Pitchfork Pass

by William W. Johnstone

  This time Hammer’s backhand did not miss.

  Louise’s head snapped back from the power of the blow, but she absorbed the pain and shock and turned defiant eyes to her assailant. “You better murder me now, because if I become pregnant by you I’ll cut your madman’s spawn from my body and kill us both.”

  As two of his gunmen burst into the room, Hammer snarled like an enraged animal and said to Louise, “You’re done, slut. Finished. I would have given you riches, power, influence, in exchange for a son, but now all I’ll give you is the sharp edge of the headman’s sword.”

  Blood trickled from the corner of Louise’s mouth. “Filth, better I have my head cut off than lie even a minute in your bed.”

  “Boss, you’re wounded,” one of the gunmen said.

  Hammer ignored the man and pulled Louise’s face closer to his. “You will die, depend on it. But it is not for you to know the day or the hour. One morning, it may be a week from now, or a month, or a year, I will wake from sleep and say to myself, Yes, this is the day I cut off the head of the whore who betrayed me. You will be dragged from your cell, taken out into the courtyard and your pretty head will roll.” Hammer’s smile was evil. “Something to look forward to, my dear, is it not?”

  Louise did her best to look defiant, as though the man’s threat had fallen on deaf ears. But she was scared, terrified, as she imagined how it would be to wait for her death, those days after days of not knowing.

  Hammer dismissed the girl with his eyes, as though she now meant nothing to him, and said to his men, “Take her away. Put her in the rock dungeon with Viktor.”

  One of the gunmen seemed shocked. Then, as though he couldn’t believe his ears, “With Viktor?”

  “Yes, with Viktor.”

  “Boss, he’ll kill her.”

  Hammer smiled. “No, he won’t. Depend on it, Viktor will have a quite different plan for this young lady. Now, remove her from my presence and send in Dr. Chiang.”

  * * *

  “You were lucky, the bullet just grazed your skin,” Dr. Chiang said as he finished off tying the bandage around Hammer’s waist. “It was a small-caliber bullet and did little damage.”

  “Little damage? It caused me pain and there was blood.”

  “The skin is broken here and there.”

  “Hardly a graze.”

  “Like a deep burn. I will give you something for pain.”

  “No, not morphine. I need a pipe.”

  Dr. Chiang nodded. “I will bring one to you. Perhaps it’s best you dream for a while.” His black eyes lifted to Hammer’s face. “I heard the girl has been loosed to Viktor.”

  “Yes, he will take care of her.”

  “He will kill her.”

  “No. Viktor will play with her for a while and later I will kill her,” Hammer said.

  Somewhere in the deep recesses of the house a clock chimed, and a hawk soared over the mesa and cast a shadow on the courtyard that looked like it had been cut from black paper with a razor.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The thunderstorm had passed, the rain was gone and the parched land showed no sign that the tempest had ever been. Bridie O’Toole stepped out of the cabin and watched the two riders come on at a walk, leading a tall horse. Her hand dropped to the ivory handle of her Smith & Wesson and her eyes reached into the distance. After a while she made out Sam Flintlock, sitting his saddle like a sack of grain, and next to him O’Hara. Schooled in horsemanship by the Apache, who’d been mounted warriors as early as 1700, unlike Flintlock, O’Hara rode as though he and his mount were a single entity, a slightly bedraggled centaur.

  When Flintlock reached the woman, he raised a hand in greeting and said, “Got your saddle and stuff and we brung you a horse, a good one, too.”

  “And ten thousand dollars,” O’Hara said.

  Bridie raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You boys bushwhack somebody?”

  “Nope,” Flintlock said. “We met a ranny by the name of Ryker Klein who was very desirous of meeting you, so desirous he threatened to shoot out my eyes if I didn’t lead him to you.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Well, we talked around the thing and then when the talk ended we got into a gunfight.”

  O’Hara said, “Sam plugged him fair and square.”

  “We heard that Klein was working for Jacob Hammer,” Bridie said.

  “Who’s we?” Flintlock said.

  “The Pinkertons.” She stared hard into Flintlock’s eyes. “Ryker Klein had a reputation of being good with a gun, fast on the draw and shoot.”

  “He was fair to middlin’,” Flintlock said. “Only he didn’t know it. Any coffee in the pot?”

  “Yes, it’s on the boil. It took me forever to fill the pot from the spring. Someday soon the water is going to play out.”

  “Then let’s hope it waits until we’re long gone from here.”

  “Put up your horses, and thanks for bringing Klein’s gray,” Bridie said. She took her carpetbag from Flintlock. “You didn’t paw through this, did you?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Good. A woman’s intimate garments are her own concern.”

  “The bag is heavy,” Flintlock said.

  “That’s because I have a brace of Peacemakers in there.”

  “Told you so, Sam,” O’Hara said, rolling his eyes.

