Bull's Eye Stage Coach

by Hall, Billy

  ‘That makes sense,’ Belinda offered.

  Dwight closed his mouth and took off his hat. He ran a hand through his hair, then put his hat back on. ‘You gotta be right,’ he acknowledged. ‘I guess I ain’t thinkin’ too good. We gotta find a place that’s safe to rest up and rest our horses. We’ve been afraid to go to sleep the whole time, and our horses are plumb shot.’

  ‘Those of the posse who have arrived here have set up a camp of sorts a little way outside of town. I will lead you there when we can be sure you have not been spotted and are not being followed. We maintain the appearance of place miners to allay suspicion. We keep a guard posted at all times, so you will be able to rest.’

  Those were the sweetest words either Dwight or Belinda had heard in what seemed like a very long time.

  CHAPTER 17

  The prospect of being able to relax and sleep was like something out of an impossible dream. Even so, Dwight silently lamented the necessity of him and Belinda not being able to share their blankets, as necessity had prompted since her rescue. Now, as during that time, their utter exhaustion precluded anything but sleep, but her closeness had been unutterably precious to him. He had admitted to himself that he never wanted to sleep again without being able to feel her next to him.

  In the camp with the others of the impromptu posse, that was, of course, impossible. He would do nothing to stain her reputation. He was not too exhausted to tease her a bit, however.

  ‘How are we gonna sleep together with all these other folks around?’

  Her eyes danced as she feigned umbrage. ‘We’re not, that’s how. In fact, how dare you even suggest we share a bed, yet! If you want me in your bed, you can jolly well put a ring on my finger.’

  ‘That didn’t seem to bother you since I caught up with you’n McCrae.’

  ‘That was different, and you know it! That was just a necessity for what sleep we could manage. That’s not at all the same as planning to sleep for the night.’

  ‘Well, we could just go ahead and get married, I ’spect.’

  ‘And how do you propose to do that in this makeshift mining camp?’

  ‘There’s a preacher here. That’s all we need.’

  ‘A preacher? Here?’

  ‘Bandy’s a preacher. Ordained, bona fide, genuine as they come!’

  Eyes still sparkling, she called his bluff instantly. ‘Wonderful! Let’s just march over there to where he has his revival tent set up and ask him to perform the ceremony.’

  Dwight opened his mouth and closed it again. He took off his hat, ran his hand through his hair, scratched the back of his neck, put the hat back on and cleared his throat. ‘Well, the only problem with that is that he’d sure as sin shoot me on sight. Or I’d have to shoot him. Either one would make it kinda hard for me to say “I do”.’

  ‘Maybe he’d consent to delay the shooting part until after the “I do”?’

  ‘But then you might just have a dead husband.’

  ‘At least I’d have a husband. All I’ve managed so far is a promise of “one of these fine days” that never seems to come.’

  He instantly lost all semblance of joviality. His eyes took on a pained look. ‘Honey, you know that ain’t fair! All I been waitin’ for is to have a decent place for you to live, before we tie the knot.’

  Her voice took on an unaccustomed edge. ‘And all I’ve been waiting for is for you to stop making excuses! I’ve already told you I’d be happy to share a tent in a cactus patch with you, if that’s all we have.’

  He again went through his routine of removing his hat, running a hand through his hair, scratching the back of his neck, and putting the hat back on. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you was willin’ to wait a bit longer.’

  ‘Well, I’m not.’ Her voice was flat. A spark of deep anger and hurt shone through the usual control of her gaze. She was simply too exhausted to pretend, or to conceal her emotions. ‘I feel like I’m just being strung along, stalled, pushed aside, wanted but not really wanted, and I’m tired of it, Dwight. I’m tired of it. When we get back to Headland, either we get married or you can go find someone else to make excuses to.’

  He stood with his mouth open, stunned at the depth of her hurt and anger over his continuing postponement of their wedding. ‘But … but … but I’ve told you time and again that I’m totally committed to you!’

