by John Benteen
“He took him good, but Wolf’s tough, he’ll be up soon. And he and a lot of folks will be ready to see you swing, and make it good this time. They’ll take you out of here and hang you, and I can’t stop ’em. And if I turn you loose ...”
“Nobody’ll lay a hand on me, if you give me back my guns!”
“You can’t fight or watch the whole town,” Sundance said. “The Paiutes know about those cartridges, too. And they’ve got plenty of reason to take revenge. You may be fast, but a Paiute could put a knife in you and you’d never even know he was there until just before you died. No. Whether you like it or not, you come with me. You show me where you found those bullets. Then, if I’m satisfied you’re on the up-and-up, I’ll turn you loose. If I’m not—”
“If you’re not, what?”
“We’ll see how it turns out. Now, you be ready to go just at sundown; that’s when we’re pullin’ out. Where’s your horse and gear?”
Billy did not answer for a moment. Finally, looking from MacLaurin back to Sundance: “If I go with you, do I git my guns?”
“Me, I wouldn’t—” MacLaurin began, but Sundance cut him off.
“You get your guns. I wouldn’t take anybody up into the Skulls against the sniper unarmed.”
Mercer turned away, staring at the floor. Then his narrow shoulders shrugged. “All right,” he said. “I got no choice. I’ll go. My horse and gear’s at the livery.”
“I’ll be back for you at dark,” Sundance said.
Mercer did not answer, only went back to the cot, sat down, staring at the floor, not looking at either Sundance or MacLaurin.
In the outer office, MacLaurin spat into a sandbox around the stove. “Sundance, you’re takin’ a long chance givin’ that young sidewinder his guns.”
The half breed shrugged. “If I can’t handle one kid, I’ve got no business going against the sniper.”
MacLaurin’s mouth twisted. “Suit yourself. But I expect a lot of people down in Lincoln County, New Mexico, said the same thing about another Billy. And wound up pushin’ daisies.”
~*~
The moon had not yet risen, but the desert sky was vast and clear and powdered with stars as Sundance and the boy named Billy Mercer rode cautiously out of Bootstrap. The wind sighed across the flats, rustled sage and creosote and yucca, and it bore on it a strange, eerie minor-keyed wailing, grief-laden.
Billy Mercer shifted uneasily in his saddle, reining in at the head of the street. “What the hell’s that?”
“The Paiutes,” Sundance said. “Mourning Charlie Crip, their head man. They buried him tonight.”
He knew how it would have been done. Crippled Hand would have been dressed in his best Indian clothes. His most treasured possessions would have been buried with him in a lonely grave far out in the wilderness—a grave painstakingly disguised so that only the people of his band could ever find it again. The rest of his belongings would be burned—along with the karnee he’d inhabited. And thus, except for his children and the memories of his family and his tribe, there would be no trace left that he had ever lived.
“Come on,” Sundance said, feeling a hot rage at the sniper rising in him. Jefferson Galax, or whoever was using that Big Fifty, had a lot to account for. And either he had to kill Jim Sundance or he was going to pay in full. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover before the sun comes up.” He touched the big Appaloosa with his heels, and it fell into a mile-devouring lope.
Billy Mercer’s horse had turned out to be a short-legged old gelding, his gear held together by rawhide and bailing wire, neither horse nor saddle fit for what lay ahead. Sundance had purchased another mount, new rigging, for the kid, and the strong, long-striding black had no trouble keeping up with Eagle. In fact, Sundance dropped a bit behind for a moment, taking that opportunity to appraise Billy more closely.
Mercer had been virtually silent since Sundance had picked him up at the jail, his slender, beardless face impassive except when, reluctantly, MacLaurin had handed him his guns. Sundance had watched closely as Mercer’s face lit with pleasure and satisfaction as he strapped on the weapons belt, thonged the holsters to his thighs. The mark of the gunman, he thought, and he knew the emotions Mercer felt, for he himself shared them, felt naked, incomplete, without his weapons. Observing the kid, he realized that MacLaurin had not exaggerated: there was a subtle deadliness in Billy Mercer, even though his Colts were only .32-20’s, lightweight to fit his small hands and slender frame. As the mayor had suggested, he would have to watch this boy every minute …
Now he put Eagle level with Billy’s horse as they headed for the Skull range, bulking against the northern sky. “We’ll keep moving at this pace, be in the mountains before daylight, hole up there until it’s dark again, then move out, headin’ for that place you said you found the cartridges. Now, let’s hear it again —all about what you were doin’ up there in the Skulls and how you found ’em.” MacLaurin had told him Billy’s story and Mercer, also, had given his own version. Sundance wanted to hear it repeated in case Mercer made some slip, varied in some detail.
