A Gift From Crick

by John McNally

  Fred Cooper leaned forward in his saddle, rested a hand on the pommel, wiped his nose with his coat sleeve and smiled, his pinched face brutal and as tight as a clenched fist.

  Dave Mooney spat on the floor and moved back a step as the horses snorted and pitched their heads and stamped their feet with impatience.

  He started towards the livery when a rider burst around the corner of the building, pulled his horse up hard and scrambled for his gun. Chris Stover shot him out of his saddle and he flipped backwards as if someone had yanked him over with an invisible wire. The empty horse tried to run but Stover caught the trailing reins and said, ‘Here, Dave, you always played fair by me. Maybes it didn’t pan out, but I can’t see you left for dead. Mount up right smart.’

  Mooney hesitated as they all sat and waited. He gave Stover a withering look then shrugged and vaulted into the saddle.

  ‘Let’s ride,’ said Flem Mooney and they all booted their horses out into open country.

  Fred Cooper had a face like thunder, he desperately wanted to leave Dave Mooney behind, the town folk would rip him apart. Dave brought up the rear and fought to hide his own disappointment. There was nothing wrong with his horse, he just did not want to leave with them. The last thing he wanted was to be was riding out with this lot for company and two sacks full of nothing.

  CHAPTER 6

  As the Mooney gang ran away, Eddie Carter cantered his horse through Oregon Territory towards Sailors Diggings. He felt bone tired as if he had not slept in years. He found that if he twisted slightly in the saddle his wound seemed easier. Now and again he slipped his boots out of the stirrups to ease the pain that throbbed over his left hip. The shock from the shot crept through his body, his left arm shivered and he felt light-headed. He rode his big black Morgan horse and he could feel that he wanted to run; the horse stamped and tossed his head, shaking his mane but Carter held him back and moved smoothly with the sway of the horse’s back.

  The dusty narrow trail climbed through a steep sided rock canyon, rising to an upland covered in trees and there the country opened out and the land fell away. He realized that he was near Cave Junction and knew he was getting close. He stopped and looked down over the horse’s head while he absent-mindedly stroked his ears, he could see there was mining in the hills. He saw footbridges across streams and creeks made of felled logs still covered in bark and moss, large rocks and mining pits with leavings heaped beside them. He noticed tents, make-shift shelters put together from tree boughs covered in old calico shirts, rickety plank hovels and a couple of log cabins.

  Carter arrived at Sailors Diggings in the early evening. It lay tucked under a mountain that rose above the buildings and bristled with dark leafed timber. He could smell wet stone and warm dust and saw a long ribbon of water coming down through a funnel of trees but no-one seemed to be working hereabouts. He rode down the main street with people standing around in groups and was surprised at how busy the place seemed. He pulled up in front of a store, tied his horse and walked across to a muddle of locals gathered outside the Rusty Nail saloon. A man stood on a wooden box and talked down to them. He wore a smart brown suit and vest, had shrewd eyes and oiled glossy hair under the rim of his bowler hat. He stood on a box, his spindly legs under a stomach that sagged and bulged like an over-stuffed pillow. His thick solid looking moustache went down the sides of his mouth to his chin. Carter took an instant dislike to him but could not have said why. Meet Horace Crick.

  Now Horace did not make his own fortune, his sort never do, he came into it from his father. His old man was a crook who sold land he didn’t own to unsuspecting farmers and fiddled Army supply contracts.

  Horace inherited his money ten years ago when he was about twenty. His father fell off a barn roof and broke his neck. That was Horace’s story anyway. Folk could never quite see why old Crick would be on a barn roof in the first place but apparently he was and then, accidently it seems, he came crashing down head first. Lucky Horace.

  Carter stood on the edge of the crowd and listened to him speak.

  ‘We need all the help we can get,’ Crick said. ‘We’ve got over twenty men out there chasing these cold-blooded murderers. I want more of you to join the hunt. Now many of you know me, Horace Crick, as a man of my word.’ No-one spoke. ‘They stole close to $75,000 worth of gold from my assay office.’ A murmur went through those listening. ‘Well, let me tell you something – I’m offering a big reward.’ He paused and halved the figure he thought of. ‘Two thousand dollars to anyone who gets that gold back for me.’

