by Neil Hunter
“That’s where you’re wrong, feller, I don’t,” Bodie snapped. “All I have to do is pull a trigger. What happens after that won’t concern you at all!”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Crown yelled. He threw an arm in the direction of Beth Arling. “She made me do it. It was her!”
A cold rage grew in Bodie’s chest. It drove him to wild, unfeeling action. He shoved Raymond Crown away from him, and as the man stood uncertainly in the center of the room, Bodie swung a brutal fist into his face. Crown’s nose splintered with a sodden crunch, blood spraying from the crushed flesh. Gasping for breath Crown back away, but Bodie followed him across the room, his fist striking again and again. Hard knuckles smashed against soft flesh, pulping lips and breaking teeth from bloody gums. Crown was spun on his heel by a sledging left to his jaw, driving him against the wall. He tried to stay on his feet by clawing at the wall. His battered face left a bloody smear on the faded wallpaper. Crown was weeping uncontrollably, the sound choking off when Bodie sank his fist deep into his side. Crown sank to his knees, clutching his body, retching violently.
Bodie stepped back from the man, angry at himself for allowing his anger to divert his attention from Beth Arling. She was the more dangerous of the two. Even as he registered his mistake he heard a soft sound behind him, a sharp intake of breath, followed by the metallic click of a gun hammer being pulled back.
You damn fool, he yelled to himself and turned, letting his body drop to the floor.
A gun went off. The sound was sharp, hard, the blast from a light caliber weapon, Bodie registered. Then he hit the floor and rolled frantically as he caught sight of Beth Arling. She was on her feet, legs braced apart, a look of wild triumph on her lovely face as she followed the movement of his body with the gun held in her hands. It fired a second time. The bullet gouged a long tear in the carpet, pale splinters of wood flying up in the air. Beth began to draw back the hammer again. It only took an instant. But in that time Bodie had let go of the shotgun, snatched at his holstered Colt, and fired a single shot. The bullet hit Beth Arling in the soft flesh of her upper arm, spinning her round and dumping her on the floor. Blood streaked the pale flesh of her arm and the rounded fullness of her breasts. She lay in a shocked stupor, her eyes wide, unseeing, and Bodie knew that in a while she would begin to feel the pain.
He climbed to his feet. Picking up the gun Beth Arling had used he tucked it under his belt. Then he went across the room to where Raymond Crown lay. Pulling the man to his feet Bodie shoved him to the bed and sat him on the edge.
“Now we’ve all played games, feller, let’s talk. And this time we have some answers.”
Raymond Crown wiped blood from his mouth. “All right,” he mumbled.
“What do I care anymore!”
“Never mind the hearts and flowers,” Bodie said. “Kopek! You hired him?”
“Yes.”
“Randall must be offering a hell of a deal to make you go that far. What’s his price?”
“A million and a half,” Crown whispered hoarsely. He abruptly raised his head and stared at Bodie, a desperate wildness showing in his eyes. “We would have been rich, man. Able to leave this goddamn place. Go where there are civilized people. Restaurants. Theatres. Music. Anywhere away from this filthy mountain! It was wrong. Angela had no right refusing to sell! She had no damn right to keep me here. I don’t belong.”
“That’s the only thing you’re right about, feller,” Bodie observed. “You sure as hell don’t belong. Not here or anywhere! Only place fit for you is a cage! Now get on your feet and get dressed.”
Bodie picked up the shotgun, tucking it under his arm. He crossed to where Beth Arling lay and pulled her roughly to her feet. She gazed at him through dull eyes.
“You too, honey,” he said.
Beth pulled away from him, her mouth twisting into an ugly sneer. “Big man,” she spat. “I hope you burn in hell, Bodie!”
“The way you act, honey, I’ll probably have company,” Bodie said. “Now get some clothes on, or I’ll drag you outside the way you are!”
Ten minutes later they emerged from the saloon to find a sprinkling of High Grade’s citizens gathered outside the building. One of those waiting was Angela Crown. As she saw Bodie step out on the boardwalk she pushed her way to the front of the crowd.
“Bodie, are you all right?” she asked.
