by Ralph Cotton
“I—I knew the first time . . . I laid eyes on him. That he was . . . going to kill me,” he said.
“Hang on, Charlie!” said Carlos Loonie. “I’ll get you patched up.”
“Ha!” said Ruiz, blood running from between his fingers, down his belly. “There ain’t no . . . patching up for this.” He leaned back against the wall and slid down to the ground. He eyes went blank, staring straight ahead.
At the front doors, Doc jerked the long timber up from its frame and pitched it aside. He threw the doors open as Thorpe and Cady swung into sight and fired down at him from the bell tower.
In the courtyard, Shaw had jumped down from atop the wall just in time to escape a shot from Reilly Cady, who had swung his gun toward him after seeing Doc disappear out through the open doors.
Shaw fired the big Russian in his right hand toward the tower. Cady fell backward with both hands grasping his face—the .44 bullet smashed through the bridge of his nose and caused the back of his head to explode on the large church bell. The bullet caused a resounding ring as it gave the bell a glancing blow, before it turned and thumped into Thorpe’s stomach.
Through the open doors, the empty wagon came rumbling in and slid to a sidelong halt, Dawson standing at the driver’s seat. Calwdell sat in the seat beside him, one bloody hand holding the bandana to his chest, his other bloody hand holding his Colt.
Carlos Loonie leaped out through a window with a loud yell and fired wildly toward Shaw. But one shot from the big Smith & Wesson in Dawson’s hand sent him flying dead to the ground.
Behind the wagon, Doc stepped back inside the open doors with caution. Shaw walked sidelong toward the wagon, the smoking Russian .44s in his hands.
At the bell tower, Morgan Thorpe stepped into view, one hand held high, gripping a pistol, his other hand holding his bleeding stomach.
“Of all the . . . damn luck,” he said, gasping heavily in his pain. “I take one . . . from off the church bell.” He tried to give a dark laugh, but it ended in a painful groan.
“Gut-shot,” Doc said, “the poor sumbitch.”
Seeing the raised gun in Thorpe’s hand, Shaw levered one of the Russians up toward him.
“Wait—don’t shoot,” Dawson said to Shaw. “Thorpe, drop the gun and walk down here.”
“I’ll drop the gun,” said Thorpe, “but I’m not walking any damn where. I hurt too bad. I’m going to die right up here.”
“Where’s the padre?” said Dawson. “He can patch you up. We’ve got a wounded man here ourselves who needs his help.”
“There’s no help here . . . not from the good padre,” said Thorpe. “He’s gone.”
“Where’s the woman?” Shaw asked.
“She’s gone too,” said Thorpe. He laid the gun down on the ledge and shoved it away from himself. “Biggest damn haul we ever made . . . now the padre is on the run and here I am, dying.” He sounded bitter.
Dawson, Caldwell, Shaw and Doc all four looked at each other. “Are you saying Father Timido had something to do with stealing Readling’s stash of gold and currency?” Dawson asked.
Thorpe managed to laugh, this time judging the pain to be worth the effort. “Wait right there,” he said, ending his laugh with a hoarse painful cough. “I’m coming . . . down after all. I’ve got to . . . see your faces.”
Doc walked inside the church and met the bloody wounded gunman as he struggled the last few rungs down the ladder.
Out front, Dawson had stepped down from the wagon; Shaw had walked over and stood beside him. While they waited for Thorpe and Doc Penton to walk out of the church, Shaw heard the slow drop of hooves walk in through the open doors. He raised a free hand around and patted the bay on its muzzle when it walked up quietly beside him.
“I didn’t forget about you,” he said to the horse. The bay chuffed and blew out a breath.
When Thorpe stumbled out into the courtyard, Doc right behind him, Dawson walked over. The wounded gunman leaned back against the wall and slid to the ground.
“Can I . . . get some water?” Thorpe asked.
Doc walked back inside the church for some water. Dawson said to Thorpe, “Now, what were you going to say about Father Timido?”
“Father Timido is Mingus Santana,” Thorpe said, his stomach bleeding more from his climb down the ladder.
Seeing that the wounds were going to take him pretty quick, Dawson said, “You’re saying Santana posed as a priest?”
