Pitchfork Pass

by William W. Johnstone

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “Well, maybe hollering for your ma wasn’t such a good idea. The Old Man of the Mountain might hear us.”

  “Hell, O’Hara, after we let one of his men go, don’t you think he knows we’re here?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure he knows. But why hasn’t he attacked us?”

  “He’s in no hurry. He figures we can’t go anywhere without him knowing it.”

  “But we can. We’ll light a shuck come dark,” O’Hara said.

  Flintlock took a swig from the bottle and then said, “O’Hara, why are we sitting out here?”

  “Because we don’t like to be confined by four walls, I guess.”

  “Do you realize that right now a couple of the Old Man’s riflemen could be drawing a bead on us?”

  “Maybe we should go back inside,” O’Hara said.

  “Now that’s a crackerjack suggestion.” Flintlock rose to his feet. “Bring your chair and the bottle.”

  But he never made it to the door.

  A horse headed toward them at a dead run and on its back was the slumped figure of a rider. It was Tom Smith, and even at a distance Flintlock saw by the scarlet stains on his shirt and the shoulders of his horse that the man had been shot all to pieces.

  * * *

  O’Hara ran out and grabbed the reins of Smith’s mount, and Flintlock gently lowered the wounded man to the ground. Tom Smith was dying, but by superhuman effort he clung to life, determined to make his last words matter.

  “They took her . . . took Louise . . . left me for dead.” Smith’s words came embedded in pained gasps. He grabbed the sleeve of Flintlock’s buckskin shirt. “Save her, Sam . . . save her from the monster . . . Pitchfork Pass . . .”

  Tom Smith coughed up blood and then death drew a line under the narrative of the man’s life.

  CHAPTER TEN

  He dreamed his opium dreams of China.

  For a while at least, he returned to the Bund, where he’d learned much of his criminal trade. For hundreds of years the famous waterfront, teeming, noisy and rich, had been regarded as the very living symbol of Shanghai. Then and now the Bund stretched for a mile from along the west bank of the Huangpu River from the Waibaidu Bridge to the Nanpu Bridge, crowded with the architecture of a dozen foreign nations, including tall buildings in the Gothic style, the baroque, the Roman, the classical, the Renaissance and latterly, sprawling mansions that were a combination of British colonial and Chinese traditional.

  Jacob Hammer, as he was then, graduated with honors from Bund University, a hard school that taught the lessons of murder, extortion, rape, robbery and, above all else, the opium trade, a drug to which he’d become addicted.

  Hammer, now known as the Old Man of the Mountain, dreamed of good old days, the fat merchants he’d blackmailed, the men he’d robbed and often killed and the shrieking women he’d ravished, and he woke up, smiling, to the sound of a silver bell.

  The Old Man let the pipe fall from his mouth and slowly sat up from his pallet on the floor. He felt groggy as he always did and felt grief for his lost heaven. But he would smoke again soon and drift into paradise on a sapphire cloud.

  The Chinese girl with the bell stood with her head bowed, very still, silent. She was one of a pair the Old Man had bought from a Barbary Coast brothel. He used and abused them, reckoning their worth at exactly what he’d paid for them, five hundred dollars and a bull mastiff puppy.

  His gray head in his hands, the Old Man didn’t look up as he said, “Get the hell out of here. Send in Maxwell St. John.”

  A few moments later St. John, still limping from a leg wound he claimed he’d taken when he and another man got jumped by a thirty-strong Flagstaff posse, stepped inside and said, “You sent for me, boss?”

  “Has my bride arrived?”

  St. John, disgusted by the piss and vomit stink of the opium den, shook his head. “Not yet, boss.”

  “Tell me when she gets here. I wish to welcome her with all the pomp and ceremony due a princess.”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  “You can go now. No, wait.”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Have one of the men take ten thousand dollars from the revenues that just arrived from Philadelphia and tell him to give it to the Detroit pimp . . . what the hell is his name?”

  “Crayton Hanlon.” St. John grinned. “You have a way with words, boss. Revenues, no less. I’d say protection money.”

