The Speculator Line Read online

  The

  Speculator

  Line

  A short story

  By

  Trace Conger

  Copyright © 2014 by Trace Conger

  This short story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

  I crouched at the cabin window squinting down the sights, my Sharps fifty rifle digging into my shoulder. I could see the marshals riding up. Six of them. They kept their distance, just out of range, getting organized, in no hurry to rush in. Some were milling about, talking to one another and pointing toward our cabin. Others were finding spots to wait us out, kneeling down and propping their rifles against the wooden fence posts about a hundred yards out.

  Two hours ago Smilin’ John bailed me and Indian Joe out of the Cedar City jail by way of two dead deputies. He shot one through the gut as soon as he walked through the jailhouse door. The other, who was sitting at the desk, tried to stand up and draw his pistol at the same time. In too much of a hurry, he blew a hole in the floor before Smilin’ got him under his left eye. Then Smilin’ propped up his feet on the same desk and waited for the sheriff to return with his keys. When the sheriff walked in, Smilin’ raised his Colt and gave him the chance to surrender his keys or skin his pistol. The sheriff slid his keys across the floor just before Smilin’ shot him through the chest. He said the sheriff was going for his iron, but I didn’t see it.

  The marshals were already in Cedar City on account they were going to take Indian Joe and me to St. George for some shit that happened awhile back. Smilin’ got to us first, and that probably pissed them off. It didn’t take the marshals long to close on us. We stopped at Smilin’s cabin to grab some gear before riding out of town for good this time. But those marshals were quicker than we thought.

  Normally, I like our odds against six men. Hell, once, back in Wichita, Indian Joe, Smilin’ and me were holed up in an old barn facing down a dozen or so townsfolk. We showed ‘em real quick what they were up against. We came inching out of that barn, rifles raised, firing one round after another, smoke rising up in the air like the ground beneath us was on fire.

  Those townsfolk? I could see their eyes get real big. And that’s when I knew we had them. Once we saw those eyes, we knew their hearts weren’t in it. The way they scattered, you’d think someone rang the dinner bell. When you’re not keen on the job, it doesn’t take much to convince you maybe you’d be better off back home hugging on your wife or kissing your kids instead of facing off with three outlaws who know how to sling a rifle. It makes you rethink your priorities. I got nothing against men running away from a gunfight, especially when they know they’re outgunned.

  But these aren’t townsfolk. These are marshals, and you can bet their eyes ain’t getting big. And they ain’t thinking about their kids neither. The only thing on their minds is how to best bring us in without getting dead. No, they’ll wait us out, and when they thought the time was right, they’ll come. Hunkered down in that cabin our odds weren’t too good to begin with, and they were getting worse by the minute. Smilin’ knew it too. He was posted at the other window, rifle raised. Indian Joe was collecting grub and bullets from the back room.

  The marshals wouldn’t wait us out forever. It might take them some time to figure the best way to smoke us out, and once they did, it’d be over quick. Marshals don’t take kindly to men who shoot deputies, not to mention a sheriff, and there really was no reason not to blow us full of holes. It’d be easier to transport us in pine boxes than in leg irons.

  That made our decision an easy one. Plus, night was coming, and that wasn’t good.

  “How many you see?” Indian Joe said from the back.

  “I see six,” I said.

  “Better chance of more coming than some leaving.”

  “Yup,” I said. “Think it’s time we ride out. Just as soon die on my horse as holed up in here.”

  “Let’s buy us some time,” Smilin’ said, still crouching at the window, one eye staring down that silver barrel. He pulled the Winchester’s hammer until it clicked and slowly moved the barrel to his right, leading someone. I watched through my binoculars from the window. One of the marshals was still sitting high on his horse. Watching the cabin with his own set of peepers. He was motioning with his arm to someone, maybe telling his men to move forward, but they weren’t going nowhere. Not yet.

