O’Neill was growing uneasy and his temper was starting to show. He had been waiting hours for LaRue and Shorty to appear. The sun overhead was merciless in its dance across the sky, baking those below that watched for the victims they hoped to sacrifice for the quest for gold.
“Hell, they ain’t coming!” Morales complained as he wiped his brow with a dirty sleeve. “They probably hightailed it back East where they’d be safe.”
O’Neill thought over what Morales said for a moment before making a decision. It was hot out all right, and this place had no water close by. O’Neill deliberately picked this spot to bushwhack LaRue and his friend, knowing they would be in a hurry to get through this wasteland.
There was nothing here but rock and brush with a few burned out snags to testify to a fire that almost certainly had devoured most of the other trees. Without a sufficient supply of water, the trees were having a tough time coming back. The brush, needing less moisture, was thriving, thus making a large meadow of little else. Further to the west a small hill, more of a knob really, rose to a height of thirty feet. O’Neill had the horses hidden behind this. Then he ordered his men to go out in the brush and wait.
“How long’s it been?” O’Neill asked to no one in particular.
“From the look of the sun, I’d make it out somewhere close to five hours or so.”
“Doesn’t any of you fools have a watch for crying out loud?” O’Neill asked in anger, the gash on the side of his face growing redder.
“Don’t you have one?” a sharp voice came back.
“He’s the boss! He doesn’t need one!” another voice piped in sarcastically. O’Neill knew enough to shut up while he was still in control.
The men were hot and thirsty. They’d been hiding in the brush under the burning sun and they’d be in no mood to take any guff from the likes of him. O’Neill let the insult go unanswered.
“Come on in!” O’Neill ordered. “I think maybe Morales is right. They’ve had enough and are heading back home with their tails tucked between their legs.” O’Neill let out a reassuring laugh that sounded hollow and empty.
One by one from various areas of the bush, a man would rise from his hiding place, each with a look on his face that said O’Neill had kept them out too long. He’d have to think of something fast or the game might be lost. And these were the type of men that killed the losing captain.
“Men,” he said when they were all back, “right now some of you aren’t too happy with me for keeping you out there all these hours. I knew Shorty and LaRue weren’t coming after the first hour. .”
“What the hell!” one of the men broke in.
“Just let me finish!” O’Neill said harshly. “As I was saying, I knew they’d turned back after the first hour. But trapping them wasn’t the only reason I sent you out there.” The men looked around at one another, each wondering what O’Neill was up to.
“I sent you out in the blazing sun to test each and every one of you. I needed to know who I could count on and who I couldn’t.”
“Count on us for what?” a rough looking cowboy asked. “How the hell can lying out in the heat let you know who you can count on and who you can’t?”
The question came from John Smith, hoping to trip O’Neill up and make himself look better in the eyes of the men. O’Neill let the question ride.
“Before us is a future of riches, if we are lucky, and you men do as you’re told. But one slip up, just one, and we might lose everything! I am glad to say that all of you passed the test and we are now ready to put my plan into action,” he said. “Over the next week we will be covering as much ground as possible. It is important that we get to our destination at the time of, or just before, the next full moon. That gives us a little less than a month to get ready.
“If we are one day late, we will have to wait another month, a month that will give LaRue enough time to get more men together. I for one don’t intend to fight him and the Injuns both. The Injuns will be bad enough. They’ve already been hit once and they won’t be as easy the next time!” O’Neill looked around at the men. All eyes were on him. The lure of gold again captured their imaginations and they’d follow O’Neill to the very depths of hell to get their share if need be.
Since the attack on the mountain, Madigan hadn’t seen hide nor hair of any living thing except an occasional ground squirrel scampering about in search of food or company. As he approached, they’d stand on their hind legs and let out a low whistling sound to warn of his presence.
From time to time, he’d pass the tracks of the riders ahead. To a scout as experienced as Madigan, it was evident a large body of horsemen had gone through the day before. There were also tracks of the two others just a few hours old.
Coming in sight of a low hill, he noticed the tracks of three horses leaving the trail. Madigan guessed the two riders became suspicious and decided to skirt the hill and a possible ambush. Riding on, it became all too clear that an ambush had indeed been planned. Had the two men been a day earlier or the killers waited a day longer, there would now be two corpses under dirt.
Madigan rode on and smiled to himself when the tracks of the two men came back on the trail. They had been caught off guard once and weren’t going to let it happen again. Still, they were taking an awful big chance by riding the same trail at all. They must be in a big hurry for something, he mused.
Madigan rode into Durango at sunset. Durango was a town with a wild reputation of free-flowing whiskey, hard men, and soft-but-wild women. It was hot in the summer and cold as the icy fingers of hell in the winter, and many a cowpoke or hard rock miner out for a good time wound up on Durango’s boot hill instead.