  ‘How many dead are there?’ a woman asked.

  ‘Seventeen including two women,’ said Crick, bowing his head dramatically. ‘We pray for their souls.’

  ‘Who done it?’ called another voice.

  ‘Well, there was at least five of them, maybe more, things aren’t too clear as it all happened right quick. Two of the men looked alike – we believe they’re brothers, one had a scarred face. Someone reckons they recognized one as a rat called Fred Cooper. That’s all we’ve got.’

  He coughed and took his watch out of his vest pocket.

  ‘Now as I say, they rode out not thirty minutes ago and we had men on their trail ten minutes later. I figure we need another group to follow on and help out. They rode northwest to O’Brien.’ The men surrounding him began to shout, wave guns and everyone started talking at once.

  Carter turned, mounted up and wheeled away out of the settlement. He knew it must be the same gang and his rage grew stronger, his hands trembled and his face clustered with anger. He knew the land a little around O’Brien and he urged his horse on towards it, allowing the Morgan to have a loose rein and the stallion’s hoofs hammered against the hard packed earth until his neck and flanks shone dark with sweat and wisps of saliva flew from his mouth. Carter closed in.

  Ahead of him, the Mooney gang had galloped hard after they left the settlement and then eased their horses to a steady canter. Flem Mooney still pulled the mule with the sacks on a long rein behind him.

  ‘This mule’s winded by the weight of the gold,’ he shouted above the drum of the hoofs. ‘We need to take it easy for a while. Keep an eye on the back trail.’

  They all turned in their saddles but the horizon was clear. After another five minutes Chris Stover hawked the dust from his throat and said, ‘How about we split up?’

  They all slowed to a walk. Fred Cooper pulled alongside Stover, wiped the sweat off his face with his shirt and said, ‘What about the gold? I ain’t going nowhere without my cut.’

  Miles Horn nodded in agreement.

  ‘Wait,’ said Dave Mooney, ‘how in the hell are we going to carry our own shares if we split it? There’s only two sacks and one mule.’ He did not want any of them looking in the sacks. But no-one had an answer anyway so they speeded up and rode on in silence.

  A while later Cooper said, ‘This goddamn mule ain’t making good enough time. If they set off after us they’re going to catch us – unless we share the gold out.’

  Dave Mooney scowled at Cooper’s back, he knew that if they opened the sacks he was in big trouble for sure. He looked around and wondered if he should drop back and ride off and leave them to it; they’d likely let him go but Cooper might just gun him down for the hell of it. He slowed his horse and glanced back down the trail.

  ‘Lookit,’ he called, pointing back towards Sailors Diggings. In the distance a cloud of dust snaked over the horizon, a black speck appeared and then others gathered around it like distant flies. In a moment or two they could make out horses and riders, and the thrum of horse hoofs rolled towards them as the riders flowed like liquid down a ridge, pulling up a screen of dirt from the trail.

  ‘We got company all right,’ said Flem Mooney. ‘Ride hard.’

  They galloped on until Chris Stover called, ‘They’re gaining on us, this load’s too goddamn heavy for the mule. They’ll be on us in the next hour.’

  ‘Dump the gold, Flem,’ shouted Dave Mooney.

&
nbsp; ‘Never. We shot them up good back there, they’re only used to grubbing in the ground, they’re better with a shovel than a gun. I say we shoot it out. They’ll like as run when they see we’ve got some backbone.’

  ‘Look over yonder,’ said Cooper, pointing to a high butte that rose steeply from the flat pasture. It was a hump of land clustered with rock and trees. ‘Let’s get over there and take the fight to them. We can hold out until nightfall and shoot them up some. They won’t have the guts to stay after dark.’

  ‘Let’s do it,’ said Flem Mooney.

  They left the trail and headed for the safety of the rocks.

