Just Shy of Mexico Read online

  “Don’t know if anybody can impress Matt DeKalb,” he murmured to himself as he hefted one last flour sack up onto the shelf.

  “What’s that you say?” Ed Randall asked.

  “Nothin’. Just talkin’ to myself.”

  “You’ve got to be plumb tuckered out, staying up all night and then working all day.” The store owner wiped his hands on his long, white apron. “Why don’t you go wash up before supper? I’ll close up tonight.”

  Tom was in the habit of closing up the shop. Mr. Randall, fit as he was for a man his age, often ran out of steam by day’s end. “No, sir, I’ll take care of it. I need to get myself back into my normal routine.”

  “Well . . . if you say so.” The store owner ducked into the back room and stepped out with his hat. “You sure oughta sleep sound tonight.”

  “I expect so.” Tom retrieved the feather duster from its place beneath the counter.

  At the door, Ed Randall paused and said, “Don’t worry about dusting and sweeping now, Tom. We can get to that in the morning. Just put the money in the safe and lock things up.”

  Tom stared at the feather duster for a moment and then assessed the smattering of flour on the shelves and on the floor in front of them. He could do this one quick task before leaving. “This’ll only take a minute,” he said with a wave goodbye.

  He’d scarcely finished dusting when the front door opened again. He glanced back. No surprise, it was his uncle’s compadre Billy Jessup. Even though he’d already pondered this scenario throughout the course of his chores today, a jolt of caution still shot through him.

  “Evenin’, youngster,” the outlaw said in his gravelly voice.

  Intent on not making the same mistake twice, Tom had kept his gun rig and Colt Thunderer on beneath his apron all day. But he didn’t draw on Jessup. He pivoted and set the feather duster on the counter. “Come on in, Jessup,” he said.

  Jessup grinned. “Figured you’d be a mite twitchy when I came back this time.”

  “Why’s that?”

  The outlaw ambled toward the other sales counter, eyeing Tom the whole time. He stopped and shrugged. “Maybe you can tell me .” Before Tom could reply, Jessup pointed at a clear glass jar of hard candies. “Can I have one of these?”

  Tom eyed Jessup right back. “A penny each.” What, if anything, did the desperado suspect about last night?

  Jessup lifted the lid of the jar, picked out a piece of candy, and popped it in his mouth. “Mm. That’s good.”

  “You’re a day early,” Tom said. “That’s all right, though. I’ve made up my mind about Uncle Tobias’s offer.”

  “Let me guess—”

  “I think I’m gonna go with y’all.”

  Eyebrows raised, Jessup said, “Well, what’d’ya know?”

  “I know I’m tired of sellin’ penny candies to snotty-nosed kids . . . ”

  Jessup cocked his head.

  “ . . . as my uncle put it.”

  The outlaw chuckled and pointed at him. “You might have more sand than I first reckoned you did.”

  Tom untied and pulled off his apron. “Let me fetch my horse, and we can go now.”

  “Good,” Jessup said. “While you lock up here, I’m gonna ride up the street a piece, wait for you across the way from that boardin’ house. Oh, and pack light—you can buy new goods over in Mexico.” He rolled the penny candy around in his mouth then turned for the door.

  Once the bandit was gone, Tom went through his normal closing routine, considering the whole time whether Jessup had him figured for the one that shot the lookout last night. He squatted in front of the safe with the cash box. Before putting it inside, he pulled a penny from his vest pocket and dropped it in the till.

  He locked the front doors and exited through the back, pausing a moment in the alley to take a look back and forth. Nobody waiting for him. As far as he could see, anyway.

  The walk to the stable behind Mrs. Slade’s boarding house took only minutes. When he stepped inside, the familiar smell of horse and hay greeted him, and his buckskin gelding seemed glad to see him. He crossed to the horse’s stall and patted and rubbed the animal’s neck. “Yeah, boy, we’re gonna take a ride,” he said.

  From the dim corner of the stable behind him, a voice said, “Matter of fact, we are.”

  ***

  Tom pulled his Colt Thunderer as he spun, only to find that he had no shot at the unexpected intruder.

  It was Uncle Tobias, and he had the drop on Tom—six-gun out and pointed, body screened by a stout wooden support post, and an arm around the neck of Mrs. Slade’s bound-and-gagged daughter, Phyllis. Tears and terror filled the girl’s eyes.

  Innards feeling like a covey of startled quail, Tom managed to keep his voice steady. “Uncle Tobias! What on earth?”

  “The nerve you got, talkin’ as if you don’t know nothin’.”

