Gun Country

At a fork in the dark, winding trail down from the hill line, Madden Corio stopped his horse and turned it to face the rest of the men gathering to halt. “Did we make a good pot for ourselves, men?” he asked cheerfully.

As the men nodded and hooted, he added, “You damn well bet we did!” He turned his horse back and forth restlessly as he spoke, and patted his saddlebags. “And there’s going to be plenty more coming! Damn soon!”

The men cheered in the darkness. Arnold Stemms reached over playfully and jerked young Matthew Ford’s hat down on his forehead. “Hear that, Matt? Did Jesse and Frank ever treat a man any better than this?”

“Now it’s time we split up and leave anybody tracking us to chase their own tails,” said Corio. He looked around at their faces. “Matt Ford, Stemms, Little Dick and Dade Watkins—”

“All right, whatever.” Corio chuckled, too excited and keyed up to even mind Little cutting him off, something that might ordinarily get a man killed. “I want the four of yas to ride north to Cedrianno.” He nodded toward one fork in the trail. “When you get there, get yourselves and your horses fed, watered and rested. But don’t dally around longer than you need to. I want all four of yas to cut out of there in different directions.”

The four grinned, each with his share of the gold in his saddlebags. “But you don’t mind if we load up some whiskey or mescal for the trail, do you?” Arnold Stemms asked. “It’s torture for a man to have gold and a powerful thirst, and not do something about it.”

“All right, get something to go with you,” said Corio. “But get it and get out of there. We’ve got some big jobs coming up and I can’t afford to lose any more men, especially after what happened to poor Bert Jordan.”

“Yeah, him too,” said Corio, offhandedly, already having dismissed the big heavy Irishman’s death from his memory. He looked at Hooks and three other men, Brule Kaggan, Harvey Lemate and Max Skinner. “You four are riding with me on into Nozzito. Skinner, now that Bert is gone, you’re my new right-hand—my segundo. Any objections?” He gave Skinner a flat, level stare.

“None,” Skinner said quickly. “You call the shots, I’ll make ’em, dead center,” he said with determination. He looked from face to face. “I expect everybody here heard what Madden said, loud and clear. So, when I give an order it’s the same as it was with Bert Jordan. I expect it to be followed.”

“All right, enough said,” said Corio. “Let’s ride.” He turned his horse back to the trail and booted it forward.

Matt Ford, Arnold Stemms, Richard Little and Dade Watkins sat their horses and watched the others ride away behind Corio. “I don’t think it’s by mistake that he does that,” Little said quietly.

“All the time calling me Little Dick,” the seething gunman said. “I think he knows it gets to me.” He spat in the darkness and ran a hand across his lips.

“You’ve got no complaints,” said Watkins, who’d been smoldering in silence. “Look at me, I’ve been with Corio since the war. What’s he do? He chooses Skinner ahead of me. How would that make you feel?”

“Aw, hell, forget it, the both of yas,” said Stemms, turning his horse to the north fork of the trail. “We got gold, and it’s less than a three-mile ride into Cedrianno. Let’s go live it up some.”

Turning his horse alongside Stemms’ big bay, Matthew Ford asked, “Are there going to be whores in Cedrianno, you reckon?”

“Then what are we waiting for?” said Ford. He booted his horse up into a run. Behind him the other three followed suit, laughing and catcalling into the night until the silhouette outline of the town drew closer and closer.

In moments the four horses rumbled onto the dirt street at a full run in the middle of the night. The only light still burning along the row of adobe and weathered clapboard buildings was a lantern sitting atop the bar at Rosas Salvajes Cantina.

Upon seeing and hearing the riders coming, the only working girl still on her feet hurriedly dampened the lantern to blackness as the four rolled out of their saddles at the hitch rail out front. But before the lantern went completely black, or before she had time to go drop an iron bolt in place, the big doors burst open and Arnold Stemms pounced into the middle of the floor like a large bear. “No, you don’t, little darling!” he cried out with a crazy laugh. “This night ain’t even begun yet! Is the Wild Roses Cantina open to me and my long-rider friends or what?”

