by Jory Sherman
Lew waited, concentrating on the closest man. He knew right where he was, and he knew he would have to show some of himself when he attempted to make another shot. The flashes were not as close together now, but someone up there was searching for him mighty hard.
Lew stretched his right arm to full length, just below the rim and out of sight of the men who were looking for him. He was tired of waiting. He slid his hand up over the edge and touched a sagebrush. He shook it so that the top of it moved back and forth. Then he withdrew his hand and gripped the rifle, leaning over the receiver until he had the front and rear sights lined up.
The man closest to him rose up and took a bead on the sagebrush. Just as he pulled the trigger, Lew fired his Winchester. He saw the man jerk backward and drop his rifle. The sagebrush quivered as the man’s bullet tore through it, severing some of the stalks.
Then two men rose up, crouching, showing their backsides. Lew levered another cartridge into the firing chamber and cracked off a shot. He dusted a rock between the two men and he knew they were peppered by rock splinters. The two men scrambled down the other side. Lew fired another shot and heard the bullet whine as it caromed off a rock. The men were no longer there.
A few seconds later, he saw them burst from behind the pile of rocks and the ridge, riding hell-bent-for-leather to the east. He started to shoot again, but decided not to waste a bullet. They were hightailing it by then, and soon disappeared after they cut north.
He heard a moan and saw an arm waving in the air up in the rocks where he had downed the man who had shot at him.
“Help, for God’s sake. Wayne, come back.”
“He won’t be back just yet,” Lew said, and slid down the bank. He rammed two cartridges into the rifle’s magazine and shoved it in its boot, then climbed aboard Ruben. He turned the horse and bolted up the slope and out of the arroyo. Lew put him into a gallop, his eyes scanning the rocks for any glint of metal, but all he saw was that arm stuck up in the air, waving back and forth.
He climbed off his horse and drew his pistol. Then he wended his way through the rocks and stood over the wounded man. The man’s eyes were filled with fresh tears and all of the color had gone out of his face. He looked as if he had swallowed a can of paste and it had exuded out through his pores. There was blood on his shirt, and Lew saw a coil of intestine oozing from the hole in his belly. It glistened in the sun like a newborn snake, or a large oily worm.
“You Zane?” the man groaned.
Lew nodded.
“You kill Wayne and K.C.?”
The man’s pistol was still in its holster, but he started sliding a bloody hand toward it.
“You’re gut-shot,” Lew said. “You don’t have too long to live. If you put a hand on that pistol, your time will be even shorter.”
“No, I reckon I don’t need no revenge right now. You got me good.”
The man’s words were labored, an odd resonance to them considering he was slowly bleeding to death and the blowflies were already at his exposed intestine. He probably didn’t feel them walking around on it, sucking up all the juice on the surface.
“Who are you?” Lew asked.
“Why?”
“I want to know why you were taking potshots at me. You got folks, maybe I’ll let them know so they can come and get you.”
The man shook his head.
“Nobody would come,” he said. “Name’s Turner. Bill Turner. Not that it matters none.”
“Why were you shooting at me, Turner?”
“Wayne said you’d be coming down the road, a-chasin’ him. Said you was sweet on his woman.”
“He tell you he murdered his wife?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you he killed his children, too?”
“I reckon not. Why would he do that?”
“He had them insured. Means to collect a bounty on them.”
Turner swore under his breath, of which he had very little left at that point. His face turned even pastier, grayer.
“Wayne told us you kilt his wife and kids.”
“You believe him?”
“Yep. Me’n Wayne go back a long ways.”
“Who’s the other man with Smith? He a friend of yours?”
“Why, sure. K.C., we call him. Me’n K.C. been pards since…a real long time. I didn’t think he’d run out on me like that, though. Wayne, neither.”
“Wayne seems in a real big hurry. Where were you all going, anyway?”
“Denver.”
“I thought Smith was going to Santa Fe.”
“He is. After he takes care of business in Denver. Then, he’s goin’ to Santa Fe. But why should I tell you what for, Zane? You probably sent me to hell already.”
