Then the top man in Oceanville abruptly shattered the tense stillness.
‘Move your stinkin’ asses back from there! This is a private burial! The hangin’ comes next!’
The paleness of his complexion above his bristles did nothing to take the power out of the enraged glare he directed at the front of the cantina. And a moment later the faces which had been peering out from the windows and over the tops of the batwings were withdrawn. With gasps and a shuffling of booted feet.
The four men reappeared from the rear of the big house, two carrying a blanket-wrapped corpse between them and the other pair with shovels.
Hal Delroy went back up the steps and lowered himself into the rocker to one side of the open doorway. The corpse in the blanket was reverently laid on the ground and the two men with shovels began to dig a grave at the foot of the steps - at the spot where Eve Delroy had enjoyed so much evil pleasure with her whip.
Barnaby Gold had seen none of this. Could only picture in his mind’s eye certain aspects of what was happening as the sounds and smells of the town reached him - entering his dark hiding place through the crack between the two trapdoors that gave access to the basement.
And he continued to wait and listen to the familiar thud of shovels into ground, the gravediggers’ chore becoming easier once they had broken through the hard-packed top layer.
Sweat beaded his skin now, as salty as seawater, but a great deal warmer.
He knew that Warren Pruett was in a position to see - at risk of being seen himself - the tableau out front of the big house. At long range. For he was concealed among a scattering of boulders twenty feet beyond the last house at the northern end of the curved street.
Waiting for the relief sentries to head out for the ravine. When the Oceanville men would be divided into two groups and Pruett would commit himself to dealing with those at his end of town, leaving Gold to take care of those that remained in the vicinity of the big house.
This was the plan, but the two intruders had agreed to keep their options open, prepared to make their move if a better opportunity to strike occurred. With the bounty hunter to decide this since he was in a position to see what was happening.
Now, though, Barnaby Gold was ready to launch the attack if Warren Pruett waited too long to take the initiative. His deadline set for the end of this funeral by the sea, if the victim of the hanging Delroy had spoken of was who he thought it was.
The ash-blonde whore named Emily. Who yesterday morning had shrieked an admission that it was she who had freed the prisoner, to keep Delroy from having the innocent Mexicans gunned down.
‘Reckon that’s deep enough, Hal,’ a man said as the sounds of digging were curtailed.
‘Dear God, how I wish we had the expert here to tell us,’ Delroy said bitterly, speaking in cultured tones again, in sharp contrast to the gutter talk he had hurled at the rubbernecks in the cantina. ‘It will serve the purpose. Lower her in gently, please.’
He rose, the rocker creaking, and his footfalls rapped on the stoop boarding.
Feet moving on the hard-packed area around the grave did not make such clear cut sounds.
‘You want to say anythin’ over Miss Eve, Hal?’
‘Just that they’ll pay, Eve. If it costs me every cent I have and takes the rest of my life, they’ll pay for killing you. God rest your soul, my dear.’
Cold anger coated his words as he made the promise to his dead sister. Deep sadness when he spoke the blessing.
All the men removed their hats, the three watching the cliff top not shifting their gazes. Then the brief silence was ended by the shoveling back of displaced sand at a nod from Delroy.
And Vic said, ‘I reckon it’s gonna take time, Hal. They ain’t round here no more. And neither are our boys. Alive, anyways. They’d have been back before now. If they was able. On foot the way they was.’
‘I know that’s right about Joe Grogan and the others,’ Delroy agreed coldly. ‘But I’m not so sure about Gold and his marksman partner having left. It seems clear to me that the elaborate and dangerous scheme they devised was aimed at more than simply killing a few of us at random. No, I suspect they want a clean sweep of Oceanville. With the corpse of every last one of us so they can collect their blood money.’
The grave was filled in faster than it was dug and after a final blow with the flat of the shovel compacted the sand, Hal Delroy ordered, ‘Jimmy, go fetch the whore. You three keep watching the high ground. Rest of you round up the Mexicans and the girls from the cantina.’
