Gunfight at Cold Devil Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  PART 2

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part 3

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Praise for the novels of Ralph Cotton

  “Cotton writes with the authentic ring of a silver dollar, a storyteller in the best tradition of the Old West.”

  —Matt Braun, Golden Spur Award-winning author of One Last Town

  “Evokes a sense of outlawry . . . distinctive.”

  —Lexington Herald-Leader

  “Gun-smoked believability . . . a hard hand to beat.”

  —Terry Johnston

  “Disarming realism . . . solidly crafted . . .”

  —Publishers Weekly

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, August

  Copyright © Ralph Cotton, 2006 All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-09989-6

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  For Mary Lynn . . . of course

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Ranger Sam Burrack stepped back from the crowded bar and left as quietly as he’d entered, through the rear door of Texas Jack Spain’s Gay Lady Saloon. A cold gust of air swirled in and dissipated behind him. Save for the bartender, Ned Rose, who’d poured him a shot of whiskey, and one of the old miners standing beside him, who had picked up the half-full shot glass and drained it when he’d left, no one had noticed the ranger among the early drinking and gambling crowd.

  “Didn’t say much, did he?” the old miner, Scratch Ebbons, commented to the bartender, wiping the back of his hand across his wiry gray mustache. Five feet away a potbellied stove glowed and crackled in the dim smoky light.

  “No, he didn’t,” said the bartender, having noted the sizable amount of whiskey the stranger had left, here in this cold land where whiskey and gold were held in equal reverence. Staring warily toward the rear door, he also noted to himself the way the pearl gray sombrero had remained tipped a bit more forward than was customary. Hiding his face . . . ? Ned asked himself. “Who was he? Did you know him, Scratch?” he asked the miner.

  Scratch gave a crafty grin and said, “It might be I could come up with his name, over a drink or two.”

  “I see, then,” said Ned, returning the grin goodnaturedly. His hand closed around a bottle of rye as if ready to pour. Yet, instead of holding the bottle toward the old man’s glass, he drew it back slightly and said in a quickly changing tone, “What say instead of me pouring you a drink, I knock what few teeth you’ve got out the side of your gawddamn head?”

  Before old Scratch could duck away, Ned Rose’s free hand reached out and grabbed him by his shirt, not letting him move. “Pl-please, Ned!” Scratch whimpered. “I was only funning! I meant no harm! If I knew who that feller was, I would’ve told you, for free! No drink needed!”

  “Yeah, I figured you didn’t know his name, you worthless old son of a bitch,” Ned growled, turning Scratch loose. “Get out of my sight!”

  As the old miner scurried away, Ned straightened his short black necktie and straightened the garters on his white shirtsleeves. He gave the drinkers across the bar from him a hard stare. “Any of you other old dolts ever seen that man before?”

  “The sombrero?” said an older miner called Rags Stiles.

  “Yeah, the sombrero, gawddamn it,” said Ned, sounding impatient. “Who the hell do you think we’re talking about here?”

  “Easy, Mr. Ned,” said Rags, not caring about Ned Rose’s growing reputation for having a white-hot temper and a fast gun hand. “You draw more flies with sugar than you can with . . .” He stalled for a second as if to recall what else drew flies. “Well, more than you can with . . . stuff not as sweet . . . as sugar that is,” he said weakly.

  “Jesus,” Ned muttered, shaking his head. “No wonder I’d like to strangle all you old bastards to death!”

  “As gray sombreros go,” said Rags, unmoved by Ned Rose’s attitude and insults, “there’s two from these parts I can think of. One is Whitey Stone, runs a big herd for some Englishmen north of the territory. The other is a ranger named Sam something or other. But this is too far up country for the ranger. He’d be way off his graze.”

  “Whitey Stone died of snake bite, is what I heard,” said one of the old men.

  “Me too,” another replied.

  “Sam Burrack!” said Ned Rose, ignoring the others’ comments, his senses seeming to pique suddenly. His right hand instinctively slipped behind the bib of his bartender’s apron and touched the bone handle of his Remington .45 caliber revolver. His voice lowered to a whisper to himself. “Christ, that’s him.”

  The old men looked back and forth at one another as the bartender walked away along the bar, not in a big hurry, yet not
taking his time either. “After a drink or two?” Rags said, mocking Scratch with a critical look. “What the hell was you thinking?”

  “Me?” said Scratch. “What the hell about you? Something not as sweet as sugar . . .” he said with equal contempt, all of them watching Ned Rose flip up a hinged flap at the far end of the bar.

