Golden Riders (3 page)

Sheriff Dave Schaffer had already risen from the bunk in one of the empty cells and strapped on his gun belt as the first sounds of gunshots and horses' hooves thundered from down the dirt street. He walked along the short hallway connecting the cells to his office at a calm measured pace. By the time he stepped into his office, and grabbed a rifle from the gun rack and checked it, the front door flew open and Eland Fehrs ran in. Sweaty and out of breath, Fehrs skidded to a stop and motioned the sheriff toward the open door.

“Sheriff Dave, come running!” he shouted. “They are robbing our new bank right this minute!”

Dave Schaffer kept his same measured pace toward the door. He knew the danger of a lawman getting into too big a hurry before he had an idea what was going on.

“Who's robbing it?” he said moving along steadily, but not yet fast enough to please the excited bartender.

“Three men calling themselves Garlets,” Fehrs panted. “They've drank a lot of loaded mescal and gone out of their minds. But they started bragging bold as brass
that they'd come here to rob the bank, and by thunder that's what they're doing.”

Sheriff Dave eyed Fehrs as he walked past him and out onto the front boardwalk. Down the street the gunfire continued. A woman screamed; men shouted back and forth. Two armed riders rode away in opposite directions and disappeared around the two far corners of the street. Gunfire marked their locations as they circled the block into a long back alley.

“Loaded mescal, huh?” the sheriff said, levering a round up into the rifle chamber. “I thought I told you to stop selling that poison, Eland, before you got somebody killed.”

“What you said was, ‘
take it easy
selling it,'” said the sweaty, short bartender. “And I have, that's the gospel truth. I warn everybody—anybody who'll listen, that is. But these three would not hear of any warning. No sir, they knew they could handle that damnable stuff.” He struggled to catch his breath. “So I shut up and sold it to them.”

The sheriff looked along the street and saw a remaining rider spinning in the street on a blaze-faced roan, firing a long revolver in every direction. Gray smoke loomed.

“And you're sure it's these Garlets doing the robbing?” he asked, hesitant to advance into the gunfire.

“Hell yes, I'm sure,” said the bartender. “They got wild-eyed and admitted that was why they were here. Said they come to be the first men to rob our brand-new bank.”

“Well then . . . ,” said the sheriff letting out an exasperated breath. “I expect that's all I need to know.” He started walking purposefully toward the single circling shooting rider as people watched from behind whatever cover they could find. “How bad a shape are they in?” he asked.

“Bad enough,” said Eland, hurrying along to keep up with the long-legged sheriff. “Merlyn the bank manager said they charged in shooting, scared everybody, made him unlock the teller's door, then ran behind the counter and never stole a single dollar! Took off without taking any of the money!”

The sheriff gave him a doubting look as they moved along toward the circling rider.

“Never took a dollar? Are you sure?” he questioned the panting bartender.

“As crazy as it sounds, I'm not making it up,” the bartender replied. “Merlyn Oates said one of them opened his fly, shook himself at a woman customer. Then he grabbed a desk chair up in his arms and carried it out the door! They got outside and took to shooting at everything in sight—his exposed crotch still flapping and bobbing.”

“This sounds bad,” said the sheriff. “Get somewhere safe and take cover, Eland. I don't want to have to worry about shooting you if this thing gets hot and heavy.”

“I'm gone,” said the bartender, ducking and running away as the circling rider brought the scrappy roan into a run and started shooting wildly at the sheriff. In the long alley behind the street the shooting had ended suddenly, a cloud of thick dust billowed above the roofline.

What the . . . ?

The sheriff looked at the rise of dust where the guns had fallen silent, but he had no time to contemplate. The blaze-faced roan charged straight at him, its rider letting out a yell, still firing mindlessly. With no place near him to take cover, Sheriff Schaffer took a standing position, his feet shoulder-width apart, his Colt raised, leveled and cocked. He forced himself to take his time—make the first shot count. The rider charged, seventy feet, fifty feet. Schaffer held his ground and squeezed sure and steady on the Colt's trigger.

But just before his Colt fired, the rider on the blaze-faced roan cut the horse sharply away. The whinnying animal skidded and slid in a tight abrupt turn, redirected its charge and ran straight toward the hotel. The sheriff stood staring, his Colt still up and ready, but as yet unfired.