“No posing to it,” said Thorpe. “Mingus Santana is a priest. He always was. He just . . . changed his name. Something these . . . holy men can do, I reckon.”
“I don’t believe him,” Shaw said over Dawson’s shoulder.
“It’s true,” Thorpe said. “He’s been . . . right here . . . almost three years. He had a church . . . outside Mexico City three years before this.” He gave a pained grin. “Why do you think nobody ever caught him . . . or even saw him for that matter? Nobody knew it but me . . . and his other two right-hand men.”
Doc appeared with a wooden bucket of fresh water and a long gourd dipper. He gave the dying gunman a sip; then he poured a few drops onto his palm and raised it to Thorpe’s sweating forehead. Thorpe sighed in relief.
“What about the woman,” Shaw asked him, “Senora Rosa Reyes? And don’t tell me she’s some dove he bought to keep him company. I know better. She told me about her father and her brother, how Readling was holding them hostage.”
Thorpe shook his head. “All lies,” he said. “No father . . . or brother held captive. She’s una monja, is how they say it. . . .” Thorpe choked out in a gasping breath, gripping his stomach tighter.
“She’s a nun?” Shaw said, translating his words. “No, I don’t believe it! He’s lying,” he said, turning to Dawson, his eyes wild in disbelief.
“Believe it,” said Thorpe. “I’ve got no . . . reason to lie to you.”
Seeing the man starting to slump, Shaw grabbed him by his sweaty shoulders and shook just enough to keep him awake, knowing that once he shut his eyes, he’d never reopen them.
“Where’s the priest taking her?” Shaw demanded.
“Anywhere he . . . wants to take her,” Thorpe said, his voice getting weaker. “They’ve been together . . . a long time. Like man . . . and wife.”
Shaw stared at him. “Like man and wife?” he said. “But you say she’s a nun.”
“Yeah . . . I know,” said Thorpe, his voice turning faint. “Ain’t that something . . . ?” His words ended in a whisper.
“Wake up!” Shaw said, shaking him again by his shoulders. “Wake the hell up!”
“Shaw, turn him loose,” Dawson shouted. “He’s dead.”
“He was lying,” Shaw said. He looked back and forth among them. “We’ve got to go after them. They can’t be that far along the trail.”
“We can’t go,” Dawson said. “I’ve got to get Jedson patched up. The bleeding’s stopped, but put him in a saddle and it’ll start up again.” He looked around. “Anyway, we’ve put down the Cut-Jaws. We’ll get Santana, whoever he is, when he shows his face again.”
Shaw turned to Caldwell and said, “Undertaker?”
The deputy gave him a nod and said, “It’s okay. You go ahead.”
“I’ve got to find her,” Shaw said. “I’ve got to.”
“I understand,” said Caldwell. “I told you it’s okay.”
Shaw gave Dawson a questioning look.
“Go on. Get out of here, Shaw,” Dawson said. “I’ll patch him up and let him rest the night.”
Without another word, Shaw stepped into his saddle, turned the bay and rode away toward the trail running behind the mission church and off into the hillside.
After a moment, as Dawson filled the gourd with water and held it to Caldwell’s lips, Doc said, “I expect I’ll just go get my horse and catch up to him.”
Dawson and Caldwell stared at him curiously.
Doc gave a tired smile and shrugged. “I wronged him a while back, damn near got h
im killed. I’ve got to work it off somehow.”
They watched him walk out the doors and down the street, where he stepped into his saddle and rode away.
“Well, our man Shaw is off and gone again,” Caldwell said after a moment.
“Yep,” said Dawson.
“I believe he really thinks that Senora Reyes is his wife, Rosa . . . somehow,” Caldwell said.
“I know he does,” said Dawson. “The shape he’s in, it’s best to just let him ride it out, I figure.” He looked off in the direction Shaw had taken toward the hills. “I know she’s not Rosa Shaw,” he said, “but I almost envy him thinking it is. To tell the truth, I could have just about gone off after the senora myself, Deputy.”
“Oh?” Caldwell stared at him.
Dawson let out a breath. “But two men can’t have the same woman,” he said. “I know that now.” He gazed off toward the evening sunlight, watching it spread red and gold on the hills mantling the far horizon. “I only wish I’d known it years ago.”
