by Ralph Cotton
“I’ll be skint, Ranger,” White murmured to himself. “You sure draw a crowd.”
As the Ranger and his prisoner drew closer, White stepped forward into the street as if to direct both horses to the hitch rail.
“I see you managed to bring one who is sitting straight up,” he said. He looked up at Coco Bour and said, “Howdy, Coco. I figured you’d show up here soon enough.”
“Howdy, White, you old curd,” Bour said sourly. He looked at the barred adobe. “This rat trap won’t hold me for long,” he added in a tough tone.
“It’s not supposed to, Coco,” said White. “This is only a temporary jail.” He grinned through his beard. “Consider it just a stop on your long road to rehabilitation.” He took the bay’s reins and spun them around the hitch rail. He turned to the Ranger as the dun stepped over to the rail. “What’s the news on our jail wagon, Ranger?” he asked.
“Bad news, Oscar,” Sam said. “The wagon was ambushed. Shule and Townsend are dead. The prisoners are gone. I tracked them a ways but had to break off and bring Coco in. I know where they’re headed, though.”
White lowered his head and shook it slowly.
“I figured something bad happened when it started taking so long for you get back here,” he said. He jerked a nod toward Bour. “Did this one have anything to do with it?”
“Him and Jake Testa were both in on it,” Sam said. “They even brought horses for Harper and some of his jail pals.”
White just stared coldly at Bour for a moment. Bour got nervous; he fidgeted in his saddle.
“Step down, Coco,” Sam said, his rifle standing on his thigh.
“I never shot those guards, though, and that’s the truth,” Bour said to White. He swung down from atop the bay.
Oscar glanced around at the gathering townsfolk, then looked back at Bour.
“You can tell me all about it, Coco,” he said in a low menacing tone, “tonight, when there’s nobody watching.” He shoved Bour toward the boardwalk as Sam swung down from his saddle and followed. “You can tell me about the ambush, and I’ll tell you how good a pal I was with Shule and Townsend. Fair enough?” He shoved Bour across the boardwalk to the open door of the barred adobe building. Once inside, the Ranger touched the brim of his sombrero to the townsfolk and closed the door behind them.
“I found the horses,” Sam said. “I lent them to the old hostler at the Mexican relay station. He got hit by the same bunch. They took his horses. He needed to get a wounded soldier to the mission hospital—said he’d bring them back soon as he can.”
“That’s Metosso,” said White. “He’s good as gold.” He locked the cell and took the handcuffs from Bour’s wrists as Bour held his hands up to the bars. He gave the Ranger his handcuffs, walked behind a battered oak desk and pulled out a two-handed blackthorn cudgel. He hefted the fierce-looking club and tapped it on his open palm as he stared at Bour through the cell bars.
“I’ll be riding on, White,” Sam said, “soon as I get my horses watered and grained.”
“I’ll help you with your horses, Ranger,” White said. He laid the gruesome club down in full sight atop his desk and turned to the Ranger. Bour stood watching from his cell with a sick expression as the two turned and walked out onto the boardwalk. Watching the townsfolk start to disperse, the Ranger gave a faint wry smile.
“Have you ever hit anybody with that mauler?” Sam asked, nodding toward the door behind them.
“I’ve never had to,” White said. “I’m going to leave it lying there and pick it up every now and then, let Coco see it and think about it. I owe Ernest and Curly Ed that much.”
The two stepped off the boardwalk and unhitched the horses. As they led the tired animals to the livery barn a block away, Sam said quietly, “I’ll get the ones who killed them, Oscar.”
“I already figured you would, Ranger,” White replied as they walked on.
• • •
Charlie Knapp and Harper Centrila rode a few feet ahead of the Cady brothers, Lon Bartow and Three-toed Delbert Swank. They had ridden sand flats, hill lines and rocky valleys for three days, carefully backtracking time and again to throw off any pursuers now that they were headed up into a remote hideout that Knapp and Edsel Centrila had scouted out weeks earlier.
