Golden Riders

by Ralph Cotton

  “Hell, that’s crazy talk, Ranger!” Bonsell said. “That just sounds like an excuse to bust a man’s head any time you damn well please.”

  “No,” Sam said, “not just anytime I please, Teddy, else I’d be busting your head every three minutes. But I believe we’ve come to a place where you need to know that if you don’t tell me the truth every time you open your mouth, I’ll get tired of fooling with you and feed you to these buzzards.”

  “You need me, Ranger,” Bonsell said smugly.

  “Not if you’re not helping,” Sam replied. “I can drop you and follow the tracks as far as they’ll take me. I don’t want deadweight hanging behind me.” He turned his eyes upward for a second, then looked straight ahead. “You let me know right now if I’m not going to be able to count on you, Teddy. I’ll keep us both from wasting each other’s time.”

  A quiet and sudden change in the Ranger’s tone and demeanor caused Cutthroat Teddy Bonsell to look at him in a new light. He just stared at him as they stopped their horses and stepped down beside Lester Stevens’ body. He wasn’t sure if it was the lingering effects of the mescal, or if the Ranger was purposely playing with his mind. But something told him that here in this desolate stretch of Mexican desert, unarmed, was not a good place to agitate a lawman widely known for his ability to kill.

  “Ranger, I—I was just joshing you back there about the buzzards and all,” he said in earnest. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  “I understand, Teddy,” Sam replied. “I have as much a sense of humor as the next man.” He nodded at the body on the dirt. With his hand on his Colt he looked at Bonsell closely and said, “This man being a regular, those other bodies we found by the high trail, I take it we’re getting closer to the Golden Riders’ hideout?”

  “Yeah . . . ,” Bonsell said in a meek, submissive voice. “We’re getting closer. We’ve got a turnoff less than twenty miles ahead.”

  Sam nodded, looking down at the body in the dirt, dust caked in Stevens’ open eyes.

  “You want to drag your friend over and throw some rocks on him, that’d be all right,” he said quietly.

  Bonsell considered it for a moment.

  “Naw,” he said, “we rode together some, we weren’t what you’d call friends, pals, nothing like that.” He gazed off in the direction of the horse tracks leading away along the dusty, desert floor. “We’ve got a blow coming. I’d just as soon get on . . . get this over with.”

  They turned to their horses, stepped up in their saddles and left the creek bed. They rode on in silence beneath a darkening sky and a rise of hot desert wind.

  PART 4

  Chapter 20

  A storm had blown in hard from the southwest by the time Short and Faraday led the rest of the outlaws through a winding rock pass and out onto a stretch of rocky flatlands. In the open doorway of an abandoned stone and adobe building Braxton Kane stood watching as the riders rode the last fifty yards toward him. On Kane’s left beside the open door stood a rifleman named Buford Barnes. On his right stood the bartender from the Luna Loca, Ned Cooney. Cooney held a shotgun at port arms.

  “It’s about damn time some of you gunnies started showing up here,” Kane said, eyeing the men as they stopped at a hitch rail. He looked at Prew and said, “Where’s your brothers? Where’s everybody else? What the hell’s going on?”

  “It’s been a hard trip, Brax,” Prew said as he and the men stepped down from their saddles. “I wouldn’t count on my brothers showing up at all. I’ve got a feeling they’ve all three met a bad end.”

  “Too bad,” Braxton Kane said gruffly. “I’m damned sorry to hear it. I liked those hombres.”

  “We had a bank job go wrong, they went to jail,” said Prew. “The Bluebird blew half the town down getting them out.” He paused, then said, “Now, I’ve got some even worse news for you, Brax.” He hesitated, then said flat out, “Ranger Sam Burrack killed your brother, Cordy.”

  “What the hell are you saying?” Kane looked angry, as if it were all a lie.

  “I hate to bring this news to you,” said Prew. “But I heard it from Cutthroat Teddy Bonsell and Jake Cleary. They were with him when it happened. The Ranger killed Cordy and stuck Bonsell and Cleary in jail in Midland. The Bluebird and I blasted them out, blew about half the damned town down. We split up with Bonsell and Cleary, left them with Mangett, Weidel and Joey Rose in Alto Cresta. Joey Rose was cut all to hell, I doubt he’s coming. The others were supposed to catch up to us after they took care of anybody trailing us. But they never came along.” He offered a wary look.

