Fighting Men

by Ralph Cotton

  “Yes, let’s hope so,” said Brady. He also lifted a thick hand and waved at Chicago and the rest of the men. A diamond ring sparkled on his fat pinky finger.

  Arriving at a town well encircled with a short stone wall, Garr flung himself facedown into the water between two horses and drank. The men only stared at him as they passed around a water gourd and allowed their horses to draw water freely.

  “I bet Delbert never was real particular where he drank,” Thatcher quipped wryly.

  “Nor who he drank with,” Russell put in, the two chuckling under their breath.

  At a moment when those watching might have wondered if Garr had drowned himself, the gunman finally raised his face from under the water. He threw back his head, slinging back a rooster-tail spray of wet hair. Letting out a deep gasp, he said in a broken voice, “Walking . . . gives a man . . . a powerful thirst.”

  “That it does,” Thatcher said with a flat, bemused grin.

  Chicago had stepped down from his saddle beside Thatcher and Russell. “Here,” he said gruffly, handing Thatcher his reins. As his horse drank, he dusted off his shoulders, beat his hat against his leg and said to Russell, “Bart, you come with me. Let’s pay our respects to the Shays straightaway.” He patted the lapel of his dusty coat. “Make them both happy to see us.”

  At the foot of a tall staircase, Chicago and Russell were met by two armed town guards who relieved them both of their guns and accompanied them up to the Shays’ office. On the way up, Russell stalled for a second and looked at two other guards who sat inside an iron-plated cage that hung from the ceiling above the stairs. Two eight-gauge fluted-barreled deck guns stood mounted on the cage’s iron handrail.

  Russell looked down onto the saloon below, at three half-naked saloon girls gathered around a twanging piano. Beside the piano stood a guitar, an accordion and a long wooden flute. “Lord God,” Russell said with a wide, lusty grin, “all this in broad daylight. Think how it gets in the afternoon.” At a long bar three trail-hardened gunmen stood bowed watching the bartender shake a leather dice cup in both hands. “I can’t wait!” he laughed.

  “Keep moving, pal,” said one of the town guards. He gestured Russell on up the stairs without putting a hand on him. “It’ll all be waiting for you when you come back down.”

  “I hope it’s not all a dream,” Russell said. As he moved onward, he looked back the length of the saloon where green felt-topped tables stood fully seated with players; each player sat with varying amounts of cash, chips and gold pokes sprawled in front of him.

  “Jesus, Bart, you’ve been here before,” Chicago said quietly between them as he limped along on his disfigured boot. “Don’t act like a hayseed.”

  “I can’t help it,” Russell replied, forcing himself to settle down as they rounded the upper landing. “I get like this every time.”

  “Yeah . . . ,” Chicago murmured, taking a quick look back himself. “All the drinking, dope, whores and gambling a man could ever hope for . . . out here under this scorching desert sun. How’d the Shays ever think of something like this?”

  “Yeah, and why didn’t we think of it first?” Russell whispered as they walked on, passing closed doors where the sound of gasping and groaning and squeaking beds filled the stifling, hot air.

  Outside the door to the Shays’ office, one town guard waited while the other escorted the two gunmen inside, across the floor and out onto the balcony. At a round table, Emmen and Brady Shay sat with a tall bottle of whiskey uncorked and waiting for Chicago’s arrival. Emmen sat with both a fresh cigar and a full shot glass in his fist. Three empty glasses stood in a row like soldiers awaiting orders.

  “Gentlemen,” Brady said cordially, standing as the two men stopped and stood with their hats in their hands.

  Emmen did not stand. “Gentlemen,” he also said. He looked the two up and down appraisingly, then nodded them toward chairs as Brady picked up the bottle and began filling the shot glasses. “I have a feeling we heard you out there long before we saw you.” He gestured his cigar toward Saverine Pass. “I trust you haven’t brought any law down on us, Chester?”

  “No,” said Chicago. “That was just Bobby Candles and some desert trash he took up with after we gave him the boot. Candles always was a sore loser.” He gave a slight shrug and said, “Anyway, I’m not going by Chester now. From now on, it’s Big Chicago.” He looked at Emmen Shay with a tight expression. “I realize you didn’t know, not being out there on the trails for a while. Used to be, people called me both. Not anymore.”

