Hell's Gate

by William W. Johnstone

  “Hell, Sam, we buried them poor boys decent under tons of rock like we set out to do,” O’Hara said. “They will lie there sleeping in their tomb as long as the mountains last.”

  Flintlock removed his shapeless hat, once black now white with dust. “Say the words, O’Hara, redeem yourself.”

  “What words?”

  “Damn it, any words fit for a white man’s funeral.”

  O’Hara thought for a while, bowed his head and said, “When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their times come they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”

  Flintlock turned his bowed head to look at O’Hara. “Who said them words?”

  “A wiser Injun than me,” O’Hara said.

  Flintlock nodded, replaced his hat and said, “I reckon they’ll do.”

  O’Hara didn’t comment. His eyes moved beyond Flintlock to the trail and he said, “Wagon coming. Looks like our supplies.” Then, a devil in him, “Sam, maybe Tobias Fynes heard about your miseries and is sending liniment.”

  “And maybe I really should shoot you now,” Flintlock said, irritated, scowling through each word.

  The freight wagon’s two-horse team made hard work of the switchback’s incline but when it finally arrived the freckled, teenage driver kicked on the brake, eyed Flintlock and said, “Seen your smoke from a long ways off, old-timer.”

  “It was dust,” Flintlock said, stung by the greeting. Then, “We had a landslide. Name’s Flintlock. Are the supplies in the wagon for us?”

  “If Flintlock’s your name, then yes, they are, old fellow.”

  O’Hara decided to head off Flintlock’s slow burn and grabbed the canteen from his saddle. “Give me your bandanna, Sam,” he said.

  “Why?”

  O’Hara held up the canteen. “Because you need to wash your face. It’s covered in dust.”

  Flintlock untied his bandanna and O’Hara wet it down good and handed it back. “And scrub your eyebrows and mustache.”

  It took only a few moments for Flintlock to rub his ashen face back to its homely normality and the young wagon driver was surprised. “Hell, I took ye fer an old coot,” he said.

  “Limestone dust can age a man real quick,” O’Hara said, grinning.

  “You boys mind clearing the rocks out of the way so I can get the wagon through?” the driver said. “I’m running behind schedule.”

  Flintlock had taken an instant dislike to the youth and his voice was edged as he said, “You work for Tobias Fynes?”

  “No, sir. My name’s John Tanner and I work for the Mansion Creek Freight and Packing Company. Mr. Fynes hired us to take supplies to the haunted Cully place and said we’d meet a couple of mighty rough fellers up there.”

  “We’re the mighty rough fellers,” Flintlock said. “Who told you the Cully place is haunted? Fynes?”

  “No, sir. As far as I know, Mr. Fynes didn’t mention it but everybody knows spooky things go on around this neck of the woods.”

  “What kind of spooky things?” Flintlock said.

  “If you plan on staying here for a spell you’ll find out,” Tanner said. Suddenly his eyes were guarded. “Didn’t they tell you in town about Jasper Orlov?”

  “No, nobody mentioned him,” Flintlock said.

  “I hope you never meet him,” Tanner said. He looked around him, intent on the landscape, and then said, “They’re around here someplace, Jasper and his clan. Or so folks say.”

  “He an outlaw?” Flintlock said.

  The youth nodded, “Yeah, he’s that, and a whole lot worse. He’s a legend that some will tell you doesn’t exist, but how to account for all the people who’ve disappeared in these mountains? Half a hundred, maybe, one of them a Ranger who came in from Texas and boasted that he’d nail Jasper’s hide to Governor Fremont’s front door. He rode out of Mansion Creek with a Colt on his hip and a Winchester under his knee and was never seen nor heard from again. Mr. Fynes, the town banker, says Orlov probably done for old man Cully, and Mr. Fynes always knows what he’s talking about.”

  O’Hara said, “Tell us more about this Jasper ranny.”

  “I’m telling you nothing else, best you never know, but I do have some advice for you boys—get the hell off this mesa as soon as you can.”

  “And if we don’t?” Flintlock said.

  “Then you’ll leave your bones here,” Tanner said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I planned to offer the driver a cup of coffee but he just turned his wagon around and left without saying good-bye,” Lucy Cully said to Flintlock as she stood in front of the house.

