Golden Riders (14 page)

In front of a tall up-reaching sequoia cactus standing diagonally across the street from the doctor's house, a skinny red hound the Cundiffs had heard barking a moment earlier stood with his head lowered, chewing eagerly. The hungry canine didn't even look up as the two brothers' horses walked past him.

“Must've caught himself a tasty barn rat,” Joe said, looking over at the thin, bare-ribbed hound. “Looks like he could use a tasty rat or two.”

“At least the bugle-mouthed bastard won't be announcing us coming,” said Willie quietly. The two kept their horses at a slow walk, staring ahead at the doctor's large clapboard house.

“You figure he's in there, Willie?” Joe asked, his hand getting nervous and sweaty on his rifle stock.

“He was with the old town doctor here. Where else would they have gone?” He gestured a short nod along the vacant street ahead of them. Looking at the front of the house they saw a lamp burning dimly in a window.

“Yep,” Joe agreed. “He's here for sure.”

The two turned their horses to a hitch rail out front on the doctor's house.

“This time he's not going to be one jump ahead of us,” Willie said. They stepped down from their horses and hitched them to the rail. “We've got him cold. Start shooting as soon as his feet hit the porch.”

“Yeah, yeah, hurry up. Call him out,” Joe said, starting to warm up excitedly to the prospect of having the Ranger where they wanted him. “I've got him,
I've got him!
”

“Well, well, look at you now,” Willie said with a sly grin, taking his time now, looking confident. He held his Colt down his side, cocked and ready. He turned back to the house. “Ranger! Come out here!” he demanded. As he called out, he raised his Colt and took aim on the middle of the front door.

“What do you want, Willie Cundiff?” the Ranger's voice called out from the dark street behind them.

The Cundiffs stood frozen for a moment, trying to make sense of the Ranger being in the street behind them. Willie lowered his Colt as they turned and faced the lone figure standing diagonally across from them in front of the cactus, rifle in hand.

“Jesus . . . ,” Willie said under his breath.

The red hound stood at the Ranger's left side. He licked his big tongue out across his flews and sniffed at Sam's hand. The Ranger scratched the dog's bony head and nudged him away.

“That's all I've got for you, pal,” he said, speaking sidelong to the hound. Raising his tone he called out to the Cundiffs, “I asked,
What do you want, Willie?
”

Willie Cundiff swallowed hard; so did Joe standing close beside him.

“We're tired of you dogging us, Ranger,” Willie called out. “It all stops right here.”

Sam thought about it, realizing that these two must've thought his entire manhunt was centered on them.

“Willie, you should understand,” Sam said. “I'm not just out to take down you Cundiffs. I'm out to take down all of the Golden Gang.”

“Yeah, we understand all right, lawdog,” said Joe, getting bolder. “We understand that you've been down our shirts ever since that day you caught up to us—”

“Listen to me, Joe,” Sam said cutting him off. “This is the first I've seen or even thought of you two since that day.”

“You're lying,” Willie cut in sharply. “Don't be listening to him, Joe. We've got him worried.” He stepped closer to the Ranger in the middle of the dirt street. “Not so sure of yourself, now, huh, Ranger?” he said to Sam.

The Ranger raised and cocked his rifle. What could he say? The two were convinced he'd been on their trail day and night. He saw no use in talking to them. He needed to make his move before they got spread out.

“And another thing, lawdog,” Joe said, taking a bold step forward, his rifle up in both hands. “Us Cundiff boys have never had to—”

Sam first shot hit him dead center and sent him backward, leaving a black mist of blood in the dark purple night. As soon as he saw Joe fly backward, Sam levered up another round as he swung his Winchester
to Joe's right and pulled the trigger as a shot from Willie's Colt whistled past the side of his head.

His second shot hit Willie Cundiff high in his shoulder and spun him spinning in a full circle. As the big outlaw tried to right himself steadily on his feet, Sam's second shot hit him squarely in his chest, sending him backward and flipping him over the hitch rail beside his nervous horse. The horse jerked sidelong, badly spooked but held by its reins. Beside the scared animal, Joe's horse reared against its reins and almost fell onto its side.

