Dead Man’s Cañon

by Paine, Lauran; Burns, Traber;

  They left, galloping swiftly along the overhead desert until it was safe to slacken off and walk their mounts through the reddening afternoon.

  “He’ll show himself,” said Claude. “He’s got to show himself, otherwise he’s not going to learn anything. He’s also got to find you, Clayton.”

  “That’s not going to be easy the second time.”

  “No,” agreed Sheriff Rainey, “it sure isn’t. Because I’m charging you with attempted murder so I can lock you up in my jailhouse. Believe me, that’s the only building in Springville those sly rascals of his can’t break into, blast you out of, or shoot through the windows and skewer you to the wall.”

  Clayton looked surprised initially, then afterward, as he slouched along thinking this over, he looked less surprised and more skeptical.

  Claude said something else, obviously spoken to turn aside some of Arch Clayton’s uneasiness. “We’ve had a vigilance committee in Springville for the past five years. We formed it when Mex raiders used to come a-helling up over the line trying to stampede horses and cattle down on to the Tamaulipas Plains. After we caught a couple of those little bands, shot a few, hanged a few, and got the others a nice long stretch in the Tucson penitentiary, they quit coming. Since then we’ve sort of let things slide. But the minute I get back to town I’ll pass the word. Then, let Mister Bryan … or Bree-own … come riding on in. We simply close off both ends of the roadway, guard the side roads, and there he sits like a duck on a pond … he can have it any old way he wants it, but the first corpse will be his.”

  Evening was settling by the time they reached town. They split up, Clayton to take his horse and equipment over to the livery barn from the jacal where he’d been keeping them, and Claude Rainey up to Mather’s saloon to mention quietly to Jack bad trouble might be impending from a band of Mexican gunmen who were approaching from the southwest, suggesting that Mather, former chieftain of the vigilantes, might send out word for the men to meet at his place as soon as they could get there.

  After that, Claude met Arch Clayton, and they went together to the café for supper. It was by then not quite eight o’clock, with plenty of daylight left over although the sun had been gone for nearly two hours.

  Claude was gloomy or introspective or perhaps both because he was quiet all through the meal, even when Clayton made a couple of mild comments. But afterward, when they were outside in the hot night looking up and down the roadway where lights showed and people moved with more alacrity than they’d shown during the blast furnace days, Claude pointed toward his office and said, “I reckon Mister Bríon’ll be looking for us down there, when he gets his crew safely tucked away, so we might as well go down, get comfortable, and wait.”

  The jailhouse was cooler even than the night, which was the primary advantage of three-foot thick mud walls. Claude had one fairly large strap-steel cage set across his back wall. There was no partition, and from the looks of the dust inside there hadn’t been a prisoner locked up for some time. Clayton assessed that cage. “Big enough for ten men, I’d say,” he murmured.

  Claude looked up, his gaze wry. “A man has to be standing up to lock ’em into it,” he said. “The fellow who owns the saloon up the road offered me a bet a few days back that you’d be killed like Gantt was, down in Mexico. Well, I’d update that a mite, if I was a betting man, and say tonight’s the night.” Claude nodded grimly toward the door. “You poke your nose out there an hour from now and they’ll be watching like barn owls. Only this time they won’t waste a lot of time slapping you around, Clayton. If Bríon’s up here to do the job himself, I’ll bet you a month’s pay he could wring it out of you in less than thirty minutes.”

  Clayton didn’t dispute this. All he said was, “Locking me up isn’t going to solve anything, not with that damned cell out in plain sight. If Bríon knows where I am, that’ll be two-thirds of the battle for him.”

  Claude nodded, got out of his chair, and went over to move a heavy bench. “Come here,” he said, then bent, caught a mighty iron ring set into the floor, and heaved. “Give me a hand,” he gasped. “This damned thing hasn’t been raised in more years than I like to think back on.”

  “What is it?” asked Clayton, leaning to catch hold and also strain upward, lifting a section of the floor out.

  Claude eased the door against the wall and panted. “Hole in the ground,” he said, dryly. “If you figure those old Mex jacales at the south end of town are all that remains of the Spanish and Mexican days, this’ll prove you’re wrong.” He pointed. It was dark as the inside of a well down below. The air rising from down there was musty and stale. “Climb down, Mister Clayton. No one, including Fernando Bríon, will see you down there.”

