by Ralph Cotton
“Huh-uh,” said Ozzie. He wagged his Navy Colt at her, the hammer cocked. “You don’t want to do that, little darling.” He grinned. “Ol’ Oz here’ll kill you dead.”
Terese let her hand drop.
“All right, you’ve got me,” she said. “What now?”
“What now?” Ozzie said. He walked in close and pulled the Colt up by its handles. “What now is whatever I want it to be.” He looked at the bags of money, then back at her, standing so close she almost felt him against her. “I’m wondering whether or not I want to spend some time us getting to know each other, or wait until we’ve found some shade.” As he spoke he bumped himself against the full length of her. “What do you think?”
“Listen to me, Ozzie,” she said quietly. “I know how this looks, but I had nothing to do with stealing the money. Rayburn made me go along with him.”
“That why you killed him?” Ozzie said with a grin.
“Yes, partly,” she said, jutting her chin a little. “He is a terrible man who wanted to force himself on me. He would have had I not shot him. I kept telling him, Please take me and the money back to Fox. But he would not listen! I killed him, and I knew of nothing else to do but flee for my life!”
Ozzie nodded as she spoke, as if believing her quickly concocted tale.
“Go on,” he encouraged her, putting the tip of his Colt up against her breast and jiggling it.
“I—I begged him to take back the money. I even told him I would do things to him. . . .” She paused, then said in a lowered suggestive tone, “Things that only a puta like myself knows how to do to a man.” Now it was her turn to press herself against him. Her voice became a low wanton whisper. “Things that drive a man crazy with desire. Things that most men can only dream of.”
“Yeah?” Ozzie wasn’t completely buying it, but he wasn’t opposed to the feeling her suggestions aroused inside him. “Like what?” He stood against her, but lowered the Colt a little, liking this fanciful game.
“They are things I cannot tell you about. They are things that I can only show you. Things that I can only do, if I really care for a man.” She pressed herself more firmly against him.
Jesus!
He looked all around wildly, knowing he’d left his blanket roll behind in his haste. But what about a bed of pine needles, a flat spot on the cliff, in the shade, a downed log? Something . . . anything! He didn’t care.
As he looked all around, Terese stared at the black bloodstained bandanna tied around his face. A fresh trickle of blood seeped down his upper lip.
“What has happened to your nose, Ozzie?” she asked.
“My horse bit if off,” he said, still looking all around.
The woman grimaced.
“It is bleeding,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said impatiently. “It’s been bleeding all day.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not if I leave it alone,” he said, looking down at her. “These things that you know. Does a fellow have to be lying down—?”
Before he got the words out of his mouth, Terese hiked a leg up behind her, slipped off her leather-soled shoe and began batting him on his wounded nose.
To get away from the hard repeated blows, Ozzie fell backward to the ground, screaming and thrashing, blood flying from under the bandanna. As he writhed and bellowed in agonizing pain, Teresa turned and ran, shoe in hand, and leaped atop her horse. Struggling to see through watery eyes, Ozzie pulled his Navy Colt and waved it back and forth, trying to focus on her.
But Terese had seen her chance and she wasn’t stopping. Atop her horse, she batted the animal forward, grabbing the reins to both of Ozzie’s horses on her way up the trail, the horse with the money bags reined nose-to-tail behind her.
“I’ll kill you!” Ozzie sobbed and shouted. Staggering, trying to see through a watery veil of pain, he fired wildly in every direction until the Navy Colt clicked on an empty cylinder. Still sobbing, knowing he’d been left afoot, he sank onto a rock and sat slumped, Rayburn’s loaded Colt hanging loose in his hand.
* * *
Fox, Otis Seedy and Sergio Sega had heard the gunfire in the distance only moments ago. They had pushed their horses along the Ranger’s trail for a mile when Fox stopped short, jumped down from his horse and put a hand on its front shoulder. The other two men gathered close and looked down at the animal.
“What’s wrong, Zorro?” Seedy asked.