“The Mexs call this place Cambio,” he said. “It means Turnaround in Spanish—I expect that’s a warning.”
Harper Centrila nodded, looking all around at the wild desolate terrain. Above the stone walls reaching skyward around them, an eagle glided in a wide circle, adrift on an updraft of air.
“You and the old man done good finding this place, Charlie,” he commented.
Knapp nodded too and looked up and around with him.
“I almost wish somebody would try to take us on up here,” he said. “It’s not often you find a place this good. The trail narrows through a pass up ahead between two stone bluffs. Your pa will have a couple of riflemen lying up there watching us. They’ve likely already spotted us climbing these switchbacks by now.”
“I take it we’re less than a day’s ride from here to Big Silver,” Harper said.
“That’s right,” said Knapp. “Your pa wants to be close to his new business.”
“My pa wants to be close to Sheriff Stone, so we can gig him some before we kill him,” Harper said bluntly. He nudged his horse’s pace up a little and rode ahead. Knapp put his horse forward too and caught up. Behind them, the other men followed suit.
Two miles farther along the rock trail, they rounded a turn and saw the steep stone bluffs standing before them like giant centurions. No sooner had they slowed to a halt beneath the stone monoliths than a flash of sunlight beamed down from the highest edge and moved back and forth on Knapp’s and Harper’s faces.
“And there the riflemen are,” said Knapp, “just like I said they’d be.” He raised his hat and waved it up at the top edge on the bluffs. “See what I mean about this place?” He lowered his hat and nudged his horse forward. Harper stayed right beside him.
“Who you figure the riflemen are?” he asked Knapp, nodding up at the top of the bluffs.
“Most likely, Bob Remick and his cousin, Trent. Your pa’s brought in some new guns. Fact is I believe he’s ready for all-out war if the law tries to get you back and take you to prison.”
“So am I,” Harper said loudly enough for the others to hear him. He looked around at them as if to make sure. “What about you, Lon? Swank? You two want to go back to cuffs and chains?”
“Not me,” Lon Bartow said.
“Me neither,” said Three-toed Delbert Swank. “Only way I’ll go back is in a box or on a board.”
The Cady brothers looked at each other.
“That’s Lyle and me too,” Ignacio said. “Nobody’s taking us alive.”
“Taking you alive, ha.” Swank sneered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lyle asked in a prickly tone.
“It means whatever you want it to mean,” Swank said. He spat at the ground and gave them both a cold stare. The other men only glanced at the brothers with contempt, then looked away. Harper shook his head.
“What did the old man mean, hiring those two idiots?” he asked Knapp.
“Your pa never explains his hiring practices to me,” Knapp said as they rode on.
Ten minutes later they turned their horses off the trail and led them down through a stand of pine and into a clearing behind a jagged wall of huge broken boulders. There they found a weathered cabin constructed of split pine timber taken from the hillside. On a wide front porch Edsel Centrila sat on a blanket-covered swing hanging by chains from the ceiling. He stood up when the six horsemen rode into the rocky dirt yard.
“Finally here comes some good news, Silas,” he said sidelong to Rudabaugh, who had ridden in from Big Silver earlier in the day. He gave a guarded smile and puffed
on his cigar. His gentleman business suit and derby hat had been replaced by a black stockman’s-style Stetson and clothes more suitable to the rugged terrain.
“Yes, sir, this is good news,” Rudabaugh replied, smoking the cigar Centrila had given him. His rifle hung from his left hand. He picked up a bottle of bourbon from a small table and stepped forward with Centrila as the riders lined their horses along a hitch rail.
“Harper, my boy!” Edsel Centrila said jubilantly, stepping down to the rail. “I was starting to wonder if we’d ever get you out of that squirrel trap.”
Harper swung down from his saddle and stretched his back and looked all around.
“Howdy, Papa Edsel,” he said with an air of disinterest. “Who does a man have to shoot to get some whiskey here?”
“Here you are, Harper,” said Rudabaugh, stepping in, holding the bottle out to him.
