Cotton's Devil (9781101618523) (25 page)

T
he day dawned with a slight overcast. Cool and breezy. Thorn McCann stood under the portico outside the Butterfield office awaiting the departure of the stagecoach that would take him first to Albuquerque and then on to Santa Fe. His shoulder wound was nearly healed but still giving him occasional stabs of pain. The doctor had told him not to worry about those twinges; they were normal. It would take time to completely heal. Those
twinges
, as the doctor called them, came frequently enough to dissuade him from trying to ride his horse all the way to the capital.

The driver and the shotgun guard stepped out of the stage office with a steel box between them. They hefted it up and dropped it into the forward boot. The driver then turned to the awaiting passengers and told them it was time to get aboard. Thorn stepped aside to allow the others, two men and a woman, to board before him.

He tossed his valise up to the driver with a groan, keeping another smaller bag with him. As he settled at a window seat, sitting next to the lady, one of the men across
from him kept eyeing him. That made Thorn nervous. He didn't think he'd ever seen the gent before, but when you carry a gun for a living, there are probably lots of people you run across that you don't remember. Not all of them are that eager to forget you. The man kept staring at him. Thorn's uneasiness was growing by the second. Finally, after they'd been on the road for about a half hour, he spoke up.

“Mister, you've been eyein' me ever since we got aboard this buggy. Have we met?”

“Oh, yeah, indeed we've met,
Mr. Thorn McCann, bounty hunter
.”

“You've got a better memory than I do, then. So, who are you and when did our paths cross?”

“You really don't remember?”

“Nope.”

“Three years back. Fort Worth. A gambling hall named Big Nellie's.”

“Go on.”

“You claimed I was cheatin', and you knocked me out of my chair and dragged me over to the sheriff's office. Then you demanded I be put behind bars. I never cheated at the pasteboards in my life. Never had to. I'm the best cardplayer you ever saw.”

“I vaguely remember somethin' like that. So, what happened to you?”

“The sheriff couldn't prove I did anything wrong, and none of the other players claimed I had, but they ran me out of town anyway. Just on principle, I reckon. Cost me all my winnin's. Near to five hundred dollars.”

“Sorry, mister. No way I can make it up to you now, however.”

“You could cross my palm with five hundred greenbacks.”

“Not likely. I'm flat broke. Besides, there must have been somethin' about the way you were shufflin' the deck or dealin' that raised my suspicions.”

The man turned to look out the window without answering Thorn's veiled conjecture. He made not a sound the rest
of the way to Albuquerque, even with two stops for food and a change of horses. The man's sullen silence had infected the other passengers, as well. Only the occasional flirtatious comment from the other man to the lady broke the silence. The lady did manage a smile at McCann on a couple of occasions. He returned it only to have her turn away suddenly, drawing a lacy handkerchief to her dainty mouth.
I wonder if she thinks I did her wrong somewhere in my past, too
.

As the coach lumbered on, hour after hour, he decided to dwell on something pleasant for a change: Delilah. That brought a smile to his lips.

“I just saw Thorn McCann boarding the stage. I suppose that means you aren't plannin' on makin' a fuss about the counterfeitin',” Memphis Jack said to Cotton as he approached the jail.

“Nope. That's a thing of the past. Instead, I decided on makin' a trade.”

“A trade? What kind of trade?”

“I let the counterfeit charge go up in smoke if he can dig up a snag in Judge Arthur Sanborn's appointment that'll help me take him down.”

“How the hell's he gonna do that?”

“Says he's got a friend on the governor's staff, that's how. If, that is, there is
anything
to find.”

Jack raised an eyebrow, suggesting he had some doubts but was willing to let it go. He crossed in front of the sheriff's desk and picked up an empty cup. He lifted the pot and started to pour some. When nothing came out, he opened the lid and peered in. Empty.

“Someone around here drink all the coffee?” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Why didn't that someone make some more?”

“I don't make coffee.”

“Why is that? You too good to do such a menial task?”

“I'm the sheriff, that's why. I don't make up the bunk beds in the cells, either.”

“We don't have bunk beds in the cells,” Jack replied.

Without looking up from his perusal of a heavy, leather-bound volume that looked very much like a legal book, Cotton said, “That may be the reason.”

Jack threw up his hands and poured coffee beans in the pot, along with a half teaspoonful of chicory, and then went out back to the well for water.

About fifteen miles short of reaching Albuquerque, the driver slapped the reins and started shouting to the horses in order to spook them into a run. The guard leaned over and yelled at those in the stage that they were about to be receiving visitors. Thorn muttered something about being damned tired of Indians. He leaned through the side window to see up ahead. There were two riders wearing sugar sacks over their head with holes cut out for eyes.

Bandits! Damned if I haven't had enough excitement for a lifetime!

He opened the door and swung an arm out and up to grab on to the top railing. He had to use his right arm, the one attached to the shoulder that
hadn't
recently had a hole blown clean through it, to get the strength to haul himself up to climb onto the roof. The guard saw his struggle and leaned over to lend a hand. Once topside, Thorn pulled his revolver and asked if there was an extra rifle in the boot. The guard said no. So there they were: a shotgun with two barrels and a smoke wagon with six shots. There was soon going to be a need for some very accurate shooting.

Thorn's estimate of two minutes was shortened to about thirty seconds as another masked rider came out of the brush barely ten feet behind them, just as the coach passed. He had a Colt in his hand and looked ready to blaze away. Thorn decided not to give him a chance. He fired at the rider with a sudden swing of his gun. The rider was obviously not
prepared for such a quick response, as he hadn't even cocked the hammer on his revolver. He tumbled backward over the horse's rump. Landing on his head, he was dead before hitting the dirt.