“He’s not riding right,” Fox said. “I’m afraid he’s coming up lame on me.” He lifted the horse’s front left hoof and twisted it back and forth slightly. The horse nickered a little under its breath. “Yep,” Fox concluded, “I felt it no sooner than we left camp. Damn it!” he shouted. He set the horse’s hoof back down.
“This is a bad place to be horseless,” Sega commented, looking all around.
“I know it,” said Fox. He breathed deep and kicked the sand, cursing his luck. Sega and Seedy looked at each other. “I was hoping I’d caught it before it had gotten too far along.” He pushed his battered hat up on his forehead and looked all around as if expecting a horse to appear. “Of all the damn lousy luck,” he cursed.
“You figure to stay off him awhile, see what that does?” Seedy asked.
“Yeah, I best,” said Fox, gazing off in the direction of the gunshots they’d heard. “A couple of days he’ll heal up. But damn all that. A couple days is too late with what we’ve got going on here.”
“It can’t be helped, Zorro,” said Sega. “Do you want us to go on ahead and get the money?”
Fox stared off, considering it.
“If you do, we need to get going,” Seedy added.
“Not so damn fast, neither one of you,” Fox said. “You’re too damn eager to get after that money.”
Seedy and Sega looked at each other again, as if shocked by his accusation.
“Zorro,” Seedy said. “We’re just saying what it is we’ve got to do. If we don’t stay after that money, its gone like a wild goose.”
“Sí, Otis is right, Zorro,” said Sega. “We are at a place where you must trust us.”
“Trust you?” said Fox. “Here’s an idea for you. Why don’t one of you stay here with my horse, let me take yours? Soon as we’ve got the money I’ll get right back here with it. Sounds fair enough, don’t it?”
The two sat silent for moment; then Sega let out a sigh and started to swing down from his saddle.
“All right, take my horse,” he said.
“Hold it,” said Fox. He looked ashamed. “This is not good. I know how this works. It’s my horse that’s down. I’m the one has to drop back and wait.”
Sega sat back down in his saddle.
“It’s how things are generally done, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Seedy put in.
“Oh yeah?” said Fox. “Here’s another way.” His Colt came up cocked and pointed. He waved it back and forth. The two sat stone still. Finally he let the gun slump. “Damn it, go on, then, both of you!” He turned away and stared out across the sand flats. The two started to turn their horses back to the trail, but Fox spun back toward them. He raised a finger for emphasis. “But if you try to double-cross me on this, as sure as there’s a devil in hell, I’ll find you and kill you!”
“We got it, boss,” said Seedy. “You needn’t worry. We’ll be right back for you. You’ll see . . . you can trust us.”
“Get going,” Fox said, dismissing the matter with a wild toss of his hand.
The two Perros Locos turned their horses and booted them out quickly before Fox could change his mind again.
As they rode along, Seedy said sidelong to Sega, “Now, there is man who has a terrible time trusting folks. I bet he goes to the jake one hand holding the door closed behind him.”
“He still doesn’t have this sitting just right inside his head. I can tell
,” said Sega.
“Well, that’s too damn bad,” said Seedy. “It’s his horse going down, not ours.” They booted up the horses’ pace. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “What the hell were you thinking, offering him your horse?”
Sega shrugged.
“It was foolish, but I wanted him to trust us,” he said.
“Yeah?” Seedy grinned. “Well, what were you going to do if he took it and left you standing out here holding the reins to a lame horse?”
Sega thought about it.
“I don’t know, kill him perhaps,” he said. “Anyway, he did not take it, that’s the main thing.” They rode on, putting their horses up into a quick gallop toward the six gunshots they’d heard on the distant hillside.
“Two ways on this money when we get it?” Seedy said.
“Sí, two ways,” said Sega. “You have my word on it.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” said Seedy. They both laughed a little and rode on.
