Lawless Trail (23 page)

“What the hell are you doing?” Elliot called out, spinning toward the sound of gunfire, mistakenly thinking it was coming from Folliard's gun. But as he saw Folliard falling back beneath the upsurge of blood, he turned his rifle toward Claypool just in time to catch two bullets in his chest. As he spun, Hardaway's rifle barked from the edge of the trail; the bullet pounded Elliot a third time in the chest.

From up the hillside, Garand heard the short-barreled Colt. He and L. C. McGuire looked down and saw the two detectives lying dead and bloody in the middle of the trail.

“You can't kill these sons a' bitches!” he said as if in awe, his cigar falling from his lips. Without a moment of hesitation, he sprang the rest of the way up the hillside, McGuire right behind him, to where Rio DeSpain stood holding the horses.

“What's the deal?” DeSpain asked as Garand leaped atop his horse and jerked it toward the trail. McGuire shrugged and stepped up into his saddle, turning his horse behind Garand.

“They're dead—we're gone,” Garand snapped. “That's the deal.”

“Me and L.C. got you covered, Mr. Garand,” DeSpain said, leaping up into his saddle, turning the other two horses loose.

Seeing Garand and his two men riding away atop the hill, Hardaway struggled against the pain in his lower left side and pushed himself to his feet. He staggered past the body of Elliot, out around the dead horse and saw Claypool lying covered with blood, his short-barreled Colt in his hand, his eyes barely showing life.

“Damn it, Carter,” said Hardaway, weaving in place. “I wouldn't have had this happen . . . for nothing.”

Claypool made the slightest gesture with his eyes, letting Hardaway know he heard him.

“There just ain't nothing . . . I can do for you,” Hardaway said. He sank down to the ground beside him, laid his bloody hand on Claypool's shoulder and patted it. “Go on, close your eyes now,” he said quietly.

The Ranger rode the last thirty yards with caution up from Hardaway's shortcut and onto the main trail. Having followed the X on Hardaway's horse's shoes, he knew it was a pretty good bet that Hardaway was involved in the rifle fire he'd heard. He had only stopped at the old Mexican's trailside hovel long enough to water the barb, but he'd noted the new set of tracks belonging to whoever had thrown in with Hardaway. He'd also seen the bodies of the three slavers, the old Mexican leading a team of donkeys dragging them to the edge of a tall cliff across the trail from his hovel.

The Ranger finished watering the barb and led the dusty animal across the trail and stood watching the old man.

“Qué ha sucedido aquí?”
he asked.

“Ah, it was nothing,” the old man replied in better English than the Ranger expected for such a remote place. He gave the Ranger the account of a
norteamericano
—a
tejano
perhaps—offering to buy women from three slavers with worthless money, of another
americano
arriving in time to save his life from the slavers, and killing the three of them with a short-barreled Colt. His memory on the matter was crisp and clear, yet when it came to recalling any names, his eyes glazed and appeared at a loss.

“The Traybo brothers' gang?” the Ranger said, testing.

“Traybos?
No hablo
Traybos,” he replied, his English suddenly turning stiff and unmanageable.

In relating the story of the shooting to the Ranger, the old man stopped at intervals and stepped forward long enough to roll a slaver's body and watched it sail, bounce, flail, slide and twist into shapes heretofore unattainable to their human skeletal form. At the end of each gruesome exhibition, the old Mexican looked back at the Ranger with his one-toothed grin, his tired eyes sparkling with amusement, and continued his tale.

After the third body had made its descent, and the old man finished telling the Ranger what had happened, he saw a questioning look on the Ranger's face and shrugged his thin shoulders.

“This is hard ground and I have no shovel, no pick.” He gestured out across the deep rocky chasm to where buzzards had begun rising into the sky almost before the bodies had landed and settled. “Besides,
los santos
teach us it is good to feed God's creatures, eh?”

“I can't argue against the teachings of the saints,” the Ranger replied. Knowing he'd gotten all he was going to from the old man, Sam stepped into his saddle, turned the barb and rode on, stopping only now and then to make sure he was still following the X Hardaway's horse had left in its wake.

And he rode on, only quickening his barb's pace when the onslaught of rifle fire erupted less than two miles ahead of him.

Now each step of the barb shortened his distance yard by yard from the turn in the trail and the drift of rifle smoke looming above it. When he could smell the strong bite of burnt powder, he stopped and stepped down from his saddle and cocked his Winchester, the rifle already in his hand.

