When he was fully dressed, taking long breaths as he rested on his haunches, she whispered, ‘It’s a long way to the boats. And it won’t be easy gettin’ one of them down to the water. You figure the Mexicans will just stand and watch us leave?’
He nodded. ‘You’re Delroy’s personal whore, lady.’
Defiance replaced anxiety on her face. ‘I’m what I am, sonny. And I ain’t ashamed of it.’
Now he shook his head. ‘And I ain’t insulting you. Just saying what the Mexicans and the cantina whores know you to be.’ He reached out to unhook the Murcott from a front rigging ring of his saddle. ‘So with this pressed to your back, I figure they won’t try to stop us.’
She showed a wan smile and blinked several times. Then , ‘That’s good. But do me a favor if it goes wrong, will you?’
‘If I can, lady.’
‘Blow a hole in me if there’s a chance of me gettin’ captured alive.’
‘It’s a deal.’ He delved into a saddlebag and took out a carton of shells for the shotgun. Transferred this to a pocket of his coat. ‘Let’s go.’
‘What about your stuff?’
‘It’s no use without a horse to carry it, lady. And I’ve got my hands full right now.’
He rose and moved slowly ahead of her toward the front of the stable, heard her breathing fearfully behind him. Then heard something else which caused him to reach for her and take her with him as he side-stepped into the first stall on the right.
‘What’s wrong?’ she gasped. Then caught her breath as the question was answered from elsewhere - she heard the sound which had triggered his move. The thud of galloping hooves, rising in volume as the horsemen raced out of the ravine, around the slab of rock and along the hard-packed sand toward the community under the cliff.
Barnaby Gold rasped between his clenched teeth, ‘Goddamnittohell.’
Emily sagged on to her haunches and leaned her back against the side of the stall, her eyes dull as she groaned, ‘That brute Delroy won’t give a shit about me gettin’ my head blowed off.’
Gold chanced a look over the top of the stall and saw that Seth Harrow, who had been about to climb up on to the wagon, was now walking disconsolately away from it.
‘We’re done for,’ the blonde said helplessly.
He hunkered down and turned toward her, face expressionless except for a degree of gentleness in his green eyes. ‘Appreciate all your help, lady.’
‘And now I can go to hell and take my chances?’ she answered bitterly.
‘You can turn me over to them. And believe me when I say I won’t tell Delroy it was you made it so I could get out of the basement. I owe you that much for trying, lady.’
Her lovely fact displayed a quizzical expression, with mistrust just beneath the surface.
‘Or you can get back to the house while everyone’s interested in what’s happening out on the street. And act as innocent about my escape as the rest of them have reason to be.’
‘And you?’
‘Take whatever chance comes my way, lady.’
She swallowed hard. ‘And if they take you? Without killin’ you? Delroy won’t forget somebody had to let you out of the basement. He’ll torture you.’
‘Your life has been on the line since you slid back those bolts, lady.’
The leading riders of the group were skidding their horses to a halt at the front of the house as the whore frowned in hurried thought. A revolver was exploded into the air and a man began to shout.
‘Shit, why did I agree to come here with that mean sonofabitch,’ she growled.
‘Money, I guess?’
She half rose. ‘If I ever get outta here, alive, I’ll have learned my lesson. Good luck to you.’
‘Bye bye, lady,’ he answered as she checked on the scene outside, then ducked from the stall and hurried down the centre of the stable to the side door.
All the horses had been halted and the men were sliding from their saddles, creating a din that masked what the men who fired the gun was yelling.
Barnaby Gold came out of the stall and through the open doorway of the stable, his teeth gritted against the pain in his legs as he lunged across the twenty feet of open ground to the rear of the wagon.
A second shot was fired as he climbed up and over the tailgate, to crouch down in the narrow space behind the rear stack of kerosene barrels.
‘Shut up, I told you!’ the scar-faced Joe yelled.
Hunkered down in the cover of the wagon’s freight, Gold could not see the scene out front of the big house and on the street that curved across the front of the cantina and row of adobe hovels.
