Escape from Fire River 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

  Chapter 8

  PART 2

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  PART 3

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Teaser chapter

  TRICK OF THE TRADE

  “Now you must turn me loose, and you must face me man-to-man, with no tricks.” Degas’ eyes took on a dark gleam. “For now I must kill you, Senor.”

  “One-on-one? No tricks?” Shaw asked, letting go of the wad of shirt in his hand. “You’re not going to have your pals all try to shoot me down?” As he spoke, he lowered his Colt and eased down the hammer.

  Degas watched him almost in disbelief, seeing him lower the Colt back into its holster. A cocky half smile formed as he said, “They go their own way, Senor. I can promise you nothing.”

  “I understand,” said Shaw, watching Degas start to back away and prepare to draw. He sidestepped quickly and spun around, snatching Degas’ gun from its holster just as the big Mexican made a grab for it. Degas’ hand slapped his empty holster. Shaw spun again just as the three men made a grab for their guns. This time, his arm around Degas’ neck, he turned to face the gunmen, using Degas as a shield as he shot the first man down. . . .

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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

  First Printing, November 2009

  Copyright © Ralph Cotton, 2009

  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.

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-14078-9

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  For Mary Lynn . . . of course

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Trabajo Duro, the Mexican Badlands

  At the end of a clay-tiled bar, Lawrence Shaw lifted a water gourd to his lips and sipped from it. Outside, the shadows of evening had overtaken the harsh glare of sunlight and left the sweltering Mexican hill line standing purple and orange in the setting sun. In a corner of the Pierna Cruda Cantina Burdel, a guitarist strummed low and easy.

  Yet even as the music seemed to soothe any tension in the warm air, the player doing the strumming kept a wary eye on the three trail-hardened americanos who had arrived only a moment earlier, slapping dust from their clothes. “Like the sign reads, ‘Welcome to the Raw Leg Cantina and Brothel,’ gentlemen,” the owner, Cactus John Barker, had said, translating the name into English for them as the three stood side by side at the bar. “What is your pleasure at the end of this hot, hellish day?”

  “Rye whiskey if you got it, mescal if you don’t,” said a man in a no-nonsense voice. A red dust-filled beard covered his face. He wore a weathered duster, and a long riding quirt dangled from his wrist.

  Cactus John quickly set three shot glasses in front of them and filled each from a dusty bottle of rye.

  “The Raw Leg, huh?” said another of the gunmen, casting a sour look all around the cantina.

  “Yes, the Pierna Cruda,” the owner said, beaming proudly. “It’s your first time here, so I’ll tell you—I serve the strongest drink this side of the border. I make it all myself, and I taste it myself, so I know it’s the best.” He gave a toss of his hand as if saluting his distilling abilities.

  “West of the border takes in a heap of land,” the red-bearded gunman replied flatly.

  The three eyed a couple of half-naked women up and down appraisingly and threw back their shots of rye. The man with the red beard motioned for the owner to refill the glasses. “Pour them to the brim,” he said gruffly. “I never liked drinking short.”

  “Yes, sir. I see you fellows have arrived with a powerful thirst,” Cactus John said nervously. He’d taken note that these men had walked in from the hitch rail like men who were there for a reason other than to quench their thirsts for strong drink or to sate their visceral needs for female companionship.

  Like the owner and the old guitar player, Shaw had sensed trouble the second the three had pushed aside the ragged striped blanket covering the doorway and stepped inside. He had deftly pulled one corner of his poncho up over his shoulder. Also, like the musician, he had continued on with what he was doing as if they weren’t there. Yet, unlike the guitar player and Cactus John, he had little doubt who these men were, why they were there or what was about to happen.

  “Gracias,” Shaw said to the young woman who handed him the water gourd. She stood behind the bar, awaiting its return when he’d finished drinking. The three men had ridden with the late Jake Goshen’s gang. They had found the hoofprints of Shaw’s and his pal Jane Crowly’s horses and begun following them across the border the day before.

  Their reason for trailing him was not because they wanted to reap vengeance on him for having killed Jake Goshen and leaving him lying in the dirt. They were following Shaw looking for stolen gold—a freight wagonload of it. There had been wagon tracks leading from Bowden Hewes’ spread along Fire River, where they had found Goshen’s body. But then the t
racks had vanished in the hill country, and only the hoofprints of Shaw’s and Jane’s horses remained.