Leading the barb, he warily rounded the turn and saw Claypool's dead dun lying stretched out midtrail. As he proceeded closer, he saw Hardaway sitting, swaying slightly, his hand still resting on Claypool's bloody shoulder.

“Don't think I can't . . . see you coming, Ranger,” Hardaway said painfully, his free hand gripping Claypool's Colt against his own bloody belly wound. “I could nail you from here. . . . Nothing you could do about it.”

“Oh . . . ? What's stopping you?” the Ranger called out, moving slowly forward as he spoke, gaining what knowledge he could of the situation as he moved deeper into it.

“Gun's not loaded,” Hardaway replied painfully.

“That's a stopper,” the Ranger said. He walked into sight over the side of the dead dun and looked down at Hardaway. “Loaded or unloaded, lay it down, Fatch,” he said in a warning tone, his rifle loosely pointed at Hardaway.

Hardaway sighed and opened his bloody hand; the short-barreled Colt fell to the ground in the fork of his outstretched legs.

The Ranger moved in, looking all around. He stooped and picked up the Colt and checked it. He looked at Carter Claypool lying pale and dead, looking small, the breadth and depth of his personal magnitude gone out of him.

“You're not lying,” he said to Hardaway, and he stuck the Colt down behind his gun belt.

“I could have . . . told you that too,” said Hardaway, his free hand going back to his belly wound.

“Who gulched you?” Sam asked.

“Who do you think?” said Hardaway.

“Are we going to do it this way?” the Ranger said, eyeing him sharply.

“Garand and his gun monkeys,” Hardaway said. “I caused it, leading you up here . . . causing Carter to get in a big hurry, you dogging us.”

Sam just stared at him.

“I saw what you did . . . X-ing my horse's shoes. Real funny. Ha-ha,” he said with sarcasm.

“You wasn't sticking to your part of the bargain, Fatch,” the Ranger said.

“I would have,” said Hardaway. “Sooner or later . . . most likely, maybe—”

“See what I was dealing with?” the Ranger said, cutting him off.

“It doesn't matter now,” Hardaway said. “I expect I'm dead . . . before I can take you to them.”

“How bad are you hit?” the Ranger said.

“Gut-shot,” Hardaway said grimly. “What does that tell you?”

The Ranger shook his head in regret. But then he asked, “How are you feeling?”

Hardaway gave him a dark stare. “Is that you taking . . . some kind of cruel, sick revenge on me for me not—”

“No, Fatch.” The Ranger cut him off again. “I mean how do you feel right this minute? Are you wishing you had died an hour ago?”

Hardaway still gave him the dark stare.

“No, I wish . . . I could sit awhile . . . get up and go on an hour from now,” he said, crossly.

“Then you're not gut-shot,” the Ranger said with a sense of relief that Hardaway did not yet share.

Hardaway sighed deeply and raised his hand from over the bloody wound.

“Here's my gut. . . . Here's the bullet hole,” he said.

“You've got a bullet in your belly, Fatch,” Sam said. “That doesn't mean you're gut-shot.” He leaned his rifle against the dead dun's belly, reached out both hands and took Hardaway by his shoulder and started to pull him up.

“What the hell, Ranger?” Hardaway cried out painfully.

“I'm getting you on your feet. If this doesn't feel like a knife turning in your gut, you're not gut-shot.”

“Jesus, please
no
!” Hardaway screamed. But up on his feet for a second, he took on a strange look of surprise and said, “Whoa, that didn't hurt nothing like I figured on.”

“Now sit down,” Sam said, giving him a little nudge back down onto the dead horse's side.

“Damn it, make up your mind!” Hardaway barked. “I said it's not as bad as I figured. . . . I didn't say it felt
good
!”

“Easy, Fatch,” Sam said. “I can get you patched up some. But you're going to have to take me to the Traybos. The doctor from Maley is there, remember?”

“Lord God Almighty,” Hardaway moaned, shaking his bowed head. “Had I known I was going through all this . . . I could have just drawn you a map . . . and stayed at the Bad Cats. . . .”

“What about that reward? Don't forget about that,” the Ranger said, wanting to keep his spirits up until he got medical treatment.

“That was all . . . a made-up story,” Hardaway said. “Everything you told me . . . was a damn lie.”

“Huh-uh. I X'd your horse's shoes so I could follow you, and I unloaded your rifle so you couldn't shoot me in the back,” Sam said quietly. “But I didn't lie about the reward. It's there waiting for you.” He pushed himself to his feet and started to turn and walk to the barb.

