Black Valley Riders Page 9

  The ranger watched with a flat expression. Whatever situation had begun to act itself out between these two was of a personal nature, he told himself. He wasn’t sure how he could tell, but he could tell.

  Stepping closer to the ranger, Sandoval whispered in private, “As you were, Ranger. The captain knows what he’s doing.”

  The ranger only nodded. So does the gambler . . . , he said silently to himself. He hadn’t mentioned it, but ever since he’d seen the way Lucas had handled getting himself down from the tree, he’d begun to notice a different side to Tinnis Lucas.

  When Mingo Sentanza had reached what he considered a safe distance higher up the trail from the bounty hunters and the ranger, he stopped his horse and looked back across the dark valley floor. He smiled to himself. He liked the idea of taking off on Callahan’s horse and leaving the big Irish gunman there alone—him and his warm can of beans. The fact that he’d heard no gunfire the past few minutes told him that by now Callahan was either dead or in irons.

  Either way, good riddance. . . .

  He had been on the verge of easing over and slicing Callahan’s throat when he’d realized there were men slipping down around them in the night. But this was better, he thought. Let them kill Callahan, or take him prisoner.

  Still, just for good measure, he raised his Winchester from its boot, propped its butt down on his thigh and levered three shots straight up into the purple sky. “Who can say a damn thing?” he murmured, rehearsing his future explanation, should one ever be needed. He’d done exactly as he was supposed to do, except for abandoning his loudmouthed partner. “I warned you first,” he practiced saying to Shear. “Then I grabbed the closest horse and cut out.” He added with a grin, “Oh, poor Callahan is dead? Captured? That is too bad. . . .”

  He stared through the night in the direction of the cabin sitting across the wide valley floor. Then he slipped the rifle back into its boot, turned the horse and rode away.

  Across the valley on the front porch of the cabin, Ballard Swean stood up from his wooden chair with a blanket wrapped around him, rifle in hand. He stared off toward the sound of the distant rifle shots and wiped sleep from his eyes. The sound of voices came from within the cabin behind him. He searched the black far-off hill line as if something would reveal itself to him.

  “Did that come from our lookouts?” Shear asked, stomping out onto the porch, shoving his shirttails down into his trousers. He stood barefoot. He’d thrown his gun belt over his shoulder when his feet had hit the plank floor and drawn his big Dance Brothers pistol from its holster. He held it cocked and raised in his right hand.

  “Yeah,” said Swean, “it’s warning shots from Sentanza and Callahan. We’ve got somebody coming, no doubt about it.” He threw his blanket aside. “Want me to take some men out and set up an ambush along the trail?”

  “No, not this time,” said Shear. “We’re all set to move out come morning. We’ll just leave tonight instead. There’ll be plenty of places to pull an ambush between here and the north wall.” He uncocked the big pistol and let it hang in his hand.

  “If these sonsabitches want to come visit Black Valley, we’ll do our best to take them on a guided tour,” he said.

  Hearing the signal shots, the rest of the awakened gunmen came running up from all directions to see what Shear would want them to do.

  “We’re not running, are we, Big Aces?” a thin gunman named Ted Lasko asked, hearing what Shear had just told Swean.

  “Hell no,” said Shear. “But I want whoever’s out there to think we are, for the time being anyway.” He looked quickly around at more than a dozen gunmen gathering around him.

  “Tell us what you want, Big Aces,” said a gunman named Tobias Barnes.

  Shear said, “Toby, ride like hell ahead of us to the north wall pass.”

  “Hatchet Pass?” Barnes asked.

  “Yes,” said Shear. “You’ll find Metcalf and some men there. Tell him to start getting things ready, that we’re headed his way. As soon as we ride through the pass, I want him to be all set to close it off behind us.”

  “How many you figure there are, Big Aces?” Barnes asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Shear. “But it won’t matter. You’ve got enough explosives and equipment to turn back an army out there. Now get moving.”

  Shear slid his Dance Brothers back into its holster and turned and stomped back inside the cabin, Swean right behind him. Over his shoulder Shear said to him, “We won’t be coming back here for a while. Make sure you take all your gear with you.”

