Midnight Rider (Ralph Cotton Western Series) (13 page)

“Are you going to run or fight?” Karr asked, a long stub of a stolen cigar stuck behind his ear. He sipped from his bottle and chased it with a gulp of coffee. “There’s two of them, six of us. We’re beholding to siding with you, for the money and the whiskey.”

Joe Fackler, Albert Kinney and Macon Ray looked at one another.

“Six to two…,” said Macon Ray. “What do you say? Do we make a stand, or make a run?”

“I’ll get our horses,” Joe Fackler volunteered. He turned and hurried out the rear door toward a small lean-to shed barn.

“Uh-oh,” said Blind Simon, his right ear turned to the path leading into the stand of pine, “they’ve speeded up!”

“Can you three slow them down while we cut out of here?” said Macon Ray.

“
Slow them down
?” said Hobbs. “Hell, we can stop them cold, far as that goes.”

“Kill the lot of them, is what we’ll do,” Blind Simon said drunkenly. He leaned his chair forward from the wall and stood up, letting his blanket fall. He held his cocked shotgun in one hand, his Walker Colt hanging down his chest by its lanyard cord.

“That’s the spirit,” said Macon Ray. He hurried off the front porch and grabbed his horse’s reins as Fackler ran around the side of the shack leading the animals.

When the three outlaws had mounted and booted their horses off along a higher path behind the shack, Simon stood in front of the shack, a morning breeze blowing into his face.

“Come on, Simon,” said Karr, his gun belt strapped around the waist of his long johns. “Let’s get you inside the house. Me and Hobbs will flank the front yard.” He turned the blind outlaw and led him onto the porch. Blind Simon followed stiffly.

“I don’t want to hide and fight,” he protested with a whiskey slur. “I want to fight straight up.”

“You’re drunk, Simon,” said Karr, leading him through the front door into the shack. “Now settle down.” He positioned the blind outlaw at an open front window and helped him level his cocked shotgun out across the window’s ledge.

“They’re coming through the pines!” Simon warned with a sniff of the air.

“You stay right here, Simon. Start shooting when we do,” said Karr. “Don’t shoot any ways except straight ahead.”

“You got it,
mi amigo
,” said the aged, drunken blind man.

Hobbs’ eyes widened as he spotted the Giant’s huge lurking figure among a stand of saplings. His cigar dropped from his mouth.

“There they are!” he shouted, opening fire into the pines with his repeating rifle.

A hundred feet from him, Karr also spotted the Giant and started firing. Then he saw Casings as the outlaw brought his rifle around the side of a larger tree to return fire and draw their rifles away from the Giant, who stood helplessly ducking bullets like a man being attacked by hornets.

From a cliff edge higher up the trail behind the shack, Macon Ray Silverette brought his horse to a halt, swung the animal around and looked down at the shack and the clearing below, seeing the gun battle rage.

“That’s the way, old-timers,” he said with a merciless grin. “Go down fighting.” He looked at the other two and said, “Not a bad investment, eh? A little whiskey and a few dollars for all that protection?”

“They’re going to get them-damn-selves killed down there,” said Albert Kinney, sticking his cigar back into his mouth.

“Better them three than us three, right, Cockfighting Joe?” said Macon Ray.

Joe Fackler glared at Macon Ray.

“I’ve told you more than once now, I don’t want to get that name started, Ray,” he said.

Macon Ray only chuckled and said, “Relax, take it easy! I’m only funning you.” He swept a hand toward the gunfight below them. “Think how good you’ve got it. We could be down there getting shot.”
He turned his horse back to the trail and said, “Now come on, let’s go spread our wealth around some.”

The other two fell in behind him, but before they got their horses onto the trail, they stopped short and sat staring at Rochenbach, who sat staring back at them from atop his dun, the horse standing crosswise, blocking their path. His big Remington stood out at arm’s length toward them, cocked and aimed.

“Hello, now!”
Macon Ray said in surprise. “Who the hell are you?”

Even as Ray asked, his right hand went for the Colt holstered on his hip. The other two outlaws went for their rifles lying across their laps.

