by Matt Braun
Soon after dawn the sun crested the distant mountains. Starbuck waited until the glare of the fireball was at their backs, then he gave the signal. The men scrambled out of the arroyo and rushed across an open stretch of ground. Near the corral, which held fewer than a dozen horses, they separated into two groups. Holliday hurried toward the cook shack, while McMasters and Vermillion burst through the door of the bunkhouse. Starbuck, with Earp and Warren on his heels, stormed into the main house.
Starbuck and Earp quickly checked the three bedrooms at the rear of the house. All were empty, and looked as though no one had slept there in several days. Warren came out of the kitchen as they returned to the front room. He shook his head, indicating he’d found nothing. Walking to a pot-bellied stove, Starbuck bent over and placed his hand on the underside of the firebox. He straightened up, affirmation written across his features.
“Stone cold,” he said. “Hasn’t been used for at least two days, maybe more.”
“You called it,” Earp acknowledged. “They probably cleared out the same night they shot Morg.”
“Left in a hurry, too.” Starbuck gestured at a disarray of clothing and gear scattered about the room. “When they missed you and Doc at the pool hall, that put a crimp in their plans. I’d judge Brocius decided it was time to pull another disappearing act.”
“All I want to know—”
“Look here what we found!”
Holliday shoved a bewhiskered little man through the door. He was on the sundown side of forty, nearly bald, and stooped from a lifetime of standing over a cook stove. Barefooted, the trap door of his longjohns hanging loose, he stumbled to a halt. His eyes were wide with fear.
“Almost missed him,” Holliday chuckled. “Sherm remembered to check the outhouse, and found him taking a constitutional.”
Earp gave him a cool once-over. “You remember me?”
“Guess I do,” the cook admitted shakily. “My arm ain’t been the same since the last time you stopped by.”
“You remember the question I asked you then?”
“Couldn’t hardly forget. You asked me where Brocius and the boys had went to.”
“I’m askin’ you again.”
The cook turned pallid as a gravestone. “I shore hate to tell you this, but the answer’s the same. I ain’t got no more idea than the man in the moon.” He shot a weak glance around at the men. “It’s the holy-honest-to-Christ’s truth! Them boys don’t never say boo to me.”
“You’re not deaf, are you?”
“I do my best,” the cook mumbled. “What you don’t hear can’t hurt you.”
“Wanna bet?” Earp motioned to Vermillion and McMasters. “Unplug his ears.”
Vermillion, who was standing to the rear, drove his fist into the cook’s kidneys. The little man doubled over, his eyes bulging with pain. His mouth popped open in a breathless whoofing sound. McMasters struck out in a fast shadowy movement. His blow connected with a mushy crack, and the cook lurched backwards, spurting blood from a broken nose. McMasters clubbed him upside the ear, then drove a whistling haymaker deep into his rib cage. The cook dropped like a wet bag of sand. He moaned, spitting frothy bubbles, and sucked great gasps of air.
Earp watched the beating with stolid indifference. But when Vermillion cocked his leg for a kick, Starbuck moved to stop it. He stepped in, shielding the cook, and waved Vermillion off.
“That’s enough! He’s no good to us if he can’t talk.”
Starbuck knelt down. “Listen to me, old man. I’ll only ask once, and you’d better have an answer.”
The cook stared up at him, lips puckered like a goldfish. Starbuck gave him a moment, then leaned closer. “Tell me one thing. When Brocius and his boys rode out, which direction were they headed?”
“East,” the cook rasped, breathing heavily. “Acrost the river.”
Starbuck climbed to his feet. “That’s all we need. I checked the ground, and that thunder storm didn’t get this far south. It’ll be easy tracking.”
Vermillion nudged the cook with his toe. “What about him?”
“Kill him,” Earp said with chilling simplicity.
“No!” Starbuck turned, meeting Earp’s look directly. “You start killing innocent people and we’ll have to run all the way to China. I won’t be a party to it.”
“What’s to stop me?”
“Nothing,” Starbuck said evenly. “Except you’ll have to find yourself another tracker.”
“You’ve gone squeamish awful sudden.”