But he did not. “I told you, I was prospecting up there. Looking for the Lost Pistol mine. Ain’t I got a right to do that, same as anybody?”
“You got a right,” Sundance said. “You also got a lot of brass, with the sniper on the loose. How come you weren’t afraid he’d blow your head off?”
“That was a chance I had to take. Because it was my only chance really to look for the mine, while the sniper had the Skulls cleared of all the other people tryin’ to find it. You may not believe it, but the way I figure, it’s safer up there in those mountains right now than it was before the sniper came.”
“Yeah?”
“Damn right. Before all this started, those hills were crawlin’ with prospectors, treasure hunters, and all kinds of buzzards—all after the Lost Pistol, each with his own map, each map different, every one of ’em sure his map’s the only one that’s real. And they’re all so scared somebody will beat them out or trail ’em and take the mine when they find it that they’re like a bunch of mad wolves. Before the sniper came, it was like a war up there in the Skulls all the time. You never could tell when some crazy rock rat would dry gulch you. Might shoot you down to see if you had a map or because he needed your water ... Then the sniper scared ’em all out, and I decided to take my chances with him. That’s a big mountain range, and he couldn’t be everywhere at once.”
“He never took a shot at you?”
“No. Maybe I was lucky, but I kept to cover as best I could all the time. The only trace I saw of him was that dead campfire at the mouth of a cave, with those two fifty caliber shells lyin’ there. But that scared me, and I figured I’d better not push my luck. I picked ’em up, headed for Bootstrap, aiming to turn ’em in to MacLaurin, but Wolf Hargitt come down on me before I had a chance. Next thing I knew, I had a rope around my neck. Then you come along. Okay, I owe you for that, so I’ll show you where I found ’em. After that, I’m pulling out.”
“You’re pulling out when I say so, not before. You’re still in my custody.”
Mercer stiffened in the saddle. “MacLaurin didn’t give you a deed of ownership to me. I’m not a slave.”
“You’re a prisoner, until I decide you’re in the clear in this sniper business.”
Mercer pulled his horse in, swung it around. Starlight glinted in his eyes. His right hand was on the saddle horn and Sundance saw the fingers flex.
“You know something?” Mercer’s voice was soft. “Maybe that’s something we ought to settle here and now … ”
Sundance’s voice was even. “Billy, don’t get feisty with me. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
“And maybe you couldn’t. Yeah, I saw you draw, yesterday. But ... you’ve never seen me draw. And maybe now that I’m out of jail, I better take what chance I’ve got.” He licked his lips. “I’m not afraid of you, Sundance. I think I could take you … ”
The wind made its whisper a
cross the flats. In the distance, a coyote howled. “Well … ” Sundance said, and then his horse lunged, triggered by touch of heel. Billy yelled something, his hand streaked down, but the big Appaloosa had already smashed hard into his mount, sending the startled gelding reeling. The stallion’s head slammed into Mercer, knocked him from the saddle with terrific impact, and the kid landed on his back in the dust, not moving. Gun drawn, Sundance swung the stud around the gelding; when Mercer opened his eyes, stared up, he was looking into the muzzle of the half-breed’s Colt.
“On your feet, Billy,” Sundance rasped. “Slow and easy.”
Mercer made a strange sobbing noise. Slowly he arose.
“I told you I didn’t want to hurt you. But the next time you brace me, you won’t git off this easy. Now. Mount up.”
Standing there unsteadily, Mercer whispered, “You’re not gonna take my guns?”
“I wouldn’t have let you have ’em in the first place if I didn’t figure you might need ’em. You keep ’em, but you remember—it’s not only me watching you. This stud is, too, and he’s a trained warhorse. First time you draw on me, even if I ain’t lookin’, he’ll be on you like a hawk on a rabbit, and he won’t leave enough of you to bury … ”
Billy shuttled awed eyes at the stallion. Then, shakily, he mounted.
