Rogue Lawman #3: Cold Corpse, Hot Trail

“SO, let me get this straight, soldier,” said D.W. Flagg when they were riding later that night under a sky full of stars. “You came down here to retrieve the payroll money you lost, and entangled yourself with a kill-crazy ex-lawman.”

Hawk rode point along the deep-rutted wagon road cleaving the rocky, desert terrain. Flagg and Primrose rode behind him, Flagg’s wrists locked with his own metal cuffs, his ankles bound to his stirrups. He’d obviously had his share of aguardiente and marijuana back at the pulperia, and he hadn’t yet sobered. In fact, he’d gotten more and more talkative the longer they’d ridden through the dark Mexican hills.

“Didn’t know who he was till we’d been traveling together for a spell,” Primrose said grimly, staring into the night beyond Hawk. “Besides, we have similar objectives.”

“Oh?” Flagg laughed. “Your objective is to get the money back, show your father-in-law what a great soldier you are. Command material! What’s Hawk’s objective?”

“Killing,” Hawk said, glancing over his shoulder at Flagg riding off his grulla’s right hip. “And I’m beginning to think I made a big mistake, not killing you back at the roadhouse.”

“See what I’m talking about?” Flagg said to Primrose. “Only man who could take down all those scalp-hunters—and Sheriff Killigrew—single-fucking-handed, is a kill-crazy son of a bitch like Hawk.”

“The lieutenant didn’t do half bad himself,” remarked Hawk, swaying easily in his saddle. They’d been holding their horses to walks to avoid trail hazards concealed by the darkness, but there was no need to hurry. They had only another hour or so to El Molina, and it was relatively early.

Primrose felt his ears warm slightly from chagrin. “I had only four men to contend with,” he said. “And they were all heading inside to deal with you.”

Flagg turned to the young lieutenant, the lawman showing his white teeth in the darkness. “He’s teaching you right well, eh, Lieutenant?”

Primrose turned to the lawman, his calm voice belying his irritation. “I was only trying to get to you before he did, Marshal. Are you wishing I’d lingered?”

Flagg turned his head away and spat. He pulled back on his reins, stopped his dun. The lieutenant did likewise, glancing at Flagg curiously.

Holding his voice low, the lawman said, “You’re cavortin’ with a known criminal, soldier. You shoot the son of a bitch, and I might forget about that.”

“I figure, just being down here, I’m breaking the law. I might as well break it with a man who can help me fulfill my objective.”

Flagg canted his head to one side. “Let’s say you get the money back. What’re you gonna do then?”

Primrose didn’t say anything for a moment. He adjusted his hat’s angle, sighed. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meantime, Flagg, I’d appreciate you not complicating matters. When Gideon Hawk has vowed vengeance on someone—like he’s vowed vengeance on the gang we’re after—he’ll let no one stand in his way. Including me . . . and you.”

“Come along, fellas,” Hawk called. He’d stopped his grulla about thirty yards up trail and turned him sideways—a tall, broad-shouldered rider silhouetted against the towering rocks and shimmering stars. “You don’t want me to start suspecting a mutiny.”

Primrose glanced at Flagg, who returned the look, snorted wryly, and heeled his horse forward.

The three rode for another forty-five minutes before the tinkle of a piano and muffled laughter and the smell of wood smoke and latrines rose on the breeze. Hearing whoops and the celebratory reports of several pistol shots, they rode over a pair of rocky hills and descended to the village sprawled across a hillside falling to a round mountain lake, the dark water shimmering in the light of the recently risen moon.

A wooden sign, broke off at the post and wedged between a piñon tree and a boulder, announced EL MOLINA in sun-faded red letters.

They rode along the winding main street, whores calling softly from balconies while drunk miners and vaqueros retched or fornicated in dark alleys or—as in one case—on the flat bed of a wagon parked along the street. More pistol fire rose—quickly fired rounds indicating an angry lead swap. A woman screamed.

Before Hawk, a stout shadow crossed the street, holding a dead chicken, head down, in each hand. The squat man turned his head toward the three newcomers, and stopped before a cement stock trough on the right side of the street. He spread his arms wide, chickens dangling, and puffed a fat stogie.

Flanked by Flagg and Primrose, Hawk stopped his tired grulla, whose stomach had been grumbling since they’d left the pulperia, and stared down at the man.

“I have a special rate for Yanquis . . . and a special place,” the man said, grinning beneath his mustache, hub-like cheek nobs rising into his eye sockets.

“No, no, Señor. Safe place. No other place is safe for gringos. As long as you pay American money, I give you American comforts, such as rye wheeskey, hot baths, and I have one white girl. Quiet place. Not on main street. And I lock my doors at night. You will be safe from bandits.”

“Shut up,” Hawk said, kneeing the grulla down a dark alley on the heels of the squat, bowlegged Mexican.

They rode downhill, shod hooves clacking on intermittent stretches of cobbled ground, for about fifty yards. The Mexican suddenly threw his head up, singing a Mexican tune about a girl named Maria and a bottle of wine. A half second later, three sombrero-hatted silhouettes rose on the tiled roof to their right.