  The gold had been stolen from the Mexican National Bank in Mexico City more than a year earlier. A week ago, Shaw, along with U.S. Marshal Crayton Dawson and his deputy Jedson Caldwell, aka the Undertaker, and a Mexican government agent named Juan Lupo had taken the gold back from Goshen and his gang. They had retrieved the loot just in time, before Goshen had a chance to melt it all down from German sovereign coins into untraceable ingots. But hanging on to the gold had proven to be no easy job. The borderlands were crawling with gangs of gunmen, outlaws intent on having the gold for themselves.

  And here is where they find me . . . , Shaw mused to himself.

  “Puedo hacer más por usted, señor?” The young woman asked Shaw with a suggestive smile if there was more she could do for him. She wore a string-tied cut peasant blouse that she kept pulled low and open in front, revealing her wares to the buying public.

  “Gracias, no hoy,” Shaw said courteously, turning her down but thanking her and leaving her offer open for another day. He laid a coin on the bar for the water and wiped his hand across his lips.

  At the end of the bar one of the three gunmen said to the other two in a voice loud enough to make certain he’d be overheard by Shaw, “I hate a place that don’t speak American.”

  The man with the red beard replied, “It is rude and unfriendly in Old Mex, and that’s a fact.” He dropped a gold coin onto the tile bar top. “Once across the border it appears all civil manners go to hell.”

  Facing the three from across the tile bar, Cactus John picked up the money quickly and said, “I myself am a born Texan, but I welcome all kinds of talk here.” He gave a shrug of acceptance.

  “Nobody asked you a damned thing, barkeep!” said the red-bearded gunman. “So keep your tongue reined down, ’less you want to lose it.”

  Cactus John stared back at him coldly, thinking about the sawed-off shotgun lying under the bar.

  The girl standing across from Shaw gasped. She hurried from behind the bar, water gourd still in hand, knowing that at any second bullets would be flying.

  Shaw almost sighed. He knew the gunmen would get around to him shortly. First they wanted to make a strong impression, he decided, feeling their eyes all turn toward him. “While we’re here, there will be nothing spoke at us or around us but American,” said the red-bearded gunman. “Everybody got that?”

  Shaw only returned their cold stare.

  “You there,” one of the men said to Shaw. “Is that your speckled barb at the rail?”

  Shaw’s reply was no more than a single nod of his head.

  “Where you coming from?” he asked.

  Shaw didn’t answer.

  “Mister, I asked you a question,” the red-bearded gunman demanded.

  “No hablo,” Shaw said quietly.

  The three gunmen looked at one another. “No hablo?” one of the men said with a dark chuckle. “He must think we’re joshing.”

  “Aw, to hell with this,” said the younger of the three, “let’s not pussyfoot around here.” He stepped back from the bar and faced Shaw with his hand poised near his gun butt. “You’re one of the lawmen, ain’t you? One of them who raided Hewes’ place over at Fire River. You helped Juan Lupo take back the gold.”

  Shaw made no move, no corrections in his stance, no drop of his gun hand to shorten the distance between it and the big Colt standing holstered on his hip. It had all been done earlier, in unhurried preparation. “Yep,” he said in a calm, flat tone.

  The other two stepped back from the bar and flanked the younger gunman. The one with the red beard said in a tight, angry voice, “You fellows thought you’d escape Fire River with a wagonload of gold? You were dead wrong. Now, where is it?”

  Seeing that this trouble didn’t involve him, Cactus John dropped low and ran in a crouch from behind the bar and out the rear door. The guitar player and the half-naked women seemed to disappear into the walls like apparitions. “I spent it,” Shaw said in the same flat tone.

  “You spent—!” the third man started to say.

  But the younger gunman cut him off. “You’re real funny, Mister!” he said to Shaw, his hand grabbing his black-handled Smith & Wesson and raising it.

  “Yeah, for a dead man!” said the tall red-bearded gunman, reaching for his Dance Brothers revolver at the same time. The third man took a step back and made his move a split second behind the other two.

  Outside, Jane Crowly had seen the three sweaty horses that had shown up at the hitch rail while she’d gone to a small general store for a bag of rock candy. She’d returned with a bulging jawful of horehound candy and heard the language turn heated and loud on her last few steps toward the blanket-covered doorway. Oh hell . . .

  She jerked to a sudden halt when she heard the roaring gunshots resound so heavily that dust rose from the window frames and plank walkway. Then, recovering quickly, hearing the commotion of falling men and running boots, she raised her shotgun butt and slammed it hard into the striped blanket just as the third gunman came fleeing through the doorway.