“Now,” Sundance said, “you lead the way and I’ll be right behind. And push that gelding. We’ve got to make those hills before the moon comes up.”
Mercer said nothing, only turned his horse, spurred. It broke into a run, and Sundance touched Eagle with his heel again and the great spotted horse kept pace with ease as they rode on across the flats toward the distant Skulls.
By the time the moon came up, they were in the foothills, long outthrust fingers of rock, gravel, scrub, cut with draws and studded with boulders. Above them towered the range itself, a vast, sprawling conglomeration miles wide and more miles long of bleak ridges, peaks, the hogbacks, vast cliffs and buttes and towers of raw, wind-eroded rock. Little soil and vegetation up there, less water, a thousand hiding places for any man on the dodge—and just maybe, Sundance thought, an unimaginable fortune in silver, waiting to be found and motive enough for any amount of killing.
With part of his consciousness, he watched Mercer and the terrain. Another part of his mind was sorting the threads of what he had so far learned, and one way or another it all came back to the Lost Pistol mine. MacLaurin had built Bootstrap out there on the desert because of it, and the sniper, whoever he was, seemed to have a grudge either against MacLaurin or the town itself. MacLaurin had admitted it would not take much more of that reign of terror to kill the town and ruin him personally. At first glance, that could be the pattern behind the killings, but MacLaurin swore he knew no one who would bear that much hatred for him. “Hell, if it was me,” he’d told Sundance, “why didn’t he just knock me over and get it done with? He had the chance, early on. I led posses out there against him, I’ve made as good a target as anybody else.”
So it might not be that at all. It could be, in fact, sheer madness, the sniper some silver-hunter who’d been frustrated and defeated too many times in his search for riches, whose brain had finally snapped. Insanity would not interfere with his marksmanship, might even sharpen it. It wouldn’t be the first case of a desert-rat gone stark raving from too much loneliness, too much sun, too much poverty and hardship …
Or, Sundance thought, head swiveling, eyes watching the tricky moon silvered shadows, it could be Jefferson Galax. That buffalo gun, that unerring aim at a thousand yards, the cold-bloodedness of the killing—that all fitted in with what he knew of Galax. But why? What would bring Galax to the Skulls, send him to hunting men with his Big Fifty as once he’d hunted buffalo? A fortune, a get-rich deal, those drifters had told Kelly Lacey in the upstairs of the Bootstrap. Galax had mentioned that. Well, the only fortune out here was the Lost Pistol lode. It was possible, Sundance thought, that Galax had come across a map, been bitten by the silver-fever, used his gun to make sure no one entered the Skulls, found the mine before he did. Maybe Galax himself had gone mad—if he had ever been wholly sane …
Sundance eyed the figure of Billy Mercer, whose horse climbed ahead of him. The kid knew his way around in these mountains, and despite his youth he had plenty of guts.
Where did he fit in? And the woman ... Crippled Hand had said Paiutes had found woman tracks—white woman’s tracks—with those of the sniper up here. Did the sniper have a woman with him? Sundance shook his head. Too many loose ends, too early and too little knowledge to ravel them up as yet. But sooner or later they would fit together, weave a fabric, the way the Paiutes wove nets to catch jackrabbits and marsh hens from the milkweed fiber and rabbit hide.
~*~
And now the moon was down, and they were deep in the Skulls, with daylight not far off. Sundance reined up in the shadow of a boulder bigger than a house and Mercer joined him. “How much farther to where you found those shells?”
“At least another four hours ride.”
Sundance looked around. Besides the one enormous boulder, there were a dozen others, some almost as big, many smaller, on the mountain flank. Above them, the slope rose sheerly, almost devoid of cover. The rocks offered nearly perfect protection from gunfire and ample concealment for men and horses both. He shook his head. “Too far to go tonight. We’ll lie low here through daylight and make it tomorrow night.”
“By the time you get there, his trail will be days old and stone cold.”
The half-breed grinned faintly. “Unless it rains or he’s an Indian himself, I’ll follow it.