Sam levered a fresh round into his rifle chamber. He stooped and picked up both spent cartridges and dropped them into his duster pocket. He walked forward, around the hitch rail, his hand out toward the spooked horses. As the horses settled a little he loosened their reins and watched them turn and bolt away along the dark street. Then, he leaned his rifle against the hitch rail as the red hound came bounding over from the cactus and stood probing its muzzle all around the dead men.

“Get back now,” Sam said to the curious canine. He dragged the two bodies closer together and leaned down and took them both by their collars and dragged them across the street and dropped them behind the big cactus.

Along the street, lamps and lanterns came to life in darkened windows. Sam looked up the street at the cantina, then turned and walked back and picked up his rifle. The hound who had watched him curiously raised its floppy muzzle and let out a loud, yodeling howl.

Stepping onto the front porch of the clapboard house, Sam saw the front door swing open. The old doctor stood looking at him as he walked inside.

“Anything I need to do out there?” the doctor asked, looking him up and down.

“No,” Sam said flatly. “Turn out the light and keep the twins safe. I've got some more work to do here.”

“Work . . . ?”
The doctor gave him a bemused look.

The Ranger didn't offer to elaborate; he walked past him into the dark house.

Inside Chavez's Cantina, the five gunmen left at the bar all turned as one at the sound of gunfire and hurried out the front door. Chavez let out a tight breath, realizing that the whole day these men had slowed his business by more than half.
But what can you do?
he asked himself. Picking up a lantern from under the bar, he hurried around and followed the gunmen out front onto the boardwalk. Behind him, Joey Rose half stood, his face and chest covered with thick bandages. He mumbled something incoherently to Chavez, then collapsed back down in his chair.

Seeing townsmen hurrying along the street, women in housecoats, men pulling up their suspenders, Jake Cleary stepped down from the boardwalk, walked out into the street and gazed in the direction the gunfire had come from.

“It's all down in front of that big pipe-organ cactus,” he said to the others.

“I expect we'd better go see what it was before all the space gets taken,” Cutthroat Teddy Bonsell said with a
sharp grin. He stepped out onto the street with Cleary and started walking. The others fell in with them, the five walking abreast at a saunter, not wanting to look too curious, or excited. They kept the same slow cool pace as the townsfolk hurried past them.

When they stopped eight yards away from the doctor's clapboard house, they saw townsmen and women milling in the street looking all around, confused. The street showed no sign of a shooting even though the faint smell of burned powder wafted in the night air.

“What the hell kind of shooting is it, nobody lying dead in the street?” Bonsell said, clearly disappointed.

“Must've been some drunk shooting off his guns,” said a townsman. “We're getting lots of that of late.” He gave the outlaws a sour look and turned and walked away.

“
Excuse
us all to hell,” Bonsell called out as the man walked away.

The gathered crowd looked all around for a while, then appeared to lose interest and started drifting back to their warm beds. Chavez himself, holding the unlit lantern at his side, milled around with the gunmen for a moment longer, then started to turn and walk back to the cantina.

“Hold up a minute, barkeep,” said Roy Mangett, looking down studying the dirt. “Fire that lantern up, hoss. I believe we've got something here.”

Chavez struck a match, lit the lantern, and held it out over the dirt street.

“Give me that,” said Mangett, grabbing the lantern from his hand. He stooped, one palm on his knee, and held the lantern closer to the dirt street.

“Well, help my time, what have we here?” he said. He moved the lantern back and forth slowly, seeing the drag marks reach from the empty hitch rail all the way across the street. “I sense some foul play afoot, after all.” He grinned.

The other gunmen gathered around him and looked down at the long scrape marks in the dirt where Sam had pulled the dead gunmen over behind the sequoia. They followed Mangett over and around the cactus.

“Holy
Madre
 . . . !” Chavez whispered, crossing himself deftly at the sight of the two bloody bodies sprawled in the dirt. The other men stood staring in silence.

Between the two bodies, the red hound stood with his four feet spread in a fighting stance. He gave a low, warning growl.

Holding the lantern out, Mangett stomped his foot loudly at the hound.

