by Judd Cole
The two friends slogged on. Josh felt tossed between twin horns: When he wasn’t longing for water, he was battling saddle sleepiness.
His first night in the desert had shocked him. After daytime temperatures soaring well over a hundred degrees, the night had turned downright cold. Cripes, there’d actually been frost on his blanket roll in the morning! Following Bill’s lead, Josh too had licked the morning dew off his saddle.
Josh was jogged back into the present moment when Bill called for another breather. Both men swung down, then threw their bridles. They fed their mounts handfuls of corn from their saddle pockets.
“Fire-away is holding up good so far,” Bill remarked, watching his strawberry roan contentedly munch corn. “But actually a mule is what you want for crossing these deserts. I ain’t never met any two horses could do the work of one mule. But then, a man can’t get chummy with a mule. Their nature is against it. Well, back to the salt mines.”
They covered another fifteen or so hard miles in loose, blowing sand. Finally Bill halted them in the lee of a wind-scrubbed knoll.
Josh watched Bill gaze toward the setting sun. He lifted his hand out and squinted as he studied it, putting it between his face and the sky.
“What’re you doing?” Josh demanded.
“There’s four fingers left between sun and horizon. In the desert, that means about thirty minutes of light left. We best pitch camp.”
Up north, Josh had noticed, the days generally bled into the nights, gradual and slow. But here in the desert, it got dark suddenly.
“We’ll eat and grab some sleep,” Bill decided. “No sentries but the horses. Then we’ll ride out the night. There’ll be a full moon tonight. Easy riding, so long’s we watch for snakes.”
Bill had smoked his rifle sights earlier and shot a plump antelope rabbit at two hundred yards. He quickly dressed it out while Josh built a cooking fire under a ledge to hold down the smoke.
“This La Cola,” Josh said later while the two men gnawed charred meat under a star-spangled desert sky. “You been there before?”
Wild Bill shook his head. “Tell you true, the place scares me. I did get close once, trailing this same bunch the first time.”
“Ned Buntline wrote an article about the place. Said if he owned La Cola and Hell, he’d rent La Cola out and live in Hell.”
Bill laughed. “Usually, Buntline is full of sheep dip. But he struck a home truth when he said that. Kid, this ain’t no ‘town.’ It’s a rat hole, a snake pit, and a bear’s cave, all rolled into one. They’ll shoot or stab any stranger for his boots. Hell, for his socks.”
“Well, then, doesn’t sound like women—especially ladies—would stand a chance there,” Josh mused, thinking of Anne Jacobs and Connie Emmerick.
Using his saddle as a pillow, Bill stretched out. He drew both Colts and laid them nearby on his folded duster, ready to hand.
“Tell you the straight, kid,” Bill finally replied from behind his hat. “Knowing the Danford gang like I do, I doubt if the women are still alive. And if they are, they won’t want to be for long. That’s why we have to hurry, the heat be damned.”
“My lands!” Anne whispered to her sister. “That smell is going to make me ill!”
Connie, too, was sickened by the stink of the gang’s heavy Mexican tobacco. All of it blew straight back to the rear of the group, where they rode. It was even stronger than cigar smoke.
Connie thanked God that, so far anyway, the worst still hadn’t happened. Heat, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, an undignified loss of privacy, their captors’ terrible smell and language—she would gladly endure all of it if only those stinking, subhuman beasts did not violate her or Anne! Connie was frightened, but stout in her spirit.
At least help was coming! Connie had little use for uncouth frontiersmen like J. B. Hickok. But these outlaws seemed to know and fear him. And that had kept them preoccupied with their safety, thank God.
The group had reached a place, in this horrible and desolate journey, that Danford called Los Estrechos, the Narrows. A spot where the ascending trail became a series of switchbacks, winding higher and higher from the flat desert floor through a rocky pass.
“Come on, Fargo!” Lorenzo complained as they finally cleared the pass. “Lookit what we just come through! Call a break, why’n’t you?”
Connie did look back, and down the slope they’d just climbed. The full moon was bright enough to leave shadows from the wind-twisted cacti and stunted trees. That vast, moon-bleached landscape glowed an eerie whitish blue.
