Lawless Land

by Dusty Richards

  At the sounds of hoofbeats, Lamas looked up sharply. A familiar rider charged into camp and everyone who had their hands on their gun butts let them relax. It was Sanchez, his Yaqui tracker. The rat-faced man jumped off his lathered horse and rushed up to Lamas.

  “Two prospectors coming off the ridge trail. They look dirty and tired.” He tossed his head to indicate where they were at.

  “They’re coming out?” Lamas asked, then he smiled at the man’s nod. “Good job, Sanchez.”

  “All the rest of you head for your homes by different ways.” Lamas waved the men away. “Sarge, you and the kid go with Sanchez. He has a surprise for us.”

  “Muchas gracias,” one of the departing men said to him, then mounted his horse and rode away after the others.

  Lamas waved after him and watched them file out. Once away from the mountains, they would scatter like dust to the winds and go their separate ways back to their casas. Time to go see about this new find. He dropped the lid down on the chest half full of silver and stood. His back muscles felt stiff from sleeping on the ground so much. He carried the small strongbox in both hands. Black unflapped a canvas lid for him to place it inside the pannier on the horse.

  “You’ve got them all paid and sent home. What did Sanchez find?” Black motioned toward the mountain.

  “Two prospectors anxious to be robbed.”

  Black nodded his approval, recovered the pannier’s straps and set it up straight on the crossbuck.

  “What about the kid?” Black asked. “You haven’t paid him yet.”

  “I will pay all of you back at the ranchero, even him.” Lamas made a face at his discovery that the boy still sat there. “Stupid boy anyway. Why didn’t he ride out to help the others capture those two?”

  Black shrugged.

  “Jimmy! Get off your lazy ass and go help them!” Lamas pointed up the canyon.

  The lanky boy blinked, bewildered, then scrambled to his feet and hurried for his horse. In an instant, he was gone.

  “Black, bring the big horse along,” Lamas said over his shoulder. The Texan made the best guard for it; he couldn’t be separated from that packhorse. Lamas knew Ezra Black lived without fear: Nothing ever shook the big man. Then Lamas smiled to himself. His own portion from the four weeks of hard work made him a very wealthy man.

  At the mouth of the canyon, Lamas stopped his dark bay horse on a high spot. He could see that Sanchez, Sarge and the kid already had the two men captured. Black rode up cradling the .44/.40 in his arm and leading the sorrel.

  “How rich are they?” Lamas asked him.

  “How in the hell should I know?” The Texan scowled.

  “You always say that, Black. But you know.”

  “Looks of them from up here, they’ve been working a claim or some diggings for a while. If they found anything, they’re wearing it.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Filled with newfound pleasure at the prospect of getting more gold, Lamas spurred the horse from under the pine trees. It went stiffly down the steep grade. The two prospectors stood on the trail, floured with dust from their uncut hair and beards to the tip of their caked boots, hands raised over their heads. Lamas’s three men held their guns on them.

  He rode up close to the taller one.

  “I want your gold.”

  “Ain’t got none.” The man shook his head with a sour grimace on his face. His eyes were bloodshot from all the dust and grit. He seemed drawn and tired from his labors.

  Lamas took a hard look at the two men. They were on their way out of the mountains. Prospectors went in with supplies and came out with gold. Lamas seldom bothered any going in; he knew the difference.

  “Open your mouth,” Lamas ordered and booted his horse closer to him. “Wider. Open it wider.”

  He drew his Colt, cocked the hammer and stuck the muzzle inside the man’s mouth. Then he pulled the trigger. In a burst of gun smoke and a spray of blood and bone, the man flew over backward, a portion of his head blown away. He lay on the trail, kicking his right boot in the last spasm of death.

  “I believe you are next,” he said to the other prospector. Then he glanced down at the dark spot in the man’s crotch that began to drip.

  “You piss in your pants?” he asked the man in disbelief.

  The man nodded woodenly, still looking wide-eyed in disbelief at his dead comrade, then back at Lamas. The other outlaws snickered and motioned to each other at the man’s accident.

  “When Lamas asked for his gold, what did this dead man say?”

