Lawless Trail (4 page)

The warm blood oozing wider and wider all across the back on his shoulders seemed to press him down, keep him pinned in place, like a heavy boot clamped down on him.

Hell, you've had it, son,
he told himself. This was how it felt being dead.

He relaxed, gave in to the darkness, watching a dirt beetle crawling along in the dirt only an inch from his face. The beetle had no interest in anything that had just gone on in the world of man. This
damn bug . . .
Behind him the rumble of the herd lessened and passed. In another moment it fell away along the far end of the wide dirt street. He hoped his horse, Charlie Smith, had gotten away all right—a good horse, Charlie Smith. . . .

Here it is,
he thought, closing his eyes, knowing he was dead, knowing that when he opened them again he'd be in hell—find himself facing the devil. Well, that was how he'd played out his string, he thought, feeling smaller, going away.

As the last of the freed cattle trampled along the main street of Maley, two outlaws, one older and one young, ducked their horses away into an alley and left town at a run. They didn't stop and look back until they had reached a wide stand of cottonwood trees on a rocky hillside. There the two men stopped their horses alongside a thin stream. While the dusty sweat-streaked horse drank, the two men pulled bandannas down from their faces and sat staring back toward the thick cloud of dust engulfing the town. The herd had spilled out the other end of town and begun spreading out and slowing down. Mounted horsemen rode among them, trying to calm and gather the spooked animals.

Baylor Rubens, the older outlaw, had only pulled the grimy bandanna down below his chin, but the younger outlaw, Hatton “Bugs” Trent, had untied his and jerked it from around his neck and shook it vigorously. Dust billowed.

“Cattle have never brought me nothing but bad luck,” said Baylor Rubens. He spat and ran a hand across his dry lips. “I should say until today, that is. I expect to make myself a strike today.”

“The day I run off from home, I swore I'd never spend a minute more of my life chasing a cow's stinking ass,” said Trent. “Now look at me.” He shook the bandanna again, twirled it between his hands, draped it around his neck and tied it. “You know I nearly went under back there. If I had been trampled to death, I'd have been known forever for dying while rustling a herd of stinking cattle.”

“No, you wouldn't have, Bugs,” said Rubens. “I'd've seen to it you were known to be killed participating in a bank robbery.” He gave a thin wisp of a grin.

Trent smiled himself and nodded.

“I'd have been obliged to you for it,” he said. He hawked up dust from deep in his throat and spat it out on the ground. “Blasted damn cattle,” he growled.

The two looked off at two streams of dust approaching them in a wide half circle from the far end of Maley.

“This ain't good,” Rubens said sidelong to the young outlaw. “It looks like somebody didn't make it.” He noted how the two riders at the head of the streams of dust rode closely together. “No, sir, it ain't good at all,” he added.

Bugs Trent squinted into the sunlight and dirt.

“It's Wes and Ty,” he said. “They both made it. But Carter's not with them.” He paused, then said, “No surprise, I reckon. If we lose a man, it won't be one of these two, huh?”

“Watch your mouth, Bugs,” cautioned Rubens. “You don't know what the hell you're talking about.”

“I know that kin stick together no matter what,” Trent said as the two riders drew nearer. “That's just the way it is.”

“Did you just hear me tell you to shut up?” Rubens asked, his tone turning sharper.

The two stared hard at each other for a moment while the Traybos came up the narrow stretch of trail on the hillside toward them. Finally Bugs Trent gestured a nod toward the two.

“Look,” he said quietly to Rubens. “Ty's bloodier than a stuck hog.”

“Jesus,” growled Rubens, jerking his dun's head up from watering. He batted his boots to the dun's sides and splashed across the stream toward the Traybos. Trent booted his horse along behind him.

“What the hell, Wes?” said Rubens, cutting his horse sidelong and sidling up beside Ty, who sat slumped and bloody on his saddle. He noted the single canvas sack of money lying over Wes' saddle cantle.

“Shotgun,” said Wes. “He took a load close up. I should have seen it coming, but I didn't.” He continued forward, leading Ty's horse close beside him toward the stream's edge.

“He means . . . I should have . . . ,” Ty said in a weak voice without raising his lowered head.