  Rose walked across the hard-packed dirt floor and pushed his way through a collection of men gathered beneath a halo of cigar smoke. “I think you’re bluffing, mister,” he heard a voice say from amid the onlookers. “I think you’ve been bluffing all night and all day.”

  At the edge of a battered, round-topped gaming table, Texas Jack Spain looked up and saw Rose step into sight as he dropped stack after stack of twenty-dollar gold pieces into the center of the table. “It’ll only cost you another two thousand to find out, my friend,” he replied, speaking above the ring and jingle of newly minted gold. A cigar stood loosely cocked in the corner of his mouth.

  “That’s what I figured,” the cattleman sitting across the table from him said in a bitter tone. Inches from his right hand a LeMat horse pistol lay, its big bore agape, like some sleeping demon.

  Paying the cattleman little regard, Jack Spain motioned impatiently for Ned Rose to step over to him. “What is it, bartender?” he asked, sounding just a bit annoyed by Ned’s presence. “You know I don’t like being disturbed in a poker game.”

  “You told me to keep you informed of all strangers coming in,” said Ned, bending slightly and speaking up close, to keep the conversation between the two of them.

  Jack Spain pulled his face away from the persistent bartender. “Yeah, but use some good judgment, Rose!” he said. “This whole mountain range is made up of strangers. I don’t need to hear about one in the midst of a card game, do I?” He gave an annoyed smile and pulled back farther, as Rose tried leaning in closer.

  “This one I thought you might need to,” said the bartender, getting irritated himself. “He wore a gray sombrero—”

  “Jesus, Rose, back off!” said Spain, pulling his face farther away, this time with a wince, fanning a hand in front of his face. “Your breath smells like you’ve been chewing rabbit guts.”

  Rose’s face reddened; a chuckle arose among the bystanders. The cattleman gave a short grin beneath a thick mustache and commented idly, “I call you, Spain.” Adding his bid to the already large pile of chips, cash and gold coin lying in the middle of the table, he said, “That is, if it’s all right with your bartender here.”

  Before Jack Spain could answer, Ned Rose cut the cattleman a sharp stare. “Did anybody say a gawddamn word to you, Whitfield?”

  “Hey,” the cattleman replied, the grin gone from his face, his right hand tensing a bit, “there was no harm intended in my remark . . . nothing to get nervous about.”

  Rose took a step back and replied, “Nervous, am I?” His hand raised an inch, then streaked to the handle of the revolver beneath the bib of his apron. “Here’s nervous for you, you cow-sucking son of a bitch!”

  Leonard Whitfield saw the bartender’s move, but was too late to make a play of his own. Before he could even start to reach toward his big LeMat, Rose’s Remington came out, cocked and pointed, only inches from his face. “Who’s nervous now?” Rose shouted. The onlookers around the table stepped back warily.

  “Looks like you got the drop on me, bartender,” said Leonard Whitfield, no longer attempting to grab his gun, his hand slumping. Yet defiance shined in his narrowed eyes. “Now either pull that trigger or else stop wasting my time.”

  Rose’s gun hand stiffended. “My pleasur—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” shouted Jack Spain, cutting Ned Rose off. Half rising from his chair, he said, “Put that gun away, Rose! Jesus! This is nothing worth killing over! You know Whitfield! He’s never showed you anything but respect! Ain’t that right, Leonard?” he asked Whitfield, hoping for support.

  “I’m still sitting here,” the cattleman commented, staring straight into Rose’s eyes. “Where’s all your guts, bartender?”

  “Well, hell, then.” Spain shrugged. He stood the rest of the way up and took a step back from the table. “Let ’er fly, if you two can’t stand living!” He stared at Whitfield. “But he’ll kill you, deader than hell, Leonard.” He turned his stare to the angry bartender, adding, “And they’ll hang you for murder before Leonard’s washed and stuck underground.”

  Rose considered something for a second, something that didn’t appear to be a fear of hanging. At the end of his thought, he let out a breath, tipped the gun barrel up quickly and let the hammer down with a flick of his thumb and trigger finger. All the while his eyes never left Whitfield’s. In a lowered voice, he said to the unshaken cattleman, “You ever need to talk more about nervous, come let me know.”

  The whole barroom crowd watched in silence as Rose turned and walked away, showing his back to Leonard Whitfield. Only when he’d walked back behind the bar and lowered the flap on the bar top did the silence lift slowly like some unseen vapor. Then, in an even tone, as if nothing had happened, Whitfield said to Jack Spain, “Well, are you going to show me them cards? I damn sure paid enough to see them.”