“You tell me what I want to know, Turner, and I’ll try and plug that hole for you. You might just get over that bellyache.”
Turner looked down at his stomach. He winced when he saw the blood. There wasn’t a lot of it, because he had pinched the biggest part of the hole closed. Now he pressed on the piece of intestine with his thumb and it disappeared. There was the smell, though, and Lew knew that his intestines were probably torn up inside. Turner would not live long.
“What can you do for me, Zane?”
“I can make some mud to clog up that hole. Bullet go through, or is it still inside?”
“I think it went on through. I heard it chink on a rock after I got hit. You run a .44 through that barrel?”
“Yeah. That’s the caliber of my Winchester.”
“Felt like a damned sledgehammer when it hit me. I figured a .44.”
“What’s Wayne up to, anyway?”
“We was meetin’ up with some boys in Denver. Payroll job. Big money. Then we was going to light out for Santa Fe. That Wayne, he’s always got big ideas. We helped him back in Bolivar, Missouri. He give us the tip, and we knocked over a bank. Got away clean. A right smart boy, that Wayne. Hey, this is startin’ to hurt. You gonna do somethin’ for me?”
“Yeah. In a minute. Wayne have a place to hole up in Santa Fe?”
“He says so. I don’t know where, though. He don’t tell me and K.C. everything.”
“Some of what he told you is a damned lie,” Lew said. “I didn’t kill his wife and kids.”
“You say.”
“Yeah, I say. Do you know where he’s going to knock over this payroll in Denver?”
“Brown Palace Hotel, he said. Least that’s where we’re all going to meet.”
“How many men is he meeting in Denver?”
“Just two. Don’t know their names. They’re from Bolivar, he said.”
“Missouri boys, eh?”
“Yep. K.C. ain’t from Missouri, though. He’s from Taos.”
“Too bad you’re all going to Denver. Wayne will have to double back and come this same way to go down to Santa Fe.”
“Yep.”
“Maybe I should wait him out right here,” Lew said.
“I’d take it kindly if you could stay with me while I ride this out. I’m feelin’ real bad, Zane. Kinda dizzy like, and you’re startin’ to swim around like a fish.”
Turner’s eyes watered again and he tried to focus his eyes.
Lew had a hunch Turner wouldn’t last much longer. He wondered how much more information he could get out of the man, and if what he had heard was reliable.
“What’s in Santa Fe for Wayne? He got a woman there?”
“A man he knows. Says he can put us into some big money. Gold, silver maybe.”
“Know the man’s name?”
Turner shook his head.
“Wayne don’t tell us a whole lot, like I said.”
Turner’s breath was starting to get thready. He gulped in air, and when he let it out, he wheezed as if his lungs were filling up with sand. Or blood. The bullet Lew had put in him had probably missed his liver, but he knew it had sure torn the hell out of his guts. The smell was getting worse. A shadow passed over Turner’s face. Lew glanced up and saw a buzz
ard flap its wings high in the sky. It turned and began to circle. He saw another one out of the corner of his eye.
“You do any praying, Turner?” Lew asked.
“Nope. Never did much. Why?”
“If you’re ever going to, now might be the time. I don’t think there’s anything I can do for you.”
“You mean I’m gonna die? Oh, shit.”
“I reckon. We’re all going to die. You a little sooner than some.”
“Damn you, Zane. You’re a heartless bastard.”
“I wouldn’t be calling anyone names right now, if I were you, Turner. Save your breath. You’ll need it.”
Turner struggled, trying to rise. His hand stayed away from his pistol, but he couldn’t make it. He collapsed back down, and now there was a rattle in his throat.
“I c-can’t breathe,” he stammered.
The sound of retreating hoofbeats had long since faded, but Lew could still hear them in memory. Smith and K.C. were getting away. He might never catch up to them. He wondered if he should just let them go and head for Santa Fe. It was none of his business what Smith did in Denver. Except he had killed the woman Lew had fallen in love with, and kids he cared for.
Turner’s eyes frosted over. He gasped for air and stretched an arm toward Zane.