Harper looked Rudabaugh up and down.
“Silas Rudabaugh,” he said, pulling the cork from the bottle and swishing the bourbon a little. “What brought you crawling out from under your rock?” He gave a tight half grin, half snarl. “Must be a full moon coming tonight.”
Rudabaugh watched Harper take a long, deep, gurgling drink of bourbon.
“Your pa sent for me and Boyle—said he needed some killing done,” he said. He reached for the bottle after Harper lowered it from his lips. But Harper passed it on to Swank.
“Clayton Boyle’s around here too?” Harper said, looking around for the gunman. “Anybody owns sheep best lock them up for the night.”
“Clayton’s in Big Silver,” Rudabaugh said. “I rode out to see your pa on business.”
Harper only nodded; he wiped the back of his hand across his parched lips.
Edsel watched as his bottle of expensive Kentucky bourbon made its rounds among the men. When it made it from hand to hand, he reached out and took it just as Lyle Cady held his hand out to take it from Lon Bartow.
“You Cady brothers take these horses, get them watered and grained,” Harper ordered. “Rub them down too.”
Ignacio and Lyle looked at each other, but made no protest. They gathered the tired, sweaty horses and led them away toward a rickety barn.
Harper grinned.
“All right, pards, listen to this,” he said to Swank and Bartow. “While they kept a boot on my neck awaiting trial, I found out Papa Edsel here went and bought himself a nice fat saloon, complete with whores and everything!” He widened his eyes in excitement and rubbed his palms together. “That’s enough to make a good son break out of jail.”
“Don’t let it get your head spinning, Harper,” Edsel Centrila cautioned. “I’m going to own the Palace long enough to put that tin-badge sheriff in the ground.” He puffed on his cigar with a look of pride. “How many men ever go that far to settle a payback?”
The men laughed and gave him a cheer. Centrila looked at Rudabaugh and said, “That ought to make any man think twice before promising me he’ll do something, then not doing it.”
Rudabaugh’s face reddened a little; he looked away.
“The Ranger’s dead first time he sticks his head up. You’ve still got my word on it,” he said.
The men fell silent as Harper cocked his head at Rudabaugh with a puzzled expression.
“What’s this about, Papa Edsel?” he asked his father. “Did Silas here take on more than he can handle? Is that the business he’s come here to tell you about?” He kept his eyes on Rudabaugh as Edsel handed him the bottle and he took another deep swig of bourbon. His eyes had already taken on a sharp bourbon edge from his first long, deep drink. This time he held on to the bottle instead of passing it on.
“I made a small mistake,” Rudabaugh said. “I sent two men out to ambush the Ranger and they never came back. I figure the Ranger got the drop on them, killed them both.”
“A small mistake?” said Harper, as if not hearing the rest of it. His face appeared to tighten as he spoke. “Huh-uh. Papa Edsel here allows no mistakes. I found that out for myself growing up.” He looked at his father. “Tell him what happens to people who make mistakes, small or otherwise, Papa Edsel.”
“Take it easy, Harper,” Centrila said in a warning tone of voice. “You and your pards get washed up. I’ll have the Cady brothers cook us some grub.” He reached to take the bottle from Harper’s hand, but Harper jerked it out of reach.
“In a minute,” Harper said. “First I want to hear what you’ve got to say about ol’ Silas here making a small mistake.”
“Your pa and I straightened it out, Harper,” Rudabaugh put in before Centrila could answer. “That’s all you need to know about it.” His words had iron in them. So did his hands. He gripped his rifle, letting Harper see him do it.
Harper started to take a step forward, but Edsel moved quick and stepped between the two.
“He’s right, Harper,” said Edsel. “We straightened it out. As soon as the time is right, we’re taking another crack at it. The Ranger is going down, along with Sheppard Stone.”
