Sary's Gold

by Sharon Shipley

  ****

  Sary halted. She’d been on the trail an hour. It was still early, but she felt uneasy. The trail rippled behind her, and with it, a throaty growl—she ducked as rocks thundered past her in a battering, pinging avalanche that ended almost as soon as it started. The auto’s vibration must have set something off.

  Sary froze. In the silence, somewhere unseen hoof beats clattered against rock. A bobcat sprinted across the gap. As Sary followed its flight, Cooley and O’Malley cantered around the hairpin turn below her, on horses made skittish by the fall.

  The boulder was still there, its top littered with debris. The two eyed the rubble and headed their mounts to the same gap she had passed through.

  Sary stomped the accelerator, mindlessly crashing through gear exchanges. The doughty Mercedes jittered past another bend and out of sight as the riders flashed looks and eased their mounts. “Whoa, whoaaaaaa, easy, boy.”

  The auto couldn’t outrace horses on a rough twisting trail. Sary set the handbrakes. She bashed a gun case with the brass starter handle, hearing the hoof beats more sharply now, and spilled rifles to the ground, scattering a few. She grabbed two, and a box of ammo, and in long skirts scaled a watershed up the side, yanking the velvet skirt from spiky shrubs, before Cooley and O’Malley came into view. She scrambled over a slab overhanging like a table and from there scanned the two right below her as they reined up short.

  They gazed at the shaking contraption, all red and gleaming, with its big glass headlamps like bug eyes.

  She smiled grimly as the two edged toward the Mercedes. It was sputtering like a kettle on the boil, as if it might explode.

  O’Malley peered in, then chortled. “Well, sweet daughter a joy. Looka what Candy Box left behind!”

  Sary had Cooley in her sights as he gripped the two new rifles, forgetting all about her.

  “Hooo-ey! Look what else Candy Box brung us, O’Malley!” Cooley waved the rifles, his cracked young voice clear in the mountain air. She swung her sight.

  O’Malley was in the driver’s seat now. Messing with controls. Her controls. The car lurched. O’Malley jerked his hands from the steering wheel. She grinned. Purely hate you to go flying off the mountain now, mister whoever you are. O’Malley? Then she frowned. It could do just that. Then where’d I be? Better not tempt God. She bit her lip until O’Malley eased out, backing up as if her automobile was the Devil’s chariot, running on fumes of hellfire. Her car sputtered to a stop.

  “Well, it ain’t Christmas.” O’Malley turned quarrelsome. “Where is Candy Box, anyways?”

  Sary scowled as Cooley pranced and mimicked hiking skirts.

  O’Malley snorted, firing up the mountain. “Hey, sugarplum! Cooley an me just wanna taste!” Rocks splintered. Twigs snapped all around her. She cringed. Too much like before. Spying Cooley scrambling rock to rock, nearing her hiding place, Sary fired a warning and swung back to O’Malley. He jumps like a schoolgirl.

  Cooley fell on his rump in his haste to retreat.

  In her deepest voice Sary ordered, “Put ’em down.”

  O’Malley ducked behind his horse, then swaggered out. “Candy Box is right. Come on out, li’l darlin’!” Coldly, she watched him motion Cooley up one side. He took the other side.

  “Yeah, come on out here.” Cooley smirked, cocking a pistol. “Won’t hurt ya none.” A brush of Cooley’s strawlike hair stuck up past the rock he crouched behind. The yellow tuft moved.

  “That’s right. You won’t.” Sary answered in her own high clear voice and took aim, blasting away. Cooley’s hair ruffled, and below him, a hole appeared high in the Mercedes’ cylindrical tank.

  “Hie, there! Y’almost hit me!” Cooley whined. Boots scrabbled shale as Cooley bulled back up the mountain, closer.

  “On the ground!” Sary yelled, triggering off another warning.

  Cooley yelped. “Git you on the ground, little girlie.” He contemplated O’Malley, undecided. O’Malley hit dirt as he edged beneath her overhanging slab.

  “As I reco-member,” O’Malley hissed, “she always was free with ammunition, if I surmise rightly who this bitch is.”