  Eddie Carter heard the gunfire. He rode through a stand of pine up an incline coated with tangled bushes towards the shooting. He remembered that the Illinois River ran in these parts but thought it was further north, and he cut through the rough landscape towards the noise. He topped a ridge and immediately in front of him the land lifted in a deep sided hill that rose to a small plateau. Outcrops of rock jutted from the worn slopes bevelled and scalloped by the wind over time and ponderosa pine grew in scattered clumps across the small flat hill top.

  He pulled his horse up, took his field glasses out of their battered green leather case and studied the land. He saw what he figured was the vigilante posse, they surrounded the base of the hill in a scattered circle, hidden behind rocks and trees and shot at the outlaws above them on the high ground.

  He saw occasional gun flashes from the top and noticed that two of the gang hid in the trees covering this side. He heard shots from the far side and figured they had spread out to stop anyone climbing up. A deep draw ran down one side and he guessed the Mooneys rode up that way. As he watched, a vigilante rider kicked his horse into a run and tried to scramble up the same draw but a gun flashed from the rocks above it and the boom of a rifle echoed across the plain as the rider toppled from his horse and fell in a dusty heap.

  Carter dismounted, pulled his horse forward to a straggling stunted tree, tied the reins off to a low branch and went forward on foot. He took his time, his gaze fixed on the rocks above him. As he neared the foot of the hill, he crawled into a ditch boiling with insects and inched through an untidy lump of bushes into tall rank grass. He sat up, hidden by the undergrowth and loaded his carbine. He took out a paper cartridge, half cocked the rifle, pulled the rifle lever down and slotted the cartridge in with his thumb. He brought the lever back and watched the breech cut the paper end of the cartridge off. With the firing cap ready, he could see the gunpowder and felt confident it would fire.

  He looked up when he heard movement to his left and he watched a vigilante stand and race over to a tree at the base of the gradient. Carter glanced up and one of the outlaws rose up from the cover of the rocks and fired two quick shots with a handgun. The second shot caught the vigilante in the shoulder and he cried out and hunkered down behind the tree trunk. Carter raised his carbine, pulled the hammer back to full cock, tucked the stock into his shoulder and waited. He felt the warm smooth wood of the stock against his cheek as he sighted down the barrel at the rock where the gang member last showed himself. Then he patiently waited for him to break cover. The wounded vigilante pulled himself to his feet and tried to run back to safety and as soon as he set off, the gunman stood and Carter had a clear view of his tall thin silhouette. He squeezed the trigger and the heavy bullet whacked the gunman in the chest and he toppled like a felled tree back into the rocks.

  ‘Miles,’ he heard another outlaw call from off to the left but Miles could not answer, for he was dead.

  Carter knew that he needed to get to the top of the hill. The Mooneys were trapped but in the standoff, the vigilantes were getting picked off while they figured out what to do. Carter realized that if the outlaws held out until dark they could break out and disappear in the night. He decided that the only clear gap lay just above him where he had just shot the one called Miles.

  Take it to them, he said to himself, don’t think about it; just get it done. It’s time to kill them all deader than hell. He crept forward, sliding like the shadow of a mountain lion and closed in on the hillside and the Mooneys.

  Two vigilantes saw Carter come out of the grass and start to climb.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know, Walt, I cain’t see his face. Besides which, there’s a lot of folk with us that we ain’t never seen afore. I hear there’s hundreds of placers mining at the Diggings and we got a real mix of them out here looking. All I know is he’s going up the hill so he must be with us. I bet he’s the feller who just shot one of them deader than a door nail.’

  ‘Let’s give him some covering fire, there’s one of the gunmen over by that tree yonder stopping us from riding up that draw.’

  ‘Right, make sure you fire well away from the feller climbing though, we don’t want to hit him.’

  ‘When was the last time you hit anything, Walt?’

  The two men started shooting and kept up a slow deliberate volley of fire until they saw Carter reach the top and disappear into the rocks. The two vigilantes reloaded and waited.

  Carter rolled into a cleft between two rocks. He sat and listened with the heat from the rock on his back and the hot smell of warm stone around him. The sweat coursed down his ribs. He pressed a hand to his side, he felt blood leaking from the hip wound, the dampness on his fingers and thigh. He shrugged his shoulders, the belt felt tight and he could do nothing about it now. He reloaded his carbine, the stock gleamed and he could smell the tallow that he had rubbed in to it the week before. He took his hat off, glanced over a boulder and looked for his next shot.