“Straightened out, huh?” Harper stared at his father, his contempt only slightly hidden. “I’m hearing a lot of talk here,” he said. “But it’s going to take more than talk to kill them lawmen, Stone or Burrack, either one.” He took a step backward and raised another drink of bourbon. “Don’t worry, Papa Edsel, old man,” he said to his father. “I’ll kill the lawmen. I’ll kill them both, and I won’t have to buy a saloon to get it done.” He glared at Edsel and said to Lon Bartow and Three-toed Delbert Swank, “Come on, jail pards. Let’s go finish this bottle and get washed up for dinner.”
Edsel, Rudabaugh and Charlie Knapp watched the three younger gunmen walk away.
“He’s going to be all right,” Edsel said, puffing on his cigar, putting on a confident face. “He’s been in jail cells of one kind or another going on three months now, waiting to go to Yuma. It’ll take him a day or two, but he’ll get back to his old self.”
His old self. . . .
Knapp and Rudabaugh looked at each other. Neither of them had ever seen Harper Centrila act much better than he had done just now. But they knew better than to say anything.
“We know that, boss,” said Knapp. “Everybody’s a little high-strung right now—we’ll all feel a lot better when we get these law dogs in our gun sights.”
Part 3
Chapter 14
Three days later: Big Silver, Arizona Badlands
Sheriff Sheppard Stone had awakened in the night with a sense of terrible dread. He’d been sweaty and shaky and could feel his heart pounding hard in his chest. He’d boiled a pot of strong coffee and drunk it mug upon mug, smoking with it the six cigarettes he’d rolled and laid atop his desk. Something bad was coming—coming soon, he’d told himself. Today even. He’d dressed and pulled on his duster and picked up his rifle, wondering how much of this was real, and how much was whiskey craziness.
Either way . . .
Rifle in hand, he’d walked the dark, silent streets until the sun streaked and glittered along the eastern edge of the planet. As the town awakened behind him, he walked the outer perimeters. He had no idea how far he’d walked. He’d walked and smoked and fed himself cough drops one after another until his shirt pocket was nearly emptied of them. Still the foreboding, the dark premonition, whatever it was. He sighed a long breath.
He stood at the edge of town as daylight broke and watched five horsemen riding in across the sand flats. He watched them as the sun rose stronger, and as the morning heat closed over the desert and left the riders obscured in a wavering veil. He still kept a wary eye out toward the riders as he walked back along the busy street.
Suddenly he stopped and a strange realization struck him. Even though the riders were still only distant images in a swirl of sunlight and sand—too far away to recognize—he knew beyond any doubt or any shred of rationale that when they arrived one of them
would be Harper Centrila.
Harper Centrila? Whoa, Sheriff, he cautioned, reminding himself that by now Harper Centrila was looking out from behind bars at Yuma Penitentiary.
Take it easy.
He tried to tell himself this was just the whiskey still playing with his nerves, as it had been throughout the night. But he couldn’t shake the belief that the younger gunman was out there on the flats, riding into town this very moment. Here it was again, he told himself, that strange feeling that everything happening had happened before. He rubbed his eyes as if to do so might erase the image from his mind. Yet he saw Harper out there, right down to the dusty blue bib-front shirt he wore—would be wearing, he corrected himself. He saw him plain as day.
He walked on, feeling the skin on the back of his neck crawl. This was not some trick of the mind as the doctor suggested. This was real; this was happening.
He moved the cough drop to the side of his mouth as he walked and tapped his fingers to his gun butt, trying to shake the weirdness that had crept in around him. All right . . . , he told himself with resolve. He’d been expecting trouble. Here it came. He’d deal with it.
But first things first.
He walked past the Silver Palace, keeping on the opposite side of the busy street. A block farther, he looked all around to make sure he wasn’t being watched. Then he crossed the street, maneuvered around passing freight wagons and buggies and slipped into an alley that ran back behind the Silver Palace. He climbed a long set of wooden stairs and unlocked the rear door with a key no one knew he had, and slipped inside unseen. He walked down an empty hallway and stopped and knocked softly on a large oak door. From downstairs he heard a bartender gathering empty glasses, straightening empty chairs.