  Arch bent, then dropped to one knee, struck a match, and peered at the hole beneath him. It seemed to be about ten or twelve feet square. The walls were smooth earth dubbed with rock. There was an old ladder leading down. Arch reared back and looked up.

  Claude said, “The ladder’ll hold you. Just climb down, and don’t make any noise or smoke. If Bríon comes calling, I won’t know very much about you, least of all where you are now.”

  Clayton swung over a leg, gingerly eased his weight down upon the ancient rungs of the rawhide-wrapped ladder, and said, “Sheriff, have you looked down into this damned dungeon with a lamp lately?”

  “No, why?”

  “Why? Well, I’ll tell you why, confound it, because tarantulas and Gila monsters and even rattlesnakes look for places just like this when it gets too hot outside for them. That’s why.”

  Claude stroked his bristly chin and never so much as twinkled his eyes as he replied, “Come to think on it, you’re dead right, Mister Clayton. Now ease the other leg down. That’s fine. I’ll set the bench back over the door and no one’ll have any idea you’re down here.” Clayton was halfway down. Claude bent to watch. “By the way,” he said. “It takes two to lift the trap door, so if anything happens to me, you might be in a little trouble. You see, no one can hear you yelling from down in there.”

  Claude had one last glimpse of Clayton’s startled expression, dropped the massive door back into place, shoved the bench over it, and there was no evidence at all that Archer Clayton had ever been in the room.

  Rainey then resumed his position at the desk, tossed aside his hat, raised his feet, and tipped back the chair, all ready to wait, no matter how long it took, for Fernando Bríon to come calling.

  Chapter Eight

  Barney Whitsun showed up a half hour later, looked around, stepped in, and sank into a chair, looking troubled. “What’s it all about?” he asked. “Jack sent me word, and when I got up to the saloon, hell, nearly all the other fellers was either up there already or, like Mister Douglas, had been sent word outside of town and probably are on their way in. What we’d like to know is what’s happening, Claude?”

  Rainey had a flip answer. “So would I, Barney. All I can tell you right now is that a band of Mexican gunmen crossed the border this morning, heading for Springville, and to make sure Johnny Egger was right, I rode out myself and scouted ’em up.”

  “They’re real, Claude?”

  “They’re plumb real, Barney. Ten of ’em led by a tall Mex named Fernando Bríon.”

  “Bríon, Bríon. Say, isn’t that the name of the one who fetched Gantt’s stuff back here out of Mexico?”

  “Yeah. Same man. Barney, I think he just might be after that ten thousand dollars.”

  Claude didn’t think that at all but he wanted to get rid of Whitsun before Bríon walked in, and since Barney had to tell the vigilantes up at Jack’s bar something, he told the general store owner that lie. But it wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment prevarication. Since Claude had first mentioned a fine little schoolhouse for Springville, the idea had caught on with alacrity. Of course, the only way Springville would ever get such a building would be if that ten thousand dollars could be legally acquir
ed. When Barney returned to the saloon and related what he’d been told down at the jailhouse, the town’s temper would rise quickly. Springville had only the sketchiest claim to that money, but some fancy clan of a Mexican had no claim at all, so Jack Mather’s vigilantes would sit up there, talking and drinking and slowly coming to a boiling wrath.

  After Barney departed, Claude stood in the doorway of his office wondering whether he had time to go fetch himself a mug of coffee. He decided he did have, went to the café, got a bottle of java, a cup to drink it with, and returned to the jailhouse.

  Again, as always, it was the confounded waiting. He sipped coffee and smoked, leaving his roadway door partially open, cocked up his feet upon the desk and reviewed the interesting things that had occurred recently. He was still like that, hat on the back of his head, leathery, suntanned countenance creased in thought, when a hand reached forth out of the night to ease the roadway door open farther, and Fernando Bríon stepped inside.

  Claude Rainey was no actor. Like most men deeply honest, pretense, like any other variety of deceit, just did not come easily to him, and since he didn’t like it in himself, he didn’t like it in others. He nodded at Bríon, showing neither surprise at his presence in Springville, nor pleasure at his presence in the jailhouse.

