Payback at Big Silver (7 page)

“Let's go, Freddie,” said Sam. He gave a sharp yank on the lead rope, causing Dobbs' horse to jerk sideways almost out from under the outlaw.

“There was no cause for you doing that,” Dobbs said sorely, readjusting himself in his saddle. “Whatever happened to free speech in this country? I see a miscarriage of justice, I ain't allowed to speak out about it?”

“You've got a right to speak out,” Sam replied. “I've got a right not to listen.” He looked at Stone and shook his head, indicating that this was what he had to look forward to all the way to Fort Hamlin.

“Have a good trip to Fort Hamlin, Ranger,” Stone said with a wry, knowing grin.

Sam backed his dun a step, drawing the two other horses along with him.

“I'll see you on my way back, Sheriff,” he said to Stone.

Stone shook his head. His cigarette back in his mouth, he tapped nervous fingers on his gun butt.

“You don't have to come back on my account, Ranger,” he said. “I told you I'm all right here without being checked on.”

“I know you're all right, Sheriff,” Sam said, touching the brim of his sombrero. “I'll be passing through here anyway. Can I stop and water my horse if I've a mind to?” He eyed Stone closely.

Stone stopped tapping his fingers and let out a breath. He touched his hat brim in return.

“Begging your pardon, Ranger,” he said. “I might still be a little jumpy. You're always welcome here. I'll see you on your way back.”

The Ranger nodded and backed the horses some more. Turning the animals, he rode at an easy gallop along the dirt street, Dobbs and Boomer's body riding right beside him. As he passed the front of the Silver Palace Saloon, Silas Rudabaugh, Clayton Boyle and Donald Ferry looked out through the wavy window glass beside their table.

“I always say it's a good day when you see a lawman ride out of town,” said Boyle. “Especially one who's dead, or soon will be.” He tipped his raised glass toward the other two gunmen. “You can start to feel the wide doors of opportunity swing open toward you.” He grinned as Ferry nodded eagerly and raised his glass high. Rudabaugh only gave the slightest tip of his glass and a wry smile.

“To dead lawmen, then,” he said.

The three tossed back their whiskey. Ferry picked up his frothy beer mug, took a long drink and set it down. The other two watched him wipe foam from above his lip.

“What makes you think Burrack is soon to be dead?” he asked under his breath.

Boyle leaned in above the tabletop, a little whiskey bent, and spoke in an equally lowered voice.

“What makes you think he's
not
?” he asked.

Ferry just looked at him.

“Do you know something I don't?” he asked.

“I know a hell of a lot that you don't know, Ferry,” Boyle said slyly. “For instance, I know it's a dangerous trail from here to Fort Hamlin.”

“Stick that beer mug in your mouth, Clayton,” Rudabaugh said in a harsh warning tone.

“I never said nothing, did I, Silas?” Boyle said.

“No, but you're getting too damn close to it,” Rudabaugh replied. He finished his whiskey and set the glass down with a strong bump on the tabletop.

“Hey, pards,” said Ferry, “I'm one of us, remember? Is there something I need to know here?”

“No,” said Rudabaugh, without taking his hard glare off Boyle. “Clayton here just likes to talk when he drinks. I warn him all the time, it's something that'll get him killed if he ain't careful.” He turned his gaze to Ferry. “You're riding with the big guns now, Donald. You'll find sometimes it's best to keep your mouth shut and watch what's coming around.”

Sonora Badlands, Arizona Territory

Charlie Knapp sat beside the small cook fire watching with detached interest as Seamus Gore backhanded Ignacio Cady backward—for what, the fourth or fifth time?
Maybe more,
Knapp calculated to himself. Both Iggy's Colt and his rifle lay in the dirt. So did Lyle Cady, for trying to jump in and help his brother moments ago when Gore first started smacking Iggy around. Two gunmen, Coco Bour and Tulsa Jake Testa, stood over Lyle with their guns drawn. They watched the one-sided fight with flat expressions, glancing at Knapp now and then, checking his reaction to Iggy's getting his face battered by Gore's big rawboned knuckles.

Knapp gave them no reaction. Instead he eyed the spare horses the three men had brought with them and sipped from a battered whiskey flask as he watched. He had to admit he was a little amazed that Iggy was still on his feet, given the beating the big brawler was putting on him.

Folks will fool you sometimes,
he told himself.

He capped the flask and let it hang in his hand. Iggy, trying to get a lick of his own in, swung a weak and careless roundhouse at Gore. All the brawler had to do was sidestep a little and let the missed swing drop the staggering Iggy to the dirt.

“And that's that. He's had enough,” Knapp said just loud enough to be heard.

Gore and the other two gunmen turned their full attention to Knapp. Gore wiped the back on his hand on his trousers as Iggy crawled away in the dirt.

“I'll say when it's enough,” Gore called out in a New York Irish accent. He walked toward Knapp; Coco Bour and Jake Testa followed, giving no regard to the Cady brothers, or to their guns lying on the ground. “Careful, old boyo. I might be giving you a bit of the same.” He stopped ten feet from Knapp and stood with his big fists balled at his sides. Bour and Testa walked in closer and flanked him, their gun hands poised at their holsters.