“Think about this,” he added, gesturing toward Claypool's body. “If you'd shot me in the back, or if I hadn't been able to follow your horse's tracks, where would you be right now?”

Hardaway shook his bowed head again.

“Obliged, Ranger,” he said in a dejected tone. “Now I feel even more like an ass than I did.”

•   •   •

An hour later the Ranger wrapped a cloth around Hardaway's wound to slow the bleeding and sat him on a rock while he dragged Carter Claypool's body to the side of the trail and covered it with stones. He lugged the bodies of Fain Elliot and Artimus Folliard to the edge of the trail and rolled them off. As they tumbled down into brush and rock, he recalled the cheerful look on the old Mexican's face when he'd performed the same act earlier that day, but with a steeper fall to better fuel his amusement.

“The horse will have to lie there for now,” he told Hardaway when he walked back to where he sat, his hand resting on his bandaged wound. “I can't wear these horses out dragging it.”

Hardaway looked sadly at the body of Charlie Smith lying center-trail.

“Carter Claypool loved that cayuse something fierce,” he said reflectively. “There's no way of knowing it, but I believe if a horse can love a human, ol' Charlie Smith loved Claypool in return, no matter the tough life he put that animal through.” He breathed deep and the Ranger thought he saw his eyes well up a little.

“How's your belly?” the Ranger asked, to break his sad train of thought.

“Hurts like hell,” Hardaway said. He stood up, seeing the Ranger getting ready to leave. “Anyways,” he added, nodding toward the stones covering Carter Claypool, “there lies one of the toughest, most loyal, bravest hombres to ever throw on a long rider's duster and take up the gun.”

The Ranger only nodded, allowing him to finish his coarse eulogy for the departed.

“How much did you know about him?” he asked.

“Not much, really,” said Hardaway. “He snuck off and fought the War of Secession when he was going on fifteen—lied about his age. I don't know which side he fought on. I always got a feeling it wouldn't have mattered which side, he just wanted to fight. He left the war and fought ever since. You've got to admire a man like that. He was not a man of peace, nor did he make any phony pretense at being one.”

The Ranger watched and listened until Hardaway stopped talking, put on his hat and leveled it.

“Let's go, Fatch,” he said. “Don't start trusting my doctoring skills more than I do.”

They mounted their horses and rode on, upward toward a hill line only a few miles above them. When they got to a place where a thinner trail turned off between the walls of stone, they stopped at the sound of horses' hooves clopping along at a walk on the narrow trail winding toward them.

“Hold it up, Fatch,” the Ranger said. He took Hardaway's horse by its bridle and led it aside out of sight behind the edge of a tall chimney rock of iron-stained sandstone.

Hardaway sat bowed and silent, as he had for the last few minutes, his left arm cradling his wounded stomach.

“Whoever it is, shoot them,” he murmured. “Get me on up to the doctor.”

“Shhh,” the Ranger said, hushing him.

“Careful this ain't some of the Traybo Gang coming,” Hardaway whispered quietly in a pained voice. “This stone valley . . . winds on ahead, right to their front door.”

The Ranger just looked at him.

“We're there to the doctor,” he said haltingly. “I figured I best tell you . . . in case I pass out.”

“
Hola
the trail,” the Ranger called out, turning, seeing the two riders come into sight. “I'm Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack,” he followed up quickly, opening his duster so they could see his badge.

At first the two riders had stopped abruptly and appeared ready to bolt away. But when they noticed the badge, they eased a little.

“Ranger, we are happy to see you. I'm Dr. Dayton Bernard, from Maley. This is Rosetta, also from there,” the young doctor called out. “Have you come searching for the two of us?”

“I'll be damned,” said Hardaway, realizing if he'd waited one minute longer he would not have had to reveal the Traybos' hideout in order to get treatment from the doctor.

“We are searching for you both, Dr. Bernard,” the Ranger said, nudging his barb closer, checking the trail behind the two. “But right now we're in sore need of your medical skill. I've got a man shot in the belly here.”

“Gut-shot,” Hardaway corrected in a pained voice.

As the doctor and Rosetta stepped their horses forward, the doctor looked at Hardaway's hand resting against his bandaged stomach.

“I doubt very much you would be sitting in that saddle if you were gut-shot, sir,” he said. “But let's get you down from there and take a look.” He took Hardaway's horse by its bridle and led it off the trail, through a stand of brush, into a small clearing.