by Ralph Cotton
“Confound these desert heathens!” said Thorn, wincing as the Comadrejas jumped down from the blankets and saddles and began stripping the clothing and boots from their two hapless victims. A knife slashed across the top of one of the men’s bare head; his scalp was pulled loose beneath a warrior’s hand. The warrior danced about like a crazed demon, waving the loose flap of skin and hair back and forth wildly above his head.
Sandoval braked the wagon and stood up, staring hard through narrowed eyes. “Shall I mount up, Captain?”
“No,” said Thorn, “they’ll be gone before we get there. You and Mayes follow in the wagon behind the ranger and me. We’ll see if either of these poor men has survived.”
Even as he spoke, the ranger was down from the wagon and atop his stallion, joining the captain. Tinnis slipped down from his own mount and joined Sandoval on the wagon seat.
“Do you know how to fire one of these?” Sandoval asked as the ranger and Thorn rode away at a run.
“Yes,” said Mayes, “I fire all things military.”
“Then hang on,” said Sandoval.
In spite of his wound, Tinnis checked the Gatling gun over good and squatted down beside it as the wagon jerked forward behind Thorn and the ranger.
Moments later as the ranger and Thorn rode up to the men lying naked and bloody in the sand, Sandoval swung the wagon wide around the grizzly scene; Mayes aimed the Gatling gun, but only in time to see the Comadrejas disappear over a rise in the sandy flatlands.
“Save our ammunition,” said Sandoval to the gambler, who had already decided as much on his own. The young bounty hunter slapped the traces to the wagon horses’ backs, circled and came to a halt in a rise of dust beside Thorn and the ranger.
Sam dismounted and kneeled over the man who’d been scalped, his body spasming in death throes. Behind them, Thorn gave Sandoval and Mayes a grim nod. Mayes stood up from the wagon seat. He now carried two Colt Thunderers in his waistband—the one given to him by Shear and the one the ranger had returned to him earlier on the trail. He lifted one from his waist and started to raise it toward the dying man. But in that second, the stranger stopped his spasming and fell limp and still on the sandy ground.
The ranger stood and saw the Colt in the gambler’s hand. Mayes lowered it and shoved in back into his waist.
“It would have been for the best, had he done it, Ranger,” Thorn said quietly.
“I know,” said the ranger. He bent down and retrieved a leather wallet from the sand and shook it off. He pulled out a railroad identification card and a Great Western Frontiers detective’s badge. He held it around for Thorn to see as the bounty hunter stepped closer.
“Another dead railroad detective,” Thorn said. “No wonder the railroad is so intent on stopping Shear and his gang.”
“These two were unarmed,” said Sam. “They couldn’t even put up a fight.”
Thorn stared along the long line of wagon tracks and horses’ hoofprints they had been following until they’d spotted the two men on foot. “How much farther to the Skull Rock Pass, Ranger?”
“Ten miles,” said Sam, already turning to the stallion. “We best hurry. If Shear has left men stranded there with no horses or guns, these Desert Weasels will soon start skinning them alive.”
The ranger, Sandoval and Thorn quickly loaded the naked bodies onto the rear of the wagon. Mayes sat slumped on the wagon seat, holding the horses steady, yet slumping more and more as the other three worked.
Back in their saddles, before heeling his horse forward, Thorn looked over at the wagon at Mayes, lying almost sideways in the wooden seat.
Climbing up into the seat beside the wounded gambler, Sandoval leaned Mayes the other way and took the traces to the horses.
“Is he going to be all right?” Sam asked, seeing the concern on Thorn’s face.
Thorn’s expression turned to one of pride.
“Oh yes, I believe he is,” he said, “now that he’s back among his own kind.”
“I meant his wound, Captain,” Sam said.
“Yes,” said Thorn. He looked at Sam with the slightest smile on his weathered face. “So did I.”
Chapter 22
When Ronald Oaks saw the wagon roll into sight from the same direction that Shear and his men had ridden in from, he stood and stared. A four-shot pepperbox hideout derringer hung in his hand. One of the men had managed to hang on to the small pistol throughout the robbery, and quickly turned it over to Ronald Oaks when the gang had fled.
