Raiders of Concho Flats

ONE

‘There must be more to being a ranger than eating oily sardines and chewin’ on two hundred miles or more of trail dust,’ Rockwell Lane said disgustedly as he buried the remains of their breakfast and used a branch to brush over the ground’s surface.

‘Yeah – and searching half of New Mexico for a man don’t even exist,’ Charlie Rivers said, grunting his own long-smouldering complaint as he heaved on his saddle cinch.

‘Oh, Jake Arkle was out there all right. Trouble is he had all the villagers so doggone scared they just gave us that infuriating blank look and shrug of the shoulders every time we asked a question.’

‘No comprendez,’ Rivers echoed bitterly. ‘Maybe we should’ve just stood in the square in Tularosa and hollered his name, waited for him to come crawlin’ out of one of them adobes.’

‘Wouldn’t have done much good. By then I reckon he was already long gone, heading south through the San Andres, making for Las Cruces.’

Or some other godforsaken hell hole, Rockwell Lane thought, admitting to himself that in truth he had no idea which direction the killer had taken.

Alerted by telegraph from Austin, the two rangers had handed over a double eagle – which she tested with gleaming white teeth – to buy the information from a black-eyed Mexican wench in a Santa Fe bar that Jake Arkle had headed west. He was, she told them, riding a sorrel with a marked left hind shoe. They knew this already, and so considered the money well spent. Acting on her information they picked up Arkle’s trail as they cut across country to the Bravo, and with the conviction that they were closing they followed the outlaw’s thin sign clear down to Albuquerque.

But somewhere between there and the Malpais they’d lost him. The ride to Tularosa had been wasted effort. As Rockwell Lane had pointed out as both rangers gazed over a blistering landscape of saw-toothed sierra and waterless, dust-caked foothills, Jake Arkle could have headed west through the Jornada del Muerto with his mind set on making the long run for the Gila and Arizona, or ridden south down the San Andres towards El Paso del Norte.

At sunset on the fourteenth day they’d given up the chase. Next morning they’d swung about to head for Texas. On weary horses they negotiated the jagged ridges and tortuous ravines of the Guadalupe Mountains, and got a brief taste of searing heat as they skirted the southern bluffs of the Llano Estacado. It was with immense relief that they came down from the dazzling white escarpments and rode south east down Mustang Draw towards the Concho.

But it was a relief that for Ranger Rockwell Lane was spoiled somewhat by the knowledge that when they reached Austin, he’d have some explaining to do. They were Texas Rangers, and they’d lost Jake Arkle.

‘San Andres, Las Cruces,’ Rivers said now, without conviction. ‘Seems to me like this whole darn business has been full of maybes and ifs.’

‘So here’s a couple more,’ Rockwell Lane said, his tone suddenly holding a new, sharp note of warning. ‘Maybe you’d better get over here with your saddle gun, Charlie, if you don’t want to get caught with your pants down. We’re about to have company – and that’s a certainty.’

Instantly, in a sequence of swift, practised movements, Rivers slid his Spencer out of its scabbard, ran towards the ridge, then hit the dew-soaked grass and snaked up behind a clump of beaded mesquite that afforded some cover but allowed him a clear view.

Lane was already flat on his belly, his black Stetson tipped forwards to shield his eyes as he gazed into the near distance.

They had made camp the previous day on a low knoll, where a hollow of lush grass watered by a shallow pool provided feed for their horses, and a grove of trees afforded relief from the blazing summer sun. It also gave them a clear view for many miles in every direction, so Rockwell Lane was able to give an accurate assessment of the tragedy that was about to happen.

‘Whoever he is, that feller’s got no place left to go,’ he said, and spat disgustedly into the parched mesquite. ‘And if he could find a hole to crawl into, that wrung-out horse he’s on’d die before it got him there.’

The early morning sun was a red disc painted on the orange-streaked eastern skyline, and was not yet warm. Mist that lay like a thin white blanket over the land between the north and middle Conchos transformed the limitless plains into a landscape that deceived the eyes. But the single rider in the white shirt desperately flogging his jaded horse towards the gleaming waters of the big bend in the middle Concho was no illusion, and the three horsemen riding in a ragged, extended line half a mile back – no more than ugly black shapes riding out of the sun – were swiftly closing on their quarry.

‘Heading for San Angelo. Sure must have a reason for ridin’ that horse so hard,’ Rivers observed. ‘Posse chasing him – or bandits after something that feller’s carrying?’

