Lawless Trail (3 page)

“All right, Ranger, it's true I knew Clifford and Rodney were waiting there for you. They hit town yesterday. Said they'd spotted you on the trail headed this way. Like every gunman on these badlands, they wanted to kill you.” He shrugged. “What was I to do? It was none of my business.”

“But the money changed everything,” Sam said.

“Well, hell yes, it changed things,” Hardaway said. “Doesn't it always?”

“You're some piece of work, Fatch Hardaway.”

“Be that as it may, in the course of things, I did come running to your defense, didn't I?” Hardaway reasoned.

“Yes, you did,” the Ranger said. He eased a little, realizing there was no point in discussing the matter any further. Hardaway would do whatever he needed to keep him alive so long as there was money involved. “Obliged,” he said.

Hardaway smiled and nodded as if to say
you're welcome
.

Sam took another step and picked up Hardaway's pistol from the dirt, shook it free of dust and handed it to him, butt first. He looked at the three gunmen staring at him and gave them a nod toward their rifles. “Pick them up,” he told the three.

“
Gracias
, Ranger,” Hardaway said, taking his Remington and holstering it. He gave a nod toward the dead men in the dirt street as a few townsfolk ventured forward from behind closed doors. “I'm wondering now. Do you suppose Clifford and Rodney has any reward on them anywhere? This bounty business might be a good thing to look into.”

The Ranger turned and started toward the speckled barb.

“Get ready to ride, Hardaway,” he said over his shoulder. “The sooner we're done with this, the better.”

Maley, Arizona Territory

Two strangers dressed in black linen suits stood at the customer service counter in the middle of the Cattleman's Bank. Over their business clothes, they both wore tan trail dusters that hung down to their scuffed bootheels. One wore a stylish but battered bowler hat cocked at a rake above his right eye. The other wore a black wide-brimmed Stetson. Both stood filling out deposit receipts. They looked up at each other as the sound and feel of rumbling hooves began to swell underfoot.

“Vot is dis?” questioned a Swedish shopkeeper who turned on his heel at the teller cage, cash in hand, and looked off in the direction of the deep, powerful rumbling.

“Goodness
gracious
! It sounds like a stampede,” said a townswoman in a long black gingham dress, standing behind the shopkeeper. “My poor Albert was in one once—said it was terrible.”

“Stampede indeed, Widow Jenson,” said the bank manager, a short, hefty man who unlocked the thick wooden door at the far end of the barred teller counter and hurried around toward the front door. “I prefer to think Maley is a good deal more civilized these days than to have a stampede in our streets.”

The two men in dusters gave him a dubious look. So did the shopkeeper.

“It is coming from the rail pens, Mr. Bird,” Widow Jenson offered.

“Yes, I know,” the manager, Phillip Bird, said in a patient but condescending tone.

Behind the long teller counter a serious-looking man wearing a full beard and a green clerk's visor stood staring down at an ink pen as the floor trembled with the low-rumbling vibration.

“Mr. Bird, sir,” the man said calmly.

Phillip Bird didn't reply. Instead he smiled confidently at the two strangers.

“No cause for concern, gentlemen,” he said over his shoulder. He set a heavy bolt across the front door, locking it. “I'll lock this just in case. We've had reports of the Traybo Gang being in this area. “But I assure you, this is nothing.”

“The Traybos! Really?” the man in the bowler hat said, looking worried.

“I should not have mentioned it,” said Phillip Bird. He waved the matter away as he turned back toward the door. “At any rate, to be on the safe side, we have armed railroad detectives and town volunteer guards positioned everywhere. If those craven cowards were to show their faces here, I daresay—”

His words came to a halt as he saw the men's trail dusters part down the front and guns come out pointed at him. The man in the bowler raised a double-barrel sawed-off shotgun and cocked both hammers. The man in the Stetson held a long, sleek Remington .45 conversion leveled at his chest.

Bird's eyes widened in terror as the one with the shotgun took a step forward.

“Craven cowards, huh?” he said to the trembling bank manager. Without taking his eyes off Phillip Bird, he spoke to the man in the Stetson. “Want me to butt-smack him, brother Wesley?” he asked.

“Only if he doesn't do what we tell him, Tyrone,” the man in the Stetson replied. He looked at the shopkeeper and the woman. “You two get behind the counter with us. Come on, let's go!” He wagged them toward the open door with the barrel of his big Remington.

