by Ralph Cotton
“Yes, of course. I will wait out here,” the old man said.
Inside the darkened cantina, Morris Wheeler had dragged himself to his feet and managed to snag a young woman by her long black hair as she stood stunned, staring wide-eyed at him. He stood slumped against the bar, his bloody left hand entangled in the woman’s hair, holding her against him. “You moved too slow, little chick-chick. Look what it got you. . . .”
“Please don’t hurt me,” the young woman said in a trembling voice.
“We’ll see,” Wheeler said, his voice strained and weakened. “You’re taking me out of here, little missy. I die, you die. . . .”
“Turn the woman loose, Wheeler,” the ranger called from inside the door.
Wheeler turned to face him, his Remington in his bloody right hand. “Or what, Ranger?” he growled. “You going to shoot me again?”
“Most likely,” the ranger replied, his Colt leveled as he took a step forward.
“Getting shot don’t matter much to me now,” Wheeler said, gesturing with his gun down the front of his bloody shirt. “I’m shot to hell already.”
“I can get you some help,” the ranger said.
“Shit, you can,” said Wheeler. “Look at me—I’m dead. You did this, you sonsabitch.”
“It needed doing, Wheeler,” said the ranger. “If it wasn’t me, it would’ve been somebody else soon enough. We both know that.”
The dying man considered it. “Yeah, I guess so.” He gave a chuckle and shook his head. “Get out of here, darling,” he said to the young woman, turning loose her hair and giving her a shove. “Next time . . . don’t stand around so long.”
The young woman bolted away like a frightened deer.
“Now, as for you, Ranger . . . ,” Wheeler said. He cocked the Remington with his bloody thumb.
The ranger’s Colt bucked once in his hand. The shot hit Wheeler an inch to the left of the bloody wound in his abdomen. The impact flung him in a full circle along the bar. He caught himself. “Gawddamn it,” he said in a pained and outraged voice. “You did it again.” He stood bowed at the waist.
“Drop the gun or I’ll keep doing it,” the ranger said with no remorse.
“Jesus, Ranger . . . you can’t just shoot a man who’s already—”
The ranger cocked his Colt. The sound caused the outlaw to stop and say, “Wait, damn it.” His Remington slipped from his hand and landed with a hard thud on the floor. “There. Satisfied?”
“What about that help?” the ranger asked. He stepped forward, keeping an eye on the bowed outlaw’s hand, which dangled near the top of his boot well.
“Don’t do me no favors . . . ,” Wheeler moaned.
“Suit yourself,” said the ranger. He took a bottle of whiskey from the bar, uncorked it and held it out to the outlaw.
Wheeler gave him a curious look, but took the bottle from his hand. “Figure a little kindness will get me . . . to tell you where the Snake is?”
“I know where he is,” said the ranger, keeping an eye on Wheeler’s poised bloody hand. “He’s at the end of whatever trail those three are on.” He gave a gesture in the direction the other three outlaws had taken out of town.
“Smart sonsabitch,” the dying outlaw growled under his breath. He managed to take a swig of whiskey without straightening. “You’re that ranger they’re all talking about—the one who killed Junior Lake and his gang.” He looked up at the ranger’s dusty silver-gray sombrero and added, “Sam something-or-other.”
“Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack,” the ranger said. “Yes, that’s me.”
“That figures.” Wheeler gave a sneer of contempt. “I just wish I could see you once Trueblood and Weeks get done with you. . . .” His voice had grown weaker and had started to slur from the steady loss of blood.
“Are you going to die or what?” the ranger said coolly.
“Why, are you going to shoot me again?” Wheeler asked angrily.
“Might,” said the ranger. “I want to get on your pals’ trail.” He watched the hand that was near the boot well.
“You want to get ahold of Kitty . . . like every other man does,” said Wheeler. “I know what you want.”
Since Wheeler brought up the woman, the ranger pursued the matter. “Is she the Snake’s woman?”
“Ha—he thinks she is . . . ,” Wheeler said. It sounded as if it was growing difficult for him to form his words. “She’ll throw open her knees for . . . anything that’s got a pecker. . . .”
The ranger nodded. “I’ve heard that.
Wheeler said with a suggestive tone, “I just bet you have.”
“Are you going to die or what?” the ranger asked again.
“I’m going to. . . . Just shut up.” Wheeler’s bloody fingertips lowered inside the edge of the boot well. Any second now, the ranger told himself.
Wheeler’s hand came up quickly, for a dying man. But the ranger was ready. A knife . . . ? He saw the bloody hand to raise up as Wheeler tried to stab the blade toward him. But in Wheeler’s condition, the big knife slipped from his hand and fell to the floor.
Sam’s boot stamped down onto the blade as Wheeler fumbled to try to grab it. “The shape you’re in, you pull a knife?” Sam said. He pulled Wheeler up by his shirt and leaned him back against the bar.
“It’s all . . . I had left,” Wheeler said, sounding weaker, his eyes looking more and more distant. “You didn’t leave me no choice . . . Arizona Ranger Sam fucking Burrack.”
“I didn’t come here bringing choices,” said the ranger.
The three riders did not slow down until they topped a high ridge five miles from town. “Whoever it was, he ain’t riding alone,” Delbert Trueblood said, he and Weeks looking back across the flat stretch of land below. Tagging behind them, Kitty Dellaros nudged her limping horse up beside them.
“That’s what I’m thinking too,” Andy Weeks said to Trueblood, sounding winded, looking worried. “We’re lucky we didn’t run into them on our way out of town.”
