HANDSOME DAVE DUVALL set the coffee can on the corral post beside the five other cans he’d placed there after gleaning all six cans from the trash heap behind the roadhouse.
He inspected the cans, furling his bushy, auburn brows. Satisfied with their positions, he turned and took several steps back from the fence. He saw Jack Clawson sitting on the roadhouse’s porch across the dusty yard and lifted his hand to shield the light of the setting sun from his face.
“Hi, Jack!” Dave called with a friendly wave and a grin that dimpled his handsome cheeks. “How you feelin’ this evenin’?’
Jack just stared across the yard at Dave. He sat in a rocking chair, clad in a tattered green robe and hide slippers. His head was swollen and blue, his eyes mere slits in the yellow purple flesh of his beaten face. His chest bulged with the taut bandage Margie had wrapped him in to secure his broken ribs.
Jack didn’t say anything. His thin hair slid around in the evening breeze.
Still smiling, Dave shook his head as though at a peculiar and vaguely humorous twist of fate. Then he swung back toward the cans, clawed the pearl-handled revolver from his hand-tooled holster tied low on his thigh, crouched, and fired, fanning the trigger. The gun roared and jerked, roared and jerked. One by one, from left to right, the cans flew off the fence. The last can rose high in the air over the corral. It winked in the salmon light, twisting and turning as it rose to its apex and started back groundward.
Dave removed the second gun from the waistband of his broadcloth breeches, aimed, and fired. The can jerked again, bounding off toward the barn and landing in a sage tuft with a tinny rustle.
Dave turned to Jack, who sat on the porch without moving, dull-eyed. Dave lifted the smoking barrel of his revolver to his lips and blew on it. “Whew! Now that was some shooting, wouldn’t you say, Jack?”
Margie appeared in the door, fists on her hips. “Dave, I declare! What are you shootin’ at now? You’re gonna give me a heart stroke, with all your shootin’!”
“Just stayin’ sharp, Margie girl,” Dave said affably, shoving the revolver into his waistband.
“You’re gonna give me a heart stroke, Dave,” Margie scolded, then turned back into the cabin.
“Sorry, Margie,” Dave called to her. “I’ll make it up to you later.” He slid his eyes to Jack, grinning. He couldn’t tell from this distance, but he thought the woodcutter’s face turned a darker shade of blue.
Dave was lining the cans up on the fence rail again when he heard the slow clomp of horses to the west. Turning, he saw dust rising and the silhouettes of three riders making their way toward the roadhouse. The sun was a pink ball behind them, making their dust look smoky.
Without hesitation, Dave drew his holstered revolver and began loading it quickly from his shell belt. It took his trained fingers only a few seconds to fill all the chambers with brass, and then he was working on his belly gun. He’d just spun its cylinder when the riders came around the Cottonwood tree and the woodshed. They rode slowly, sitting lazily in their saddles, rolling with the slow sway of their mounts.
They were all dressed in rough trail gear, but Dave recognized them as the three soldiers who had stopped here yesterday for lunch. They’d gassed with Dave on the porch, though Dave hadn’t told them who he was. Harmless boys they were, bored with the army and searching for distractions. Dave was relieved it was only them and not the man who’d been dogging him, or lawmen.
His brows ridged as he cocked his head to the side, wondering why they weren’t wearing their uniforms. And why had they returned so soon? Fort Lincoln was a good twenty miles away, on the other side of the river.
Wondering if they’d recognized him and, after gathering their courage, had decided they’d take him down for the reward money on his head, he felt the muscles along his spine tighten. He held the belly gun down low at his side, ready to bring it up fast and ventilate these blue bellies if necessary.
The middle rider, riding a little ahead of the other two, must have recognized the tension in Dave’s stance. He raised a placating hand as he checked his army bay down, twenty yards before Duvall.
“Hello, Mr. Duvall.”
The other two youngsters rode up beside the first one and gazed at Dave with a mixture of fear and expectation. He noticed that none moved his hand close to the gun on his hip, and that their eyes didn’t appear to be too shifty, either. Both good signs. But if they weren’t here to take him down—and they’d called him by name—what were they doing here?
Duvall played it cool. “Hello, boys. What brings you back out here so soon? Your sergeant get generous with the day passes, did he?”