  “Will do, boss,” said Swean.

  In moments, Barnes had saddled his horse, mounted it and ridden away from the livery barn. The rest of the men had saddled their horses and hurriedly led them back to the cabin. They mounted their animals as Swean and Shear came back out onto the porch.

  “Where’s Fisk, Duckwald and Epson?” Shear asked in a gruff tone.

  From his saddle, Elmer Fisk called out, “I’m right here, Big Aces.”

  “How many do you say there are out there, Elmer?” Shear asked.

  “If it’s the same ones who killed our men in Minton Hill, there’s just the three I told you about,” Fisk replied.

  “The ranger and the two sailors?” Shear asked.

  “That’s right,” said Fisk. “The ranger and two bounty hunters,” he corrected.

  “Nobody else?” Shear said, as if making sure.

  Fisk looked at Epson and Duckwald. “Nobody else that we saw,” Fisk said, getting a little irritated that Shear pressed so hard. “Hell, I can’t say who might have come along and joined them.”

  “You three ride up front with me,” said Shear in a sharp tone.

  Feeling a tension set in among Shear, Fisk and the other two men, Swean said, “Hell’s fire, Big Aces, like as not, with this kind of a head start, they’ll be lucky if they get close enough to see our dust.”

  “I don’t like getting up and leaving my bed in the middle of the night for nobody,” Shear said. He stared hard at Fisk and the other two as he stepped down from the porch and walked to Pickens, who stood holding his horse for him.

  As Fisk, Duckwald and Epson stepped their horses over beside him, Fisk said, “If they get close enough to us, Big Aces, they’ll wish to hell they had our names in their mouths.”

  “If they get close enough to us, I’ll hold you to that, Elmer,” Shear said, jerking his horse around and booting it toward the north trail.

  Chapter 11

  “There went your element of surprise, Ranger,” Lucas said as the warning shots from the escaped trail guard’s rifle resounded off the hills and rolled out over the valley. His voice didn’t have its usual critical tone, or its whiskey-tinted edge to it. Sam had noted the gambler’s quiet sullenness ever since the earlier flare-up between him and Cadden Thorn.

  “It makes no difference, gambler,” Sam said over his shoulder, him and Thorn riding side by side ahead of Lucas and Sandoval. “We were going in with or without the element of surprise.”

  Lucas made no reply as they rode through the purple darkness. But over the next half hour, he let his horse stray back a few feet from beside Dee Sandoval. When Sandoval said nothing about him lagging back, he lagged back even farther and rode on. He could tell that the outlaw’s horse beneath him was still tired from a day on the wide valley floor. Yet, at a place where a path cut sharply down off the trail, he decided to make the move he’d been planning ever since his heated confrontation with the bounty hunter.

  Sam and Thorn both turned in their saddles at the sound of the horse’s hoove pounding away through brush and loose rock. Instinctively the ranger started to turn his stallion in pursuit, but Thorn stopped him.

  “I’d be obliged if you’d let him go, Ranger,” he said, holding a hand up as if to block Sam from turning off of the trail himself.

  Sam looked back and forth at the two bounty hunters, who sat calmly on their horses. He understood in an instant what had just taken place. Looking
at Sandoval, he said, “You let him ride away, didn’t you?”

  Sandoval didn’t answer; instead he looked to Thorn.

  “It’s all my doing, Ranger,” said Thorn. “I knew Lucas would make a run for it after our talk. But it’s all right. He won’t go join Shear and his men.”

  “It’s not all right,” Sam said. “And you can’t say that he won’t join Shear and his men. Even if he doesn’t, there’s still the matter of him stealing the horse and buggy.”

  Thorn said, “He kept his word. He led us here, just like he said he would. As to the horse and buggy, I will see to it the woman is paid for her loss.”

  Sandoval cut in. “Besides, Lucas can’t tip off Brayton Shear that we’re coming. The lookout guard’s shots have already warned him.”

  Sam looked at Thorn. “All right, Captain, you seem to know so much about the gambler. Why did he run away from us if not to join Shear?”

