Dead Trouble (8 page)

Cutler didn’t see any signal pass between Spain and Tripp but they made a concerted efforted to jump him during the river crossing.

He was ready for it – he’d already figured this was the best place to try something if they wanted to.

They both made out that their mounts were shying after they plunged down the broken bank, and although they were behind Cutler, they were one each side of him. He heard the grunt and a smothered
ya-ha!
as they spurred their mounts forward, hoping to catch his grey between them.

Cutler rowelled, too, and the grey, one of the best fast-response horses he had ever owned, and well used to rounding up cattle under all conditions, whinnied slightly and jumped. The result was that Spain and Tripp cannoned into each other. Deke wheeled the grey in a tearing surge of muddy water and it sprang into the pair of whinnying, protesting mounts,
knocking 
both men out of the saddles. Cutler leaned down in the pale light of pre-sun-up, scooped up the trailing reins, turned the grey and kept going across the river, swimming all three horses in the deep middle.

There were shouts of alarm behind him,
interspersed
with curses, and he instinctively ducked as a gun went off. Looking back, he saw Spain floundering while Hal Tripp had moved back into the shallows and was trying to fire his six-gun again. But it was an old
cap-and
-ball: he had been lucky to get off that single shot after the drenching in the river.

By then Cutler was climbing the grey up the far bank. The other two mounts, whose reins he had released now, clambered out of their own accord. He unsheathed his rifle, levered in a shell, and raised it to his shoulder.

‘Start swimming, boys!’

‘Goddamn you to
hell
, Deke!’ shouted Spain,
spluttering
, his hat all askew and droopy after its ducking. ‘I wish that McKittrick kid
had
killed you!’

‘If wishes were horses, Durango. Come on. You brought it on yourselves. Or would you rather stay put, on the wrong side of the river, with drowned six-guns – and likely Flash Bill and his cronies already looking for you?’

Swearing, they waded out as far as they could, muddy water up to their necks, and then floundered their way across. Tripp panicked in the deep water and Deke threw him a rope. In the end, he pulled them both ashore by rope. They sagged on the bank, panting, spewing river water, too weary to even work up their hatred for him.

But they weren’t finished with him. When they dismounted at the corrals in the ranch yard, they waited until he off-saddled and threw his rig over the top rail, then they jumped him, co-ordinating their movements. Tripp drove his weight against Cutler and slammed him into the rails. At the same time, Spain hit him in the kidneys and, as Deke sagged, hit him again in the middle of the back.

Cutler’s legs gave way and he slid to his knees. Hal Tripp, dander up now, moved in and lifted a knee towards Cutler’s face. Deke twisted aside, took the knee on the right shoulder. It hurt and it spun him halfway around, slamming him back into the lower rails of the corral. Tripp moved in with boots swinging but Spain thrust him back, yelling,

‘No boots!
No boots
!’

‘Hell with you!’ Tripp growled and started to swing a kick.

Spain hooked him in the ribs and, as the man doubled over, grabbed his lank, wet hair and ran him head first into a corral post. Tripp fell, unconscious.

Meantime, Deke had gotten his breath back and he saw that Spain was ready for him again, fists lifted as he stepped in over Hal’s prone body. Deke hurled a
handful
of gravel into the rancher’s face and Durango staggered, clawing at his eyes. Cutler pulled himself properly to his feet by the rails, lifted a knee into his
partner
’s chest. Spain flew back, hitting the rails. His boots skidded and he slipped, the back of his head rapping hard.

Cutler closed, fists hammering, arms working,
turning
his shoulders behind the blows, using his weight. Early risers amongst the crew came out of the bunkhouse, shouting at the others still crawling out of their bunks.

‘Fight! Fight!’

The men crowded outside, yelling, some swinging punches at the air as they ducked and weaved in time with the two men who seemed intent on knocking each other’s head off. Both men were bleeding from facial cuts and their shirts were ripped. Deke fended a
clubbing
blow aimed at his nose, twisted his lean body and used all his weight as he slammed a hard fist into Spain’s ribs. Durango grunted and looked grey and sick as he jack-knifed, clutching at his midriff. He was hurt and he back-pedalled, covering his head with his arms as Cutler stalked him, watching for an opening, ripping in blows with the speed of a striking diamondback. Spain lurched as each blow landed. He wobbled unsteadily, fighting back by pure instinct, sometimes seeming only to try to
push
away the knotted fists that were reducing him to a battered wreck.