The young man on the far left was a soft-faced young man with brown hair and spare mutton chop whiskers. His eyes were emerald green and glittery. “Nah, he didn’t,” he said with a mild guffaw, sucking at the wedge of chaw in his cheek.
“Shut up, Harold,” the kid in the middle said—a thin, muscular lad with blond hair beneath a weathered, narrow-brimmed Stetson. This kid was all rawhide, with a knife slash for a mouth. “I told you I’d do the talkin’.”
“I didn’t mean nothin’, Clyde. I was just—”
“Shut up, Harold!” Clyde admonished, jerking his head wickedly at his friend.
Duvall waited, sliding his eyes from one lad to the next, then back again. The kid on the far right was the largest of the three. He didn’t say a word, just stared silently from beneath the brim of his floppy black farm hat, the acorn of which flopped beneath his anvil chin.
Clyde turned to Duvall with a nervous grin that parted his thin lips and squinted his eyes. He chuckled. “I guess you know we know who ye are. It was Danny over there”—he tipped his head to indicate the big, silent lad— “who recognized you. It didn’t come to him till we were down the trail a ways. H-he grew up in your hometown of Saint Joseph, Missouri, didn’t ye, Danny?”
“You don’t say?” Dave said skeptically. “I s’pose you know old Jack Ramey then—the Nigra that runs the ferry.”
“I sure do know Jack,” Danny said smartly, giving his big chin a self-satisfied dip.
“What’s his big, fat wife’s name again?” Duvall said, scratching his chin. “I forget....”
Danny smiled. “Peach.”
“Peach—that’s right,” Duvall said, appraising the lad with interest. “So you’re from Saint Joe and you know who I am. What does that make you?”
“Well, we kinda figured it might make us amigos,” Clyde piped up, leaning forward on his saddle horn. “I’ll put it to you honest, Mr. Duvall, we done been tired of the army’s bullshit for months now. We don’t see goin’ into another winter up here, freezin’ our peckers off and chasin’ Injuns through the snow. We wanna join up with your bunch and do some real ridin’ for some real money.”
“Yeah, we heard you boys get all the nice-looking girls!”
“Shut up, Harold, for the last time!” Clyde bellowed, swatting Harold with his hat.
Duvall chuckled.
Clyde said, “What do you say, Mr. Duvall. We know we’re prob’ly a little green compared to a man like yourself, but we all—even Harold here—have killed people and robbed. I shot a mean ole Colorado farmer when I was just thirteen years old!”
“You did?” Duvall said with mock surprise. “What for?”
“He caught me stealin’ potatoes out of his cellar. Said he was gonna cut my balls off. Shot him right through the ticker.”
Harold said, “I shot somebody, too, Mr. Duvall. Just last year.”
“That don’t count, Harold,” Clyde said. He looked at Duvall. “He caught a preacher diddlin’ his ma at a church picnic and shot him with his pa’s old Patterson Colt. Shot him in the ass.” Clyde wheezed with laughter, his face turning crimson. “You shot a preacher in the ass, Harold. That don’t count!” Clyde guffawed.
“Why don’t it count?” Harold wanted to know.
When Clyde only laughed and wagged his head, Harold turned to Duvall. “I’d say that counts, wouldn’t you, Mr. Duvall?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Duvall said, scratching his head with mock consideration. “I guess it would count if you were aimin’ at his ass. If not”—Duvall shrugged—”I guess I’d have to say no.”
Harold frowned.
“See, Harold?” Clyde mocked.
Harold scrunched his face up at Clyde angrily, but before he could say anything, Duvall said, “Hold on, hold on, boys! On the basis of your obviously questionable characters and clear determination to walk a crooked path, wreaking pain and havoc wherever you go, I would indeed make you probationary members of my gang—if I could.”
Clyde wrinkled his brow. “If you could?”
“If I could,” Dave said. “But I can’t. I’m sorry, boys, but as you can see, the rest of the Red River Gang isn’t here. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we had to split up for a while. We won’t be back together for... uh ... for some time, I’m afraid. And it just wouldn’t be right if I brought in new members without giving the others a say in the matter.”
Clyde was about to object, but Duvall held up his hand, stopping him. “I’m sorry, Clyde. Truly, I am. But that’s the way the Red River Gang operates. Every gang has to have rules, and that’s one of our rules. It’s inviolable, I’m afraid.”