  “Because there’s something eating away inside him,” said Thorn. “Lucas thinks the only way to get rid of it is to outrun it.” He gave a tired smile in the grainy darkness. “I know this man. He has been running away ever since the war. That’s what the drinking is about.”

  “It’s his way of running away without having to even leave his chair,” Sandoval offered. “The way it is with most drunks.” He gazed to where the first light of dawn seeped up over the edge of the earth.

  Sam asked the older bounty hunter, “Where do you know him from, Thorn?” He eased his stallion over closer. “What was all that about between you and him last night? I have a right to know.”

  “Indeed you do, Ranger,” Thorn said, almost apologetically. He let go of a breath. “Tinnis Lucas was once a marine just like Mr. Sandoval and myself.” He paused for a moment as if to allow the information to settle. Then he went on. “He must’ve known it was only a matter of time . . . that I would recognize him sooner or later.”

  “Lucas, a marine?” Sam said. “That’s a hard one to believe.” But even as he spoke, he recalled how expertly the drunken gambler had handled the lariat.

  “I would not have believed it myself had I not seen it,” said Thorn. “Not only was he a marine, he was one of the best. The corps was his heart and soul.”

  “He served under you, Captain?” Sam asked.

  “No,” said Thorn, “I was not an officer back then. My commission came later. But we served at the same post, in Charlestown Harbor. His name was not Tinnis Lucas then. It was Tinnis Mayes.”

  “What happened to him?” Sam asked. “Why’d he change his name?”

  “The War of Secession is what happened to Tinnis Mayes, the same as it happened to many young marines at that time. We were given a choice of which side to fight for and Mayes choice the South.”

  “I see,” said Sam. “So he was in the Confederate States Marine Corps.”

  “Yes,” said Thorn. “But the CSMC never quite got its feet under itself. A few good men like Mayes were forced to be little more than ship and harbor guards.” He stared ahead as if in grim contemplation. “But Mayes refused to settle for that. He became a blockade runner—a spy if you will. Eventually he became a special assassin for the Richmond Ring. After the war, members of the CSMC were welcomed back into the ranks. But not Mayes. He was treated with the same ranker as William Quantrill and other border guerillas. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said ‘his hands are too bloody.’ ”

  Sandoval eased up beside the two and sat listening intently, even though the ranger knew he must be familiar with the captain’s story.

  “The day of President Lincoln’s assassination,” said Thorn, “before leaving for the theater, he was met at the White House by Missouri senator John Henderson, who brought two articles of pardon, one for Confederate spy Tinnis Mayes, and the other for confederate spy George Vaughn.”

  “I recall the pardon of George Vaughn,” said Sam. “He was to be executed in two days. Signing his pardon was the last official act the president performed before his assassination.”

  “Yes,” said Thorn. “Owing to the pressing nature of Vaughn’s case, and the fact that he’d been recruited into the Confederate Missouri State Guard cause by Martin Green, brother of U.S. senator James Green, the president signed his pardon on the spot, with an understanding between himself and the senator that he would sign Mayes’ pardon the next day. Mayes, having no political well to draw from, was never pardoned.”

  Sam shook his head at the irony of it. “Politics and paperwork.”

  “Indeed,” said Thorn. “It’s been the bane of the corps from the beginning.” He gave a bitter smile. “George Vaughn, the mercenary spy, went free. Mayes, the marine, while never prosecuted because of the common knowledge of Lincoln’s intent to pardon him, was branded a killer and became an outcast. I can only presume that is why he changed his name.”

  Sam gave him a curious look. “Marines are trained to kill.”

  “Yes, as are all military men,” said Thorn. “But there is a saying among the corps. ‘Calling a young marine a killer will get you saluted . . . Calling an old marine a killer will get you shot.’ ” He gazed at Sam for understanding. “I, sir, am an old marine.”

  “So, Mayes changed his name and became a drunk and consort of outlaws,” Sam reflected.

  “I don’t excuse him for it,” Thorn said. “His was a tough twist of fate, but it does not justify him turning to the company of men like Shear and his Black Valley Riders.”

  “What is it you want, then?” Sam asked.