“My goodness, have they come back upon us?” Oaks asked no one in particular. A dark streak of urine still lay damp down his left leg.
“Not from that direction, sir,” said the young caboose guard, Dennis Sheplet. “Remember? They rode off that way, toward Alto Meca.” He had seen his partner, the older guard, shot down by Papa Dorsey. He had seen action fighting the Comadrejas and found his own courage not lacking. His trousers were dry. . . .
“Of course I remember, Sheplet!” Oaks snapped. He took a breath and tried to get a grip on his fear for the men’s sake. The wax in his mustache had melted away and left one of the sharp points drooping down the corner of his mouth.
From alongside the train two guards came back, one carrying a fireman’s shovel, one an iron tool for prying loose stuck coupling knuckles.
“We have some lit oil lanterns we can throw on them, sir,” one of the men said to Oaks. “I’m afraid that’s the best we can do.”
“Oil lanterns, shovel handles, rail tools against a Gatling gun?” said Oaks. “I think not. But stand by and be ready. We might have to sue just that, if we’re hard pressed.”
But as the riders and the wagon drew closer, Oaks saw the badge on the ranger’s chest and looked relieved. “Thank God,” he said.
“What is it, sir?” the guard with the shovel asked Oaks.
“It’s a lawman,” Oaks said. “Gather everyone and tell them to stand down.”
The two guards looked at each other, recalling how excited and welcoming Oaks had become when Shear and his killers rode in.
“Are you sure, Mr. Oaks?” the guard asked.
“Blast it, yes, I’m sure!” Oaks snapped. “Now do as you’re told, or I’ll have young Sheplet here take your place. I’m still in charge of this train.”
Riding up to the train ahead of the gun wagon, Thorn stopped a safe distance back. Sam rode few feet closer, his badge in view, and called out to the railroad me.
“Hello, the train,” he said. “I’m Arizona Territory Ranger Samuel Burrack. “We found two of your men, dead, back along the trail.”
Oaks stood up and craned his neck and looked at the naked bodies lying bloody and pale in the sunlight. He winced and shook his head.
“The poor wretches,” he said aloud to himself. “We were afraid of that,” he called out to the ranger.
“We’re riding forward,” Sam said, seeing the hesitancy on the part of the railroad men.
“Certainly,” said Oaks. “Pardon us, Ranger. We’re most cautious right now. We were deceived by men arriving in two of our own firewood wagons. They took a Gatling gun from us just like the one in your wagon.”
Sam and Thorn rode forward. Sandoval and Mayes rolled forward in the gun wagon, Mayes staying in the seat away from the big gun.
“That would be Brayton Shear and his Black Valley Riders,” said Sam. “We confiscated this gun from his hideout.”
The ranger, Thorn and the wagon stopped up closer.
“Step down, Ranger,” said Oaks. In an attempt at being hospitable he said, “We have neither guns nor horses.” He held up the pepperbox as if to prove their plight. “But we have food and water until our situation improves—provided the Comadrejas don’t reappear and massacre us where we stand.”
“That’s a strong possibility,” said the ranger, he and Thorn stepping down side by side. “If Clato Charo didn’t know before that you’re unarmed and horseless, he knows it now that he found two of your men unarmed and traveling on foot.�
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“Have you any spare guns you can lend to us?” Oaks asked humbly.
“Whatever we can rummage up among us, you’re welcome to,” Sam said.
The guard with the shovel stepped forward as other men stepped down along the big train and walked back to them.
“What about that Gatling gun too, Ranger?” he asked boldly.
“I’m the man in charge here, Bentley,” Oaks snapped at him. “I’ll do all the speaking on our behalf.”
“Begging everybody’s pardon—yours too, Oaks,” said the railroad detective. “You’re acting a little too shy to ask.” He looked at Sam and said, “Ranger, we see what those Desert Weasels will do when they come back here, knowing we’re armed. If we had the big gun, they wouldn’t face us. If we had the wagon, we could send somebody for help.”
Sam and Thorn looked at each other. “Having it with us would sure make up for our short numbers,” Thorn said, between the two of them.
Sam considered it then countered, “Like you said, we can travel faster without it.”
