Midnight Rider (Ralph Cotton Western Series) (12 page)

“I saw that,” the owner said, raising his eyes.

“No, you didn’t,” said Macon Ray, feeling full of himself after the night’s robbery. “You just think you did.” He drew his Colt and cocked it arm’s length in the clerk’s face before adding, “Otherwise you’d be calling me a thief and a liar right to my damn face.”

“You’re absolutely right, sir!” said the badly shaken
man as Kinney and Fackler both followed suit, raising their guns, cocked and pointed in the clerk’s face. “I—I don’t know what must have come over me!”

“That’s what I thought,” said Macon Ray. “You two grab that whiskey,” he told Kinney and Fackler. “This man all but called me a thief; he’s got to make recompense for it.”

They gathered the bottles of whiskey and left without paying, while the owner stared helplessly at them, grateful to still be alive.

With their regular saddlebags stuffed with whiskey bottles, they rode on in the night through the mining town of Black Hawk and on through Gregory Gulch, a stretch of scrub, craggy cliff and ledges strewn with torchlit hard-rock mines. The odor of wood smoke and burnt sulfur loomed in the chilled air above glowing smelter mills.

When the last flicker of torchlight and furnace glow fell away behind them, the three riders turned onto a narrow path leading up to a long-abandoned mining camp perched on a sawtooth ridgeline. At the edge of a clearing hidden behind a stand of pine, Macon Ray brought Joe Fackler and Albert Kinney to a halt behind him, seeing a dark figure standing on the porch of a run-down mining shack.

“Who the hell goes there?” an unfriendly voice called out from the dark porch.

“Hobbs, it’s us,” Macon Ray called out across the small clearing. “Ray Silverette, Albert Kinney and
Cockfighting
Joe Fackler.”

Fackler eyed Macon Ray in the dark.

“Nobody’s ever called me that, Ray,” he said.

“I just thought it fitting after what you did to Dirty Dave,” Macon Ray said with a dark chuckle.

From the porch, Parnell Hobbs called out, “Where’s Dave Atlo?

“In hell, I expect,” said Ray. “But that’s a long story, best told closer up.”

“Come on up, then, Macon Ray. Let me get a look at you,” said Hobbs.

As Macon Ray nudged his horse forward, Joe Fackler and Albert Kinney following right behind him, Fackler grumbled, “I don’t like being called Cockfighting Joe. Don’t get it started, Ray.”

“Or
what
?” Macon Ray asked, feeling satisfied, the saddlebags full of money across his lap. “You going to shoot
me
?”

Joe started to cock the shotgun lying across his lap, but he thought about the money and eased his thumb off the gun hammers.

“I just don’t
like it
, is all,” he said, the three of them drawing closer to the porch.

“Who don’t like what?” asked Hobbs as the three came to a halt and he stepped forward off the dark porch. He eyed the saddlebags across Macon Ray’s lap, Ray’s rifle lying atop them.

“Fackler here don’t want to be called Cockfighting Joe,” said Macon.

“Who’s calling him that?” asked Hobbs.

“I am,” said Macon Ray. He looked past Hobbs as the shack door opened and two more men stepped onto the rickety porch.

“Howdy, Raymond Silverette,” said a lean old gunman named Latner Karr. He struck a match and lit
a thin cigar. Then he stepped forward, eyeing the saddlebags. “Whatever’s in the bag, I bet it recently belonged to somebody else.”

“Howdy, Latner,” said Macon Ray, recognizing the old man in the flicker of match light. “You’d win that bet,” he added. “It’s money, and some of it’s yours for letting us hole up here.”

On the porch, a sightless outlaw named Simon Goss stepped forward, testing his footing with each step. Following the sound of Karr’s voice, he stopped and stood beside him. His right hand rested against a large Walker Colt hanging down his chest by a lanyard cord.

“What kind of money? How much is there?” he asked with great interest, his blind eyes searching aimlessly in the night. “Is some of it mine?”

“Howdy, Blind Simon,” said Macon Ray. “It’s money we
thieved
from Andrew Grolin’s
thieves.
” He grinned proudly. “And damned right, some of it’s yours—all three of yas, like I said,” he added.

