The Road to Amarillo, page 1
The Road to Amarillo
Harvey Stanbrough
Novel 9 in the Wes Crowley Gap Series
and Novel 4 in the Santa Fe Subseries
StoneThread Publishing
https://stonethreadpublishing.com
To give the reader more of a sample and so the reader won’t be distracted from the story, the dedication and the other front matter appears at the end.
Table of Contents
Title Page
The Road to Amarillo (Wes Crowley Gap, #9)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
The Road to Amarillo
Harvey Stanbrough
Chapter 1
At mid-morning the day was already growing hot in Kiker, New Mexico Territory, as Billy Gamble, proprietor and bartender, stomped along the otherwise quiet main street. His thoughts were on that bunch of upstart Mexicans in La Encantada Cantina—his cantina, the cantina he owned by god!—and his attention was on his boots and the ground just ahead of them.
Small, angry puffs of dust blew up around each boot as it contacted the ground, and little spurts of the stuff shot back the way he’d come as he moved into each new step. An angry banty rooster couldn’t have kicked up such a fuss. Mumbling under his breath, Gamble shook his head, then cleared his throat harshly and spat hard to the right. Rather than soaking into the dirt and sand, the thick globule swelled and surged momentarily, then rolled back into itself and glistened in a tiny caldera, a spittle gemstone adorning the center of the street.
The town was also silent but for the mutterings and footfalls of Billy Gamble. No birdsong, no sounds of children or adults, and no saddles or wagons creaking anywhere. Even the wind had laid down. Amazing, the effect one man’s focused anger can have on his surroundings. Even the seemingly endless staccato issued earlier by an untold horde of brats had disappeared with them into the “school,” as the residents called the dilapidated adobe hut at the end of the street. He scowled. You would think they’d at least slap a coat of whitewash on the outside if they were going to use that hovel as a school.
Gamble glanced up to gauge the distance to his house. Only a few blocks to go, just past the so-called school and then left a half-block. Then by god he’d see what was what. When he’d left the cantina—well, no. To be precise, he hadn’t left. To be precise, when the damned Mexicans, all would-be comancheros, had sent him away from the cantina, they instructed him—instructed him, mind you! in his own establishment!—to find places for them to live. And because he wasn’t thinking straight, having had his face slammed hard against the surface of the bar in a surprise attack, he had set out to do just that.
But within the first several stumbling steps away from the cantina his thoughts had cleared. He’d remembered who he was, and he had changed his mind. They could damned sure find their own places to live, if they even chose to stay in Kiker after he was through with them. More than likely they’d turn tail and go find someone else to annoy. An angry grin tugged at one corner of his mouth but didn’t quite form. Still, one step at a time. For now, he would go to his house, retrieve his shotgun, and return to La Encantada. Then they would see who was boss in Billy Gamble’s damned cantina.
Ahead a few blocks on the right, on the top step of the small chapel across from the school, the local priest—well, or pastor or whatever title he was using this week—raised his right hand in a gesture, a thin-lipped smile on his face. His left hand still held the door, as if he’d just stepped outside.
Pastor, probably. He wasn’t wearing a robe like Gamble had seen the Catholics wear at the big churches in St. Louis, though his black suit was almost indistinguishable from a robe at this distance. And more so because he was wearing that holy black hat with the wide, flat brim and an inverted bowl for a crown. He probably wore it mainly to hide how few wisps of blondish red hair still clung to his head.
Unlike Billy Gamble, who never wore a hat at all. He was proud of his thick red shock and the thicker Irish heritage that had provided it. As he reached up with his right hand to smooth his hair, his thumb hooked his apron and pulled it partway up in front of him. Enough so he noticed it and realized he hadn’t taken it off before he left the bar.
The apron was looped over his neck and tied behind the waist of his dark grey trousers. Otherwise he wore black boots without so much as a scuff mark—appearances mattered among successful men—but the sheen somewhat muted by the layer of dust, plus a long-sleeved white shirt, and an aggravated, annoyed look. As if to explain the furrows on his forehead, he muttered a quiet curse. It was nothing the priest could hear, but then Billy wouldn’t care if he did hear it.
Normally he would have taken off the apron and hung it neatly behind the bar before he’d left. He never wore an apron beyond the confines of the cantina. After all, he had ordered it all the way from St. Louis. It was a real apron, substantial and white, like the ones the bartenders in the high-end establishments in the city wore. Of course, when he’d departed the cantina, he had been too upset to realize he was still wearing it, much less to think about taking it off.
Anyway, only the annoying priest or whatever he was had seen him, apron and all, and he hadn’t seemed to have thought anything of it. He wagged one hand quickly in the priest’s direction, then heard something behind him.
He stopped and whirled, eyes wide, a chill racing along his spine.
Silly. It was nothing. Not that he was really worried about the Mexicans. He was just nervous, probably from the anger shuddering through his body from his bruised ego. Anyway, there was nobody immediately behind him. The sound had come from farther up the street. Aside from himself and the priest, apparently there were other people out and about, though there were only three.