* * *
The Ranger had also heard the shots in the distance. Hearing them, he’d looked up from under the low-hanging cactus where he’d found Rayburn taking shelter from the burning sun. He’d followed Rayburn’s drag marks on the ground and upon finding him, he’d carried a canteen of water to him from his saddle horn. Now he sat watching the man replenish himself.
“Ranger Sam Burrack, I guess it goes . . . without saying I’m glad to see you,” he said in a halting voice.
“Same here, Jep,” Sam said. “Except under these circumstances. I hadn’t heard anything about you the last couple of years. Figured you got that spread somewhere and settled down.”
“Naw, that ain’t going to happen, Sam,” Rayburn said. “I took off my badge in Hayes City . . . left Texas. But after a while I took up guarding the mines down here.” He adjusted himself and pressed the bandanna firmer against his back. “I never should have turned my back on one of these hard-baked putas. I blame myself more than her.”
“What were you trying to do anyway, Jep?” Sam asked.
“Just what I figured . . . I was getting paid to do. I was still guarding the money.” He gave a pained smile. “Even though it was in somebody else’s hands. You know me, Sam . . . I’m like a bulldog. I don’t turn loose easily.” He took another swig of water. “You believe me, don’t you . . . that I was taking the money back?”
“What do you think?” Sam asked.
“Aw, don’t pay . . . no attention to me,” Rayburn said. “Sounds like I might have been doubting myself.”
“Not to me, it doesn’t,” said Sam. He took the canteen when Rayburn handed it to him. He capped it and laid it by Rayburn’s side.
They both looked from under the cactus toward the sound of horses pounding along the trail in the direction of the recent gunfire.
“Perro Locos?” Rayburn asked.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I figured they’d be following me. But Fox isn’t with them.” He watched the two ride past in a rise of sand and blowing dust without even seeing that his horse’s hoofprints had turned out onto the flat.
“You best get after them, Ranger Sam Burrack,” Rayburn said with the same pained smile.
Sam laid a loaded Colt down beside the canteen.
“The barb is hitched out of the sun,” he said. “I wish I had a saddle for you. Are you going to be able to make it across these flats and get some help?”
“I will . . . you bet,” said Rayburn. “I’ll wait the sun out and leave when it’s cooling. Won’t be the first time I rode with bullets in me. I know how it’s done.”
“I’ll come back when I’m finished,” Sam said.
“No need, Sam. I won’t be here after this evening,” Rayburn said. “You left me a horse . . . a gun and some water. What more does a man need?”
“Jep, that was some good work you did here,” Sam said.
“Obliged, Ranger,” said Rayburn. Again the weak smile. “I like to think I didn’t do too bad . . . for a payroll guard.”
“Not bad at all,” the Ranger said. He nodded, scooted back from under the cactus shade, stood up and walked to his dun. Swinging up into his saddle, he looked west at the same rise of dust he’d been watching and speculating on his whole ride along the desert floor. The riders were getting closer now, he noted. Things were coming to a head.
But where’s Fox Pridemore? he asked himself. Not that he cared, just that he didn’t want to catch a bullet in his back the way Rayburn had done, when it came time to deal with Ozzie Cord. He turned his dun and put it forward in the hoofprints of the two Perro Locos. His turn to follow them for a change. . . .
Chapter 22
Sergio Sega and Otis Seedy had slowed their horses’ pace by the time they reached the trail Ozzie had taken onto the hillside. They followed his horse’s hoofprints until they spotted Ozzie on a cliff overhang walking on foot, struggling up the same trail Terese had left him on.
“Why is this idiot wearing a bandanna around his face?” Seedy asked, the two of them watching from a long way off. “Is he afraid somebody will recognize him up here?” He gave a chuckle and shook his head.
“I don’t know,” Sega replied humorlessly, “but I will be happy to blow the top of his head off and count the number of rocks in it.” He started to turn his horse back to the trail.
Seedy had turned his eyes far up toward the top of the trail Ozzie was on.
