Ride to Hell's Gate

The fight had commenced. Dawson had seen it coming but had hoped somehow to avoid it. Coming here was a mistake. He should have realized what would happen. This was how Shaw did things, fast and reckless. But it didn’t matter now, he thought, his Colt bucking in his hand.

Tyler Wilson had seen Shaw turn his eyes to Charlie Pepper as he spoke to him. He took it as his chance to make a move, not realizing Shaw had only looked away in order to bait him. But Dawson knew it. As Wilson tried to swing his rifle up for a shot, Dawson’s shot nailed him, lifted him backward and flung him to the dirt. Caldwell, seeing the fight erupt, shot Arch Deavers as the gunman swung his rifle away and drew his big Remington from its holster. Deavers got off two quick shots, both streaking wildly past Dawson and Caldwell, before Caldwell’s shot killed him.

As the bullet flew, Shaw had calmly shot the rifle from Charlie Pepper’s hand and left him standing, hugging the bottle of whiskey while he tipped his gun barrel just enough to put a bullet through Rady LaVease’s chest. LaVease staggered backward, rifle still in hand, and sank to his knees. He stared at Shaw in disbelief as blood pumped hard and steadily from his chest. ‘‘You two-hand-shooting . . . sonsabitch,’’ he managed to say to Shaw. Then he pitched face forward in the dirt, a pool of blood spreading beneath him.

Charlie stood with his eyes squeezed shut, as if that would be all it took to keep bullets from slicing through him. In the ringing silence, Shaw said, ‘‘Well, Charlie, it looks like nobody will ever know you told us anything.’’

Pepper opened his eyes slowly and looked all around, his rifle on the ground, his hand bleeding from Shaw’s bullet creasing it, his gun still holstered on his hip. But the bottle of whiskey was still intact. ‘‘Damn it,’’ he said, seeing his cousin lying dead in the dirt. ‘‘I just had to get my hands on them horses.’’ He looked at the three spare horses, shook his head, then threw back a long swig of whiskey. ‘‘All right, go ahead, chop me down,’’ he said to Shaw.

‘‘Huh-uh,’’ said Shaw, ‘‘you’re still going to tell me where the Barrows hole up.’’ He gestured with his gun barrel. ‘‘Have another drink.’’

Pepper took another long drink and said, ‘‘What if I don’t? What are you going to do about it, kill me? Hell, let her buck. I ain’t scared of anything you do to me.’’

‘‘I can see you’re not,’’ said Shaw, ‘‘and I respect you for it.’’ He tipped his gun barrel in another drinking gesture. ‘‘Go on, toss it back.’’

Pepper nodded thanks and took another long swig, the whiskey starting to have an effect on him. ‘‘You are sure loose and easy with your drinking stock, Fast Larry. I have to say I admire that.’’

‘‘My pleasure, Charlie,’’ said Shaw. ‘‘Drink up now. It’ll be years before you taste any more whiskey, if you ever do.’’

‘‘It means, now that I’m a lawman, I’m taking you across the border and turning you over to the law in Brownsville.’’

‘‘You wouldn’t do that, would you, Fast Larry?’’ Pepper asked, his tongue sounding thicker. ‘‘I never know you to jackpot a man.’’

Shaw shrugged. ‘‘I’m a lawman now, Charlie. This is what us lawmen do.’’ He gave a thin smile and added, ‘‘Now drink up. Let’s get going.’’

‘‘Damn . . .’’ Pepper stood considering things for a moment. ‘‘Well, hell, I expect I don’t owe the Barrows anything, come to think of it.’’

The three sat waiting, watching in silence as he took another drink and said, ‘‘All right. You want to know where you can always count on finding the Barrows.’’ He nodded west. ‘‘Head for Durango. Redlow and Eddie like the high country. The gang has a whole valley all to themselves up near Canto Alto, a place called Puerta del Infierno.’’

‘‘Yep.’’ Pepper gave his sly grin. ‘‘Sounds inviting, don’t it?’’ He took another drink and wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘‘I hope you find them. I hope they kill all three of you sonsabitches.’’