  Cooley flattened halfway to the overhang. “Lettin’ a female get away with this horse shit?” The two eyed each other and rushed Sary, red-faced and furious, bumping into each other. One slid—she didn’t know which one but heard boot heels digging in. There was silence, then furious whispering. She could sense as well as hear them creeping up, gaining ground, dropping behind a shrub and then a boulder. There was a roll of pebble, a slip of shale, and a crackle of dried prickle bush. Sary sighted a bead on spurs glinting in hot noonday sun.

  Cooley’s boot poking past scrub made a tempting target, and her fingers, still a bit stiff, tightened on the trigger. The blast rocked the mountain air. Spurs spun like a whirligig. Cooley jerked his boot to safety.

  “Ow! Told you! Quit firin’!” He whispered to O’Malley, “What’s wrong with this female?”

  O’Malley grunted. “What’s wrong with most women? Whatever, we can fix this un, permanent.” He sat back, uncapping a canteen. “Let her stew.”

  Cooley rolled a smoke, and Sary smelled the scent of harsh tobacco.

  ****

  Sun slanted through trees. It was around three, Sary judged. Sweat dripped off her nose. She heard one of the men snoring for a while. The velvet she wore was hot, and sticking, so she shrugged off the top, feeling vulnerable in a chemise. An errant wrap of chill wound her shoulders now and then. A Mexican standoff. What was a lark for the two ruffians was now serious. They would never let her off the mountain. Their pride was hurt. They would have their fun and then kill her, bash her head in with a rock, or worse. Sary licked dry lips, eyeing her canteen in the Mercedes. Eyed the sun. At night, anything could happen, whatever their slow wits could dream up. So far, they hadn’t thought of damaging the automobile. They didn’t understand it, possibly feared it. That wouldn’t last. She studied it with longing as it glittered like a red jewel below. Still, smashing the steering mechanism would ruin her. The machine had seemed so brilliant back in San Francisco. She’d been fascinated by the power and magic the car represented. Besides, the money, as Mama would’ve scolded, “scorched a hole in her apron pocket.” And—admit it—she wished, after Tommy had shown her how, to make a grand entrance, if that was the most useful strategy. She couldn’t now, what with the third man pounding away for Big Bear and Julian Delacorte. Delacorte will send killers down the trail, and I’ll be trapped on both ends.

  She slid off the overhang. The slab teetered the tiniest bit and gently settled. A small trickle of rock skittered down. Sary slipped down the side, hoping she was hidden from the two. In the shade, Sary scrutinized the slab’s underpinnings. Only a third of the huge rock seemed to be embedded.

  She flattened, crawled under the slab, and looked up at the expanse of lip. Where it entered the mountain, talus, small rocks, one jagged stone, and a decayed cedar root wedged it in place. It vastly overhung. Still, too much counterweighted the slab for her to simply shove it over.

  Frustrated, she eyed the sun’s passage.

  Where were they? She heard occasional gripes and grumbling. She thought they were still beneath her, somewhere, probably behind that clump of blasted cedar and felled trunk to her left.

  Back above the overhang, Sary raked and jabbed the rifle barrel where the slab was sunk in rubble.

  “Whatcha up to, Candy Box?” One of them, the older, she thought, yelled up.

  Let them wonder. Viciously Sary booted gravel on either side, rewarded with a whispered conference. Was it still to the left or right under her?

  They separated, and she spotted O’Malley. Sary waited until he crept past, his green shirt and red bandanna exposed against ocher and dun strata. Sary loaded and fired, aiming high. O’Malley ducked. She heard an oath and spotted him limping for cover far beneath the overhang, but she couldn’t get a shot. Sary crawled back up, grunted, braced against the mountain with knees locked, p
lanted her boots, and shoved with all she had.

  ****

  Dirt trickled onto Cooley’s head, furiously jacking a round. His acne flared hot. “Sick a this horse shit,” she heard him mutter.

  He jumped out, firing straight up. The shot twanged, echoing off her rock. He fired two more angry bursts.

  O’Malley grumbled, spitting a brown splotch. Coughing dust, Cooley blasted away, hitting more rubble. Pellets zinged back at the two in the lazy mountain air. More dirt trickled in a small slide past them. Then O’Malley fired as he ducked, and the bullet split the cedar root beneath the slab.

  The enormous boulder grated an inch. Rock pulverized into grit. She felt it tremble.