Barnaby Gold eased open one of the basement trapdoors.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HIS hat rested on the top step and he used the twin muzzles of the Murcott to raise the door, his left hand fisted around the frame of the shotgun and his right clutching the wood-butted Peacemaker. He eased the flap up just enough so that he was able to peer and aim the revolver through the opening.
And saw just one man at first. A short but beefily built man with red hair who was holding a Winchester in a double-handed grip angled across his chest. His head was tilted back and his eyes were moving slowly back and forth along their sockets as he kept watch on the cliff top. The lids were almost closed against the bright glare of the sky surrounding the rising sun,
He was positioned immediately opposite the front corner of the house at the side with the basement access.
Then another man moved into Barnaby Gold’s range of vision, his back to the house as he trudged across the rising slope of the sand ridge. Six feet tall and beanpole thin, hatless so that his black and curly hair could be seen. He did not tote a rifle. But had a revolver, already out of the holster, intent upon firing it to attract the attention of the Mexican fishermen.
‘And don’t forget to bring the rope along, Jimmy!’ Hal Delroy called.
There followed the sounds of him returning to the rocker and sitting down in it.
‘Everybody out!’ a man bellowed a little way down the street. ‘Move your asses out here! Gonna be a hangin’ for sure this mornin’.’
Barnaby Gold clicked his tongue and bared his teeth which still gripped the dead cheroot. His green eyes gazed fixedly at the man with the rifle so that the one up on the crest of the sand ridge was just an out of focus blur.
He rested the revolver barrel on the slope of the closed trapdoor. Hissed softly, ‘I hope you’re awake and ready, bounty hunter.’
The red-headed man could not have heard the whispered words. So it had to be that he sensed the watching eyes. And the expression in his own as he shifted his gaze from the high ground in response to his instinct showed that he knew he was in danger. For he was afraid.
But he never saw who killed him, his pupils having no time to dilate in reaction to the shade at the side of the house. Before the bullet exploded from Gold’s Colt cracked across forty feet of space and drove into his heart.
A part of a second later, another gunshot sounded. But it was not fired by Warren Pruett.
The red-headed man dropped his rifle and corkscrewed to ground. Blood on his shirt front.
Barnaby Gold flung back the trapdoor and lunged up from the basement steps, lengthened his focus to see the man on the beach in stark clarity.
This man had his right arm fully extended above his head, the hand fisted around the butt of the revolver with smoke wisping from the muzzle. He was in process of whirling, to shift his attention from the boats on the bay to locate the cause of the shot that was fired a moment before his own.
Only he was in a position to see the hatless, blond-haired, cape-coated young man spring from the basement access. And his mouth was wide, shouting the news. But a cacophony of other raised voices, closer at hand, masked his words. He completed his turn, his right arm streaking down to aim a wild shot at the black-clad figure.
But it was another gun that cracked out the third shot. A rifle, the report coming from a greater distance. In the hands of a marksman.
The man on the beach did get to fire his revol
ver once more, but his bullet tunneled into the sand. Exploded from the muzzle as he pitched sideways, the shot from Warren Pruett’s Winchester driven deep through his side.
Barnaby Gold did not see this. Knew that neither his own nor the other man’s revolver could be effective over such a range. So turned his back on the beach and raced for the rear corner of the house - lunged through the gap between it and the summerhouse.
His thudding footfalls sounded loud in his own ears. But the vocal response to the rifle shot and its result was louder than that to the killing of the red-headed man.
Gold turned into the courtyard formed by the house and its outbuildings while the curses of men and the screaming of women and children were at their height.
Heard two more rifle shots from the far end of the street, the second sounding in unison with a high-pitched scream of pain.
Then reached the rear door of the house, opened it without violence and stepped across the threshold. The Peacemaker was back in the holster by then and, after closing the door gently behind him, he took a two-handed grip on the Murcott.