He nodded. “Ask your brother what he’s been up to, Angela.”
Angela glanced at her brother, flinching slightly at the sight of his battered, bloody face. “I didn’t want to admit the possibility, Raymond. I thought about it and the more I thought, the less I wanted to know. But I’m not a child. I can’t avoid the truth. And the truth is that you wanted me…dead! Isn’t that correct, Raymond?”
“Yes!” Raymond Crown screamed. “Yes, it’s true. I wanted you dead and buried! Out of my hair for good! All that money waiting for me and it might as well have been at the bottom of the sea. Because you’re so goddam stubborn, you self-righteous bitch!”
Angela’s face paled at his vicious outburst. She took a hesitant step forward, and then shrank away, turning on her heel. The gathered crowd melted aside as she moved across the street to where her horse stood.
“No!”
Raymond Crown’s hysterical yell shattered the silence. In a sudden lunge he drove his shoulder against Bodie, knocking him back across the boardwalk. In the same movement his fingers closed around the shotgun in Bodie’s hand, snatching the deadly weapon free. Turning, Raymond ran down the steps and onto the street, his fingers fumbling with the shotgun’s hammers. His face was taut, a bitter mask of unrelenting fury.
The crowd scattered at the sight of the running man and the raised shotgun.
Bodie, recovering his balance, reached for his holstered Colt, dragging back the hammer as the gun came up.
Alarmed by the outburst Angela turned and saw her brother running toward her, the shotgun leveled at her.
Raymond, his finger drawing back on the double trigger, began to smile. A wild, almost insane expression.
A shot rang out. Then another.
Raymond Crown was spun round by the force of the heavy bullets. One took him in the chest, high up, blowing a pulpy hole through his body. Blood and torn flesh spewed from the exit wound. The second shot hit him in the throat, ripping it open in a red spray. Bloody tissue erupted from Raymond’s slack mouth as he stumbled to his knees in the dust. His finger jerked on the shotgun’s triggers and the weapon blasted its loads into the dirt. With blood pumping from his shattered body Raymond Crown toppled forward, limbs jerking awkwardly as he died.
Bodie came down off the boardwalk, his unfired gun in his fist. As he pushed his way across the street he saw Hal Benteen coming from behind Angela. Benteen’s gun was in his hand, smoke curling from the muzzle.
“He didn’t give me any choice, Miss Crown,” Benteen said apologetically.
Angela nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Benteen.” She glanced at her brother’s body. “He didn’t leave any of us with a choice,” she said sadly, her eyes misting with tears.
“Angela, let’s go back to the house,” Bodie said.
“It ain’t over yet,” Benteen said. “Randall ain’t finished…and he’s goin’ to be good and mad with you, Bodie, after last night!”
Bodie smiled wolfishly. “That’s just what I’m hoping,” he said.
Standing at the edge of the boardwalk Beth Arling watched the street empty. She fixed her gaze on the bloody corpse of Raymond Crown and she knew that her dreams of big money were ended. Maybe she was lucky, though. At least she was still alive. She was aware of how close she’d come to dying. So perhaps it was time for her to leave High Grade. Sell the saloon and move on. There were other towns. Other opportunities. She had made enough money out of High Grade to be able to sell the saloon quickly, even at a loss. And she had enough capital banked away in various accounts to keep her solvent. The only thing she really regretted was the death of Mantee. For th
at she could never forgive Bodie. And maybe one day, no matter when, she might find herself in the position to repay him for Mantee’s death.
It was a thought that would keep her awake at night — but it would be worth every long, lonely, aching minute!
Chapter Fourteen
“I still say let’s go and find him,” Deeks yelled. He smashed his fist down on the desk top.
“Put some lead in the son of a bitch!”
“A man like Bodie doesn’t die easy,” Jonas Randall said. “I think he’s proved that in the short time he’s been involved with Angela Crown.”