Knapp only stared at him.

Seamus continued. “Now I'll tell you the same thing as I told that one. We don't break this fellow out of the prison wagon until we first see some money cross our palms.” He held his hand up flat toward Knapp and wiggled his big fingers expectantly.

Knowing Coco Bour to be the leader of these three, Knapp looked at him as if Gore and Testa weren't there.

“I was told you'd get paid when the job's done,” he said. As he spoke he examined the flask and shook it a little, gauging its contents. “If that doesn't suit you, ride away,” he said flatly, then turned his dark eyes back to Gore. “I can do this without you.”

“Oh?” said Gore, stepping forward. “It looks like I will have to knock this one around some.”

Knapp raised a hand as if asking for a second. Gore stopped in his tracks. Without another word, Knapp slipped the flask inside his duster as if to protect it. When his hand came back from inside the duster lapel, he held a big revolver he'd drawn from a shoulder rig.

“Hey—!”
Gore shouted in protest. But his words cut short as the big revolver bucked once in Knapp's hand. The gunman hit the ground with a fountain of blood spewing straight up from his chest. Before Bour and Testa could respond, Knapp's revolver turned, recocked and aimed at Bour's chest. Knapp stood silent, braced ready, nothing else to say.

“Whoa, now,” Bour said in a low even tone, seeing that he and Testa had been caught off guard. “I should have said something sooner. Gore can be a little pigheaded at times.
Obstinate
, I'll go so far as to say.” He nodded and looked at Testa. “Am I right, Jake?”

“Oh
yes
,” Testa agreed, “
obstinate
to a fault, I have always said.” They looked at the dead man lying with his mouth wide-open, the fountain of blood having fallen to a trickle on his chest.

“Seems cured enough,” Knapp said in an unreadable tone. He kept the revolver pointed, smoke curling up from the tip of the barrel.

“Shoot the son of a bitch again!” Iggy said, he and his brother staggering to their feet. He picked his Colt up, cocked it and sauntered unsteadily over the body in the dirt. His face was raw, red and swelling on either cheek. Blood seeped from his nose down his upper lip. Lyle and the other two watched as he fired two shots into Gore's head. The dead man's head bounced with each shot. Lyle stepped in and laid his hand down atop Iggy's Colt, stopping him from firing again.

“Let it go, brother,” he said. “He's as dead now as he'll ever be.”

Bour and Testa stood easier as Iggy uncocked his Colt and shoved it down into his holster, easier still as Knapp lowered his revolver and kept it in hand.

“All right, then,” said Bour, turning from the Cadys back to Knapp, “all this being settled, maybe we ought to get down to the job at hand.”

“Are we square on when you get paid?” Knapp asked, eying the two closely.

“We're square as a knot,” said Bour. “Right, Jake?” He looked at Testa for support.

“We are for sure,” Testa said. “Point us at that prison rig and watch what we do. Edsel Centrila wants his boy out of jail, we'll get him out.”

Knapp uncocked the gun hanging at his side.

“Glad we could work it all out,” he said. He looked at the Cadys and gestured down at Gore's body in the bloody dirt. “Drag him off somewhere. We're making camp here. I don't want critters toting his guts back and forth all night.”

The Cadys looked at each other, not liking the idea of them having to drag the dead man away. But they resolved to keep their mouths shut.

“Let's go, then,” Lyle said. “You get one arm, I'll get the other.”

“This son of a bitch,” Iggy said under his breath. He looked at the wide-open mouth as he bent and grabbed Gore's limp wrist.

As the two dragged the dead man off into a nearby stand of rock and sand, Bour and Testa turned to Knapp.

“No offense,” Bour said, “but are these two the best you could come up with on short notice? I could have brought along a couple of my
nieces
had I known.”

“You know the Cadys?” Knapp said.

“I expect everybody knows the Cadys,” Testa said. He shook his head in disgust.

“When I saw them,” said Bour, “I started to turn my horse around and head to Abilene, truth be told.”

“Mr. Centrila said bring them, so I brought them,” Knapp said. He eased his revolver inside his duster lapel and pulled out the tin whiskey flask. “I figured the more guns the better if we get into a scrap.” He took a sip of rye and passed the flask to Coco Bour. “Although I don't look for that to happen. I'm looking for an easy go of it. Kill a couple of guards, shoot the lock off the wagon door—ride out of here.”

“That's our thinking too,” Bour said. He took a sip of rye and passed the flask to Testa. “When does all this happen?”

“First thing come morning,” Knapp said. He reached for the flask as Testa lowered it from his lips. “So this is all of the drinking until it's over. I'm keeping one of you watching this trail the rest of the day and all through the night, in case the wagon comes by sooner.”

“You got it, Charlie Knapp,” Bour said. He wiped his hand across his lips and looked all around at the brush and the rock cover they stood in on the broad cliff above the trail. “We'll get Centrila's boy broke out real quick. The way it looks, this place was made for an ambush.”