  “Yeah, he had to get back to town in a hurry to pick up another delivery,” Flintlock said, smoothing out his lie.

  “Where did you and Mr. O’Hara go so early this morning?” Lucy said. “I thought I heard gunshots.”

  “That was O’Hara fooling around shooting at rocks. We wanted to make sure Shade Pike’s boys were long gone.”

  “And were they?”

  Flintlock nodded. “They won’t be coming back this way ever again.”

  “Are you sure, Sam?”

  “Sure I’m sure. They’re long gone and in a different place by now.”

  Lucy’s concerned face brightened. “Well, Mr. Fynes did us proud on the provisions. I’m going to cook us all a fine dinner tonight.”

  “Are you a good cook, Lucy?” Flintlock said.

  “Yes, I am. At least no one I’ve cooked for ever had a complaint.”

  “I’m a pretty good cook myself,” Flintlock said. “At least when it comes to trail grub, bacon and beans and the like.”

  Lucy smiled. “Well, tonight I’ll do better than bacon and beans.” Concern clouded her face. “Sam, I’ve noticed that you’re moving very stiffly. Are you feeling quite well?”

  Flintlock thought on his feet, unwilling to tell the girl that he’d taken a header down her stairs, had recently fallen off his horse and had part of a mesa collapse on him. Finally, he said, “It’s a touch of the rheumatisms. I’ll be fine in a day or two.”

  “Come inside, Sam, and sit down for a while,” Lucy said. “I have a fresh pot of coffee on the stove.”

  Flintlock was sitting at the kitchen table with Lucy, trying to act genteel as he balanced a cup and saucer of thin china that were too small for his big, hard-knuckled hands when O’Hara stepped inside. He answered the question on Flintlock’s face and told him that all was quiet.

  “So now we settle in for a week and convince Lucy that her place isn’t haunted,” Flintlock said. He smiled at O’Hara. “I found a pack of cards and some poker chips in the parlor that will help pass the time. Don’t worry, I’ll take your IOUs and you can pay me later.”

  “Suppose I win?” O’Hara said.

  “Now, that ain’t likely, is it?” Flintlock said. Then, as though the matter was not worthy of any further discussion, “Lucy, did you see anything strange when we were gone this morning?”

  “No. But I felt I was being watched the whole time, especially in my bedroom where I saw the ghost last night.”

  “You told me it didn’t scare you,” Flintlock said. The china cup rattled on the saucer as Flintlock gingerly put it down.

  “No, it didn’t scare me,” Lucy said. “Perhaps I felt a little uneasy, but it soon passed.”

  “Miss Lucy, if the ghost didn’t scare you, then why are we here?” O’Hara said.

  “Because we need the money, O’Hara, remember?” Flintlock said quickly. “As far as Tobias Fynes is concerned, it will take the whole week for us to convince Lucy that she has nothing to fear.”

  “Perhaps I do have something to fear,” the girl said. “If there’s one spirit here there may be others that are much more frightening.”

  Flintlock beamed and said, “Now you’re talking. That’s good thinking, Lucy, very good thinking. When it comes to h
a’ants like this one, I reckon it will take me and O’Hara a full seven days to roust out the boogermen.”

  O’Hara’s reaction was more measured. “Woman, you say you are not scared yet I see fear in your eyes. Why is this?”

  Lucy did not answer directly. A scion of a Philadelphian patrician family, she’d been taught to keep her emotions in check, and her face was expressionless when she said, “I do so very much want this house to be the home of Roderick and me and I want to raise our family here, if the good Lord chooses to bless us with children. But—”

  Flintlock and O’Hara waited.

  “But the house has to want it too,” Lucy said.

  “Give it a week and the old place will come around to liking you, Lucy,” Flintlock said. “Hell, I think it likes you already. Don’t it, O’Hara?”

  “Seems like,” O’Hara said. “I haven’t heard it raise any objections to you being here.”

  “And that’s a natural fact,” Flintlock said. “Truer words was never spoke.”

  “The house makes strange noises and talks to me all the time,” Lucy said. “But I don’t understand what it’s saying.”

  “It’s saying, ‘I like you being here, pretty woman,’” Flintlock said. He smiled. “Trust me, that’s what it says. I’ve heard it myself a time or two.”