‘‘Much obliged for your help, Charlie,’’ Shaw said calmly, without looking around at the dead strewn on the ground. ‘‘Now, lift your shooting iron easy like and let it fall.’’

‘‘Ha!’’ Pepper said, sounding even drunker as the whiskey he’d drunk so quickly caught up to him. ‘‘Are you afraid I’ll grab it up and get the drop on you, Fast Larry?’’

‘‘No,’’ Shaw said, ‘‘I just know you to be a back-shooting son of a bitch. I’m hoping we can leave here without having to kill you, now that you’ve told us what we wanted to know.’’

Rage flashed in Pepper’s eyes. ‘‘How do you know I didn’t make it up? What makes you think I was telling you the truth? Maybe you ain’t as damned smart as you think you are—’’

Charlie Pepper’s words stopped short as Red Panther’s knife spun whistling through the air and stuck deep in his heart. The three lawmen turned as one, seeing Red Panther on his feet, letting out a war cry, his arms spread high, his shattered chest covered with dark blood. Shaw’s shot hit him first, knocking him back a step. Dawson’s and Caldwell’s shots staggered him farther backward until he flipped over a fallen wall stone. His boot heels landed upright atop the stone.

Shaw stepped down from his horse and hurried over to where Pepper had sunk to his knees, his right hand jerking the knife from his chest, leaving a fountainof blood spilling forward. ‘‘I didn’t mean for this to happen, Charlie,’’ Shaw said. ‘‘I would’ve kept my word.’’

‘‘You . . . always did,’’ Pepper managed to say, his life draining quickly. He managed to keep from dropping the whiskey bottle until Shaw took it from him and pitched it away.

‘‘Were you lying about the Barrows?’’ Shaw asked, stooping down in front of him, holding him upright at arm’s length, barely missing the spewing blood.

‘‘Then I hope you’re right,’’ Dawson said in a tight voice. Caldwell sat quietly, his Colt still smoking in his hand.

Seeing the hard expression on Dawson’s face, Shaw said, ‘‘All right, spit it out. What’s eating at you?’’

‘‘We shouldn’t have come here,’’ said Dawson. ‘‘We’re tracking Barrows’ men. That was good enough. I said so to begin with.’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ said Shaw, ‘‘good enough until tonight or tomorrow when a wind moves across this desert floor and clears every hoofprint.’’

‘‘These men are killers and thieves, not different than the ones we’re chasing. I wanted information. I got it. If this gets me closer to Titus Boland, that’s all that matters to me. If it gets you Fairday, the Barrows brothers and their whole gang, it shouldn’t matter to you either.’’

‘‘What are you saying, Cray?’’ Shaw asked. ‘‘If my ways are too hard and bloody to suit you, say so. We’ll split trails right here with no hard feelings.’’

When Dawson didn’t answer right away, Shaw turned to Caldwell and said, ‘‘What about you, Undertaker? Have you got any problems with the way I go about getting something done?’’

Caldwell had broken open his gun and begun reloading. He gave Shaw a look, then said to Dawson, ‘‘I’ve got to be honest, Cray. We could play cat and mouse with the Barrows across this desert until we all die of old age. All of these border outlaws are in cahoots. So what if they’re dead. They meant to kill us, take these horses. To hell with all of them.’’

Shaw looked only mildly surprised by Caldwell’s words, but Dawson appeared taken aback. Yet, after a moment of thought on the matter, Dawson let out a tense breath, knowing he needed Shaw, knowing that Shaw and Caldwell were both right about the men lying dead on the ground. These men had every intention of killing them, taking the horses, the supplies and leaving their bones to bleach in the desert sun.

‘‘We’re riding together until we’ve done what we set out to do,’’ Dawson said finally. He looked at Shaw. ‘‘But from now on, we follow the Barrows’ trail. I know there’s more killers and rogues than there are sand lizards out here. Let’s stick to the ones we’re after.’’ He backed up his horse a step, turned it and nudged it back toward the trail.

‘‘He didn’t mean anything, Shaw,’’ said Caldwell, finishing his reload and shoving his Colt down into its holster. ‘‘You know how he gets after a shooting.’’