  “Big Chicago it is,” Emmen said. “Tell me, then, Big Chicago,” he said with emphasis, “what have you brought for brother Brady and myself?”

  Chicago had picked up the shot glass and swirled it. Now he tossed back the whiskey, set the empty glass down firmly and let out a sharp hiss. Reaching inside his coat, he took out three bound stacks of cash and laid them down in front of Emmen Shay.

  “My, my,” Emmen said, picking up a stack and riffling the bills. Brady watched intently from where he stood near the table, whiskey bottle suspended, ready to refill Chicago’s glass with Emmen’s approval. “It’s thoughtful of someone, going to all this trouble.” He smiled, gave Brady a nod and laid the money back down idly as Brady poured more whiskey.

  When Brady had refilled the glasses, he raised his own to Chicago and Russell and drank with them. “Now then, gentlemen,” he said as the two gunmen set their shot glasses down. “Let me go over the rules with you and I’ll see to it you have the finest rooms, women—”

  “We know the rules,” said Chicago. “We’re neither one of us newcomers, remember?”

  Brady looked at his brother for support.

  “Be that as it may,” said Emmen, “we find it useful to talk about the rules each time you arrive. It avoids any misunderstandings later on.”

  Chicago relaxed, took a breath and said politely, “All right, we understand. Please continue, Brady.”

  But before Brady could continue, gunfire resounded once again from the direction of Saverine Pass.

  The Shay brothers and the two gunmen gave one another puzzled looks. “Bobby Candles and his desert pals would not be foolish enough to fire on our town guards, would he?” Emmen asked.

  “I wish I could say,” Chicago replied. “But the fact is, Bobby Candles has been acting awfully peculiar of late. I don’t know what he’s apt to do. The desert bandits he’s riding with . . . ?” Chicago let his words trail. “I think we all know that those sand pirates would do most anything.”

  “Yes, we all know . . . ,” Emmen said studiously, gazing off toward Saverine Pass.

  From a high and well-covered point above Saverine Pass, Deputy Eddie Lane had looked down through his telescope an hour earlier and watched Candle and his desert bandits maneuver up around the canyon wall. When he’d seen they had missed the trap Chicago had prepared for them, he’d started to get back on Candles’ trail, put a bullet in him and end the chase. But before he’d collapsed the telescope, he scanned the trail below in the other direction and saw two riders come out of a stand of rock and cactus.

  “What the . . . ?” Adjusting the telescope, he recognized one of the men to be James Earl Coots, the teamster who’d saved his life the day the young woman had stabbed him. J. Fenwick Hatton, he only recognized after studying him closely and recalling the etching he’d seen of him in a recent Denver newspaper. Lowering the telescope an inch, Lane said quietly, “Damn it, Coots. Neither of you has any business out here.”

  Raising the telescope again, he swung it in the direction of Robber’s Roost in time to see the six town guards riding down onto the canyon floor, headed unknowingly toward Coots and Hatton. Collapsing the telescope, he gave a quick gaze toward the rise of dust standing in the air behind Candles and the bandits.

  Killing Candles would have to wait, he told himself, reaching back and stuffing the telescope down into his saddlebags. He couldn’t let Coots and Hatton ride into six riflemen on the narrow canyon flo
or. “Let’s go,” he said, batting his heels to his horse’s sides, sending it down a long, steep, rocky path, halfway between the two men and the six town guards.

  On the canyon floor, the leader of the town guards, a gunman named Cree Carter, was the first to notice the rise of dust billowing along the hillside to their right. He said over his shoulder to two other riflemen, “Fisher, Brody, both of you ride a head a ways, make sure we’re not riding into somebody’s trap.”

  “Like whose, Apache?” Dee Fisher asked, seeing the dust himself now that he’d taken a closer look up the steep hillside standing before them.

  “Apache don’t make dust,” said Leon Brody, “unless it suits their purpose to do so.” He jerked his horse’s reins sidelong and booted it forward around Carter and the others. “Let’s ride,” he said to Fisher.