“Oh, Senor,” the young prostitute said, recovering quickly now that she knew she had to. She put on her best and friendliest face in spite of the fact that she’d been ready to retire upstairs and go to bed, alone, for the night. “Of course we are open to your long-rider friends. And for a big handsome bull like you,” she added, “we are always open.”

From a room atop the stairs another young woman, this one an American from the plains of Kansas, had been listening. “Damn it, Calisa, speak for yourself,” she said to herself, dreading the thought of getting up and attending to a cantina full of drunken border outlaws.

Beside her another girl moaned under her breath and said, “We better go on down, Maggie. If Calisa has to take on the whole bunch, we’ll be hearing her cussing over it for a month. As soon as Willie hears them, he’ll send us down anyway.”

“I know it, Flo,” said Maggie, fluffing up her hair and pinching her cheeks red. “I hope you’ve some of that white powder left. I’m going to need something good and strong to get me going again.”

“I’ve got some in my room,” said Flo. “I’ll go get it. You go on down, I’ll wake up Elnora and Lying Betty and bring them with me. We might as well squeeze what we can out of these idiots.”

“She won’t mind. Neither will Willie,” said Flo, hiking up her nightdress and hurrying away down the dark hall.

Downstairs at the bar, the four men had already helped themselves to bottles of mescal and tequila. Watkins had grabbed Calisa and wrestled her out of her dress and undergarments and left the items lying strewn out toward a big wooden table in a darker corner. Stemms had opened a bottle of tequila and took a long swig.

He leered toward the stairs and called out in a harsh singsong voice, “Come down, come down, or Daddy Arnold will come up and drag you down.”

He started toward the stairs, but stopped in the middle of the floor when she saw Maggie, a tall red-head, walking down seductively, wearing nothing but a towel around her shoulders.

“Evening, boys,” she said, pulling the towel back and forth as if shining her shoulders with it. “I hope you don’t mind me dressing informally. This time of night I don’ like nothing on me but big warm hands.”

“By God!” shouted Stemms. Unable to control himself, he snatched his pistol from his holster and fired two rounds straight up into the ceiling.

“Easy, big fellow,” said Maggie. “Don’t shoot up the ceiling. We’ve got girls sleeping up there. You wouldn’t want to hurt them, would you?”

Stemms shrugged; he didn’t care. “Then get the hell over here and cool me down before I bust into flames!” he demanded.

“I don’t mind if I do, you big stable stud!” Maggie hurried into his big arms, pitched the towel around his neck and pulled his face to her naked freckled breasts. She wiggled herself back and forth vigorously. “These won’t cool you, but they’ll for sure keep you occupied.”

At the bar, watching Stemms and the naked red-head, Matthew Ford called out, “Whooo-ee,” and threw back a long swig of mescal. “All we need now is some music, and we’ve got ourselves a fiesta!”

As Ford drank, Richard Little said beside him, “Maybe we ought to tend to our horses, then come back here. It looks like this has the makings of an all-night thing.”

“To hell with the horses,” said Ford. “We’ve got gold, whores and liquor. If this ain’t heaven it has to be right next door.” He laughed and wagged a bottle of tequila in the air.

Behind the women, a Texan named Willie “the Weed” Weedham shuffled down in his Mexican sandals, hooking his gallowses up over his shoulders. “Did I hear somebody say music? I’ll have some coming right up. Flo, you tend the bar ’til I get back.” He turned at the bottom of the stairs and headed out the open front door.

With the light of a torch held close to the rocky ground, Jane Crowley picked up fresh hoofprints of the eight horses coming from the direction of the place on the trail where Corio and Bocanero had transacted their stolen gun deal. Shaw sat in the wagon seat, Tuesday slumbering against his shoulder. He had taken a wrinkled shirt from the bottom of his saddlebags and put it on her. It helped ease Jane’s bitterness toward him some, but not completely.

“Because I’m not a damned fool like some here might think I am, Undertaker,” Jane snapped. “Who the hell else would be riding this trail, eight men strong, except Corio’s gang?”

Jane settled and studied the ground again. She pressed her fingertips into a shoe imprint. “The ground’s so dry it’s hard to tell,” she said. “But I make it six hours, give or take.”

“There’s Cedrianno in one direction,” Jane said. “There’s Nozzito in the other.” She gazed off into the darkness ahead. “Both places have everything Corio and his men will be looking for. They want grain and water for their horses. They’ll want food, liquor and whores for themselves.”