  “To give him room,” said Thorn. “If he’s standing on the edge, I want him to fall in the right direction. He deserves the same chance as George Vaughn, and the more politically adept.”

  “He makes his own choices, Captain,” said Sam, “he pays his own freight.”

  “He’s a marine,” Thorn countered. “As a fellow marine I am blood-bound to protect his flank.”

  “A Confederate marine,” Sam pointed out.

  “A marine nonetheless, Ranger,” said Thorn.

  Sandoval sat watching in silence. “It is an understanding that all marines share. The blood of each of us becomes the blood of us all.”

  “There is another saying among the ranks, Ranger,” Thorn said. “It’s not something started by an act of Congress, or by any political movement. It’s something we marines say among ourselves. It’s Semper fidelis.”

  “Always faithful,” Sam translated. “I know what it means.” He looked at Sandoval, who had spoken the words to him back in Minton Hill. Then he looked back to Thorn. “I’ll go along with you on this, Captain. We’ll give the gambler all the room he needs. But if he throws in with Shear and shows up looking down a gun sight at us, I want your word that he’s dead.”

  “You have my word, Ranger Burrack,” said the captain. He turned his horse back to the trail, the ranger and Sandoval right beside him.

  In the morning sunlight, the gambler had pulled the horse off the wind-whipped valley floor. In a stand of sheltering white oak lining the bank of a thin runoff stream, he dropped from the saddle and plopped down on a rock. With his hands shaking he pulled the battered flask from inside his suit coat, unscrewed the cap and lifted it to his trembling lips.

  “Holy God,” he said aloud, taking the flask down and staring at it, “don’t let me run out of rye.” Pain pounded in his head beneath his sore and swollen scalp. He shook the flask upside down as if he didn’t trust his findings. He stared at it grimly and shook his head as the truth finally sank in.

  Why not . . . ? he thought to himself in a bitter tone of acceptance.

  He let the empty flask fall from his fingertips and lay back on the rock, his arms spread wide like a man awaiting his crucifixion. He pictured Thorn’s grim face, staring at him, staring through him, judging him severely. He thought about the squalor his life had become as he felt cold stark sobriety already beginning to take its toll.

  What have I done . . . ?

  The pain in both his head and his body grew more intense as the rye
left his system. He closed his eyes against the sunlight and let himself drift, wishing he could fall asleep and never awaken. But he did awaken, and fast, when he heard a horse chuff nearby, followed by the sound of a rifle cocking.

  “Well, well, if it’s not the Tinman,” said Mingo Sentanza, staring at him from fifteen feet away, his rifle in hand, aimed at the gambler’s chest.

  Well, hell, why not . . . ?

  “Do you have any whiskey, Mingo?” Tinnis said first thing, rising and sitting slumped on the edge of the rock facing him.

  “Huh-uh,” said Sentanza in a somber voice.

  “Well then, if you intend to shoot me, please do it this instant. Spare us both having to talk to each other,” the gambler said.

  “What’s the matter, Tinman?” said Sentanza. “You look like you’ve slept in a barrel of rocks.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Tinnis said. He touched his shaved and stitched scalp cautiously. “I’m out of whiskey at a time when I need it the most.” He sighed and added, “So, if you are going to shoot me, I’d just as soon we didn’t talk—”

  “Why are you riding my horse?” Sentanza asked bluntly, cutting him off.

  “Why are you not riding him?” Tinnis asked in reply, looking Callahan’s horse over.

  “That was me back there with Dolan,” Sentanza said with a jerk of his head. Noting that Tinnis wore no hat, he said, “Was that you I saw? You came walking out, but someone pulled you back?”

  “It’s likely,” said the gambler, recalling himself stepping into sight earlier on the trail only to be yanked back into cover by the ranger.

  “Is Callahan dead?” Sentanza asked.

  “Yes, he is,” said the gambler, “he took a sword through the heart. So, if you feel like you ought to go ahead and—”

  “I don’t care,” said Sentanza. “I was ready to kill him myself.”

  “Oh . . . ?” The gambler stared at him.

  Sentanza shrugged. “Anyway, I thought you were dead.”