‘You, sir, are a cheat,’ a well-dressed man with a southern accent accused as he lurched to his feet. His icy stare remained fixed on the solidly built man who sat opposite.
His accused had black hair and wore a low-crowned black hat tipped back on his head. A buckskin jacket covered a union blue shirt and his pants matched the shirt and were tucked into black cavalry boots.
Savage’s face hardened and he stopped raking the pot towards himself across the battered tabletop. His brown eyes grew hard. ‘And you shouldn’t shoot your mouth off so freely. It’s likely to get you killed.’
The other players eased their chairs back, the scraping noise on the floorboards almost deafening in the otherwise silent room.
Ned Tate’s stare never wavered, and the handsome man in his early forties refused to let Savage’s withering glare get to him.
It was the fourth pot in a row that Savage had won. Which wasn’t much considering he’d lost the eight previous ones between Tate and the other three men in the poker game. This hand, however, was different. This pot was upwards of one hundred dollars and most of it was Tate’s.
Savage had drifted into Concho Springs way station, Arizona Territory, the day before on a tired sorrel after three days of dodging Apaches.
Concho Springs sat in the middle of desert country surrounded by giant saguaro cactus, prickly pear, ocotillo, and creosote bush. It was situated on a large spring which was its only water source. It was an oasis in a harsh land.
While out on the trail, Savage had come across an upturned stage. All of the six-up horse team was gone and the driver, messenger, and passengers were dead. Every one of them had been scalped. The buzzards had done the rest.
He’d been told that it was the work of Rios and his Apache renegades. They were a small band of outcasts led by a half-breed. They stole everything they required to live and murdered anyone who stood in their way. Even their own kind wanted no part of them.
‘Tread softly, Savage,’ a new voice warned. ‘He has a reputation.’
The man who’d spoken was a cavalry lieutenant by the name of Joel Porter. He was a slim man with dark hair and three days growth of beard on his face. He led a patrol that was using the station as a stopover for the night. While most of his men were outside, both he and his sergeant were inside.
The lieutenant’s words were true enough. Tate had a reputation as fast with a gun, a killer, a gambler, and a man not to be trifled with. Once on his wrong side, there was no turning back.
‘Just go ahead and shoot the cheatin’ son of a bitch, Ned,’ an attractive, dark-haired woman in her late thirties urged Tate.
Tate nodded. ‘I might just do that Glory darlin’.’
Gloria Tate was Ned’s wife. It was said that she was as bad as her husband. Rumor had it that she’d knifed a man outside of a saloon in New Mexico one night, just to take back the winnings her husband had lost. It couldn’t be proved, however, and nothing was ever done about it.
Still seated in his chair, Savage turned his steely gaze upon Gloria. ‘Ma’am if I was you I’d be tryin’ to save my husband’s life instead of tryin’ to get him killed. Now if you ain’t goin’ to do that then the least you can do is to shut your damned mouth.’
The last words that spilled from his lips were harsh and filled with menace.
Gloria’s jaw dropped and her eyes grew wide, unused to being spoken to in that manner.
She looked to her husband.
‘Are you goin’ to let him talk to me that way?’ she screeched. ‘Shoot him! Do it now damn it!’
With the sound of his wife’s cries still ringing in his ears, Tate went for the six-gun on his right thigh. It had only just cleared leather when Savage’s .44 caliber Remington roared from beneath the table.
The slug punched through the tabletop and buried itself into the gambler’s chest. His mouth hung open with the shock of its sudden impact. Tate remained on his feet however and fought to bring his six-gun up.
Savage rose, coming to his full height of six-foot-one. With a wisp of gun smoke still rising from the barrel of the Remington he brought it up, cocked the hammer and aimed at Tate.
‘I told you your mouth was likely to get you killed,’ he rasped and pulled the trigger.
The bullet smashed into Tate’s wide-open mouth. On the way in, it shattered his bottom teeth and deflected upwards. It blew out the back of his skull in a crimson spray of brains and bone fragments.
Tate’s six-gun fell from his lifeless fingers and clattered to the rough floorboards. His corpse followed it with a dull thud.
‘Ned!’ Gloria screamed. ‘You murderin’ bastard, you’ve killed him!’
Seemingly from nowhere, Gloria Tate drew a small knife with a double-edged blade. She raised it above her head and moved swiftly towards Savage. The polished steel glinted as it reflected the dim lantern light within the station. Gloria screamed bloody murder as she made to bring a deathblow down upon her husband’s killer.