Two of those were men. One, probably the elder but Billy couldn’t really tell because the man was mostly facing away, stood in the back of a wagon. It was stopped in front of the feed and ranch supply store. Probably that was the sound that had drawn Gamble’s attention. Probably the man had scuffed the soles of his boots on the wagon bed. Beyond the man in front of the wagon, two bay horses with blond manes and tails stood in harness, motionless and bored. Their tails switched lazily side to side to drive away flies. The other man, probably the younger, had just disappeared inside.
Wide red suspenders rose from the dusty black trousers of the man in the back of the wagon. They ran up over the back of a white shirt already stained under the arms, and they disappeared over narrow, bony shoulders. He wore a flat cap, and beneath it he sported the reddish-brown neck of a man who didn’t believe in wide-brimmed hats. He gripped his own waist and stared at the door of the store as he waited to receive whatever the other man brought out.
The third person was a woman, easy enough to identify even at this distance as the Widow Markle. She was still dressed all in black, hat to shoes, and wearing a veil. All of that even though today was the ninth or maybe tenth day after Thomas Markle, her late husband and the town’s latest attempt at a marshal, was planted in the cemetery on the low rise south of town.
Most of La Encantada’s patrons agreed that the marshal had died of stupidity, having exercised a lapse in judgement. With his revolver, which by all accounts was in perfect working order, still in his holster, he had attempted to impress a would-be bandito with his knowledge of the law.
The bandito, who was hungry and only passing through when he liberated a cherry pie he’d spotted cooling on a windowsill, was not impressed with the marshal’s recitation. Nor, apparently, was he convinced he should spend the night in jail, much less remain there until the circuit judge came through sometime later in the month. To his credit, before he resorted to more strenuous means of resistance, the bandito tried to explain. The woman who owned the pie hadn’t protested—in fact, she hadn’t even noticed the pie was missing until the marshal poked his nose in—so what business was it of the marshal’s in any case? All of which he expressed to the marshal by saying, “Mister, ain’t no part of this none’a your business.”
Whereupon the marshal, with his revolver still safely ensconced in his holster, had attempted again to explain the unbiased facts of the law to the bandito. Unfortunately, the patience of the latter having expired, he drew his own revolver and shot the marshal dead. Then he casually thanked the woman for the slice of pie, ascended to the saddle, and rode just as casually out of town to the south.
It was just as well he hadn’t fled. He was followed only by the woman’s smile and a wistful look. Apparently it never dawned on the townsfolk, even the newly widowed Mrs. Markle, to form a posse or go after the bandito or any such thing. Had he survived, Marshal Markle might have learned to allow his revolver to do the reciting of the law, or at least the disarming, after which he could recite all he wanted.
None of which, of course, mattered in the slightest to Billy Gamble, who had problems of his own. As the Widow Markle disappeared into the dry goods store two doors past the wagon still parked in front of the feed and ranch supply store, he turned back to the front.
The priest o r pastor or whatever had disappeared back into his church.
Chapter 2
Gamble shook his head and leaned into his stride. The sooner he got to his house and then back to La Encantada to clear up this mess the better. He needed his life back.
He scowled. Who the hell did those guys think they were, anyway?
He rounded the corner at the brown adobe school house and headed up Clay Street toward his small house. Half a block to go.
Stupid question. They claimed to be comancheros. Of course, he knew better. Everybody in the northeast New Mexico Territory from Portales to Clayton knew better. Francisco “Paco” Messina, a real comanchero, ruled this part of the New Mexico Territory. He had ruled it for years, ever since that crazy Texas Ranger killed Tobias Morales and scattered his band. That’s when Messina had taken over. That’s the way it was and that’s the way it would remain.
Yet despite all odds and all common sense, this crazy, skinny little Mexican came in with three other Mexicans and started throwing his weight around, such as it was. He claimed to be a comanchero, even claimed he was taking over from Messina.
But seriously? With only three men?
Well, five actually. Those two lagabouts who claimed to have ridden with Messina themselves at one time—Pablo Peñasco Juarez and James “Poker” Blythe—made a big show of joining Ruiz’ fledgling band.
Still, Gamble had almost laughed out loud at the notion that the diminutive Mex was a comanchero.
But all of that aside, the handful of wannabes had disrupted his life and embarrassed him. In fact, Ruiz had caught him off guard and slammed his face into the bar. Then he had declared, at the point of his cocked revolver, which he had shoved hard up under Gamble’s chin, that the cantina was now his headquarters. Hell, he might as well have proclaimed ownership. And if that weren’t enough, he’d ordered Gamble to go find houses for his men!
And of course, Gamble was confused at first as any reasonable man might be. He’d sustained a bruised forehead and—if his freely watering eyes were any indication—maybe even a broken nose, not to mention the indignity. Naturally, he wasn’t thinking straight, so he’d left straight away to do Ruiz’ bidding.