Deke was surprised: he had seen Durango in dozens of fist fights over their years in the Rangers, and Spain had had the stamina of an elephant, knocking down man after man and hardly breathing more heavily than if he had been playing poker, standing with his victims piled up around him, knee-deep.

Now, a few minutes of hard slogging, a couple of haymakers, and a faceful of straight lefts, and Durango Spain was about ready to give up.
No!
No, he wouldn’t give up, no matter how bad he was hurt. He would take
all the punishment that was thrown at him and finally go down, maybe, but no man would ever hear him cry
’Nough!

There was something wrong!
Deke, breathing plenty hard from his exertions, slowed down as the thought struck him, startled, unable to believe what he was seeing. Spain had always seemed a certainty to win any fight that might have started between them while they were in the Rangers but it had never happened, out of mutual respect for one another.

Now …

Both men jumped as a rifle crashed and one of the corral rails shuddered as a bullet slashed a foot-long sliver from it. As they crouched, turning towards the house, the rifle fired again and the bullet exploded gravel from the ground between them.

‘Hey!’ gasped Spain, lifting a hand towards the porch where Karen stood with the smoking gun – already levering a third shell into the breech. ‘Karen! What – the –
hell
– you think – you’re – doing?’

‘Stopping you two fools from killing each other!’ The rifle was at her shoulder now, aiming between them, ready to shift to one or the other. ‘Now, back away. Get at least three feet between you – and keep your hands down at your sides!
Do it
!’

They did it. She nodded in satisfaction, glanced towards the bunched crew outside the bunkhouse. ‘You men get your breakfast and go about your chores.’

Mumbling, the ranch hands moved away, most
starting
to grin, some pantomiming the fight; there would be plenty of talk over breakfast this morning.

‘Now you two – wash up in the horse trough and
then come into the kitchen. There’ll be no breakfast for either of you until we settle this thing … whatever it is!’

She turned back into the house and Deke glanced at the bloody Spain who was still fighting for breath, holding his ribs. If
he
looked as bad, it was no wonder he felt as if he had been caught up in a stampede, Deke allowed silently.

‘You might’ve told me you’d taught her how to shoot!’

‘Just as – well I – did – or she’d have – blown our – damn heads – off!’

They linked arms and staggered across to the horse trough.

Breakfast was mainly silent and both Deke and Durango had a little trouble eating the meal because of swollen jaws and tender gums. Karen had treated their cuts and scrapes – and given them a tongue-lashing while she was doing it.

‘A pair of fools!’ she began, making Spain wince and suck in his breath as she dabbed at a deep cut above his left eye. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen two grown men act so like dirty-faced school boys as much as you two!’

‘Now, listen, Karen,’ slurred Spain indignantly, but an extra dab of iodine into the cut choked off his words and she started in again.

‘You haven’t seen each other in over a year. You, Durango, didn’t get the small but steady income you were hoping for so you pushed Deke off to one side – as if he wasn’t here! Not just like another hired hand: that would’ve been bad enough, but just to virtually
ignore him, pretend he wasn’t around …’

‘Aw, it wasn’t that bad,’ Cutler said and withered a little at the look she tossed at him.

‘And
you
! Half-dead, weak, desperate to know what was going on, couldn’t forget you were no longer a Ranger and started poking your nose into Durango’s business and got his back up even more! Didn’t you know him well enough when you spent all those years together in the Rangers to see that he was only trying to keep you out of … things – so you wouldn’t get into trouble?’

Spain brightened briefly. ‘Yeah!
That
’s why I tried to keep him out of it, love—’

‘You be quiet! I haven’t finished with you yet but right now I’m talking to Deke.’

Durango fell silent although his lips moved as if he was mouthing some secret protest.

‘Deke! You’re not a fool. You must know what’s going on by now …’

Cutler nodded gently.