“Yep, Undertaker,” Jane said, a bit of sarcasm toward Caldwell left over in her voice, “there will be a slit in the trail a few miles ahead.”

Caldwell and Dawson ignored it. “That’s where Madden Corio will split his gang up and try to throw us off his trail,” said Dawson. He looked at Shaw. “We’ll split up too. Caldwell and I will . . .” His words trailed as he gazed back at a flicker of dim light tagging along behind them.

“I don’t know,” said Dawson, “but whoever it is must be begging to get themselves killed.” He sat staring for a moment longer as if to make certain he wasn’t imagining things. “Shaw, get the wagon out of here.” To Caldwell and Jane he said, “All right, let’s get into cover. This could be a trick.”

Shaw drove the wagon forward as quietly as possible. When he’d reached a point thirty yards along the trail, he set the brake handle, carefully eased Tuesday Bonhart over onto the wooden seat and stepped quietly over in the wagon bed behind the Gatling gun. “What’s wrong . . . ?” Tuesday asked, waking to Shaw’s movement and adjustment of the big gun.

In the darkness behind Shaw, Tuesday and the gun wagon, Caldwell and Jane had slipped down from their horses on one side of the trail. A few yards ahead of them, Dawson did the same on the other side. The three watched as the lantern light drew nearer. Finally, when the swaying light revealed its carrier, Jane let out a breath of relief and disgust, and said, “I’ll be a son of a bitch. It’s Raidy Bowe. She’s following me.”

Hearing the raised voice from the side of the dark trail in front of her, Raidy gasped and said, “Jane . . . is that you?”

“Damn it,” Jane said to herself. Then to Raidy Bowe she said, “Hell yes, Raidy, it’s me. You better thank your lucky stars it is me. Now trim down that damn lantern unless you’re throwing a part for every gun-toting son of a bitch this side of hell.”

“Yes,” said Tuesday, “she and I worked the line together when we both started whoring. She quit the line before I did.” Having been asleep when Jane and the lawmen had joined them, Tuesday asked almost in a whisper, “Is that’s Jane Crowley I hear back there?”

“Is everything she says a profanity?” Tuesday asked with a short giggle, still hearing the loud cursing voice as Jane and the two lawmen led the horses back out onto the trail.

“Yes, pretty much,” Shaw said. He stood and stepped over beside Tuesday as she made room for him in the driver’s seat. “Look, I might need to tell you this. Jane and I were sort of together for a while.”

“It didn’t,” said Shaw, “not to me, or to her either.” As he talked he turned the wagon around on the narrow trail and began driving it back toward the others. “We went on a drunken spree, is all it really amounted to. But when it came time to get away from each other, she took offense. She’s still a little prickly over it. I thought you ought to know.”

“Oh, I know,” said Tuesday. “Believe me, I know,” she added in a way that made Shaw not want to pursue that subject any further either.

When they stopped in the midst of the dimly lit lantern, Jane looked at Tuesday and said, “Well, well, look who’s awake. I hope we didn’t interrupt your beauty sleep.”

Tuesday ignored her, and looked at Raidy, who recognized her right away. “Tuesday Bonhart, is that you?” Raidy asked.

No one responded. Both Raidy and Jane eyed Shaw as if to see what his reaction might be. But he only stared blankly. “And you, Tuesday,” Raidy asked, “what are you doing out here?” She took note of how close Tuesday sat to Shaw.

“Yes, he seems to,” Dawson said. To Shaw and the three women he said, “Whatever you four have to talk about, you best do it on the trail. We’ve got to get going.”

Jane stared harshly at Shaw, then at Tuesday Bonhart, and then she said, “I don’t have another damn thing to say about it.” She took Raidy’s horse by its bridle and pulled it over beside hers. “You stay close to me, Raidy,” she said protectively.

Jane scowled at Shaw, even though he hadn’t said a word or made any critical sign on the matter. “Anybody doesn’t like it, they can go to hell,” Jane added, staring toward him.

“I’m ready when you are,” said Shaw. He turned the wagon on the trail and pointed it in the direction of Cedrianno.