  From below her came the clear clicking of O’Malley cocking the new rifle, and she saw Cooley pick at his acne and squint at the lowering sun. Neither saw the slab shift as Sary wrathfully booted it. They were arguing in hoarse whispers while Sary jammed cartridges, dropping some that gave a message of shaky nerves past the two whose guns were cocked and ready. Smirking, they watched the shells bounce and wink red past them in the sun. ’Til now they hadn’t been sure where she was.

  Reload! By the sound of the boot scuffs, the two were rushing up, careless. Sary took a slow breath and rammed shells in true as the two men’s heads came into view above the rock—her rock. She fired. They scrambled for cover under the overhang. Now or never. She booted the huge slab in frantic tattoos, and the stone moved, gritting rock against rock. The root fell away with a slither of shale, and Sary felt her support shudder and tip. Almost Biblical, this hope, as gravel worked like ball bearings and the slab loosened in its socket.

  Yes! It shifted down. Sary hitched back. Where are they?

  The slab settled with a ground-shaking whump, amidst billows of choking dust. She heard their coughing, their shouted curses, and watched the sky. She must steal down somehow. Oh, this was going all wrong. For the first time she allowed the thought to creep in—she should have stayed. She should have… Oh, do shut up, Sary! She pulled at the sticky velvet and wished she could just toss it all off and stay cool in cotton underpinnings, but that would be small protection against sharp rocks and scrub.

  Sary slithered on the tilted rock and spied the tops of their heads. Any second they would rush her. She had five shells left. Sary crawled to the side while they scrutinized the base. The gigantic stone was definitely canted. On her top side, exposed dirt showed. A rim of weed, where the base had been, was now a six-inch gap.

  Not caring where they were—if they caught her they would kill her, or take her to Julian—Sary, hot and parched, gouged loose shale on both sides of the gap, using the rifle barrel, and shoved for what must be the last time, using up a saved reservoir of strength, her back to the mountain, her boot heels rammed against the overhanging rock. It moved a bit more. Yes, a definite downward tilt now. Then she climbed atop it to gently bounce up and down. The huge, delicately balanced stone teetered and grated with her weight. A lizard zigzagged off, tail cocked.

  The massive stone tipped farther.

  Over tipped. Teetered. Wobbled.

  She fell off backwards.

  Shale dust showered the two men. “Hie!” Cooley spat, coughing.

  “Damn!” O’Malley shouted. “We ain’t leavin’, Candy Box. That what you thinkin’? No one’ll find your scrawny-ass bones when we get through with ya. You can throw all the dirt at us ya want.”

  Their shots blasted to smithereens the one stone still securing the base. She felt the huge slab slide farther, and she desperately rammed the rifle barrel into the crack at the same time. The barrel bent, screeching against rock. Glory be. The massive boulder shuddered and scraped off its pivot as she thrust, gouged, and fell back, sweating and dust-covered in her red velvet. From below came shouts of outrage and fright, the sound of boots scrabbling. Jump, you idiots, she had time to think, as the boulder groaned and at last began its ponderous course down the mountain, at first sluggish, then thunderously loud as it bounced and dragged her in its wake.

  O’Malley, lost in dust and rock fall, bellowed until his curses were cut short with a sickening thunk. Sary hung on as the boulder bounded across the trail behind her automobile and on down Big Bear Mountain, smashing small trees as it went. She was a part of the slide herself.

  ****

  Haze settled. Sary woke with her face in shadow. A man in a hat bent over her, upside down. He held a huge stone.

  Sary jerked, head butting a furious Cooley. Cooley dropped the stone and staggered back as Sary rolled away.

  “Women ain’t s’posed to do that! What kinda unnatural…” Wincing, Cooley looked at the splotch that was O’Malley, below. Enraged, he gritted his teeth and raised the rock again.

  “You mean this kind?” Sary kicked a sharp-toed boot at his chin. Cooley pinwheeled back, still holding the rock but losing his balance, his body no longer over his seat. Falling heavily, Cooley backslid, head down, careening off rocks and saplings end over teakettle, snatching futilely at weeds and thudding in a heap next to O’Malley’s body, with Sary not far behind.

  Cooley picked himself up and, after a glance at his erstwhile companion—O’Malley looked like dog’s dinner—gagged and limped to his horse, not sparing a glance at Sary. She threw the bent rifle after him as he galloped up the trail to Big Bear.