‘Pretty obvious. Durango’s done some kinda deal with Flash Danton and his bunch to let ’em drive rustled stock across Shoestring and into those hidden canyons. I know enough about this country to figure out that Shoestring is closest to the Badman’s Territory and offers the most cover for anyone wanting to get stolen cattle across the Red River.’

He was staring straight at Spain now and the battered man nodded.

‘All right. I had to do something. Told you the drought had given us a beating and I spent a lot of money on that windmill and it’s not producing enough
water. I’d already been approached by Flash Bill and was considering his offer – hating myself for it, too – when you arrived and told me you wouldn’t be getting a pension.’ He paused, sighed. ‘That did it. I told him OK. He could use the trail across our land and we’d drive our own cows over his tracks so no one could find ’em.’

Deke stared hard at Spain but neither man would lower his gaze.

‘I’m supposed to be your pardner, Durango.’

‘Yeah, I know, Deke.’ Spain glanced at Karen who was now gathering up the bandages and bloody rags she had been using. He frowned and flicked his gaze back and forth between Karen and Deke, trying to give him some silent message.

Cutler didn’t know what it was but he forced himself to calm down.

‘I don’t savvy why you’d do it, specially with a snake like Danton.’

Spain chuckled without mirth.

‘You mean my Ranger background and so on? Well, I thought I could point out that Flash was supposed to be dead and that he could be in all kinds of strife if the law found out he was still alive …’ His words faded briefly and any suggestion of a smile or banter dropped from him suddenly. ‘Know what he said? He said he’d make sure I was in strife, too. But what I should remember was that I wasn’t a Ranger any more but I had a wife and a ranch. And way out here, far from law, a lot of bad things could happen to both. If ever he was turned in, he meant. Without his control, he claims the outlaws, and even the Indians, would
jump the river and wipe out every settler along it, then run back to the Territory, safe from all but Federal marshals.’

Deke nodded gently.

‘And we all know how few of those there are. So, you’re saying you had no choice?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘Then how about Salty Shaw and Twist?
You
were supposed to have killed them both down on the Rio—’

‘No, you got that wrong. I was
with
the troop that claimed to have nailed those two, but Dal Beattie was commander.’

Spain’s gaze was steady on Cutler’s face and the latter said nothing for a moment, then nodded.

‘Yeah – Dal. He wiped out Red Flats just after Kid McKittrick shot me and died. But I recollect he had a couple of close scrapes with being accused of taking bribes from outlaws down along the Rio.’

‘Rangers’ own fault for not paying well enough. Yeah, Dal was a mite bent, I reckon. Must’ve been if that was Salty and Twist you and the black man nailed. That night on the Rio, when I rode in with my section of the troop, the fight was over. There were dead men
everywhere
, two of them their own mothers couldn’t’ve recognized. Shotgun work. Dal and a couple of his
sidekicks
swore it was Salty Shaw and Twist. I had no beef with it. I’m as surprised as you are that they turned up up here still alive.’

‘The Red River seems to be a favourite spot for Border hellions to run to,’ Deke opined.

‘Over in The Nations it does, leastways … I’ve thought I recognized one or two from down on the Rio.
That’s why it was so easy for Flash Danton to get a gang together up here.’

‘Breakfast will be ready in a minute.’

Both men looked up, surprised that the kitchen was filled with the aroma of frying bacon and brewing coffee. They had been so intent on their conversation they weren’t even aware of Karen preparing the meal.

‘Be right there, Karen,’ Spain said and turned a sober gaze on Cutler. ‘Well, you satisfied now?’

‘Not by a damn sight.’

Durango jumped up. ‘What? You calling me a liar?’

‘
Durango
!’ snapped Karen recognizing the hot anger in her husband’s voice. She hefted the heavy skillet by the handle and the warning was plain enough.

Spain sat down slowly, still glaring at Deke.

‘I’m not calling you a liar, Durango. I just think you haven’t told me everything.’

Spain looked uncomfortable and toyed with his fork.

‘Look, you know more than you should right now, I’m doing my best to keep you out of this, Deke. No, don’t start griping!
I don’t want you mixed up in anything!
That’s what it comes down to. I don’t like to pull rank but I’m senior partner and what I say goes …’ He gave a quick on-off grin, adding: ‘For the moment leastways. OK?’