He started to utter something, but he never got it out. He let out a rattling sigh and then collapsed. His eyes closed, and when Lew bent down to listen, he heard no breathing.
A buzzard landed on the highest rock behind them, flapped its wings slowly, cocked its head.
Lew stood up.
“Too bad, Turner,” he said. “You rode with the wrong man at the wrong time.”
There was no answer, of course. There would never be an answer. Turner was dead.
Lew looked down at his hands. There was no blood on them, but he could feel the stain burning into his flesh like the mark of Cain. He wondered if he was cursed, somehow, destined to go on killing and killing and killing…
He drew a breath and holstered the Colt. Then he wiped the backs of both hands, for no reason. For no reason at all.
4
THE DECISION WAS TAKEN OUT OF LEW’S HANDS ONCE HE WAS mounted on Ruben. He heard the soft thunder of hoofbeats and drew back behind the jagged pyramid of rocks. The sound grew louder, more thunderous, and it seemed he could feel the ground shake beneath his horse. But he knew that was only an illusion. The horses were too far away, the ground too solid.
One of the buzzards squawked, and another lit on the rocks just above where the body of Bill Turner lay.
Lew stood up in the stirrups and peered over toward the road. The hoofbeats stopped, and he saw a dozen or so men, all heavily armed, rein to a stop. He recognized Blackhawk at the head of the column. He sat there, one arm raised to call a halt. As Lew watched, Blackhawk rode around in a circle, leaning over to look at the ground. The marshal hesitated, then looked toward the pile of rocks, saw the buzzards. The birds were flapping and hopping around, squawking low. More landed, and more were circling overhead, spiraling in lazy circles on invisible currents of air.
He saw Blackhawk move his lips and gesture as he spoke to the men on horseback. In a moment, he was riding toward where Lew sat his horse. Lew waited, wary. But if the marshal had wanted to take him, put him under arrest, he reasoned, he would have brought the bunch of men with him when he rode toward Lew.
“Zane?” Blackhawk called out.
“I’m here, Marshal.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
“There’s a dead man up there in those rocks. He tried to kill me. A man named Bill Turner.”
“I know who he is. He’s wanted for robbery back in Missouri. One of Wayne Smith’s waddies. You just can’t stay away from being a vigilante, can you?”
“He shot at me. Wayne rode off with another feller.”
“Know who that was?”
“Turner said he was called K.C. That’s all I know. I thought you said Smith was going to Santa Fe.”
“That’s what we heard. Looks like I was wrong. Know where he’s going, by any chance?”
“Turner said Denver. A payroll robbery. Then he’s going to Santa Fe for something else. I don’t know what.”
“That’s good information. If you weren’t a wanted man, I’d think about deputizing you.”
Lew snorted. Another buzzard flapped down onto the rocks. He could hear the birds tearing at Turner’s flesh. He knew they’d take out the eyes first. Blackhawk looked up, saw the birds hopping around.
“What you got over there, all those men?”
“A posse. The constable, the sheriff, some deputies. They want Smith pretty bad. So do I.”
“I don’t want him to get away with what he did, Blackhawk.”
“He won’t. You know anything more that might help us?”
“Turner said they were going to meet at the Brown Palace Hotel.”
“Yeah, makes sense. It’s brand-new. Just opened. Well, that gives us more than we had. Thanks. What are you going to do?”
“I’m thinking on it.”
“Want my advice?”
“It’s free, isn’t it?”
Blackhawk smiled. “Don’t go to Denver. Go someplace else. I ought to put you in irons right now, but Smith is more important. I’ll get to you later.”
“Then I won’t tell you where I’m going,” Lew said.
“I know where you’re going, Zane.”
“Oh?”
“I’d bet Santa Fe. In case we don’t get Smith. You’ll be there, waiting for him.”
“Good luck, Blackhawk. I’ll see you by and by, maybe.”
Blackhawk touched a hand to his hat and turned his horse.
“You take care, Lew,” he said, using his first name for a change.
“You, too, Horatio. Those sheep still blocking the road back there?”