“I’ve killed my share, but I never murdered anybody. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“What the hell!” Earp laughed a strange, cryptic laugh. “Wouldn’t want to hurt your sensitive feelings.”
He stepped past the cook and walked toward the door. Starbuck, breathing an inward sigh of relief, followed him outside. The others exchanged quizzical glances, then slowly filed along behind.
Some ten minutes later McMasters and Vermillion brought the horses from downstream. Starbuck, watched closely by Earp, was walking the shoreline east of the river. Suddenly he stopped, dropping to one knee, and studied the faint imprint of tracks in the ground. He took a smidge of dirt between his fingers, nodding to himself as though the earth possessed some secret knowledge. Then he rose and walked back to Earp.
“Eight horses.” He bobbed his head into a blinding sunrise. “Tracks are three days old.”
“You’re sure?” Earp regarded him with squinted eyes. “I wouldn’t take kindly to a wild-goose-chase.”
Starbuck nodded. “I’m sure.”
“Then let’s ride.”
Florentino Cruz reminded himself to light a candle to the Virgin. A swarthy man of mixed blood, he treated religion with the superstition of one who believes that all gods are whimsical and must be constantly appeased. He thought it would be a serious error not to offer thanks for his good fortune.
A bandit, and more recently an assassin, he sometimes took refuge with his sister and her husband. Their small rancho lay on the western slope of the Dragoon Mountains. Some twenty miles northeast of Tombstone, it was off the beaten track, tucked away in a remote stretch of wilderness. Cruz’s brother-in-law raised goats and pigs, and tended a vegetable garden he had scratched out of the rocky soil. In a stout log corral, he also kept an unusually large number of horses. A poor man, cursed with a barren wife, he saw no harm in supplementing his meager income. His wife’s brother rode with a band of gringos, and their leader treated him with the generosity of a patron. In return, he operated a relay station for the Brocius gang.
Cruz often stopped over here when a job was completed. His sister’s cooking was spicy and plentiful, and he much preferred it to the swill served at the Clanton ranch. Furthermore, he was of the strong opinion that he was safer here. The gang’s secret hideout, in his view, was not secret enough. Only this morning, following Stilwell’s death last night, the gang had ridden off on fresh mounts. He had elected to remain behind, certain in the knowledge that Brocius would draw pursuit. He considered it unfortunate, almost an omen, that Earp had not been killed at the train station. He also considered himself a wise man for having separated from his gringo compañeros. Here, with his sister and her husband, he was out of harm’s way.
In the deepening indigo of dusk, Cruz and his brother-in-law were splitting wood outside the one-room adobe. His sister appeared in the doorway and tossed a pan of dirty water into the yard. She wiped her hands on her dress, and stood for a moment watching the men. Then, on the verge of turning back into the house, she suddenly stiffened. She stared west, shielding her eyes against the dying flare of sunset. Some distance away, she saw three riders top a low rise. Their features were indistinct, but their clothing immediately identified them as gringos.
The men, following her gaze, stopped splitting wood. The riders moved toward them at a slow trot, silhouetted against the last rays of daylight. Then, emerging into the silty dusk, their features became visible. Cruz instantly recognized
the two Earp brothers, and the stranger he’d seen with them at the train station. He dropped his ax, jerking a pistol from the waistband of his trousers. His eyes flicked to the adobe, then he quickly changed his mind. He ran toward the corral.
As he rounded the corner of the house, Cruz broke stride and skidded to an abrupt halt. Three more riders, one of them Doc Holliday, were circling the corral from the north. Behind him, he heard the thud of hoofbeats as the Earps spurred their horses to a gallop. Trapped and desperate, he sprinted toward a wooded outcropping east of the corral. Before he could reach the knoll, Holliday and the men he recognized as pistoleros cut him off. A moment later Earp and his companions closed in from the rear.
