The boys didn’t say much because Spur didn’t tell them that the men who needed help were lawmen. In fact he was careful not to even mention their names.
He rode up to the cabin which he shared with his two partners and merely said: “Two fellers down in the valley. They’re hurt bad. One’s like to die.”
Cuzie Ben didn’t say anything. He just upped and went out to the corral to catch up his horse. That was like him. He didn’t ask questions. If he wanted to help, he just got on with it. Ben was a Negro, a former slave, who was the best man with horses, wild or tame, that Spur had ever known. He was a grizzled man of indeterminate years and was wanted for killing a white man in Texas. Spur had met him in the Cimarron country when Ben had saved his life on more than one occasion when both the Texas Rangers and some bounty hunters were after him. He owed Ben a lot and he didn’t forget it. The two men understood each other. Spur was maybe the only friend Ben had had in his life. Certainly the first white friend.
The Cimarron Kid was another kind altogether and Ben reckoned at the time they met him that Spur was crazy to take up with him. He still thought so when the Kid was ornery. He and Spur had rescued the Kid from a posse. The Kid owed them a debt and the fact stuck in his gullet.
The Kid was five foot eight, twenty years old, swarthy complexioned and he had a grudge against mankind. The story went that the grudge was so bad that he had killed a man for every year of his life. That was the way so many of those stories went about outlaws. Spur reckoned the Kid was pretty good with guns, but he was a little short on gray matter and he hadn’t killed more than two or three men.
So far as Ben was concerned, the Kid had one redeeming feature, and that was his unwilling admiration and respect for Spur. Spur was supreme with guns; he was fast and he was accurate. Ben was no slouch with a belt-gun himself and Spur could leave him standing. The Negro reckoned the Kid was hanging around till he was faster than Spur. Then he’d draw and kill Spur. It was his burning ambition. Spur laughed and said the Kid was only a boy at heart and had no real evil in him.
The three partners, if they could be called that, had been in the cabin three months—which they considered a long time to be in one place. They had spent the time catching wild horses and selling them down on the plains. Catching the wild ones was a craziness with Ben and it looked like Spur had caught it. It was Spur’s ambition to breed good horses. The sire he used was a red stallion they had caught in Colorado the year before and he reckoned that before many months were out his famous little mare, Jenny, would drop a foal to the mustang. He and Ben couldn’t wait to see the result.
The Kid grumbled a little, asked questions he didn’t get any answers to and followed Ben out of the cabin to catch up his horse. Spur switched his saddle from the mare to a bay gelding and caught another couple of animals to take along in case they had to make a litter. For the same reason he took along some odd lengths of rawhide rope. Then the three of them rode, leading the spare horses behind them.
When they reached the two wounded marshals, Ben took one look at Malcolm and the badge on his vest and stopped dead. He looked at Spur accusingly.
The Kid stared down from the back of his horse and said: “You said it was a coupla men, Spur. These ain’t men, they’re law dogs.”
Spur said: “You mind your manners, Kid. Climb down and give me a hand.”
The Kid snarled: “Like hell I do. I don’t give no hand to this kind of a bastard.”
“He’s right, Sam,” Ben said. “You ain’t played fair with us.”
Spur got a little mad.
“All right,” he said, “so I ain’t played fair. You know who shot these two?”
“Who?”
“Lucky Lincoln.”
“So Lucky defended himself. Wouldn’t you an’ me do the same thing?”
Malcolm spoke: “There were three of them. They came into the courthouse and they shot Wayne Ulster to ribbons.” They stared at him. “He didn’t have a chance.”
Ben looked into the distance, frowning.
The Kid said: “So they knocked off a marshal.”
Ben turned and snarled at him: “You hush your fool mouth, Kid, when men is talkin’.”
The Kid glared at him from the depths of his hatred. He looked like a man who would like to kill but dared not make the attempt.
“Boys,” said Spur, “you don’t want to help. You ride out of here. But don’t come back.”
Ben said: “You sure fix a feller,” and climbed off his horse.
“I don’t help no lawman,” the Kid said.
“Then go ahead, clear out,” Spur told him and turned away. He’d brought a small hand ax with him and he started cutting saplings. Ben took them as he cut them and trimmed them with his knife. When they had enough the Negro started to make a litter skillfully with the rawhide. They didn’t talk. They used blankets and tarp as saddles for the spare horses and rigged the litter between them over that. They lifted the unconscious man onto it. Ben took a look at him and shook his head as if to say they were wasting their time. Spur helped Malcolm onto his horse, the three of them mounted and they rode slowly down the valley.
Spur said to the Kid: “You were a great help.” The Kid snorted.
They were half-way to the cabin when Ben, riding beside the litter, called for a halt. He dismounted and inspected Travers.
“He’s dead,” he said.
Spur stepped down and confirmed it. Malcolm looked grim. They went slowly on. When they reached the cabin, Spur helped the deputy to his own bunk and told him to take it easy. Then he and Ben took shovels and dug a grave in the side of the nearby ridge. They buried the dead man without any ceremony. The Kid sat outside the cabin, smoking. When they entered the cabin, Malcolm said: “He was a good man. That’s two good men they killed.” Ben just stared at him. He went to the stove and started preparing a meal. He always liked to cook when he was agitated. It calmed his nerves.
“Spur,” Malcolm said, “you’ve helped me enough. I reckon I owe you my life. But I have to ask another favor of you.”
“Name it,” Spur said. “I don’t say I’ll do it.”
“I have to get back to the capital.”
“You askin’ me to go with you?”
“Yes.”
“You know I’m wanted, George.”
“I’ll vouch for your safety. I swear it. You help me and I won’t forget it.”
The Kid stood in the doorway listening.
“Jesus,” he said, “I heard all this before. You go along with him and you’re inside, Spur. There’s a rope waiting for you down there.”
Ben turned from the stove.
“You know what this mean, white man? You comin’ here?” he demanded. “We been livin’ up here real nice an’ comfor’ble. We been havin’ us a real good time, catchin’ the wild ones, sellin’ ’em. Makin’ a livin’. Honest. We been so Goddam honest since we took up with Sam here it hurts. Now we got to run agen. It’s the owl-hoot for us’ns, white man, jest acourse you got your fool self all shot up.”
Malcolm raised himself onto one elbow with some difficulty and pain.
“Listen to me,” he said. “Stay put. Stay right here. I mean it. I’m acting marshal now, I’ve got some say.”
“Stay put he says,” sneered the Kid. “So you can come back with a nice posse and catch us with our pants down. Do we look stupid or somethin’.”
Spur put in: “You’re askin’ a lot, George.”
“Listen, Sam, you helped me. You saved my life. You think I can forget that in a hurry.”
The Kid said: “You’ve forgot it already. Right now you’re schemin’ how you can take us.”
“The Kid’s right, Sam,” Ben said. “Once a lawman, always a lawman.”
“George,” Spur said, “there’s federal warrants out for Ben an’ me. You can’t do nothin’ about that.”
“I can do plenty,” Malcolm said. “Hell, it’s a hell of a waste having men like you on the run.” He looked at the Kid and maybe he changed his mind a little. If ever he had seen a little killer it was this one.
“I’ll get you back home,” Spur said. “Let’s leave it at that.”
“All right. Have it your own way.” Malcolm turned his face to the wall and after that they thought he slept.