“Well —” he said. His smile widened. “Well, well, well —”
“You’re repeating yourself,” I said. “Let me guess why.”
He didn’t get mad. “Quick thinker, eh? Helluva lot of good it will do you.”
Mr. Riker was puzzled. “What difference can the letter make? P.J. is a confused, reckless child —”
“Forget it, Mr. Riker,” I said. “Just look at Las Vegas. This is all he’s been waiting for. He hasn’t got an ounce of common sense. One little note and he’s all set to try for the Grand Prize. Las Vegas, don’t be a chump. Think twice before you act once. You can’t get a second chance, you know, when you start murdering people.”
Las Vegas refused to stop smiling. I didn’t like the way his narrow eyes were glittering. Mr. Riker hadn’t seen it yet. Neither had Rita Riker, apparently. Maybe Rita thought he didn’t have the guts for it. But I could see what Las Vegas was going to do in his eyes. So did Tubby. He spread out in the doorway and fondled his Winchester.
Rita Riker suddenly caught on. I heard her voice behind me say in a flat, dead whisper: “You really think you can go through with this, Vegas?”
Her voice ignited him. His lips parted and his face mottled with fury. “And why the hell not? Who knows we’re out here? Who, huh? Who? Jingo thinks Mary Lou’s from Rawlins. We got rid of the Buick. We been out here for weeks and nobody noticed us. It’s a big country, ain’t it? Think I’m going to let the old geek here pour all that gold dust into a church? The hell I am. I get rid of you three and I got me and Tubby and the boys. A six-way split is plenty. I knew that crazy P.J. would be the one to tumble to the exact location. Wild kid, huh? Nut, huh? I think that kook is smarter than all the rest of us put together. Well, we’ll meet him at that cabin all right. He knows where the stuff is. That’s all I gotta know.”
Tubby came to life, swearing. “Vegas — where the hell is that girl? The kid — Mary Lou —”
“You’re too late, fellows,” I cut in loudly. “I sent her to Rock Springs an hour ago for the cops. I was waiting for you to turn the doublecross, Vegas.”
He sneered. “Then why you talking so loud? So you can warn her? Tubby — go out the back. She’s probably out there washing some clothes like she always does.”
“Leave her alone,” Mr. Riker rumbled. “I’ve had enough of this Godlessness —”
“Shut up and stay put or the funeral starts now,” Las Vegas snarled.
For a fat man, Tubby moved fast. He bounded out of the cabin like a deer. We could hear his heavy feet pounding the earth hard. He was back in two minutes, puffing noisily, his fat face damp with sweat.
“Nowhere in sight,” he grumbled. “Think Noon’s bluffin’ —?”
Vegas cursed. “Better have some of the boys mount up and go after her. If the wise guy is bluffing, she must have took off. They ought to catch her before she hits the highway.”
“Don’t think I oughta leave you alone.” Tubby sounded worried. Las Vegas scowled.
“Get going or you won’t have to think at all. I can handle three marks. Nobody can jump a rifle at five feet.”
He was right. Tubby knew he was right. He nodded and went out the door again. You could hear his big voice bawling for the riders. It seemed a century before horses snorted and stamped and hoofbeats thundered away from Agreeable Wells. Las Vegas watched us carefully over the nose of the Winchester. Mr. Riker was slumped defeatedly at the table, not even looking at him anymore. Rita had parked herself in a chair by the window but she couldn’t take her eyes off Las Vegas. There was nothing else in the cabin so eye-catching.
“Las Vegas,” I said. “You’re banking pretty heavily on a boy who isn’t exactly level-headed.” I softened that up for the old man’s sake. But Mr. Riker was lost in the world of the table top.
“I like the odds, Noon.” Las Vegas chuckled. “That kid isn’t crazy. Just wild. He was always poking around these hills, looking places where he knew we wouldn’t. It would be just like him to hit the jackpot ahead of us. Anyway, Charley Redwine’s dead so P.J. is my only chance. And why would he write that letter if it wasn’t on the up-and-up?”
He couldn’t see my feet under the table. I was still sitting, talking conversationally, but I had stiffened my legs to their full length until my toes were resting against the cross-bar of the empty chair he was standing behind. He was too close to all of us to see beneath the table. I was counting on just that.