  “Yeah, you would. That’s why I’m giving the orders and you’re taking them.” The Old Man laid his opium pipe aside and rose unsteadily to his feet. “I want our man to warn Hanlon that I expect a five hundred percent return on my money. Tell him to hire more whores and work them to death if he must, so long as I show a profit.”

  St. John, a Texan and a named shootist, had killed eight men. He was tall, wiry, with a neatly trimmed goatee and reckless eyes. He smiled and said, “I’ll send Ryker Klein. He has a way of making two-bit hoodlums like Hanlon toe the line.”

  “Hanlon has six months. Make him aware of that. Tell him if he doesn’t pay up in time, Klein will visit him again.”

  St. John waited a respectful length of time then said, “Will there be anything else, boss?”

  “Yeah, send in the Chinese girls. Drag them out from under a man if need be. I want to be washed and dressed in my finest robes before I greet my bride.”

  * * *

  Louise Smith was sure her father was dead. She’d seen him reel in the saddle as he was shot multiple times and then he’d fallen to the ground. She had no chance to go to him. Rough men grabbed the reins of her horse and she was led away, surrounded by a grinning rider who pushed up her skirt and made vile remarks about her legs and breasts.

  Louise was numb, horrified by the death of her father. She rode in a daze, as if she weren’t there, as though all this were happening to someone else, a girl she watched in a nightmare.

  Her way led across a tableland of flat limestone rock, much cracked, bunchgrass and a few wildflowers struggling to grow in the crevices. A flight of crows flapped overhead, quarreling, filling the air with their irritable caw-caws. The day was still bright but massive thunderheads, black and ominous, piled high to the south and growled their presence.

  The rock bench gradually sloped to a natural grassy amphitheater about ten acres in extent, studded around its perimeter with mixed stands of juniper and piñon. Beyond the clearing rose the vast bulk of Balakai Mesa. Among its foothills was what at first glance appeared to be a crack in the rock, but the man riding beside Louise pointed in that direction and said, “That there is Pitchfork Pass, little lady.” Then, grinning, “Where your groom awaits you.” He winked at her. “If the Old Man of the Mountain can’t satisfy you, look me up.”

  Louise, more scared than she’d ever been in her life, stared straight ahead and said nothing.

  The pass was no more than a narrow arroyo with a rocky, brush-covered floor. On one side of the entrance was a V-shaped talus slope, on the other a sheer cliff that soared to about fifty feet above the flat. Unlit torches in iron brackets had been driven into both walls of the pass and to Louise’s horror, at regular intervals yellowed skulls grinned from rock niches, all of them painted in the style of the Mexican Day of the Dead sugar skulls. But these were not made of sugar; they belonged to men and woman who’d once been alive and had been decapitated on the maniacal whim of a madman for his amusement.

  “Halt. Who goes there?”

  Three riflemen blocked the passage ahead of Louise and the gunmen.

  “It’s me, Simpson.”

  “Come on ahead, Bill.” Then, “You got the bride?”

  “She’s right here, Cade, and she says she’s looking forward to her wedding night. Can’t wait to sleep with her handsome groom.”

  “Hell, you expect me to believe that?”

  Bill Simpson laughed. “No, I don’t.”

  Thunder boomed and lightning scrawled across t
he sky like the signature of a demented god. Simpson looked up at a rectangle of black sky as rain ticked around him and said, “Hope this doesn’t spoil the boss’s wedding plans.”

  The man called Cade slimed Louise with his gaze, grinned and said, “It wouldn’t spoil mine.”

  “Mine, neither,” Simpson said, and behind him men laughed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sam Flintlock stared moodily out the cabin window as thunder crashed and sizzling lightning bolts spiked across a land as stark, rugged and remote as the mountains of the moon.

  “What do we do, O’Hara?” he said.

  “Do about what?”

  Without turning, Flintlock said, “God, you can be a vexation by times. I mean what do we do about Louise Smith?”

  O’Hara had found rags and oil in the cabin, and now his Colt lay on the table in front of him in gleaming pieces. He inserted the cylinder back into the frame, pinned it in place and tested the hammer a few times before he said, “Where the hell is Pitchfork Pass?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “North or south of the mesa?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Want me to clean and oil your pistol?”

