Black Valley Riders

Inside the sheriff’s office, the ranger had just poured himself a cup of strong coffee from a pot on the wood-stove when the gunshots resounded from the Big Winner Saloon. He set the steaming cup down and picked up his rifle from where it stood leaning against the sheriff’s desk.

Braden, seated at his desk, stared up at the ranger for a second through a thick pair of reading spectacles. He stuck his ink pen back into the inkwell and stood up.

“Here we go again,” he said, taking off the spectacles and laying them down on the half-completed affidavit he’d been writing. He and Sam headed out the door.

“Sheriff, Sheriff!” a woman shrieked tearfully, her hands pressed to her cheeks in fear and despair. “What’s happening to our town?”

Seeing the gathered townsfolk turn their attention from the bloodstained street to the big clapboard saloon, Braden ignored her and said to the ranger over his shoulder, “I’m starting to wonder if these two sailors are going to be more trouble than they’re worth.”

Inside the Big Winner Saloon, Lucas held out as long as he could. He didn’t know if Thorn was bluffing or not about pistol-whipping him with his own gun. But he was sobering fast and he didn’t like his odds. “All right,” he said, speaking faster, seeing Thorn’s hand tighten around the butt of his own shiny nickel-plated Colt. “Early Baggett rode in with Elmer Fisk and a couple of bummers I’ve never seen before. Baggett hitched his roan out front. The other three rode on to the water trough, watered their horses and themselves and headed north straightaway. That’s the gospel on it.”

“Elmer Fisk, also known as Crazy Elmer Fisk,” Thorn said in recognition, “owing to how easily he loses his mind and kills people.”

“That was him all right, Crazy Elmer in the flesh,” said Lucas. “Now, gentlemen, are we all finished here?” He summoned enough drunken courage to start to rise from his chair. “Because if we are, I’d like my pistol back—”

“Almost?” The gambler sighed and gave them both a dubious look. He sat back down. “This is a dangerous thing I’m doing,” he said. “Leastwise, it’s far too dangerous to be doing for free.” He looked back and forth between the two of them.

“Whoa!” said Lucas. A wary look came to his caged eyes. “When it comes to those outlaws, I know less than a monkey knows about soap.” A sheen of sweat seemed to appear out of nowhere across his forehead. He gave a guarded look toward the open doors, making sure the conversation wasn’t being overheard. “No amount of pistol-whipping is going to change that.”

“In that case . . .” Thorn reached into his duster pocket, took out a bag of coins and shook it enough to raise a sound of ringing silver. Then he dropped it onto the tabletop. “. . . you can start telling us everything you don’t know about them,” he said.

“Gentlemen, you can save your money,” said the drunken gambler. “There are some things even a callous reprobate such as I will not discuss—”

From the open front door, Sheriff Braden’s voice cut in, saying, “I can tell you about the Black Valley Riders. They’re a bunch of murdering, thieving dogs.”

Dee Sandoval’s Colt had already swung to the sound of the voice. But upon seeing the sheriff and the ranger, he lowered the revolver an inch and stood back to allow them both closer to Thorn at the gambler’s table.

“Well, well, if it isn’t our good Sheriff Braden,” Lucas said, “and just in time.” To the bounty hunters, he said, “There’s nothing like the sound of money rattling in a bag to bring out our trusty law-enforcement officer.”

“Shut your mouth, Lucas,” the sheriff warned the gambler. He looked first at Sandoval, then at Thorn, and said, “I’d hardly know you are here.”

“My sincere apologies, Sheriff,” Thorn said. He gestured up at the broken handrail. “As you can see, we were put upon by surprise.”

“I understand,” said Braden. He looked at the Colt still in Sandoval’s right hand. “You’ll find I work better without a gun cocked at me, Mr. Sandoval.”

Sandoval looked back and forth between the ranger and the sheriff, but he didn’t lower the Colt any farther until the sheriff lifted his hand from the butt of his holstered pistol and stooped down over the body on the floor.

Raising the dead man’s limp wrist, the sheriff pressed two fingers to it, found no pulse, then let the hand fall heavily back to the floor.

The sheriff ignored the drunken gambler’s remark. He stood up and gave Thorn a questioning look. “All right, what was this one about?”

“Same thing, Sheriff,” said Thorn. “I take it that Baggett has partnered up with the Black Valley Riders. He rode in earlier and took a room. I figure he was waiting for the others to get here.”

“Imagine, Sheriff, all of these desperadoes congregating in your town. How well does this bode for our law enforcement?”

“You’re drunk, Lucas,” the sheriff said, “and I don’t even like you when you’re sober.” He gave the gambler a hard stare. “Now keep your moth shut or I’ll throw you in a cell for public drunkenness—”

Braden’s words were cut short when the door on the second floor creaked open slowly and a half-naked young woman stepped out and looked down at them. “Sheriff, can I come down now?” she asked shyly, wearing only a pair of short pantaloons and clinging to a thin towel she held pressed to her breasts.

“Well, certainly you can, little darling,” said Braden. To the ranger and the bounty hunters, the sheriff said, “Easy, fellows, that’s just Mona Blaine. She’s a good gal.”

They watched as the woman walked along the landing and stopped atop the stairs. “He was in my room, you know,” she offered quietly, looking over at the body lying on the floor. “He said he was supposed to be meeting some men here—supposed to be watching for them. But he wasn’t. Instead he was all over me.” She jerked a thumb toward the room she’d come out of. “His saddlebags are up there. His rifle is leaning beside the window.”