Deeks slumped in his chair, glowering at Randall’s back. The worst of it was that Randall was right. All Deeks had to do was to think back to the events of the night before. The raid on the Crown mine had turned out to be extremely costly. Most of Deeks’ best guns were dead — or wounded — and the rest of his men were starting to figure the odds. None of them seemed too happy about getting involved with Bodie anymore. The abortive raid had been galling enough. Bodie’s swift, unexpected reaction — blowing up Randall’s office building — had been downright embarrassing. And then there had been the violent showdown between Bodie and Raymond Crown. Even Randall had been surprised at the revelation of Crown’s involvement with Beth Arling.
“Damn,” Randall said. He was staring out of the window of Deeks’ office, and he turned suddenly. “If only Crown had come to me instead of that whore. We could have helped each other without all this mess exploding in our faces.”
“You ask me,” Deeks observed, “I’d say it was the Arling woman who talked Crown into trying to kill his sister. Crown was a greedy son of a bitch, but he hadn’t the brains or the guts to dream up a scheme like that. Hell, he had hot pants for Beth Arling. Everybody knew it. Couldn’t keep away from her. All she had to do was show him her tail, give him what he was after, and he would’ve done anything.”
Randall crossed the office. “Maybe you’re right, Deeks. God, I could swear at the thought of the chance we missed there!”
“Yeah, well it ain’t going to do any good moanin’ about it. What we got to do now is make sure that when we go for Bodie there ain’t no more foul-ups!”
“I want something done quickly, Deeks. The longer Bodie’s around the harder it’ll get for us. Every time he hits and hurts us, the rest of High Grade takes notice. Sooner or later they’ll all start resisting, and if that happens we can forget about making this a company town and start digging a couple of graves!”
“You want me to try and pick up a few more guns?” Deeks asked.
“If you can. And throw in some more money. That should stop the rest of those miserable bastards grumbling.”
Deeks picked up his hat and strode out of the office. He made his way out onto the street. The sun had been up for a few hours now and High Grade boiled in dusty subservience. Deeks glanced up and down the busy street, then began to cross, making his way down to the far end of the main intersection. Down here was the dirty, forgotten part of town. Where the drunks and the layabouts and the cheap whores existed — they didn’t live, they simply existed — drifting from day to day without purpose or plan or ambition. Their indifference towards life was shown by the filthy, ramshackle hovels in which they squandered each day, each hour. The cramped huts were thrown together from old packing cases, the odd length of timber, sacking and canvas. The narrow alleys between were overflowing with filth of all kinds. And the place reeked of humanity at its lowest.
There were men and women down here who would do anything for a couple of dollars. Deeks had a specific couple of people in mind. Twin brothers by the name of Jelks. Artie and Simm Jelks. They were a pair of vicious, brutal, degenerates. As far as Deeks was concerned, the Jelks’ were little more than two-legged animals. But they were just what he needed for the job in hand.
The Jelks’ hut stood on its own, a way off from its neighbors. The two brothers weren’t concerned with the rest of High Grade’s outcasts. They preferred to be separate. As Deeks got close to the hut he was able to smell the rotting filth strewn around outside the place. Reaching the door he hammered on it.
“Artie? Simm? You boys in there? It’s Deeks. I want to talk.”
Somebody giggled inside the hut. Bare feet scuttled across the floor and the door was dragged open on its creaking hinges.
A naked girl peered out at Deeks. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. Slim, almost boyish in build, with small, hard breasts, she stared at Deeks with wide, dark eyes.
“It’s him,” she called over her shoulder.
“Well show the man in,” a man yelled.
The girl opened the door and Deeks stepped inside the shaded hut. It reeked of stale sweat and the muskiness of sex. The girl closed the door and trotted past Deeks, her small, round buttocks bouncing tightly. Against the far wall of the hut stood a large old bed. The girl climbed onto the bed and put her arms around the naked man stretched out on the grubby blankets. A second man, naked as well, was kneeling on the bed. He grinned across the room at Deeks.
“Nice to see you, Mr. Deeks,” he said. “You come on business? Only Simm an’ me, well, we’s kind of tied up at the present!”