“Nope. They’re all lined up along Fountain Creek, guzzling that muddy water. Ride careful, and if you follow my advice, you’ll give up being a vigilante. You’ll stay out of trouble, if you’re smart. And you’ll live a heap longer. Be seeing you, Lew.”
Lew did not say good-bye. He watched Blackhawk join the other men, then turned Ruben and rode behind the rocks. He wanted to be on his way in case the marshal changed his mind and came back with some help to take him into custody.
He put Ruben into a gallop and headed south toward Santa Fe, leaving the gabbling buzzards and the posse behind.
Lew skirted Pueblo with its grimy smokestacks and clanking machinery, taking to the lonesome high desert where he could be alone with his thoughts. He missed Carol and what might have been before her husband cut her life short. But now he began to think of Seneca again. He owed her an explanation, a kindness for what she had gone through herself because of him. She might want to know where he was and what he was doing, but he’d have to be careful about how much he told her. Still, he missed her, and as he rode through the desolate land in the shadow of the Rockies with their towering spires, passing Spanish Peaks and marveling at nature’s sculpture, past mesas that echoed of muffled drumbeats, visions of smoke signals from some ancient war party, and the majestic buttes that looked almost like man-made structures, he thought of Seneca and even saw her lovely face, her soft hair, her lithe figure. And it seemed he could hear her laugh, see her smile, her lips curving like a Valentine as they sat on her front porch, the air perfumed with the scent of cedars and wisteria.
He missed the Ozarks, too—the gentle green hills, the dark, steep hollows where squirrels scurried among the fallen leaves and deer wandered the hardwoods, feeding on acorns. The poke would be growing about now, he thought, and the redbuds all abloom, the dogwoods flowering white lights in the dense green. Soon the hummingbirds would return, and if his mother were still alive she would have put out for them sugared water that she had dyed red. The wild strawberries would be pushing up through the leaves that had sheltered them from the cold air all winter, and his father’s asparagus would soon
break through the soil and begin to grow tall and slender and succulent.
The following day, Raton Pass loomed ahead, and he took to the road, the memory of Pueblo and the horror there fading as he closed in on the mountains, shook off the night chill. It would be a steep climb, he knew, and cold up there, but he had a warm jacket and could make fire if he ran into a late snow squall.
He had been on the main road to Santa Fe a little more than an hour, with the hills now on both sides of him, when he heard the whipcrack of a rifle shot, followed by the popping sound of pistols. He thought he saw a puff of smoke rise up some three or four hundred yards ahead, but he was not sure.
He loosened the pistol in its holster and made sure he could pull the Winchester from its boot. There was a rise ahead, and the shooting had come from just beyond there. It grew quiet. And then, as he drew closer to the top of the rise, he heard a sound that made his blood turn chill.
A woman screamed, her voice high-pitched and laden with terror.
And then Lew was engulfed in a silence so deep, he thought he had grown deaf.
He topped the rise, his pistol drawn, his thumb on the hammer.
The woman screamed again, and Lew’s blood curdled with ice.
5
THERE WERE THREE MEN WRESTLING WITH A WOMAN. ANOTHER man lay motionless on the ground next to an overturned Red River cart hooked to a skittery mule that was braying and kicking out both hind legs as if trying to get rid of the wagon so it could run away. Three horses stood nearby, hitched to some stunted pines that grew alongside the road. The woman screamed again, and Lew hammered back the Colt and fired a shot into the air.
He raced Ruben down the slope to the bottom.
“The next shot will take off one of your heads,” Lew said. “You let that woman go. Now.”
One of the men looked up at him and drew his pistol. He started to bring it up. Lew leaned over the side of the horse, took aim, and fired a shot. The man clutched his chest and staggered backward, blood flowering like a crimson rose on his chest.
The mule broke and made a dash up the road. The men attacking the woman both drew their pistols and started shooting at Lew. He ducked and reined Ruben into a tight turn as the men scrambled over to their horses. Bullets sizzled the air over his head, and one whistled past his ear with an angry whine that sent shivers up his spine.
