“I don’t know how you did it, Hughes,” he said. “You managed to get the drop on these two bummers, but I’ll see it coming.” He thumbed himself on the chest. “You won’t get the drop on me.”
“If I wanted it, I’d get it,” Bellibar said flatly. “But I’m not going to stand here chewing a mouthful of bad gristle with you. Take these two stinking bastards out and bury them.”
Tiggs bristled, but he kept his temper in check. Pettigo had told him and the Russian to keep things under control. How would it look if he killed this fool, right here, right now, only two days into the job? Huh-uh, he wasn’t letting that happen. He took a deep, calming breath.
“All right, Sheriff Hughes,” he said. “We’ll get them buried.” He turned to the Russian and motioned toward the purple-blue body on the boardwalk. “Cherzi, get his shoulders, I’ll get his feet—”
“No,” said Bellibar, cutting him off. “There was no we in what I said. I told you to get them buried. I’ve got other things I need Deputy Cherzi doing. Right, Deputy?” he said to the Russian.
“Is true,” said Cherzi, his chin and chest held high.
“Oh, Deputy, is it now?” said Tiggs. He gave the Russian a searing stare. Then he turned his eyes back to Bellibar. “What about me? Does that make me a deputy too?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” said Bellibar. “But you are under consideration. Let’s see how well you take orders.” He nodded at the bodies. “Drag them out of here. Get their graves dug.”
This son of a bitch!
Tiggs gritted his teeth in rage, but restrained himself. He had to keep control of himself until Dale Pettigo and the others rode back from the mines. Then he’d unload on this man in more ways than one.
“Don’t bury them until I come look at those graves,” Bellibar said. “I better not catch you short-graving me.” He grinned. “It wouldn’t do, having a coyote dragging a leg around town. The good folks of Copper Gully deserve better than that.”
“Is true,” the Russian repeated, staring blankly at Tiggs.
The enraged Canadian gunman still managed to keep control of himself. Staring hard at the Russian, he stooped and grabbed Bad Sharlo Bering by his boots. Bellibar and the Russian watched as he dragged the body and its accompanying swirl of flies toward an alley leading to a crumbling Spanish mission, where grave markers of both stone and wood dotted a rocky hillside.
In spite of the pain in Hodding “Hot Aces” Siebert’s healing chest, he reached down, grabbed the stable boy by the front of his shirt and pulled him up to the side of the black mare to eye level. The boy squirmed and started to cry out, but he felt the Colt Pocket gun against the side of his head and froze. He stared bug-eyed into Siebert’s crimson, angry face.
“What the hell were you smiling about, you little nit?” Siebert growled. “You see something funny about me, do you?”
“No, señor, por favor!” The boy said quickly. “I do not smile because something is funny about you! I smile at customers, my way of telling them gracias for coming to do business with me!”
“Don’t fool with me, boy,” Siebert warned.
“No, señor!” the stable boy said. “I would not fool with you! It is how I always greet people.”
Siebert considered it while he cooled down a little. He lowered the Colt Pocket pistol. There was only one shot left in the chamber and he had no ammunition that would fit the smaller caliber.
Better save this last shot, he advised himself.
“Be forewarned,” he said to the boy, “I catch you laughing at me, I’ll kill you and save somebody else having to do it.” He dropped the boy to the ground beside the mare. Then he slid down from the saddle, slapped his legs a few times to get rid of the numbness and stretched his back, cupping a hand to his spine.
The stable boy only stared, afraid to speak, to move.
“What the hell is this?” said Siebert, stiffening suddenly, stunned at the sight of his stolen roan looking at him from over a stall rail. In the split second it took for his senses to recover, the big Dance Brothers .44 streaked up from his holster in his right hand. His left hand raised the Colt Pocket instinctively. He turned, half-crouched, looking all around as if someone lurked in the shadows.
“Where’s the man who rides that horse?” he asked in a lowered voice.
“The horse belongs to the town sheriff, señor,” the frightened boy said.
“The sheriff?” said Siebert, looking taken aback by the boy’s information. “Where—where did he get it?”
“I do not know that, señor,” the boy said. “The sheriff is new here. He is the first sheriff in Barranca del Cobre. He only become sheriff two days ago, after killing some very bad hombres.”
