High Wild Desert (21 page)

“I've got killing of my own to do, Dave,” Oldham said. He raised the shot glass to his lips, threw back its fiery contents in one drink, set the glass down and refilled it.

“What!” said Dave in surprise.

“You heard me, brother,” said Oldham, setting the bottle down, pushing it aside. He stared straight ahead.

“The Ranger?” said Dave. “After him treating you square, you'd still kill him . . . for money?”

“It's not about Burrack anymore, and it never was all about the money,” he said. He picked the cloth bag up an inch and let it plop back down. “I owe for the woman.”

“No, you don't,” said Dave. “She took a hit of bad luck, but it wasn't your fault. She was doing what doves do. Leave some money for her if you want to. But put her out of your mind.”

“Out of my mind?” Oldham chuffed darkly. “You didn't see her face, brother Dave. I did. He used my name to get her guard down. Told her I said
take care
of him.” He turned and stared at his brother. “He used her, robbed her, beat her, threw her in a public ditch like emptying a chamber pot.”

“I can understand how you feel,” Dave said gravely. “But when Fenderson's train rolls in, there could be a dozen men with him—hell, a
hundred
, far as that goes. Think about the odds.”

“I don't give a damn about the odds tonight, brother,” said Oldham. He raised his glass, threw back another shot and slammed it back on the bar, gripping it tight in his fist. “Sonny Rudabough is going to die. So is Henry Teague, just for being with him.”

Chapter 21

Well before dawn, Deputy Clow Dankett stuck Big Lucy's barrel against the Ranger's shoulder and nudged him just enough to cause him to open his eyes. He smiled to himself, noting that the Ranger did not awaken with a start. Instead he'd simply opened his eyes and slid them back and forth across the dim-lit jail without moving his head until he'd scrutinized what the world had laid before him.

“What is it?” Sam asked in a whisper.

“You said to wake you if I hear a train?” Dankett said.

“Yes,” Sam replied.

“I hear one,” Dankett affirmed.

Sam listened intently until he heard the distant roar of a steam engine beneath the sound of snoring from the cell Cisco Lang shared with Toy Johnson and Randall Carnes.

“Right, obliged, Deputy,” Sam said, raising the Colt from his lap, straightening in the chair tipped slightly behind the desk.

“You wake up the way my pa always did,” Dankett said quietly as the Ranger stretched and slipped the Colt back into its holster. “He was a scout for a privateer expedition into Mexico. Said he could sleep in a cyclone but wake up if a feather touched the ground.”

“He must've been a good scout, your father,” Sam said. He looked at Dankett as he picked up his sombrero and put it on.

“Yes, he was,” Dankett said. But before he could elaborate, a knock on the front door drew their attention.

Stepping over to the door, Dankett placed his hand on the bolt and looked around at the Ranger.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“It's me, Deputy,” came a woman's voice on the other side of the door, “Adele Simpson. May I please come in? I have some breakfast for Harvey.”

“Let her in, Deputy,” said the Ranger.

Dankett slipped the bolt back and opened the door. He looked around over Adele's shoulder as she stepped inside carrying a tray of food, a red-checkered cloth napkin spread over it.

“Thank you, Deputy,” she said, holding the tray in front of her. She looked at Sam as he lit an oil lamp standing on the desk. He adjusted the wick until light fell in a bright flickering circle around the darkened room.

“May I give this to Harvey, Ranger Burrack?” she asked.

Sam and Clow Dankett gave each other a look.

“I'm sorry I didn't bring enough for everyone,” Adele said. “Polly Corn, from the restaurant, allowed me to cook this. She is preparing something for the rest of you. It's just that I'm leaving this morning and I wanted to—”

“We understand, ma'am,” Sam said, stepping over to her. “Feel free to take it over to the corner there and serve it to Cisco.” He glanced over and saw Lang already up and hanging on the bars with both hands, staring at Adele.

As Sam spoke, he raised a corner of the checkered napkin and looked the food over—eggs, hotcakes, gravy, salt pork.

“My, my, Miss Adele,” Sam said, catching the wafting aroma of the food as he dropped the napkin back in place. “Losing you was the worst thing that ever happened to Cisco.” He glanced over at Lang and looked him up and down. “I suspect he realizes that by now.”

Sam stepped aside and let Adele take the food to a feed slot and slip it through to Lang. The prisoner took the tray and walked to the far front corner of the cell, Adele walking alongside him on the other side of the bars.

