Yuma Prison Crashout, page 22
“Monk!” Morgan Maynard shouted in the darkness. “They’re torching the damned place!”
“Vamanos.”
Fallon saw Monk Quinn leaping into his saddle.
“Amen!” Preacher Lang said.
“Let’s go.” Fallon stood. He found Gloria Adler’s horse, first, undid the reins, felt another arrow slam into the hovel. She took the reins, leaped into the saddle, and galloped into the night.
Good girl. Fallon boosted the doc onto the horse. Fowler just stood there. An arrow went between him and the horse’s head.
“Ride, Doc. Get the hell out of here!”
Morgan Maynard thundered past, pulling the string of pack mules behind him.
But Doc Fowler had not budged when Fallon was on the bay. Another arrow creased the back of Fallon’s neck. This one drew blood.
Fallon slapped the rump of Fowler’s horse, and the horse bolted south. Fallon galloped beside him, leaning low in the saddle, watching Fowler keep looking back.
Then the damned fool reined up.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The bay raced past the doctor, and Fallon swore underneath his breath, wheeled the horse around, and came back to the doctor, who was trying to turn the horse around and go back to the carnage and the Indians. The horse fought. It wanted to ride south after the others—for good reason.
“Damn it, Doc!” Fallon said.
“My bag!” The doctor pointed at the grip a few yards beyond the jacal and the rain barrel. Fallon could see it clearly now. The flaming arrows had done their job, and flames and smoke roared out of the opening of the post. The ground in front of the place was bathed in fiery light. Even from here, Fallon could see arrows slamming into the body of Percy Marshall. He looked like a porcupine.
“I need my bag!”
“You don’t need any more whiskey, Doc.” Fallon raised his hand to slap the horse’s rump again.
“It’s medicine, damn you! Medicine!”
Fallon lowered his hand. He looked at the doctor but could not see him well enough in the darkness to read his face, his eyes. “Ride, damn it,” Fallon said. “I’ll fetch your bag.”
Kicking the bay’s ribs, he leaned low in the saddle. The hooves thudded against the dirt. He could hear the Indians whooping, and feel arrows as they flew over his back. As the trading post, the grip, and Percy Marshall’s gruesome corpse came closer, Fallon leaned low, to his left, away from the Indians and their arrows. He gripped reins and horn with his right hand, lowered his left. The piece of luggage appeared to be bouncing up and down and left and right, but Fallon knew that the carpetbag wasn’t moving. What was moving was the bay and Fallon’s body.
The ground rushed past him. He stretched his hand as far as he could. Fallon’s fingers found the handle, closed around the leather instantly, the grip came up, and Fallon righted himself in the saddle.
The Indians no longer whooped. They didn’t even fire any more arrows at him. They cheered. They cheered.
They cheered him as he turned the horse to the left and circled around the corrals, through the darkness, and made a wide loop around the burning jacal that had once been a trading post but now was a crematorium for a dishonest, dead man named Diego. He came out, back on what passed for a trail, and looked back once. He saw the Indians lifting what had to be Percy Marshall’s body. They tossed it into the burning building too.
The Colt Lightning bounced painfully across his chest, but he couldn’t do a thing about that. It was the only place where he could hide the weapon. Monk Quinn would be sure to see it if he stuck it in his waistband. And the moccasins he had scrounged from the trading post and put on were too short to hide the pistol there. The double-action. 38 wasn’t as big as a Peacemaker, but it wasn’t the derringer that Preacher Lang carried. Too bad, Fallon thought, it had been the consumptive Marshall who had caught that arrow in the neck, and not Preacher Lang.
Fallon rode into the night, holding the grip in his left hand. Bottles rattled. Fallon sure hoped the doc had not been lying and that the carpetbag had medicine. Not liquor.
Although right about now, he thought, he could sure use a stiff drink.
* * *
He saw the horses on a little rise to the east, so Fallon slowed the bay to a trot and eventually reined in. He counted the animals first. A few short of the number, but Fallon figured that had to be Monk Quinn’s bunch. The two missing horses could be out scouting . . . for Fallon, or Indians, or checking the trail ahead.