All but two of the men were dismounted, just Joe and Hal Delroy remaining in their saddles.
The playing children had been hurried inside as the riders returned and the street was deserted for a few seconds. Until the enraged Hal Delroy stood in his stirrups and shouted into the silence which Joe had demanded.
‘Everybody outside! And fast! Joe, go and bring those greasers back off the bay! And I want the street cleared of horses! Some of you men, watch the top of the cliff. There’s going to be a hanging!’
He and Joe swung down to the ground now, handed the reins of their horses to the men nearest them. Delroy then strode to the steps and went up on to the stoop, cursed as he shouldered aside the four Mexican girl servants and Emily, who were coming out of the house to comply with his order. This as Joe ploughed up to the crest of the ridge of fine sand. And some of the men slid rifles from their boots before handing over the reins of their mounts for others to stable. While the doors of the houses and the cantina swung open and the fearful occupants emerged to witness yet more cruelty in this community of evil.
Barnaby Gold pressed himself closer to the wagon bed as the horses were led along its side, only feet away.
‘No luck in findin’ the guy that shot her then?’ Seth Harrow asked.
Up on the ridge, Joe triggered two more signal shots to gain the attention of the fishermen and gestured with his arms for them to bring their boats back to shore.
‘Not a hair nor hide of him to be seen,’ the pipe-smoker answered sourly, and spat.
‘Some of you guys help me to unload the barrels? Way my back is, I can’t...’
‘Go to hell.’
‘Not a chance, old man.’
‘You heard what Hal said. Everybody’s gotta watch that stud of Eve’s swing.’
The last of the horses thudded by to be led into the stable, and the sounds of them being unsaddled and enstalled all but masked the string of obscenities which Seth Harrow muttered.
Gold sweated and ached and fought against the nausea which threatened, conjured up by the stink of kerosene in his nostrils.
Their chores of attending to the horses completed, the men began to file back out of the stable to join the crowd gathering on the street in front of the big house. And fresh beads of moisture squeezed from the pores of the black-clad man, as he realized another portion of his reserve of good luck had been used up - for none of the men had noticed that his saddle and bedroll were in a different place and that his clothing, gunbelt and shotgun were missing.
He came close to making the clicking sound with his tongue, but managed to hold back what was normally an unconscious habit, as he heard the last man trudge by the side of the wagon.
‘Move your friggin’ asses!’ Joe bellowed toward the Mexicans rowing for the beach. Then, ‘They’re comin’ in, Hal!’
‘What else?’ Delroy countered angrily. This as he emerged from the house, carrying a coil of white rope. ‘Steve, Kent, go bring the kid out of the basement! Vic, fix the rope!’
The specified men moved to do their appointed tasks, Vic catching the coil of rope that was thrown to him and taking it to the far end of the stoop in the wake of the other two. And as they turned the corner to go to the basement access, he climbed up on to the stoop rail to thread one end of the rope through a ring on the roof.
Then Delroy’s footfalls th
udded hollowly on the stoop boarding and many other pairs of boots scraped on the streets as the captive audience moved closer to the scene of the imminent hanging.
‘The murderer of my sister has escaped!’ the top man in Oceanville announced venomously. ‘For the moment! But let no one think we will not hunt him down and bring him back here to face the rope! Meantime, the man Gold is going to die! For had it not been for his actions, Eve would still be alive!’
He stood facing out over the rail, to the group gathered on the street and beyond to where Joe was leading the dozen dejected-looking fishermen down the sand ridge. Vic was at his side, loosely holding one end of the white rope. The noosed end hung menacingly just below the roofline of the stoop.
Six men with double-handed grips on Winchesters concentrated their narrow-eyed attention on the bright skyline at the top of the cliff. Many others could not keep their nervous gazes from wandering to the same place, aware that the sharpshooter could still be up there, not satisfied by one killing and eager for fresh targets.
‘That is the single reason why the man Gold is to be—’
‘Hal, he ain’t here! The sonofabitch has been let go!’