“New sheriff, you say?” said Siebert, the wheels starting to turn in his head.
“Sí, he is a courageous lawman,” the boy offered.
“What’s this courageous lawman’s name?” Siebert asked, his suspicion beginning to pique.
“He is Sheriff Hughes…Bob Hughes,” the boy said.
Just right!
Siebert kept himself from grinning. The name was too close to be a coincidence. Couple the name Bob Hughes with his stolen roan standing staring him in the face, there was a killing in the making here, no doubt about it.
“And just who were these bad hombres this courageous sheriff killed?” Siebert asked.
“Their names are Bad Sharlo Bering and Harvey Moran,” the stable boy said.
“Oh my,” Siebert said in a mock voice. “Now, those are some bad hombres.” He chuckled to himself. “Boy, where do you suppose I would find the sheriff this time of day—church, I’m guessing, seeking divine guidance?”
“I don’t know, señor,” said the boy. “I only take care of horses for the barn owner.” He shrugged. “If I looked for the sheriff, I would start at the cemetery on the hill beside the old mission.”
“The cemetery?” Siebert asked.
“Yes,” the boy said. “That is where he will go to bury the bad hombres I told you about.” He pointed in a southwesterly direction.
“Well, of course he will,” said Siebert, “and what a bright lad you are for knowing so much.” His eyes glistened and shone with anticipation. “You take care of this mare,” he said, fishing a gold coin from his vest pocket and flipping it to him. “I’ll find the sheriff for myself. It just happens that him and I are pals from way back. So keep your mouth shut that I’m here if you see him first.”
“Oh, I see,” said the boy. “You want to surprise Sheriff Hughes, eh?”
“Oh yes,” said Siebert with an evil grin, “I want to surprise him in the worst sort of way.”
He turned and walked out of the barn in the direction the boy had pointed. When he stopped fifty yards from the cemetery, he saw someone digging a grave. He took cover beside an abandoned old adobe and watched for a moment, his hand on the Dance Brothers revolver. But seeing the man stand up and mop his brow with a bandanna, he realized it wasn’t Bellibar.
“Damn it,” he said under his breath. Yet before he could turn and slip away, his attitude took an upsurge as he spotted Bellibar walk into the cemetery and look down at the man digging. “That’s more like it,” he whispered with a dark chuckle, his hand raising the big Dance Brothers .44 from his holster.
He held the gun out with both hands, steadying his arms against the corner of the adobe.
“Adios, you gun-robbing, horse-stealing son of a bitch,” he whispered to himself, taking close aim.
At the open grave, Bellibar felt cold gooseflesh run up both of his forearms. He almost shivered from the sensation. What the hell? He searched the hillside cemetery warily as he stepped around to the other side of the two graves, then looked off toward the abandoned adobe.
Having seen the look on Bellibar’s face, Tiggs eyed him as he traded the long-handled scooping shovel for a sharp spade to stab and loosen the tight, hard earth.
“Something over there get you spooked?” Tiggs asked, nodding in
the direction of the old adobe.
Bellibar shook the feeling and looked down at the sweaty Canadian gunman.
“Don’t you worry about anything spooking me,” he said, his hand resting on the Remington shoved down behind his gun belt. “You’d do better worrying ’bout getting this grave deep enough.” He looked at the mound of fresh earth where Tiggs had already buried Bad Sharlo Bering. “I told you to wait up on burying until I got here so to check for myself.”
Tiggs mopped his brow with the wet bandanna. His hat and coat lay on the ground at the graveside.
“I know how deep to dig a bloody grave,” he huffed. He stabbed the spade into the bottom of the grave and loosened the dirt. “You should have seen the look on your face. You looked like a ghost just squeezed you by your apples.” He stabbed the blade down again and rocked his foot back and forth. “I don’t know why it’s so important to you, getting these graves so deep. There’s enough chickens and goats around here that no self-respecting coyote or lobo is going to bother digging up supper in a Mexican boneyard.”
“Maybe I just wanted to see you sweat, Tiggs,” Bellibar said with a taunting grin.