  The men stood in silence. Braxton Kane pounded his fist quietly on the hitch rail.

  “Samuel by-God Burrack . . . ,” he growled. “I’ll kill him if it’s the last thing I do on earth.” He looked off for a moment, his eyes squeezed shut. When he opened them, he let out a tight breath and tried to continue as if Prew had never mentioned his brother’s death. He looked at Luke Bolten, Hank Woods and Jimmy Quince.

  “Good to see you men riding with us again,” he said.

  Bolten stepped forward.

  “When we heard your men weren’t showing up, we offered to ride along with these two and see why,” he said. “If you’ve got a big job, you can count on us.”

  “Obliged, Bolten,” said Kane. “You three come along at the right time. I’m going to make all of us rich.” He patted the gunman on his shoulder. He stepped over along the hitch rail and stood looking at the Bluebird. “I’m damn glad to see you,” he said to the Mex-Indian. “Are you ready to blow something up for me, fill your sack with gold, Mr. Bird?”

  The Bluebird nodded, not hearing a word.

  “You must’ve wasted no time getting here, Cooney,” Short said to the tall bartender.

  “He didn’t,” said Kane, speaking for Cooney. “He came here straightaway, right after you fellows left the Luna Loca. Since we were getting short of hands, I took him on. If the others show up, there’s still enough for everybody. This is a big job.”

  Cooney grinned, and kept quiet.

  Kane looked off at the sight of rain moving across the stretch of flatlands toward them.

  “We’re going get wet here in about a minute,” he said, estimating the distance of the rain and the strength of the wind shoving it closer. “Let’s get inside. Barnes,” he said to the rifleman, “you and Cooney get these horses in the barn. Get them watered and grained. Then get on back here. We’ve got to talk about this gold that I can’t wait to get my hands on.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he talked.

  • • •

  Inside a long bunkhouse built especially for the riders when they gathered together to plan their ventures, the men pitched their saddlebags at the foot of a row of narrow-framed beds. When they’d finished washing the trail from their faces and hands and dusted down their clothes and hats, they formed a half circle around Braxton Kane to listen.

  Outside, the storm had moved in and settled low overhead. Thunder exploded like cannon fire, so loud and close that Kane had stopped and waited for it to settle. With each solid, seemingly earth-splitting clap of thunder, the Bluebird raised his eyes toward the ceiling. A faint smile of contentment moved across his tightly set lips.

  Finally the storm grumbled past them and Kane walked in front of the men.

  “All right, hombres, here it is,” he said. “Barnes and the new man, Cooney, is staying here guarding the place. So, it looks like there’s going to be eight of us. I had figured on more, but we’ll have to go with what we’ve got. This is a onetime opportunity. We can’t wait for anybody else to show up.” He looked all around. “We can’t wait for them, and we can’t let nothing slow us down until this job is over. Even avenging my brother’s death has to wait. When you see how much this job is worth, you’ll understand why.”

  He paced back and forth in front of a glowing hearth, iron poker in hand as he
continued speaking. The men watched and listened in rapt silence.

  “The German consulate in Matamoros has transacted a large purchase of U.S. gold ingots from the mint in Denver City. The U.S. Army is guarding the shipment by rail all the way to the northern Mexico border. They’ll be using the mint’s steel-plated safe car.”

  A low groan started to rise among the men. But Kane raised a hand stopping them. He paused and grinned.

  “But from the border, even though they’re using the U.S. mint car, the Mexican federales will take over guarding the shipment.” His grin widened at the thought.

  “Muchas gracias, Mexico!” Bolten called out with a laugh.

  Dayton Short looked disgruntled by Kane and the others laughing along with Bolten.

  “Brax, if you’re talking about the border crossing at Sonoyta, there’s no rail spur there.”