“It’s your call, Ranger,” Thorn said.
“I can’t leave them out here defenseless,” Sam said quietly. “Charo’s warriors can get awfully ugly. Comadrejas are all cowards, but they’ll turn brave against a band of helpless men.”
“Then leave it. We’ll travel faster without it.” Thorn gave a slight shrug. “If we need one we can take the one Shear has.”
“Good thinking, Captain,” Sam said with a thin, wry smile. He turned to Oaks. “Have your men come move the Gatling gun and set it up. Keep the wagon and horses too.”
Seeing and hearing what was going on, Tinnis Mayes managed to keep himself seated upright. He took the nickel-plated Colt Thunderer he’d been carrying for years and the same model Shear had given him and laid them both on his lap. With a sigh, he picked up the one Shear had given him by its barrel and handed it out to one of the railroaders who’d come to unload the Gatling gun.
“Anything for the railroad,” he said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice as the man took the pistol from him and thanked him for it.
Evening shadows stretched long across the hills and rocky desert floor as Shear and his men pulled the two wagons up along a steep trail, five miles below the nearly abandoned hilltop town of Alto Meca. On the wagon seat sat Papa Dorsey and Rudy Duckwald. Beside the wagon, Brayton Shear looked down from his saddle at the wooden crates of gold coins and ingots.
“We lost three men back at that wagon ambush,” he said pensively. “Sentanza, Kerr and Phillips.”
“Four, if you count that half-ass gambler, Tinnis Lucas,” said Duckwald from the wagon stopped beside him.
“I’m only counting ones that would have had a full cut coming from this gold,” said Shear. “Lucas might’ve only gotten a half cut, him just coming in the way he did. I’m going to miss that damn gambler.”
“I’ll miss never getting to kill him,” Duckwald said with disappointment. “I should have rode over and put a bullet through his head before we left.”
“I saw him lying there with his side shot open, bloodier than a stuck pig,” said Shear. “He looked as dead as any dead man I’ve ever seen.”
“Drunks are hard to kill,” said Duckwald. “That’s a fact of science.”
The group sat in silence for a moment, letting the horses rest before making the hard steep climb in front of them.
“I don’t know about any of the rest of yas,” Papa Dorsey said, finally, turning and looking around from the wagon seat. “But I could take my share right now and go my own way, be happy as a grinning fool in a pumpkin patch.”
The men looked at Shear to see how he took the old man’s suggestion.
“Papa Dorsey,” Shear said to the white-bearded old wagon guard who had turned traitor to his fellow railroad employees, “I don’t know how we would have pulled this off without you.”
Dorsey smiled with satisfaction and looked back and forth among the gathered men.
“Keep that kind thought in mind when it comes time for us to settle up,” he said. “I am not a man opposed to receiving bonuses either, for work well done.” He grinned behind his white beard.
“It has all been taken into consideration,” said Shear. “Believe me, if you were a Black Valley Rider, you’d get a full share, like all the other Riders.”
“I understand,” said Dorsey.
“But now is not the time to stop and part out the swag,” said Shear.
“Why’s that, Big Aces?” asked Dorsey.
Hearing an outsider call Shear “Big Aces” caused the men to fall tense and silent.
Shear kept his temper, but he warned the old man with a stiff smile. “Do not call me Big Aces, Papa,” he said, his finger raised for emphasis.
“Sure thing, Big—I mean, Mr. Shear, that is,” said Dorsey, correcting himself. “But let’s get back to business. Why can’t I get what’s coming to me right now? I don’t need to ride on into Alto Meca with yas. My work is done.”
“I understand. But you not being a Black Valley Rider,” Shear said, raising his voice a little, “I have to ask you this before we settle up.” He leveled a questioning gaze at the old railroader. “Are you going to be riding with us some more in the future? Or was this just a onetime thing for you?”
Dorsey grinned. “Call this my railroad retirement pension,” he said. “I’m going to take my cut and buy me a place up in Utah.”
“Utah, eh, Papa?” Shear baited.
“Yep, Utah,” said Dorsey. “I’ll spend the rest of my days swilling whiskey on the front porch with no britches on, just to torment any Mormon neighbors who happen along.”