And sooner or later I’ll catch up with him. The whole idea’s to take him by surprise. If he spots us, he can reach out and hold us off with that Sharps and I’ll never get near him. Now, let’s see to these horses and then you get some rest and I’ll stand guard.”
~*~
Big desert canteens swung from each saddle and Sundance had packed a few pounds of oats. In a narrow cleft between two giant boulders, Sundance gave each animal a sparing drink from his hat, allowed each a quart of grain. That would have to hold them until tomorrow night, as a couple of drinks, some jerky, and a handful of cold corn dodgers must do for himself and Mercer. He dried Eagle’s back, aired the saddle blanket, then re-saddled the big Appaloosa and tethered Mercer’s gelding to the horn. A spoken command in the Nez Percé language insured that Eagle would stay put, and the gelding would have to stay with him in the cleft, instead of wandering off to be spotted by the sniper. In the cleft’s other end, Sundance and Billy spread their blankets. Mercer watched as, while dawn broke across the Skulls, Sundance opened the two parfleches, the panniers that had been slung behind Eagle’s saddle.
From the longer, cylindrical one, he took out a short, recurved bow of juniper wood, tipped at its ends with notched bits of buffalo horn. The string he fixed in place was made from the back sinews of a buffalo cow. Experimentally, Sundance drew the bow, which could send an arrow more than three hundred yards or drive one through a full-grown bison. Satisfied that the weapon was in order, he unstrung it.
Mercer stared as he then took from the parfleche a quiver made of panther skin, the tail still attached. It held two dozen arrows, long, straight, feathered with quills from the wings of vultures. Their points were sharp and wicked-looking, of flint or black volcanic glass. For decades, Indians had preferred arrow points of iron, but Sundance still chose those of stone, making them himself. A stone arrow point made a much worse wound, had greater shocking power, and could only be pushed through to remove it, not pulled out. To a fighting man, such considerations were crucial.
“You aim to go up against a Sharps fifty with that?” Mercer’s voice was incredulous.
“You never know. Up to three hundred yards, I can do anything with these I can with a gun, and these don’t make any noise, nor any puff of smoke. On a job like this, that might make all the difference.”
He checked the arrows, laid aside the quiver. There w
ere other things in the parfleche, but he did not remove them; they were not for a white man’s eyes. The otter skin bag that held his medicine, the charms that were sacred to him as a Cheyenne warrior; and the great war bonnet of eagle feathers, each representing a coup he had counted in his days of living as a plains Indian.
What was in the round, flat parfleche shaped like a big disc was also sacred: his war shield, made of antelope and buffalo hide padded with grass, decorated with a Thunderbird, and with six scalps hanging from it—the hair of the murderers of his parents. It, too, was medicine and not a fit subject for Mercer’s curiosity. Leaving bow and arrows where he could reach them, he closed the parfleches, hung them on Eagle’s back. If he had to ride out in a hurry, he must not leave his medicine behind.
The boy was still looking at him oddly, eyes large and something Sundance could not read swirling in them. “All right,” Sundance asked. “What’s eating you?”
“Nothing.” Mercer turned his head away. “Nothing. Only ... I never ran into a man like you before.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper.
“There are plenty of us,” Sundance said. “Half-breeds. Not white, not red. Not one thing or another—hung in between two worlds. Sometimes it’s a hell of a place to be. Now, damn it, cut out the talking and get some sleep.”
“Yeah,” the kid said, rolling over on his belly, his breathing soon regular. Sundance sat there at the mouth of the rock cleft, scanning the jumbled, heat-blasted terrain that spilled away before him. There was something strange about Mercer, something that bothered him, but for the moment he could not pin it down.
Then he stiffened. It came from far away, once, again, a sound so distant that only the keenest ears would have caught it. Sundance’s did, and he recognized at once the double thunder of two shots from a Sharps buffalo gun. His lips thinned. The sniper was on a rampage this morning, and probably some new innocent victim lay dead, never knowing what had hit him.
But he was also miles away, which meant the coast was clear for the time being. Sundance had studied a rough map of the Skulls, discussed their terrain with MacLaurin, but he knew nothing about them at first hand. Now might be his only opportunity to make a daylight scout—without getting his head blown off. And on a job like this, a man could not know too much about the country.