  ‘But you’re not!’ she shot back. ‘Words are cheap. Commitment is a ring, Dwight. As long as I don’t have a ring on this finger,’ she held up her left hand, ‘there is no commitment. I want to be your wife, not just the woman held in thrall by your endless hot air promises, always and forever waiting for a real, tangible commitment.’

  Again he stared at her, at a total loss for words. Then he said, again, ‘I’m sorry. I ain’t been seein’ it that way. We’ll get married just as soon as we get back to town.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, suddenly too far spent even to talk any longer. ‘I have to get to sleep now. I’m about ready to collapse.’

  He stepped forward and put his arms around her. She leaned against him, but did not return his embrace. He said, ‘I put our blankets over there, so’s we’d be as close together as I figured would be seemly.’

  Without a word she walked away from him. She lowered herself to the blankets, pulled off her shoes, covered herself and turned on her side, her back toward the blankets he had arranged for himself. She was asleep in less than two minutes.

  He was not so fortunate. He lay in the fading light of the early evening, her words, ‘… either we get married or you can go find someone else to make excuses to,’ kept echoing over and over in his mind.

  He stared at her back, so close to him but suddenly so very far away. The thought that he might lose her left a hollow feeling in the middle of his stomach that physically hurt. ‘I really didn’t know,’ he said silently, half a dozen times, before his own fatigue wrapped a soothing cloak of sleep around everything.

  CHAPTER 18

  Dwight woke with a start. He sat up, his gun in his hand as if of its own volition.

  The moon hung low over the nearby mountain. In the deep shadows formed by its soft glow he made out the forms of sleeping men. His darting eyes picked out the darker shadow of the sentry, sitting at the base of a tree.

  At first he thought the sentry was asleep or dead, then the man moved. His head turned slowly from side to side, scanning all approaches to the posse’s hidden campsite.

  Memory rushed through the fog of Dwight’s fatigue. He remembered where he was, and that he was safe, at least for the moment.

  He turned toward Belinda’s blankets, a few feet away. She still lay as she had when she first fell asleep, her back turned toward him. The rise and fall of her regular breathing attested to the soundness of her sleep.

  He lay back down, placing his gun once again at his side, beneath the blankets. He stared at Belinda’s blanketed back until he dropped off to sleep again.

  His eyes jerked open to that same soft glow of light. It took him a moment to realize it was no longer moonlight, but the first light of a new day that had wakened him. That he had relaxed enough to sleep the night through amazed him.

  He looked over at Belinda’s blankets, noting that at some time during the night she had turned to face him, but she was still sound asleep.

  His eyes moved slowly around the campsite. Three of the posse were already up and moving. A small fire had been started, and a coffee pot rested in the coals at its edge. The smell of its contents just coming to a boil evoked an instant and powerful craving in him.

  He rose silently from his blankets, sliding his gun into its holster as he did so. Going automatically through the ritual of shaking out his boots, he pulled them on. He strode to the fire.

  Even as he did, other members of the posse were wakened by the smell of fresh coffee wafting on the slight breeze. It was quickly followed by the smell of frying side pork. With a stout stick, David Lowenberg lifted a Dutch oven from where
it had been nearly buried in coals. Must’ve been up for over an hour already, Dwight mused silently.

  He hadn’t even noticed a second Dutch oven buried in the coals on the other side of the fire. Together they held enough freshly baked biscuits to provide breakfast for the dozen men who quickly gathered around.

  Dwight took one of the metal plates that was offered and a cup of the steaming black brew. Instead of eating, he carried it over to where Belinda remained asleep. With both hands full, he nudged her with a toe. Her eyes jerked open, wide with instant alarm. It took her a couple seconds to recognize Dwight, and her expression changed to misty-eyed relief. ‘Oh, my!’ she said, her eyes taking in the men busily eating breakfast. ‘I must have really been sleeping!’

  ‘You was sawin’ logs pretty good,’ he agreed. ‘I brought you some breakfast.’