Kent’s shrill-voiced revelation triggered an explosion of excited talk from the crowd on the street. Which sounded as Barnaby Gold lay spread-eagled atop the upper treble rows of kerosene barrels, the height of the wagon, its load and the elevated ground on which the rig was parked keeping him out of sight of the people on the street.
‘It can’t be!’ Delroy roared. ‘I won’t have it! Find him and bring him here!’
The talk was curtailed by the top man’s enraged denial of the truth and command. But there was a din of movement which was in turn silenced by another revolver shot.
‘Hal!’ Joe snarled. ‘It must’ve been somebody...’
‘He didn’t break out or nothin’!’ Kent interrupted. ‘Doors was still shut and bolted! Somebody let him out!’
‘Or didn’t shut him in,’ another man added.
‘That’s what I’m sayin’, Hal,’ Joe went on angrily. ‘Which of the greasers was supposed to have—’
‘Round them up into a bunch!’ Delroy commanded. ‘Men and women and kids, too!’
Mexican men began to protest. Women to wail and children to weep.
Delroy shrieked louder to be heard above the awful sounds of despair. ‘Shut your stinking mouths! And keep the damn brats quiet! Move it, move it!’
Barnaby Gold had reached forward to free the reins from the brake lever around which they had been hitched. Now backed away, threading the reins under the seat. Held them in his left hand as his right fisted round the frame of the Murcott, the internal hammers cocked.
‘Hal, what are you gonna do?’ Emily demanded shrilly, across the diminishing level of sound vented by the hapless Mexicans.
‘I’m going to kill one for every second which passes without Gold showing himself!’ Delroy answered harshly. And raised his voice to roar, ‘Did you hear that, boy? One life for every second you stay hidden! And I’m going to start with the ones at the front! Whether they be men, women or brats!’
Gold used the muzzles of the shotgun to push the brake lever forward, dead-looking eyes showing nothing of what he was feeling, but teeth gritted between slightly parted lips.
‘No, Hal! You can’t! It was me...’
‘Get on!’ the black-clad young man sprawled out on top of the kerosene barrels yelled. And jerked his left hand to augment the vocal command with the reins.
The team lunged forward and the wagon was hauled out of inertia, at a crawl for a few feet, until the team and then the wheels were on the slight downslope.
The rig gained momentum, horse sense telling the team to set a fast pace to keep their burden from crashing into them. And the same horse sense, as much as Barnaby Gold’s command with the reins, veered them into a turn to stay on the hard-packed ground and away from the yielding sand of the beach.
He snatched a glance to his left as the wagon swung on to the street out front of the cantina. Glimpsed a large crowd in front of the far corner of the house, all their shocked and enraged faces turned toward him. Much closer, saw two men.
The pipe-smoker and the one named Bud who had wanted to kill him in the ravine when the wagon was halted there. Both of them with rifles aimed at the team rather than the driver. Over a range of fifty feet, some twenty feet apart.
He squeezed the forward trigger of the Murcott and saw Bud hurl away his rifle and stagger backwards, countless holes in his shirt which began to ooze blood as he sprawled out on his back.
Then the second man with the aimed Winchester was shot. By somebody else!
CHAPTER TEN
BARNABY Gold had a fleeting impression of the man dropping his rifle and falling hard to his knees, with blood spouting from a wound in his head. This as the tightly packed bunch of Americans in front of the big house was abruptly galvanized into movement. And the tightly packed group of Mexicans huddled more closely together.
Then the scene was left behind him and he let go of the shotgun to grip the reins in both hands, to concentrate his entire attention on steering the team around the curve of the street between the adobe buildings and the beach.
For horse sense had been abandoned by the animals in the traces and they raced ahead as fast as the drag of the wagon allowed, panicked by the explosion of the Murcott’s discharge only moments after the abrupt command by the man with the reins.
Other guns were fired now, but the crackle of revolver and rifle shots was almost masked by the racket of the rig’s headlong progress away from the hail of bullets.