“Holy gods in heaven . . . !” he said aloud, seeing the roan lunge up and across the boardwalk, its rider reared back on the reins to no avail as the two of them crashed headlong through the closed front doors. “He's gone into the hotel . . . ?” Schaffer said, stunned, glancing back and forth as if searching for someone to confirm what he was seeing.

On the street, the sheriff stared transfixed through the broken-down double doors, seeing the horse's rump ascend quickly and disappear up the hotel stairs. The sound of breaking boards and shattered banister resounded as the roan plowed its way up to the second-floor landing, turned a sharp left and ran along the hallway leaving broken floorboards flying up in its wake. The sheriff
and a few venturing townsfolk gawked and followed the sound of breaking wood and smashing hooves along the inside of the large hotel. Another crash resounded, a woman screamed as the roan blasted through a door, across an occupied room above the street. The stunned onlookers watched the roan launch itself and its clinging rider through a closed window in a spray of glass, shredded curtain and broken sash. The animal landed skidding and backpedaling on the tin-clad overhang five feet below the window.

“He's come out!” someone shouted, seeing the rider bowed and gripping the horse's neck for dear life, his boots out of his stirrups flapping against the roan's sides. Sheriff and townsfolk watched, stunned, as the horse's hooves slid out and down the tin overhang. Beneath the overhang the support posts broke away and collapsed just as horse and rider sprang out off it onto the street.

Hitting the street, the rider flew from the horse's back. The horse stumbled and rolled away; the rider flew off in a high arc and fell with a splash, flat on his back in a horse trough full of water. The impact of the falling outlaw caused the water trough to burst at its corner seams and send a wave of water rolling onto the street.

With no more than cuts and scratches from broken glass and splinters, the horse rolled to its hooves and stood shaking itself off in a cloud of dust. Shredded curtains fell from its rump. Its twisted saddle hung on its side. In the flattened horse trough fifteen feet away, the rider, Foz Garlet, soaking wet, stunned and wild-eyed,
struggled to his feet and sloshed wobbly away as if nothing had happened. His crotch had somehow fallen partially back behind his open fly.

“This is all a
first
for me . . . ,” Sheriff Schaffer murmured to himself almost in disbelief. He uncocked his Colt and left his thumb over the hammer.

“There he goes, crazy as a goose!” shouted Eland Fehrs, who had eased back into the street, seeing the spectacle unfold.

Foz Garlet, dripping wet, looked around at the sound of the bartender's voice with a lost and vacant expression. His eyes appeared to swirl with madness.

“Where's my damn horse?” he asked no one in particular. His voice was thick and distant sounding.

The sheriff stepped forward quickly, noting the empty holster on the wet man's hip.

“You won't need him,” he said. Expertly, he grabbed Foz's shoulder with his free hand and kicked his feet out from under him. The would-be robber fell to the mud offering no resistance.

As the sheriff bent forward and reached for the handcuffs he carried behind his gun belt, a townsman ran toward him from the alley behind the main street.

“Sheriff, quick!” the man shouted, seeing the man on the ground, the broken glass, the horse, the curtains at its hooves, “there're two more down back in the alley. They rode headlong smack into each other!”

The sheriff straightened from cuffing the downed outlaw and looked at the townsman Arthur Polks in disbelief.

“I mean it, Sheriff!” said Polks, a middle-aged lawyer. “It's the damnedest thing I ever saw!”

“Ha!” said Fehrs, “you didn't see nothing—you should have been here.” He gestured toward the fallen overhang, then upward at the open hole where the window used to be.

“Eland,”
the sheriff cut in firmly, “stand here and keep a foot on this one.”

“Me . . . ?”
the barkeeper protested.

“Yes
, you
,”
said the sheriff. “It was your loaded mescal that caused all this.”

“But what if he tries something?” said Fehrs.

“Look at him,” said Sheriff Schaffer, nodding down at the hapless Foz Garlet. The cuffed outlaw babbled mindlessly up at the sky. His tongue wagged in his gaping mouth. “He don't know where he's at or how he got here.”