  Cree Carter watched the two men ride ahead at a fast pace. After a moment he booted his horse into a quicker pace himself and said to the others behind him, “Let’s stay close behind them. Keep your ears open. If this is a trap, we’ll hear them ride into it.”

  As soon as Deputy Lane’s horse stepped down to the trail, he turned it toward the two riders and put it into a run. When he rounded a turn and faced Coots and Hatton from less than thirty yards, he saw them throw their rifles to their shoulders in surprise.

  “Don’t shoot!” he shouted.

  “Wait, Hatton, it’s Lane!” said Coots, recognizing the young deputy in time to lower his rifle and keep from firing.

  “Deputy Lane? Good heavens, Deputy!” said Hatton, lowering his rifle and steadying his horse while Lane’s animal pounded closer along the dusty trail. “I might have shot you, young man.”

  “I’ve come to warn you, Coots. There’s armed riders coming from Robber’s Roost,” Lane said, sliding his horse quarterwise to a halt.

  “Uh-oh,” said Coots, “how close are they?” He stared along the rocky trail.

  “Too close,” said Lane. “You’ve got to get off this trail.”

  Hatton started to say something, but Coots grabbed his horse by its bridle and said, “Come on, sir, you heard him. Get off the trail!” Even as they spoke, Coots heard the pounding of the two horses’ hooves coming around the same turn in the trail.

  The three wasted no time turning their mounts and booting them off the trail. Just as they put the horses onto a thin path running into a steep slope of rock and cactus, a shot rang out behind them and a bullet whined and ricocheted off a rock. “How many are there?” Coots called back to Lane, who brought up the rear, keeping Hatton between the two of them.

  “Two, right now,” said Lane. “But there are four more coming along the trail behind them.”

  Another shot rang out, then another.

  The three rode on quickly even as the path beneath them turned narrower, pressing them to a wall of jagged, creviced rock. Shots continued to follow them for another hundred yards until suddenly their path stopped and all that lay ahead for them was a hand-over-hand climb up to the next switchback trail.

  “What’re we going to do, Deputy?” Coots asked, looking worried, the three of them dropping from their saddles and taking slim cover against the rock wall.

  Lane looked both men up and down, judging their odds at climbing the rocks to the trail without getting shot. Finally he said, “Wait here. Hold them off while I get above them. From up there I can either push them back or get them chasing me. When you see your chance, hightail it out of here.” He gestured a nod down a two-hundred-foot slide of rock and dirt and low, clinging cactus. “Either that or slide down and take your chances.”

  Hatton looked down, then all around, his eyes wide. “My God, Deputy. Hold them off—”

  Coots cut Hatton off, saying to Lane, “What about you?”

  Grabbing a bandolier of ammunition from his saddle horn, Lane said, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll get out on foot, from up there. Now get ready to do it.”

  Hatton stood frozen for a second. Shots exploded.

  Bullets whined and thumped against rock. “You heard him, sir,” Coots said, grabbing Hatton by his forearm and pulling him back against the rock wall for cover. “Start shooting!”

  As the two fired almost blindly at the sound of the rifle shots coming from the turn in the narrow path, Lane hurried up the crevice’s hand- and toeholds until he reached a rock perch that stood half hidden from the trail below. From there he could not clearly see the two riflemen, but at least he could catch a glimpse of their hats, and see smoke from their rifles rise from among the rocks.

  Lane began levering rounds and firing, first at one position, then the other. “Pour it on them, Deputy!” Coots shouted, already feeling the intensity of the gunfire lessen now that Lane was firing down on them from a good position.

  “Arghhh!” shouted one of the riflemen, feeling a bullet slice down the back of his shoulder. He fell and scrambled back against a rock for cover, dropping his rifle in pain.

  “Are you hit, Leon?” Fisher called out, also ducking back against rock to keep out of the gunfire raining down on them.

  “Yeah, damn it, I’m hit,” Brody replied in a pained voice. “Can you see him up there?”

  Dee Fisher leaned out and looked up among the rock above them. Before he could duck back, a shot from Lane’s Winchester bored down, punched through his collarbone and sent him sprawling in the dirt.