  He scanned the ground, looking for the gunman covering the entrance to the plateau. If he cleared the way the vigilantes could ride up and finish the job.

  The grass and undergrowth rippled in the light breeze and he saw a huge slab of rock by the opening to the draw. He caught sight of a red shirt in the shade of the boulder. As he watched the man shift position and half turn, Carter recognized the big man with the drooping moustache as one of the brothers from the morning attack. He remembered the murder of his friend Nate and the anger welled up in his throat but he fought for control and calm before his shot. He rested his elbows on the rock in front of him, pulled the metal butt plate of the rifle into his shoulder, focused down the iron sights and squeezed the trigger. He watched the dust puff up from the gunman’s shirt and nailed him in the side of the chest. The impact knocked Flem Mooney forward like he had been clubbed from behind with a giant hammer and he rolled down the rocks to the bottom of the hill. A shout of triumph went up from the watching vigilantes when they saw him fall.

  Carter reloaded and looked across the small plateau. He noticed Fred Cooper, recognized him immediately and recalled his name and how he killed his friend in cold blood. Cooper stood about forty paces away and their eyes locked across the clearing. Cooper raised his gun but Carter threw a shot off first. The bullet caught Cooper’s gun hand, blew off his thumb and hurled his gun into the air. Cooper reeled back a pace, sat down hard and clamped his mangled hand under his other arm.

  ‘That’s for Nate,’ whispered Carter but everything jacked out of focus, the energy seemed to drain from his body and his own loss of blood forced him to sit. Spots swam before his eyes and his head felt like it was drifting off his shoulders. He passed out.

  Carter had killed two of the outlaws, Flem Mooney and Miles Horn, and he had wounded Fred Cooper. While Carter lay unconscious, a bunch of vigilantes rode up the unguarded draw onto the hilltop, looking to ring the last drop of blood out of the murderers that shot up Sailors Diggings.

  A vigilante raced a big Dun horse across the plateau. He slapped it across the rump with his hat and bolted for the far side of the hill. Chris Stover jumped up from behind a bush, shouted and waved his arms to spook the horse as he tried to drag the rider from the saddle. The horse veered sideways but the rider hung on and, as he passed Stover, he drew a gun, turned in the saddle and shot Stover in the knee. Stove
r grunted, his long legs crumpled under him, his wounded leg twisted awkwardly. He pushed himself back to his feet and raised his rifle to his shoulder. A second rider came straight at him from behind and trampled his thin body into the dust. Five more riders circled him and they sat on their horses and shot Stover, shredding his carcass to a bloody pulp. It looked like there was not enough of him left to fill a bucket. Someone shouted, ‘Well, if you have to kill a feller you might as well kill him once and for all.’

  CHAPTER 7

  Dave Mooney left. He saw the others being picked off one at a time and he slithered through the rocks and made his way down the opposite side of the butte. Grit slid under his boots and dust rose into his face. Below him the hillside dropped steeply, thick with trees and streaked with shadow, the air alive with noise, the tree branches creaked and the wind rustled the foliage. As the land levelled off he swished his way through grass that felt dry and stiff against his legs.

  Now Dave Mooney thought himself a lucky man and he trusted his luck. As he came down off the hill he looked around and could not see anyone. His head ached and he could taste the whiskey they drank in town and his tongue felt like leather. He could smell the hot arid air. The sun seemed so bright that the whole sky shone. Still, he reckoned he wasn’t doing too badly considering the afternoon he’d had.

  He recalled the simple plan that came to him while he waited in the assay office. He felt mad as hell when the others told him they did not want to ride with him anymore but he let the fury simmer while he chewed over how he would make them pay. Well, he’d show them, they’d stepped on a rattler’s tail when they riled him. The assay office was loaded with gold and he was the goddamn buck to take it. Even better, he’d get his dumb brother and the other beef-heads to help him rob the office. Then he could let them lead any posse away while he rode off in the other direction, alone and rich.