Tiggs rocked his foot on the spade, breaking up a chunk of hard ground. He wasn’t going to let this man get to him.
“Wait until Mr. Pettigo gets back, Hughes,” he said over his shoulder, straightening and jerking the wet bandanna from his shirt pocket. “We’ll see whose grave is the deep—” His words were cut short in midsentence.
From the corner of the abandoned adobe, Hodding Siebert had cocked the hammer, taken close aim, held his breath and started to squeeze the trigger on the big Dance Brothers .44. But at the last second he’d held his fire, staring with his mouth agape as the loud twang of the long-handled shovel echoed across the quiet hillside.
“Holy dogs,” he’d whispered in awe. He’d seen Bellibar grab the shovel, but he’d made nothing of it. He’d concentrated on making the shot as Bellibar straightened up and drew the shovel around. Then, as he’d taken aim, he saw the shovel streak though the air and land a solid blow on the back of the unsuspecting grave digger’s head.
A full second passed as Siebert stared with a bemused look on his face. Finally he shook his head a little, snapping himself from a suspended state of mind. He let the gun hammer down and lowered the weapon, both hands still holding it. He watched as Bellibar kicked Tiggs’ hat and coat into the grave and rolled Harvey Moran’s body in atop him.
A slight smile came to Siebert’s face.
“He’s always on his game. I’ll give him that,” he admitted quietly. He holstered the big revolver and watched Bellibar shovel steadily for a moment. Then he saw Bellibar stop, look down in surprise and kick at a bloody, grappling hand clawing up from the grave.
Siebert winced as he saw Bellibar crouch, swing the long-handled shovel straight up over his head, and bring it crashing straight down. Another twang echoed over the quiet hillside.
All right, then….
Siebert hiked his gun belt and looked around. This wasn’t the time to kill Bobby Hugh Bellibar—Sheriff Bob Hughes, or whatever this murdering fool was calling himself today. No, he decided, watching Bellibar go back to pitching shovelfuls of dirt into the grave, as if hurrying before anybody else tried to climb out. This was not the time to kill him. This was the time to see what his ol’ ex-pard was up to.
Chapter 13
It was late afternoon when Bobby Hugh Bellibar finished filling the grave and gave the ground a couple of good solid whacks with the shovel, just for good measure. He wasn’t going to gather rocks and pile them atop the graves because…well, he just wasn’t going to. He shrugged. Stooping, he picked up the spade. Holding both earth-turning instruments in hand, he looked around and smiled to himself in the cooling evening breeze.
If anybody asked—and he was certain Dale Pettigo would—as far as he was concerned he hadn’t seen Tiggs since he’d sent him off to bury the dead.
Good enough…. He turned and walked away, back toward the main street of Copper Gully, toward the building set up to be the sheriff’s office, where he’d left the Russian.
Being Canadian, Tiggs must’ve just wandered away for no reason, he imagined himself telling Pettigo.
The fact was, he could tell Pettigo whatever he felt like telling him, Bellibar decided, walking along. Who was going to dispute him? He had won the Russian over to his side. Besides, what could Pettigo say? People disappeared all the time. They couldn’t blame him for that. For all he knew, Tiggs might have gotten his feelings hurt not being left in charge.
Maybe he’d worked himself into a huff and ridden back to the mines. Anything from snakebite to a bandit attack could have befallen him along the eleven-mile stretch of rock trail, cactus and brush lying between Pettigo-American Mining and Copper Gully. He might have resented digging graves, big gunman that he was, Bellibar told himself, turning the shadowed corner of the abandoned adobe. He’d known men like that. If they couldn’t be in charge, they wanted no part of the job.
His thoughts flat out left him as he walked past a dark open doorway and felt the side of his head explode. He fell to the ground on his cheek. In the swaying stupor that he knew came before blacking out, he stared straight ahead at ground level, seeing one rough boot and one worn-out Indian moccasin standing beside him.
“Son of a…,” he heard himself mumble, his words trailing away as a furry black silence slipped in and wrapped itself around him. In his unconscious state, he came to enough to imagine a gathering of Indian youths steadily pelting his back and the back of his head with rocks. His arms were up above his head, rocks hitting them too, but he couldn’t lower them, nor could he make his hand reach for either his holstered Colt or the big Remington stuck down behind his gun belt.
