Lawless Trail by Ralph Cotton Page B

ragged and broke,” he said.
    â€œI don’t gamble,” Dr. Bernard said. “I never seem to find the time.”
    Wes looked at the other faces for comment. Rubens took a deep breath and let it out. He looked back along the trail they’d ridden thus far.
    â€œI figure if we started back now, we’d run into that posse head-on, about where we started from,” he said. “I’ve got a feeling the doc here timed everything—worked it all out in his head.”
    Wes looked at the doctor.
    â€œIs that true, Doc?” he asked.
    The doctor only stared at him blankly.
    Taking the doctor’s silence to be an admission, Wes looked away from him, at Carter Claypool. The battered outlaw sat with his wrists crossed on his saddle horn, the blood dried back on his shoulder, his swollen purple face looking shadowy and sinister in the failing evening light.
    â€œHe warned us it would be
risky
,” Claypool said on Dr. Bernard’s behalf.
    â€œBut he never said it would be plumb
loco
,” Bugs Trent cut in, still staring coldly at the doctor.
    Wes uncocked his Colt and lowered it down across his lap. He took the conversation back.
    â€œWhat’s loco is sitting here wondering which way to go on a trail that only goes one way,” he said. He turned to the doctor. “You’ll need light to change Ty’s bandages. What will the town make of a light being on in your house?”
    â€œI have a convalescent room in the middle of the house,” the doctor said. “We’ll close the doors around it. Nobody will have to see a light burning.” He raised his reins and gathered the bareback horse beneath him. “It’s the safest place for your brother to spend the night, you’ll see.”
    â€œIt better be, Doc,” Wes warned him. He motioned the doctor forward with a gesture of his hand. “I hope you’ve got something to eat in your cupboard.”
    â€œI’m certain we’ll find something there,” the doctor said, riding his horse forward.
    â€œCarter,” Wes said over his shoulder, “lag behind us, keep this trail open. If we need it in a hurry, I don’t want those torches bobbing right down on us.”
    â€œYou got it, Wes,” said Claypool. “I’ll give you warning shots if they come this way.” He pulled his horse back, turned it off the edge of the trail and rode back the way they had come through brush and rocky ground.
    On the horse in front of Rosetta, Ty sat leaning back, his face lolling back on her bosom.
    â€œWhat’s . . . the holdup?” he murmured in a weak, mindless voice.
    â€œShh, you must sit still,
mi querido
.” She smoothed his hair back with her hand, reached her face down and kissed his forehead. “I have you taken care of,” she whispered.
    â€œThat . . . you do,” Ty whispered, trailing back to sleep. “I’m right as rain here. . . .”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    It had been a four-day ride out of Mexico, back across the rocky badlands hills. When the Ranger spotted the half-fallen adobe and plank shack standing on a cliff at an abandoned mining project, he and Fatch Hardaway rode to the spot and stepped down from their saddles as the sun sank below the horizon.
    â€œHow much farther to Cottonwood from here, Ranger?” Hardaway asked, his voice sounding aching and tight from the long day in the saddle.
    â€œThat depends,” Sam replied. He loosened the black-speckled barb’s saddle, pulling it off the horse’s sweaty back onto his tired shoulder.
    â€œDepends on what?” said Hardaway. He slumped onto a hitch rail as he tied his horse’s reins to an iron loop.
    â€œOn how far we are from Cottonwood when you show me where the Traybos holed up,” Sam said patiently. “Have you already forgotten our deal
again
?”
    Hardaway let out a breath and turned back