by J. T. Edson
Snarling a curse, Viridian took a hurried step to the rear. At the same instant, he brought up and flung the can of kerosene at the approaching shape. He had two ideas in mind by doing so; to distract, if not disable, his attacker and to free his right hand for using the shotgun. However, even as he released the can, his retreating foot caught against a protruding root and he toppled backwards.
Releasing the shotgun, due to an instinctive desire to try to break his fall, Viridian landed on the ground. Either the can had missed its mark, or it had failed to affect his assailant. Continuing to advance, the man straddled his feet apart and bent so that he could drive home the knife. Desperately Viridian coiled up and thrust out his legs. He felt his feet impact against the man’s chest and shoved with all his strength. Nor had he been a moment too soon. Even as his assailant was flung erect and away, the knife hissed around. It barely missed Viridian’s chest as its wielder was compelled to retreat rapidly.
Although Viridian had removed the most immediate threat to his life, he knew that he was anything but safe. With that in mind, he sent his right hand flashing across to the left. It met only the coarse blanket-like material of the poncho and could not reach the butt of his Remington.
Either the attacker had lost his knife on being sent staggering, or he guessed what the burly man was trying to do. Whatever the reason, although he had not fallen, he did not attempt to return despite having reeled backwards several steps. Instead, there was a rasping of steel being dragged hurriedly across leather and followed by the unmistakable sound of a revolver being brought to full cock.
Rolling rapidly to his left, in a near-frantic attempt to avoid being hit, Viridian passed over the shotgun. Even as he felt its hardness against his ribs, there was a crash of detonating black powder and he saw the muzzle-blast of his attacker’s revolver flare briefly but brightly in the darkness. However, his swift movement had achieved its purpose. He felt fragments of earth pattering against the back of the poncho as the bullet ploughed into the ground barely three inches behind him.
Halting supine, Viridian scrabbled with his right hand until it found and closed around the wrist of the shotgun’s butt. Bending his right leg, he tilted the weapon upwards. He used his right knee to support the twin barrels, while the heel of his left hand was occupied with drawing back both hammers simultaneously. As the clicking of his assailant’s revolver reached his ears, he squeezed the first and second triggers. With a double roar that merged almost into one sound, the right and left tubes flung out nine buckshot balls a-piece.
Dazzled by the violent red glare that belched from the shotgun’s muzzles, Viridian was unable to see the result. However, he heard the soggy impacts of the two loads striking flesh. At such close range, the balls had not started to spread to any great degree. Caught in the chest by the two groups in rapid succession, the man was flung bodily through the air. His revolver bellowed, but with no greater result than to send a bullet into the branches of a nearby tree. Then he crashed to the ground, but was dead by the time he landed.
Blinking his eyes in an attempt to regain his night vision, Viridian dropped the shotgun. Although he doubted whether it would be needed, he cleared a way to his revolver with his left hand and drew it as he started to rise. For a moment he stood breathing deeply like an enraged bull and glaring at the slightly twitching blob on the ground.
‘Stinking greaser bastard! ’ Viridian spat out, then realized the significance of the yells which he could hear emerging from the town.
Attracted by the sound of shooting, men would be coming very shortly to investigate. Some of them would probably be carrying lanterns. Even if they were not, despite him having lost the sombrero, his appearance might arouse their suspicions. Certainly they would be puzzled at why he was wearing the poncho. Perhaps one or more of them might even guess what he had been planning to do.
Sure enough, there were lights glinting and swaying among the buildings. Swiftly the burly man returned his Remington to its holster and snatched the poncho over his head. Muttering curses, he searched with his feet until one of them came into contact with the sombrero. Grabbing it, he looked around for a hiding place. Already he could make out vague shapes behind the lights and knew that he must move fast. Not far away was a clump of bushes. Gliding silently towards them, he thrust the two garments underneath.
‘There’s somebody!’ yelled an excited voice.
‘It’s me!’ Viridian bellowed, guessing that he had been seen and aware of the danger. ‘Don’t shoot!’
