A Gift From Crick

by John McNally

  ‘Bear,’ said Mooney.

  ‘Pardon?’ said the clerk, a young man with hollow cheeks and skin as white and smooth as a petticoat.

  ‘My face,’ said Mooney, making a claw of his hand. ‘A bear.’ The clerk’s eyes dropped with embarrassment and two pools of red lit his pale cheeks. The second clerk glanced around then turned back and ducked his head towards the ledger.

  Mooney put three bags of gold on the counter, the clerk weighed them and said, ‘Twenty-two ounces, that’s $440.’

  He kept his eyes on the scales, fumbled under the counter and pushed the notes across without looking up. Mooney counted them, taking his time, folded the money into his jacket pocket while his hunter’s eyes missed nothing and gave nothing away.

  ‘I’ll see you again,’ he said, staring with the empty eyes of a hungry red-tailed hawk. He turned and left, closing the door with care.

  He stood on the sidewalk. The plan that occurred to him inside the assay office became clearer in his mind and the excitement burned through him and lit up his face. He knew how to bring real money in and with luck, teach the rest of his gang a lesson they would never forget. He would get them to rob the assay office and then he would steal the gold from them.

  He called at the store and spent some time at the livery and maybe an hour or so later, he walked back to the saloon, trying hard not to smirk.

  CHAPTER 4

  Inside the Rusty Nail saloon they worked hard at their drinking. When Dave Mooney sat he saw that all four of them burned with a whiskey flush, their faces bright with sweat and their voices dull with drink. As Miles Horn talked, he struck a match, held it to his cigarette and the flame lit up the red and blue veins that threaded his cheeks.

  ‘Come on, Dave, have a drink with us.’ His voice sounded full of rust and deep wrinkles meshed his face. He pushed a chair across with his foot and Mooney sat, picked up the nearest glass and drained it.

  ‘Hand over my money,’ said Fred Cooper in a harsh voice, staring at Dave Mooney. His face looked overheated as he boiled in his own juices.

  Mooney struck like an angry snake; he whipped his gun out and the Colt barrel sliced the air. With a vicious thud it hit Cooper’s head and he went down like a bag of nails. Miles Horn reached across for Cooper’s glass and finished his drink.

  ‘He’s going to be real sore at you when he wakes up,’ said Flem Mooney in a couldn’t care less voice.

  ‘What’s new?’ said Dave Mooney. ‘Here’s your money, forty dollars apiece. Reckon I’ll be off.’

  ‘Whoa, Dave,’ said Chris Stover. ‘Like Miles said, stay and have a drink.’

  Mooney stayed and drank with them, going glass for glass, waiting for Cooper to come around before he told them his plan. Flem Mooney picked Cooper up, threw him in a chair and laid his head on the plank table. What a poor excuse for men, Dave Mooney thought, as he looked at them over the rim of his glass. They all carried on drinking, the air dense with the smell of sweaty clothes and bodies laced with tobacco smoke.

  Cooper was less trouble than they expected when he woke up. He sat up and rolled his neck, coughed a hacking sound deep in his chest and just carried on drinking. His eyes held an aggressive glint like an angry bear, but he did not speak. What with the drink and the wallop on the head, Cooper’s face looked a picture of confusion. There were three other drinks lined up in front of him.

  ‘They’re yours, Fred and here’s forty dollars,’ said Flem Mooney.

  ‘I’ve got even better news for all of you,’ Dave Mooney said. ‘Listen good.’ He dropped his voice and almost laughed out loud when the four men leaned forward like hogs at a trough. He held a cigarette between two fingers and he pointed with it at the men around the table. ‘I’ve got one last job for all of us if you’re interested and then I’ll quit for good.’

  ‘We’re listening,’ said Chris Stover in a thick voice, his long face and narrow shoulders hunched over his glass.

  ‘This settlement’s alive with placers, they’re all over the hills, there’s a goddamn gold rush on. I’ve been inside the assay office down by the livery. My guess is that the back room is full of gold. As far as I can see there’s only two men working in there and they’re just a pair of scrub faced Bible pushers.’

  ‘What have you got in mind?’ said Stover; he glanced at Flem Mooney but turned back to his brother Dave and waited.