While Lang sat down on a stool at the bars, the tray on his lap, Sam walked to the other end of the cell, reached through the bars and shook Johnson by his shoulder.

“Wake up, Toy, wake up, Randall,” he said. “It's time to get you both up and out of here.” In the other cell, Teague and Rudabough sat up from their blankets on the plank floor. They stared at the Ranger in silence.

“Huh, what's that?” said Johnson.

“Wake up, both of you,” said Sam. “I'm letting you go, like I said I would.”

The two stirred and stood up, Johnson using a crutch Dankett had rummaged up from somewhere and given to him. They looked at each other.

“The things is, Ranger,” said Carnes, bleary-eyed, “we don't know where to go.”

“Your horses are at the livery barn,” Sam said. “Get them and get going before I change my mind. There's big trouble coming. I want you out of here.”

“Is it trouble we can help with?” Johnson asked, leaning on the crutch under his arm.

Sam just looked at him.

“All right, let's go,” Johnson said to Carnes. “We've lost our spot here.”

As Sam opened the cell door for the two to leave, a knock on the front door prompted Dankett to open it for the cook, Polly Corn, from the restaurant. She walked in carrying a large tray full of food and a steaming pot of coffee.

“Oh, good Lord, Ranger,” said Toy Johnson. “Me and Randall can't remember when we last et. Can we, Randall?”

“It's been a long stretch,” Randall said, his eyes on the heavy tray as Polly set it on the desk.

“All right,” Sam said, locking the cell door behind the two. “Get yourself some coffee and food first. Then get going. I don't want to see either one of you again for at least a month.”

“What about us in here?” Teague said from the bars of the other cell. Sonny Rudabough sat up holding his sore head with both hands.

“It's coming to you, Teague,” Sam said.

“God bless you, Ranger,” said Carnes, already swooping down on a warm biscuit while Polly poured coffee for him. Through a mouthful of biscuit, he said, “I don't suppose we could impose on you to return our firearms?”

“Not a chance,” said the Ranger, stepping over to get himself a cup of coffee. When Polly had poured a cup for him, Sam carried it over to where Adele sat at the bars and watched Lang eat his breakfast, the checkered napkin stuck down in his open shirt collar, serving as a bib.

“Your train will be arriving at the depot in a few minutes, Miss Adele,” he said.

“Oh. So soon?” She paused, looking regretfully at Lang through the bars. “Then must I leave now, Ranger?”

“No hurry on my part, ma'am,” Sam said. “I just wanted to let you know.”

“Then it's all right if I stay here a little longer?” she said. “The train will have to take on water and wood.”

“Suit yourself, ma'am,” Sam said. “Deputy Dankett and I are going to take a little walk in a few minutes. I'm sure I can trust you here with the prisoner.”

Adele only looked at Lang through the bars.

In the other cell, Teague and Rudabough took tin plates of food that Dankett had passed through the food slot in the bars.

“There's still time for you to let us go, Ranger,” Teague said. “I might be able to save your life.”

“You'd be lucky to save your own, once Fenderson finds out I'm not dead,” said Sam.

“I knew we should have killed you the first time we laid eyes on you, Ranger,” Rudabough said.

“Trying to make friends, are you, Rudabough?” Sam asked dryly.

“I'm saying, if I get my hands on a gun—”

“Shut up, idiot,” Teague growled at Sonny. “When you're sitting in a jail cell, don't be threatening your jailer!”

The Ranger and Dankett gave the men time to eat. As soon as Carnes and Johnson had finished their breakfast and coffee and limped out the front door, Dankett led the remaining prisoners one at a time out the side door to the jakes. When he had locked Lang in his cell and watched him join Adele back in the front corner, Sam picked his Winchester up from against the desk and cradled it in his arm.

“Everybody's fed and had their coffee,” he said to the two cells. “Deputy Dankett and I have business to take care of this morning, but one of us will be around to check on you every few minutes.”

“Sit tight and don't do something stupid,” Dankett put in, swinging a bandolier of shotgun loads over his shoulder. “Or I'll save a couple of these loads for you.”

The Ranger gave him a look.

“Sorry, Ranger, I'm trying,” Dankett said under his breath.

Adele had started to stand up from her short wooden chair.

“Ma'am, you're welcome to stay,” Sam said. “Be careful you don't miss your train.”