“If I meant that I would have said so,” Wes said to his brother, stepping down from his saddle beside the stream. He pitched the money sack on the ground. Rubens helped Ty down from his saddle, seated him on the gravelly bank and leaned him back against a large rock beside the stream. Bugs Trent stepped down, took the reins to the Traybos' horses and held them while the animals drank.

“Where's Claypool?” Bugs asked, watching Wes open his brother's bloody trail duster and pull it off carefully.

“Carter didn't make it,” Wes said over his shoulder. “This whole deal was a railroad ambush.” He said to Ty, “We've got to get a doctor for this wound.”

“I'm not going to no damn doctor, Wes,” Ty said, his voice getting weaker.

“I never said you're going to one,” said Wes. “I'm going to have a doctor come to you.”

Ty shook his head and gave a halfhearted chuckle.

“That's good. You do that, brother,” he said. “Be sure and bring me some whiskey and a dark-eyed
señorita
while you're at it.”

“I'll do that,” Wes said. He adjusted the blood-soaked bandanna he had pressed against his brother's gruesome wound earlier. He gave a dark, thin smile. “I'll bring you a new shirt and a hat too.”

“Now you're talking,” Ty said weakly, his voice strained under the pain in his chewed-up shoulder.

“What do you mean he didn't make it?” Bugs asked Wes, still thinking about Carter Claypool. “How come he didn't make it?”

Wes turned facing him, his brother's blood on his hands and his trail duster.

“I'll tell you more as soon as I know more myself,” he said in a flat tone. “Meanwhile, you and Rubens take care of my brother while I go find out.”

“Whoa, hang on, Wes,” said Ruben. “You don't aim to ride back to Maley, not after all this?”

“Yes, I do,” said Wes. “I intend to get a doctor for Ty, and I need to find out what happened to Claypool so I can come back and tell Bugs here.” He gave Trent a hard stare. “Right, Bugs?”

Bugs relented, not knowing what to make of the look in Wes Traybo's eyes.

“Aw, come on, Wes, I didn't mean nothing,” he said. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“It's not too late to start,” Rubens cut in. He turned back to Wes and said, “You don't need to go back, Wes. This is a hard game of ours. Claypool knows how it's played. He wouldn't ask you to come back for him.”

“He stayed back to cover for Ty and me,” said Wes. “That's what he does.” He gave Rubens a firm look. “Anything more you want to say on the matter?”

“Damn it,” Rubens said. “Go on, then. We'll take care of Ty until you get back.”

“Well, thank you, sir,” Wes said, giving Rubens a look. He turned to his horse and took the reins from Bugs' hand. The young outlaw stepped in close.

“Wes, I didn't mean nothing. I swear I didn't,” he said. “I've got no damn sense sometimes.”

“I didn't think you meant it, Bugs,” said Wes. “If I did, one of us would be dead right now.”

“I'm going with you,” Bugs said suddenly, wanting to make up for what he'd said. “There could be a bunch of guns waiting for you there.”

“Do like I said, Bugs,” Wes said. “Stay here with Rubens and watch my brother.”

Trent and Rubens stood staring as Wes climbed atop his horse and gathered his reins.

“Stay alive for me, brother Ty,” he said. He spun his horse sharply and booted it back toward Maley.

Turning to Rubens, Bugs saw the condemning look on the older gunman's face.

“What?” he said, giving a shrug. “You heard me tell him I don't have any sense sometimes.”

“Yeah, I heard you,” said Rubens. He spat and ran a hand across his lips. “I expect we all know you weren't lying to him.”

Bugs' expression turned sour.

“What do you mean by that?” he said. He opened and closed his gun hand intently.

“Every damn thing you think I mean,” said Rubens. He turned away from the young gunman with disregard.

Bugs pointed at him, frustrated at not being taken seriously.

“Listen, Rubens, I only put up with your grousing ways because I like you,” he said.

“Lucky me,” Rubens said without looking back at him.

“You don't want to push me too far,” Bugs warned.

“Push this,” Rubens said, walking away toward Ty Traybo, making a profane gesture over his shoulder toward Bugs Trent.