  “I do hope so,” Lucy said. She looked around her and shivered. “Oh, how I so very much hope so.”

  * * *

  Perched as it was on the lofty pinnacle of the crag where the winds blew strongest, gusts from the northeast wind buffeted the Cully mansion and rattled windows and banged doors as it sighed and blustered around the eaves and sought out every rambling nook and cranny to explore. As it always did the house creaked and groaned on its foundation and distressed ravens fluttered around the high upper floors and cawed in alarm.

  “Beginning to blow some, huh?” Flintlock said to no one in particular as he used a piece of bread to sop up the last of the roast beef gravy on his plate. He sat back in his chair and said, “That was an elegant meal, Lucy. The best I’ve ate in many a year.”

  “And that goes for me too,” O’Hara said.

  “You’re too kind,” Lucy said, “both of you.” She drew her shawl closer around her shoulders and said, “When the wind blows like this I find it most distressful, in this house or in any other. I fear that one day a strong gust is going to lift the house all the way up to the clouds and bear me to India or Cathay or some such foreign place and then set me down on a high mountaintop.”

  Flintlock smiled. “Lucy, if that ever happens, just hold on tight and enjoy the trip. That’s the ticket.”

  “Listen up. Do you hear that?” O’Hara said.

  “Hear what?” Flintlock said. Constant practice with revolvers in his early life had left him slightly deaf.

  “Music,” O’Hara said. “I hear it on the wind.”

  As a gust shook the house, Lucy said, “Yes, now I hear it. A fiddle.”

  “And a tin whistle, maybe,” O’Hara said.

  “Hell, I can’t hear a thing,” Flintlock said. He stood and said, “I’m going outside to take a listen.”

  Lucy and O’Hara followed as he stepped out the front door. All three stood still for a moment, letting their eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. The wind molded Lucy Cully’s skirt against her legs and long strands of hair laced across her face. The ravens fluttered high among the tall chimneys and peaked roofs and were never quiet.

  Flintlock listened into the night and then said, “I hear it. Sounds like some folks are having a hootenanny.”

  The fiddle music came and went with the surging wind, sometimes thin and distant, other times louder.

  “‘Little Liza Jane,’ for sure,” Flintlock said, his head cocked, listening. Then, in his deep baritone, “I got a beau and you ain’t got none, Little Liza Jane.”

  Lucy smiled and sang, her toe tapping, “Hambone hammer, where you’ve been, down by the river, making gin. I know a man that’s three feet tall, drink his liquor and have a ball. Saw him just the other day, he had a horse and a bale of hay.”

  Flintlock took up the chorus again, “Little Liza Jane, Jane, little Liza . . .”

  The tune came to an end and then the fiddle, distant but distinct in the wind, took up the lively “Whiskey Before Breakfast.”

  “Some feller is giving his fiddle licks and he’s pretty good,” Flintlock said, grinning, his foot tapping as he sang, “Lord protect us, saints preserve us, we been drinkin’ whiskey afore breakfast.”

  Flintlock held his hands out to Lucy and she stood, fell into his arms and they began to dance a lively reel around the open ground at the front of the house. O’Hara grinned and clapped the measure as the dancers two-stepped, dipped and spun and laughed. Flintlock, high-stepping, thudded his booted feet onto the dirt, and Lucy’s swirling yellow dress glowed in the darkness.

  The dance finally came to an end when the wind changed and the music faded away into silence.

  Lucy whooped, flopped onto the porch steps, threw up her hands and said, “Lawdy, I’m all out of breath, Sam.” She smiled. “My goodness, I haven’t had that much fun in ages. You’re a fine dancer.”

  “I surely enjoyed it myself, Lucy,” Flintlock said, breathing hard. He grinned and said, “I hurt all over but I’ll be just fine directly.”

  “Where did you learn to dance like that?” the girl said. “You are such a cavalier, Sam.”

  “From old Barnabas. Mountain men sure loved to dance and when there were no womenfolk around, they’d cut a caper with each other.”

  “Tonight, where did the music come from?” Lucy said.

  “Hard to tell,” Flintlock said. “I’d say north of the mesa, back in the timber country.”