“Break? Buncha female men.” Danford spat scornfully, but he did call for a breather.
“La Cola,” he added as they dismounted, “ain’t but a whoop and a holler away now. You goin’ weak-kneed on me, boys? Hell, ‘em stall-fed bitches complain less than you ‘men’.”
The rest ignored him, stiff from the saddle. Connie and Anne averted their eyes as the men openly relieved themselves nearby.
Danford remained on horseback, watching everything with a cynical sneer. He shifted his gunbelt, threw a leg around the horn, and built himself a smoke.
“Coyote,” he called out. “When you get done, best hark to our back trail. I don’t trust Hickok.”
Coyote nodded.
Now Danford dismounted. He walked over to the spot where both women huddled. He stood with his feet planted wide, thumbs tucked behind his shell belt.
“You,” he said, staring at Anne. “I heard your man talk it up once in Bisbee, know that? Sure. He’s one o’ them play-the-crowd men. Common man’s friend, all that hogwash. ‘What’s mine is yours, boys!’ Well, now I’ve called his bluff, ain’t I? And he don’t seem to like turnabout when it’s his woman.”
“What I say,” Willard suggested, his eyes stripping Connie. “We all take a whack at ‘em now.”
“Won’t be long now,” Danford promised him. “Just hold your powder. First I want to be sure we ain’t got Hickok on our tail.”
“If Hickok is fool enough to go near La Cola,” Lorenzo pointed out, “he’s paring the cheese mighty close to the rind. It’s only ten miles from here.”
“Hickok’s been known to go where he ain’t safe.”
Heat lightning flashed out on the horizon, though there was no chance of rain coming. Coyote, who had ridden down their back trail for a look, returned just as Danford gave the order to saddle up again.
“No trace of any trackers yet,” he reported. “But there’s an old man on a burro coming up the pass. Got a big poke sack with him.”
“That’ll most likely be an old fart named Esteban,” Danford explained. He knew La Cola and its denizens better than did the others. “Prideful old fool, but smart. We’ll pump him for information.”
Esteban Velasquez was an ancient curandero, an herbalist who treated the sick and wounded of La Cola. A lifelong resident of this area, he had nonetheless remained honest to the bone. Esteban knew as much as anyone did about the constantly shifting power struggles in La Cola, where one criminal faction after another gained power over the rest.
Connie spotted the old man approaching from the crest of the slope. Tired eyes like old wounds peered out from the weathered grooves of his face. The old-timer smiled when he saw the two women.
However, Connie watched the smile fade when he spotted the men—especially Fargo Danford.
“Hola, viejo!” Danford greeted him. “What’s going on, old man?”
Esteban clucked at his ancient burro, and the ungainly animal stopped. His saddle was an old wheat sack. Another big sack was tied around the old man’s waist. The bottom bulged with leaves and roots.
“Nada de particular,” Esteban replied in a hoarse, cracked voice.
He tried to ride past. But Danford grabbed hold of the burro’s rope halter.
“Coyote!” Danford shouted. “You talk better Mex than me. Tell this old coot I want the goods on La Cola. Who’s running the place these days, who’s got liquor and guns and ammo, all that.”
Coyote fired several questions at the old man in Spanish. But to each one, Esteban simply shook his head and responded, “No se.”
“Says he don’t know nothing,” Coyote finally told his boss.
“The old goat’s a liar! Let’s refresh his damn memory. Hold his burro, boys!”
Connie watched, heart pulsing hard in her throat, as Danford tied one end of a rope around the old Mexican’s neck. He tossed the other over the gnarled branch of a mesquite tree.
“Talk out, old man!” Danford warned. “Habla, damn you!”
When Esteban still refused to cooperate, Danford backed up with the rope. He tied it to his horse’s saddle. When Danford prodded the horse forward, it lifted the old man nearly off his burro, savagely choking him.
“Talk out!” Danford ordered again, letting Esteban down again.
Connie watched Esteban stare at his tormentor, then spit in contempt.
Enraged, Danford goaded his horse forward again.
This time it pulled the rope so hard that Esteban was raised completely off his burro, choking hard.