“Damn lucky,” Trueblood agreed.
“It’s one man,” Kitty Dellaros said with disgust. She edged her horse a few feet away from them and stepped down from her saddle.
“Yeah?” The two gunmen looked at each other. “How the hell do you know that?” said Trueblood.
“I looked back,” said Kitty. “You two sods could have looked back too, if you wasn’t in such a hurry to run out on Wheeler.”
“Watch your mouth,” Weeks warned.
“We did look back,” said Trueblood. “There’s others waiting to trap us back there. Ain’t you been listening to us?”
“I’m listening, but I’m not hearing anything,” said the woman, pushing her hat brim up on her forehead. “I don’t know how you sods ever made it this far.”
“Call me that one more time,” said Weeks, “and see if I don’t kick your ass, same as I would a man.”
“That goes for me too,” said Trueblood.
The woman didn’t answer, but she didn’t take their threats too seriously. They didn’t want her going to Ceran with complaints against them. Instead of replying she shook her head, raised her horse’s front hoof and ran a gloved hand along its foreleg with a critical eye. “Easy . . . ,” she purred when the horse resisted her touch.
The two outlaws nudged their horses over closer to her. “Is that horse going to make it?” Trueblood asked as he and Weeks stared at her from behind, taking pleasure in the sight of her even in the loose, ill-fitting riding duster.
“No,” said Kitty. She lowered the horse’s foreleg and patted the animal’s hot muzzle. “This is as far as he goes.” She raised a short-barreled Colt Thunderer from a holster beneath her duster. She held the shiny nickel-plated gun out at arm’s length toward the horse’s sweaty head.
“Don’t even think about firing that gun,” Weeks said quickly. “It’s a dead giveaway where we are up here.”
“What else can I do?” Kitty said with resolve, staring at the lame horse as if s
peaking to it instead of the outlaw.
“You can leave him,” said Trueblood. “The critters will make fast work of him tonight once they catch his scent.”
“Yeah, right,” Kitty said without turning her eyes from the horse. What he’d suggested was unthinkable. She took a deep breath.
Weeks shouted, “If you fire that damned gun, I swear to God I’ll—”
She squeezed the trigger. The sound of her shot rolled out across land and sky. The big horse’s knees buckled beneath him. He collapsed dead onto the rocky ground.
“Damn it to hell!” Weeks shouted, being cut short in the midst of his threat. “You are the most hardheaded bitch I have ever come across!”
“Shut up, Weeks,” Kitty said. She swung the Thunderer toward him, not needing to cock the short double-action Colt. “I just killed a horse that I liked. Think what I’d do to a sonsabitch I can’t stand.”
Weeks’ hand started to go toward the gun on his hip. But he stopped himself, seeing she had him cold.
“Both of yas settle down,” said Trueblood. He raised his rifle from across his lap and held it loosely covering the two of them. “We’re being dogged by somebody back there, whether it’s one man or a dozen. This is no time for us to start falling apart.”
“It’s one man,” Kitty insisted. “It’s that ranger, Burrack, who killed Junior Lake and his gang.” Her eyes and gun remained locked on Weeks.
“Burrack, huh?” said Trueblood. “How the hell do you know that?”
“Because I saw him riding in,” Kitty said. “You two wouldn’t stop humping your whores long enough to look out the window when I told you too, else you would’ve seen him yourselves.”
“How do you know Burrack?” Trueblood asked, looking suspicious.
“Jesus . . .” Kitty lowered the nickel-plated Thunderer and shook her head. She looked back along the trail that led across the flat desert land below. “I don’t know Burrack. I saw him once in Yuma. He always wears that gray sombrero and rides that big Appaloosa. The horse belonged to Outrider Sazes until one of Junior Lake’s boys stopped the Outrider’s clock.”
Trueblood and Weeks looked at each other questioningly. “You sure know a hell of a lot about the man for not knowing him.”
“I want to know all I can about any sonsabitch who’s out to kill me,” Kitty said. As she spoke she let the Thunderer slump down along her side. “Anyway, we’ve got a problem,” she added, gesturing the gun barrel toward the dead horse.
Weeks grinned. “The way I see it, you’re the one with the problem. We’ve got saddles beneath us, ready to ride.”
Kitty didn’t answer. “Which one of you am I riding with?”
They both grinned. “What’s in it for us?” asked Weeks.
“What’s in it for you?” She pushed up her hat brim again. “How about this? I won’t tell Silva that neither of you offered me a ride out of this hellhole after I lost my horse.”
“The thing is,” Weeks said, grinning, “if we leave you afoot out here, we don’t have to worry about what you tell the Snake—not ever again.”
Kitty looked at the rifle in Trueblood’s grip. Then she looked away for a moment, knowing he was right. When she looked back at the two outlaws her countenance had changed. She gave them both a coy smile. “All right, fellows, I think we all know what’s in it for you. The question is, when and where?”
“It can’t be soon enough for me,” said Trueblood. “I got cut short back there with my whore.”
“Yeah, me too,” Weeks said with a hungry look in his eyes. “There’s a water hole up ahead.” He nudged his horse over, reached a hand down and helped her swing up behind his saddle. “I’ve been craving a piece of you for the longest time.”
“Silva can’t hear about us doing this,” said Kitty, sitting behind him.
“Hear that, Weeks?” said Trueblood in a mocking tone. “Don’t you ever tell the Snake what we’re about to do.” He nudged his horse forward on the narrow trail.
“What? Tell Silva Ceran we both crawled into his warm spot?” said Weeks. “Do I look that crazy to you?”