  ‘Well, I’ll keep it simple for you, boys,’ said Dave Mooney. ‘We bust in, grab what we can and get a whole lot of gone between us and this place. Can you follow that?’

  ‘Hey, nobody don’t talk to me like that,’ said his brother Flem. ‘We get it and I’ll run it.’

  Flem Mooney held a cigarette between yellowed fingers and squinted through layers of drifting smoke. His face glowed with drink and his unshaved jaw looked to be filmed with black grit. Dave Mooney looked across and saw the jealous little boy he’d fought with for twenty years.

  ‘Whatever you want, brother,’ said Dave Mooney. ‘Listen, I already bought some old grain sacks from the store to carry the gold and I’ve hired a mule to carry it, it’s down at the livery. Hell, don’t you worry none about me, I’ll follow you ... this last time.’

  Fred Cooper spoke up, he slurred his first few words, paused and tried again.

  ‘Right, let’s get to it. But Flem runs it. Dave, you do as you’re told. I ain’t forgot that you put a knot in my head and when this is over, you need to get gone or you’ll have me to answer to.’

  ‘That sounds like a promise you know you can’t keep,’ said Dave Mooney, his eyes scorched with anger and alcohol.

  Cooper sat and clenched his fists; they could hear the rage build inside his shallow breathing. They saw his sunken cheeks, tiny pointed teeth and dark baleful eyes but none of them could hear the whirring in his head like a hornets nest. Flem Mooney laid a hand on Cooper’s arm and said, ‘Leave it, Fred, we got a whole lot on our minds right now. Get the gold then you sort out your differences, you hear me on that? Let’s stick together, we need all the guns we can get. We finish the bottle and check we’re all loaded.’ He looked at his brother. ‘Will you stop riling, Dave, you’re getting on my wrong side right quick.’

  ‘The sooner we get it done the sooner we go our own ways,’ said Dave Mooney. He took off his hat and ran his hand through his thick dark hair. And the sooner you boys ride to hell, he thought, putting his hat back on, slanted on his forehead and low over his eyes.

  CHAPTER 5

  ‘Right,’ said Flem Mooney, ‘here’s how it plays out.’ He ran a finger around the inside of his empty glass and licked it. ‘We all go down to this assay office. Miles, you cover the door from the inside while the rest of us get the gold. You see anything that don’t smell right, you holler—’

  Dave Mooney interrupted, ‘There’s windows each side of the door onto the street.’

  Flem stared at him with his lips pressed together and his eyes riveted on him as he spoke. ‘So if anyone comes you’ll see them. Miles, you let them come on in then shove your gun in their face and get them sat on the floor.’

  Horn nodded.

  ‘We fill the bags, lock the two men from the office in the back room and we get gone down the road without anyone knowing we’ve been there.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Stover, ‘are we bringing the horses up from the livery?’

  ‘No,’ said Flem Mooney. His face and moustache flared in the cupped flame of a match as he lit another cigarette. ‘See, we don’t want anyone figuring there’s anything going on, we need to be in and out without making a fuss.’

  Dave Mooney tapped the table with his glass and said, ‘How about I go next door to the livery? I can saddle up once we’ve got the gold and bring the horses up to the back.’

  Stover nodded. ‘That makes sense, we wait in the office once we’re done and give Dave a couple of minutes to sort out the horses and then we walk out back.’

  ‘Meantimes, we deal with anyone who turns up,’ said Flem Mooney, wiping the drin
k off his moustache with his wrist.

  ‘Kill them you mean,’ said Cooper with a grin.

  ‘No, Fred,’ said Flem in a quiet voice, ‘we don’t want no commotion. We hold them and crack a few heads before we leave. You with me on that, Fred?’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Cooper, draining his glass and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He had three hand guns, two in his rig and a big Colt Walker he took out of his waistband and shoved into the front of his shirt across his stomach. He lurched to his feet and steadied himself with his hands on the table. ‘Let’s go pick some cotton,’ he said.

  Miles Horn bit a lump out of a plug of tobacco, wadded it into his cheek and with his jaw packed tight began to chew. He smiled, showing a mouthful of bad teeth brown with tobacco juice.

