The Alamosa Trail

by Ralph Compton

  The excitement was at fever pitch as the horses were brought to the starting line.

  “Hey, sonny!” someone from the crowd shouted at Chad. “Ain’t that there horse a little big for you? Sure you wouldn’t rather be ridin’ somethin’ more your own size? Like a goat?”

  Some around the heckler laughed, and seeing that he had an audience, the heckler shouted several more taunts toward Chad.

  Chad stepped in front of his horse and spoke softly in its ear. Thunderbolt whickered, and Chad laughed.

  “That horse tell you something funny, did it?” the heckler shouted, and again he was rewarded with laughter.

  “He said it was too bad you weren’t in the race,” Chad replied.

  “Why’s that?” the heckler asked.

  “Because then there’d be two horses and a jackass in the running,” Chad said. This time the crowd laughed at the heckler rather than with him. The heckler sulked off quietly.

  Walking back to the saddle, Chad cinched the stirrups very high and tied them off. Blake looked over at him curiously.

  “What are you doin’ that for?” Blake asked.

  “Just my way of riding,” Chad answered. The others looked at the strangely tied stirrups; some chuckled, but many wondered aloud why he had done it and how he would use them.

  Blake mounted his horse easily, but Chad had to get a boost up from his brother because the stirrups were so high. The sight of Chad being hoisted onto the horse’s back brought more snickers from the townspeople.

  The sheriff, who had been selected to start the race, raised his pistol. “Get ready!” he shouted.

  Chad put his feet in the stirrups, gripped the sides of the horse with his knees, raised his butt up from the saddle, and leaned over the horse’s neck. Everyone soon understood why Chad had adjusted the stirrups as he had. No one had ever seen a rider take such a position before, but many saw immediately that it would give the rider an advantage against the wind.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Blake said, when he saw Chad assume the position. The rest of his comment, however, was cut off when the sheriff pulled the trigger.

  The gun exploded, and the two riders burst forward. Immediately after the start Blake veered his horse into Chad, nearly knocking Chad’s horse down. At first Chad thought the bumping was an accident, but Blake did it a second time, making it clear that it was intentional.

  Chad pulled his horse away from Blake, which was what Blake was looking for. Blake used the whip on his horse, and Cannonball shot ahead like a bullet. Within an instant Chad and Thunderbolt were a full-length behind.

  They were quite some distance from the crowd now, but Chad could hear them shouting and cheering even over the pounding of hooves.

  Blake had several advantages. He had a very good horse, and he knew the course. He suddenly veered, aware of a patch of soft ground. Chad rode right through it, and his horse buckled, then nearly went down before it recovered. Now Blake was two lengths ahead.

  They reached the tree at the far end of the course, then started back. Now there was no course advantage, because the last half was merely a repeat of what they had already done. Under Chad’s urging, Thunderbolt started to move up with long, rhythmic strides. He was at full speed now, and he easily closed the gap, until they were head to head.

  “Back off!” Blake shouted. He reached across and lashed out at Chad with his riding quirt. Chad, seeing it coming, held his own quirt up and fended him off. Cannonball was a very competitive horse, and when he saw Thunderbolt coming up on him, he increased his own pace, refusing to allow Chad to pass. But Thunderbolt was just as game, and a bit faster, and he passed Cannonball, then opened up the lead wider. By the time he reached the finish line, Thunderbolt was four full-lengths ahead.

  For a moment the crowd was stunned. Then a few realized that they had bet on the winner, and they began cheering. Chad let Thunderbolt charge through the line, slowing him gradually, until finally he turned him about and brought him back.

  “You cheated me, you son of a bitch!” Blake shouted, jumping down from his horse and starting toward Chad.

  “Hold on there, Blake. There wasn’t no cheating here,” the sheriff said. “He beat you fair and square.”

  “He cheated!” Blake insisted. “You seen how he fixed his stirrups like that. There ain’t nothin’ says you can do that.”