Hawk jerked back on the grulla’s reins, reached across his belly for the Russian .44. Thumbing the big pistol’s hammer back, he extended it out and up from his right shoulder. The Russian popped once, twice, three times, smoke and fire jetting from the barrel.

Because Flagg and Primrose’s horses had kept moving up behind him, nudging the grulla, Hawk missed his third shot. The bushwhacker was startled enough by his gunfire, however, that he hesitated, ducking and fumbling with his rifle. As the other two dry-gulchers fell ass-over-teakettle from the tiled roof, landing with a thumping clatter on the cobbled ground, skulls cracking like dried gourds, Hawk fired again.

The third man groaned and stepped back from the roof’s lip. He sank to one knee, folding an arm over his belly. Again, the Russian barked. The man flipped straight back against the tiles. From below, only his boot soles were visible, two small arrows pointing toward the stars.

Hawk holstered the near-empty Russian and drew his Colt. At the first shot, the Mexican had thrown himself belly-down on the ground. Now he lay on his left hip, propped on his left arm, staring up with black eyes in which the moonlight shone like quicksilver. His body was rigid, mouth opening and closing without saying anything.

Hawk kneed the grulla forward, turned the horse sideways to the man, and aimed the cocked pistol at his head. “Now that we have that out of the way,” he said levelly, “let’s get back to business. You try anything like that again, I’ll cut your oysters off and feed them to you raw. Do we have an understanding?”

The man’s mouth opened and closed. His throat made a wet noise as he swallowed. He turned his head to the dark, oblong humps of the two dead men, and he crossed himself. “We have an understanding, Señor.”

“Now, I hope you really do have a room for us, and a stable for our horses, or I’m going to get downright annoyed.”

“¡Sí, sí, sí!” the man said, sticking his cigar back into his mouth, standing, and picking up up his chickens. He waddled down the hill. “The very best in El Molina!”

“Christ,” Flagg growled, his sweated face glistening in the moonlight. “What’d I tell you?”

Hawk holstered the Colt and spurred his horse ahead. “The devil you know, Flagg. The devil you know . . .”

They continued following the Mexican down the hill, winding around hillocks and old sod and adobe mining shacks, most of which appeared abandoned, to a large adobe house about fifty yards from the lakeshore. A boat was pulled up on the rocks out front of the place, clothes of all shapes and sizes strung on a line to the left. The house had several sets of narrow, stone stairs, balconies, and patios. Somewhere on the other side of the house, a lusty cat was screeching.

They turned the horses into the corral flanking the house, with the squat man’s assurances that he’d tend to the mounts himself as soon as he’d seen Hawk and his two companions to rooms. Hearing voices inside the main part of the house, Hawk insisted the man take them inside through an outside stairs, preferably to an isolated part of the house.

“And don’t spread it around you have gringos staying here,” Hawk growled as he followed Flagg and the squat man up a narrow, winding staircase at the building’s rear. “That would annoy me too.”

Inside a dark hall, the squat man paused to scratch a lucifer to life on his sandal bottom. He lit a short piece of candle he’d fished from his pocket. He held the sputtering candle high and continued walking in his shambling, heavy-footed gait.

Muffled voices rose from below, and the guitar had gotten louder. A couple of girls were giggling. The cat had stopped screaming.

“What about this room here?” Hawk said, pausing at a door on the right side of the hall. A crucifix was mounted over the door. On both sides of the door hung blurry tin-types, one of an old woman and one of a gray-bearded, slit-eyed man. On the floor was a straw mat, as if for scraping dirty sandals.

With a sigh, the man produced a key from his pocket and opened the door on a simple but amply furnished room with a small desk and a brass bed, a bureau, washstand, and two shuttered windows. There was a gun rack with three old-model rifles and a shotgun. On the floor were two thick rugs.

When the squat man, still breathing hard from nerves and the climb up the stairs, had lit a bracket lamp and two candles, Hawk plucked the key from his hand and shoved him toward the door. “Bring up some extra bedding, three plates of food and coffee, and a jug of good whiskey.” He grinned without mirth. “You’ll be sampling each in our presence, so don’t even think about hauling out the rat poison.”

He jerked Flagg onto his back, closed the cuff around the brass frame at the head of the bed, and locked it. Flagg grunted and cursed. “Goddamn you, Hawk, you can’t—

Hawk slammed his Russian’s barrel across the lawman’s right temple, knocking him flat on his back. Flagg sputtered and sighed, and his body relaxed. Hawk stood, holstered the Russian, and lifted Flagg’s booted feet onto the bed, tipped the man’s hat over his face.

“Christ,” Primrose said, staring at Flagg with crumpled brows, “you have to hit him that hard?”

Later, when the food had been brought up, and they’d watched the squat Mexican, whose name was Guadalupe Reyes, take a liberal bite of the beans, corn, chicken, and tortillas, they ate. Then Hawk donned his hat and walked to the door.

He was sitting on the floor, his back to the wall by the washstand. Flagg had come around, but was wisely keeping his mouth shut.

“Don’t worry,” Hawk said, opening the door and glancing cautiously up and down the dark hall. “If I find your money, I’ll try to bring it back without any blood on it.”