  Inside, Shaw stood with his Colt in hand. Gray smoke curled from the gun barrel and upward, as if caressing the back of his hand for a job well done. He stared in surprise as the third man flew back into the cantina, striped blanket and all, and landed flat on his back on the dirt floor.

  “Is it safe to come in there, Lawrence?” Jane asked, her voice distorted by the lump of candy in her jaw.

  Shaw stared at the third gunman lying knocked out cold, his head half wrapped in the dusty blanket. “It’s safe, Jane.”

  Jane poked her head in first and looked back and forth, first at the two bodies lying in the dirt, then at the man she had nailed with the shotgun butt. “Lordy!” she said. “This one won’t be coming to before Christmas.” She noted a bloody bullet hole in the man’s right forearm and inquired of Shaw, “Are you feeling poorly today?”

  “I only meant to wound him,” Shaw said. “I’d like to know how far word has spread about that gold coming across the desert.” He looked all around the empty cantina, making certain no one had overheard him.

  Within minutes the cantina had returned to normal. Cactus John Barker was back behind the tiled bar, wiping it with a wet cloth, removing a long streak of splattered blood. The half-naked young women had wandered back in and taken up their places, eyeing the bodies and the bloody bar top, and whispering among themselves as they stared in wonder at Shaw.

  “He killed them both?” one of the women asked another in Spanish.

  “Si, both of them,” the other girl replied in the same tongue.

  While the third gunman lay limp and unconscious, Jane had cleaned and bandaged his wounded forearm. By the time he began to come around, she and Shaw had propped him up in a wooden chair at a table. Villagers had ventured in and dragged the two bodies out into the dirt to await a hasty burial. Looking out through an open window, Shaw watched a skinny dog creep up and lick dried blood from the face of the red-bearded gunman lying in the street.

  Jane, standing next to the wounded outlaw, said, “This one is starting to wake up.”

  “Good,” said Shaw, turning toward them.

  The gunman’s head bobbed on his chest, and his eyes fluttered and tried to stay open. “I swear I feel almost bad, hitting him so damned hard,” Jane said. She winced as she lifted his head with her fingertips and examined the darkening swollen imprint of the shotgun butt across his forehead.

  “Ohhhh, my head,” the gunman moaned. His head lolled to one side for a moment before he collected himself and looked up through bleary eyes. “What—what hit me?”

  Jane glanced at Shaw and took on a sharp tone with the gunman. “Hell, I hit you, Mister. You and your pals come in here starting trouble with my amigo. You’re lucky I didn’t bash your brains out . . . if you had any.”

  “I’m—I’m still addled,” the man moaned, rubbing and batting his red eyes. “I
hope this is something that’ll go away.”

  Shaw stepped over to his chair, looked down at him and said, “The only reason you’re alive is because I want to know how many of Jake Goshen’s gunmen are still running loose out here. Are you going to help us out?”

  “There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know.” The man shrugged and held his good hand cupped to his throbbing forehead.

  “Give it a try,” Shaw said firmly.

  “I ain’t been riding with Goshen long—just since I got out of Yuma Prison,” the man said reluctantly.

  “Start with you name,” Shaw said. “I don’t recall ever seeing you before.” As he spoke to the battered gunman he motioned for one of the women to bring over the water gourd. Then he reached out, flipped open the man’s vest and pulled a small-caliber hideout gun from a side shirt pocket.

  Seeing his hideout gun leave him, the man sighed and shook his head in resignation. “All right. I’m Roy Heaton,” he said freely. “I just finished pulling five years, breaking rocks at Yuma, for robbing two stagecoaches over near Cottonwood. They weren’t the only ones I ever robbed, but they was the only ones I got caught at and convicted for.”

  “Roy Heaton, huh?” said Jane, eyeing him up and down skeptically. “Roy Heathen is more like it.”

  “I’m just trying to be honest,” said Heaton with a shrug. “I had lots of bad breaks in life. I took to crime as a way of trying to—”

  “What about the men left from the gun battle over at Fire River?” Shaw asked, cutting him off, not wanting the man to ramble on about his criminal past.

  The gunman had to shake his swollen head a little to get it working. “I can’t say for sure,” he said. “There’s a hell of a lot, though. Twenty or more. Since last year when Jake and his closest circle robbed the depository, everybody and their brother has swarmed in wanting to ride with him.”