Rather than ride down Main Street, Madigan turned the buckskin down an alley and made his way around the back of the town. Coming to another alley he glanced down it and saw the front of the local saloon, the Durango Pleasure Palace.
The sun was down and Madigan had little fear of being spotted in the darkness between the buildings, so he moved closer to the Main Street for a better look while still remaining hidden from prying eyes from the saloon.
Beside the Pleasure Palace was a makeshift corral, while a loafing shed stood to one side. Inside the corral were six horses with various brands. Some of the brands he recognized as being from large Texas spreads known for their rough ways and tough men-men that didn’t think twice about leaving with one of the ranch’s cow ponies.
Madigan had no doubt that these were the horses of the hombres that had followed the two men several nights back. An uneasy feeling crept through Madigan as he realized the potential for disaster if he got careless for even a minute.
Madigan took a last look along the street while he patted the buckskin on the neck. “Hope there’s more than one livery in town,” he told the big horse, “or we might be in a little trouble.”
Reining the big horse around, he started out of the alley when a noise caught his attention; it came from somewhere above. He froze, a reaction borne of years as an army scout. Two stories above, a window was raised and he could hear voices and laughter coming from inside. Suddenly a basin of water was thrown out the open window, followed shortly by a woman’s face peering down. The water spattered on the ground a few feet away from Madigan. The woman’s face was quickly withdrawn and Madigan wondered why people threw things first, then looked to see if anyone was below.
Another sound caught his attention, and he looked up again just in time to see the face of a man retreat out of sight at the same window. He only got a look at it for an instant before the face vanished back into the room. But it was enough for him to know that it was the same man he had clobbered in the moonlight several nights back.
Not being able to see the front of the building, Madigan surmised it must be another saloon or cheap boarding house. Most men on the move didn’t have much money to spend on room and board, and most of them liked to wash the trail dust out of their throats after a long ride, so there were always cheap rooms to be had close to one or more of the saloons in town. Sometimes the rooms were right in the saloon itself and many had girls available for the price of a few drinks. Madigan made a mental note to stay clear of this end of town.
Riding down the back street, his packhorse in tow, he soon came to the back side of a livery stable. There was a small corral in back and into this Madigan unsaddled and put the horses. He had just closed the gate when an old man with snowy white hair appeared from nowhere carrying a sawed-off twelve-gauge.
“Can I get them some corn, stranger?” he asked. The man had come on him like a cat stalks a mouse, taking Madigan totally unaware. In a flash too quick for the eye to follow, he palmed his Colt.
“No need for that, mister!” the old man said. “Wouldn’t do you no good anyhow; you shoot me and Bertha here goes off and cuts you in two. And we’d both be sorrier for the experience! This here sawed-off’s got the triggers tied back and only my thumb is keeping the hammer from fallin’! Why, if I was just to twitch a little she’s bound to go off! Be too bad if you happened to be standing in front of her when she did,” the old man grinned. “Now about that corn, do you want ‘em to have some or not?”
“Sorry, old-timer. “I’m just a little tired and edgy. Had me some trouble back up the trail a ways.” Madigan dropped the Colt back into the holster. “Meant you no harm.”
The old man took a long look, then spoke. “What kind of trouble you talking about? Now be sure of what you say, stranger. The information’s for me and me alone.”
Madigan wasn’t in the habit of telling others his business or, for that matter, his problems. But there’s something about looking down the twin barrels of a sawed-off twelve-gauge that loosens a man’s tongue a mite, especially when the man holding that twelve-gauge looks to mean business.
So Madigan told him about the men chasing him after he was forced to kill one of them in self-defense and of having to knock another man out to keep him from bushwhacking two other men. All the while the old man kept the shotgun leveled at Madigan’s midsection.
After Madigan was through, the old man shifted his weight to the other foot and said, “You say you shot a couple out of their saddles at near half a mile? Only one man I heard tell that could shoot like that, but never heard much about him being quick with a short gun. From what I just saw, you’re one of the fastest men I’ve ever seen with a Colt and I’ve seen plenty in my time.” The old man hesitated while he spit out a wad of chew, never taking his eyes off Madigan or letting the shotgun waver. “Ain’t always owned this stable, you know. Used to be marshal up to the rim country of Montana and parts east.”
Madigan took a long, slow breath. He had guessed right about this old man. He was more than capable of letting the hammer drop. Something Madigan had seen in the old man’s eyes had warned him that even though the man was old, he was still somebody to be reckoned with. Madigan hoped he could keep the man on his side.
“Used to be fast with a side gun myself, but gotten too old now,” the old man said. “Cant’ see worth a darn. Never figured to live this long, so now I’ve got to use this.” He shook the shotgun just enough to make his point, but not enough to take it out of Madigan’s belly.