  They all started to move.

  ‘Cooper,’ said Dave Mooney in a low voice, ‘take that daft look off your face, don’t do nothing mule headed. Like Flem said, you keep it simple and quiet.’

  Cooper’s slit eyes burned with resentment but before he could speak, the others headed for the door. Cooper stood as tight as a coiled spring aching for release. He drained his glass and felt the alcohol spread through his brain like someone whispering in his ear and the rage built like a hot oven in his head until his mind fairly hummed with fury. He cussed under his breath and half ran after the others, his hand on his Colt Walker. His eyes, level and unblinking, stared straight at Dave Mooney’s broad back.

  Mooney walked a couple of paces in front of him, the others already on the street. Mooney’s big body stood silhouetted in the doorway and Cooper felt the anger well up and overflow, flooding his brain. He drew the gun out of his shirt and thumbed back the hammer. As Mooney left, he let the doors swing back and they hit Cooper, who stumbled, lurched upright and burst out of the door like a rabid dog.

  He lifted the gun as he came outside, the sun reflected off the windows opposite like pools of fire. He blinked with the glare and pulled the trigger.

  Dave Mooney had stepped down off the boardwalk into the powdery street. Three strangers turned into the saloon doorway as Fred Cooper rushed out and fired. Cooper’s shot took the first man square in the chest and the blow from the big Colt bullet slammed him backwards and he fell without a sound. The smoke from the shot filled the air and the shade under the veranda hung heavy with the smell of it. There was a moment of stunned silence and then the dead man’s friends backed away a pace, shouted in confused outrage and drew their guns.

  Cooper saw them draw and the Colt bucked in his hand, he struggled to bring it back in line and fired twice more. In the confined space the sound thundered against the walls and the air exploded with smoke and flame. The two men went down hard, one with a stomach wound and the other with a bullet in the groin. He thrashed his legs on the floor for a moment and died.

  All hell broke loose in the street. Men shouted, women screamed and everyone ran for cover. Cooper stood in a cloud of gun smoke and cordite, a huge grin lit up his face like a Jack-o’-Lantern. Dave Mooney ran down the street, not sure what had happened but when shooting starts behind you, he reckoned, you high-tailed out of there and thought about it later.

  A few of the men on the street fired at Cooper, peppering the front of the saloon. A post by Cooper’s head splintered from a shot, the old wood gouged white by the bullet. Cooper felt a sharp pain on his face as the splinter nicked him and flicked a thread of blood across his forehead. He ducked and ran into the street.

  Flem Mooney, Miles Horn and Chris Stover turned and saw Cooper racing down the street towards them, taking fire from all sides. They all drew their guns without hesitation and opened up on the bystanders, blasting anyone they could see. At least four men and one woman were caught in the hail of lead and lay dead or moaned with pain.

  Dave Mooney fired into a crowd and his deep voice boomed above the noise.

  ‘Get the hell away, all of you,’ he shouted and the five gunmen ran for the livery.

  Gunfire chased them down the street as more men poured out of the saloon and store and took up the fight. As they passed the assay office, Dave Mooney shouted, ‘Inside, let’s finish what we started.’

  He kicked the door open and they all crowded in. A miner at the counter half turned and Fred Cooper shot him in the face.

  Dave Mooney stepped over the body and grabbed the counter clerk, knotted his shirt in his big calloused fist, and slammed his head down hard against the wood. Chris Stover slid across the counter on his backside, drew his gun and shoved it in the second clerk’s frightened face.

  ‘Where’s the gold?’ he screamed.

  The clerk swallowed, his eyes wide with fear.

  ‘In the strong room at the back,’ he said, his voice shaking as a nerve pulsed in his throat.

  ‘Open it,’ said Stover in a quiet cold voice.

  ‘The key’s on the table over there,’ the clerk said and pointed with his head.

  Flem Mooney vaulted the counter, took the key, opened the door and stepped inside. They heard him whistle in surprise.

  ‘Looks like we’re going to need big bags, boys,’ he called over his shoulder.

  Dave Mooney dragged the clerk over the counter, threw him on the floor and gave him a savage kick in the ribs.