  Bríon’s dark, very intelligent eyes raked over Claude’s features, and as the handsome Mexican stepped to a chair and sat down in it, removing his hat as he did so, it wouldn’t have been at all difficult for the Mexican to sense in the hostile atmosphere that Sheriff Claude Rainey knew more than Bríon had previously suspected that he might.

  “You’re not surprised to see me,” he said pleasantly, and eased back in the chair. “That means, then, that you were told I was coming. Congratulations, Sheriff, on the sound eyesight of your compadres around this town.”

  Claude sipped coffee, eyed the younger man, and said nothing. Bríon had closed the roadside door. They were alone. Well, they were almost alone. Beneath their chairs was another man, but he couldn’t hear anything they were saying, or even know that Bríon was above him, for that matter, or so Claude thought.

  Bríon swept his intent, dark glance over Rainey’s features a time or two, evidently trying to guess where he should begin, how much Rainey already knew, and how much he only thought he knew. Finally, in order to begin somewhere, he put out a gentle feeler.

  “I was visited a few days back by a yanqui from northern New Mexico. A man named Archer Clayton. So you know him, Sheriff?”

  “I know him,” stated Claude, putting aside his half-full coffee cup. “He was around town yesterday for a while.”

  “I see. He was also around town today, no?”

  “I’ve been almighty busy the last few days, Mister Bríon. It’d take a whole herd of sheriffs to keep watch on everyone hereabouts.”

  Bríon smiled. “Of course, amigo. But you didn’t answer my question, so I’ll ask another one. Do you know why he is down in your part of the country?”

  Claude was wearying of this. Moreover, he suspected the Mexican was more than his match at fencing with words, so he said bluntly, “Something to do with some old Spanish gold coins you bought from him and his partner. His partner’s the dead man I buried a while back. That’s his dead horse out there in the cañon.”

  Bríon’s eyes brightened. He was finding out, he thought, what Rainey knew, and up to a point at least, that simplified things for him. “Sí, you are correct, Sheriff Rainey.”

  “Bríon,” exclaimed Claude, reaching up to square the hat atop his head, “when you came here before, bringing Jonas Gantt’s guns and other stuff, I figured you were something better by a damned sight than you’re turning out to be! You didn’t have to send those vaqueros of yours out to shoot that US deputy marshal. If you’d just disarmed him and sent him back over the line, you’d have achieved your end just as well.”

  Bríon wasn’t the least bit ruffled by Rainey’s bluntness or his show of anger, but he no longer smiled when he replied. “Sheriff, I’ve seen them before, those deputy US lawmen. They don’t give up. In my country we know from long experience that two kinds of gringos have to be shot to be diverted. Texans, and US marshals. Also, in my country, it’s perfectly legal to shoot them, so if you’re thinking of arresting me … don’t try it. I’ve committed no crime in the United States. You couldn’t hold me an hour.”

  Claude stamped out his cigarette. “You don’t know as much US law as you seem to figure you do,” he stated. “I wouldn’t have to lock you up for Gantt’s killing, Mister Bríon. I’d only have to lock you up for the murder of that young fellow you gave the ten thousand dollars to, because he was killed in Arizona, not Mexico.”

  Bríon gently shook his head, showing that very gentle smile again. “But I didn’t kill that one, Sheriff. You’d never in this world be able to prove it. I could produce fifty … a hundred and fifty … witnesses that I was at the town of Rosario near my ranch, when that one was killed.” Bríon paused, eyed Claude Rainey as a cat eyes a cornered mouse, then he said, “Forget these things, Sheriff. All they do is cloud the issue between us. I’ve heard from travelers down around Rosario, that you want that ten thousand dollars you’ve impounded, and which is locked up in that ridiculous iron box over at the general store here in Springville.” Bríon leaned a little as though what he proposed to say next was vitally important to him, which it was. “Sheriff, I’m here to make you a present of that ten thousand dollars.” Bríon sat there, waiting for Rainey’s reaction to this. He particularly watched Claude’s eyes for a shadow of cupidity to appear. When it didn’t, he said, “In exchange for my assignment of all that money to you, I want you to hand Archer Clayton over to me.” Bríon eased back in his chair again, watching Claude closely.

