The Good the Bad and the Ugly

Mighty Maude howled into view from behind the sandstone mass, less than five hundred feet away. As the giant locomotive hurtled toward him Tuco flattened himself as much as possible, burrowing his face into the gravel. Beneath him the ground shook and a wave of hot, compressed air buffeted him. Then the speeding engine was upon him.

The tough steel links of the handcuff chain could resist many forces but they proved no match for the sharp wheel-flanges and enormous weight of Mighty Maude. There was a jerk and Tuco’s hand dropped free. He flung himself away from the track, rolling down the embankment as the locomotive flashed past. Above the thunder of wheels and driven he heard a brief bunt of angry yelling from the cab.

He sat up in time to glimpse something that resembled a bundle of red rags hanging under the locomotive’s low-slung firebox and bumping against the lies. The spot between the rails where Wallace had lain was empty. Tuco whirled away from the track and ran in the opposite direction.

A mile or so down the tracks, one of two brakemen standing on the rear platform of the last car suddenly clutched his companion’s arm and yelled, “Goddlemighty, there’s a man, or what’s left of one, lying between the rails. He most have been drug a ways, by the look. Pull the emergency cord.”

“Not me,” the other said firmly, shaking his head. “You pull the emergency stop when we’re makin’ this speed and that engineer’ll climb your frame clean to your shoulders and chew your damfool head off. Besides, there ain’t nothin’ anybody can do for that poor bastard now that the vultures can’t do quicker and cleaner.”

The settlement of Marcosito had been a thriving, bustling community until, overnight, the Confederate invasion turned it into a ghost town. By an accident of geography the town happened to stand in the path of Sibley’s advance force. By a more catastrophic accident it was the place where the Texans encountered the first strong Union resistance.

The Marcositans had retired at night, blissfully unaware that the war was at their doorstep. They awoke in the morning to find the town swarming with enemy troops.

The Texans had paused only long enough to plunder the shops and saloons and raid hencoops before moving northward. The outraged citizens swarmed out on the heels of their departure to curse and commiserate. They were assessing their losses when the sound of heavy firing broke out to the north.

Presently the Confederates reappeared, hard-pressed by Union forces and dearly intending to make their stand in the town They were at the outskirts when a battery of Union artillery opened up and shells began falling on the town. The citizens hurriedly snatched a few possessions—piling them into wagons and buggies or hanging them from saddles—and departed on masse for a less hazardous clime.

Eventually Sibley’s main force caught up to drive the outnumbered Yankees back and the fighting moved on, leaving Marcosito battered and abandoned. None of its citizens ventured to return, nor would they until the war ended or the last Confederate had been driven out of New Mexico Territory.

The day was waning when Sentenza, his six gun-hands and the Man From Nowhere came to Marcasite. They rode down the cannon-pocked street, the clatter of their hoofbeats echoing from the empty buildings.

The scars of the fierce bombardment were evident everywhere. They passed a fire-gutted stable, a house with part of its roof blown off, then picked their way around a pile of debris that had been the high false front of a saloon.

“It looks,” Sentenza remarked, “as though we had the whole town to ourselves.”

The bounty-hunter glanced at him without replying. White lines etched his mouth and his eyes glittered. Sentenza reined in before a rambling two-storey hotel. Most of it appeared to be intact but a shell had tom off an upper corner, leaving heavy roof beams unsupported. Sentenza studied the structure and shook his head.

“I don’t like it A jar could bring those timbers crashing down to kill or trap anybody inside.”

They rode on and halted before the ruins of what seemed to have been a store. Most of the front had been blown off but the structure itself looked sound.

“I like this better,” Sentenza said. “We’ll bed down here for the night We can are any visitors without being seen and either pick them off or fade out by the back door. Bill, you and Andy take care of the horses. Put them up somewhere out of sight”

The gunman named Hank had crowded his horse up beside the bounty-hunter’s. As they swung out of the saddles Hank’s right spur jabbed the flank of the hunter’s horse. It shied violently and the hunter, caught in mid-swing, had to make a frantic grab for the cantle to avoid being thrown under the trampling hoofs. He quieted the horse, dropped to the ground and stepped around to confront Sentenza’s man. He was aware of the other five closing in at his back.

“You’re asking for it, Hank,” he said through set teeth.