“Howdy, Scurlock,” Abe Howard said. “Or should I call you Deputy Scurlock now?” His wise old eyes sparkled with satisfaction. “It’s good to see that you came around to our way of thinkin’ and accepted a badge.”
“I didn’t do it on your account,” Lee said. He strode to a chair, straddled it, and nodded at the bandages. “What happened?”
“What’s it look like, sonny?” Old Abe retorted, miffed by the southerner’s curt manner.
“You’ve been shot.”
Abe snorted. “Hell, now I understand why Jim wanted you to be a lawman. You’re downright brilliant.”
Lee’s forehead furrowed, and a disturbing insight made him wish someone else could relay the bad tidings. “I take it that you haven’t been into town today?”
“Two deductions in a row!” Abe said, chuckling. “How do you do it, sonny?” He paused. “No, I ain’t been to Diablo today. I can’t hardly ride with my leg the way it is, now can I? That must be why you’re here, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how you learned I’d been plugged.”
“I had no idea.”
The feisty prospector heaved himself onto his elbows and cocked his head. “What? Then why the blazes are you here? Is this a social call?”
“I wish it were.”
Confused, Old Abe studied the younger man’s features. “Uh-oh. Don’t keep me in suspense, Deputy. What the hell has happened?”
“Jim Hays was murdered last night.”
Old Abe turned chalky white. “No!”
“He was gunned down in front of the Delonys’. Allison is staying with them for the time being.”
Grunting, Old Abe sat up, heedless of a stain that appeared on his bandages. “This is terrible! Does anyone know who did it?”
“A miner named Joe Neff. I wanted to question him, but he threw down on me.”
Abe slumped and closed his eyes. His whole body shook. Clenching his brawny hands, he pounded the cot, crying, “That bastard! That murderin’, butcherin’ bastard!”
“Who?”
“Who the hell else?” Abe responded, nearly rising in his indignation. “Allister Kemp has put us in a real tight spot. The nerve of that polecat! He tried to have Jim and me both killed on the same night, only I was lucky and Jim wasn’t.”
Lee rested his arms on the back of the chair. “Mind telling me what happened?”
“There’s not much to it. I went outside last night about nine or so to smoke my pipe, and if I hadn’t dropped the match and bent to pick it up, my brains would be plastered all over the wall outside. Whoever was up in the rocks took to sprayin’ lead at me something fierce, and I got hit in the leg runnin’ for cover. That was when my boys came chargin’ out of the bunkhouse. The scalawag lit a shuck. That’s all.”
“Why didn’t you send someone to let Marshal Evers know?”
Abe scowled. “I told you at the Delonys’ that I don’t trust two-gun Texians who strut around like they’re the Almighty.”
Lee sighed. “It’s a shame you can’t judge men as well as you do ore. Evers has grit, and he’ll always treat you fair.”
“Forget the Texian.” Old Abe leaned forward, fires burning in his eyes. “What do you aim to do about that rotten Englishman? He has to be brought to account for what he’s done.”
“There’s not much I can do until I can prove he’s behind the shootings,” Lee said. “If he’s even to blame.”
The prospector swore a blue streak. “What in the hell does that mean? Are you addle pated? Who else would send gunmen to rub out Jim and me on the very same night?” Abe glowered, his knuckles white. “The bastard’s timing is perfect.”
“How so?”
“Don’t you remember? The hearin’ on Kemp’s motion is set for a few days from now. Jim was gettin’ set to leave for Phoenix tomorrow. He was a top-notch lawyer, and Kemp probably figured that Jim would give him a tussle in court. So Kemp had Jim killed.”
“Where’s your proof?”
Old Abe was so mad that he started to rise, but his leg gave way. Swearing another lusty string, he shook a fist at the Tennessean. “Proof! Proof! Is that all you ever go on about? We both know who’s to blame. No one else stands to gain. So who needs proof?”
Lee tapped his badge. “I do. I can’t arrest a man without cause. It’s the law.”
“Kemp doesn’t need arrestin’. He needs killin’!” Old Abe declared. “If Henry Garfias was marshal in Diablo, this whole mess would have been cleaned up right quick,” he added sarcastically.