  ‘Watch him,’ he said to Horn and he lifted the counter flap and went to the strong room. He pulled a couple of burlap sacks from his coat pocket as he went in.

  ‘Looks like we struck a real gold vein, brother,’ said Flem and they started to fill the sacks with the nuggets and dust lining the shelves.

  They all heard the shouts from the street but there was no gunfire. Dave Mooney tied the full sacks with twine and hauled them into the front office.

  ‘There’s a passel of folk coming down this way,’ said Cooper, looking out of the window, his bloodshot eyes flashing with excitement. He started to reload one of his guns.

  Dave Mooney hefted the two sacks, one in each hand onto his big shoulders.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘there must be over a hundred pounds of gold here.’ He puffed his cheeks and blew out his breath. With his thick neck corded with veins, his shoulders wide and sloping, his eyebrows a dark uninterrupted line and his dark beard, he looked like a monstrous shadow.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Stover.

  ‘No,’ Mooney said, a little too quickly in a voice as brittle and sharp as flint. He quietened his tone. ‘I’ll need all of you to cover me while I sort out the horses and the mule.’

  Flem Mooney studied him for a moment, he bit down on his lower lip then nodded and moved to stand next to Chris Stover and Fred Cooper.

  ‘Give them hell, boys,’ he said. ‘I’ll hold back and shoot when you two need to reload. Miles, we got no cause to be quiet. Now shoot the two you’re holding back there.’

  The two clerks looked ashen. Horn hesitated then pointed with his gun barrel to the back room and the men ducked inside. He slammed and locked the door then strode to the front. He stepped onto the sidewalk, drew his second gun and opened up with both of them onto the crowd outside.

  ‘You’re heck on wheels, Miles, right enough,’ said Cooper, who moved next to him and started shooting. ‘Let’s have us a hog killing time.’

  Dave Mooney went past them, struggling with the weight of gold in the sacks. He disappeared down the alley to the back of the livery stables.

  The shots from the assay office ripped into the crowd in the street, the air layered with dust, gun smoke and death. Blood stained the street and the smell of it rose in a clammy shroud. A woman cried and a man screamed in agony.

  The remaining townsfolk turned and ran, they pushed, shoved and trampled anyone who got in their way. Horn and Cooper backed into the building to reload. Behind them Flem Mooney threw a chair through a front window and showered the sidewalk with glass. He stood silhouetted in the opening and waited. He saw a head rise up behind a water trough, and he fired and the head ducked back out of sight.

  A shot from the street shatter
ed the other window and blew the glass across the office floor. Flem Mooney crunched across to the empty window frame and shot a man kneeling by a barrel across the street.

  The noise of the gunfire rolled out from the settlement and climbed the valley sides. Miners from the surrounding hills started to stream down from their workings into the settlement. They ran from the rocks and trees or rode down on mules and horses, they held hand guns or rifles across their chests as they came. Grim faced, they hollered and called to each other and gathered together in front of the saloon to hear what had happened.

  ‘Chris,’ said Flem Mooney, concentrating on the street, ‘get on down the side of the building and cover the back, you hear?’

  Stover went out of the door and ran in a crouch down between the buildings.

  A few minutes later he rushed back, leaned in through the broken window and said, ‘Dave’s leading the horses out now, time to get gone,’ and he hurried back up the alley way.

  The three men in the office moved out after him. Cooper stopped at the corner.

  ‘I’ll cover you,’ he said.

  The street seemed empty but he stood and hoped that someone would show their face. He never regretted killing anyone, he waited with as much conscience as his shadow. He heard the horses’ hoofs thump as they crowded into the alley behind him. He emptied his gun into the street and he ran to his horse.

  They all mounted apart from Dave Mooney, who stood and held the reins of a tired looking mule with the grain sacks strapped on its back.

  ‘My horse is lame,’ he said, ‘I had to leave it in the stall.’

  ‘We’ve got to leave you too, Dave,’ said Flem Mooney in a quiet voice, his face still and expressionless like a flat wall. He grabbed the mule reins from his brother. ‘You’re on your own, find us up at Rogue River in two days.’ His eyes filled with spite. ‘If you can.’