“Suit yourself, Vegas,” I said. “How are you going to get rid of us?”
His eyes widened at the calm question. “Cool guy, huh? That’s my headache. But there’s plenty of buttes and gorges around here. Fall into one of those and you’ll be an unidentified skeleton for years. It’s a big country.”
“So you said.” I looked at him and tested the cross-bar gingerly and quietly with my toes until I was convinced I had a solid purchase on it. “No qualms about killing me, of course. I’m a stranger. But Riker here and Rita. They’ve been good to you. Why take it out on them?”
He licked his lower lip. “You’re opposition, Noon. A meddler. Your number was up as soon as you walked into this game. Riker’s opposition too. When he goes, I’ll ask Rita all over again. She don’t have to die. Not with that shape, she don’t. It’s all up to her.”
“You,” Rita Riker said evenly “can go and **** yourself.”
I laughed at what her remark did to Las Vegas’ face. He turned red and his fingers on the Winchester tightened the knuckles showed white.
But Mr. Riker jerked erect as if someone had struck him. His head swung toward Rita and his mammoth discontent with her words dominated his whole body. “Rita!” His full, shocked roar filled the cabin. “That is no way for a woman to talk! Must we stoop to the level of these ungodly men —!” His outrage worked perfectly for me. Las Vegas’ attention swung toward this crossfire between Mr. Riker and Rita as if I had asked for it. It was tailor-made diversion for what I was about to try.
I hooked my shoe tops under the chair rung and flexed the muscles in my calfs and thighs. The chairs spilled over hard and slammed into Las Vegas, catching him at the knees and just below the Winchester barrel. It was good but it never would have been enough. I followed through, clutching the heavy table with both hands and throwing it over. Past Mr. Riker’s startled lap, scattering plates, cups and utensils and really scrambling the eggs. Las Vegas was just bringing the Winchester down from the ceiling when the thick lip of the table top thudded into the nose of the rifle.
It was too late to do anything but straight-arm Mr. Riker out of the way as he started to rise in bewilderment. I threw myself to the right of Vegas, coming up on his outside. I hoped Rita had sense enough to get out of the line of fire.
The Winchester exploded once. Wood splintered and chips flew as a 30-30 ploughed into the wood of the table. Las Vegas didn’t have time for more. I reached him just as the rifle fell from his banged-on hands. He tried to bring them up when he saw me coming. He never cleared his belt buckle. He toppled back among the disorder of eggs, plates and cutlery as I roundhoused a right hand into the side of his face. I had to move fast.
I swept up the Winchester and raced to the window and poked the barrel out through the glass, shattering the pane. Timing was everything. Tubby had halted about thirty yards from the cabin, where he had been palavering with two of the Riker cowboys. The cabin commotion had alarmed them. They were beginning to come running back, rifles at port, when I cut loose. I didn’t want to kill anybody but I wasn’t going to waste ammunition either.
Firing fast and just once, I caught one of the riders between the knee and the hip. He went down as if a rug had been swept from under him. Tubby and the remaining cowboy broke apart. They found a rock and a mound of earth respectively. The guy who’d been hit was writhing around on the ground, moaning and gripping his leg. I waited until I saw what Tubby and the other man would do. They held their fire. That was good enough for me. I got away from the window.
Rita had
n’t wasted time on fainting or whimpering. She’d unearthed a huge pistol from someplace and several boxes of cartridges. Mr. Riker was examining the fallen Las Vegas. He looked at me, straightening from a kneeling position.
“He would have killed us,” he muttered angrily. “For gold. He’ll — be unconscious for some time —”
“Good. Is there a back way out of here?”
Rita nodded quickly, her eyes gleaming with excitement. There was color in her cheeks and I wasn’t sure she might not be enjoying the whole thing. “Mary Lou must have beat it off when she heard Vegas gloating. Come on — there’s horses out back, too.”
“Let’s get moving then. When Tubby stops worrying about Vegas, they’ll make a cheesebox of this cabin with three Winchesters. Let’s get cracking.”
