“I don’t know what to say, Ranger,” said Lupo.
“I’ve said enough for the both of us,” Sam replied wryly. “So, why don’t you go blow that front gate and let’s skin out of here?”
“The front gate?” said Lupo.
“That’s what you had in mind, isn’t it?” Sam asked. “Since you don’t have a back trail down?”
“Ah!” Lupo said, raising a finger. “I lied about the back trail, but there is a side trail that will be much safer to ride down, at least to the gully floor.” As he spoke the battle raged.
“Where is it?” Sam asked.
“It is a hundred yards west of the main gates.” He picked up the shoulder pack that he had dropped onto the floor before killing Tuell, and swung it up onto his shoulder. “You will have no trouble finding it. Wait for my explosion, then follow the smoke. I will jump on as you come through.” He reached his hand up again and asked, “Now, may I please have my rifle? There will be shooting….”
“I don’t see why not,” Sam said, picking up the rifle and pitching it down to him. “Buena suerte,” he said.
“Sí, good luck to you as well,” said Lupo, catching the rifle, heading for the rear door.
Sam hitched the reins around the long brake handle and stepped down from the wagon. Winchester in hand, he walked to the wide front doors and waited for Lupo’s explosion before he would throw the doors open.
As soon as the Lookout Hill boys had fought their way up the gully and taken cover from Pettigo’s riflemen above the wall and behind the iron gates, Bobby Hugh Bellibar turned to Hodding Siebert, who was lying on the ground beside him. Behind them they had hidden their horses inside the rocky wall of the gully and crawled forward on their bellies.
“Stealing is never supposed to be this hard,” Bellibar commented in a serious tone, reloading his rifle. “If it was, nobody would go into it. I sure as hell wouldn’t.”
“You’re speaking for me too,” said Siebert. “What kind of rotten son of a bitch kills a man to keep him from stealing his money?”
“Only the very worst kind,” said Bellibar, shaking his lowered head.
The two outlaws had fired along with the other gunmen until both of their rifles turned hot to the touch. A cloud of gray smoke loomed above them. As gunfire from the mining compound lulled for a moment and the Cady brothers signaled the Lookout Hill boys forward, Siebert let out a breath.
“Here we go….” He sighed heavily. He started forward on his belly. But Bellibar stopped him, grabbing the back of his belt.
“What the hell are you doing?” Siebert said, looking around at Bellibar as he stopped. “Everybody’s moving in. I don’t want us to miss our cut.”
“Settle down, Aces,” said Bellibar. “The only cut we’re apt to get from the Cadys is one across our throats. Now that we got them past Copper Gully, they’re through with us, don’t you know?”
“Oh? What are you saying?” said Siebert, looking at him in the darkness as the others moved forward taking new positions.
“What am I saying? Jesus, Aces, I just said it,” Bellibar said, sounding a little put out with him. “They’re going to let us fight as long as we can hold a gun. But the minute the smoke clears and it’s time to split the take, they’ll kill us deader than hell. Wouldn’t you if you were the Cadys?” He stared away at the fighting a hundred yards in front of them.
Siebert shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?” after giving minimal thought to the matter.
Bellibar stared at him. All right, he decided, that was as much of an answer as he’d likely get.
“I think there’s more to this than a payroll robbery,” he said to Siebert. “I’ve thought it ever since Bert Cady mentioned gold.”
“I wondered that myself,” said Siebert. “Fletcher tried too hard to cover it up.”
“Yes, right, exactly,” said Bellibar, impressed that Siebert had read everything the same as he had. “So, here’s what I think. While these men are rushing the place, getting shot to pieces for a damn payroll, you and I need to see if there’s gold hidden somewhere—”
His words stopped short as they heard someone crawling toward them across the rough, rocky ground.
The two turned their guns toward the sound.
“Do not shoot at me,” Cherzi whispered hoarsely, coming into sight.
“Damn it, Cherzi, where have you been?” Bellibar whispered. “We thought you’d gotten yourself killed back there!”
“No, not me,” Cherzi said. “You said stick close to you, so I am doing that.”