  “Far as I know, there ain’t nothin’ says you can’t, neither,” the sheriff replied. “ ’Sides which, he done it before the race even started. You coulda put your stirrups up like that, too, iff’n you’d had a mind to.”

  “Yeah, that’s a fact,” one of the townspeople said. “We’re the ones lost some money on this here race and you don’t hear us complainin’, do you? You was beat, Blake, fair and square.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t like it,” Blake said, but he turned away and it was obvious that he had no intention of carrying his protest any further.

  Chad watched the division of the townspeople, and he could tell by their reactions who had lost money and who had made money on him. He was glad to see, however, that nearly everyone agreed the race had been entertaining to watch, and a fair return for their money, even if they lost. His thoughts were interrupted by a joyous whoop from Hank, who was ambling toward Chad, Eddie and Gene.

  “Boys,” Hank said, his face split by a huge smile, “we hit it big! We got us almost three hundred dollars here!”

  The town rose from the ground ahead of them, hot, dry, dusty, and baking in the sun like a lizard. It was small and flyblown, little more than a wide spot in the trail.

  Jim slipped his canteen off the pommel and took a drink. The water was warm and stale, but his lips were swollen and dry. He’d been saving his water, but now he would be able to refill it from the town pump. Also, a drink at the saloon would go a long way toward wetting his raspy tongue.

  “I don’t know about you, cousin,” Frankie said, “but that saloon is one welcome sight.”

  “It looks pretty good, all right,” Jim said. He hooked the canteen back onto the saddle pommel, then urged his horse forward with the bar est suggestion of a squeeze from his knees. As the two rode down the street, the hoofbeats sounded hollow on the sun-baked surface, and little puffs of dust drifted up to hang suspended behind them as if reluctant to return to the hot, hard ground.

  Jim rode into the clapboard town slowly, sizing it up as he did so. It was a one-street town with a few shacks made of whip-sawed lumber, the unpainted wood splitting and turning gray, the houses leaning as if bent by the wind. There was no railroad serving the town, so no signs of the outside world greeted them. It was a self-contained little community, inbred and festering.

  They examined the buildings as they passed them by. There was a rooming house, a livery stable with a smithy’s shop to one side, and a general store with a sign that said DRUGS, MEATS, GOODS on its high false front. Next to the general store was the saloon. It was the only painted building in town.

  The two men rode up to the hitch-rail in front of the saloon, dismounted, and patted their clothes, sending up plumes of dust that settled again on the cloth like a fly swarm. A small boy sucking on a red-and-white peppermint stick peered at them from the general store’s dust-glazed front window. A woman’s hand came from the shadows of the store to snatch the boy away.

  The woman who pulled the boy away might have been pretty at one point in her life, but she looked old before her time now. The sun and wind and the backbreaking life had made the twenty-six-year-old look forty.

  “Who are they, Mama?” the boy asked.

  “No doubt they are out-of-work cowboys,” the woman replied. “Ever since that big freeze last winter the country is full of them. Now come away from the window. Whoever they are is none of our business.”

  Unaware that they had been the subject of conversation, Jim and Frankie looked up and down the street. A few buildings away, a door slammed and an isinglass shade came down on the upstairs window of the boardinghouse. A sign creake
d in the wind and flies buzzed loudly around a nearby pile of horse manure.

  These sounds were magnified because, despite the conversation in the general store, the street itself was dead silent. Jim and Frankie heard no human voices, yet they knew there were people around, for there were horses tied here and there, including several in front of the saloon.

  Boot heels banged on the boardwalk in front of the saloon and a shadow fell across Jim and Frankie. The two men looked up to see three men standing in front of them. The men were rough-looking, with sweeping mustaches and beady eyes. They stood across the walk, barring the way into the saloon.

  “You boys get back on your horses and just keep on riding,” the one in the middle said. He was the ugliest and meanest-looking of the three, probably because he had a drooping eyelid. “We’ve about had our fill of out-of-work cowboys.”

  “We’ll be on our way soon as we get water, a little food, and a couple of beers,” Jim said.