Cruz flung his sixgun on the ground and raised his hands. He watched with a doglike dumbfounded stare as the riders joined ranks in a loose, halfmoon formation. No one spoke, but he felt Earp’s gaze boring into him with the intensity of fire. The horses advanced, crowding ever closer, and he scuttled backwards to avoid being trampled. Slowly, relentlessly, the riders forced him up the knoll. At the crest, still backing away, he lost his balance and tumbled head over heels down the reverse slope. The horsemen kneed their mounts into the defile and reined to a halt before him. Dazed and shaken, he hauled himself to his feet.
Earp’s jaw muscles worked, and his eyes narrowed to tiny points of malevolence. He shifted in his saddle, glancing at Starbuck. A cruel smile touched his lips.
“This here’s Florentino Cruz,” he said without inflection. “Sometimes known as Indian Charlie.”
“Wasn’t he one of the men named in the indictment for killing Morg?”
Earp merely nodded, then turned to Vermillion. “Ask him if he knows who I am.”
Vermillion leaned forward. “Conoces este hombre?”
“Sí, este hombre se llama Earp.”
“Tell him”—Earp’s voice dropped—“I came here to kill him for what he did to my brother.”
Vermillion ducked his chin at Earp. “Este hombre está aquí para matarte. Por la cosa tu hiciste a su hermano.”
“Madre Dios!” Cruz dropped to his knees, clasping his hands like a man offering prayer. “Por favor yo soy innocente! Yo no quiero morir!”
Vermillion spat tobacco juice on the ground. “Says he didn’t do it.”
“Gutless bastard!” Earp made a quick, savage gesture. “Tell him he’s got one chance to live. I’ll let him go if he tells us where to find Brocius.”
“Díle a ellos donde está Brocius y este hombre no le mata.”
Cruz blanched at the mention of Brocius’ name. He darted an imploring look at the other men, only to be met by grim stares. After a moment, Earp pulled his sawed-off shotgun from the saddle boot and slowly cocked both hammers. Kneeing his horse to the right, he laid the shotgun over the saddle horn and lowered the muzzle until it was centered on Cruz’s head. The halfbreed’s eyes went round as saucers. His gaze was riveted on the shotgun, never wavering from the double black holes in the stubby muzzle.
Earp wagged the tip of the shotgun. “Tell him he’s got five seconds to talk or he’ll be shakin’ hands with his maker.”
“Usted tiene cinco segundos para hablar o usted va con Jesus Cristo muy pronto.”
Cruz swallowed, his voice choked with terror. “Brocius y siete de los hombres están en Iron Springs.”
“We got it,” Vermillion said, easing back in his saddle. “He says Brocius and six or seven of the gang are holed up at Iron Springs. Near as I recollect, that’s over in the Whetstone Mountains.”
Starbuck, looking on, knew the halfbreed had sealed his own death warrant. But this time he raised no objections. Cruz was a murderer, one of a gang of cutthroats, and he felt not the slightest stirring of mercy. Nor was he at odds with what Earp was about to do. He himself had hung men for lesser crimes, and an execution, whatever the reason, was still an execution. Some men deserved to die.
The shotgun exploded in a double roar. Cruz’s head seemed to evaporate. His skull blew apart and he was knocked kicking onto his back. A mist of bone and brain matter rained down, covering his torso with a light, blood-red spray. His legs jerked, bootheels pounding the earth in a slow dance of death. Then, with one last twitch, it stopped.
Earp reined his horse around and rode off. The others trailed him over the knoll and down past the corral. Out front of the adobe, the Mexican and the halfbreed woman were standing with their heads bowed. Earp signaled a halt, and the men reined in their mounts directly behind him. When the dust settled, he broke open the shotgun, ejecting the spent shells, and reloaded. Then he jammed it into the saddle boot, and turned his gaze on the couple. His eyes were cold and impassive, his mouth razored in a tight line. He motioned to Vermillion.
“Tell’em Cruz is dead.” He dug out a gold coin and tossed it in the dirt at their feet. “Twenty dollars ought to buy a real impressive mass. Tell’em if they’re smart, they’ll report he got bit by a scorpion and didn’t recover.”
Vermillion indicated the coin. “Su amigo está muerto. Si ustedes son listos reportarán que él fue picado por un escorpión.”