‘‘Yeah, I know,’’ said Shaw. ‘‘He always has to question what he does and why he does it.’’ He stepped up into his saddle and looked over at the whiskey bottle lying on its side on the rocky ground, some of the amber rye still puddled inside it.

Shaw backed up his horse, turned it and followed Dawson toward the trail, taking one last look toward the whiskey bottle, then looking off toward Dawson. ‘‘There’s times I envy how the world looks to him.’’

The three lawmen stopped long enough to fill their canteens along the banks of the Río Grande. They filled four extra canteens they’d taken from the dead men’s saddle horns before dropping the saddles from the horses’ backs and setting them loose in a flatlands rich with tobosa and grama grass. When they’d finished preparing the canteens and allowing their horses to drink their fill, they rode purposefully, picked up the tracks they had been following before they’d turned off to the old French settlement.

For the rest of the afternoon they followed the tracks farther out onto the desert floor, the terrain changing gradually from stretches of sparse grass-lands to even sparser scatterings of desert scrub. Blades of yucca stood plump and spiky around them among rolling hills of yellow-white sand. At length the yucca gave way to sotol, patches of saltbush, javelinabush and mesquite until even those slowly disappeared behind them on the dry, scorching land.

For more than two hours a hot northwest wind had grown from a warning purr to a deep, sinister whistle. With his Stetson tightened low onto his brow, Dawson stepped down from his saddle, picked up a discarded mescal bottle by its woven grass handles and looked at it for a moment as if it might reveal something of its former recipient.

Also stepping down, lead rope in hand, Caldwell looked at where the tracks they followed veered off to their left and headed southwest. He raised his coat collar and tugged his hat down tight against the sting of wind-driven sand. Turning the horses sidelong out of the stinging sand, he shouted above a roaring wind gust, ‘‘They must’ve seen this coming and headed for shelter! Maybe we should too.’’

Dawson nodded in acknowledgement; yet he looked to Shaw who stepped down and stood huddled in a riding duster he’d unrolled from behind his saddle. ‘‘What’s over that way?’’ he shouted above the wind.

‘‘More sand and wind the next twenty miles,’’ Shaw shouted in reply. ‘‘Then there’s Rock Station.’’

Dawson pitched the mescal bottle away and shook his head. Knowing that by morning the tracks they were following would be gone, he sidled over nearer to Shaw and asked in a more normal voice, ‘‘Did you see this thing coming?’’

‘‘This time of year, you have to figure on it,’’ Shaw said, also lowering his raised voice as the wind slacked off for a moment. ‘‘How long since you’ve ridden across this desert?’’

Dawson didn’t answer, but now he realized that Shaw had been right, going to the outlaws for information. Hell, he admitted to himself, he’d realized it all along. Shaw had wandered the Chihuahuan Desert like some restless ghost since his wife’s death— he knew what he was talking about. ‘‘What’s beyond Rock Station?’’ Dawson asked in a raised voice, the wind slamming back after its lull.

‘‘Nothing,’’ Shaw answered in the same manner, his duster collar flapping on his cheek, ‘‘leastwise nothing these jakes will be interested in. They’re going to want to get those stolen horses housed somewhere. Being in good standing with Sepreano won’t buy them a thing if the federales catch them pushing a string of Bengreen’s horses with the Cedros Altos brand still on their rumps.’’

Shaw considered it for a moment, his hat brim blown down against the side of his face by another stinging wind gust. ‘‘Nobody is loco enough to take a string of horses out onto this desert unless they intend to cross it.’’ He nodded northwest into the strong hot wind. ‘‘Come morning I’d say they’ll be headed back in the same direction, taking those horses to Sepreano.’’

Shaw continued, saying loudly, ‘‘I can’t picture Sepreano being anywhere southwest of here. He’s a big man now. He’s through hiding. He wants the people to see his face. Wherever he goes, he’s going to want to start drawing a crowd.’’

‘‘Then we best find ourselves a place to lay these animals down, try to keep this sand from skinning us all alive,’’ Dawson said. Squinting, looking all around, he saw nothing more than a swirling wall of yellow-gray sand in the wind-whipped evening light.