Bugs fumed but kept his mouth shut. He clenched his teeth and cursed under his breath.

Ty Traybo, even in his pained and weakened condition, managed to chuff and shake his lowered head.

“He got you there, Bugs,” he murmured. “That's all you can say about it.”

Bugs lightened up and let out a short laugh himself.

“Damn it,” he said to Ty. “A smart man don't stand a chance around this bunch.” He looked off toward Maley. “I hope Wes gets back here real quick. Something about this place gives me the willies.”

•   •   •

In Maley, while the dust still loomed and settled slowly on the streets, buildings and locals, Carter Claypool sat slumped in a straight-backed chair in the town's sheriff office. His arms hung limp at his sides. Two crude wads of cloth had been stuffed into his shirt, staying the flow of blood from his left shoulder. The wound was clean, not deep, the bullet having skewered through his shoulder muscle and out without hitting bone. His face was reddened and puffed, turning the color of fruit gone bad from the beating he'd taken at the hands of an ill-tempered railroad detective named Artimus Folliard.

“You might think you're a tough nut,” Folliard said. “But I'll get you softened up soon enough.”

“You're going to kill him is what you're going to do,” a stocky cattle broker named Don Stout said to Folliard. “Then he's going to tell us nothing.”

Folliard stood back rubbing a bloody handkerchief across his big rawboned knuckles.

“So what?” he said. “Are you saying that's a bad thing? These dogs have robbed your bank here. Did you have money in it?”

“Yes, it so happens I did,” said the broker. Unrelenting under the big detective's cold stare, he continued. “But look at him. This is murder,” he said, pointing at the badly beaten outlaw. “I'll have no hand in murder. If we hang him, that's a whole other thing. He deserves a lynching. But not this. This is inhumane. If we had a sheriff, he'd stop this.”

“But you've got no sheriff. What you've got is us, compliments of West Southwestern Security, so you'd best shut up,” Folliard warned. He cut a glance to the tall figure standing in the shadow of a battered gun case. The dark figure nodded his approval above a glowing cigar.

Stout backed a step and looked around for support from the other gathered townsmen.

Claypool sat with his bloody head lowered, his eyes almost swollen shut.

“Bless your kind bones, mister,” he chuckled darkly under his breath.

“Shut up, thief,” said Folliard, stepping closer to Claypool, doubling his big raw fist. “I've still got some for you.”

“Then give it . . . to me,” Claypool said, weak but defiant. “Nothing I like more . . . than a bad hard beating, properly delivered.”

“Why, you turd,” said Folliard, grabbing Claypool by his hair and pulling his face up into fist range. He drew back for a hard punch, but stopped himself as the front door opened and three dusty figures carried a limp, mangled body into the small office and threw it to the plank floor.

One of the three men, Earl Prew, swiped his derby hat from his head and slapped it against his leg. Dust billowed.

“There's a dead one for you, Mr. Garand,” he said. “This one is none other than Ty Traybo himself.” He stared straight past the gathered townsmen at the tall figure in the shadows.

Oh no. . . .
Claypool turned his swollen eyes enough to take a look at the badly trampled corpse, its clothes and skin hanging shredded and torn, an eye hanging from its socket, a leg ripped away from the knee down.

The gathered men parted to let Dallas Garand step forward and stand over the mangled body. He gave the man a harsh glare from under his hat brim.

“This is not Traybo, you damn fool!” he growled. “This is Hubert Staley.”

“Staley?”
Prew said. He and the other two men looked at each other. “But, Mr. Garand, how can you—”

“Damn it, I can tell it's Staley by his nuts,” Garand said, pointing down. “Look at them,” he demanded, nodding down at the shredded, half-naked corpse. “I'd recognize them anywhere.”

But instead of looking down, the three men winced and stared at each other.

“His
nuts
,
sir?” said Prew, turning to Garand. “I have to say, I have never had either cause or desire to look at Staley's—”

“Damn it, not
those
nuts, you fool!” shouted Garand, cutting him off. He leaned and jerked up a pair of small brass acorns hanging from the corpse's tattered vest pocket. “
These
nuts!” He held the small watch fob ornaments out on his palm for the men to see.

Prew and the others let out a sigh of relief.