  “Not at Sonoyta, there never was,” Kane said, the men’s laughter fell away at Bolten’s quip and they got serious again. “But owing to this big shipment there is a brand-new spur not far from there. That’s where they’ll make the change. There’ll be a six-car train headed out of there with just enough guards to not spark too much interest.” He grinned again. “They figured ole boys like us will be sniffing like hounds at anything heavily guarded, coming along a brand-new stretch of rail coming out of that direction. One of those cars will be the mint car. It’ll be disguised. We’ll have to see which car it is. . . .”

  Kane looked around at the fervent faces, letting the interest build. Then he gave a shrug. “But I don’t mind doing that much for a shipment of gold . . . do you, men?”

  The men nodded and murmured in agreement.

  But Short looked concerned.

  “Has anybody seen this new rail spur, Brax?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Brax said pointedly. “I have. I saw it seven months ago when they started laying track, and I went back and saw it two weeks ago, through a telescope, just to make sure my inside information was reliable.” He nodded. “The rail stretched as far as I could see.”

  The men murmured again in agreement with Kane.

  “Somewhere,” he continued, “they’re going to have to unload the mint car onto wagons to take it on to Matamoros.” He looked back and forth at the faces; then he stopped when he glanced at the Bluebird. “But before they get the chance, Mr. Bird here is going to blow that car wide open. We’re going to kill a few federales, unload it ourselves, and cut out—bringing the gold right back here.”

  “There’s something you need to know about the Bluebird,” Short said in a cautioning tone.

  “Yeah . . . ?” Kane gave him a look, annoyed with Short throwing cold water on his plans. “What is it, Dayton, Gawd-damn it.”

  “Brax, the Mex-Injun is deaf,” said Short. “I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.”

  Kane looked taken aback, but only for a moment.

  “We’ll see about that,” he said, sounding more and more put out with Short. “Why don’t I just ask the man himself?” He turned to the Bluebird and said, “Bird, can you hear me?”

  The Bluebird studied his face a moment and nodded.

  “I hear you,” he said in a deep, gruff voice.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Short with a dejected look, as Kane’s eyes turned to him with a sour stare. “Brax, I swear, he’s deaf. Ask Prew, ask Bolten!”

  “Damn it, man,” said Kane, “I just asked him. If he couldn’t hear me, I expect he wouldn’t have answered!” Anger rose in his voice as he spoke. But he turned to Prew and Bolten and asked, “What the hell is Short talking about?”

  Prew looked at the Bluebird, then back at Kane.

  “I think maybe Bluebird doesn’t hear exactly right all the time,” he said. “But he seems to be fine now.”

  When Kane’s eyes turned from Prew to Luke Bolten, Bolten shrugged and gave a half grin.

  “Short’s acting a little finicky if you ask me,” he said. “I did say that a man who spent a lot of time working around mine explosions might have some trouble hearing everything going on around him—”

  “You said he’s deaf, damn it!” Short barked. His hand almost went to his gun butt. But he caught himself and stopped. Bolten chuckled, looked down and shook his head at Short’s near eruption.

  “Enough of this!” Kane shouted, whacking the iron poker on the plank floor. “Bird . . . ,” he said swinging back toward the stoic Mexican-Indian. “If I point at something and tell you to blow the hell out of it, can you do it, or not?”

  “I do it,” said the Bluebird, nodding.

  “There you have it,” Kane said with finality, staring hard at Short. “I think Bolten’s right, you’re getting finicky on us. Unless you’ve other things worrying the living hell out of you, let’s talk about who’s going to be doing what on this job.”

  Short gritted his teeth and kept his mouth shut as the outlaw leader continued.

  • • •

  The Ranger and Cutthroat Teddy Bonsell, having ridden wide of El Ricon, had taken shelter beneath a cliff overhang in a short hill line just above the flatlands. They’d made it up the sloping rock hillside to the overhang only seconds ahead of a wind-driven deluge and a bombardment of thunder. With the nervous horses standing behind them, they sat in the dirt, reins in hand for an hour watching long twists of lightning reach down from a boiling, black sky.

  “El Ricon is the last of the towns in this hill chain,” said Bonsell. “It’s all desert flats and hill from here to Kane’s.”

  Good, Sam told himself, listening.

