,” said the Mexican, eying the outlaws across the hillside. “We must follow them!” He jerked his rifle up.
But Candles stopped him, saying, “No, Dirty Foot, let them go. If I know Chicago, he’s setting us up for an ambush before we get out of this pass.”
Dad Lodi looked at Candles with a whole new attitude now that he’d seen the money. “What is it you want us to do?” he asked.
“We’ll circle wide around the pass, from up there,” Candles said, lifting his eyes to the high ridgeline above them.
“What about us grabbing ourselves some more of this money?” Dorsey asked.
“It’s coming, Frank,” said Candles with a sly, tight grin. “Trust me—it’s coming.”
Chapter 17
Emmen and Brady Shay stood watching from the balcony of the saloon as Chicago led his men in from the direction of Saverine Pass. “Did you send any riders out like I told you to do?” Emmen asked his brother sidelong as he kept an eye on the dusty, worn-out riders straggling into Robber’s Roost.
“Yes,” said Brady. “I sent Cree Carter out a couple of hours ago, told him to pick five men to ride with him. Why?”
“Too bad,” said Emmen, a fresh cigar clamped between his teeth. “If we had waited awhile, we could have saved them a trip.”
“That’s Chester Goines, damn his bloody eyes,” said Brady, gazing down at the leader and his bedraggled followers. Following the mounted gunmen, Delbert Garr staggering along on foot, like some drunkard searching for home.
“Yes, brother Brady,” said Emmen Shay, “it is Big Chicago himself. It appears he’s taking up where Curly Joe left off.” He took the cigar from his teeth and gave a halfhearted smile and a short wave toward Chicago. “I understand he is prone to spend his swag as freely as Curly Joe always did,” he said. “Let us both hope so, eh?”