‘Hold it, damn you!’ barked Sparlow’s Southron drawl. ‘It’s Viridian!’
Under the circumstances, the hide and tallow man was willing to forgive the gambler for failing to say, ‘Mr. Viridian’.
Hurrying forward, the men with the lanterns afforded Viridian his first clear view of the man who had tried to kill him. First the pool of light illuminated a pair of filthy Indian moccasins and leggings. Next he saw yellow-striped, fight blue cavalry breeches; garments such as he had never seen worn by a Mexican. Even though the greasy buckskin shirt had two holes each as large as a teacup in its chest, from which blood was spreading in copious quantities so as to hide any marks of identification, he realized that it was Otis Twickery before the hideously distorted features came into view.
‘Hey!’ yelped one of the townsmen as the party crowded around. ‘Look who it is.’
‘What happened, Mr. Viridian?’ another went on, a question which was being put by several more of them.
‘Shut up, for god’s sake!’ Sparlow bellowed and silence fell. Then he continued in a quieter tone. ‘What happened, Mr. Viridian?’
‘What’s this over here?’ said a voice.
For a moment, Viridian wondered if the speaker had discovered the sombrero and poncho. Then he realized that the voice was coming from the wrong direction for this to be the case. Turning his head, he watched the stage line’s telegraph operator picking up the can which he had thrown at his assailant.
‘Looks like kerosene.’ offered one of the saloon’s bartenders. Once again excited comment and queries welled up, to be quelled by Sparlow who repeated the request for information.
‘From the look of it, he was in cahoots with Ribagorza,’ Viridian answered. ‘But how the hell did he get out of jail?’
‘That’s something we’d better find out!’ Sparlow ejaculated. ‘I told Hubric to stay there all night.’
‘Did you think that Twickery might try to escape?’ Viridian demanded.
‘No. I just didn’t want that stupid son-of-a-bitch you call a kin—constable underfoot,’ Sparlow answered and, ignoring the hide and tallow man’s angry scowl at the reference to his relationship with Hubric, went on, ‘Tom. Run to the jail and find out what’s happened.’
‘Yo! ’ replied the man to whom the order had been directed, giving the traditional cavalry assent to a command, and turned to lope away.
‘Hey!’ yelped one of the party, staring about him nervously. ‘If Twickery had help to escape, there might be more of ’em around.’
The words caused some consternation as various members of the party considered their implications. There were startled exclamations and numerous worried glances directed at the surrounding darkness, which seemed to have grown suddenly even blacker and more menacing.
‘I didn’t see or hear any,’ Viridian stated, not displeased that Sparlow had also overlooked the possibility of Twickery having companions in the vicinity. ‘But some of you’d best take a look around my place and Profaci’s.’
‘Take three men and do it, Maxie,’ Sparlow ordered. ‘If the shooting’s woken Mrs. Profaci up, tell her there’s no cause for alarm and that Mr. Viridian’s not been hurt.’
‘I know that Otis Twickery wasn’t feeling too friendly towards Bernie Schweitzer,’ the telegraphist commented, after the four men had taken their departure. He was perturbed by the way that the party was shrinking and spoke to help keep up his spirits. ‘But why did he come hunting for you, Mr. Viridia
n?’
‘Maybe Ribagorza had paid him to do it,’ the hide and tallow man replied. ‘He reckoned they’d met on the trail.’
‘How’d you come to be out here?’ Sparlow wanted to know.
‘I thought that I could hear somebody moving around up near the house and went to take a look,’ Viridian answered, thinking fast. ‘When I didn’t see anybody, I reckoned I’d better come for some men to help me make a more thorough search.’
Even as he finished speaking, the hide and tallow man realized that there had been a couple of dubious points in his explanation. While he was trying to think up a logical reason for his being awake to hear the noises at such a late hour, or why he had come through the woodland instead of taking the easier route along the driveway, there was a shout from the town. Then, waving his lantern erratically due to the speed at which he was travelling, Tom came racing towards them.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sparlow demanded as the man came up.