But Rochenbach’s Remington wasted no time. The big pistol began bucking in his hand, firing with precision into the three gunmen he’d caught off guard.

His first shot hit Macon Ray squarely in the chest and sent him flying backward from his saddle, slamming him into Joe Fackler’s horse behind him, causing it to spook and rear high. Fackler fired, but his shot went wild from atop the frightened animal. Rock’s second shot hit Fackler in the head, the impact causing both man and reared horse to fall backward and slide over the edge of the cliff.

Albert Kinney’s rifle bucked in his hands. His shot sliced through Rochenbach’s coat sleeve, grazing his upper arm. But before Kinney could lever another round into the rifle chamber, Rock’s third and fourth shots nailed him dead center and sent him flying sidelong to the ground.

Rochenbach cocked his forearm, raising the smoking
Remington shoulder high as he looked back and forth, making sure the fight was over.

At the edge of the cliff, he heard the thrashing and scrambling of hooves and started to swing his Remington toward it. But then he stopped and watched as Fackler’s horse climbed over the edge, shook itself off and stood on shaky legs staring at him, its saddle hanging halfway down its side.

In the clearing below, the gun battle continued. Rochenbach stepped down from his saddle, walked over and picked up the saddlebags of money that Macon Ray had been carrying across his lap. He opened the bags, looked the stacks of money over and was relieved to see the bulk of it was still there.

It won’t be for long,
he told himself.

Then he closed the bags and slung them over his shoulder. The question crossed his mind again, What was anybody doing with so much cash on hand? Even with a big steel safe to keep it in, a night watchman looking over it?

He turned at the sound of a weak choking cough and saw Macon Ray raise himself from the dirt on both palms and turn over on his elbows. Blood ran freely down his chest and from his lips.

“Did I ask… who are you?” Ray managed to say.

“Yes, you did,” said Rochenbach, seeing the man was on his last few breaths. “I’m Avrial Rochenbach.” He reached out, loosened the cinch on Fackler’s horse and dropped its saddle to the ground.

“That Pinkerton detective… who came over?” said Ray.

“That’s me,” said Rock. He loosened the cinch on Macon Ray’s horse’s saddle and dropped it to the dirt.

Ray saw his horse standing bareback. He sighed, knowing what that meant.

“Of all the sumbitches I could have robbed…,” he said, and he lay back down on the ground and closed his eyes.

Hearing the firing stop in the clearing below, Rock loaded the bodies over their horses’ backs and tied them wrists to boots under the horses’ bellies with rope he’d taken from Fackler’s saddle horn. He stepped back into his saddle with the three horses’ reins in hand, turned them to the trail and led them down.

In front of the shack, the Stillwater Giant stood drinking water from a canteen, watching as Rochenbach approached, leading the three horses and their grisly loads behind him. On the ground beside the Giant, Pres Casings sat stooped over Latner Karr, holding a bottle of whiskey to the wounded old outlaw’s lips.

“Dang,” said the Giant in his deep voice. “It looks like Rock kilt all three of them.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Casings. He looked out at Rochenbach for a moment, then back to Karr, who lay sprawled in the dirt in his long johns, leaning back against the porch, his chest covered with blood.

“Want me to take a look at it?” Casings asked, nodding at the blood-soaked, wadded bandanna Karr held against a gaping exit wound in his chest.

“You never… seen one?” Karr asked in a strained voice.

“I thought I might help you some way,” Casings said.

“Just keep that whiskey bottle close… ’til I fade on out of here,” said Karr. Still, he raised the bandanna
for a second and let Casings get a look at the bleeding fist-sized hole in his chest.

Rochenbach stepped down from his saddle and stood over the downed outlaw. The Stillwater Giant took the reins to the three horses and tied them to a hitch rail. Rock caught a glimpse of the bullet hole in Karr’s chest before Karr closed the bandanna down over it.

“He was shot by his own man, from behind,” Casings said up to Rochenbach.

Rochenbach shook his head and looked all around the clearing. Ten yards away lay Parnell Hobbs, flat on his back, dead, his face missing, in its place an open bloody hull.