  “You’ll be on your way now,” Droopy-eye said. He was wearing a duster, and he pulled it back to one side to expose a long-barrel pistol sheathed in a holster that was tied halfway down his leg. The other two men made the same threatening motion.

  “Mister, I hope you don’t work for the town’s welcoming committee,” Jim said.

  “This here ain’t no joke,” Droopy-eye replied.

  “Didn’t think it was,” Jim said. “At least, I wasn’t finding it funny. Now step aside. My cousin and I are going into the saloon.”

  Droopy-eye shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Frankie, if they start something, you take that muley-looking son of a bitch on the right. I’ll kill the loudmouth with the lazy eye and that ugly bastard one on the left.”

  “All right, cousin,” Frankie replied, easily. The exchange was quiet and matter-of-fact, but spoken with the finality of someone who intended to do what he said.

  “You crazy, mister?” Droopy-eye asked. “There are three of us.”

  “Just thirsty,” Jim replied. “Now in the next moment I’m goin’ to be killin’ or drinkin’. It’s your call.”

  For a moment, Jim thought Droopy-eye was going to take the challenge. Then he saw the fight leave his eyes, and the man shrugged.

  “After you two have our food and drink, get on out of town,” he said. “I meant it when I said we don’t want your kind around.” He looked at his two partners, who also seemed to have lost the spirit when they saw their leader back down. “Come on,” he said.

  With their way no longer barred, Jim and Frankie went into the saloon and headed straight for the bar, where they ordered a beer.

  “Barkeep, those beers are on me,” a man said from the other end of the bar, “and as many more as they can drink.”

  “Yes, sir,” the bartender said, drawing two foaming beers, then setting the mugs in front of Jim and Frankie.

  “Thanks,” Jim said, holding the beer up. Then, recognizing his benefactor, he smiled. “Clay Allison.”

  “Do I know you?” Allison asked.

  “No, not exactly. But I know who you are.”

  Allison nodded. “Yes, too many people do, I’m afraid. Listen, I saw the way you two boys handled yourselves out there, and I was impressed by it. So impressed that I’d like to offer you a job, if you’re interested.”

  Jim took a long, Adam’s-apple-bobbing swallow of his beer, then wiped the foam from his lips with the back of his hand before he answered.

  “It just so happens we are out of work right now,” Jim said. “We’re interested.”

  “It’s a pretty big job and it’s going to take more than the two of you. It’s in El Paso. You think you could round up an outfit?”

  “Oh, yes,” Jim replied. “I know just where to go.”

  Chapter 4

  After learning of the job opportunity, Jim sent telegrams to several of their friends, asking them to meet Frankie and him in El Paso. Without waiting for any replies, they set out for El Paso themselves, aiming to reach the border town within two more days.

  “You sure there’s really work for us, Jim?” Frankie asked, pulling his horse up to ride abreast of his cousin.

  “I’m sure.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Say what you want about Clay Allison, but I believe him to be a man of his word. If he said he has work for us, he has work for us.”

  “I hope so. After we sent telegrams to everyone asking them to meet us, I’d hate to have to face ’em and tell ’em it was all a mistake.”

  “Listen, he gave us twenty-five dollars apiece to meet him there, didn’t he? You think he would have done that if he didn’t have anything for us? There’s no way he would just give that money away.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Now our only problem is if the telegrams reached the people we sent them to. And if they’ll actually come, once they get the wires.”

  “I figured we owe the boys who rode in the Trailback outfit with us the first chance,” Jim said. “But if nobody shows up, we’ll hire some men in El Paso. You got any idea how many out-of-work cowboys would kill for this job?”

  The two cousins continued to ride through land that was red, brown, and open. They were in southwest Texas, where there were few houses, fields, or even ranches to break up the vistas. The horizons were studded with red mesas and purple cliff walls, and in the distance they saw blue mountains. When night came, the stars and moon shed so much light that, though everything was in shades of silver and black, they could see almost as clearly as at midday.