‘H-Hubric!’ was the gasping, almost breathless reply. ‘He—He’s de—dead—’
‘Dead!’ the gambler repeated, displaying far more emotion than was usual for him. ‘How the hell did it happen?’
‘H-He’d been—knifed in the back,’ Tom explained. ‘I—I found him sitting in the chair at his desk. The side door was open and he was dead.’
‘The greasers must be fixing to attack the town, not the factory!’ the telegraphist squawked, glaring wildly from point to point as if expecting to see Mexicans leaping at him from behind every bush.
‘Don’t get spooked!’ Viridian advised, seeing a way in which he might prevent the ownership of the kerosene being questioned. ‘I’m betting Ribagorza sent a man in to get Twickery out of jail—’
‘How did they know he’d got hisself put in?’ a man interrupted.
‘They must have had scouts watching the town as well as the factory,’ Viridian replied. ‘Anyways, unless I’m mistaken, the feller who let him out has gone back to the rest of the greasers.’
‘Why?’ Sparlow inquired.
‘I think Twickery was supposed to come out here and set fire to either my place or Profaci’s,’ Viridian explained. ‘That would have drawn everybody away from the town and maybe even from the factory to help put it out. Enough for them to be able to attack without too much danger, anyway, even if you didn’t all come.’
‘You could be right at that,’ Sparlow declared, then indicated the body. ‘If you are, they’ll have a long wait. But we’d best get the men back to town in case they don’t.’
Listening to the gambler, Viridian wondered if he might once again inadvertently have guessed correctly regarding the enemy’s motives.
Nine – They’ve Nearly Killed You Twice
Even though the Negro driver had been carrying Pierre de Froissart’s corpse behind him on the roof of the Pilar Hide & Tallow Company’s coach since early the previous afternoon, he had not overcome his superstitious dislike for its presence. So, in order to have it removed as quickly as possible, he was travelling at a fast pace. Not only that, but he had been driving for most of the night and by nine o’clock in the morning was feeling very tired. Consequently, he was not watching the trail as carefully as he should have been in view of the fact that the six horses which were drawing the vehicle were strange to him. To make matters worse, he was approaching an area where vigilance ought to have been his primary concern.
Although the driver did not know it, Mark Counter and not Marlene Viridian was responsible for his lack of sleep.
Having no desire to share a bed with the woman and being aware that she believed that it was possible for them to do so, the blond giant had been equally certain that she would not take kindly to any ordinary refusal. Using considerable tact, he had achieved his purpose without antagonizing her. He had done so by convincing her that he wanted nothing more than to consummate their lovemaking in a way that had not been practical while travelling, but he was willing to forego the pleasure rather than have it put her in danger.
Mark had begun by mentioning that there were certain disadvantages to spending the night at the Joel’s Bluff way station. If they should stay there, he had pointed out, de Froissart’s body would attract attention. Then they would be expected to telegraph the news of the hold up and its result to Pilar. To do so would warn whoever had hired the outlaws that the affair had been only partially successful. In which case, that person might organize another, more effective attempt on her life. Marlene had suggested that Harlow Dolman might send the information from Buck Ridge. Mark had countered this by guessing that, after the way they had treated him, the captain was unlikely to do anything which he would regard as being helpful to them. Much to his relief, she had yielded to his arguments. In fact, such was her ego, she had soon come to consider the decision was her own idea.
On reaching the way station shortly before sundown, Marlene had told the driver and de Froissart’s Negro valet that they would be continuing the journey as soon as they had eaten a meal. Following Mark’s advice, she had also warned them not to mention the hold up or what was wrapped in the tarp on the coach’s roof. To make sure that they obeyed and to fend off any undesirable questions, Mark had remained with the men while Marlene had gone to inquire about the possibility of hiring a fresh team.