  Spain took the cigar from between his teeth and shook his head. “Ned’s got a temper a mile wide but only a hair thick. I ought to fire his ass for pulling that kind of shenanigan.” As he spoke, he snapped his cards onto the green felt and spread them, a diamond ring glittering on his hand. “Two pair, aces over sevens.”

  “Damn it to hell,” Whitfield growled, flipping his cards away. “I wish he had shot me.”

  As he stood back behind the bar waiting on the drinkers, Ned Rose’s temper simmered, under control. But he had not forgotten Spain’s remark about his breath. When Spain had gathered all of his winnings and stopped long enough to take his big wool greatcoat from a peg on the wall on his way to the side door, he gave Rose a flat, smug grin and said, “Now, then, Rose, what was it you wanted to tell me about a stranger wearing a derby?” He threw the big coat around him and pointed toward the door. “Make it quick, I’m headed for the jake.”

  “It wasn’t a derby,” Rose said in a tight voice, gazing toward the door.

  “Well, whatever it was, you need to calm down, not to let things rile you so easily,” said Spain. He spread his arms in a grand manner, stopping long enough at the door to turn and say to the bartender, “Enjoy life. Learn not to take everything so serious!”

  Rose grumbled under his breath, watching Spain throw open the door and stride through it with a bounce in his step. No sooner than Spain walked out, Rose heard the deep thump of a metal gun barrel hitting human skull bone. Then, as quickly as Spain had left, he came staggering backward in three loose-legged steps, sinking lower with each step until he collapsed flat on his back and lay staring at the ceiling, knocked senseless. A blast of cold swirled in the open doorway.

  “Sombrero, is what I said,” Rose murmured to himself, a look of satisfaction on his face.

  The ranger stepped inside the door, his big Colt in hand, his eyes making a quick sweep across the room. “I’m acting Federal Marshal Sam Burrack,” he said, loud enough to be heard, but in a calm even voice. “I’m arresting Jack Spain for participating in a stagecoach robbery in Arizona Territory last fall.” He paused, his thumb across the hammer of his Colt, ready to cock it.

  “And I’m U.S. Marshal Pete Summers,” said a voice. From against the bar, a young man stepped back to the middle of the floor, swinging a sawed-off shotgun up from under his long riding duster. Looking straight at Ned Rose, Summers asked, “Does everybody understand us?”

  Rose shrugged. “I just tend bar here, fellows. I’ve got no fight with you two . . . unless you pick it.”

  “That’s a good attitude,” said the ranger, even though he noted a harsh tone in the bartender’s voice. Stepping in closer, stooping down over Spain as Spain moaned and tried to rise up onto his haunches, the ranger pulled out a pair of handcuffs, flipped Spain over his belly and pulle
d his arms behind his back. Marshal Summers held the crowd covered with the cocked shotgun.

  “Jesus!” said Spain, shaking his head in attempt to clear it. “What the hell is this?” His voice sounded thick. “You can’t just crack a man’s head with no word of warning!”

  “I decided it was better than having to kill you,” Sam said, clicking the cuffs snug around Spain’s wrists and dragging him to his feet.

  Staggering on wobbly legs, Spain tried to focus his swimming eyes on his bartender. “Damn it, Rose, are you just going to stand there?” he shouted in a strained and groggy voice. “Grab up that scattergun and let him have both barrels! These men are Arizona Rangers! They’ve got no jurisdiction here!”

  “I’ve never been a ranger in my life,” Summers called out, still keeping an eye on the crowd. “But I am a United Sates marshal—you can count on it.”

  “See? That’s good enough for me.” Rose raised his hands chest high, showing the two lawmen that he had no intention of trying any such thing. “No trouble out of me,” he said, stepping backward away from the bar.

  “You damn coward!” Spain said. “Don’t let them take me out of here! I can’t go to prison! I’ve got responsibilities! I won’t last a week in prison!”

  “You’ll do just fine, Texas Jack,” said Rose, concealing a smile. “Learn not to take it all so serious.”

  Spain stared coldly at him, his eyes starting to settle down and focus. “I’ll get a lawyer and I’ll beat this charge. I’m coming back, and I better find everything here just the way I left it, Rose. Or you’ll wish to God you was never born.”

  “I don’t want you to worry about a thing,” Rose said, grinning, ignoring Spain’s threat. He picked up a shot glass, inspected it and poured himself a drink. “Here’s to breaking rocks with hammers, Spain,” he said, raising the glass. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll keep a close watch on the Gay Lady.”