‘We’ve got maybe a couple of minutes to decide,’ Lane said, ‘and not a lot to tell us which way to jump.’ He rolled away from the ridge, climbed to his feet and moved quickly to the stand of pines where their horses were tethered.

He was a tall man, Rockwell Lane, with a rawboned strength in his long limbs and a laziness in his movements as he reached for his pouched Winchester, that had led lesser men to believe him easy meat. But those men had neglected to look into the deep-set eyes spaced wide over high cheekbones and a sensitive mouth. If they had done so they would have seen shining there the implacable will of a man for whom defeat was an unknown word. For many of them, that would have been the last picture they took with them to Hades. That, and the thin smile – it might have been one of sadness – that always flickered across Lane’s angular countenance at such moments.

‘Me, I’d side with the underdog every time,’ Charlie Rivers offered as Lane jacked a shell into the Winchester’s breech and came back through the damp grass.

As tow-headed as his partner was dark, and of no more than average height, Rivers was stretched out with his old Spencer pointing casually towards the approaching riders. Even in repose his hard, sinewy build was impressive, the unusually wide shoulders seemingly built to take the kick of the powerful rifle. Whereas Rockwell Lane’s face was slow to break into a smile, his brown eyes always thoughtful, Rivers usually had a twinkle in his sharp blue eyes and a smile lurking around the corners of his wide mouth.

But now, as he eased the bull of the Spencer into his shoulder, he was scowling, and there was a note of righteous anger in his voice.

‘So, which is it to be, Rocky?’

‘Well, if we side with the feller being chased,’ Rockwell Lane said, ‘we’re outgunned three to two.’

‘Hell, last time we had such favourable odds was when we caught them three Sioux slicing beef steaks off a maverick steer,’ Rivers said. He flashed his partner a tight grin, then flattened his cheek against the Spencer and squeezed the trigger.

The crack of the shot sent birds soaring and wheeling from the tall trees. It was as if the chill, misted air rippled as the bullet sped towards the racing horsemen. Rockwell Lane settled down some yards away and snugged the Winchester into his shoulder. As he did so a faint cry drifted to his ears, and a rider out on the flank pointed towards the knoll and swerved his horse violently.

‘Reckon they know we’re here,’ Lane said. He took careful aim and the Winchester bucked as he sent a bullet screaming uncomfortably low over the head of the centre rider. Distinguishable now as a big, bulky man, he flattened himself along his horse’s straining neck, but kept coming hard and fast. And now all three riders were eating up the ground between them and the lone figure spurring the weary bronc.

‘Seems wrong to blast ’em out of the saddle,’ Lane said pensively, ‘when we don’t know what the hell’s goin’ on.’ Posse or renegades, he thought, squinting at the fast-moving drama being enacted under the lightening skies. Innocent man – or a killer about to get his just deserts?

‘If we don’t do something, that feller dies,’ Rivers said, but his voice, too, was uncertain.

‘Maybe if he makes the river…’ Lane began, then smiled fleetingly as he realized that once again he was putting voice to conjecture.

Then the crackle of pistol fire interrupted their musings. Puffs of smoke erupted from six-guns as the chasing men, judging they were in pistol range, sent a hail of lead screaming towards the desperate rider.

For a few, fleeting moments it seemed as if he would emerge from the volley unscathed. Then, as Rockwell Lane watched with eyes grown suddenly bleak, the fugitive jerked back his head and arched his back. For an instant he tried to hang there, tossing bonelessly on the horse’s back, while face lifted to the skies. Then he toppled from the saddle. One boot caught in a stirrup and he was dragged, bouncing. Like a sack of grain the slack body towed a trail of dust almost to the river’s edge before the snagged foot slipped free. As the horse trotted away into the shallows the man rolled, then flopped limply over the river bank and lay still. Both legs were half-submerged to the waist in the gently lapping water. His arms were flung wide, his face buried in the sand.

‘I guess that settles it,’ Lane said grimly.

The three gunmen were much closer to the river now, converging as they thundered down on their victim. Pistols glittered in their gloved hands. Even at a distance of 150 yards, Lane could distinguish dark, unshaven faces bearing expressions of savage intent.

Once again Rockwell Lane lined up the Winchester on the middle rider, a burly figure in dusty black garb. But this time he offered him no warning. He squinted along the sights, centred on the man’s broad chest and blasted a shot.

The heavy figure was slammed backwards out of the saddle. As the gunman tumbled helplessly over his horse’s flying tail, Charlie Rivers’s Spencer roared and another man yelled in pain and anger.

Then the two remaining riders, mounted on a fast, rangy buckskin and a big bay, reached the river. They rode recklessly over the low,