With the needs of his big blood-bay stallion attended to, and satisfied that the corpse was not the object of interest or speculation, Mark had gone to join Marlene at the way station’s main building. As he had entered the dining room, he had found her dropping a blazing sheet of paper on to the fire. Although he had guessed that it was the one she had received from the Creole’s valet, he had pretended to accept her explanation that she was destroying a bill for an expensive hat which she had bought but did not want her husband to learn how much it had actually cost.
After they had had a meal and rested for a couple of hours, the replacement team was hitched to the coach so that they could move on. Once they had started, Marlene had insisted upon resuming their interrupted lovemaking. Mark had obliged for a time, until he had felt she might be willing to give him information. Then he had pretended to be struck by a disturbing thought. He had brought the conversation around to the statement which had prevented him from killing Dolman and had suggested that de Froissart might have a copy that could fall into the wrong hands now he was dead. Wishing to impress him, Marlene had replied that—like all partners—the Creole did have one but there was no cause for alarm. After his death, she had taken possession of it. In fact, he had seen her burning it at the way station. She had not attempted to explain why she had lied about it in the first place and Mark had been too wise to press the point.
The night had dragged by with Marlene growing increasingly restless. She was annoyed at being unable to culminate their kissing and caressing, as she desired, due to the uncertain motions of the coach. Mark had not been sorry when she had fallen asleep in his arms and had soon joined her. Shortly after dawn, the driver had halted to rest the horses and they had taken a cold breakfast. With Marlene in such a surly, unpleasant mood, Mark had decided against trying to obtain any information. They would be in Pilar by noon and he hoped that he would find the answers there.
Yawning tiredly, the driver allowed his borrowed team to pick their way down a fairly gentle slope and across the bed of a dried-up stream. Instead of sticking to the hard-packed center of the trail, they moved over to the right. Just an instant too late, he realized what was happening. Yelling an alarmed ‘Whoa!’, he thrust on the brake’s handle with his boot and hauled back desperately at the reins.
Being unaccustomed to their new driver, the horses failed to respond quickly enough. They swerved as he had signaled through the reins, but did not obey his command for them to stop. Although the right front wheel just scraped by the large rock which jutted up through the gravel of the stream’s bed, the larger rear wheel extended sufficiently to reach it.
Perhaps the wheel would have surmounted the obstacle if it had been turning
. Held immobile by the grip of the brake’s shoe, it buckled and two spokes were splintered as the vehicle was brought to an abrupt halt.
Instantly, pandemonium reigned. Dozing on the box, de Froissart’s valet was pitched from it. He landed on the rump of the nearside wheel horse, causing it to rear and deposit him supine on the ground. More fortunate than his companion, the driver contrived to remain on his seat. Cursing savagely, he fought to prevent the thoroughly alarmed team from trying to bolt.
Inside the coach, Marlene was locked in Mark’s arms and kissing him. The abrupt cessation of motion took them both by surprise and threw them from the seat. A screech of fright burst from the woman and she clung tighter to the big blond. Managing to free his right hand, he thrust it forward. His palm slapped against the upholstered backrest of the front seat, preventing them from crashing into it.
‘What’s happening?’ Marlene shrieked, as they rebounded still entangled on to the seat from which they had been thrown.
‘I don’t know,’ Mark pointed out, liberating himself from her grasp and coming to his feet. ‘Stay put while I go and find out.’
With that, the youngster opened the door of the coach and sprang to the ground. He alighted with hands ready to scoop the matched Army Colts from their holsters and eyes darting around. Discovering what had happened, he ignored Marlene as she appeared at the door. Running forward to catch hold of the lead pair’s heads, he helped the driver to bring the horses under control. With that done, he went back and looked at the damaged wheel. Fastening the reins to the brake handle, the driver jumped from the box and joined him.
‘How did this happen?’ Marlene demanded, glaring furiously at the colored man.
‘Well, ma’am,’ the driver replied. ‘There was this here rock—’
‘Can we fix it, friend?’ Mark interrupted, before Marlene could say another word.
‘Well, sir,’ the driver answered, scratching his head and looking up the slope down which they had descended. ‘We’ve got most everything we need to take that busted wheel off—’cepting we can’t do it.’