  “Nothing—he said he had none.”

  “That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes—”

  “But he was stupid. You are not stupid, are you? No.” Lamas shook his head at the man as if to dismiss his concern. “Where is your gold?”

  “Here.” The man hastily ripped out a leather pouch from inside his worn shirt, secured by a leather string looped around his neck. He took it off and offered it to Lamas.

  “Thank you. Is that all the gold you have?” Lamas weighed it in his palm.

  “Yes.”

  “Where is his gold?”

  “Around his waist.”

  “Sanchez, come here.”

  Dressed in the filthy white clothing of a peon, a wide-brimmed palm-frond hat and bearing a rifle, the Yaqui stepped forward. His rat like face looked up at his boss for his next command.

  “Get the money belt off that dead one and check him over good for any more.” Lamas holstered his gun and watched the Yaqui unbuckle the belt and pull it free from the dead man’s waist. It felt heavy when he handed it up to him

  Carefully Lamas examined it. Dull yellow gold dust and plenty of it in each individual pouch around the canvas belt. ,He closed it and nodded in approval. With care he opened the flap on his saddlebags and shoved the belt deep inside it. Then, politely, he smiled at the prospector. “Gracias; amigo.”

  A wave of relief spread over the man’s blanched face. He began breathing deep and grinning. “Oh, thank you, señor. Yes, thank you.”

  “You three know where to meet us?” Lamas scanned the gang members but glared at the kid most of all.

  “Yes,” came the chorus. Good, they knew the place on the border. His method of dispersing his gang and having them join up again drew less attention from the law. So far it had worked perfectly. He drew a deep breath of the turpentine-smelling air through his nose and reined the impatient gelding around. Time to go.

  “Sanchez, you, Sarge and the Kid all head for that cantina on the border near Clanton’s. Wait there. I may have more work for you three.” Lamas checked his impatient horse, made sure his men understood what he expected of them, then half-grinned at the paleface prospector. “Kill him and make it look like the Apaches did it.”

  “Nooo!” the man cried, but by then Lamas was headed back up the slope to where the tall Texan sat aboard his thick-built roan and held the lead on the sorrel packhorse.

  “Let’s ride. We must meet with Old Man Clanton tonight. I want to make a deal to sell him some more cattle. He is expecting us.”

  “You know where the cattle are yet?” Black asked, not turning back toward the prospector’s desperate pleading that echoed off the canyon’s walls.

  “We will take them from whoever has them rounded up.”

  “Makes it easy enough. I just hate giving that old man all the profit.”

  “All the profit. You and I can’t sell them to the army or the Indian agents. We have to have that old goat.”

  “I don’t have to like him.”

  “No, Ezra, you don’t have to like him,” Lamas said as the two riders spurred their horses up the canyon. He knew the big Texan wanted to be called Black; no one else dared to call him Ezra. He did it to bait him.

  They came to the pass at the head of the canyon. A fresh wind swept Lamas’s sweaty face and cooled him. He gazed across the yellow-brown grassland that spread from the base of the Dragoon Mountains far south into Mexico and Old Man Clant
on’s place. They had many miles to travel if they wished to speak to the old man that night.

  The prospector’s cries reverberated through the mountain pass. He was tougher than Lamas thought he would be. Lamas’s spurs urged the horse to go faster. He wanted to sleep in a bed at Clanton’s compound this night, instead of on the hard ground.

  CHAPTER 2

  IN the fresh pine-smelling air, Gerald Bowen stopped and surveyed the capital. Several blocks of Prescott were simply empty staked-off lots. Others bristled with everything from cottages to fancy mansions. Hammers rang in the morning air and the sawmill’s scream indicated there soon would be more lumber to build with. A city in flux, where livestock still roamed on the free range and a smelly goat liked his wife’s flowers. A good place to be. Things would happen here. There were fortunes to be made and to be lost. The nearby Bradshaw mining district intrigued Bowen even more as an investment than the urban real estate.