“Stop it!” Connie pleaded, and Anne joined her. “Oh, please, stop it!”
Their pleas amused Coyote, who started laughing. But Danford, fleshy lips set tight in rage, ignored all of it.
Esteban’s face turned purple, then black. His body jerked spasmodically like a fish on a hook. Horrified, both women begged Danford to let the old man down. By the time he did, however, it was too late.
Danford let go, and the dead man slid off his burro like a sack of grain.
Willard pounced on him, going through Esteban’s pockets.
“When you get done there, Willie,” Danford said, ignoring the dead man, “I want you to ride back up with me into the Narrows.”
Willard stood up. “The hell for?”
Danford smiled in the silver-white moonlight.
“On account Hickok will be coming through there,” Danford replied. “Sure as cats fighting, he’ll be coming. And were going to make sure he has him a little accident.”
Coyote stared at both horrified women, grinning with sadistic pleasure. They were still staring at the old man’s corpse.
“Gonna free Wild Bill’s soul, ladies,” Coyote told both women. “Like we just freed Esteban’s.”
Chapter Six
“Keep your nose to the wind,” Bill warned Josh, “The old scouting days tell me this stretch coming up is going to get rough.”
His voice slapped Josh out of his saddle doze. No more nascent moon. From the position of the polestar, which Bill had taught him to read, he guessed it was a couple hours before dawn.
“Man rough or nature rough?” Josh asked.
“Both, I’d guess, but mostly man. Stay awake, now.”
The thick stands of ocotillo, numerous on the flatland, had thinned out as the trail wound and twisted its way higher. They passed through a stretch of desolate lava-bed country, then into the rough, folded hills beyond.
“What makes you get a hunch?” Josh asked.
“Kid, hunches are mostly your line of work. I bank on experience. I was fighting outlaws while you were still on Ma’s lap. Now, pipe down and stay alert.”
At midmorning, the two men reined in. They stripped the blankets and rigging from their horses. After letting both grateful horses roll in the sand to bathe, they spread the wet blankets out in the sun to dry. Again the men shared parched corn with their mounts. Each animal also received a few meager swallows of water from their hats.
Bill studied the U.S. Army map Governor Jacobs had given him. He had followed a different route during his only other ride to La Cola, though he had taken this route back.
“This stretch coming up is called the Narrows,” Bill told Josh. “So far, what we’ve ridden through is a Sunday school picnic compared with what it turns into higher up there. As I recall, we’ll soon be seeing plenty of rimrock to hide bushwhackers.”
“You really think they’ll jump us this soon?” Josh demanded.
“Hell, you can take it to the bank! So stop pestering me with questions, kid.”
“I’m doing my job is all!”
“So is a whore, but she can’t do it uptown. Kid, don’t argue with me right now—save it for later. I can’t tell you where and when they’ll make their play, but we better be ready when they do. Now, shut the hell up, or I’ll gag you.”
“Atta boy, Willie,” Danford encouraged his partner. “Just a little bit more ... there!”
Danford straightened up again and sleeved sweat off his forehead. He and Willard were exhausted after a hardscrabble climb up to this spot. About a hundred feet below them, the trail to La Cola formed a narrow shelf above a sheer cliff of stratified rock. Between this spot where they stood and the trail was a steep, scree-covered slope.
“Might herniate us pushing this pup over,” Danford said, slapping a huge boulder. “But once she gets to rolling? Why, she’ll take a few tons of slope rock with her. Anybody on that trail when it hits can kiss his sweet ass so long.”
“Fargo, I’m beat out,” Willard complained. “And we still got to climb down! Wouldn’t it make more sense to shake Hickok off our tail with bullets steada bustin’ our humps at donkey labor to make a rock slide?”
“‘Shaking Hickok off our tail’ ain’t the game, Willie. Shake off your cobwebs, boy! What’s the good of dodging the fare if we lose our freight? If we don’t kill him and be done with it, Hickok will hound us into the mouth of Hell! You ain’t learned that by now?”
“All right then, damnit! Let’s kill the son of a bitch. It’s just, I’m tired and hungry and thirsty.”
Willard edged forward and peered down toward the trail.