The handle was familiar to Lee. Garfias was a tough lawman in Phoenix who had killed several bad men in bloody gunfights. Just the year before, a hard case named Juan Gallegos had gone amok at a horse race and cut up eight people with a saber. Garfias pursued Gallegos into Mexico and brought him back. One day, when Garfias was taking Gallegos to visit his lawyer, the desperado tried to cave in the lawman’s head with a club. Garfias shot him dead on the spot.
“From what I hear,” Lee mentioned, “Garfias goes by the book, too. He wouldn’t gun Kemp down without cause.”
Abe made no attempt to hide his disgust. “So that worthless Texian and you will sit on your backsides and wait for Kemp to oblige you by confessin’?”
“I intend to get to the bottom of this,” Lee stated.
“Sure you do.” Abe grumbled into his beard and lay back down. “Do me a favor and leave. You’re stinkin’ up the place.”
Lee stayed where he was. “You’re forgetting that I was shot, too. I’m not about to let that pass.”
That gave Abe pause. It was no secret that Tennessee hill folk lived and died by the code of the blood feud. Kill one, and the whole clan came at you tooth and nail. So he didn’t doubt that Scurlock was sincere. But that did not stop him from griping, “I’m sure Kemp is tremblin’ in his boots, worried to death that you’ll figure out he was to blame.”
Lee had more to say, but just then feet pounded outside and voices rose in dispute. One of them was a woman’s. The next moment a middle-aged woman in a brown homespun dress threw the door wide and glanced around.
“Deputy Scurlock! Please, you must come with me this minute! It’s urgent!”
Chapter Sixteen
A red hawk wheeled high in the azure sky. On the stony trail the roan’s hooves clinked loudly. Reins in hand, Lee Scurlock led his mount toward a knoll flanked by the creek. Ahead of him walked the woman.
Claire Russell was her name. She carried herself stiffly, as if she were not comfortable in his presence. Her chestnut hair had been pulled up into a tight bun, exposing a neck that had been bronzed like her face and hands. Tiny worry lines pinched her brown eyes.
Lee had no idea what was going on. All the woman would say was that her husband, Frank, needed to see him right away. Their camp was only a short distance from Old Abe’s mine. He’d offered to let her ride double, but she had primly declined. And since she walked, he did.
“Why didn’t your man just come on over to Abe’s if he needed to talk?” Lee asked.
“You’ll understand once you meet him,” Claire said quietly. Then, as if it were important, she remarked, “I was the one who saw you riding up the mountain and let him know.”
A faded, patched tent sat in a clearing beyond the knoll. Mining utensils, many rusty, were scattered about. An old sorrel nibbled at a clump of weeds, while near the stream stood a mule that had seen better days.
“This is our claim,” Claire said nervously. “Frank is inside. I’ll wait out here, if you don’t mind.” She avoided his questioning gaze, her shoulders quaking, and started to sob softly.
Bewildered, Lee ground-hitched the roan and walked toward the tent. His suspicious nature asserted itself, his right hand drifting across his belt to his Colt. It might be a trap of some kind.
Then the stench hit his nostrils. Lee halted, nearly gagging, his gut doing flip-flops. He glanced at the woman, who had turned her back to him.
The rank odor was all too familiar. It reminded
Lee of the time he found a rider and horse lying near a tainted water hole. Both had been dead for days, and both had reeked to high heaven with a stink that no man could describe and do justice. There is no smell in the world as revolting as that of rotting flesh.
Taking a shallow breath, Lee pushed the flap aside and entered.
Frank Russell lay on his back on a blanket on the ground, his pale, emaciated features ghastly to behold. It was like looking at a skeleton covered with skin. A second blanket covered him from his chin down.
Despite the scorching heat, Russell quivered, his teeth chattering. With a visible effort he focused on Lee. “Scurlock? Thanks for coming.”
“Your missus said you wanted to see me,” Lee said. The top blanket, he noticed, bore a yellowish-green stain. The stench came from under it.
Russell licked his thin lips. “That’s right. Sorry I can’t stand to greet you proper-like.”
Squatting, Lee examined the prospector’s features. “What’s ailing you?”