  “Yeah, it’s hanging there by the door.”

  O’Hara rose, slid Flintlock’s Colt from the holster and sat down again. He proceeded to remove the cylinder for cleaning and said, “This gun is dirty.”

  “It works.”

  “Much dirtier and it won’t work.”

  Thunder banged and for an instant the gloomy cabin was illuminated by a searing flash of white light.

  “Is my ma out there in this storm?” Flintlock said.

  “Probably so,” O’Hara said. He held up the Colt and stared down the barrel. He shook his head and made a tut-tut sound. “Dirty as a saddle tramp’s horse blanket.”

  “I hope she found shelter,” Flintlock said.

  “There might be caves around. She could be in a cave.”

  “Why doesn’t she come here?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t trust us.”

  “I’m her son, for God’s sake.”

  “She doesn’t know that.”

  “Hell, O’Hara, she saved my life.”

  “She killed one of the Old Man’s gunmen to protect Tom Smith and his daughter. Sammy, all she knew was that you were on the right side and could’ve been anybody.”

  “Where’s Barnabas when I need him? If anybody knows where Pitchfork Pass is, it would be him.” Flintlock turned from the window. “After all this rain, do you think you still could track Louise?”

  “You need Dan’l Boone.”

  “No, I need an Apache who scouted for the army. Instead I got you.”

  “I scouted for General Crook. One time he gave me a cigar and said I’d done a good job.”

  “Can we go to the spot where the girl was captured and track her from there?”

  “After a rain and across rock? It won’t be easy.”

  “Can we do it? You’re the scout that got a big cigar. Can you do it?”

  “I’ll give it a try. Sam, don’t let your gun get this dirty and dry again. At least give it some oil every now and then.”

  “I’ll try to remember your good advice,” Flintlock said. “By the way, the harness mule is gone.”

  O’Hara nodded. “Seen that. Must have wandered off.”

  “A mule will do that.”

  “That’s been my experience. I got kicked by an army mule once, never trusted one since.” Thunder bellowed, accompanied by a blinding glare of lightning. “Hell, that was close.”

  “Right above the cabin,” Flintlock said. He again stepped restlessly to the window and looked outside through hammering rain. “I thought it never rained in the Arizona Territory,” he said, irritated. Then, “What the hell?”

  O’Hara’s head snapped up. “What do you see?”

  “A feller.”

  “What kind of feller?”

  “A feller walking through the storm. Hell, now he’s shooting.”

  That last was followed by the rapid, flat reports of a Winchester rifle.

  O’Hara jumped to his feet. “Is he shooting at us?”

  “If he is, he’s missing badly.”

  “It ain’t a woman, is it?”

  “I can’t tell from here. No, he’s a feller, wearing oilskins and one of them plug hats. Hell, he’s coming this way at a run.”

  “Open the door, Sam.”

  “You sure? He might be shooting at my ma.”

  “More likely he met up with some of the Old Man’s gunmen.”

  “If he is, he’s putting a heap of git between him and them.”

  Flintlock swung the door open. A bullet immediately splintered wood from the jamb to his right, and a second and then a third zipped into the cabin like angry hornets. O’Hara picked himself off the floor and stood beside Flintlock. He yelled to the running man, “Move your ass!”

  “Never heard an Apache say that,” Flintlock said.

  “That was the Irishman in me talking,” O’Hara said.

  The runner finally reached the door and stumbled inside, bringing with him a flurry of rainwater and a peal of thunder.

  “Son of a bitch killed my mare.”

  A woman’s voice.

  O’Hara thumbed off a couple of shots, waited, and when there was no answering fire, closed the door. Then he turned and said, “We took you for a feller, maybe a sailorman.”

  “Who did?” the woman said.

  “Him,” O’Hara said, nodding at Flintlock.

  The woman removed her plug hat, revealing a mane of pinned-up blond hair. “All right, Geronimo, tell him I’m a woman.”

  “She’s a woman, Sam,” O’Hara said. “And my name is O’Hara.”

  “Could’ve fooled me,” the woman said. She pushed O’Hara aside, stepped to the door and opened it a crack, looked around, and then shoved it wider.