“I was getting ready to tell Aces here about the wagon you said the Pettigos keep in a building beside their house.”
“Yes, it is full of Indian things,” said the Russian. Renewed gunfire arose at the iron gates and below the stone front wall.
“Right, Indian things,” Bellibar repeated to Siebert with a sly grin. “I expect everybody far and wide these days is looking for Indian things.” It didn’t hurt to be friendly, he thought. He knew he would still most likely kill Siebert before all this was over—the Russian too for that matter. But for now he needed all the help he could get. If there was a wagonload of gold in there, he wanted it. If it turned out there was no gold…well, adios, compañeros…. Estos tontos, he told himself, looking back and forth between the two of them, still grinning.
“Then I say let’s go get ourselves some Indian things,” said Siebert. He rolled up onto his knees as gunfire streaked back and forth at the front wall of Pettigo-American Mining.
“Wait. Listen to me, Aces,” said Bellibar. “We are going to get closer to the wall and lie low until the Cadys and their Lookout Hill boys blow open the gates. Once they do, we’ll slip inside and go into business for ourselves.”
“Sounds good,” said Siebert.
“Me too,” said the Russian.
The three of them rose, turning away from the fighting and moving at a crouch. They hurried to where their nervous horses stood waiting. Unhitching the animals, the three mounted and rode west of the fighting to lie low. But as they started diagonally toward the wall of the compound, a blast of dynamite lifted and twisted the large iron front gates off their hinges and sent metal and chunks of stone flying in every direction. They felt the heat of the blast and the sting of dirt and chipped stone from a hundred yards awy. Their horses reared in panic. But the three held them in check.
“Good Lord!” Bellibar shouted as his horse touched back down beneath him. “There goes the gates!”
“What are we waiting for?” Siebert shouted. “Let’s get through them—”
His words fell short beneath another blast, this far to their west along the wall. The spooked horses reared again.
“What the hell are these Cadys doing, blowing the whole damn place up?” shouted Siebert.
“I’ve got a feeling this is not the Cadys,” said Bellibar, staring toward the second explosion as the dust and smoke loomed in a large jagged opening in the stone wall at the top of the gully.
“Then who the hell is it?” shouted Siebert as gunfire erupted at the iron gates.
Staring toward the gaping hole in the stone wall left by the second explosion, Bellibar saw a freight wagon roll out of the mining compound through flickering brush fire and settling debris and turn west sharply.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out,” said Bellibar, nudging his horse forward as they watched the big wagon bounce along over blown-out chunks of stone and upturned dirt. “Cherzi,” he called out to the Russian, “is that the wagon they keep under guard?”
Cherzi booted his horse up beside Bellibar and stared hard through windblown dust as the wagon rolled along, its canvas cargo cover flapping on the wind.
“I don’t know…maybe,” he said. “It’s big like that wagon. It has a canvas cover—”
“Good enough, that’s our huckleberry,” Bellibar said. “Let’s go. If it’s not the wagon we want, whoever’s driving will be more than happy to tell us where it is.”
Chapter 23
Even as Denver Jennings and the mercenaries fell back from the iron gates under heavy gunfire, they heard and saw the second explosion farther to the west. When Jennings spotted the big freight wagon going through the open wall, he looked all around for the Pettigos and cursed under his breath when he didn’t see them. Bullets sliced through the air around Jennings, who grabbed Dodge Peterson by his shoulder as the gunman hurried by.
“Where’re E.R. and Dale?” he shouted in Peterson’s face above the fray.
“Over by the mine shack,” Peterson shouted in reply. “E.R. took a bullet. They carried him there out of the fight.”
“Jesus,” said Jennings. He looked all around quickly. “Take some men. Get to the barn and get us some horses,” he demanded.
“Horses? How many?” said Peterson.
“As many as you can get saddled and ready by the time I get back,” said Jennings. “I’m going to see about E.R. Then we’re going after that wagon.”
“After all that Indian junk?” Peterson asked, giving him a bemused look.