About to answer, Russell winced in pain, then broke into a ragged coughing fit. “Damn these spells,” he complained weakly when the bout passed.
“Do you want me to fetch the sawbones? I know Franklyn personally. He’ll ride out here if I ask him.”
“It’s too late for the doc,” Russell responded. “I should have sent for one two weeks ago, but I was scared.”
Lee reached for the edge of the blanket.
“No! Don’t!”
The reek thickened, so foul that Lee tasted bile in his mouth and had to fight it down. The left side of the prospector’s chest was a decaying mass of putrid, discolored tissue festering with sores that oozed pus. Gulping, he quickly lowered the blanket.
“Gangrene,” Russell said. “There’s no hope for me.
“What caused this? How could you just lie here? Don’t you want to live?”
Sorrow made bottomless pools of Russell’s dark eyes. “Of course I do. But I couldn’t hardly go to the doctor and have him blab. I was afraid you’d want to finish the job.”
“Me?”
Frank Russell motioned at the stained blanket. “You’re the reason I’m in the shape I am. You shot me about two weeks ago, on the Bar K spread.”
The revelation shocked the Tennessean. “You were one of the men who ambushed me!” he exclaimed.
A feeble nod was the prospector’s response. “That I was, I’m ashamed to admit. I hightailed it all the way back here and collapsed out front just as the sun was rising. Claire dragged me inside before anybody saw me and did her best to nurse me back to health. But it was hopeless once infection set in.”
Lee glanced at the man’s ravaged body. “I never meant for you to suffer like this. I was only trying to save my hide that night.”
“You’re a hellion with a six-gun, that’s for sure. I reckon I made a mistake when I agreed to go along, the latest in a long, long string.”
Movement drew Lee’s attention to the flap. Outside paced Claire Russell, wringing her hands. He was horrified by the thought of the anguish she must have endured.
“I didn’t ask you here to poke blame,” the prospector said. “I wanted to get some things off my chest while I still can.” Russell paused to take a ragged breath. “I’m close to meeting our Maker, friend, and I’d like to have a clean slate when my rope is all played out.” He paused once more. “I need to ask your forgiveness.”
“What?” So much, so fast, made Lee’s head whirl.
“My wife is a good Christian woman, Scurlock. She’s been praying for my soul day and night, and reading from the Good Book to bolster my spirits. She says I need to ask your forgiveness or my soul will never know peace.” Russell lifted a broomstick arm to wrap scarecrow fingers around the southerner’s wrist. “Will you?”
The plea ran counter to Lee’s nature. He had never been a forgiving person, not when wronged. In Tennessee he had spent weeks tracking down a man who insulted his sister just so he could beat the offender within an inch of his life. When a distant cousin had been shot by a rival suitor for the hand of a girl, he had joined dozens of other Scurlocks in a bloodbath that turned the green hills scarlet.
“Please?” Russell begged, his eyes watering. “I’d get on my knees if I could.”
“I can say the words, but they won’t mean much,” Lee honestly confessed.
“They will to me.”
“Then for what it’s worth, I forgive you.”
An expression of incredible happiness spread over the prospector’s face. He beamed like a ten-year-old granted his heart’s desire for a gift. “Thank you, Deputy. I wish I could return the favor.”
Never one to let an opportunity pass, Lee replied, “You can. Who paid Meers and the rest of you to go gunning for cowboys on the Bar K? And what can you tell me about Joe Neff’s role in the whole shebang? I know there’s a link.”
Russell coughed some more, his frail form racked by a fleeting spasm. His lungs were reacting to the massive invasion of his system that was slowly wasting him away. Once the spasm passed, he cleared his throat. “You’re right about the connection, but you’ve got the rest all wrong.”
“Set me straight.”
“Meers, me, and the others were paid to get revenge on the coyotes who had a hand in killing Oscar Dieter.” Russell grunted and shifted. “Do you know who Oscar was?”
“A miner murdered three months ago.”
“Yep. And he was well liked by every digger. So it wasn’t hard to convince us to avenge him. Besides, we were all flat broke. We took the man up on his offer.”
Tension gripped Lee from head to toe. “What man, Russell? Give me a name.”