The other riders, seeing what had happened to one of their own, made a dash for the brush. Only one made it. The shotgun guard unloaded both barrels of his twelve-gauge coach gun into the back of the slowest of the bandits. He wouldn't be much help to his partner in crime on any future get-rich-quick schemes—if, that is, he lived.

The coach barreled down the sloping road toward a curve the driver knew to be treacherous. He hauled back on the reins sufficiently to slow the team and get around the curve safely. Behind them, the third bandit was bent over his bloodied partner. He fired a couple of quick shots at the coach as it faded into a dusty haze. One shot sang past Thorn's ear and the other buried itself in a piece of luggage.

When the coach reached the Butterfield station in Albuquerque, the driver was quick to praise the fast action and deadly shooting of Thorn McCann. Thorn, on the other hand, passed his congratulations on to the shotgun guard. The two of them shook hands and Thorn headed inside to cool off. The stage to Santa Fe wouldn't leave until the next morning, and he needed to rest his aching shoulder. The pain he thought he'd left in Apache Springs had returned in Albuquerque.

Maybe a little whiskey and a soft bed will help
, he thought, mounting the steps to the hotel. He looked back to see the passenger he'd apparently arranged to have jailed in Texas talking to a rider who had just arrived in town. The horse looked familiar. They appeared to be arguing, one poking his finger in the other's chest repeatedly.

That fellow
, Thorn thought,
doesn't seem to make friends real easily
.

T
he peaceful, sleepy town of Albuquerque was anything
but
calm and restful that night. Thorn could hear shouts of a celebration of some sort, a mariachi band playing, people singing, and guns being fired into the air.
Those Mexicans sure do know how to have a good time
, he thought.

It was after midnight before the noises on the street subsided and Thorn could get to sleep. A half-empty bottle of tequila likely helped, though. He struggled to roll out of bed when the desk clerk began pounding on his door.

“Señor, it is time to rise. You said to wake you before the stage left. And now it is that time. You must hurry!”

“Okay, okay,” Thorn mumbled. His best attempts to wake up were falling short. He fell back on his thin pillow. Twice. Finally, he was able to toss his legs over the side of the bed, reach down for his boots, and try to tug one of them on. He was failing miserably until he realized he had the wrong boot on the wrong foot. He cursed under his breath and started all over again. He sat up fully, stretched, and painfully reached a standing position to look into the Chatham
mirror above a pitcher of water and a bowl. He was greeted with a frown. He splashed water on his face, wiped it off with a towel, pulled up his suspenders, and left the room. Stopping halfway down the hall, he turned around and went back into the room. He sighed as he grabbed his shirt, picked up his two pieces of luggage, and again tried to negotiate the hallway. When he finally did manage to locate the bottom of the stairs without tumbling down them, he saw the shotgun guard leaning on the stair railing, grinning ear to ear.

“Figured we owed you somethin' for that fine shootin' on the road, yesterday. Without your help, one of us might not be here today to tell about it. We've been holdin' the stage for you.”

“Damned nice of you, son, thanks.” Thorn followed the younger man outside into the bright sunlight. Thorn found it necessary to shield his eyes from the glare by pulling his hat low over his bloodshot eyes.

As he got into his seat, he noticed that the man who'd claimed he had been wronged was not on board. The lady, however, was and she was beaming at his presence. This time when he smiled at her, she didn't look away. He figured that amounted to a certain degree of progress.

Ten miles out of Albuquerque, on the road to Santa Fe, Thorn was fully engaged in a cozy conversation with the young lady. She wasn't beautiful, certainly not at all as pretty as Delilah, but she was attractive and enjoyable to talk to. It didn't take him long to find out she was from Ohio and had trained to be a teacher. She'd heard there was a shortage of teachers on the frontier, and she was excited to make a place for herself. She said she had been engaged once but that her intended turned out to be somewhat of a rounder and she dumped him.
She's got spunk, I'll give her that
, Thorn thought.

If the conversation hadn't been going so nicely, Thorn might have been tempted to look out the window and watch the scenery. But, of course, he was too busy engaging a
pleasant young thing to be bothered by scenery. As it turned out, that mistake nearly cost him his life. It was the bark of a rifle that brought him out of his reverie. One shot, then two, three. A bullet crashed through the coach, barely missing him. The lady screamed, and Thorn stuck his head out the side window just in time to see the driver tumble from his seat and plummet down a steep ravine that ran alongside the road.

Thorn squeezed out the door and, once again, found himself trying to hang on to anything that would hold his weight as he struggled to climb up top. It took only a second to see that the horses, panicked by the shooting, were racing hell-bent-for-leather toward a narrowing of the road between several huge boulders.

There was little chance of the coach making it through traveling at such speed.

The shotgun guard was doing his best to grab the one rein that was still within reach, while also pushing on the brake handle as hard as he could with his foot. His shotgun had fallen between his legs, into the forward boot. Thorn took over the driver's position and drew his revolver. So far, he hadn't been able to locate the source of the shots. After several attempts, he got hold of the one rein and began yanking on it. With only one, however, he was mostly just pulling the lead horse's head to the left, right toward the ravine. He reached down and retrieved the shotgun and shoved it into the guard's hand. He signaled that they should change places. He'd take over the brake and the guard could seek out the position of the shooter. With a broader pattern of lead pellets, Thorn figured they stood a better chance of hitting something while he wrestled with bringing the coach to a halt.