Walking back from where they dragged Gore's body, Lyle and Ignacio saw the shiny tin flask as Bour handed it back to Knapp.

“Don't we get a drink too?” Lyle said when they stopped a few feet away.

“No,” said Knapp. “You should have been here when it was offered.” He patted the lapel of his riding jacket where he'd pocketed the flask, then turned and walked away. Coco Bour and Jake Testa gave the Cadys a look and walked away behind him.

“I guess he showed us where we stand, brother,” Lyle said under his breath. “Far as I'm concerned we can cut out of here any time you're ready.”

“Let's keep biding our time,” Iggy replied. “Soon as we ride away without getting into Knapp's rifle sights, I'm as ready to quit Edsel Centrila as fast as you are.” He looked at his brother closely. “I just don't want us to get killed doing it.”

•   •   •

Shortly after daylight the barred four-horse Studebaker prisoner transport wagon rolled onto a stretch of trail running through a deep valley of stone. Seated beside the driver, the wagon guard looked up into the morning sunlight to his right and searched along a flat cliff line looming fifty feet overhead. The diver slowed the four horses almost to a walk when the forward guard on horseback stopped his mount thirty yards ahead of them, turned his horse sideways in the middle of the trail and sat staring with his rifle across his lap.

“What the blazes is he doing, Ernest?” the driver said sidelong to the guard. “This is no place to be stopping. My guts pucker every time I get to this stretch of trail.”

“Mine too,” said the guard, an elderly former Ranger named Ernest Shule. “Bennie's just green. He'll be all right.” He stood up from his wooden seat, rifle in hand, and called out to the forward guard, a young Kansan named Bennie Eads.

“Bennie, what are you stopping here for?” he called out. “We need to keep this rig moving.”

Eads didn't answer; he sat staring back at the two lawmen and their cargo of four cuffed and shackled prisoners. The four stood up and pressed their faces against the warm side bars, trying to get a view of the trail ahead of them.

“I say he's lost his mind,” said the driver, a former army scout named Curly Ed Townsend. “He wouldn't be the first I've seen do it out here.”

“Sit still here, Curly,” said Shule. “I'll see what's got into him.” He swung down from his seat and walked forward on the rocky trail, looking up along the cliff line as he went. “Dang it all, Bennie, you couldn't picked us a worse place to stop this rig if you tried,” he said. “You're giving Curly the willies . . . me too, far as that goes—”

He stopped and fell silent as he neared the guard. He watched as Bennie turned his horse and rode off farther along the trail and stopped and looked back again.

“What are you doing, Bennie?” he called out, hurrying his pace up a little. “Sit still. I don't aim to walk all the way to . . .” His words trailed to a halt. A dark reasoning swept into his mind, and his eyes cut back up along the cliff line. He looked back at Eads and saw the mounted guard turn his horse again and ride away farther.

Oh no!

Shule turned and broke into a full, hard run toward the wagon, waving his rifle at the driver.

“Back them horses out of here, Curly!” he shouted. “It's a trap!”

“Holy Joseph!” said Curly Ed, drawing back hard on the sets of reins in his hands. Yet, before the big wagon horses could even respond to his hand commands, he heard rifle shots along the cliff and saw Shule fall to the rocky ground in a hail of bullets. “I'm coming, Ernest! Hang on!” he shouted, slapping the reins hard against the horses' backs.

As the wagon jolted forward, one of the prisoners held tight on to the bars with one hand and grabbed Harper Centrila to keep him from losing his footing.

“Obliged, Lon,” said Centrila, rounding away from the man's hand on his shoulder. Along the cliff line rifle shots resounded steadily; bullets thumped on the wooden part of the wagon framing and kicked up dirt and rock on the trail.

“Yee
-hiii
!” shouted an outlaw named Bill Seadon. “I love a shooting!” He stamped his shackled bare feet on the wagon bed in a crazy dance and shook his cuffed hands wildly. “When Harper here says he's got a plan in the works, he ain't fooling around!”

Shots sliced through the air around the wagon with the sound of canvas being ripped apart. The other three prisoners hunkered down at the front of the barred rig where a thick wall of wooden planking stood between the driver compartment and the deep wagon bed. But Seadon continued to dance and laugh and hoot aloud. Lon Bartow, the prisoner who had grabbed Harper's arm to keep him from falling, started to reach out and pull Seadon down out of the gunfire. But Harper gave him a look and shook his head, stopping him.

“Let the fool dance,” he said. “Maybe he'll catch a stray bullet instead of us.”

As the prisoners huddled, the wagon rolled on, the four horses picking up speed as Curly tried to get to his fallen pal lying bloody in the trail amid heavy gunfire. As the wagon neared Shule, Curly Ed swerved the horses just enough to stop the rig between Shule and the riflemen above them. With the bared wagon in their gun sights, the riflemen slowed their firing. Up on the cliff, Knapp raised a hand toward Lyle and Ignacio Cady.

“Watch your shooting, Cady brothers,” he said. “We don't want to kill him breaking him out.” He looked down and saw the driver leap down from the rig, grab the fallen guard and help him climb back aboard.