“I don’t know who he was.”
Disappointed to the point of anger, Lee straightened. “It won’t wash, mister. A man pays hundreds of dollars to have some killing done, and you’re not the least bit curious about who the gent might be?”
“Sure I was. We all were. But he wouldn’t say, and none of us wanted to pry and risk losing our share of the money.” Russell took a deep breath. “We were in the Silver Dollar one night when in walked this skinny runt of a miner. He bought us drinks, then asked if we’d like to pay back the bastards who killed Oscar and fill our pokes at the same time.”
“Had you ever seen this skinny miner before?”
“Come to think of it, no. But he was wearing miner’s duds and acted just like one of us.” Russell’s eyes glittered. “You should have seen the money he flashed around. He claimed he was speaking on behalf of a lot of the boys who wanted to see justice done. They’d learned who did in Oscar, and they needed a few brave men to even the score.”
“Go on.”
“The man told us there were two men who were to blame, that you were hired by a law wrangler named Jim Hays to blow out poor Oscar’s lamp.” Russell had to stop to take several breaths. “The skinny guy told us that we could get you the very next day, that you’d be riding alone out to the Bar K. He even told us where to wait for you on your way back, and described your hat and coat and your roan.”
The Tennessean grew as rigid as a rod. So he had been the intended victim all along! They had not been gunning for Kemp’s cowboys.
“We’d have done the job, sure enough, if you weren’t so ungodly fast,” the prospector said. “In all my born days I never saw anyone who can move and shoot like you.”
“What about Joe Neff?” Lee prodded, his tone as hollow as a conch, as latent with suppressed violence as the rumble of a grizzly.
“What about him? I know Neff, but he wasn’t there that night. What’s he done?”
Lee did not answer right away. It was possible, he mused, that the skinny hombre had hired Neff later, telling the miner the same pack of lies swallowed by the bunch who ambushed him.
“Russell, you are a damned fool,” Lee growled. “First, I never had a hand in killing Oscar Dieter. Hell, I wasn’t even in the Territory when that happened. Second, and worse, you threw your life away for a handful of money wh
en right outside this tent is a treasure worth more than all the money in the world, someone who loves you with all her heart and will cry herself to sleep for years because of your stupidity.”
Cut to the quick by the unexpected tongue-lashing, Frank Russell gaped, tears filling his eyes.
Lee wasn’t finished. “Third, and worst of all, Joe Neff murdered an innocent man last night. Jim Hays was on your side. He traveled all the way here from Denver just to take on Kemp in court on your behalf.”
The tears streamed down Russell’s pasty cheeks.
“Whoever told you that Hays and I were to blame sold you a bill of goods. You were used. You should have stuck to prospecting, pay dirt or not.” Lee shook his head, his features smoldering like a volcano about to erupt. “I take back what I said earlier. I can’t forgive you for what you and your friends have done, you snake.”
Wheeling, Lee stormed out. He bobbed his chin at Claire, swung onto the roan, and trotted up the gully. On a whim he turned toward the Diablo Creek Mine. To his surprise, Abe Howard was up, hobbling on a makeshift crutch on the porch. With the feisty old-timer was the guard toting a Greener, who took one look at Lee and grew edgy.
“What are you doing back here, mister?”
Lee ignored the underling. “Howard, I just found out that a bunch of miners were paid to put windows in my skull that night I was shot. And Joe Neff, another ore hound down on his luck, was paid five hundred dollars to kill Jim Hays.”
“There’s the proof you needed,” Old Abe said. “Only someone who is rich could afford to throw that much around, and we all know Allister Kemp has money to spare.”
“The Englishman isn’t the only one.”
Abe blinked, then recoiled. “You can’t mean me?”
“Can’t I?” Lee countered. “The prospectors and miners all hate Kemp. They wouldn’t hire out to him, ever. But they would to one of their own. And you have plenty of money to spare, yourself.”
Old Abe chuckled.
“Something strike your funny bone?”
“You did, you idiot! Are you going to sit there and say that you honestly and truly suspect me? Do you really believe I would let harm come to Jim Hays?”
Diablo (A Piccaddilly Publishing Western Book 6) Page 18