Gold, the cape of his coat and the end of his scarf flapping and trailing in the slipstream of speed, heard the reports, the crack of bullets through the air above him and the thud as lead impacted with the wagon timber and the barrels. Was only vaguely aware of the smell of kerosene which spouted from the bullet holes to spray on to the street behind him.
He was totally unaware of a third man pitching to the ground at the front of the big house, taking a bullet in the heart from the same rifle which had killed the pipe-smoker. Knew only that no more shots were smacking into the wagon or its load although the rattle of gunfire continued unabated.
Not until the team raced clear of the final house on the street and made toward the sharp turn around the towering slab of rock at the end of the ravine. When he snatched a glance to the side, across a segment of beach behind the ridge toward the scene of confusion out front of the house.
The Mexicans were still huddled into a tight group, but had backed off to the base of the cliff. While the whores were cowering on the stoop of the house. And Delroy and his men were divided, some lunging for the stable while others triggered covering fire up at the top of the cliff.
And a third figure was sprawled on the ground, another victim of Barnaby Gold’s benefactor.
As with the killing of Eve Delroy and then the pipe-smoking man, Gold had neither the time nor the inclination to give even a passing thought to the identity of the crack marksman who was so intent on helping him escape from Oceanville.
For now he had to haul hard on the reins to slow the galloping team or risk them racing full tilt to the beach, there to bog down themselves and the wagon in the fine sand. That, or steer them into the sharp turn at a speed sure to send the rig into a crashing roll.
‘Goddamnit to hell,’ he rasped through his gritted teeth when the horses failed to respond to his initial effort.
Then had to use precious seconds and run the danger of being bounced off the pitching, yawing and rolling wagon as he altered his position atop the barrels. To roll from his belly and over on to his back, then to rotate his body so that he could brace his booted feet on the rear of the seat. Thus was able to use his aching legs to supplement the diminished strength of his aching arms to pull back on the reins.
And through eyes blurred by sweat beads of strain captured a brief impression of a man and a horse on the cliff top.
Just a flash of a rider and mount moving at great speed in dark silhouette against the sun-bright blueness of the sky.
Then he snapped his eyes closed and the danger he was in acted to stretch the passing seconds in the turmoil of his mind. And in an instant of high peril - that to him seemed to last much longer - he felt light-headed with despair. He was certain the bolting horses were not going to obey his command. That in another moment they would come to an abrupt halt in the deep sand of the beach and he would be hurled from his high and unsafe position. Have the senses knocked out of him by the impact. To just lay there, helpless, until the hard men of Oceanville came to get him.
But the instant was gone and he became conscious of a slackening of pace. He opened his eyes and used the taut reins to haul his back up off the tops of the barrels. Saw the slab of rock on his right and the sharp turn around its end immediately ahead. Faintly blurred by the salt moisture of sweat, but not by speed.
He jutted out his lower lip to blow air up over his bristled face. Steered as far to the left as he dared to broaden the area available for the turn, then demanded a swing to the right. The bulging-eyed, flaring-nostril led, sweat-lathered horses obeyed the demands of the reins and made the turn around the base of the rock slab.
The wagon canted and the ropes lashing the barrels to the bed strained. The four kerosene spouts from the holed barrels sprayed across a different arc. Barnaby Gold had to let go of the reins with one hand and grip a length of taut rope to keep from being rolled off his perch by the tilt of the freight.
The Murcott banged against his side and, as the wagon came back on to an even keel, he unfolded his fist from around the rope and fastened it on the frame of the shotgun. Blinked to clear his sweat-impaired vision and raked his gaze over the rock face.
He had command of the still frightened but no longer blindly panicked team. Was certain the momentarily glimpsed horseman atop the cliff had not been a figment of his imagination. Which meant he had abandoned his sniping vantage point and now the vengeance-bent Hal Delroy could direct his men to give chase without worrying about the mystery sharpshooter. But they had to saddle their horses and ride to the end of the ravine before they could get a clear shot at their target.
Funeral By The Sea Page 7