“That’s ambitious of you,” said Shear. He turned his eyes to Rudy Duckwald sitting beside the old railroader. “Rudy, you’re Mormon, are you not?”
“My folks were,” said Duckwald, giving Dorsey a cold, hard stare. “They was tormented all their lives by drunks with no britches on.”
“I didn’t mean nothing by it,” Dorsey said.
“They all said that when confronted,” Duckwald replied.
“Pay him off, Rudy,” said Shear.
Without batting an eye, Duckwald pulled the trigger on the rifle resting in the crook of his left arm. The bullet ripped through the old man’s jaw, snapping his head backward at an awkward angle. His body jerked and flipped from the wooden seat. Dorsey hit the ground dead, the left upper part of his head missing, pouring blood.
“Anybody else want to settle up here instead of riding into Alto Meca?” Shear asked. “If so, ride up here and you’ll get what’s coming to you.”
None of the men ventured forward.
“All right, then,” said Shear. “We’re going to stop outside of town at a little adobe that used to be a whore-house. There’s a woman still living there named One-legged Lilly Quid.” He raised a hand for emphasis. “Call no attention to either Lilly’s missing limb or her husband Freddie’s head jerking. These are friends of mine. They will misdirect anybody who comes snooping around looking for us.”
“I thought we got everybody shook loose from our trail, Big Aces,” said George Epson.
“We did, George,” said Shear, “but you never know who’s going to show up these days. So treat Lilly Quid and Freddie Dupree right. We’ll take some spending gold with us. But we’ll leave both wagons hidden there on their place. We’ll stick the gold wagon in their barn. They’ll look after it for us.”
The men looked at one another. “So, you trust these folks that much, do you, Big Aces?” Ted Lasko asked, trying to sound conversational about it.
“Oh yes, indeed I do,” said Shear. “These people would sacrifice their own lives to see to it nothing happens to this gold while it’s in their care.”
Lasko squirmed uncomfortably in his saddle, but then asked in the same conversational tone, “Why is that, Big Aces?”
Shear turned and stared at him. “Ted, do you have a pencil and paper handy?”
“Uh, no, I don’t,”
he said, the look in Shear’s eyes making him nervous.
“You need to write all these questions down,” said Shear, “so we can sit here and go down the list one by one instead of us riding on in, getting some gold and riding on to Alto Meca.”
“Sorry, boss,” said Lasko.
Shear looked all around at the other men. “I figure we’d round up some whores, throw ourselves a fiesta before we circle around and ride back to Black Valley,” he said.
“Whoa! Yes, sir!” said Epson. The rest of the men grinned and nodded their approval.
“What about you, Ted?” Shear ask Lasko. “Want to ask questions or get on to Alto Meca and round up some whores?” His right hand rested on the butt of his big holstered Remington.
“No questions here, boss,” Lasko said, with a cautious grin.
Stepping his horse around Papa Dorsey’s body lying sprawled on the trail, Shear turned and rode off up the steep trail. Halfway up, Shear turned onto another trail that ran onto a stretch of flat hillside. He led the riders and the wagon across a wide flat stone surface to where a cabin made of pine log, stone and adobe sat nestled on the steep hillside.
Inside the cabin, One-legged Lilly Quid stood leaning on her homemade crutch, gazing out at the approaching riders through a wavy glass windowpane.
“Damn it, Freddie, are they ever going to get it through their heads I’m out of business?” Even as she spoke she touched her free hand to the side of her hair, checking it.
“I reckon not, Lilly,” said Freddie Dupree. He put a small Uhrlinger hideout pistol in each of his front trouser pockets and kept his hand on them until he reached out for the front door handle. “Keep yourself out of sight, Lilly,” he said over his shoulder. “If they see you in that blue dress, they’ll go plumb loco.”
Chapter 23
When Shear’s men had half circled around the cabin, Shear rose a little in his stirrups and called out, “Hello, Freddie Dupree . . . Hello, Lilly Quid.”
The men sat watching as the cabin door eased open and Freddie Dupree slipped out on the porch, barefoot, both hands shoved down inside his baggy trouser pockets.