  “Damnation!” Gathering the rest of her belongings, she dashed past O’Malley, who had been flattened like a bloody inkblot, and paused to look back. Too easy, Tommy! No time!

  Sary raced to the automobile. It’s darkening. Hoping the headlamps worked as promised, she fumbled for the switch, flicked levers, and two cones of blinding, startling light illuminated trees ahead in stark color, more green than real. She switched them off and let out the handbrake, and the Mercedes spurted ahead as if eager for Big Bear too. At each lurch up the trail, the huge cylinder tank riding the rear sloshed out a trickle of fuel.

  Chapter 38

  The Mercedes’ round headlights arced across her old camp, a place more desolate, more embarrassing than ever. The iron kettle was gone. The fire pit was scattered. The hut—No, Seb hadn’t built a hut, they’d sat under a tarp, and their coffee was cold bitter acorn, more than not.

  No time. Eyes danced away from the disturbed gravesites. Enough! Deal with the dead later.

  Sary knelt on dusty torn velvet, feverishly clawed oilcloth bundles, palm-weighed ammunition, and checked the odd assortment of weapons for rust. Mountain air was dry. They looked the same as when she’d buried them, another lifetime ago. Her fingers brushed rotted, spongy wicker. They stopped.

  She clapped her ears, hearing Tommy. “I know! I ken, Tommy. I have enough for the siege of Carthage already. We’ve—I’ve—lost the surprise. Delacorte knows!”

  Sary unearthed the wicker, gingerly brushing dirt from caked green glass. Her hands shook as she lifted it out. She could scarce breathe.

  “Do shut up, Tommy!” She studied the pear-shaped bottle. Liquid moved sluggishly within. “But it can’t hurt—much. If I’m careful.” Gently she laid the pear-shaped bottle aside. “It’s not as if we’re spoiled for choice,” she told Tommy’s carping phantom. “Quit nagging!”

  ****

  Sary yanked off the wig. Nearly bald, and nicked where Ratchet had hacked her hair, she stepped from the red velvet, rubbed dirt on her face, and put on men’s clothes from the car’s open tonneau. Ripping velvet strips, she rebound the green bottle and tucked it into her shirt.

  “No, not good,” she decided and cradled the bottle in the rear of the car. Then, crouched by the tires, she muttered and drew with a stick Big Bear’s main streets, soon crisscrossed with lines. Savagely she scratched them out and hunkered back.

  “Remember when I forgot my lines, Tommy? And I made them up? But I knew the play, and the end of it. Well, it’s all made up from here on in, Tommy. So hold onto your hat.”

  More fuel jolted out as the car sputtered under the moon, down from the highest point to Big Bear’s high-desert
valley. Behind her, fresh rock covered Seb’s grave.

  Chapter 39

  Oblivious of all, Julian tucked little Jude into his son’s old oppressively masculine bedroom, while down in the saloon Orvis downed a glass, poured again from a half-empty bottle, and flicked glances at Julian’s table, wondering where the hell the man was. He slugged a final shot of courage.

  ****

  Orvis fidgeted outside Jules’s bedroom, now Jude’s, souring his mouth at the unexpected sound of Delacorte croaking out a lullaby.

  “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Grampa’s gonna buy you a mocking bird, and if that mockin’ bird don’t sing, Grampa’s gonna buy you a…” Julian crooned raspily.

  Orvis tiptoed off.

  Julian halted and, without looking, barked, “Herd a buffalo out there? Quitcher stompin’!”

  Orvis ducked in. “Oh. Hey. Mister Delacorte.”

  Julian gave him a look.

  “Wanna hear something humorous-like?”

  Julian, finger to lips, tiptoed out. “Well! Got my horses? ’Bout time.”

  Orvis shuffled. “Uh, yup, better’n ’at. This female”—he chuckled—“Sneakin’ up the old miner’s trail, Cooley and me—”

  Footsteps pounded, and Cooley himself crashed up, winded.

  Julian winced at his acned face. “Shush!”

  Orvis scowled at Cooley and turned back to Delacorte.

  “But here’s the humorous part, like—”

  “This better be good!” Julian snarled, just before Cooley butted in.

  “Had one of them auto-mo-biles, Mister Delacorte, loaded with fire power. Ten, twenty gunsels, shootin’ from the hills—come up the back way, either lost or sneakin’ in, like.”