  He headed for Mahoney’s Saloon on the end of Whiskey Row to buy a fine cigar on his way to the mansion. He liked the exercise of walking the hilly streets of the territorial capital, and besides, it was the coolest time of the day. He parted the batwing doors and entered the empty barroom. The former army noncom came from the back, wearing his white apron with a broad grin beneath a welltrained handlebar mustache.

  “Good morning, Major, sir. What brings yeah out so early this fine morning?”

  “A good cigar for a meeting, Mahoney.”

  “Be glad to furnish you with one.” Mahoney brought the glass humidor to the polished bartop, set it before him and removed the lid.

  Bowen dismissed the generosity and grinned at the man, drawing out a long stogie. “More to smoke in this one.”

  “Oh, it must be going to be a long meeting.” Mahoney laughed and offered him another. But Bowen shook his head and Mahoney put them back.

  Bowen put a nickel on the bar to pay for the cigar. The Irishman nodded in approval.

  “Yeah ever hear from me captain, Sam T.?”

  “Yes. He’s in Denver, working for a large detective agency.” Earlier that morning Bowen had thought hard about Sam T. Mayes. Mayes was one of the men he planned to recommend for Sterling’s force. Strange that Mahoney would mention him.

  “I can remember he was some officer. We rode up and down that Old Wire Road with our company trying to keep them Rebs from cutting and rolling up the dang telegraph wire from Cassville to Fort Smith. Had him a temper, oh, he’d fistfight you if you made him mad. But he was smart too; he could out figure those guerrillas and outsmarted them many times.”

  “He didn’t always do it by the rules, but Sam T. got lots done,” Bowen agreed.

  “He didn’t ever let some silly regulations keep him from doing his job.”

  “That too. Those were fine days, Mahoney, and you were a top sergeant.”

  “Yeah, but it ain’t the same, is it? The military, I mean.”

  “No, we had a war to win back then. Now they don’t need us.”

  “Wonder if Sam T. ever got over that pretty girl.” Mahoney reached for a bottle of whiskey, held it up to offer some to Bowen.

  He declined the offer. Enough whiskey would flow across the governor’s desk at the meeting. He didn’t need any to start the day with. The man replaced it on the shelf.

  “Her name was Sharon …” Mahoney shook his head as if he had forgotten the rest and then patted down his freshly oiled hair, parted in the middle and recently cut.

  “It was Rose of Sharon McCarty.”

  “That’s it. He met her on a raid we made up the White River. He sure had a bad case for her.”

  “Yes, he did.” Bowen recalled Mayes, his junior officer at the time, explaining to him about the beautiful daughter of guerrilla captain Latton McCarty and how he had been so struck by her. Obviously she and Sam T. had met several times in secret.

  “He finally broke up with her. Afraid that she was a spy and then right after that she was killed by bushwhackers.” A look of pain filled Mahoney’s blue eyes. “Oh, me Lord, she was a beautiful girl.”

  “Yes, and I always wondered if those six men found hung near Goshen, Arkansas, was the work of guerrillas or my own men.”

  “Ah, Major Bowen, some things are better left that way. Untold.”

  “So I can go on wondering?”

  “So you ain’t bothered with the truth.” After a pause, Mahoney smiled. “I always keep those best cigars on hand. and love to talk a few words about the old days.” Mahoney shrugged. “They’re usually cheery.”

  “Yes, they usually are. I’ll be back. We had some good times.” Bowen waved good-bye and pushed his way through the swinging doors into the bright sunshine.

  When he arrived at the governor’s mansion, a sparkling landau with two fancy black horses sat parked in front. Must be the judge’s rig, he decided.

  “Good day,” he said to the black driver in passing.

  “Oh, good day, sah.” The man tipped his top hat to Bowen.

  “I guess you must be the judge’s man?”

  “Yes, sah. He’s inside.”

  “You get hungry or thirsty, slip down the alley. They’ll sure feed you a big plate at the back door of Molly’s place. She has great tea too.”

  “Thank you, sah, but there’s some good people here at the mansion usually remembers me.” The man laughed freely.

  “Fine, I didn’t want you to go hungry out here.”

  “No, sahree, and I sure thanks you.”