The sun was blazing hot behind the Riker cabin. But a cool breeze held in by the towering shelf of rock fanned our hot brows. I looked back. The expanse of cabin hid us from Tubby and his crew. We stumbled through tough, low bushes that tore at our ankles. The ground narrowed again into a small draw. Rita led the way, Mr. Riker staggering behind her, still bleary-eyed. I took up the rear, hanging onto the Winchester and keeping an eye peeled. I didn’t see the horses until we were almost on them. Four mares, three brown and the chestnut roan that was Mr. Riker’s. They whinnied as we ran up to them, shying away from the makeshift hitching rail that held them. High overhead, the lip of shelf-rock hung over us like the left field balcony in the Polo Grounds used to overshadow the outfielder playing on the grass below. I looked around.
“Oh, excellent —” I gasped. “A dead end. We can’t get out of here. We’re fenced in like cows —”
Rita Riker shook her head, laughing, still enjoying herself. “Shut up and pick a horse. This is kid stuff. There’s a tunnel through the side of the mountain. Only we Rikers know the way. Ringo is gone which means Mary Lou did take off.”
Mr. Riker was mumbling assent and I was going blind trying to find the secret passage in the wall of almost perpendicular rock. We were about sixty yards from the cabin. Far beyond it I could see the flatlands walking toward the horizon. That wasn’t all I could see.
Tubby suddenly burgeoned out of the cabin’s back door, holding something aloft in his hand that looked painfully familiar. Before I could throw up the Winchester and draw a bead on him, his fat body revolved rhythmically and he unwound like a pitcher throwing a baseball. The familiar object left his hand and rotated end-over-end against the blue sky. It made about one hundred and fifty feet of the one hundred and eighty separating us before it came down.
“Duck!” I yelled, hitting the dirt and hugging the Winchester to my stomach.
The familiar object looked like a firecracker.
But it went off like the dynamite stick it was.
The earth shook, shuddered and blew apart into a million pieces, raining rocks, dirt and wreckage all over us.
In the silence that followed the blast, Tubby’s booming voice came in loud and fine across the clearing, reverberating off the rocky wall behind us.
“C’mon back here! Before I bring that mountain right down on top of yore heads!”
14
The mountain behind us seemed to shiver and shake and lean forward slightly. Just enough to worry the hell out of everybody. Tubby had made his point. He also ducked back into the cabin where I couldn’t pick him off when the dust had cleared.
Rita Riker calmly plucked a splinter of rock out of her long black hair and looked at me. “I reckon we better do what the man says, I reckon. We don’t stand a chance against dynamite.”
Mr. Riker was still somewhere between heaven and hell. Things were moving much too fast for his mystical mind.
“Mr. Noon — I’m sorry —” he mumbled thickly.
“Forget it,” I said. “Greed is where you find it. Just like gold. Right now the most important thing is to make arrangements with our Mr. Tubbs.”
Tubby showed just enough of his fat self in the doorway and cupped a fat hand to his fat face. Well —?” he bellowed. “Ahm waiting’ on you! Come on up here and drop them guns!”
“Stand up” I said. “Come on. Out where he can see us before he gets fidgety.” We moved out from behind the rocks with the horses whinnying a racket behind us. Mr. Riker went first, weaponless. Rita had buried her pistol in her ample bosom. She made a show of dropping a rock or something. From Tubby’s distance, it might look like a gun. I made a big thing out of tossing the Winchester to the ground and raising my hands. I left my .45 where it was. Stuck in my waist band, butt out.
We’d moved just in time. Tubby was in the back doorway of the cabin, a dynamite stick in each hand. We wouldn’t have had a prayer if he’d moved in closer to use them. I had a bad picture of being entombed beneath tons of mountain rock. The warm sun overhead, coupled with blue skies and green grass would have made a mockery of the whole thing.
It was Tubby’s show, now. As we walked slowly toward him, he looked very happy about the whole thing. Maybe he was trying to impress Las Vegas. Maybe he wanted the whole game to himself. It was hard to tell. They were all strangers to me. There was no sign of Las Vegas who was probably still pounding his ear on the floor of the cabin.
“Hold it right there,” Tubby boomed. We were about forty feet from where he stood in the doorway, posing with the dynamite sticks. “Let me get a good look at you all.”