The man removed his sombrero, looking down at the coin, and bobbed his head. The woman stood stockstill, her eyes frozen on the patch of ground at her feet. Earp was silent for a time, seemingly lost in thought. Watching him, Starbuck sensed he was debating the wisdom of leaving them alive. Then, on sudden impulse, he apparently decided the gold piece would buy their silence. He brought his horse sharply around and spurred off into the gathering darkness.
The men kicked their mounts into a lope and rode after him. The thud of hoofbeats slowly diminished, and within moments the riders were lost to sight.
The sister of Florentino Cruz crossed herself and slowly collapsed in the doorway. Her husband stooped down, wiping dust off the coin, and stuck it in his pocket. He went inside the adobe, returning a moment later with a lighted lantern and a shovel. He walked in the direction of the knoll.
CHAPTER 16
“Foxy bastard!”
“Who’s that?”
“Brocius,” Earp said roughly. “You had him pegged all along.”
“Only about halfway.”
“C’mon, Jack, credit due where credit’s deserved! You said he had a hideout somewhere close to home, and you hit the mark dead center. Iron Springs couldn’t be no more than ten or twelve miles from the Clanton place.”
“Maybe so,” Starbuck said doubtfully. “Only he’s lots trickier than I thought.”
“So he doubled back! How the hell could you’ve figured that?”
“He didn’t double back.”
Earp gave him a swift sidelong look. “What are you gettin’ at?”
“Well, I’ve been studying on it. Something kept me scratching my head, but it didn’t rightly make sense.”
“I thought you was awful quiet last night.”
“Tell you the truth, it only come to me a little while ago.”
The statement was a baldfaced lie. Last night, after the Cruz killing, they had camped on a small creek some miles to the west. There, following a cold supper, Starbuck had reconstructed the events of the past three days. Bit by bit, based on what he’d learned, he pieced together the movements of the Brocius gang since the night of Morg’s death. Yet he’d held his silence last night, retiring early to his blankets. All day today, as they rode westerly toward the Whetstone Mountains, he had also avoided conversation with Earp. Somehow, turning it this way and that, he had searched for a means of twisting the situation to Earp’s disadvantage. But now, lacking any great brainstorm, he saw nothing to lose by playing it straight. Earp would be impressed and come to rely even more heavily on his advice. Which at some point would prove vital to his overall plan.
“Yesterday morning,” Starbuck said at length, “when I found the tracks at Clanton’s place. You remember I said they were three days old?”
“What about it?”
“That should’ve tipped me off. Those tracks were made the night Morg was killed
.”
“So?”
“Well, the way I put it together, Brocius and his bunch swapped horses at Cruz’s place the next morning. Then they rode straight to Tucson, and tried to waylay us at the train station. Afterward, they turned right around and rode back to Cruz’s place.”
“And swapped horses again!” Earp suddenly grasped it. “That means they were headed west toward Iron Springs at the same time we were followin’ their tracks east to the Dragoons.”
“We’re a day late and a dollar short,” Starbuck affirmed. “Lucky for us, Cruz decided to stay behind. Otherwise, I would’ve had to start tracking all over again. No telling how much time we would’ve lost.”
Earp uttered a low chuckle. “I’d sooner be a day late and a dollar short than no payday at all. That’s what happened the last time I took out after Brocius.”
Starbuck cracked a smile. “All you needed was a hound dog. Brocius lays so many trails, it takes a damn good sniffer to pick up the scent.”
“Jack, you’re all right!” Earp said, with a quick nod of satisfaction. “You can scout for me six days a week and all day on Sunday. Hadn’t been for you, we’d still be wonderin’ which way was up.”
Starbuck gave himself a pat on the back. Once more he’d euchred Earp into accepting a highly embroidered version of the facts. As the sun rose to its zenith, and they forded the San Pedro north of Contention, he felt like a cat with a mouthful of feathers. He had a hunch today was the day. The end of the line.
The sun sank lower, smothering in a bed of copper beyond the mountains. The ragged crests jutted skyward like sentinels guarding a cruel and lifeless land. Far below, bordered by a grove of trees, the springs lay hidden in purple shadow. There was no sound, only the foreboding silence of oncoming night.