“You're them—the Traybo brothers, that is,” said the banker, having turned pale in the face. “You're not even wearing masks!”

Wes Traybo touched his stubbled cheeks as if in surprise and said, “I knew we forgot something.”

“Look, Mr. Traybo,” said Bird. “I meant nothing saying what I said. It's simply one of those cases where—”

“Maybe you will have to butt-smack him, Ty,” said Wes Traybo, stepping forward, shoving the banker toward the open door in the long counter.

“I'm going to cooperate with you fellows,” Bird said in a shaky voice, “I swear I am.”

“That's a good attitude, Bird,” said Wes. “Now fly your ass back there and open that big ol' safe for us,” he said to the banker.

The clerk, unseen, dropped down on all fours behind the counter and crawled away to a small stockroom as the two outlaws walked through the open door behind Phillip Bird and shoved him to the front of the large vault. The shopkeeper and the woman stood back out of the way, watching intently, their hands half raised.

“Whoa, look at this!” said Wes with a smile, seeing the door to the safe standing open a few inches. “This safe was just standing here waiting to be robbed.”

Ty Traybo swung the big safe door wide open and quickly stepped inside.

“My, my, look at all this handsome cattle money,” he said.

“Better hurry it up some, Ty,” said Wes. “The cattle will be storming through here any minute.” He took two folded unmarked canvas sacks from under his duster and tossed them into the vault at his brother's feet. He looked Widow Jenkins up and down.

“Ma'am, you can lower your hands,” he said quietly to her.

“Thank you, young man,” said the widow, lowering her hands and folding them in front of her.

Wes Traybo kept his big Remington pointed at Bird and the frightened bank manager. “So,” he said calmly to the two men, “how's the fishing been around here?”

“The fi-fishing?” said Bird, visibly shaking.

“Iz not so bad,” the shopkeeper cut in. “I do good in spring, higher up.” He pointed northeast toward a rugged mountain range. “But not so good down here. Iz too hot, too dry.”

“Too bad,” said Wes, with a shrug. He stood in silence for a moment, then looked toward the open vault where his brother, Ty, hurriedly stuffed money into both canvas sacks. “How's it going in there?” he said, hearing the rumble of hooves draw closer, the sound of pistol fire exploding above it. “We're not spending the day here.”

“Oh . . . ?” said Ty, stepping out of the big vault, pitching the two stuffed sacks at his feet. “In that case, brother, we're all done in here.”

“Just in time,” said Wes, stooping, picking up one money-filled canvas sack, hefting it over his shoulder. “Sounds like our cattle's coming.”

“Good,” said Ty, hefting up the other sack of money.

The two started to step out the thick door from behind the teller counter. But Ty stopped and looked all around.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Where's that clerk who was back here a while ago?”

Wes looked all around too. Their eyes went to the open door of a stockroom, the only plausible spot for the man to have gone. A dark wariness swept over Wes like a chill.

“It doesn't matter. Let's go!” he said quickly.

“Like hell it doesn't matter,” said Ty, taking a step toward the small stockroom. “I don't want us getting shot in the back while we're leaving—”

His words stopped short when the bearded man stepped out of the stockroom with a short double-barreled shotgun and stood braced, his feet spread shoulder-width apart.

“Detective Ted Ore, railroad security!” he called out. “Drop your guns! You're under arrest!” Yet, even as he shouted, the shotgun bucked in his hands.

The first blast of the shotgun slammed Ty Traybo in his shoulder and hurled him backward. Wes, seeing his brother fall, wasted no time. Dropping the sacks of money, he swung his Remington up and blasted the young detective with three shots. Each shot sent the detective staggering backward into the stockroom in a thick red mist.

“Oh God!” shouted the bank manager, falling to his knees, scrambling across the floor into the open vault.

As the detective staggered his last backward step into the stockroom, his shotgun hit the doorframe and fired the second barrel.

The wild shot hit Widow Jenkins squarely in her face and blew her backward against the shopkeeper, who had ducked down instinctively. Brains and blood flew. The woman's body lay limp and faceless, sprawled atop the bloody shopkeeper.

His smoking Remington in his hand, Wes hurried to his wounded brother and raised him to his feet. Blood ran braided and thick from the tips of Ty's fingers and formed into a puddle and spread onto the plank floor.