  Go, Lane demanded silently, staring down toward the spot where he’d left Coots and Hatton.

  As if they’d heard him, the two mounted quickly and raced away along the narrow path, lying low in their saddles, while Lane continued a heavy steady fire down at the two wounded riflemen. But just as Coots and Hatton had gotten past the two riflemen, Coots leading Lane’s horse by its reins, Lane saw them appear on a stretch of trail and ride right into the four other town guards who had taken position on either side of the wider trail.

  “No!” Lane shouted as rifles exploded all around Hatton and Coots at close range. Coots turned loose of Lane’s horse and managed to get a shot off at one of the advancing riflemen. But then he went down, horse and all, in a hail of bullets. The town guard had struck so fast that Hatton wasn’t even able to return fire before his horse fell out from under him and sent him spilling headfirst onto the rocky ground.

  Thinking that Coots was done for, Lane swung his rifle at the men gathering around Hatton and dragging him across the trail. But realizing the danger of shooting into them from this distance and taking a chance on hitting Hatton, he let out a breath of resignation and let the rifle slump at his shoulder.

  Chapter 18

  More than an hour had passed by the time Lane had reached the trail on foot. Coots had crawled a few agonizing feet and lay reaching for his dead horse’s stirrup. When Lane stooped down and turned him over, Coots looked up at him and said in a choked voice, “Help me . . . get mounted. I can still ride.”

  “Shhh, take it easy, Coots,” said Lane, seeing that the teamster was talking out of his head. “I’ll get you some water.”

  Coots grabbed his forearm, his grip tighter than Lane expected. “No, Deputy . . . I want to ride.”

  “No, Coots, you can’t ride. You don’t even have a horse,” Lane said bluntly. “I’m going to get you bandaged up best I can. Then I’ve got to leave you here. I have to get on their trail.”

  “I’m . . . going too,” Coots said with iron determination.

  But Lane ignored him. He knew what he had to do.

  When he’d dragged the wounded teamster off the trail and prodded him against a rock, he stooped down and laid a canteen beside him, then said, “Lie here and get some rest. I’ll be coming back for you, Coots. You’ve got my word.”

  As Lane took a step back, he heard a quiet voice say behind him, “Turn around slow, Deputy. Make sure the rifle isn’t pointed in my direction.”

  Lane froze. “Who’s asking?” he replied before making a move.

  “I’m not asking,” said the voice. Lane heard a hammer cock. “I heard the m
an call you ‘Deputy,’” the voice continued. “You’ve got one second to turn around and tell me who you are.”

  Lane considered it, then let the barrel of the Winchester slump toward the ground. He turned and stood, his feet shoulder width apart.

  Sherman Dahl took a step forward, noting the dark imprint of a star on the chest of Lane’s otherwise frayed and faded shirt. “Are you Sheriff Morgan’s deputy, Eddie Lane?”

  “I am,” said Lane, already beginning to realize this was none of the riffraff from Robber’s Roost, or any of the outlaws who frequented the trails back and forth to the thieves’ haven. “Again, who’s asking?” he insisted.

  “It’s him, Mr. Dahl. I feel certain of it,” said Farris, standing back a few feet, holding the reins to their horses as well as Lane’s, a cocked rifle in his hands.

  Dahl looked the young man up and down, noting the Colt stuck behind his belt, another Colt in a holster on his hip. “We’ve been seeing your tracks here and there all the way from the relay station.”

  “So now you’ve found me,” Lane said, not giving an inch. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Sherman Dahl. This is Farris. We’re searching for J. Fenwick Hatton.”

  “I am Mr. Hatton’s personal assistant,” Farris offered proudly.

  “The Teacher . . . ,” Lane said, scrutinizing Dahl closely. Turning to Farris, he said, “Hatton could have used your assistance a while ago.” He gave a jerk of his head in the direction of the trail. “But you’re too late now. He’s gone.”

  “I know,” said Dahl. “We saw it from too far away to do anything about it.” He gestured toward the ground and asked, “Is that James Earl Coots, the teamster from the stage depot?”