  With a click and a crack, the Winchester’s hammer fell. The marshal still sat snug in his saddle. Smilin’ was as good a shot as me, but no one could hit a man from this range with that rifle. Now my Sharps, well, that’s another story.

  The bullet whizzed past the marshal and his horse and plugged a large oak tree behind them. Smilin’s second shot was closer. It skimmed a fence post. That one must have got the marshal’s attention, because he hopped down from his horse and crouched behind the fence.

  “That’ll give ‘em something to think about,” Smilin’ said. “Let ‘em know we ain’t sitting around shittin ourselves in here.”

  Indian Joe slid our saddle bags across the floor. I could hear the lead knocking together inside.

  “If we’re going, let’s do it now,” Indian Joe said.

  No shame in running when you’re outgunned.

  Indian Joe was the first one out of the cabin. In the ruckus, I don’t think he saw the lawman crouched behind the horses. The marshal sprung up, and before we could even focus on him, he was squeezing the triggers on his double-barreled shotgun. His first barrel tore into the big Indian, splitting his gut wide open. The back door caught most of the second barrel. What didn’t end up in the door’s sun-bleached pine planks found its way into Smilin’s right leg. He dropped his rifle and grabbed his leg, eyes closed and teeth clenched. The third shot didn’t come from the marshal. He tossed the empty shotgun and went for his revolver, but I fired before he could draw. Got him square above the knot in his red bow necktie, dropping him like a sack of horse feed.

  Smilin’s mouth was wide open now, and I could see the chaw stains on his teeth.

  “Bastard was untying our horses,” I said. “Gonna trap us inside that cabin. Make us shoot our way out.”

  Had the marshal got to our horses, we’d be pinned down just waiting for death to come and get us. Now, at least we got a fighting chance. I figured the marshals would be heading for us fast after hearing the shots. Probably wishing they hadn’t sent their man in alone. Now they were one down.

  “Can you ride?” I said watching the blood leak down Smilin’s leg. “They’ll be on us like my pappy on a whore’s back. We gotta go. Now.”

  “I’ll manage,” Smilin’ said, his mouth back to normal now.

  I helped Smilin’ onto his saddle and smacked his horse, sending him toward the trail. I followed, looking back at Indian Joe slumped over the water pump, blood pooling all around him. I saw those marshals coming around that cabin on horseback. They got a few stray shots off before stopping to check on their man.

  Smilin’ and I had used the cabin before and knew the terrain pretty good. The trail led to a mountain pass that had tall vertical cliffs on each side. High ground is perfect for an ambush. The escape route was one of the reasons we used the cabin whenever we was in Cedar City. We’d hid in the cliffs before. Once, last winter, we took out a small posse who came looking for us. They followed our tracks in the snow until they rode up on our horses standing and snorting in the winter air, saddles empty. They just sat there look
ing around like we’d vanished. Then one of them looked up the cliff and there we were. We started firing and dropped all those boys before they even got a shot off.

  Once you clear the pass, you cross the tracks of the old Speculator Line. Then it’s wide open until you reach Cedar Canyon, which has more trails than I can count on mine and Smilin’’s hands. If we could make it through the pass, across the tracks, and into that canyon, those marshals would never see us again. That was the plan.

  The pounding of the marshals’ horses was faint, but it was getting louder. I knew the marshals wouldn’t follow us up a blind trail. Too easy for us to settle in and then open fire once they rounded some rocks. But, they would come once they gave us a good cushion. Once they thought it was safe. It’s what marshals do.

  Any other time we’d have just waited for them on the cliffs and picked them off one by one, but not with Smilin’s leg dripping like that. Maybe he didn’t want to let on how bad it was, but I’d seen buckshot wounds like that before. Cactus Charlie West got a few, and now he’s buried in a bone orchard up on a hill in Dodge City. But, I’d also seen a big Mexican shove a knife in Smilin’s gut. Smilin’ bit that Mexican in the face and tore off a big hunk of skin, then pushed him to the ground, and stomped him dead with his boot. That Mexican’s face turned to red mush right in front of me. Smilin’ left that knife in his own side for two days before getting fixed up in Albuquerque. His boots are still red on the sides from the stomping. After seeing him kill that Mexican, I figured I wouldn’t count him out of any fight, and I won’t count him outta this one.