  “Whatever I may or may not know, Phyllis here’s got nothin’ to do with it. Now, why don’t you let the poor girl go before you end up regrettin’—”

  “Just shut up, Tom! Word’s out all over town ’bout how you went and called the law on me. You ungrateful whelp. And now, Matt DeKalb hisself is after me?”

  “Well, if things’re so hot for you in these parts, why aren’t you down in Mexico already?”

  “Maybe ’cause I couldn’t stand the idea of my closest kin stabbin’ me in the back.”

  Seeing the fright in Phyllis’s eyes, Tom wasn’t about to play games. He loosened his grip on his revolver and let it drop to the hay. “Do what you want to me. Just don’t hurt the girl.”

  “The girl stays with me till I have you on the other side of the Rio Grande.”

  “Well, let’s get movin’, then.”

  “Where’s DeKalb?” Tobias demanded.

  Tom shook his head. “Got no idea. Honest. I went to work at the mercantile this mornin’. Haven’t seen or heard from him or any other lawman all day.”

  “Putnam?” Tobias raised his voice just a hair.

  “Yeah, Boss?” a voice from just outside answered.

  “How do things look out there?”

  “Nothin’ peculiar, Boss.”

  “Get me my horse, then.” Tobias thrust his gun at Tom. “And you, saddle up. This girl’ll be just fine, providin’ you behave yourself.”

  Tom made quick work of getting his buckskin ready to ride. In minutes, he was in the saddle. Tobias had Phyllis seated in front of him on his horse. Putnam covered Tom with a scattergun.

  “Get on, now,” Tobias ordered. “Straight across the street and through that side alley. And don’t call any attention to us.”

  Tom looked both ways as he crossed the street. The only person in sight was walking the opposite way along the boardwalk. Never glanced back at them.

  Just as Billy Jessup had indicated back at the store, he was waiting in the alley. His face wore none of the mirth that it had when—not even half an hour earlier—he’d been heckling Tom.

  They kept to side streets as they rode generally southward. Shadows were growing long. After a few blocks riding in silence, a fourth member of Uncle Tobias’s gang emerged from a cross street and joined them. He motioned left then right without uttering a word. The band followed his directions.

  As they rode on, Tom scanned windows and doors for anybody who might take note of them, especially of his uncle, holding Phyllis so snugly. The shrewd outlaws were following a route that mostly kept them off streets where folks lived, instead riding behind shops and tradesmen’s places of business, the majority of which were closed, being that it was the supper hour.

  A few more blocks and another desperado fell in with the band. The Rio Grande wasn’t far ahead now.

  One more outlaw to join us , Tom mused. He figured this one would probably be right down along the river, waiting to show them where to safely cross.

  Phyllis whimpered, and Tobias shushed her.

  Tom shook his head. Heroics wouldn’t likely help just now. Lord willing, she�
��d be left safely on this side of the border.

  Judging from the part of town where they were now, it occurred to Tom that the gang would try to cross the Rio Grande over the railway bridge rather than using the one for people and horses and wagons over at the foot of Stanton Street.

  They paused in an alley between Oregon and Utah Streets.

  “You wanna wait here till dark before crossing?” an hombre wearing a gray fireman’s-bib shirt asked Tobias.

  “Nope,” Tobias said. “You go find Hoot. The two of you scout things out real quick. Soon as you see it looks OK, we’ll slip on over.”

  The gray-shirted outlaw nodded and set off at a trot.

  Tobias then murmured to Phyllis, “You sit still just another few minutes, girly. After that, I’ll set you down safe, and you can make your way back to your mama.”

  Tom met Phyllis’s gaze. Tear streaks glimmered down her reddened freckled cheeks. Maybe it was only his conscience, but her eyes seemed to be speaking words to him that her mouth couldn’t form at the moment: You’re a coward, Tom Hedgepeth. A scrawny store-clerk coward.

  He wasn’t, he told himself. He was just trying to play it smart and keep her alive and well.

  Slow, steady hoofbeats just around the corner drew Tom’s attention, as well as that of Uncle Tobias and his men.

  Jessup and Putnam and the other outlaw slid their hands to the grips of their six-guns.

  “Easy,” Uncle Tobias murmured. He wheeled his horse to obscure from any casual passerby the fact that he had Phyllis gagged and bound.

  Jessup loosened his Colt but left it in its holster and rested his hand on his thigh.

  Next thing Tom knew, there at the mouth of the alley was Matt DeKalb, sitting saddle on that big, rented gray. In one hand the marshal had his Schofield revolver, and in the other he held the gray-shirted outlaw’s Stetson.

  “Before you make any ill-advised moves,” DeKalb said, “just know that, whatever direction you ride, you won’t make it two blocks before you’re cut down by the posse I’ve assembled”—he gestured with the outlaw’s hat—“just like your pardner was.”