Without a second thought, Savage’s left hand balled into a fist and deftly clipped her on her petite chin when she came within reach. Gloria’s screams ceased immediately and the knife fell from her grasp. Her knees went weak and as she collapsed, Savage caught her up and placed her limp body in the chair he’d been sitting in.
‘Why didn’t you put a bullet in the stupid bitch’s head too?’ an older, unkempt prospector, cackled from over at the small, roughly built bar.
Savage gave him a look of disgust and was about to reply when there was movement at the station’s front door as it swung open. A man in his late thirties entered. He was dressed in black, had a muscular build, tanned face, and saddlebags over his shoulder. He took in the scene before him, the dead body on the floor and the rest of the people in the room, before he said in a heavy southern drawl, ‘Hell, did I miss somethin’?’
~*~
His name was Lucifer. The single word title was all he needed as it was a name everyone present knew. Lucifer was a killer for hire. A product of the war whom, like many others, returned home to nothing and made a living any way they could. His cause of his current presence at Concho Springs was anyone’s guess.
When the half-drunk prospector proudly told what he’d witnessed, Lucifer looked across at Savage and said, ‘Is that right? Seems to me I’ve heard of you Savage. Ex- cavalry captain who killed a heap of fellers that did for your wife.’
All heads turned to stare at Savage who was now seated at a different table with a mug of coffee in front of him.
‘Don’t believe all you hear,’ he advised Lucifer.
‘Sounds like good advice.’ Lucifer smiled.
‘He’s a damned murderer is what he is,’ the now conscious Gloria snarled.
‘I’ll take these for you Mr. Lucifer,’ the station manager Bill Davis offered, reaching for the saddlebags. ‘I’ll put them somewheres out of the way’.
Lucifer gave the rail-thin manager a cold look and said with menace, ‘If anyone touches my saddlebags I’ll kill them.’
Davis withdrew his hand as though burned, fear etched on his face. Tension hung heavily in the room and was only broken when Lucifer smiled and said, ‘Just kiddin’. Thank you but I’ll take care of them myself.’
Davis smiled nervously and walked back to the bar.
After a few more minutes, Porter and his sergeant left the room to head outside. Meanwhile, Lucifer found himself a table with a watered-down bottle of whiskey. Every now and then he looked up at Savage, sizing him up.
Savage decided enough was enough and got up from his seat and walked out.
He stood in the center of the hard-packed yard and looked about.
The sun had begun to sink and cast an orange hue across the desert. Large rock formations changed color as did the cloudless sky. Later, once the sun was gone, it would cool down and the night air would take on a sharp bite.
The yard was deserted but he headed around to the rear of the station where the cavalry troop was camped.
Porter and his solidly built sergeant were in a discussion about posting sentries when Savage showed. The sergeant saluted, then left the two of them to talk in private.
‘Is there something I can do for you, Captain Savage?’ Porter asked.
‘Savage is just fine lieutenant,’ Savage told him. ‘I ain’t a troop commander anymore.’
Porter nodded. ‘Fair enough. So is there anything I can help you with?’
‘I was wondering if I could ride along with you fellers tomorrow? You know safety in numbers. What, with the Yavapai stirred up of late as well as that Rios feller thrown into the mix.’
‘But we’re only goin’ back to Fort Craig tomorrow,’ Porter pointed out. ‘Is that the way you’re headed?’
Craig was only another twenty miles to the north and had first been established in 1863 to protect travelers from the Apaches who lived in the Gila River and Salt River Valleys.
‘It’ll do,’ Savage answered. ‘I ain’t got nowhere special to be.’
Porter thought for a moment then nodded. ‘It may be best. When we arrive you can report to the Colonel and tell him about the stage you found.’
‘I guess I can do that,’ Savage allowed. ‘But what makes you so sure that it was Rios that hit the stage and not Yavapai?’
‘We ran across Rios in that area two days back,’ Porter told him. ‘We chased him for ten miles before we lost him. I’d say he doubled back and waited for the stage. It’s not the first time that it’s happened. Besides, the Yavapai have been stickin’ to the mountains east of here lately and have caused no trouble.’
‘That ain’t what I saw the last three days,’ Savage disagreed.
Suddenly there shouts from inside the way station followed by the sound of a gunshot.