  “He’s gone,” she said. “I’m good with a rifle, but I didn’t even scratch the dirty, no-good louse.”

  The woman shut the door again and said, “Name’s Bridie O’Toole. I’m a Pinkerton detective and new to these parts.” She unbuttoned her oilskin and handed it, her Winchester and field glasses to O’Hara. “Here, Sitting Bull, put these away.”

  “O’Hara,” O’Hara said. “I’m part Apache, part Irish.”

  “What part of you is Irish?”

  O’Hara spread a palm at his waist and swept downward. “This part.”

  “It figures. That’s an Irishman’s favorite part as well.”

  Bridie O’Toole was a petite, slender woman who looked to be in her midtwenties. She wore a high-collared blouse, a long, canvas skirt and high-heeled, lace-up boots and was armed with a Smith & Wesson. 44 in a cross-draw holster. She was saved from plainness by beautiful brown eyes and a wide, expressive mouth that seemed used to smiling.

  The woman looked around the cabin, then stepped to the shelf above the fireplace and picked up the rye bottle, sloshed it to gauge the contents, uncorked it and took a deep slug. She shuddered, recorked the bottle and said, “Thanks, I needed that.”

  “You’re welcome,” Flintlock said. “Now, tell us why are you in the Territory?”

  “I could ask you the same question, tattoo man.”

  “I’m searching for my mother. She’s a Pinkerton detective like you, and my name is Sam.”

  “Is her name Brown, Sally Brown?”

  “Yeah. She calls herself Miss Brown.”

  “That’s not her real name, you know. Sally likes to work under an alias.”

  “I figured that much.”

  “I don’t know her real name, but I’m sure it isn’t Flintlock, so she can’t be your mother. No matter, I’ve been sent to find her. She hasn’t dispatched a wire as to her whereabouts in a couple of months.”

  “Her whereabouts is right here,” Flintlock said. “She saved my life yesterday, shot one of the Old Man’s gunmen off me.”

  “Th
e Old Man of the Mountain?”

  “That’s what he calls himself.”

  “He’s the reason Sally is here, and me. President Arthur wants us to disrupt his business any way we can. The Old Man’s real name is Jacob Hammer, and the president wants him destroyed, or weakened enough that he’ll become desperate and make mistakes.”

  “Hell, why doesn’t he send in the army?”

  “He tried that before and it didn’t work out very well. If Hammer’s scouts see army troops they’ll raise the alarm and he’ll escape into this damned wilderness and conduct his business elsewhere. For him it will be a minor inconvenience, that’s all, and another big embarrassment for the president. He’s fond of saying that no duty is neglected by his administration and no adventurous project will ever alarm the nation. Invading Balakai Mesa to destroy Hammer is an adventurous project and one likely to fail. He trusts the Pinkertons to do what has to be done, and we will not disappoint him.”

  “So, they sent another woman to do the job? Don’t the Pinks have any male detectives?” Flintlock said.

  “Sure, they do, but they’re spread pretty thin. I volunteered for this assignment.” Bridie read the question on Flintlock’s face and said, “There are a lot of men who say women shouldn’t be in this profession and, like Sally, I volunteered to prove them wrong. I like to think we also took a step closer to getting the vote by proving that a woman can do any job a man can.”

  “A woman should stay home while her man hunts,” O’Hara said. “That has always been the way.”

  “Is that a fact? Well, this lady does her own hunting.” She turned to Flintlock. “I need to find Sally. Have you the slightest idea where she is?”

  “The last place was up on a ridge”—Flintlock thumbed over his shoulder—“that way, shooting a man who badly wanted to kill me.”

  “And smoking a cheroot,” O’Hara said.

  Bridie looked crestfallen. “Not much to go on, is it?”

  “Not much at all,” Flintlock said.

  “Well, for the moment we sit tight and see if Sally shows,” the woman said. She opened the door of one of the two tiny bedrooms, glanced around and said, “No, too cramped.” The second bedroom showed more promise. “This looks fine, a woman’s quarters,” she said. “I’ll sleep in here.”