Latner Karr stared knowingly at Macon Ray.

“Andy Grolin’s men could be right on your ass, is that it, Raymond?”

“No, we got away clean as soap,” said Macon Ray. “I’m just wanting to lie low awhile. Cockfighting Joe here threw Dirty Dave Alto over a cliff. I’m taking charge.”

“Stop calling me that name,” Joe said in an angry tone. “And I didn’t throw Dirty Dave over a cliff. I forced him to climb down over it on his own.”

“At the end of that goose gun he’s packing,” Macon Ray added, gesturing at the shotgun on Joe’s lap.

“And he’s dead now?” said Karr. “You’re certain of it?”

“Yep, I’m certain of it,” said Ray. He pulled Dirty Dave’s pistol from his belt slowly and pitched it down to the lean old gunman. “You know how partial he was to this six-shooter.”

“He wouldn’t give it up without a fight,” said Karr, inspecting the pistol in his hand.

“He got himself gut-shot by Lonnnie Bonham, so he was dying anyway,” said Ray. “But that’s the end of his string. Whatever he
was
, I now
am.
” He smiled proudly and patted the saddlebags. “I’m hoping you three will celebrate with us.”

Latner Karr looked off along the path they’d ridden in on. “I need to mull it over,” he said.

“You do that, Lat. But believe me,” said Macon Ray, “nobody knows we’re here.” He lifted the saddlebags and pitched them to the ground at Karr’s feet. Blind Simon jumped a step at the sound of bags landing in the dirt. “So, mull it over while you help me count this money,” he added with a sly grin.

“I smell whiskey,” said Blind Simon, sniffing the air toward the three horsemen. “Cigars too.”

“The
nose
on this man, I swear to God,” said Macon Ray. He shook his head in amazement.

Before daylight, Casings and the Stillwater Giant stood back holding the horses as Rochenbach rapped on the side door to the trading post where Macon Ray and his men had stopped for whiskey in the middle of the night. When the door opened a crack and the owner looked out and saw the three trail-weary gunmen, he almost gasped at the sight of the Stillwater Giant staring at him. He quickly began to slam the door shut, but Rochenbach’s big boot jammed against the bottom of the door, stopping him.

“We mean you no harm,” Rock said.

“That’s what everybody says before they cut a man’s throat or bludgeon him to death!” He struggled in vain to close the door.

“Not us,” said Rochenbach, keeping his boot planted firmly. “We’re tracking three men who robbed us on the trail down from the mines. I saw fresh tracks at your rail. Were they here in the night?”

“Will they come back and kill me if they find out I said they were?” the owner asked shakily.

“Point us right and they won’t be coming back at all,” Rock said firmly.

“Are you the law?” the man asked, still wary, seeing Rochenbach’s big Remington belly gun, the rifles hanging in each man’s hands.

Instead of answering, Rochenbach started to turn away from the cracked door. “I’ll tell all their friends we came by here—how well you helped us find them,” he said.

“Hold it! Wait a minute!” said the post owner, seeing the three men were ready to leave.

Rochenbach stopped and turned back to the door; it opened wider.

“They were here, sure enough!” said the owner. “They took whiskey and cigars, never paid a penny for either. Those kind of men never do.” He looked Rock up and down and added quickly, “Not that I’m anybody’s judge, you understand.”

“I understand,” Rochenbach said. “We’ll be obliged if you’ll sack us some food and boil us a canteen of hot coffee for the trail.” Seeing the dubious look on the man’s face, he fished a gold coin from his coat and flipped it to him. “For pay, of course,” he added.

“Yes, sir, coming right up,” said the trading post owner, catching the gold coin and hefting its weight on his palm. “I’ll meet you at the front door and let you in.”

The three walked around to the front of the log and stone building and waited for the man to unbolt the front door.

“How much farther is it to the Apostle Camp?” Rochenbach asked Casings.

“If we don’t spend too much time here, we’ll be there midmorning, maybe sooner. But don’t expect to ride in and find these three alone. They’re like us. They’ve got men everywhere. Some drift out, others drift in. There’s an old blind road agent named Simon Goss who lives there most times.”