Fallon reached inside his shirt, and rearranged the Colt Lightning, making it harder to see. He felt his sternum. There would be a bruise there, but at least Fallon had a weapon. As long as Monk Quinn didn’t find it. As long as Doctor Jerome Fowler didn’t let the killer know. Fallon hefted the carpetbag and placed it on his lap. He kicked the bay’s ribs with the heels of his moccasins and eased his way through the night toward the small hill.
“My friend,” Monk Quinn said as Fallon stopped the bay and let it breathe. “You came back.” Quinn’s head shook.
Fallon saw Gloria Adler and Doc Fowler. He turned the horse and let the horse walk to them, where he swung the carpetbag over and handed it to the doctor.
“You owe me, Doc.” His eyes bore through the drunk’s.
“Yes.” Fowler managed to clear his throat. He took the bag and turned in the saddle to secure it behind the cantle. “Thank you, Mr. Fallon. Thank you, kindly.”
Monk Quinn repeated. “You came back.”
Fallon turned the horse around, but he did not ride to Monk Quinn. He searched the hill and realized Captain Allan and Yaqui Mendoza were gone.
“Where could I go? Other than back to Yuma?”
Had he thought about riding north? Fallon had to ask himself. Or even turn west? He was in California. He could have disappeared in San Diego, maybe Los Angeles, or that gold town called Julian or something like that. Change his name. Disappear from Monk Quinn and Sean MacGregor. See if San Francisco was everything people said it was. No. It never even crossed his mind, and now he wondered why. His eyes landed on Gloria Adler, but just for a moment.
“That is true, my friend. Where is your hat?”
Fallon looked up and even brought his left hand to his head. The Lightning was under his right shoulder. He didn’t want to move his arm too far from the pistol. He wore no hat.
“Blew off in the night,” Fallon said. He was looking at Monk Quinn. “Didn’t even realize it.”
“You’re having no luck with hats, my friend.”
“Can’t be lucky about everything.” At least his neck had stopped bleeding.
“It is true. And Percy Marshall? Is he truly dead?”
“The Indians were throwing him into hell when I looked back,” Fallon said.
“Shouldn’t we be riding?” Morgan Maynard asked. “I can still see the flames from that greaser’s tradin’ post.”
“We are in Mexico,” Quinn told him.
“Those Injuns don’t care nothin’ ’bout no borders, Quinn. And they might be comin’ after our scalps.”
“I think they will be satisfied with Percy Marshall. And the army from Fort Yuma is likely there by now.”
“We’re still too close to the American border for me to be comfortable, Quinn,” the preacher said.
“Snakes come out at night,” Quinn said. “We will rest here for a while. Dawn is not far off.”
“I hear that traveling through the desert is best done at night,” the preacher said.
“I like to see where I’m going.”
“I know where you’re going, Quinn. That’s to hell. Just like Percy Marshall.”
“You are free to go, my friend. Ride out. Find your flock and preach to them.”
Lang chuckled. His horse snorted. “I think I’ll just wait with you, Quinn.” The leather creaked as he swung out of the saddle and stretched his legs. “Besides, I’ll need me some of that gold bullion to build me that church. A temple in the desert. Blessed be thy Lord God’s name, and his name is . . . Matthew Ezekiel Lang.”
So they would be here a while. Fallon stepped out of his saddle and walked the bay back toward Doc Fowler and Gloria. The doctor was drinking from a bottle, which he lowered when he saw Fallon.
“A bracer,” the doctor explained sheepishly. He corked the bottle and slipped it into a pocket.
Fallon wrapped the bay’s reins around a rock and walked to the horse.
“There is medicine in my grip,” Doctor Fowler tried to explain.
“There won’t be if you keep it tied like this.” Fallon loosened the knots Fowler had made and retied the ugly piece of luggage. “What kind of medicine?” he asked, the question popping into his mind suddenly.
“My own invention,” the drunk said, and straightened in the saddle. “Bread and clay, mixed with ammonia and gunpowder. A poultice.”
Fallon stepped away from the horses and studied the doctor. Bread and clay? That sounded new to him, but he knew about gunpowder, and he knew about ammonia. He turned and stared at Monk Quinn, but the killer was looking off toward the southeast.