  We were three hours on the trail before we came to Coal Creek. Had about an hour ride to get out of the pass. Smilin’ was holding his reins with one hand and pressing a neckerchief into the holes in his leg with the other. I didn’t like the idea of stopping with marshals on our tail. If they caught us on foot, we were in trouble. I reckon no one ever outruns a group of mounted marshals with their boots, and I didn’t want to try to be the first, but we couldn’t ride these horses too hard. They needed water. And so did we.

  I climbed down from my horse, led him to the creek, and propped my Sharps against a splintered tree trunk aiming back the way we came.

  Smilin’ slid off his horse and rinsed the blood-soaked neckerchief in the water. After dipping it in and out a few times, he wrung it out, pressed it back against his leg, leaned against his horse, and gave me a look I’d seen before, just not from him. Eyebrows up and a little more white around the eyes than normal. The last time I seen that look was on the marshal’s face before I blew a hole in his throat back at the cabin.

  “You got a plan on where we’s headed?” Smilin’ said. “Or you just hope’n those marshals lose interest?”

  “Well, the way I see it, one of two things is gonna happen. Those marshals catch up with us and we’re gonna have to dig in somewhere in this pass and get to shooting. Or maybe they’ve already split up, and one or two of them are tracking us up there on that cliff. If they get ahead of us, they’ll settle in and shoot us down when we cross them.”

  “You got any options where we don’t die?”

  “Not unless we beat them to Cedar Canyon, but that’s a long ride.”

  “You’re overlookin’ the obvious.” Smilin’ removed the neckerchief from his leg to show me the four buckshot wounds, each the size of a copper nickel. “That’s a two-days ride, and I figure I ain’t got that much time.”

  “Maybe. The other plan is we go back the way we came. Shoot our way through those marshals. Get back to Cedar City and get you fixed up there. We could be there by midnight.”

  “Thought the plan was to get away from those marshals, not ride up to ‘em.”

  “You got a faster way to a doctor?”

  “We come at those marshals in this pass and we won’t need a doctor, we’ll need a preacher.”

  Smilin’ was right. If we hit those marshals from the front, we’d be on the losing end of a quick fight. This creek was no place to dig in and make our stand, and the sides of the cliffs were too steep in this part of the pass, so we couldn’t climb up and double back around them.

  “Then we’ll let them come to us,” I said. “The tracks of the old Speculator Line are covered with brush. Plenty of cover to lay low and wait for those marshals to come out of the pass. Pick them off one by one. Then we head back to Cedar City on the quick, get you stitched up and put this whole thing behind us. Might even have time to give Indian Joe a proper burial, too.”

  “That’s an hour’s ride. Better stop bitchin’ about it and get to git’n.”

  We filled our canteens, mounted our horses, and rode out.

  The moon hung like a noose overhead, and Smilin’ swore he’d never seen one brighter. We came out of the pass and into the canyon foothills. Brown and gray grasses and sagebrush bushes slapped our horses’ legs, while juniper trees and cactus clawed at our faces. The tracks of the Speculator Line carved through the foothills like a sidewinder up ahead. The trees and brush offered enough cover to sit and wait for the marshals to come out of that pass. No better place to make our stand.

  We waited, hunkered down in those foothills, horses tied off on a juniper, but those marshals didn’t come. Waited for what seemed like two hours, just lying there, sights pointed right at the pass, but nothing. Smilin’ thought they might have made camp in the pass, but if they wanted to get to us before we scattered into that canyon they’d have to keep moving. Of course, maybe they didn’t know about those canyon trails, not being locals and all. Maybe they thought they had all the time in the world to track us.

