Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles (Cash Laramie & Gideon Miles Series) (4 page)

Cash lifted his head to see Eddie on the hill's edge approaching a lone gunmen who threw down his rifle and raised his hands high. The youth began firing into the attacker's abdomen, and as the bushwhacker doubled over, Eddie emptied the rest of his rounds into the back of the man's head. He stomped over and kicked the dead man with the toe of his boot.

Cash shifted his weight to his right leg, shoving the rifle under his Pinto. The rocky terrain made it difficult to get under his mount but working the rifle up and down, he finally managed some solid leverage, freeing his other leg. Cash watched Eddie reload with bullets he'd swiped and move back to a body not seen before. Eddie pumped it full of more slugs and with his heel pushed the cadaver off the cliff.

The young outlaw spotted Cash and ran toward the path leading down the hillside.

The marshal dropped the rifle to the ground and yanked his Peacemaker free. He thumbed fresh cartridges into the Colt's cylinder and limped to the base of the cliff, his leg throbbing, weapon trained straight ahead. The third assassin was sprawled on the ground his face peppered with bullets and neck slashed. This must have been the first man the Kid had disposed of. Eddie appeared a moment later walking boldly across the wind swept ground his unkempt hair flying in the breeze.

"Now, Eddie, lower that piece."

The Kid pointed at Cash's Colt with his left hand. "Is that a bluff, or do you mean it for real?"

"I mean it, Eddie."

"Not a chance, marshal. I ain't going back to jail." His twisted smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

"What's so funny, Eddie?"

"I should have known. But I thought maybe you was different. Just maybe, I saved your ass and you would let me go, but no." Spittle flew from the Kid's mouth in angry bursts. "I knew who you were when you showed up at Sheriff Ramey's jail with that Arapaho arrowhead 'round your neck. You have a reputation for being a bit different, a kinda outlaw marshal, but I should have known better. Just like my dad, friendly one minute and beating on me the next."

"There was no reason to grind those men into the ground."

"Why the hell not? Those bastards would have shot us and left us for dead. Maybe for the bounty on my head but more likely for our clothing and gear. So, why the hell should we give a damn."

"It separates us from them, Eddie, that's why—"

"I don't need a sermon. I had all I can stomach from Reverend McQueen."

"Is that why you burned the church down?"

"I was good enough to be saved, but not good enough for Millie."

"Millie?"

"Yeah, the reverend's daughter." Eddie's voice softened over her name but his eyes remained hard.

"And, yeah, I murdered that whore Johnson." Cash watched the Kid's stance straighten as he unloaded more of his short life.

"She laughed at my pecker, said I'd never be able to satisfy a woman, but after a good cattle prod and sucking on the end of my steel gun, she didn't laugh much longer."

Cash squinted at the monster rising. "And then I waited around and killed her no-good, shit-for-brains husband for the hell of it. I guess they still haven't pinned that on me seeing as they can't find the body that I fed to the pigs."

A dust devil skirted the base of the cliff and danced away as dark clouds moved in.

"Eddie, the—"

"The name's Kid Eddie, marshal! Kid Eddie! Just like Billy the Kid. An outlaw. A—"

"William Bonney is dead, Eddie," Cash said raising his voice to a steady pitch. "And you will be too if you don't put that gun down. I can get the judge to spare you some time for aiding me here and explain you need some help."

"I don't need anyone's fucking help," he leered, tightening his grip.

He fired but a flash before Cash dropped low, and as Kid Eddie's lone bullet whistled past Cash's head, careening away into the distance, Cash tripped the hammer of his Colt onto a cartridge. Eddie's face grimaced in pain, his left hand plunging to cover the hole in his stomach. He took a halting step forward, raised his pistol again, but Cash's second round tunneled into the outlaw's chest knocking him back and down.

Cash rushed over, surprised to see the boy had life left in him, though it was draining quick, a red ocean making an island of his body in the dirt.

"Marshal?"

"I'm here, Eddie."

"I can't see."

Cash placed his hand under the Kid's head, lifting it from the rocky ground.

"Mar-shal."

"Yeah, Eddie."

"Tell—tell the story good. That I was fast. That I died—strong." Some blood slipped from his mouth as his lips quivered with words.

"Sure, Eddie." Cash watched the eyes sparkle and then fade, the facial muscles relaxed. Cash closed Eddie's eyes with his hand.

The first faint sprinkle touched his forearm, and by the time he had the Kid underground and was fixing a cross in place, a warm steady rain watered the landscape. Cash had never been much of a religious man but on bent knee and one hand wrapped around the tip of the cross, he mumbled, "Lord, he started out as somebody's boy."

The word "boy" stuck in his trembling voice as the rain bounced off the makeshift headstone.

Not knowing what more to say, he walked to the hilltop where the ambush had begun and collected the belongings of the departed cowboys. The crows would feast on their worthless pieces of skin. They didn't deserve a burial to his way of thinking.

He led the cowboys' horses down the hill and hoisted his own saddle on the back of the strongest stud and headed across the water drenched prairie toward Cheyenne.

"So, that's it?" Devon Penn queried.

Cash nodded. He pushed the tip of his cheroot into the flame of the lucifer and drew. He watched the end of his cigar burn an even red and dropped the match into the ornamental bronze spittoon beside the desk.

"Good. Kid Eddie won't be doing any more harm."

Cash sat across from Penn in the chief's office, the door ajar to combat the oppressive heat that hung in the air.

"What's the matter, Cash?"

He rolled the cigar between his fingers. "I wanted to believe him."

"What changed your mind."

"Well, Eddie coming straight at me with a revolver, of course, but before that, those wanted posters you gave me, stuck in the back of my head. I considered letting him go after the ambush and then tracking him to the next town, somewhere else, where I could waylay him without a fight. But the way he ground those men down—" Cash's voice trailed off.