“E. R. Pettigo loves that Indian junk,” Dodge said. “He’s the boss. We’re paid to do what suits him.”
“All right,” said Peterson, “I’m gone.” The two turned and raced away in opposite directions. Dodge Peterson ran in a crouch toward the livery barn as bullets flew past him. He passed three mercenaries huddled down behind stacks of wooden ore crates and called out to them, “You three, come with me. Hurry it up.”
In the opposite direction, Denver Jennings ran across a bullet-raked yard toward the mine shack Peterson had told him about, seeing an oil lamp glowing in a single rear window. As he drew near, he saw two men step out from around a corner of the shack with rifles up and pointed.
“It’s me, Jennings. Don’t shoot,” he called out.
“Denver…?” said the familiar voice of a mercenary named Herman Waite.
“Yeah, it’s me, Herman,” Jennings called out. “I heard E. R. got shot. How’s he doing?”
“Not worth a damn,” the second man cut in, a former Wyoming regulator named Sal Tucci.
Jennings slowed to a halt and looked at them.
“Sal’s right,” said Waite. “You want to see old man Pettigo with air in his chest, you best hurry.”
Jennings turned, bounded across the low plank porch and flung open the front door. Two more gunmen moved toward him in the light of the oil lamp, their Colts coming up cocked and pointed at his chest.
“Lower them,” Jennings demanded, hurrying on across the floor to a battered desk where Dale Pettigo had laid his father. The two mercenaries, Randall Blaine and Jake Jenner, followed suit and stepped back.
“Sorry, Denver,” Blaine murmured, stepping over and closing the front door.
But Jennings didn’t seem to hear him as he came to a halt and saw Dale look up at him, dropping a blood-soaked cloth he’d held pressed to his father’s chest.
“He’s—he’s gone, Denver,” Dale said in a broken voice. He patted his dead father’s shoulder. “I know he would have wanted you here. He always thought of you like a part of our family.”
“I always thought of him the same way, Dale,” said Jennings, shaking his head slowly, looking down at E.R.’s blood-streaked face, his closed eyes, his parchmentlike forehead. “You too, Dale, as far as that goes.”
Outside at the front wall and the destroyed gates, the battle continued in full rage.
“A time like this, we’re going to stick together like family too, Denver,” Dale Pettigo said. He lifted an arm and looped it over Jennings’ shoulder. “This is not the time to mention it, but I’m going to see to it you don’t get left out when it comes time to settle up his estate. He told me right before he died to make sure you get that favorite saddle of his.”
A saddle…Jennings just looked at him. A fucking saddle…?
He took a deep breath and calmed himself.
“Did he mention anything about the wagon, by any chance, his artifacts?” he said.
“He rambled something about it,” Dale said, shaking his bowed head. “But nothing that made sense, I’m afraid. He seemed to think the wagon is made of stolen Mexican gold, or full of stolen Mexican gold, something like that….”
“You don’t say,” Jennings said quietly, Dale Pettigo’s arm up over his shoulder, making him steadily more uncomfortable. “The reason I mention it is that that wagon is headed out a hole in the wall right now, onto the side trail around the edge of the gully.”
“No!” said Dale, dropping his arm from Jennings’ shoulder. “Then we must get right after it! I won’t have my father’s artifacts stolen! I know how much they meant to him. He kept them guarded night and day.”
This stupid son of a bitch….
Jennings just stared at him again.
“I sent some men to the barn for horses,” he said. “They’ll be coming any minute.” He took a step back. “What if there really was stolen Mexican gold on the wagon?”
“What do you mean if there really was?” Dale asked, giving him a curious downward look. “If it’s stolen Mexican gold, I would be obligated to turn it over to the Mexican government, of course, wouldn’t I, then?”
“Yes, I couldn’t agree more,” said Jennings.
“As it is, once we recover the artifacts, I’ll see to it they go to some university museum, some historical trust perhaps.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Jennings.
At the door, Randall Blaine and Jake Jenner stepped forward.
“Couldn’t help overhearing you, Denver,” said Blaine. “Want us to take the other two and go meet those horses, make sure they get here? It’s gotten hot and heavy out there.” He jerked a thumb toward the sound of the melee.