  “How far?” Lucy said.

  “A couple of miles, maybe less,” Flintlock said.

  Lucy stood in silence for a few moments, then she said, “The music was wonderful and I took great joy in it, but listen to the ravens. Why are they so afraid?”

  “I guess they don’t like to see folks dancing,” Flintlock said.

  Lucy said, “It’s been a wonderful evening but I’m going back inside. Suddenly I don’t like being out here in the darkness.”

  The girl walked into the house and when she was gone, Flintlock said, “What’s ailing them damned ravens? Why are they kicking up such a racket?”

  O’Hara tilted his head and stared up at the birds. The ravens kept up with their noisy agitation and flapped around the house like pieces of charred paper blowing in the wind. “I don’t know why,” O’Hara said.

  “Well, they shouldn’t be scaring womenfolk,” Flintlock said. “Tomorrow I’ll load up the Hawken with buckshot and drive them away.”

  “Leave them be, Sam,” O’Hara said, his long hair tossing in the rising wind.

  Flintlock gave him a puzzled look and O’Hara said, “The Apache believe the raven is a bearer of magic and it brings messages from places beyond time and beyond this earth. The messages are carried on the midnight wings of the raven and only come to those in the tribe who are worthy of the knowledge.”

  “All right, then, are you worthy, O’Hara, being half Injun an’ all?” Flintlock said.

  “No, I am not, Sam. But the ravens have brought us a warning, so leave them be.”

  “What kind of warning?”

  “That, I do not know. Their message is not for me.”

  Flintlock’s eyes lifted to the dizzying heights of the mansion and for a while he stood still, but then he cried out, stumbled back and almost fell. “Well, damn,” he said. “Does that not beat all?”

  “What happened?” O’Hara said.

  “Nothing happened. But for a moment I thought I saw the house move, as though it was going to come crashing down on top of me.”

  “The music has stopped,” O’Hara said. “Let us go inside, Sam.”

  Flintlock grabbed the other man’s arm. The colors of the thunderbird tattoo on his throat seemed alive in th
e gloom. “O’Hara, why did I think the house was going to fall on me, huh?”

  O’Hara shook his head. “Sam, I have a feeling it’s going to be a long week,” he said.

  And that was the only answer Flintlock was going to get.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  By candlelight, casting moving shadows on the walls, Flintlock and O’Hara were allotted quarters upstairs. O’Hara’s bedroom was close to Lucy Cully’s, within calling distance, as Flintlock noted. But his own boudoir, a small, cobwebbed space under the roof, had a narrow iron cot, a dresser and not much else. It had obviously been intended as a bedchamber for a servant, and a low-ranking one at that.

  Flintlock laid his Colt on the floor beside the cot and then stripped off his buckskin shirt, revealing a stocky, muscular body that bore the puckered scars of two bullet wounds and the jagged mark of a knife that seared red across the ribs of his left side. He’d known going in that the life of a bounty hunter could be nasty, brutish and all too often short. But when a man joins the dance he must be prepared to pay the fiddler. Flintlock pulled off his scuffed, down-at-heel boots, let them thud one by one onto the wood floor and then stepped on sock feet to the dresser mirror. Staring back at him in the candlelight was a strong, square face and blue-gray eyes that measured a man. His reflection confirmed what he already knew, that he had no claim to handsomeness and was ill equipped to cut a dash in front of the ladies. At first sight of him, feminine hearts did not flutter and they didn’t flutter at second sight of him either.

  Flintlock stripped to his long johns and then lay on the cot, the lumpy mattress promising him no comfort. He stared gloomily at the ceiling and closed his eyes. An hour passed but sleep refused to come and it was not the fault of the bed. He’d slept in worse places, in all kinds of weather, usually cold or wet on ground that grew rocks as a crop and rattlers as livestock. Then he realized with certainty what was troubling him . . . he was under scrutiny . . . somebody was watching him, and with hostile eyes.

  Flintlock rolled off the cot and lit a candle. He grabbed his Colt from the floor, held the candle high and looked around the tiny room. Shadows moved as he explored the dark corners, the ceiling, the floor. Nothing. Only the spiders watched him. He shook his head. Damn it all, he was acting like an old maid who hears a rustle in every bush.