"You would have had to face him down one way or another and you may have saved lives by finishing it when you did."

Cash stood, taking his black Stetson from the corner of Penn's desk and adjusting it low to his brow. He moved the cigar to the corner of his mouth.

"What kind of marker did you leave?"

"Half the truth.
Here lies Eddie Morash. Fast gun and beloved son
," Cash said heading for the door.

"Cash."

The broad shoulders stopped in the frame of the door, tilting his head to the side.

"Yeah?"

"You were just doing your job."

Cash rubbed his chin and slowly nodded.

"Yeah—that's the hell of it."

"Penn can go to hell," Cash Laramie growled.

Gideon Miles shot his partner a knowing grin as he tightened the cinch around his pinto. "You heard the chief. You have to testify in court the day after tomorrow and I need to track Van Jones before the trail grows cold."

"Two days won't make a difference."

The marshals stood outside the livery. The stable boy, Keith, held the reins while Miles buckled on his saddlebags. Crowds bustled by on the rutted streets of Cheyenne as a young lad hawked the
Wyoming Gazette
.

"Van Jones is headed for his hideout near Owl Creek Mountains," continued Cash. "By the time you catch up with him, he'll have his gang backing him for sure."

Miles saw his friend's brow deepen. He buttoned the leather pouch, took the reins, and climbed onto his horse. "Now, you know I was hired to track polecats like Van Jones into the badlands."

"Doesn't make it right, going it alone."

"
Marshal Cash Laramie to testify against the Mayor's brother.
"

Miles jerked a thumb the newspaper lad's way. "See, you're famous. You're going nowhere."

"I'll be along as soon as my part of the trial is over."

"And I'll be halfway back by then."

"Wouldn't you like to think so." But Cash's oft-used phrase lacked its customary confidence.

Miles tipped the right corner of his hat, urging his pinto north out of town.

"Will Mister Miles be all right?" he overheard Keith ask his partner as he rode away. He didn't hear Cash's answer but knew his worried friend's eyes followed after.

The main road leading out of Cheyenne tapered to a course path that meandered to the first of several hills. A rider's thoughts were many when cutting a hard trail and Miles' own returned to the partner and city he left behind.

His friendship with Cash had been seared in scores of gunfights and narrow escapes, and the bond between them strengthened by their reputations as outsiders within the marshal service. A lot of folks called Cash reckless, the small-minded ones claiming it stemmed from his being reared by Arapahos. Miles was one of the first black marshals in the service. Though, his skills with guns, knives, and tracking were unrivaled, he was still considered second class because of his skin color.

Fifteen miles outside of town, he tethered his horse to a hitching post near a saloon known as "The Shack." Rickety walls and a sagging roof helped the bartender, Knox, water down the drinks when it rained. Or, so went the joke from his faithful crowd. Knox insisted it wasn't true, but his patrons became less sozzled as the evenings wore on.

Miles walked in and stared at the all-black crowd. "Gideon!" Knox shouted from behind the counter and a small roar went up from several men playing poker in the far corner of the room. His shoulders and stance relaxed. He grinned and threaded his way through the smoky room full of couples dancing to a jovial tune being pounded out by the piano player.

He laid a bit on the counter. "Let me try some of that bug juice you're passing off as whiskey."

Knox shoved the money back and poured a suspect liquid into a glass. "The first one will always be on the house because if it wasn't for you and your friend, this bar wouldn't be here."

Miles thought back to when he and Cash made a stand against the Klan a year ago.

A fur trader with his hand lassoed around a saloon girl clamored for a refill and Knox excused himself to oblige.

Miles sipped his whiskey, enjoying a last moment of peace before his manhunt for Van Jones resumed. The warmth of the whiskey hadn't even reached his stomach when a hot whisper filled his ear, "Hello, Gideon."

He cocked his head sideways and then stepped back to enjoy the beauty in a yellow dress before him.

"Hello, Violet."

Her brown eyes twinkled.

"Drink?"

She nodded. Miles stretched over the bar for a shot glass and the remaining whiskey. Knox seemed preoccupied with the overzealous trader who began raising his voice and stabbing his finger in the air.

"Here you go," he said, half-filling the glass.

"Staying long?" she asked.

"Long enough to finish this drink."

She leaned in for Miles to enjoy the full view of her shapely chest. "Maybe wait around for me to sing a song or two."

"Maybe." His fingers tapped on the bar's edge. "I like that music."

"It's a brand new sound, straight from New Orleans. Knox even broke down and hired a banjo player after I pestered him for a spell." She eyed Miles closer. "Hey, whaddya mean,
maybe
?"

"Huh?"

"Whaddya mean by
maybe
you will stick around to hear me sing?"

"Oh, I'm tracking an escapee."

Her eyes rolled. "Where this time?"

"Owl Creek."

"By yourself?" She brought the glass to her lips studying his distorted profile through the glass.

He nodded without looking, listening instead to Knox suggest that the fur trader go home to his wife and sleep it off.

"They send you to places like that because they won't go themselves."

His attention returned to Violet, her cheeks flushed with anger.

"Why do you risk your life for half the pay of white men who don't?"

"Because it matters."

"It matters to who? You? I—"

The fur trader knocked the table over and went eye to eye with Knox, who gripped his bottle of whiskey firm.

Miles moved away from the bar, distancing himself from Violet and making sure no one was behind him. "Knox?"

The bartender's weary eyes said it all as he backed away.

A soiled dove whispered into the trader's ear and was rewarded with a backhanded slap.

"I don't care who he is. He should be worried about me." He dropped his hands to his sides and faced Miles as the woman scrambled away holding her cheek.

"Now, this ain't none of yer business, son."