  There was no longer much point, in Claude’s opinion, for holding this conversation with gloves on. They both understood one another perfectly. Claude considered the handsome, younger man with a cold stare before he said, “Bríon, you’re kidding yourself. I know about the map and the marks on the gold coins.”

  Bríon’s eyes suddenly popped wide open. “Map?” he murmured. “What map?”

  Claude saw at once he’d been careless. Obviously Bríon knew about the marks on the coins, but he either didn’t believe anyone else knew of them, or their purpose, or he hadn’t yet assumed that, since someone else knew what those marks meant, someone had drawn a map from them. Claude bit his lip, but it was too late to retract, so he plunged straight ahead and told the truth.

  “The map to that cache of old-time Spanish gold, Bríon. The same cache that’s resulted in four deaths so far, and will probably result in a hell of a lot more deaths before anyone finds that lousy gold.”

  Bríon was troubled now. “Four …? Sheriff, Gantt and the man trying to get away with the ten thousand dollars, but what other men have died?”

  “A big Mexican you sent to lead those assassins up here to torture the truth out of Clayton. He’s dead. If your peons didn’t tell you about him, then I’m surprised at them.”

  “Oh,” said Bríon, with an indifferent, cold flick of the fingers. “Him. Well, of course. I’d forgotten. And the fourth man, Sheriff Rainey?”

  “A bushwhacker Arch Clayton brought back here with him. Another of your men. He died from a gunshot wound through the lungs.”

  Bríon’s expression changed. He seemed almost relieved, but only briefly, as though he’d wondered as to where this man had disappeared. Then, with a dark suspicion crossing his mind, dark enough also to make a shadow pass across his face, Bríon said, “He told you … what?”

  “All he knew, Bríon. That you had Jonas Gantt assassinated. That you also had the fellow with the ten thousand dollars followed and killed up here in Arizona. He also said he worked for you.”

  Bríon nodded; all the little questions in his mind were being answered one by one. It became very clear now, that Bríon understood the ext
ent of Claude Rainey’s knowledge. He flicked a cold and steady stare over at the lawman. “Sheriff,” he said very softly, “you’re a man who doesn’t give much of an impression for intelligence. I can see where that’s definitely in your favor.”

  “You better also see something else, amigo,” Claude growled. “You’re not going out of this jailhouse.”

  Bríon wasn’t disturbed by that. He brushed it aside to ask another question. “Forget me for now, Sheriff, and tell me frankly whether my offer of the ten thousand dollars appeals to you? A man your age can travel a very long way on ten thousand dollars. He can lose himself in this huge land, buy a house somewhere, and spend the best years of his life living well and comfortably.”

  Claude snorted in derision. “In the first place, Bríon, that ten thousand dollars doesn’t even belong to you. In the second place, I wouldn’t accept the bribe even if it did. And in the third place, you’re no longer in a position to offer any kind of a trade. Maybe you were down at Rosario when that fellow got the top of his head shot off down in Dead Man’s Cañon, but in Arizona we got a law dealing with what we call ‘an accessory after the fact,’ which means, since you sent those bushwhackers up here to kill that fellow and steal back the ten thousand you paid him for those damned gold coins, that we can hold you and try you as though you actually pulled the trigger yourself.”

  Bríon raised a hand and carelessly tapped the back wall where he was sitting, beside the roadway door. He then said, “Sheriff, I know about that law of yours.”

  The door opened and three dark and murderous-looking Mexicans stepped through on quiet feet, pushing cocked pistols toward Sheriff Rainey. They would shoot in a second; their eyes and their slitted mouths said as much. Bríon stood up, lazily, and reached for his hat. He made no move toward the six-gun he wore. He didn’t have to, under the circumstances.

  He said, “Sorry, Sheriff, but I can’t stay. I’m on the trail of Arch Clayton. I’ll find him, because even if he left your town as you seem to want me to believe, I’ve already sent half my men upcountry in the direction of Raton to intercept him.” Bríon flashed his handsome smile, put on his big sombrero, brushed the brim with his fingers, and stepped back out through the doorway into the darkened night beyond. “¡Adiós, muchacho!” he called, and disappeared.