The Backstabbers

It was two hours before sunup.

Papa Mace and Ella Rathmore returned to the fat man’s lair, the private niche in the arroyo hidden from prying eyes. Mace opened a trunk and said to her, “No more dressing like a poverty-stricken Indian for me. That didn’t work a damn. My sons didn’t turn out to be noble savages.”

“Malachi is a savage,” Ella said.

“Maybe so, but he ain’t noble.” Mace dressed, taking his time, into the clothes he’d worn when he and his criminal clan were run out of east Texas and like a seedy Moses, he’d led them to the Cornudas Mountains. He’d promised his family a wonderful new life but had brought them nothing but starvation, disease, and death. He was abandoning them and dressing for the occasion.

“Very smart, Papa,” Ella said. “You look like a banker or maybe a lawyer.”

And indeed, in his black frock coat, striped pants, white, frilled shirt, and elastic-sided boots, he did have the look of a businessman of some kind.

“And soon you will look like a Denver hostess, my dear,” he said as he buckled on a fancy tooled gun belt, an ivory-handled Colt in the holster. “That is once you shed those rags and get into a pretty dress.”

“It can’t come soon enough for me,” Ella said. “I’ve worn these duds for way too long.”

“Patience, my dear, patience,” Mace said. “You told Malachi to bring the horses?”

“Yes, I did. And a Winchester like you said. The fool thinks we’ll return once you have your vision in the desert.”

“We’re not coming back here, ever,” Mace said. “I never again wish to be a king without a kingdom. Damn Ben Kane for keeping us poor.”

“You should have taken over his ranch, Papa,” Ella said.

“Yes, I could, but my worthless sons didn’t have the belly for it, made the hired help do the fighting.” He shrugged. “The hell with the ranch. Who wants to be a cow nurse anyway?”

“Not us,” Ella said. “We’re . . . what did you say we were?”

“Gentry,” Mace said, smiling. “And come dawn we’ll leave the poverty stink of this place behind us.”

“It will take me a dozen baths before I feel clean again,” Ella said.

An hour before sunup.

Malachi Rathmore, a thin, slack-jawed young man with vague, unintelligent eyes, brought the horses, slat-sided animals that had been feeding on grass and not much of that. Both were saddled, and Papa Mace’s Winchester was shoved into the rifle scabbard. “Pa, I’ll take care of things here while you’re gone,” he said. “I’ll be in charge.”

Mace nodded. “Yes, you will be, Malachi. You’ll take my place as head of the family until your wife and I return.”

“Pa, why are you wearing them fancy clothes?”

“It was made known to me by the prophet Habakkuk that I must wear them for my great vision,” Mace said. “These clothes are a sign of respect.”

“Where will you lead us, Pa?”

“That will be made known to me in the desert. When I return, I’ll reveal our destination to all my people.”

“California, maybe?” Malachi said. “They say it’s a great place to live off the fat of the land.”

Mace said, “Who says?”

“Well, them folks told you right. There’s gold in California. So much gold that you can pick it up off the streets. And the trees . . . well, there are trees everywhere . . . and you can eat the fruit right off the branches anytime you want, and nobody around to say, ‘No, you filthy Rathmores, leave them peaches alone.’”

Malachi was excited. “Is that where we’ll go, Pa, California?”

“Could be,” Mace said. “Of course, it all depends what I see in my vision. Maybe there’s an even better place that nobody knows about.”

“Me an’ Ella could be happy in California, Pa,” Malachi said. “Couldn’t we, Ella? Me an’ you?”

“Sure, Malachi, sure,” the woman said. “We’d pick up gold from the street and eat peaches all day.”

“You got that right, Ella,” Malachi said. “Now, you take good care of Pa out there in the desert and help him with his vision.”

“Oh, I will, Malachi, I will.” She wanted badly to giggle.

“Oh, and Pa, what about them two in the mine?” Malachi said. “You need me to kill them while you’re gone?”

“No, let them die by themselves,” Mace said. “I want it to be slow. Understand? No food and no water.”

“Sure thing, Pa. No food and no water. I understand.”

Papa Mace and Ella Rathmore rode out of the arroyo just before sunup and headed east. Unbeknownst to them, lost in darkness, they passed within a mile of ten men from the Rafter-K riding in the opposite direction toward the Cornudas Mountains.

As the curtain of the night lifted, the stage was set for what one later historian would call the Cornudas Massacre . . . and with it would come the violent death of Papa Mace Rathmore, one of the vilest creatures to ever walk the face of the earth, destroyed by a much better man.