Don’t miss a page of action from America’s most exciting Western author, Ralph Cotton.
GUN LAW
Coming from Signet in April 2011.
Kindred, New Mexico Territory
Neither of the two men standing at the bar saw Sherman Dahl ride into town. They tipped shot glasses at each other and threw back a mouthful of fiery rye. Sliding their empty glasses away, they raised heavy mugs of beer and drank through an inch of cold, silky foam.
“Ahhh . . . damn, this is living,” said one to the other.
Out front, Dahl stepped down from his tan dun and spun its reins to a wooden hitch rail in front of a tack-and-saddle shop next door to the Lucky Devil Saloon. He pulled a Winchester repeater from its saddle boot. The tack-shop owner wiped his hands on his leather apron when he saw Dahl step onto the boardwalk. But he looked on in disappointment as Dahl walked past his open door to the saloon.
At the bar, the other man grinned and replied through a foam-frosted mustache, “You’re by-God right it is.”
On the boardwalk Dahl levered a round into his rifle chamber and stepped back for a second while two cattle buyers walked out through the saloon’s batwing doors. The buyers looked him up and down and moved on. One took a cigar from his lips and gave a curious nod.
“It doesn’t look good for somebody,” he said, noting the serious look on Dahl’s face.
The two walked on.
At the bar, one of the drinkers, a former Montana-range detective named Curtis Hickes, grinned and wiped the back of his hand across his foamy lips.
“Tell the truth,” he said to his companion, Ernie Newman. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be standing right here today, would you?” He poked a stiff, wet finger up and down on the bar top as he spoke.
“I don’t deny it,” said Newman. “You were right about this place.”
“Damn right I was right,” said Hickes. He took another deep swig of beer.
“I’m obliged,” said Newman.
“Yeah? Just how obliged?” Hickes asked in a blunt tone.
“As obliged as I should be,” said Newman. He gave Hickes a guarded look. “But I ain’t kissing nothing that belongs to you.”
“You know what I mean,” Hickes said. He rubbed his thumb and fingertips together in the universal sign of greed. “Every act is worth its balance.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Newman shook his head, sipped his beer and said, “The fact is, you was asked to bring a good man or two with you. So I might just have done you a favor standing here today.”
“That ain’t how I see it,” said Hickes.
“See it how it suits you.” Newman shrugged. “I’ll do the same.”
“Son of a bitch!” Hickes growled.
“Say it again. I dare you!” Newman’s hand went to his holstered gun butt.
Both men heard the rustle and scuffle of boots as men cleared away on either side of the bar from them. The saloon owner ducked down out of sight and crawled away in a hurry.
But before either man could make a move on the other, Dahl’s Winchester exploded from where he’d stepped inside the swinging batwing doors.
A half block away, the cattle buyers flinched at the sound of gunfire. “I called that one,” one said without a backward glance.
“Indeed, you did,” said the other in a dismissing manner. “Now let’s talk beefs. . . .”
Dahl’s first shot nailed Newman in the heart, from the side as the gunman turned facing Hickes.
Hickes saw the impact of the bullet fling Newman halfway up onto the bar. He swung around toward Dahl, snatching his Remington from its holster. But the gun never cleared leather. It fell from his hand back down into a tooled slim-jim holster as Dahl’s next shot hammered him backward against the bar and dropped him dead on the floor.
“Good Lord Almighty!” the saloon owner cried out, rising from the floor at the far end of the bar and looking at the blood splatter and bullet holes in the shattered mirror behind the bar. “Somebody’s gonna pay for this!”
He held in his shaking hand a sawed-off shotgun, which he’d jerked from under the bar in his frantic crawl. Seeing Dahl swing the rifle barrel toward him, he turned the shotgun loose as if it were hot and let it fall to the floor.
Dahl lowered the rifle barrel, having levered a fresh round into the chamber. “Where’s Ned Carver and Cordell Garrant?” he asked anyone listening.
“Cordell Garrant is dead,” said a voice from a corner table. “He died a week ago from the fever.”