“Whoa, hold on, Sergio,” he said, stopping him. “We can kill him anytime. Look up there.” He directed Sega’s attention to the woman who was struggling upward with four horses, counting the one beneath her.
“Ah yes!” said Sega. “I see her. Now to kill this fool and go get her.”
Seedy gave him a bemused look.
“Notice anything about her, Sergio?” he said.
Sega studied the woman for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes, I do,” he said. He squinted; his voice took on a suspicious note. “Why does she have so many horses?”
“Jesus, I don’t know,” Seedy said, trying not to sound too disgusted. “What I’m talking about is that she has the money bags, not this idiot.”
“Okay . . . ?” Sega said, prolonging his reply, as if expecting more on the matter.
Damn it. . . . Seedy gave him another look. “I’m saying, if we kill Ozzie first, do you suppose she might hear the gunfire and light out on us?”
“Oh . . . ,” said Sega. “Yes, I think she might.” He nodded to himself.
Seedy just looked at him again, still not certain he understood.
“Follow me, Sergio,” he said in a patient tone. “Let’s go take all that money from her.”
“And we’ll kill Ozzie afterward?” Sega asked as they both turned their horses.
“There you have it,” said Seedy.
The bandits rode on to where the two trails intersected and turned upward in the direction of the woman and the money. They managed to travel quietly until an hour later when the trail leveled onto a broad stone shelf. There a row of crumbling adobe and weathered-plank chozas stood with their thatched roofs long turned to dust and blown out across the hillside.
At a bent iron hitch rail, the end dropped from its stone anchor post, the four horses stood with their heads bowed as if in prayer. The money bags were gone. So was the rifle from the saddle boot on Ozzie’s smoky dun.
“Watch your step here,” Seedy whispered sidelong to Sega, the two of them stepping down from their saddles. He gave no response. Yet he shook his head as Sega looked down and all along the ground.
Fifty feet away, in the row of adobes and shack dwellings, Seedy stared at the only place that had a weathered front door still standing in place. He drew his Colt from his holster and gestured the barrel toward the small roofless adobe.
“Which one you think she’s in?” he said quietly, yet almost jokingly.
>
“How would I know?” said Sega.
“The only one with the door,” said Seedy, as if giving him a clue.
They took a step forward, then ducked quickly as a rifle shot exploded from an open stone window frame. In a crouch the two hurried behind the cover of a low crumbling stone wall.
“Get on your horses and go away! This money is mine!” Terese called out following her warning shot.
Seedy looked all around for a better-covered position but found none.
“When have you ever known us Crazy Dogs to go away when there’s money on the line, Terese?” he called right back to her.
“I’ll kill you both, the way I killed Rayburn!” she warned, not realizing that Rayburn was at that moment resting out of the sun preparing for his trip across the sand flats.
“Don’t break ugly on us, Terese,” Seedy warned in reply. “The only reason we stopped to talk about this instead of killing you is out of respect for Carlos.” He paused, then added, “There’ll be no talking once Zorro gets here. I think you know that.” He looked at Sega and grinned slyly. “He’s on his way right now.”
“Sí, I know Zorro will kill me,” said Terese. “But where was your respect for Carlos when this man Fox forced me to ride with him, to sleep with him—made himself my husband against my will?”
“All right,” said Seedy, “we went along with that because we were told when one outlaw kills another he gets to own whatever that one had, esposa or whatnot.”
“That is crazy,” said Terese. “I never heard of any such thing, and I am a puta. I would know.”
Seedy and Sega looked at each other for a moment.
“All right,” Seedy said. “We might have been misled on that. Being part gringo, I should have kept up on how things are done on the other side of the border. But I didn’t. That doesn’t change nothing, though. You deal with us, or you’ll deal with Zorro when he gets here.” He gave Sega a wink and fell silent.
“Deal with you how?” she said after a short pause. “What are you proposing?”
Seedy took a deep breath and let it out slow and evenly. Here goes. . . .