Deeks didn’t answer. He was watching what the girl was doing to Simm Jelks’ large erection. He had heard about the way some girls would do it with their mouths but this was the first time he’d actually seen it being done. And while the girl busied herself with Simm, his brother Artie moved to the rear of the girl, guiding his own erection between the spread thighs. He lunged forward with a deep grunt, mounting her as a stallion would a mare. Deeks stood and watched, fascinated by the animal-like lust of the straining trio on the swaying bed. He was aware of his own partial arousal, but he didn’t move until the three on the bed were finished.
Artie Jelks, grinning all over his lean, unshaven face, climbed off the bed and picked up a pair of filthy Levis. He pulled them on, then got down on hands and knees, searching under the bed until he located a pair of scuffed boots. He squatted on the floor while he tugged the boots on over his dirty feet, then climbed upright to stamp his feet firmly down into the tight leather.
“Ain’t seen you in a coon’s age, Deeks,” Artie said finally. “Been hearin’ ’bout all your troubles, mind.”
“Yeah,” called Simm from the bed. “Seems to me somebody’s givin’ you the old run around, Deeks.”
Deeks grunted and crossed over to where a pot of coffee stood bubbling on an old pot-bellied stove. He found a reasonably clean mug and poured himself some of the brew. In spite of their appearance the Jelks boys brewed the best coffee Deeks has ever tasted.
Aware of his reluctance to talk, Simm Jelks sat up, gently stroking the girl’s taut buttocks. “Hey, Jolene, why don’t you come back later? When me an’ Artie got time to spare.”
The girl sat up. She glared across the room at Deeks. “Aw, I was just gettin’ all warmed up too!”
Artie gathered up the girl’s dress and tossed it to her. “Well you just wrap a blanket round it, honey, an’ keep it warm.” He giggled softly, rubbing his hand up and down his groin.
Jolene pulled on her dress. She went to the door, still glaring at Deeks. “I’ll see you boys later,” she said and slipped out through the door.
“That Jolene!” Artie crooned.
Simm, perched on the end of the bed, was fondling himself. “Man, can that girl do it! She sucked my pecker drier than a water pump in a drought!”
“Time we talked, Deeks,” Artie said. He helped himself to coffee.
“I got a job for you boys,” Deeks said. “Feller called Bodie.”
“We was kinda hoping for a chance at him,” Simm said. He was dragging the bedclothes apart as he searched for his clothes.
“Hell, yeah,” Artie agreed. “Mean son of a bitch, that Bodie! No offence, Deeks, but he sure took your boys apart!”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Deeks growled. “If I’d had him workin’ for me, this town would’ve been in R
andall’s pocket by now.” He refilled his coffee mug. “Reckon you can take him?”
Simm, dragging on his pants, chuckled. “We’ll take him — or get our asses shot off with the doin’!”
“Deeks, you leave it to us,” Artie said.
“While you’re at it, I want that Crown woman scared so bad she’ll sell out to Randall for the change in his pocket!”
“Now that could be fun,” Artie giggled. “Hey, Deeks, I figure this job should be worth a nice little pile.”
“You pull it off, boys, and you won’t have to stay in this dump any longer.”
Simm pulled a face. “Why not? Hell, Deeks, we like it here. It’s home and it’s just fine. Ain’t it, Artie?”
“Damn right! We just wouldn’t feel right anywhere else, Deeks. An’ anyhow, old Jolene lives just across the way, an’ that gal as got tricks we ain’t even tried yet!”
“Get it done then,” Deeks said. “You know where to find me after. I’ll have cash money ready for you!”
“That’s what we want to hear, Deeks.” Artie scratched his groin.
“Simm, you got an itch?”
“No, why?”
“I have! Judas Priest, I hope Jolene ain’t been passin’ anythin’ on. It’s the only trouble with that little gal. She’s so damn generous. If she got a dose of the clap she’d just naturally pass it on so nobody could accuse her of hoggin’ it all herself!”
Chapter Fifteen
All through the long day Bodie was aware of tension building up inside him. There was no tangible cause for his mood. No outward threat had shown itself. But he just knew that something was brewing, and it was going to boil over without warning.
Jonas Randall was keeping out of sight, which worried Bodie. Also, Randall’s men, including Deeks, had slipped out of sight. Bodie would have given a lot to have known just what they were up to. After all the recent activity, the sudden calm was unnatural.