  For a few beats, nobody budged.

  Tom read the confusion on Jessup’s and Putnam’s faces. There’d been no gunshot. Meanwhile, he couldn’t decide whether DeKalb—who’d said he preferred to work alone—was bluffing about the posse or not.

  “Steady, boys,” Tobias said. He eased his horse around just enough for the marshal to get a good look at Phyllis.

  Tom eyed Jessup’s six-gun. It was almost within his reach. He recalled the move he’d made on Uncle Tobias’s lookout man up in the mountains and how it cost him and Matt DeKalb the opportunity to sneak up unnoticed on the outlaws’ camp. He hadn’t fully trusted the marshal last night. Should he trust him now—outnumbered four to one, with a hostage in the mix? Or should he go for Billy Jessup’s smoke wagon while the marshal had the desperados’ attention?

  “That posse of yours gets to shootin’,” Tobias said, “it’d sure be a shame if they was to kill this little girl.”

  Phyllis wriggled hard and yelped through the gag.

  Her panic persuaded Tom to go for it. He pressed forward and lunged for Jessup’s Colt.

  The outlaw must’ve caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t fast enough to stop Tom from snatching the six-gun, but he whirled in his saddle, lashed out, and landed a rock-solid backhanded blow—directly on Tom’s Adam’s apple.

  For a second Tom felt as if his windpipe was crushed. He couldn’t draw a breath.

  Thankfully, his mustang back-pedaled him out of the way before Jessup could connect with a follow-up punch.

  Still wheezing for air, bedlam all around him, Tom did the only thing that came to mind.

  He spun, thumbed back the hammer of the revolver, and shot his uncle square in the middle of his forehead.

  Gunfire instantly filled the alley.

  He fell from the saddle and landed hard on the packed dirt.

  Horses squealed and jockeyed.

  Uncle Tobias plopped heavily to the ground a couple of yards over, Phyllis still in his arms.

  Tom feared that, before he could draw another breath, he and Phyllis would be trampled.

  Then, as suddenly as it had erupted, the gunfire stopped.

  A riderless horse galloped away up the back street.

  At last sweet air gushed back into Tom’s chest.

  Emitting muffled screams, Phyllis squirmed, kicked, and clawed the dirt with her bound hands to get herself out of Tobias’s limp embrace.

  As Tom lay there, staring at his uncle’s vacant expression, it registered that somebody had walked up and begun to look after Phyllis.

  “Now, now,” the calming voice said. “It’s gonna be all right.”

  Marshal DeKalb.

  Each successive breath came easier for Tom, but he didn’t yet sit up. Instead, he surveyed the alley. Jessup, Putnam, and the other outlaw—just like Uncle Tobias—lay dead-still in the dust.

  The scene prompted him to ask, “Where’s the posse?”

  In the same soothing tone he’d been using to reassure Phyllis, DeKalb answered, “I told you before: I don’t like to work with a posse.”

  ***

  The eastbound locomotive sounded its whistle, and the train heaved forward. Matt DeKalb was aboard, his fabled reputation two full sizes bigger than it had been the day before yesterday.

  From the platform a dozen men and a few kids watched the train roll away. But the trailing railcar had hardly cleared the depot when the crowd turned—all smiles and joviality—and surrounded Tom and Sheriff Gilmer.

  The sheriff grinned at the gathering and pointed emphatically at the wood-plank platform. “Matt DeKalb stood right here in this very spot and told me that our Tom Hedgepeth has got the pluck, the judgment, and the steady hand to be a first-rate lawman.”

  “Already on his way to becoming a legendary lawman!” Kit Bascom crowed.

  Tom stared past Mr. Bascom toward the railcar that carried Matt DeKalb away and recalled how he’d steeled himself for a thorough lambasting from the marshal for having gone after Billy Jessup’s gun yesterday evening. But with his landlady’s daughter safe and his uncle’s band of long riders all deader than Sennacherib’s army, he’d decided he’d be content to take whatever the marshal doled out.

  Turns out it wasn’t so bad.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Thank you very much for taking the time to read Just Shy of Mexico .

  The inspiration for the story came from a vintage photograph I saw in the January 2016 “Best of the West” issue of True West magazine (Vol. 63, #1)—a photo of a rangy, bespectacled cowboy. Since we don’t see many Old West period photos of cowhands or lawmen wearing eyeglasses, the image set my imagination running.

  I hope you enjoyed the resulting tale.

  GP Hutchinson

  gphutchinson.com

  www.facebook.com/author.gphutchinson

  twitter.com/GP_Hutchinson

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