It was a mess, all right. I didn’t know what Rita was going to do. She didn’t know what I was going to do. Tubby having dynamite made it a ticklish business all around. It was no time to get careless.
“Tubby,” I called out. “You’ve made a big mistake. The biggest one in your life.” I had to do something.
I could see his frown. But his wide smile, the one that buried his eyes in folds of fat, wouldn’t go away.
“Do tell?” He roared a short laugh. “You’re wrong again, city boy. I got you all hollow and there ain’t a thing you can do about that.”
I kept my face serious.
“You must have seen some Westerns, Tubby. You know — the movies — or those TV shows. I don’t see how you can stand there so calmly, with a dynamite stick in each hand. You should know you haven’t got a chance. You’re covered, Tubby.”
He was still skeptical, his eyes flying over every inch of the three of us. Suddenly, his smile widened.
“If you mean that .45 stickin’ in your belt, just toss it down on the ground. You ain’t got no sense at all. You talk too much.”
I shook my head. “That’s just it, Tubby. You remember any of those Westerns I mentioned? Remember those fast draws? You know — they can get a gun out and shooting in less time than it takes to tell about it.”
He shifted uncomfortably in the doorway, the sticks still poised for throwing. They had no wicks or fuses on them. Which had to mean they had blasting caps. Little cartridges that set them off on contact.
Rita whispered low so only I could hear.
“I hope you know what you’re doing. I got a gun but he’ll see me go for it —”
Tubby was still curious. “Whatcha mean — fast draws?”
I laughed to cover up my shaky insides. “Tubby, don’t be a sap. I can clear my waist and fire before you even get one of those babies off. Hear me good. It takes three fifths of a second for you to draw your arm back to throw one of those sticks. I can pull this .45 and fire in one fifth of a second. Do you understand? That means I’ve got two fifths of a second start on you. And even if you could throw the stick, I could still shoot it while it’s in the air. Shoot it and shoot you. I’m a fast draw, Tubby.”
He cursed. I’d worried him. Angrily, his arms reared back a bit. “Shoot! You’re the biggest bluffer I ever did see —” The star on his big chest caught some sunlight and held it. I felt sweat in my eyes. Mr. Ricker, who was on my left, was planted like a tall oak in the brown earth.
Tubby laughed. “Ain’t no man take any chances like that with dynamite.” Then he stopped laughing. “Now you s
top talkin’ and keep on comin’ toward me. I’ll take that gun from you myself. Come on, now. I’m waitin’ —”
It was quite a pickle. He’d called my bluff. I hadn’t been kidding either. I wasn’t sure about my figures but I should be able to shoot him before he could throw a stick. The one thing I wasn’t certain of was whether or not I wanted to be within forty feet of a dynamite explosion. The area behind the cabin was no more than a clearing. Open ground with no convenient rocks or humps to hide behind. Not even a rain barrel.
I had a split-second to think it over before we obeyed his command. I got help. But it came from an entirely unexpected source.
A rifle cracked from somewhere behind the cabin. From the other side. It was followed by a piercing scream of fright and pain. Before the echo of the shot was gobbled up by the high shelf of rock behind us, the rifle cannonaded once again. The noise of the two shots was still rocketing off the stone above us when I made my play.
Tubby’s head had swung automatically toward the gunfire, his whole body moving with surprise. He was framed in the doorway as large as a three hundred pound man can be in a confining area. My hand swept for my gun butt. There was no time to shout warnings or push people out of the way. It was Showdown Day and everyman-for-himself.
I fired once, feeling the sudden, bucking power of the Colt pushing back against my wet wrist. I fired high. Not concerned with the niceties of target practice. I had to stop Tubby. Nothing else mattered and I wasn’t going for tiny targets like dynamite sticks.
For all of his size, I fired too high and too fast. But it got the job done. Far better than I would ever have wanted to.
Rita screamed and started running. I did, too. Before I hit the ground for cover, I saw the force of the slug hammer into Tubby’s right shoulder, spin him around with five hundred pound force and slam him against the frame of the doorway. That did it. Instinctively, his arm went out to catch himself before he fell. But it was an arm with a hand that held a dynamite stick. The hand thudded against the door frame. Contact was all that was needed.
Lust Is No Lady Page 8