But after a moment he realized through the swirling blackness that his hands weren’t tied above his head at all, nor was he being pelted with rocks by a rowdy band of young Indians. He was being dragged along the rocky ground by his boots. All right, that made more sense, he decided in his unconscious state. With the puzzle solved, he relaxed back into the darkness and disappeared for a time as he bumped and slid mindlessly across the hard ground.
When he vaguely awoke again, he realized he was no longer being dragged by his heels. He was upright now, tied to a support post inside the livery barn, his hands pulled back, bound wrist to wrist by a length of rope. He raised his dazed head from his chest and steadied it enough to stare across the circle of lantern light in the center of the dark barn. In the stall behind him, he heard a large animal chuff and stomp a hoof.
On the other side of the flickering circle of light he saw Hodding “Hot Aces” Siebert sitting with one hip propped on the edge of a wooden tack table. Siebert looked up at him above a bowl, eating red beans with a flat wooden spoon. Siebert had retrieved his stolen roan from its stall; the horse stood beside him.
Saddled, ready to ride, Bellibar told himself as his head fell back to his chest and the darkness reclaimed him.
When Bellibar awoke again, he did so feeling a rough hand shake his head back and forth by his tangled hair. Bellibar opened his eyes and looked down at Siebert’s mismatched footwear. In a muddled tone Bellibar said, “Are they…giving out moccasins in hell?”
Chewing beans, Siebert looked down at his foot, turned it back and forth. “Oh, this?” He chuckled a little. “I took it after you shot me out of my boot, found it whilst rummaging a place I came upon on my way here. I killed an old man and his woman…and two damned dogs who nearly ate me alive.” He gestured at all the stitches in his face, the side of his head, at his chest beneath his shirt.
“I…know you’re dead, Hot Aces. I…killed you,” Bellibar said in a weak voice, shaking his throbbing head. The side of his skull housed a wild monkey beating on a metal drum with an iron hammer, or so it felt.
“I’ll soon say the same of you.” Siebert grinned, looking him up and down. A tin of whale oil sat on the table beside him. “I want you woke up g
ood and clear, so you’ll know when I take your power.”
“There you go with your crazy talk,” Bellibar said. “It always spills out of you, sooner or later.” Staring down at his feet covered with straw, he noted he wore nothing but his sweat-stained long johns.
Siebert gave a slight shrug and scooped up another spoonful of red beans.
“Crazy says you,” he replied. “But there’s not a warrior folk in history who didn’t believe when you kill a person you take his power. Mimbreno Apache…Chiricahua. Hell, the Romans, Hannibal, the Huns, all of them believed it—”
“Not trying to piss on your place in history, Aces,” said Bellibar, cutting him off, “but you’re none of those warrior folk. You’re nothing but a bummer and a poltroon coward.”
“Well…” Siebert spooned more beans, then said, “I expect like any other religion, taking power only works if you believe it works.”
“Yeah?” said Bellibar. “What kind of power did you get killing the couple and their dogs?”
“Not much from the couple,” said Siebert, “but a pair of Mexicans showed up. That helped. I got nothing from the dogs except a passing desire to scratch my neck, sniff my own behind.” He gave a short, cackling laugh.
“You’ve always had that,” Bellibar said somberly.
Siebert ignored him.
“I killed a witch,” he said matter-of-factly, chewing beans as he spoke.
“A witch…?” Bellibar said in a dreamy voice. “An honest-to-God witch?”
“She tried to say she was only a healing woman,” Siebert said. “But a witch will lie, even if she doesn’t have to. So, sure she denied it…but I saw right through her.”
“Jesus…,” said Bellibar, his throbbing head sagging back down onto his chest.
Siebert pointed the wooden spoon at Bellibar and wagged it a little. “That was a damned strange feeling, killing a bruja. Didn’t sense it right away, but now there’s a part of me feels like she’s still right here at my shoulder, watching everything I do.” He gestured the spoon past Bellibar to the stall behind him. “That’s her black mare standing behind you. The animal and the bruja both have stuck a hex on me.”
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