Gunpowder had been the remedy back in Gads Hill. Fallon remembered when a rattlesnake had bitten little Jodie Reynolds when Fallon had been twelve years old. Fallon’s father had been the first to get to the boy, and Fallon remembered his father breaking open a paper cartridge for a Navy Colt. He had sprinkled the powder on the two fang marks and quickly struck a match.
“That’ll do it,” his pa had reassured the sobbing youngster, and then went on to explain to Fallon. “That should burn the venom right out.” He had nodded his reassurance.
Ammonia? Well, at least three deputy marshals that Fallon had ridden with in Arkansas and the Indian Nations carried small bottles of ammonia whenever they traveled. They all proclaimed that was the best way to treat snakebite. You just poured it over the bites. It certainly sounded less painful than burning gunpowder over the punctures.
On the other hand, Jodie Reynolds survived both the snakebite and the cure applied by Fallon’s father, and was showing off the scar on his arm for years and years. Probably still showing it off, Fallon figured.
The ammonia? Fallon couldn’t swear to it one way or the other. None of those lawmen had even been bitten by a snake, as far as Fallon remembered. That said, it had to be a better method than the only other he recalled.
Slicing an “X” across the punctures with a knife and sucking out the venom, and then spitting it out. He recalled a song, but couldn’t remember the lyrics, about a girl being bitten by a snake and her lover coming to cut the wound and suck out the poison. The girl died anyway and her lover had a cavity that took in the rattlesnake’s poison and wound up killing him too.
So Doc Fowler had combined the ammonia and the powder with a poultice. And Monk Quinn was deathly afraid of rattlesnakes.
Doc Fowler kept talking. “Some other medicines. Anchor brand laudanum. Kimball’s white pine and tar cough syrup.”
“Is that it?” Fallon asked.
“No.” The doctor started to speak again, but Fallon cut him off.
“The snakebite stuff. That your idea?”
“You know whose idea it was, Fallon,” the doctor said, but lowered his voice to a whisper. “That’s why he brought me along. Or asked me to join him. He had seen me treat prisoners after they have been bitten by snakes. He had asked about my poultice. Then, later, he took me into his confidence. He is scared beyond reason of rattlesnakes.”
“A lot of people are,” Fallon said.
“Not like Quinn,” Gloria Adler said.
“True,” Fowler said. “Quite true. But if he had not this irrational fear of rattlesnakes, I would not be here. I would not have this opportunity to make a fortune.
Opportunity? Fallon shook his head. Fortune? Quinn will kill us all when he’s finished with us.
But Fallon nodded as if he agreed with the drunk. “What else?” He gestured at the grip, and looked away to study Monk Quinn some more.
“Some alcohol,” Fowler said. “And whiskey, of course. Plus my own small surgical kit. And bandages. Speaking of which . . .”
Fowler dismounted. When Fallon turned toward him, the doctor gently forced his head back toward the southeast. “Your neck, sir.”
“It’s nothing, Doc,” Fallon said.
“Until it gets infected. Gloria. Bring me my grip.”
* * *
The medicine burned, but Fallon gave Doc Fowler credit for an otherwise gentle touch. He cleaned the arrow wound thoroughly, then wrapped it and taped it, and even handed Fallon a tincture.
“For the pain,” Fowler said.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Fallon said.
“Yes,” Fowler said, “it does.”
Fallon handed the tincture back. “Let’s just say that I want to keep my mind clear.”
The doctor shrugged, then slipped the tincture into his pocket. “I don’t,” he said, and grinned. “That’s why I drink.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Captain Allan returned first, riding in easily from the north.
“Well?” Monk Quinn asked.
“Indians scattered like birdshot. Army patrol galloped up, and the bucks headed back home. The soldier boys were busy putting out that fire. A few of them rode a bit south, trying to figure out what had happened, but they must’ve known we were well across the border, so they didn’t do much more lookin’. Anyway, the Bluebellies won’t come after us. I’m certain of that.”
“And the Indians?” Quinn asked.