He was in a passage that seemed to run halfway to the front of the house, with a door at the end and two doors off to either side, all of them closed. Lit in daytime only by light from a transom above the rear door and those above the two on his left. From what he recalled of the geography of the house when he was there two nights ago, he knew the door at the end of the passage gave on to the hallway. The lack of carpet on the floor and plainness of the walls and ceiling indicated he was in the servant area. He guessed that if Jimmy had come into this part of the house to get Emily, he would not have taken the trouble to close any doors behind him.
A fusillade of gunshots exploded out front of the house and the cursing and screaming was curtailed. Footfalls thudded on the stoop boarding and then were muted by the carpet on the floor of the hallway.
‘The stud and his buddy, Hal!’ Vic snarled. ‘It’s gotta be! How the frig did they make it into town?’
‘Got the drop on our boys in the ravine!’ a man supplied. ‘That has to be how—!’
‘It doesn’t matter a damn right now,’ Hal Delroy cut in, his tone of ice cold rage. ‘We know they’re here and we know the bastards have killed three more of our men.’
Barnaby Gold had come to a halt, facing the door to the hallway and with others directly to left and right. His green eyes lost their deadpan look for a moment to express a mocking smile. He had killed the man with red hair. Warren Pruett fired three shots, made just two hits.
‘Maybe more,’ somebody rasped.
‘No,’ Delroy countered. ‘The boys in the ravine are okay. There’s no other reason why the sniper should be out at the end of the street.’
‘Unless he’s friggin’ yellow.’
‘No one with a yellow streak would hit Oceanville, Mel.’
‘It doesn’t friggin’ matter!’ Delroy snapped, his temper rising. ‘We know the sniper’s out at the end of the street. And Gold’s close to the house and—’
‘Maybe inside, Hal,’ Mel growled.
‘That’s the crazy kind of play that cocky kid bastard would make, Hal,’ Vic added.
‘Jimmy and I will check. Vic, you and Mel get upstairs and watch for the sniper. He may try to get closer. Roy, watch from here. Gold may play us for suckers and hit us from the front.’
Barnaby Gold expressed a personable smile now. That Delroy had given him a head count of the number of men in the hallway. Five.
Then he was impassive again, as footfalls hit the carpet. And he turned to the door on the left, swung it open and stepped into the room.
Four very pretty Mexican girls, none older than sixteen, cowered in a corner and caught their breath. Stared at the intruder with terror-widened eyes. Gold smiled briefly at them and raised a hand from the Murcott to press an extended finger against his parted lips. This as he left the door open and backed behind it.
The room was where the servants ate their meals. There was a circular pine table in the centre, surrounded by four chairs. Plain cabinets along one wall. A window across from where Gold stood. In the wall opposite the cabinets a doorless archway with a view of the kitchen beyond.
The frightened girls were huddled in the corner between the archway and the window. And their attitude did not arouse any suspicion within Jimmy when he wrenched open the door from the hallway and glared at them. They were staring at him.
Commanded, ‘You see the stranger, you scream real loud!’
He kicked open the door opposite, grunted and moved along the passage to check the kitchen and the room facing it. Was more cautious in opening the rear door of the house to rake his gaze out over the courtyard and facades of the outbuildings.
‘The stud ain’t in this part of the house!’ he yelled as he returned along the passage and back into the hallway, leaving all the doors open.
Barnaby Gold held the Murcott in his right hand as he swung around the door, his left dropping to the eagle-butted Peacemaker, which he cocked and swiveled as he stepped back across the threshold, turned to look into the hallway.
Jimmy took the first bullet in his back, left of centre. Then Gold had to swing his hip slightly to draw a bead on Roy. Who had been crouched to one side of the open double doorway at the front of the house, Winchester held ready to blast a shot out along the street.
He folded upright and started to turn toward the sound of the Peacemaker killing Jimmy. Saw Gold plainly but was unable to bring his rifle around to the aim before the gun on the swivel rig exploded a second shot. That drilled a bullet into his throat and caused a great gout of blood to spring from his mouth which was gaped wide in shock.