“You're going to be all right, Ty,” Wes said, trying to sound convincing. He looped Ty's bloody arm over his shoulder and led him out through the big wooden door from behind the counter, dragging his canvas sack beside him.

“He . . . shot the hell . . . out of me,” Ty murmured in stunned disbelief, looking at all the blood. His good hand held on to his canvas money sack. “This is bull—”

“Shut up, Ty. Let's get you out of here,” said Wes.

Halfway across the floor, they saw the front door fly open and a man jump inside with a Winchester up and cocked. He fanned the rifle back and forth, ready to fire.

Wes Traybo lowered his cocked Remington at the sight of the rifleman.

“Help me with him, Carter,” he called out to the gunman who'd stood on the boardwalk to guard the front door. “He took a bad blast in his shoulder.”

“I'm there,” said Carter. He hurried forward, seeing Wes struggling with his wounded brother and the stuffed canvas sacks through a cloud of gun smoke.

•   •   •

On the wide main street of Maley, townsfolk had at first frozen in place and listened as the rumble below their feet drew nearer. But they suddenly came back to life and bolted for cover when three hundred head of wild-eyed, bawling cattle thundered up into sight from the direction of the rail pins. The freed cattle pounded along in a swirl of dust; a sea of long cattle horns pitched, bobbed and swayed like a scene of hell set loose and rising.

Out in front of the store overhangs, roofs collapsed and were hastily broken up and devoured beneath the pounding hooves. Empty wagons, durables, barrels and wooden cargo crates rose and fell and flattened to the dirt. A black-hooded street buggy rose, broken free from its dead and trampled horse. The buggy appeared to roll along for a moment atop the sea of horns until at length its broken black hood folded within itself; its spine and frame twisted and snapped like the brittle bones of some winged creature in the hands of a mindless monster.

Behind the herd, gunfire streaked orange-blue straight up through the curtain of dust, keeping the bawling animals at a full run. Only a few yards ahead of the herd, three horses raced along abreast as if leading the frightened cattle. Broken lengths of hitch rail still tied with their reins bounced alongside the fleeing horses. Townsmen and young boys appeared like apparitions on rooftops and looked down helplessly on the spectacle through the thickening curtain of dust.

As the cattle neared the bank, Wes Traybo and Carter Claypool made it off the boardwalk into an alley just in time—the wounded Ty Traybo hanging between them, the sacks of money slung over their shoulders. As the two shoved Ty up into his saddle, broken planks and slats from the boardwalk flew into the air and fell around them.

“Look out, Wes!” shouted Claypool.

Wes turned and fired at a steer that had cut away from the stampede and made a run for the alley. His shot only grazed the steer on the hard rise between its horns, but that was enough to send the animal spinning wildly, racing back toward the passing herd.

“This was a railroad setup! Let's go before we get ourselves killed here,” Wes shouted, firing again, this time just to keep the steers racing past them instead of into the alleyway.

“Get your brother out of here! I'll keep them back!” Claypool shouted above the rumble. He slung one of the sacks up over his cantle, jumped into his saddle and put his horse between the Traybos and the stampede. He fired his rifle straight up and levered another round.

“I don't need nobody . . . nursemaiding me,” Ty Traybo said weakly, swaying in his saddle.

“The hell you don't,” shouted Wes, pitching the other sack atop his horse in the same manner as Claypool. “Sit still and hang on to your horse,” he demanded.

“Bull . . . I don't need it,” Ty said, his voice sounding weaker still. He tried to pull his reins free from his brother's hands as Wes turned their horses toward the far end of the alleyway.

Watching, firing and relevering until the Traybos rode away and rounded the far end of the alley, Carter Claypool backed his horse a step and jerked it around to follow them. But just as he batted his bootheels to its sides, a shot sliced through the heavy billowing dust and nailed him in his shoulder from behind.

Damn it!
Not now!

Claypool flew sidelong off the horse's back as the animal bolted forward and raced away in the same direction of the two fleeing outlaws. As he hit the ground facedown, he felt the air explode from his lungs. He struggled to get up onto his feet, but he couldn't do it. Through a watery veil he saw his rifle lying in the dirt a few feet in front of him and tried to push himself toward it.

No good,
he told himself. He shook his head to clear it of whatever had crept down around him. But his head wouldn't clear. Instead it seemed to get worse. A darkness had him; it wasn't letting him go. He fought against it like a man struggling to keep from falling asleep.