  “With this blow wiping out the tracks, maybe you’ll need me a little more than you thought you would,” Bonsell said, testing his position with the Ranger. But the Ranger wasn’t giving Bonsell an inch of ground.

  “Are we going to have to go through all this again, Teddy?” he asked quietly. As he spoke he reached down and slipped his Colt from its holster and turned it in his hand as if inspecting it.

  Bonsell got the message.

  “No, we don’t,” Bonsell said quickly. “I was just thinking out loud, is all.”

  “I see,” the Ranger said. He held the Colt a moment longer as if considering whether or not to holster it. Finally, he sighed to himself and lowered it back into its leather. “How much farther do you say we are from Braxton Kane’s hideout?” he asked. He’d been measuring their distance based on the twenty-mile estimate Bonsell had given him earlier; but he wanted to see if Bonsell was keeping track himself. Bonsell came back without hesitation.

  “Less than five miles, Ranger,” he said, looking Sam in the eyes. “We’d gone about fifteen before this blow set in.” He gestured his eyes out through the sidelong rain toward the trail they’d ridden along the flatlands. “A mile and half farther, you can see the trail leading up to it.”

  Sam nodded; it sounded reasonable.

  “If you don’t mind saying, Ranger,” Bonsell ventured, “how are you going to go ride there and face as many men as Kane’s going to have all around him?”

  “I’m not,” Sam said. He just stared at Bonsell.

  “You’re not . . . ?” Bonsell asked. He gave a slight chuff. “Then just what is it we’re doing going up there?”

  “We’re not,” Sam said. “Leastwise, not for a while.”

  “All right,” said Bonsell, with a slight shrug, “you don’t want to tell me.”

  Sam considered it. Knowing it wasn’t information Bonsell could use one way or the other he said, “You said they’re gathering for a job. That means they’ll be coming out soon enough, headed for that job. I’d rather meet the Golden Riders out here on my ground, instead of up there on theirs.”

  “No offense, Ranger,” Bonsell said, “but it won’t matter. Either way, you face up to them, they’re going to kill you.”

  Sam looked at him intently.

  “That would work ou
t good for you, wouldn’t it?” he said.

  “Yes, it would,” said Bonsell; he shrugged again. “No point in me denying it.”

  “The fact is,” Sam said. “I’m not going to face off against them. I’m going to follow them to this big job. See if we can’t all get better acquainted once we get there.”

  Bonsell stared at him for a moment, bemused at the idea.

  “I’m starting to think you’re crazy, Ranger,” he said. “I heard it before, now I’m starting to believe it.”

  “We’ll just have to wait and see, Cutthroat Teddy,” Sam replied quietly. “A lawman’s only crazy if his plans fail.”

  “If it fails, do I get to ride away, Burrack?” Teddy asked boldly.

  “If my plan fails,” Sam replied in an even tone, “who’s going to stop you?”

  Chapter 21

  It was turning dark by the time the storm had blown itself out across the Mexican badlands. The heavy rain left the thirsty desert making sucking sounds in every direction as it drew the water down deep into the dry earth. The Ranger made coffee with water he’d caught in a coffeepot he’d placed beneath a steady stream of runoff from the cliff overhang. He strained most of the hillside silt from the water through a clean spare bandanna he pulled from the bottom of his saddlebags.

  After a meal of coffee and jerked elk, Sam and Bonsell pitched their saddles and bedrolls on either side of the small fire for the night. As a precaution, Sam handcuffed one of Bonsell’s wrists to his saddle stirrup, as he had been doing each night before they turned in. Even with the outlaw cuffed, Sam kept his sleep to a thin level, able to snap himself awake at the slightest sound, the faintest movement around him.

  Bonsell had learned the Ranger’s sleeping habits the first night out, having snapped a twig of mesquite and seeing Sam’s Colt come up from under his blanket, pointed and cocked. From that point on, the wily outlaw had resolved himself to his captivity, at least for the time being. All Bonsell had managed to do was keep the Ranger on alert, which would get him nowhere. It was better if the Ranger eased his guard down a little. Bonsell knew an opportunity would present itself. When it came he could make his move. Until then he had to relax, wait for it, recognize it and be ready to pounce on that opportunity the very second he saw it arrive.