Barnaby Gold glanced sideways into the servants’ dining room and murmured, ‘Appreciate it, girls. Bye bye.’
Moved into the hallway, emerging below a right-angle turn in the stairs, under a section of landing that was a balcony with a railed balustrade at its edge. Heard shouts above and from a room to his right. Running feet on the carpeted landing. Tilted his head back and took a double-handed grip on the Murcott to bring it to the vertical position.
The running man came to an abrupt halt. Yelled, ‘Vic, the bastard got Roy!’ He leaned over the balustrade and his voice became more shrill when he saw Jimmy sprawled face down with a stain blossoming on the back of his shirt! ‘Shit, he got—’
The sight of Barnaby Gold’s upturned face and the muzzles of the Murcott caused him to choke on his words.
‘Hello, Mel,’ the black-clad young man muttered. And squeezed the forward trigger of the shotgun. ‘Bye bye, Mel.’
Through the smoke of the exploding Murcott he saw the shocked face of the man become a bloody pulp. But ducked back into the passage before the disintegrated head of the man splattered up to the ceiling, then rained down.
‘You stinkin’ little shit! You cold-hearted sonofabitch! I’m gonna friggin’ blast you into hell!’
It was as if Hal Delroy was driven over the dividing line between high rage and blind insanity by the sight of the headless corpse of Mel crashing against the landing wall and toppling to the floor.
For he came lunging out into the hallway, screaming at the top of his voice, counterpointing the string of obscenities with the rapid firing of his fanned revolver. The bullets burying themselves into the wall, splintering chips from the doorframe and cracking along the passage.
Barnaby Gold had gone flat to the floor, shotgun in his left hand and wood-butted Peacemaker in his right. Face averted from the flying chips of wood and plaster and bullets. Did not look up until the firing pin of Delroy’s gun clicked against an expended shell case. Saw the fat man, the veins standing out like blue cords under his skin, rushing at the doorway through the billowing gunsmoke.
Placed a bullet from the Colt through the centre of the man’s heart. Which stopped him abruptly. He swayed and made an attempt to hurl the empty gun at his killer. But then died on his feet and fell backwards, between the corpses of Jimmy and Roy.
Gunfire sounded at the far end of the street. Rifles and revolvers.
Mexicans were shouting in their native language out on the beach.
Barnaby Gold struck a match to light the partially smoked cheroot and rose to his feet, straining to hear movement upstairs against the barrage of other sounds.
Hoofbeats hit the street.
The black-clad man looked in at the terrified girls and took the cheroot from his mouth. Smiled at them again as he pulled the door of the room almost closed. Left it open just enough so that he could wedge the smoking cheroot between the edge of the door and the frame. Then backed down to the open doorway of the kitchen and stepped inside.
The shooting outside had ended. The horse raced on toward the house.
A single rifle shot cracked and a man cried out his pain.
The horse veered off the hard-packed ground of the street and was forced to slow as its hooves sank deep into the fine sand.
The servants curtailed their venting of terror. The tones of voice of the Mexican men and women suddenly altered. To relief and jubilation.
Barnaby Gold, shotgun held horizontally across the base of his belly, guessed that this meant Warren Pruett had got the third man from the ravine.
From the hallway, he heard the creak of timber not used to taking stress. Not a stair tread. His green, deadpan eyes did not betray how his mind was racing to recall the layout of the hallway. Then there was a heavy thud, a gunshot and a curse.
The bullet cracked across the doorway in which Gold stood. And he smiled a personable smile. Knew that the bearded Vic had climbed up on to the balustrade, back to the drop. Then jumped, to explode a bullet along the passage as he hit the floor. Fully expecting Gold to be standing there, smoking the cheroot.
His curse became a roar that was part anger, part fear, when he saw the shotgun thrust out of the doorway, Gold’s hand and wrists the only visible portions of the young man. Then he saw the stab of the muzzle flash and the billowing smoke. Probably did not hear the crash of the report before the shot peppered him, ripping the flesh from his face and neck and chest.
Funeral By The Sea Page 13