  The next morning they found themselves in the small village of Sierra Blanco. Hot and dusty, the town was little more than a two-block-long main street with flyblown adobe buildings on either side. The cousins stopped to stable their horses; then they crossed the street to the saloon for food and a few drinks.

  Lunch was steak and beans liberally seasoned with hot peppers. They washed the meal down with mugs of beer.

  “Those beans’ll set you afire,” Frankie warned. “But damn me if they aren’t about the tastiest things I’ve put in my mouth in quite a while.”

  “You ate them so fast, how would you know what they taste like?” Jim teased.

  Whereas Frankie was already finished with his meal, Jim was less than halfway through.

  “I wanted to get the eating out of the way so I could get on to the more important things,” Frankie said. He smiled at one of the bar girls, and she caught his smile and returned it.

  “Yes, I see what you consider more important.”

  “Oh, now, look at that smile, would you, cousin? She sure is somewhat more winsome than Dog Woman.”

  “Anyone is more winsome than Dog Woman.”

  “I do believe that little girl is falling in love with me,” Frankie insisted.

  “She’s in love within anyone who has two dollars to take her upstairs,” Jim replied.

  “Well, then, doesn’t this work out well? It just so happens that I have two dollars.” Frankie stood up. “I won’t be long.”

  “You never are,” Jim replied with a chuckle.

  Shortly after Frankie went upstairs with the girl, a man came into the saloon and stepped up to the bar. He moved down to the far end where he could see the whole saloon, and he examined everyone through dark, shifty eyes. He was small, wiry, and dark, with a narrow nose, thin lips, and a scar, like a purple lightning flash that started just above his left eye, hooked through it leaving a puffy mass of flesh, then came down his cheek to hook up under the corner of his mouth. He used his left hand to hold his glass while his right stayed down beside the handle of his Colt .44. The pistol, Jim noticed, was being worn in such a way as to allow for a quick draw.

  Of all the customers in the saloon, only Jim had actually noticed the man, and as he continued to eat, he studied the small dark man carefully. Jim knew that this man, whomever he was, was about to kill someone. He knew it as clearly as if the man had been dressed in a black robe, carrying a scythe, and wearing a death’
s-head.

  The beaded strings that hung over the front door clacked loudly as two men came into the saloon. The new arrivals were wearing badges, and they stood just inside the entrance for a moment, peering around the room. One of them had eyes to match his gray hair and mustache, and wore a sheriff’s star. His deputy was much younger, and from the man’s dark hair and eyes, Jim guessed he might have been Mexican.

  The two lawmen studied the room until their gaze found the beady-eyed man at the bar. Their muscles stiffened, and when Jim looked toward the small dark man, he realized this was what he had been waiting for.

  “Mister, would your name be Will Shardeen?” the sheriff asked.

  “What if it is?”

  “You got a lot of gall, comin’ into my town.”

  “I ain’t got no argument with you, Sheriff.”

  “Don’t matter whether you have or not. I’ve got a whole drawerful of dodgers on you, so I’m goin’ to have to put you under arrest. You goin’ to come easy, or hard?”

  “I ain’t comin’ at all,” Shardeen answered.

  “Oh, you’re comin’, all right,” the sheriff insisted.

  “I’d advise you to back off, Sheriff,” Shardeen said. “Like I told you, I ain’t got no argument with you, unless you push it.”

  Shardeen’s voice was high, thin, and grating. In a world without weapons he might have been a pathetic figure among men, but his long, thin fingers, delicate hands, and small, wiry body were perfectly suited for his occupation as a gunman. “Now why don’t you just back on out the door before this goes any further?”

  The sheriff shook his head. “I can’t do that, Shardeen,” he said. “I can’t just walk away from this. This is the way I make my livin’.”

  “All I can say is, it’s a hell of a way to make a livin’,” Shardeen replied.

  Using his left hand, Shardeen put his drink down, then stepped away from the bar. The sheriff’s deputy stepped several feet to one side while still facing Shardeen. He bent his knees slightly and held his hand in readiness over his own pistol.