Suddenly Madigan felt tired. “Old man, you going to shoot me or what? I’ve been in the saddle all day and I’d like to find an outhouse before I mess my jeans!” The old man laughed a little but never relaxed the shotgun.
“I might shoot you yet, depends on who you say you are.” There was a question in what the man had just said and Madigan took no time in answering.
“I’m Sam Madigan,” he replied. The old man stood firm.
“You can prove that?” he asked.
“I can. I’ve got my army papers in my pack.”
“Never mind the pack. You could have a gun hid there. Show me your rifle, the one you did the long-range shooting with!”
“It’s in my pack also, right at the top, covered with a leather sheath.”
“Get it with your left hand, real slow. Remember this here’s got a tied back trigger. It’s a wonder she hasn’t gone off before now with all the bull we’ve been spreading.”
Madigan carefully untied the corner of the pack and lifted it with his left hand, going slowly as not to upset the old man. “It’s right here in this cover,” Madigan said as he slid the.50–90 from its hiding place.
“That’s enough!” the old man said. “Only one man I heard of carries a Sharps with a black walnut stock and a silver butt plate.” He lowered his shotgun, letting the hammers down slowly, then held out his hand to Madigan. “Welcome to town, Mr. Madigan.”
“Call me Sam. What do I call you?”
“Most folks only call me to supper any more,” the old man laughed. “My name’s Talley, Roy Talley. Late of this place, but in my younger days I ramrodded some pretty tough towns along the way as town marshal. Then old age came creepin’ at my door, and well, you know how people are. They think when you get a little older you can’t hold your own any more.” Talley looked down at the shotgun in his hands.
“Sometimes they just get smarter. I did up till a few years ago, then I started to forget things. Little things at first, things that didn’t matter much, then bigger things that could get me or someone killed. So I came here, bought myself the livery and settled in.”
Madigan could see a sadness on Roy’s face, so said nothing, just waited for the old-timer to talk again.
“Some of those things I kept forgetting were things like loading my guns. Ever faced a man in a gunfight when your gun was empty?” the old lawman asked.
“No, can’t say I have.”
“Well, I did once. Only I didn’t know my gun was empty. Just cleaned it an hour before and had forgotten to reload it!” the old marshal said, shaking his head.
“What happened?” Madigan wanted to know.
“A coyote of a gunslinger called me out in the street. We faced off about a hundred feet away and he drew iron. I was pretty darn fast in those days and before he could clear leather I had my gun leveled on him.
To this day I don’t know why I didn’t pull the trigger. Anyhow, he just froze and we faced each other for what must have been two minutes before he let his gun fall back in its holster, then he turned on his heel and walked to his horse and left. Something inside told me not to press the matter and I didn’t. Later I discovered my gun was empty.” Talley chuckled to himself. “I turned my badge in that night and rode away a big man in that town just as I had in countless others. Only this time it was for keeps.
“Been a good life and even though Durango’s a rough and tumble town, I’ve been at peace here. I only get my dander up when someone comes sneakin’ round my place in the dark.”
Madigan looked at the old marshal and deep down inside felt sorry for him. Many good men had been used up by the wild towns of the West, only to be cast aside when his usefulness ended. It wasn’t like a banker that retired, a respected member of the town. When a town marshal got too old for the job, there was nothing left but to leave town so that the new man taking over didn’t feel like his toes were being stepped on.
Some of them, like Talley, were lucky enough to have saved some money, not easy to do on a marshal’s salary. They bought themselves a small ranch or farm and settled in to live a less trying life than they had been used too. Some liked it, some didn’t.
Others, with no money and no place to go, simply rode out of town a few miles and put a gun to their head. In a way, they were striking back at the town that had deserted them, for there would be a funeral and the townspeople would know what they had done. To most it made no difference, but to a few it was enough of a shock that they started small retirement funds for future peace officers in their later years. In time things would change, but for now many a man who had given his best for years looked forward to old age with fear. Madigan was glad that Talley had been one of those with a future, for in him Madigan could see many aspects of himself.
“Well, I’ll be darned!” Talley said, shaking his head. Madigan looked at the old marshal wondering what was next. “I did it again!” he said, showing Madigan the shotgun that was now open, exposing two empty barrels.
“I’d suggest you check it every so often just to be sure it’s loaded,” Madigan advised him. “Never know when you might need to pull the trigger and you’ll want to hear more than just a click when you do.” Roy Talley looked at Madigan with a twinkle in his eye.
“Try to remember that, but I’ll not have to worry about much if that happens, at least not for long. Now, Mr. Madigan, what I really want to know is, should I give your horses some corn or not?”
“Give them grain,” Madigan answered.