“Get the hell out of here, you cur!” he shouted. “They ain't your dinner!”

The gunmen advanced; the hound retreated grudgingly, its teeth and flews streaked with blood from where he'd been licking the dead men's open wounds.

“Jesus, Roy,” said Bonsell as the hound slinked away. “It's the Cundiff brothers, Willie and Joe.” He looked at Jake Cleary.

Cleary said, “The last we saw of them, they left us jackpotted for the Ranger.”

“The Ranger, hunh?” said Mangett. He looked all around the dark street outside the circle of lantern light. “You figure the Ranger done this?”

“I would not figure against it,” said Cleary. He also
looked all around, warily. Bonsell looked around too, also with a dark, suspicious expression. Beside them Dorsey took on the same look. His hand fell instinctively to the butt of his holstered revolver.

“Something wrong with you fellows?” Mangett asked. “Has something got you all spooked?”

“Spooked?
Naw . . . ,
” said Bonsell. The three gunmen shook their heads as one. Mangett and Weidel gave each other a look.

Bonsell turned back to the Cundiffs' bodies and cocked his head curiously.

“Poor sonsabitches. They both were always plagued with a cowardly soul,” he said. He looked around again and lowered his voice. “Think that damned Ranger is lurking around here now?”

“I would not be surprised,” said Mangett, holding the lantern down and turning it off to take himself out of the light.

“I hope he is,” said Cleary. He jerked the big LeMat revolver from his waist and held it up with both hands. “I ain't shot a man with one of these big babies since the Civil.” He grinned and wagged the heavy gun.

“It makes sense, the more I think of it,” Mangett said. “He kills these two and hides their bodies. We don't find them right off, so we go on back to the cantina. We get all settled in—”

“That's his style all right,” Bonsell cut in sharply. “If he's here he'll be coming to the cantina.”

The men all looked at one another.

“Come on, hurry up,” said Bonsell, breaking into a trot. Cleary and Dorsey fell into a trot alongside him.

“Wait!” shouted Mangett. But he and Weidel also started running, catching up to Bonsell.

“He thinks he'll catch us by surprise inside the cantina, he's got another think coming!” Bonsell called out over his shoulder.

Losing the cool, calm demeanor they'd had only moments earlier, the gunmen raced toward the cantina in the middle of the street as if in a footrace. Chavez stood watching in disbelief.

Before they had gone twenty yards, Mangett tried to grab Bonsell's arm and pull him to a halt. But before he could, he saw the Ranger step out of the shadows of the town apothecary, his Winchester to his shoulder.

“Hold it! There he is—!” Mangett cried out in total surprise. The Ranger's first shot hit him in his broad chest and sent him rolling sideways in the dirt.

The other gunmen, sliding to a halt, caught completely off guard and confused, broke toward whatever cover they could find. The Ranger saw what they were trying to do and wouldn't allow it. Before they could get to cover and reorganize he began firing. Systematically, he took quick aim and shot the outlaws down one after the other. First Roy Mangett, next Chris Weidel, followed by Ed Dorsey. He took aim on Cutthroat Teddy Bonsell, but at the last second he held his rifle instead toward a large cooperage barrel where Jake Cleary had ducked down and taken cover, the big LeMat nine-shot in hand.

Moving sidelong, the Ranger lowered the hot smoking Winchester and laid it in the dirt street. Instead of
drawing his big Colt, he pulled the big LeMat he'd taken from Virgil Piney back in Poco Fuego.

“Listen up, both of you,” Sam called out. “You're still my prisoners.”

“But we got away,” Bonsell called out. “Damned near got blown out of our skin!”

“It doesn't matter,” Sam said, “you're still my prisoners. Step out and let me see your hands.” He kept walking slowly, sideways, knowing that neither of these men were going to lay down their guns and give themselves up.

“You're out of your mind, Ranger!” Bonsell shouted from behind the front corner of a building, seeing the Ranger cut away a slice of his cover with every sidelong step. He looked around quickly and saw no other place to go. “Stop right there, Ranger! Or, I'll blow your head off.”

The Ranger didn't stop until he had a good angle at both outlaws' positions from the middle of the street.