“Yes, do that, the both of you,” said Jennings.
“And make sure they don’t bring my roan,” said Dale Pettigo. “I’ll not risk getting that horse marked up. Just bring me one of the men’s horses. Any one at all will do.”
The two men looked at Dale Pettigo.
“You heard him,” said Jennings, “get going. I want that wagon back worse than you can know.”
As soon as the men were out of sight, Dale took out a handkerchief, blew his nose and collected himself in his grief.
“I’m going to be strong though this, Denver,” he said. “And I’m asking you to be strong with me.” He paused, took a breath and held his chest out. “Are you with me, Denver?”
“Without a doubt, I’m with you,” Jennings said. Taking Dale by his forearms, he added, “Do me a favor, step over here by your father?”
“Of course,” said Dale, letting the gunman usher him to his dead father’s side. When he stopped, he faced Denver and said, “How’s that?”
“That’s fine,” said Denver. “Now if you’ll turn toward your father…”
“Certainly,” said Dale, turning, taking a deep breath and staring straight across his father’s body at the rough plank wall. “This is sort of like taking a tintype, except we have no camera, of course—”
His words were silenced by the explosion of Jennings’ big Colt as it bucked in the gunman’s hand. The bullet bored through the back of Dale Pettigo’s head and splattered blood and brain on the wall. Dale fell across his father’s chest, his arms swinging back and forth down the desk until they slowed gradually to a halt. Outside, the battle continued with fury.
Jennings stepped in closer; he looked down at the smoking bullet hole in the back of Dale’s head as he opened his Colt and replaced the smoking empty cartridge shell with one from his gun belt. His eyes went from Dale’s shattered skull to the lifeless face of Edgar Randolph Pettigo. He leaned in slightly closer to the dead man.
“A fucking saddle?” he said aloud.
When the wagon came bouncing and swaying through the gaping hole in the st
one wall, the Ranger stood half-crouched at the driver’s seat, the reins in his hands. Dust and debris still swirling and settling around him. He hadn’t stopped the wagon, only slowed it enough for Lupo to throw his shoulder pack over onto the seat and jump up beside it. He clenched a lit cigar between his teeth.
“Keep rolling, Ranger!” he’d said, already picking up his rifle from the floorboard. He’d searched the darkness behind him while brush fire danced here and there from the dynamite blast.
Beside him, Sam glanced down, seeing him clutching his side wound with his free hand.
“How are you holding up?” he’d asked above the sound of the four horses and the bumping, squeaking wagon.
“I’m good…Keep rolling!” Lupo said firmly, struggling with pain in his lower side.
The Ranger nodded, slapped the long end of the reins to the rear horses’ rumps and they rolled on.
When they’d gone three hundred yards flanking around the gully just beneath the rim, they came to a slender, steep trail that cut downhill long and winding until it spilled onto a narrow stretch of flatlands.
“Stop here,” Lupo said suddenly, looking all around in the moonlight.
Sam leaned back, the reins in one hand; at the same time he pulled back hard on the long wooden brake lever.
As the wagon bumped and groaned to a halt, Lupo jumped down from the seat and reached for the shoulder pack. He looked around at a huge, land-stuck boulder surrounded by smaller boulders and rock, which held back a sloping hillside of dirt and scrub pine.
“This is where I blow the trail,” he said, puffing on the cigar, stoking up the fire on its tip. He gestured a nod, directing the Ranger farther down around a turn in the trail. “I will do nothing until you are around the turn and out of range. Then I will light a long fuse. Wait for me there. I will have to climb around the side and down to you.”
“I’ll be there waiting,” Sam said. Before reining the wagon horses forward, he stood still, listened closely for a moment and said, “Riders coming. I hear their hoofbeats.”
“Sí, then hurry, Ranger. Get around that turn,” said Lupo. “I must get a long fuse prepared.” He reached out and slapped a hand on the wagon horse’s rump just as the Ranger gave them the end of the reins and sent them forward with a jolt.
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