Danford swore and grabbed his arm, pulling Willard back.
“Hanchon, you’re a bigger fool than God made you! When I said we have to kill Hickok, I didn’t mean we want to go toe-to-toe with him. Don’t ever give him a target like you just done.”
“Ahh, I’m sick of this,” Willard carped. “A man can’t even cut the dust out here.”
“You’ll be in La Cola quick enough. They got ‘em a pulqueria. You had pulque before and liked it fine. It’s a good drink if a man can’t have whiskey.”
But Willard, like his brother, never lacked for gripes.
“That damn Lorenzo,” he muttered, rubbing his sore tailbone. “He hogged the best horse. One I’m riding’s got a rough gait. You can’t—”
But Danford suddenly hushed him by raising one hand.
“Keep quiet,” he whispered. “I hear ‘em coming.”
Josh fell silent when he saw how the rough trail had narrowed even more. To his right, a steep, rock-strewn slope rose toward the jagged rimrock; to his left, a sheer cliff dropped hundreds of feet to the pointed basalt turrets below.
Wild Bill rode about ten yards ahead of him, his eyes in constant motion. It was so cold now that the horses’ breath rose in puffs of white steam.
Bill halted them often now, peering constantly overhead toward the rimrock. Josh also knew the former scout was sending his hearing out beyond the near distances. All Josh could hear was the muffled thud of the animals’ hooves, the long, fluming snorts as they blew. But Hickok seemed to hear something else.
Wild Bill had felt this before: this sense that he was both participating in and observing his fate at the same time. It was just like a dream, only he knew this was the real world. And he knew that trouble was coming very soon now, perhaps in the next breath. His fabled guns were less valuable, right now, than his honed reflexes and quick reactions. But he mustn’t miss the slightest clue.
Such as those few small pebbles just now trickling down the slope to his right. True, the movement was so slight a bird or scurrying insect might have caused it.
“Freeze, kid,” he called back. “Hug the slope.”
Immediately Josh reined in his piebald. Fire-away was trained to stop immediately whenever his reins touched the ground. Wild Bill tossed them forward, then drew his right side
Colt and stared straight overhead.
The solid mass of the slope gave way to deep indigo sky. Stars glowed like scattered crystals. But Bill’s narrowed eyes detected a place where the dense pattern of stars seemed to be blotted out. As if by some object. It was right where the sky met the top of the slope.
And whatever that object was, it seemed to be moving.
This time, Bill didn’t bother to hold his voice down.
“Kid, here’s the elephant! Wheel and retreat! Rock slide!”
Even as Bill barked the command, he grabbed his reins and wheeled his horse around. Still looking overhead, he glimpsed a flesh-colored oval peering down toward the path.
Bill got off a quick snapshot, his horse still wheeling, his body off balance in the saddle. Nonetheless, Hickok had the immediate satisfaction of hearing a man scream overhead.
Josh, too, was just starting to get his pony turned around when—whumpf!—a body rolled and crashed down hard onto the trail between him and Bill.
Wild Bill just had time to recognize Willard Hanchon’s surly, death-startled face in the moonlight; puckered flesh on the forehead marked the bullet hole. But then, quick as a heartbeat, the entire slope above them was heaving downward in a rumble like an avalanche.
A liquid fear iced Bill’s veins. He kicked Fire-away with both heels. Their only option now was to retreat far enough down their back trail. Otherwise, they’d be crushed on the trail or impaled on the basalt turrets far below.
“But even if we could get away,” Anne Jacobs told her sister in a weary voice just above a whisper, “where would we go? And these filthy brutes have the only water. Dear, I hate to say it, but our only real choice is to pray that Wild Bill Hickok is more than just a dime-novel hero.”
Connie nodded in the darkness, eyes trembling with the effort to fight back tears. Her sister was right, of course. No matter how hopeless their plight, running away was simply not an option. That’s why Coyote and Lorenzo had not even bothered to tie up their captives.
The two women huddled together for warmth at one side of a mesquite-wood fire, now burned down to a few coals. This crude camp had been made on the south side of the Narrows. Fargo Danford and Willard Hanchon had gone back up to make some kind of trouble for Hickok.