Duvall raised his hands and dropped them with futility and shook his head. The three lads sat the saddles of their fidgeting mounts with grim expressions on their dusty faces. Harold and Danny cut their eyes at Clyde accusingly. Clyde was staring at his saddle horn, sheepish.
“Well, if that’s the way it is, I guess that’s the way it is,” Clyde allowed quietly.
“Goddamn you, Clyde,” Danny admonished. “You said for sure he’d let us join.”
“Yeah, goddamn you, Clyde,” Harold intoned. “Now we’re gonna have to go back to the fort.”
“We can’t go back to the fort, you moron,” Danny said. “Not after all that money Clyde stole.”
Clyde sighed and began reining his mount toward the east side of the yard. “Yeah, I guess we’ll just have to head south. Maybe disappear in the Black Hills for a while.”
Duvall’s ears had pricked at the mention of money. He’d lost every penny he’d owned when the bounty hunter had surprised his gang at their hideout in the northern part of the territory. He didn’t have a cent—beyond the few dollars he intended to take from Jack and Margie, that was— and he desperately needed cash for his long trip south, to the Indian nations, where he intended to hide until the law forgot about him and he could put together another gang.
If he traveled like most men, living off the land, jerked beef, and coffee, he might have gotten by on what he intended to steal from Jack and Margie. But Dave Duvall did not, could not, travel like most men. His previous lifestyle had conditioned him to luxury, which included sporting women and whiskey at the very least, even on the desperation trail.
“What money?” Duvall asked, trying not to sound too eager.
Clyde checked his bay back down and glanced at Duvall over his shoulder. “Oh, we ran into the three fellas that sold remounts to the fort earlier today. I recognized ‘em from a distance and got a wild hair up my ass. Next thing we knew, we was sneakin’ up on their camp. We shot ‘em all as they snoozed around their coffee fire—”
“And made off with pret’ near a thousand dollars!” Danny added, lifting his head to the purple sky and giving a grand coyote hoot.
“I know that ain’t very much to a man like you, Mr. Duvall,” Clyde said. “But that’s more money than the three of has ever even dreamed about. I reckon we’ll be on the lam for a while. Well, it was nice meetin’ you, and maybe we’ll run into you again sometime.”
“Uh, hold on, boys,” Duvall said, feigning a considering air, crossing his arms on his chest and propping one finger against his chin. “Maybe I’ve been too hasty in my decision.”
The boys sawed back on their reins and turned to Duvall expectantly.
“What’s that, Mr. Duvall?” Clyde said.
“Yes, well, I was just thinking,” Dave said, “I guess the gang could vote on you three after we’ve all gotten together again. I mean, I really wouldn’t be bringing you into the gang if I just let you ride with me for a few months.”
Clyde shrugged; his eyes growing large. “No, I reckon not.”
“We could even look at it as your trial period,” Duvall speculated. “If you boys always did as I said and learned what I had to teach you, the gang might just be inclined to welcome you into its fold.”
Clyde grinned. “I sure as hell bet they would, Mr. Duvall!”
Duvall nodded objectively, studying the ground as if looking for coins he’d dropped, finger still propped on his chin. “Yes... yes. That might work.” He looked at the eager lads and smiled. “All right, I’m game to give it a shot. You can bed down in the barn yonder. I’ll have Margie haul you out some grub. We’re leaving for the Indian nations first thing in the morning. You can switch your army mounts with any of those you see in that corral on the other side of the barn. Comprende, amigos?”
All three heartily agreed, and headed off to the barn, thanking Duvall over their shoulders and assuring him he’d made the right decision.
Duvall watched them disappear in the darkness. If they got on his nerves, he could always shoot them and take their money. That wouldn’t be any big chore. On the positive side, he now had three more sets of eyes on his back trail. And you couldn’t have too many eyes where he was going, into the fiery bowels of the Indian nations, where he’d be only one more desperado on the lam and at odds with others just like him.
“Hi, Jack,” he greeted the beaten man now as he stepped onto the porch. He squeezed Jack’s shoulder and said with a quiet, mocking air, “Where’s your wife?”
Jack rumbled like a volcano, his chair creaking beneath him.
“Oh, I forgot you can’t speak on account of your broken jaw,” Dave said with an air of understanding. “That’s all right. Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll just go in and find her myself.”
He laughed and went inside the cabin.
Behind him, Jack boiled in his chair, red-faced and sweating.