  Bowen knocked on the front door and waited. On his past visits, he’d noticed the black servants working in the mansion. That must be who the driver meant would feed him. Good enough. The butler John Howdy, an English gentleman, showed him inside and to the office. Bowen shook hands with Sterling and met the justice, Nelson Tripp.

  They took chairs around a polished circular conference table and exchanged niceties over coffee and sweet rolls delivered by a young black girl. Tripp appeared anxious to hear about Bowen’s past involvement with Crook and the Apache Campaign.

  “So you have your military service behind you?” Tripp asked after the chat.

  The girl refilled his coffee cup from an ornate ceramic pot; Bowen nodded to her. “That’s behind me, I hope.”

  “Once a soldier, always one, they tell me.”

  “I doubt I will ever put on another uniform.”

  “Someone better put something on,” Sterling said and stood. “That’s good enough. You may leave now, Daisy.” He followed her to the double doors and closed them.

  Bowen leaned over and asked the judge, “What do you know about the Border Gang?”

  “Merciless killers.” Tripp’s voice filled with rage. “For weeks they’ve been killing and plundering all over southern Arizona. They shot and robbed a good friend of my family, Bart Lambert, and his wife, north of Tucson three weeks ago. They ravaged her before doing such despicable things to her body I won’t even mention them.” He dropped his gaze and sat silently until Bowen’s question broke his reverie.

  “Border Gang did this to her?”

  “Yes. The best we know.” Tripp shrugged as if too pained to continue. “Bart had sold a large herd of steers to the quartermaster at Fort Lowell. Like so many ranchers, he didn’t believe in banks, so he had the cash with him.”

  “At the current rate of bank failures, who can blame him?” Sterling added, pulling up his chair to join them.

  “They struck Bart in a deep sandy dry wash about ten miles north of Tucson. How did they know he even had the money or would be passing there? This was not by chance; no, they had spies. Just a few days later, they robbed an armed party with a mine payroll south of Tucson and left no one alive.” Tripp shook his head in disgust.

  “Who leads them?”

  “Good question. They don’t leave any witnesses alive. Their butchery is worse than … yes, even worse than Apaches. Some swear they’re renegade Apaches doing this, except we know they’ve struck down in Mexico too. The authorities down there c
all them the ‘Ones of Death.’”

  “Are they Apaches?” Bowen considered the notion, though it sounded far-fetched.

  “No, I don’t think so. They ride shod horses. They all use .44/.40 ammunition with shiny new brass cartridges.”

  “Anyone try to track them?” Bowen asked.

  “Can’t. They split up and disappear; Some Papago trackers followed one for two days and lost him. They’re ghostlike.” Tripp made a hard face. “There may be as many as twenty men in this gang. No, if they were Apaches, someone would have seen that many bucks off the reservation and reported them.”

  “They have to be stopped,” Sterling said, folding his hands on top of the table. “And the current established law enforcement won’t or is unable to handle the matter.”

  “I agree. Recently I was in Bob Baylor’s office. He’s the Pima County sheriff,” Tripp explained. “I talked to him about this very thing. He threw up his hands. Says they’re out of his jurisdiction. Do you know what his deputies are out doing?”

  “No.”

  “They’re going out counting cattle so they can collect the taxes on them.”

  “That’s where the money is,” Sterling said and shook his head in disapproval. Then he glanced at Bowen. “Tell him what you think will work.”

  “Gentlemen,” Bowen began. With his knees spread apart, he placed a hand on each leg and leaned forward. “If you want real law in Arizona you are going to need a tough, lightning force of men to strike at these outlaws wherever they’re hiding.”

  “But how? You know what the damn legislature did to me about rangers.”

  “Call them marshals!” Bowen realized he was way too loud and dropped his voice. “It doesn’t matter what you call them, you need men that are tough and have one job. That’s to keep the law, regardless of boundaries.”

  Sterling held his hand to his forehead. “Gerald, you don’t know my problems with that.”

  “Yes, I do. I sat right here and listened to those lawmakers get stone drunk over on Whiskey Row that night celebrating the defeat of your ranger bill.”