“That one shot himself somehow,” said Pres. He turned back to Karr and gave him another drink from the whiskey bottle.

Karr swallowed the fiery rye and let out a whiskey hiss.

“He was running with a cocked shotgun… stumbled and blew his damned head off…,” he wheezed. “The poor bastard.…”

Rock let out a breath and looked at the third man lying a few yards away beneath a big pine tree.

“That one came running out of the shack shouting, shooting wild in every direction,” said Casings. “He’s the one who shot this one.” He gestured a nod at Karr.

“You had to shoot him,” Rock said.

“No, we didn’t shoot him,” said Casings. “He ran smack into that tree. Hasn’t moved an inch since. Giant unarmed him and left him lying there for the time being.”

“I take it that’s Blind Simon Goss?” said Rochenbach, staring out at the downed man who looked to be peacefully sleeping.

“How’d… you guess?” said Karr in a weak but sarcastic voice.

“Want me to go tote him over here?” the Giant asked, holding the canteen out in his huge hand for Rochenbach to take.

“Yes, bring him on over,” said Rock. Taking the canteen, he said, “Obliged,” and sipped while the Giant trotted away to where Blind Simon lay knocked out cold.

“I… know you,” Latner Karr said, squinting up at Rochenbach. He raised a weak bloody finger toward him.

“Do you, now?” Rock said flatly.

“You’re that… detective who turned outlaw.”

“That’s me all right,” Rochenbach said, knowing the old man wasn’t going to be talking much longer.

“Some say… that’s a lie,” said Karr. “Some say you’re… still a lawman… working among us ol’ boys. Doing all… the damage you can.”

“Do they, now?” said Rock, sounding disinterested. He noted the questioning look Casings gave him.

“If you are… you should rot in hell,” Karr said, sounding weaker as he spoke. “Admit it.…”

Rochenbach and Casings looked at each other, then back to the dying outlaw.

“Go on… admit it,” Karr persisted, coughing, wheezing.

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Rochenbach. “Looks like you’ve found me out, old-timer.”

“I knew it,” said Karr. He settled back and closed his eyes.

After a moment, Casings stood up, holding the whiskey bottle in his hand.

“He’s gone,” he said. He looked at Rochenbach and said, “He was talking out of his head, what he said about you.”

“I saw no point in arguing with him,” said Rock. “He’s probably not the first man to ever suggest I’m still a lawman.”

“If you were, you sure fooled the hell out of all of us,” Casings said, seeing the Stillwater Giant walking up, carry the knocked-out blind man effortlessly in his arms.

Dismissing the matter, Rochenbach said, “We’ve got a problem.”

“What’s that?” Casings asked.

“I checked the bags,” said Rochenbach. “There’s nowhere near ten thousand dollars in them.”

“There was that much,” Casings said. “We both saw it. They didn’t spend nothing for the whiskey and cigars.”

“I know,” said Rochenbach. He turned to his dun, pulled the saddlebags from across his saddle and pitched them to the Casings. “But it’s gone. See for yourself.”

Casings caught the saddlebags, opened them and looked inside, shaking three stacks of money around.

“Jesus, you’re right,” he said. He reached down into the bags and pulled up a handful of loose dirt and gravel. He let the dirt pour from his hand. “Whoever
was carrying the bags was out to skin the others out of their share.”

“That’s how I figured it,” said Rock. “But who did it? Was it Dirty Dave Atlo skinning Macon Ray and the others, or Ray doing the skinning after he got his hands on the money?”

“Looks like we’ll never know,” said Casings. He pulled up the three stacks of money, looked at them in disgust, then dropped them back in the bag. “We’re down to three thousand, more or less. Grolin will throw a fit.”

“How will he know it was ten or three?” Rochenbach asked, leading him toward something.

“Spiller, Shaner and Penta will all three say it was ten thousand when they get back,” said Casings.

“I see what you mean,” said Rochenbach, and he let it sit for a moment as the Giant walked up and settled the half-conscious Blind Simon in the chair on the porch.

“Maybe we just tell Grolin what happened: We followed Macon Ray here, but the money was gone.”