“Gentlemen, let’s go see what we can find out what this snake, Earl Baggett, was up to,” said Braden. To Thorn and Sandoval he said, “You two cause a lot of commotion, but you do have a way of trimming back the rodent population.”

Lucas sat down. “Perhaps our darling Miss Mona will be kind enough to inform me afterwards,” he said. He poured himself another glass of whiskey and drank it straight down.

Inside the room on the second floor, Sandoval walked straight to a window that looked onto a narrow alleyway running alongside the building. The girl, the sheriff and Thorn looked on as Sandoval raised the window and stuck his head out and looked back and forth. Beside the window a Winchester rifle stood leaning against the dingy flowered wallpaper.

“He didn’t have much of a view from back here,” Sandoval said. Gazing toward the front of the building, the young bounty hunter saw only a sliver of the dirt street they’d ridden in on.

“Once he got here, he seemed to lose interest in watching the street,” said Mona with confidence, one hand propped on her well-rounded hip, her other hand holding the thin towel in place over her breasts. “You might say I saved you fellows’ lives.”

“Obliged, ma’am,” said Thorn. He picked up Baggett’s dusty saddlebags from the floor, opened them and dumped the contents out onto a small wooden table.

Braden leaned over and said discreetly into Mona’s ear, “Maybe you’d like to put on some clothes, little darling.”

Mona smiled and walked over to a robe hanging from a peg on the wall. She inspected it quickly for any blood splatter, then put it on, tossing the thin towel aside. Braden stared intently until her ample breasts disappeared behind the robe. “How was that, Sheriff?” Mona said softly.

Rummaging through a pile of wadded-up dirty clothes, loose ammunition and various personal items, Thorn stopped and picked up a silver emblem, a sliver of a moon with a star hanging from it.

“Here we are, Mr. Sandoval,” he said, holding the silver moon up for Dee Sandoval to see. “Every Black Valley Rider carries one.”

Sheriff Braden and the woman stepped in closer for a better look. “You’re right,” said the sheriff. “I should be ashamed to admit it, but I’ve seen lots of trinkets being worn in my town of late. But if the man wearing one hasn’t broken a law, there’s really nothing I can say about it.”

“I’ve seen some of my customers wearing them,” the young woman offered. She shrugged. “I just thought they were the latest things in men’s style.”

“It’s starting to look like they are around here anyway,” said Thorn, closing his fist around the gold ornament and giving Sandoval a knowing look.

Braden took exception to the bounty hunter’s words and said, “Now, look, Thorn. I run a good clean town here. I can’t keep men from riding in just because I don’t like the accessories they’re wearing.”

“It sounded to me like you were implying something,” said Braden, his hand falling deftly to his gun butt. Thorn’s eyes followed the move, then went to meet Braden’s gaze. The sheriff noticed the change in Thorn’s expression, and quickly removed his hand and kept it clear. “Maybe I was a little too quick to take offense.”

Braden cut a glance to the ranger, who stood watching and listening, his Winchester rifle cradled in the crook of his arm. “Samuel here can tell you. I do the best I can to keep out the trash.”

“Especially not to us,” Thorn put in. “If I made a careless choice of words, I take them back,” he said to the sheriff. “No offense intended.” Yet as he spoke to Braden, he stared straight at the ranger.

Sam returned the bounty hunter’s flat stare, doubting if Cadden Thorn had made a careless choice of words in his entire life.

Braden appeared to consider Thorn’s apology for a second, if indeed it were an apology. “In that case, no offense taken,” he said, finally, cooling down as quickly as he’d flared up. “We’re all on the same side of the law here. I expect we are all looking for the best way to go about doing our jobs.”

“Yes, we’re all the on same side of the law,” Thorn said to the sheriff. “That being understood”—he turned his gaze back to the ranger—“what say the three of us throw in with one another for a time, Ranger Burrack? After all, we seem to be trailing the same men.”

“I know,” said Thorn, “and I find it admirable that you do.” He gave a thin, tight smile. “Mr. Sandoval and I are much the same way. But with a gang this large and this spread out, maybe it would be more prudent of us to join our—” His words stopped short as he and the others turned toward the sound of boots pounding up the stairs.

“Sheriff, come quick!” a short red-faced man wearing a leather apron shouted as he charged into the open doorway and room and caught himself on the door frame with both hands.

Clarence Bowes, the town blacksmith, blurted out in a voice full of rage and bewilderment, “Has our town gone completely to hell on us?”

“Well, I don’t know, Clarence,” Braden said stiffly. “Why don’t you settle down and tell me what’s going on? Maybe it’s something—”

“It’s that drunken gambler!” said Bowes. “Bad enough we’ve had two gunfights in less than an hour! Tinnis Lucas run out of here and stole a woman’s day rig right out from under her!”

“Damn it!” Braden shoved the blacksmith aside and walked out the door. “Lucas is a drunk and a card-sharp! He’s no horse thief.”

“Every time we turn over a rock, another Black Valley Rider jumps out,” Thorn said, following the sheriff and the blacksmith out the door. On his way down the stairs, he said over his shoulder to the ranger, “Consider my offer, Ranger Burrack. It may well work to both of our advantage.”

“I’m considering it,” Sam replied. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he spotted a woman standing just inside the saloon doorway, her hat lying lopsided atop her head, a long streak of dust on the side of her dress where she’d landed on her behind.

As the lawmen, the blacksmith and the horse theft victim walked out onto the street, Mona stood at the open door on the second floor and smiled down on the empty saloon and the body of Earl Baggett lying sprawled in blood on the sawdust floor. So long, Early . . . , she said to herself.