“Blind, huh…?” said Rochenbach. He thought it over. “We’ve got no fight with anybody except the ones who have our money,” he said.

“That’s good,” said Casings, “because you never know when we might need to lie low there ourselves. Blind Simon’s a good man to keep on our side.”

The Stillwater Giant grinned and said guardedly, “Yeah, let’s not forget we’re some far-handed long riders ourselves, eh?”

When the door opened and the three stepped inside, the owner stared up at the Giant in awe. A canteen in the Giant’s huge hand looked more the size of a tin of salve.

“I—I’m going to give you the pot of coffee I just boiled for myself a few minutes ago,” he said. “No need in me holding you fellows up from your search.”

“Obliged,” came the Giant, handing him the empty canteen.

In moments, the canteen had been filled with hot coffee. The owner also packed a flour sack with fresh morning biscuits, tins of beans and a venison shank wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string.

“I’m going to make change for you,” the owner said, sliding the flour sack across the worn-slick wooden countertop.

“Keep it for your trouble,” said Rochenbach as
Casings picked up the sack and the Giant took the canteen of coffee in his bag hand. Leaving the store, the three unhitched their horses, stepped up into their saddles and turned the animals toward the trail.

“That’s the biggest man I ever saw in my life,” the trading post owner said aloud to himself, watching the riders fade back into the silver morning darkness from which they’d come.

Blind Simon Goss was the first of the outlaws to awake from a drunken sleep. He’d spent the rest of the night wrapped in a blanket, sitting in a wooden chair he’d dragged out onto the front porch and leaned against the front of the shack. A burnt-out cigar hung from his lips.

The warmth of morning sunlight creeping up his face had been the first thing to rouse him—but there had been something else pushing its way into his sleep. He’d begun to catch the faint scent of man and horse wafting up from the trail winding down the hillside.

Without opening his sightless eyes, Simon slid his hand over the stock of the shotgun lying on his lap. He put his thumb over both hammers and pulled them back.

Lying on the porch beside him, wrapped in a ragged blanket, Parnell Hobbs snapped his eyes open at the metal-on-metal sound. A cigar fell from his mouth.

“What is it, Simon?” he asked in a hushed tone, his fingers searching around for the burnt-out cigar. Under his blanket, his free hand went to the Colt holstered on his hip.

“Riders climbing the trail,” said the blind outlaw, his sightless eyes roving aimlessly along the far side of the clearing. He spoke with a whiskey slur in his voice.

“Are you tracking their scent, or hearing them or both?” Hobbs asked, standing up stiffly, sticking the cigar back between his teeth. He let his blanket fall to the porch and picked up his repeating rifle, which was resting against a post. A half bottle of whiskey stood beside the rifle. He reached for it and pulled its cork.

“I’m smelling them,” said the blind outlaw, “but I’ll be hearing them when they make the last switchback.” At the sound of the cork leaving the bottle with a soft
plop
, he reached a hand out in the direction of the whiskey.

Hobbs took a long swig and put the bottle into Goss’ hand.

“I best wake everybody up,” Hobbs said, turning to walk inside the shack.

“We’re already awake,” said Macon Ray, meeting Hobbs at the door, swinging his gun belt around his waist. He puffed on a freshly lit cigar. Behind him, Joe Fackler and Albert Kinney stood dressing in the light of a smoldering hearth fire, each with a cigar burning between his fingers.

Latner Karr stood by the hearth in his gray and frayed long-john underwear, sipping coffee from a thick mug. He clasped a bottle of whiskey in his other hand.

“You said nobody’s dogging you, Raymond,” he said in a prickly tone.

“I’m still saying there’s not,” said Macon Ray. “Far as I know, he could be smelling a mail buggy.”

“He knows the smell of a mail buggy, drunk or sober,” said Hobbs, standing in the open door.

From his porch chair, Blind Simon lowered the whiskey bottle from his lips and wiped his shirt cuff across them.

“They’re at the switchback turn,” he said. “Now I can hear them. Two of them,” he added. “It
ain’t
the U.S. Mail.”

“The
ears
on this man!” Macon Ray marveled, shaking his head. As he spoke, he slung the saddlebags of money over his shoulder.