  She started to reach for it, then realized she had a more urgent need. She looked around quickly, a look of near desperation crowding out everything else. Dwight nodded toward a thick clump of brush a dozen yards away, at the edge of the draw in which they were camped. She looked around again, almost fearfully, then slipped from the blankets and moved hurriedly out of sight behind the bushes. She emerged a few minutes later looking much relieved. ‘Now I’d be happy to eat some of that breakfast,’ she told him, a betraying tinge of red marking her cheeks.

  They joined the others around the fire. As they approached, all the men stood and touched the brims of their hats, rather than removing them. A soft chorus of greetings briefly interrupted their busy devouring of the food.

  Dwight managed to fill his own plate with what was nearly the last vestiges of the food. He washed it down with the more than ample quantity of coffee, however.

  ‘How’d you get elected cook, Dave?’ Dwight ribbed the owner of Headland’s mercantile store.

  ‘Cuz we wanted to be able to eat,’ Harvey Frieden offered instantly. ‘Frank cooked for us one meal, and that was enough.’

  ‘Just tryin’ to be economical,’ Frank defended. ‘If what I cooked was fit to eat, it’d cost a whole lot more to feed this bunch.’

  ‘If I could charge as much for food as they do here, by golly I would feed you all for nothing,’ Soren Swenson offered in his heavily accented voice.

  ‘Fat chance, Soren,’ Virgil Zucher rejoined. ‘You’d decide it was worth too much money to waste on us, if that was the case.’

  ‘Anybody seen Lindquist?’ Ralph Humbolt interrupted the repartee.

  As if on cue the Pinkerton detective strode in from the direction of the mining camp. ‘Am I too late for breakfast?’ he inquired.

  Dave waved a hand toward the utensils at the fire’s edge. ‘There might be a chunk or two of side pork and one or two biscuits left,’ he said.

  Silently Val finished off what was left of the breakfast. Everybody patiently stared at him, waiting to see if there was any news. When he finished eating and had offered nothing, Frank said, ‘Anything happenin’ yet?’

  Val nodded. ‘A couple more of the gang have shown up. Tighson is one. I don’t know the name of the other one, but he was there at the robbery.’

  ‘How many’s that make here now?’

  ‘Six, that I’ve counted.’

  ‘Must be gettin’ close to time.’

  Val looked meaningfully at Dwight and Belinda. ‘Mac showed up this morning.’

  Dwight pursed his lips. ‘I’d have sworn I nicked him a time or two.’

  Lindquist nodded. ‘I would say you did. He is not moving very well. He’s quite pale, and saying very little.’

  ‘Not feelin’ too good, huh?’

  ‘He doesn’t appear to be.’

  ‘What about Bandy?’

  ‘He is playing his role well. He doesn’t give any hint that he knows any of his men when they show up. But well after dark they all get together at his tent.’

  ‘Where he does his preachin’?’

  Val nodded. ‘He has a well-secluded section canvassed off behind where he preaches from. That’s where he sleeps and such. The others slip in and out of there during the night. I gathered from the raised voices that some of them are getting more than a little impatient at the delay in whatever they are waiting for.’

  ‘Which would be the mastermind of the whole shebang showin’ up to pay ’em for the gold.’

  ‘That would be my assumption.’

  ‘He’ll have to be bringin’ a wagon,’ Dwight observed.

  Val nodded. ‘But it’s unlikely he will bring the wagon into the mining camp. An empty wagon arriving would excite too much attention and curiosity.’

  ‘So he’ll go directly to wherever they’re keepin’ the gold stashed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No idea where that is?’

  Val’s hesitancy was instantly obvious. After an awkward silence he said, ‘As a matter of fact, I do have that location narrowed down quite a bit. I don’t know exactly, but it has to be quite close.’

  He had everybody’s immediate attention. He picked up a stick and drew a quick map in the dirt. ‘Here is the mining camp. This is the draw that opens up to the south and east about half a mile east of the camp itself. That’s the opposite direction from all the paydirt anybody has discovered, so no one pays any attention to what goes on there. There is also a rather flat and easy access to that area from the east, which a team and wagon could navigate with relative ease.’