But soon his head cleared and it dawned on him: Ruiz and his men were no more comancheros than Billy Gamble himself was. Probably none of them had even served time in prison, whereas Gamble had served a full four months in that hell hole in Angola, down in Louisiana. Granted, the sentence was levied for cheating at cards, not murder or mayhem—and he was released early when the man who accused him recanted his testimony on his death bed—but he’d still served that much of a five-year sentence. In Angola, no less!
He come back from being a hardened convict to build up his cantina with years of hard work. Nobody was going to waltz in and take over. Least of all a small band of ragtag, lowlife amateur Mexican banditos who smelled of cattle and fancied themselves comancheros.
Anger trembled through him again as he strode across the narrow street-level porch and opened the door of his modest white wood-frame house. He passed through the front room, bypassed the kitchen on his left and went into the bedroom. There, he reached into the secret space between the back wall of the house and the uncarved but polished pine wardrobe he’d imported all the way from St. Louis.
He grinned, brandishing the ten-gauge double-barreled shotgun. It was time to teach that Mexican a lesson.
He left the house and all but stomped back up the street, then turned into the alley that led behind La Encantada. Ruiz would rue the moment he’d sent the likes of Billy Gamble packing through the back door of his own cantina.
Gamble would enter the same way he’d left, but proudly. He would also arrive considerably heavier than he’d left. He sneered, certain of his self-prophesied outcome.
*
A long moment later, he strode in through the back door and stopped. With the butt stock of the shotgun trapped between his right side and his right elbow, and gripping the fore stock with his white-knuckled left hand, he pointed the barrels directly along the front of the bar, his finger tightening on the front trigger as his eyes adjusted to the light.
There was nobody there.
He released a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding and peered along the front of the bar again, but empty air doesn’t lie. Nobody was there.
Well, good. Gamble grinned and nodded and pointed the shotgun at the ceiling. It was a good thing Ruiz and his bunch had left. A very good thing. He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone anyway. Apparently that he had been willing was enough. Without realizing it, Ruiz had saved himself from having to suffer Gamble’s wrath. Billy couldn’t be sure he would be so generous with the next supposed tough guy who popped out of the woodwork.
The shotgun still pointed at the ceiling, he stepped behind the bar, his step more confident than it had been only a moment ago.
He hefted the weight of the shotgun with his left hand. From now on, one thing was certain. This shotgun would remain behind the bar right here in the cantina. This is where it should have been all along. If it had been stored here earlier, he wouldn’t have suffered the indignation and humiliation Ruiz had heaped on him. And he never would again.
Halfway along the length of the bar, he crouched and looked at the shelf underneath. He would have to rearrange some glasses and maybe a bottle or two, but this would be the ideal place to keep the gun.
Gamble was too trusting, that was the problem. Ruiz got the jump on him earlier because he was just too damned trusting. Well, no more.
He brushed a few glasses to the left and some others to the right, clearing a space of the appropriate width and depth. There was space not only for the shotgun itself but for his fingers to wrap around it without knocking over any glasses. He laid the shotgun on its right side in the space, then scrutinized his handiwork. It was as if the space was built specifically for that shotgun.
The two uprights that supported the center of the long shelf and the bar above it were a few inches to the left of the end of the barrels and a few inches to the right of the end of the butt stock. If he crouched and grabbed the gun with his right hand, it would come up unimpeded and in the ready position. Later, maybe he would fashion some sort of device he could nail or otherwise affix to the bar to hold the shotgun upright. Getting to it would be even easier and quicker then. But for now this would have to do.
Satisfied, he smiled as he tensed his calf and thigh muscles and started to rise. It would do for now. After all, Ruiz and his men were—
Oh God.
As his head cleared the top of the bar, his smile disappeared. His eyes crossed and focused on the working end of the barrel of a revolver. It was round, grey like burnished silver, and huge. And it was only inches from his nose.
Gamble closed his eyes, then opened them and focused again.
Ruiz’ smiling face was just above the greyish silver tunnel. His smile remained but his lips moved. “What were you doing down there, señor Gamble? You are my friend, right? Mi amigo?”
Oh damn.
Again he held his breath, this time calculating how long it would take him to drop, grab the shotgun, bring it up and—
No. Too long. Far too long.
Chapter 3
Looking into the business end of Ruiz’ .45 caliber revolver, Billy Gamble forced a grin. His hands remained on the back edge of the bar.
“Wh-what?” What had Ruiz asked him? Did he ask whether Gamble was his friend?
Ruiz’ grin broadened. “I asked if you were—”
“Yes! Yes, of course I’m your friend, señor Ruiz! I only came back here to, uh—Oh! I came back here to get a glass. I have a special glass I like to use for myself, and I came back here to get it. I was looking for it.” He gestured downward with his head. “Down there, I mean. I was looking for it, but it wasn’t there. I must have left it somewhere else.”
Still grinning, a twinkle in his eyes, Ruiz nodded. “In your house, perhaps.”
“Yes! Yes sir! Perhaps in my house.”
“But that cannot be, can it, señor Gamble?”
Gamble tried to keep up, still wearing the plastered-on grin. “No? Why not?”