Allan shook his head. “They’re back in their wickiups. Pretending that they never left their camps, that they don’t know what happened at Diego’s.”
“And Percy Marshall?”
Allan chuckled. “Those Injuns done us all a favor. They must’ve tossed him into the burning buildin’. Now, that place wasn’t nothin’ more than mud and dirt, but from all the tequila spilt inside that hellhole, well, it burned hot and long and big. No way they’ll be able to tell that was Percy Marshall. Won’t be able to tell him from the bones left of Diego’s carcass. If that fire didn’t burn the bones too. Is Mendoza back?”
“Not yet,” Quinn said.
About ten minutes later, Mendoza rode in. He slugged down water from his canteen and smiled.
“The way to the trail is clear,” he said. Reaching at his side, he patted the handle of the machete that stuck out of the sheath. “The farmers will give us no trouble. The dog will not even bark.”
The big man reached inside his shirt and withdrew a mass of black hair and held it up, letting it dangle. Fallon realized that it was a scalp.
“If we go to Valle Verde, they still pay a bounty for the scalps of Apache.” He chuckled, let the hair dance in the wind, before he returned it to the inside of his shirt.
“The thing is, it is hard to tell the difference between the scalp of an Apache and the scalp of a peon farmer.”
Quinn nodded and looked at the graying sky. “Dawn is near. We should ride.” Twisting in the saddle, he looked at the others. “Mount your horses. We ride to our gold. Nothing can stop us now, my friends. Nothing.”
* * *
They rode in silence. Monk Quinn took the point. Captain Allan brought up the rear, riding just behind Fallon, who had been given the job of leading the pack mules. The Colt Lightning had found a more comfortable position under his right arm. It didn’t bounce so much, especially since they kept their horses at a walk.
They were still walking when the sun peered over the horizon.
Heading southeast, they passed a silent farm. Buzzards were already circling overhead, and Yaqui Mendoza chuckled with content and contempt as they passed his handiwork.
Nobody spoke. Fallon’s stomach tightened. He wanted to spit, but thought if he did that he might just vomit. They had no reason to murder the family, or even the dog. Fallon looked at the sky and shook his head.
Yaqui Mendoza and Monk Quinn were idiots. They had butchered those poor people so they could not tell any Mexican authorities that a bunch of norteamericanos had ridden past. Yet the buzzards would bring someone here.
* * *
At mid-morning, they came to a stream, and formed a line to let the horses drink. Fallon led the mules a little farther downstream, then rode into the shallow water. His bay and the mules drank thirstily. So did the horses upstream of him, and the riders drank from their canteens.
Fallon’s throat was parched, but he made no move for his canteen. He looked at the dust on the other side of the stream.
“Quinn.” That was Captain Allan’s voice. He had seen the dust too.
“I see it,” Monk Quinn said.
The Rurales rode around the bend in a column of twos. Ten men, including a scout wearing a sugarloaf sombrero and a young lieutenant in a spotless uniform despite the dust. The eight soldiers wore dirty uniforms, mismatched, and carried old rifles. Fallon saw that the lieutenant had the flap closed over the revolver on his right hip. His saber clanked against his thigh and the saddle as he rode forward, raising his hand and calling out for the column to halt.
They drank water on their side of the stream. Monk Quinn’s group remained on the far banks. And in between, though out of the line of fire from both parties, in the middle of the stream, was Harry Fallon on his horse and holding the rope to four pack mules.
The lieutenant spoke in rapid Spanish to the scout, who returned with grunts. The scout either did not speak English or he said he was as close as he wanted to be to these men. The lieutenant spoke to his men, but all eight heads shook.
So the young Mexican sighed and kicked his horse into a trot. He glanced at Fallon, who wanted to warn the fool, but by this time it was too late. Fallon pressed his arm against the hidden Lightning. He twisted in the saddle and looked at Gloria Adler. To his surprise, she was staring at him.
He motioned with his hands for her to drop out of the saddle. He patted his canteen, and she understood. She removed the canteen and slipped out of the saddle. Her legs splashed in the water. She led the horse away a little bit and let it drink.
Monk Quinn and Yaqui Mendoza rode into the water to meet the young officer.