As the sheriff stepped away and let the barkeeper plant his boot on the downed man's chest, Merlyn Oates, the bank manager, hurried forward.

“Thank God you caught these blackguards, Sheriff!” he called out proudly. “Caught them right in the act.” He offered a firm smile, glaring down at the mindless Foz Garlet.

“I understand they didn't take any money?” The sheriff asked.

“That's correct, Sheriff,” said Oates. “I have never seen such a fouled-up piece of work. It was hardly a robbery at all.” He looked toward the broken desk chair lying in the dirt a few yards away. “I suppose I can take my chair back to the bank, see about repairing it?”

The sheriff considered his request for a second.

“Not right now,” he said finally. “Better let me hold on to it for a while.”

“For heaven's sake, Sheriff, why?” the banker asked.

Before the sheriff could answer, Arthur Polks stifled a laugh and said, “It may well be
evidence
, Mr. Oates.” He looked the banker squarely in the eyes.

“That's nonsense!” said the banker. He turned a glare to Schaffer.

“Attorney Polks is right,” the sheriff said. “If it's the only thing stolen, it's
evidence
. Unless you want to see these men go free.”

“Go free?” said Oates. “They robbed the bank!”

“Did they
demand
any money?” Polks cut in.

“No, they did not, but they demanded I unlock the door to the teller counter,” Oates offered. “They held guns on me!”

“Did they
take
any money?” Polks proceeded dryly.

“No, but—” The banker stopped abruptly, seeing where the lawyer was leading. He pointed a finger at Polks. “Listen to me, Polks, you slick-talking son of a—”

“Easy now, Merlyn,” Polks warned. “You don't want to start saying things about me that could cost you money should I take offense and pursue it—”

“Shut up, the both of you,” Schaffer said, fed up with them. He turned back to Eland Fehrs. “Keep this one pinned down. I'll be right back.” He looked at Oates. “Go back to the bank, for now.” He looked at Arthur Polks. “Come with me, Polks, and do me a favor. I'm going to need a qualified legal opinion from an officer of the court here.”

“Any way I can help, Sheriff,” Polks said, giving Oates the banker a sly smug grin. “Any way
at all . . .”

It was late evening when the Ranger rode into the Midland Settlement with Jake Cleary and Cutthroat Teddy Bonsell, both of them handcuffed, riding along in front of him. Sam held on to a lead rope that ran from one wounded outlaw to the next, a loop drawn around each of their waists. Bonsell held his hands up against his chest, his right thumb hooked in his shirt, supporting his injured left fingers. The bandanna around his fingers had turned almost black, covered with thick congealed blood. Cleary sat stiffly upright to help lessen the pain in his bruised lower belly.

Along the boardwalk townsfolk had begun to gather as soon as the three riders came into sight. They stood armed and ready, holding rifles, shotguns, pistols, pick handles. Fear and hatred shadowed their faces. Yet upon seeing the two men handcuffed and the Arizona Ranger badge on Sam's chest, they eased back, lowered their weapons, and watched as he followed his prisoners toward the hitch rail in front of the sheriff's office.

“Not a real friendly bunch here, are they?” Jake Cleary said, eyeing the townsfolk. The three looked at the collapsed overhang in front of the hotel and the broken support posts.

“Something bad's gone on here,” Sam replied quietly. “They look a little edgy.”

He looked at the broken window glass and ragged curtains in the street, the ripped-out window frame on the hotel's second floor. Two men carried the busted
double doors away from the hotel. Two others stood in the broken glass with brooms and shovels.

“
Edgy
is putting it mildly, Ranger,” Bonsell said in a lowered voice. “I see hanging ropes in their eyes.”

“You two keep your eyes down and your mouths shut,” Sam replied. “Let's see what the sheriff's got to say.” Ahead of them, he saw the sheriff step out of his office and stand looking toward them from the boardwalk.

As the Ranger and his prisoners rode closer, the sheriff eyed his badge and let his hand fall away from the butt of his holstered Colt. He watched the Ranger touch his hat brim as the three stopped in the street a few yards away.

“We've never met, Ranger Burrack,” Schaffer said, touching his hat brim in return. “I'm Sheriff Dave Schaffer.”