  My rifle was fixed on that pass, and I was shaking off sleep. Smilin’ was breathing real deep. Those buckshot holes were weeping down his leg and he was sitting in a puddle of his own blood. When he’d change positions, roll to one side to shake off a cramp or something, he’d smear his innards across the dirt.

  “What’cha think, they comin’?” Smilin’ said.

  “Wouldn’t have turned back.”

  “Where the hell are they then?” Smilin’ was talking slow now. “Couldn’t be that far behind us.”

  I didn’t know how much time Smilin’ had with that leg the way it was. We couldn’t wait forever. I stood up and grabbed my Sharps. “Keep those horses quiet, and if you see those marshals come out of that pass before I get there, for shit sake, start shooting. Just make sure it ain’t me you’re shooting at.”

  Smilin’ didn’t say anything, just cocked that rifle hammer and squinted down the barrel. Like everything was okay.

  I walked back into the pass, but didn’t see those marshals. The cliff wasn’t as steep here, so I climbed straight up, rifle and saddle bag across my shoulder. Once I got to the top, I crouched down and closed in. I stayed low to the ground so the moon wouldn’t give me away and was careful not to let any rocks slip down the side.

  I’d walked about a quarter mile when I saw the campfire in the middle of the pass. I dropped to the ground and crawled closer, the butt of my Sharps dragging behind me. When I was close enough, I slipped the binoculars from my saddlebag.

  I counted three of them, huddled close to the campfire. That worried me because I knew there was at least six back at the cabin before we made out. I didn’t count the marshal with the hole in his throat, because I never saw him behind that wooden fence to begin with. So that left six marshals, and if three of them were huddled around that campfire, that meant there were at least three more someplace else. Either too far from the campfire to see in the darkness, or up on this cliff somewhere waiting for us to come back through.

  If they were up on this cliff they hadn’t seen me because they’d be shooting. I wasn’t going to go any further though. No point in making it any easier for them. I stashed the binoculars back in my saddle bag and crawled backwards until I was out of sight of that campfire. Then I ran the rest of the way back to where I’d climbed up, holding my rifle a little higher than on my way in. I hadn’t thought about it until I got out of the pass, but I
was really hoping Smilin’ could tell the difference between me and a marshal from a hundred yards in the moonlight, especially as lightheaded as he probably was by now.

  When I got back to our position among the juniper trees, Smilin’ was passed out, slumped over the rock he was using to prop up his rifle. I laid back down thinking we weren’t going to see those marshals for a while, given they looked so cozy by that fire.

  I’d been laying there for a good twenty minutes when the ground began to rumble. I could feel it in my belly and my kneecaps first. Started low and then got stronger. I looked at Smilin’, still layin’ there, his trail coat rippling, dirt leaping off of it.

  I stood up, and the vibration traveled up my legs, through my stomach, until it settled in my teeth, making them chatter together like it was the middle of winter. I thought it was a stampede until I saw the small dim light flickering like a firefly caught in a spider’s web. The faint chugging of steam pistons followed.

  I pushed Smilin’ off the rock and he slumped on his side with a thud.

  “Get up, you lazy bastard, that’s a train.”

  The Speculator Line used to run mining supplies to Speculator and Mineral, two mining towns that petered out about five years back. Nothing had run on the line ever since. Nothing until now, anyway.

  Smilin’ jumped up and grabbed his rifle.

  “I thought you was dead,” I said.

  “Me too. Guess we was both wrong.”

  “We’re getting on that train and going wherever it’s headed. Get to a town and get you stitched up a lot quicker than on these horses.”

  “Sure beats bleed’n here in a pile of horseshit,” Smilin’ said. He started for the horses when I pulled him back.

  “Stay put. You don’t need to be running too much on that leg.” I snapped off a handful of sagebrush branches, grabbed both reins, and started for the tracks.