Dahl swung around facing the voice as a man wearing a long swallow-tailed suit coat and a battered derby hat rose slowly from a chair, his hands chest high.
“Ned Carver left town three nights ago,” the man said quietly. “Must’ve known somebody was coming for him.”
“Nice try, Ned,” said Dahl. The rifle exploded again. The shot flung the man backward from the table. His long coat flew open, revealing a sawed-off shotgun he never got the chance to draw.
“Holy jumping Moses!” shouted the saloon owner, seeing more blood splatter on the wall as customers once again ducked away and scrambled out of range.
Seeing one customer look past him wide-eyed in fear, Dahl realized there was a gun being pointed somewhere behind him. He levered another round and swung in a fast full circle.
But he wasn’t fast enough. He saw the big Russian pistol pointed out at arm’s reach toward him; he saw it buck; he saw the streak of blue-orange fire. He felt the bullet hit him high in the chest at heart level. A second bullet hit him no more than an inch from the first; and he flew backward, broken and limp, like some rag doll.
Dahl’s rifle flew from his hand; he hit the floor ten feet farther back from where he’d stood.
“I’m Cordell Garrant,” the gunman said.
He stepped forward across the floor toward Dahl, who lay struggling to catch his breath, his right hand clutching his chest over the two bullet holes. He cocked the smoking Smith & Wesson Russian revolver in his hand and started to raise it for a third shot.
“Guess what. Ned was lying about me being dead,” he said with a flat grin.
Dahl managed to roll an inch sideways. His right hand dropped from his chest and inside his corduroy riding jacket. “No, he wasn’t . . . ,” he said in a strained voice as his hand swung out a .36-caliber Navy Colt and fired.
“Damn it to hell!” the saloon owner shouted, seeing the bullet bore through Garrant’s right eye and string a ribbon of blood and gore out the back of his head.
Garrant hit the floor, dead. Blood pooled in the sawdust beneath him.
Dahl let his hand and the Navy Colt slump to the floor beside him. He let out a tense breath and felt the room tip sideways and darken around him. The pain in his chest seemed to crush him down into the floor.
Huddled in a corner of the saloon, a young dove named Sara Cayes stood up warily and ventured forward. Around her the stunned drinkers came slowly back to life.
“Oh, my
, he’s alive!” she gasped, looking down at Dahl, seeing his chest rise and fall with labored breathing.
“He won’t be for long,” the enraged saloon owner said. He snatched the shotgun up from the floor, shook sawdust from it and walked forward, raising it toward Dahl.
“You stay away from him, Jellico,” Sara Cayes said, hurriedly stooping down over Dahl, protecting him. “Can’t you see the shape he’s in?”
“Get out of my way, whore,” said the saloon owner, trying to wave her aside with the shotgun barrel. “All I see is the shape my place is in.”
“He’s unarmed, Jellico!” the dove cried out, huddling down even closer over Dahl.
“Suits me,” said the saloon owner, cocking both hammers on the shotgun. “Now get back away from him, else you’ll never raise your ankles in this place again.”
“She said leave him alone, Jellico,” said a voice from the batwing doors. “While you’re at it, empty your hand. Shotguns make me cross, especially pointed at me.”
The saloon owner, the drinkers and the dove all turned and faced the newly appointed town marshal, Emerson Kern. The lawman stood with a hip slightly cocked, his left hand holding open one of the batwing doors. His right hand lay poised around the bone handle of a big Colt .45 holstered on his hip.
Upon seeing the marshal, the saloon owner stopped and lowered the shotgun barrel straight down toward the floor. But he didn’t lay it aside. Sara Cayes rose a little over Dahl but remained in position in case the saloon owner tried anything.
“Marshal Kern, look what this murdering dog did to my place!” said Jake Jellico. He swung a nod around the blood-splattered saloon.
But the marshal was still interested in the shotgun and the fact that it was still in the saloon owner’s hand. He raised his revolver from its holster and cocked it toward Jake Jellico.
“If you don’t empty your hand, I bet I stick a tunnel through your forehead,” he said.
“Easy, Marshal,” said Jellico. He stooped and laid the shotgun back down on the floor. “You can’t blame me for wanting to kill him, armed or unarmed.”