Adele sat back down. She and Lang looked at each other through the bars.

•   •   •

Inside his Pullman car, off on a short length of private rails beside the New Delmar Depot, Hugh Fenderson stood putting on a long swallow-tailed coat as Oboe, Singleton and Harkens stepped inside the car door and stood waiting for him. Beneath his long coat, Fenderson wore a new hand-tooled holster housing a custom-engraved, bone-handled Colt. As the men watched, the well-dressed businessman raised the fancy Colt and turned it in his hand, letting them get a look at it.

“I'm sure there'd be a few folks upset that I've had the Ranger killed,” he said. “I may have to promise them something—a new hay barn for the town livery perhaps. So, until I get these desert rats soothed down, everybody watch for trouble.” He spun the ornate Colt as he spoke.

“Sir, begging your pardon,” said Chester Harkens. “But won't you be carrying a shotgun, or a rifle at least?”

“He means in case some of these people ain't interested in a new hay barn,” Oboe put in.

“Ha!” said Fenderson. “I know these people. A new hay barn never fails. Besides, I may be only carrying a handgun, but let none of you forget that I was the best pistol marksman at Harvard three years in a row.” He grinned, spun the Colt and slipped it back down in his holster.

“Yes, sir,” said Oboe. “The rest of the men are gathered behind the operations car. Your horse is saddled and ready.”

“Then let's be gone, men,” said Fenderson. He placed a well-brushed Stetson hat on his head and walked forward with deliberation. The men parted and fell in behind him as he walked straight through them, out onto the platform and down to the rocky ground. He stopped and stared back along the train to where four more men sat atop their horses, holding reins to other horses in their hands.

A signal from Oboe brought the four riders forward and to a halt, a tall chestnut bay swinging around sideways to Fenderson, ready for him to mount.

“Since Teague did not say where he and Rudabough would be,” he said, stepping up into his saddle, “we will start at Polly Corn's restaurant this time of morning.” He looked at the others. “I don't know about you, but I could use some of Polly Corn's fresh-made coffee.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned the bay and nudged it in the direction of the town sitting three hundred yards away. The men, nodding in agreement, fell in behind him and followed in a loose column of twos.

“By all rights, it should have been me who killed that Ranger,” a gunman named Red Mike Sylvane said under his breath to the man riding beside him, a gunman named Dade Burke.

Burke looked at him.

“Why's that, Red Mike?” Burke said in the same lowered tone. “Are you somebody special that the world just hasn't heard of yet?”

Red Mike gave him a snarl.

“It just happens that I could have taken the Ranger cold. He'd have been lucky to get his gun out.”

“Yeah, well, I guess we'll never know now, will we?” Dade Burke said, sounding sarcastic.

They rode on in silence through the silvery morning air until they reached a long iron hitch rail out in front of the restaurant, stepped down and tied their horses in line. As Hugh Fenderson started to turn and step onto the boardwalk toward the restaurant door, Sergio Oboe stopped him suddenly, drawing his attention toward the street.

“Mr. Fenderson, sir!” Oboe said in a stunned voice. “Is that who I think it is?”

Fenderson and all his men turned and stared as the Ranger and Clow Dankett walked toward them up the middle of the nearly empty street, a swirl of silver still lingering, adrift on the early morning air.

Fenderson stared for a moment, his eyes widened in disbelief. Then his eyes narrowed; his face flushed with anger.

“Teague, you lying poltroon
son of a bitch
!” he growled as if Henry Teague were right beside him, his fists clenched tight at his sides. He stood staring fiercely at the Ranger, as if he'd ordered him to die and the Ranger had disobeyed him.

Seeing that his boss appeared to be frozen in place, Sergio Oboe took a sidelong step and stood poised with his rifle in both hands.

“Spread out, men,” he said to the others. “It looks like Burrack wasn't none too happy being in the grave.”

Widening the gap between them, Dade Burke looked Red Mike up and down with a thin, smug grin.

“Well, Red Mike, it looks like God does answer prayers. You get the chance to kill this lawman after all.”

“You think I'm worried, Dade?” said Red Mike, taking a stand, his feet shoulder-length apart. He pitched his rifle to Burke. “Hold on to this for a minute, big-mouth
.
I won't be needing it.”

Burke caught the rifle and gave a chuff.

“I could take your meaning a couple different ways, Red Mike,” he said.