  ‘But you haven’t seen where they’ve got it stashed,’ Dwight said, rather than asked.

  Val shook his head. ‘I have watched from a distance, with a spyglass. I believe it to be buried, and I believe I know to within a hundred yards of where, but I have not seen it. I think all of the gold has been brought in now, though.’

  ‘Then we’d best be watchin’ that spot right close,’ Frank observed.

  Val nodded. ‘As of today, that will be necessary. We will do that with two men watching from the lookout post I have been using at all times. Each team will man that post for eight hours or so before being relieved by another team.’

  ‘Better make it three at a time,’ Dwight suggested.

  ‘Why three?’

  ‘If somethin’ starts happenin’, one guy’ll need to skedaddle back here an’ get the rest, an’ we’d best have at least two stayin’ there.’

  A murmur of agreement ran through the group. Val acknowledged the wisdom of the idea. ‘That makes sense. At least one of us will need to keep an eye on Bandy at all times as well, without being seen by him or the others. That may be trickier, given the close confines of the mining camp.’

  Soren Swenson spoke up. ‘By golly, I know Keil Solinnen pretty well. He is the one that has the wagon of food and things set up and is making money hand over fist by selling the things at such outlandish prices. Even if he is a Finn, he is a good man, by golly. He will let one of us stay there by his wagon like we are one of his people standing guard. From there we can see into the tent of that phony parson and know if he leaves to go some place.’

  Details of the plan were quickly finalized and the teams selected for the first shift of duty. Those not on duty were once again adjured to stay in the camp site, secluded from the bustle of the mining camp, distanced from accidental notice of any member of the gang. All understood they were destined for a time of expectant boredom. As one, they hoped that that time was short.

  CHAPTER 19

  Most of life, it seems, consists of periods of routine, even boredom, punctuated occasionally by sudden, brief moments of joy and pleasure, or sadness and heartache, or abrupt and grave danger.

  Dwight and Belinda, together with Frank Singler, were fulfilling their shift at the lookout spot Val had established. It was a cluster of boulders at the base of a long hogback that ranged downward from a tall butte. A quarter of a mile away, clearly visible from where they watched, a shallow draw was sparsely populated with scrub cedar, a scraggly pine tree that grew crookedly from the side of the draw, and one large cottonwood tree. Small patches of varying kinds
of brush sprouted up from the nearly grassless floor of the wide swale.

  Along the far edge of the draw half a dozen patches of rock jutted above the surrounding brush, some with boulders nearly as large as the cluster at their lookout post.

  The shifts seemed interminably long. Silence was essential, so they could not talk. They dared not even move more than necessary, lest they be spotted by some member of the gang coming out to check on the security of the location.

  That had happened often enough to convince all of the posse that this was, in fact, where the gold was hidden. None of the gang had been foolish enough actually to check it, however. Every one who appeared had only studied the ground for evidence of anyone else disturbing the site, then had ridden away again.

  This was the third time their particular trio had manned the lookout. Deer flies bedeviled them almost constantly. They buzzed around their faces, landed on any exposed skin, and bit if they were not shooed off instantly. They didn’t dare swat one, lest the inevitable noise sound a warning to someone approaching.

  Their horses, hidden over a low ridge behind them, stamped and snorted from time to time, badgered by the same pestering insects.

  At times a small swarm of gnats would target one or another of the trio. Swarming in front of that person’s face, they made remaining still and silent almost impossible. Thirst returned within minutes after every sip from the warm water of a canteen. Time dragged slowly by, inviting carelessness.

  Nearly halfway through their shift Belinda’s head snapped up. ‘Someone’s coming,’ she breathed.

  Dwight and Frank looked at each other, then at Belinda. Neither had heard anything. Belinda held up two fingers. ‘Two horses.’

  Frowning, Dwight closed his eyes and lowered his head, listening intently. In seconds he heard a hoof click against a stone. The sound came from the direction of the mining camp.

  About the same time Frank picked up a sound as well. They crouched down lower, making sure they were not visible to the approaching riders.