Ralph Cotton - Midnight Rider

“Rochenbach!” he shouted. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for you and me to stand off toe-to—”

His words stopped short beneath the sound of Rochenbach’s big Remington resounding along the empty street. The shot nailed Spiller squarely in the chest and sent him flying backward through a heavy mist of blood. His rifle flew from his hands and landed at Bobby Kane’s feet. Kane stared down at it as if he might or might not know what it was.

For the captain, Rock told himself. The big Remington stood smoking in his hand.

The gunmen aimed their weapons toward Rochenbach. But then they froze, tense, waiting. Rochenbach calmly lowered the smoking Remington and stared at Grolin before he pitched an ingot to the ground at Grolin’s feet.

“What the hell?” Grolin managed to say. Swank stepped over, stooped down, picked it up and looked it over in his hand.

“Well…?” Pres Casings called out to Swank, liking this sudden turn on things. “Tell him what it is, Heaton,” he said as Swank looked at the cut corner of the glittering ingot.

“Casings is right, Grolin,” said Swank, a sour look coming to his face. “This is a damned phony—a chunk of lead, pig iron … something. It’s sure as hell not gold!” He shoved the ingot to Grolin, again fixing his angry eyes up at Rochenbach.

Grolin looked at it, his face twisted and confused.

“I don’t know where you got this, Rochenbach,” Grolin said, “but it’s got nothing to do with the ingots we took from the train—”

Rochenbach cut him off, saying, “I got it from one of the ingot crates you’ve got stashed in the stall with the Belgium,” he said, gesturing a nod toward the livery barn a block away.

“No, you didn’t! You’re lying!” said Grolin, gripping the ingot tight in his fist. “Lou the Dog is guarding that gold!”

“He was ,” Rochenbach said calmly. “Maybe he will be again when he wakes up.”

Grolin gritted his teeth; his thick hand tightened on the butt of his Colt, the only gun still in its holster. But he dared not draw the Colt, not now—not with Heaton Swank’s eyes burning a hole in him.

“Rochenbach, you son of a bitch!” he shouted. “You’ve done nothing but mess up everything I’ve tried to do since you’ve been here!”

“What’d he do?” Swank asked pointedly, staring hard at Grolin.

“He did what he was supposed to do,” Casings called out. “He did what Grolin told him to do, just like the rest of us always do. Hell, he’s the best safe man we’ve ever seen.”

“Shut up, Casings,” said Swank. He turned back to Grolin. “Well, Andrew? What did he do?” he demanded.

Grolin looked stuck for an answer. He stalled, threw his cigar to the ground, grabbed his temples with his thumbs and fingers as if suffering from a terrible headache.

“Damn it, Swank! I can’t pinpoint every least little thing he did. He’s been… unruly, undermining, divisive!”

Swank gave him a look of disbelief.

“ Unruly? Undermining…? ” he said. “What the hell is this, a school yard? The man’s an outlaw. Didn’t he tell you?”

“I told you it’s hard to explain!” said Grolin. “But he’s ruined this whole big job for all of us—ruined it from the start!”

“You’re losing your damned mind, Andrew,” said Swank. “I’ll tell you something he didn’t do. He didn’t get none of my men shot up over a damn load of fake gold ingots!” he snarled. “You didn’t have the sense to check the load, make sure it was real gold?”

“Don’t crowd me on this, Heaton, I’m warning you!” Grolin shouted.

“Crowd you, Grolin? You’re lucky if I don’t kill you!” Swank shouted in reply.

Rochenbach watched calmly from his saddle. Casings and the Stillwater Giant stood pat, their guns drawn, cocked, ready for anything, rifles in their other hands.

They’re good.

Swank snatched the ingot from Grolin’s hand, threw it to the ground and shot a hole through it. It broke in two. Both pieces of metal bounced ten feet in the air. Bobby Kane watched with a half smile as the pieces spun and glittered in the afternoon sunlight.

When Swank turned back to Grolin with the smoking Colt in his hand, Grolin mistook the move. Thinking Swank meant to shoot him next, he jerked his Colt up from its holster and fired at a distance of less than three feet.

Swank rose onto his boot toes as the bullet ripped through his belly. He staggered back a step, but caught himself and returned fire. Grolin took the bullet in his chest and wobbled on his feet, but he continued firing. Rochenbach watched intently; so did Casings and the Giant—two gunmen shooting each other back and forth repeatedly on the dirt street.

Jesus…

Rochenbach shook his head a little, seeing Heaton Swank go down beneath a gray rise of smoke. Grolin staggered back another step and wobbled back and forth, waving his Colt, gripping his belly, blood spewing from his lips.

Seeing Swank dead, knowing the gold ingots were worthless, Silas Dooley murmured to himself, “To hell with this!” He backed away a few feet, then turned and ran off while all eyes were set on Grolin.

“Don’t nobody… try to stop me!” Grolin warned mindlessly, no longer interested in Rochenbach, the gold or anything else. He turned and staggered off toward the livery barn a block away, leaving a bloody trail behind him.

Rochenbach, Casings and the Giant stood watching.

Grolin had made it fifty feet up the center of the empty dirt street when suddenly a loud shotgun blast exploded from an alleyway and hit him from the side. The buckshot lifted him up like a rag doll and flung him sidelong ten feet. He landed dead and bloody in the dirt.

A big bearded man in buckskins walked out from the alleyway carrying a smoking double-barreled shotgun. A bloodstained bandage covered his otherwise bare head.

“Steal my wagon now , you son of a bitch !” he growled down at Grolin’s mangled body. Then he looked down the street at Rochenbach, Casings and the Giant. He half raised his shotgun toward them.

Rochenbach raised his hands chest high in a show of peace, and the buckskinned man backed away warily for a few steps. Then he turned and stomped back into the alley, still grumbling under his breath.

“Where’s the sheriff of this town?” Rochenbach asked Casings as he and the Giant walked over and stood beside him.

“The doctor said he’s gone fishing,” Casings replied. “Said he’s been gone all day.”

Rock looked around at the dead men on the ground, then up at the fading afternoon sky.

“This would’ve been a good day for it,” he said. He stepped down from his saddle and looked the two up and down. “I don’t know how some folks find the time.”

“Me neither,” the Giant said.

Casings chuckled and shook his head. “Rock, I got to say, Grolin was right. You’re a hell of a safe man. But things do seem to get crazy when you’re around.”

“What if it rains, Pres?” said Rock. “Are you going to blame me for the weather too?”

“I’m not blaming you for anything,” Casings said. “I want to rob trains, open safes with you, get to be rich desperadoes.”

“Hey! What about Bobby there?” the Giant asked. They looked over and saw Bobby Kane standing with Spiller’s rifle in his hands, a blank look on his face.

“Bobby, put the rifle down,” Casings called out.

Kane looked at them, confused for a second. Then he nodded and tossed the rifle away. He stepped back and wiped his palms on his trousers. The Giant walked over to him.

“Are you doing all right, Bobby?” he asked in his deep powerful voice.