  * * *

  Sam Flintlock read somewhere that poets don’t sleep much, always mooning around in the dark, writing verses about the moon and the pines. It seemed that the late Tom Smith was one of those because his room was small and hot and his bed was made to accommodate a small child. After an hour tossing and turning he gave up and spread his blankets on the cabin’s uneven rock floor. As far as he knew, O’Hara had gone Injun and was sleeping like a baby under a tree someplace.

  Flintlock had just drifted into uncomfortable sleep when a kick on the ribs woke him. He bolted upright, his hand groping for his holstered Colt, but he stopped in midreach when he looked up and saw Bridie O’Toole standing over him.

  “Wish I could sleep that soundly,” the woman said. “For a minute there I thought you were dead.”

  “Hell, I just got to sleep,” Flintlock said, aggrieved. “Why did you wake me?”

  He blinked Bridie into focus. She looked incredibly pretty, wore a light robe, had her hair tied back with a red ribbon and over one arm she carried several layers of white, frilly things. He wondered at how much stuff a woman could pack into a single carpetbag.

  “I want to bathe at the spring,” Bridie said. She had her holstered revolver over one shoulder. “Go move the horses and make sure there are no snakes or spiders around. And no other creepy-crawlies or lizards, either.”

  “Woman, I’m trying to get some shut-eye here,” Flintlock said, irritated.

  “And I want to bathe, so up and at ’em.” She emphasized that statement with several more kicks to Flintlock’s ribs.

  “Damn it, lady, you got a big six-gun there to scare away critters and the like,” he said.

  “Scaring away snakes and spiders is not a job for a six-gun,” Bridie said. And then with great emphasis on the last word of the sentence, “It’s a task for a gentleman.”

  Grumbling, Flintlock got to his feet. “All right, I’ll go look.”

  “I’ll follow you,” Bridie said. “After you tell me it’s safe you can leave.”

  “The Old Man of the Mountain’s gunmen don’t scare you worth a damn, but you’re afraid of a bug?”

  The woman shuddered. “Ooh, I just hate spiders.”

  * * *

  How long does it take a woman to bathe in a spring? Flintlock didn’t know, but he figured he could catch another forty winks before she came back. He lay on the floor, closed his eyes and was asleep almost immediately.

  A kick in the ribs woke him.

  What the hell?

  Flintlock sat upright and saw O’Hara smiling like the cat that just ate the cream. “Sleeping like the dead is a damn easy w
ay for a man to get himself shot,” he said. “Coffee’s on the bile. There ain’t much left and even less firewood. The grub’s holding out, though, at least for now.”

  “Any more good news?” Flintlock said, scowling his irritation.

  “Yeah, I saw Bridie O’Toole bathing at the spring.”

  “You saw her?”

  “I was passing that way and saw her with my own two eyes.”

  “What was she wearing?”

  “Soap.”

  “Soap?”

  “Well, soap bubbles. She waved to me as I walked by.”

  “She waved? That was bold.”

  “Yeah, I guess it was.”

  “Well, I’m not gonna ask you what she looked like,” Flintlock said.

  “Good, because I’m not gonna tell you.”

  “Pretty, I bet.”

  “Maybe. I didn’t notice.”

  “You did notice. Any man would notice.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  Flintlock shook his head. “O’Hara, the Irish half of you I can understand. The Apache half is a mystery.”

  “It was the Irish half that didn’t notice. The Apache in me thought what a fine-looking squaw she’d make.”

  Flintlock got to his feet. “O’Hara,” he said, “you are a very strange person.” He thought for a moment and then said, “Maybe I should go make sure there are no spiders hanging around the spring.”

  “Bridie has her revolver handy,” O’Hara said. “She waved to me because I was at a distance. She might gun a man with a tattoo on this throat who came too close. Coffee?”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Flintlock said.

  * * *

  After a meager breakfast of a couple of mystery cans from the Smith larder that turned out to be baked beans and vile-tasting cod balls, Flintlock picked up his rifle and left on a scout. He didn’t know if his mother was still close or had left the area, but he planned to spend a couple of hours searching.

  Bridie O’Toole, who smelled of soap and lavender water, told him to be on the lookout for Jacob Hammer’s men. “Don’t take them on by yourself, Sam,” she said. “Come back for me and I’ll handle it.”

  “You think the Old Man’s gunmen have found Ryker Klein’s body yet?” Flintlock said. “And discovered that his ten thousand dollars is missing?”

  The woman shook her head, damp ringlets of blond hair falling over her tanned brow. “I don’t know, but if they have, there will be hell to pay, so don’t scout far and stay away from Pitchfork Pass.”

  “Hell, I don’t even know where Pitchfork Pass is,” Flintlock said.

  “I think you’ll know very soon,” Bridie said. “We’re going to stop the illegal commerce in and out of there.”

  “Three of us?” Flintlock said.’

  “Four, if you can find Detective Brown.”

  “I’ll find her,” Flintlock said. “She’s my ma.”

  * * *

  The vast land lay silent under the searing sun and Sam Flintlock’s shirt turned black with sweat and his breathing was labored. After two hours he’d seen nothing, heard nothing and now the distances shimmered, distorting the shape of everything, and his burning, red-rimmed eyes refused to focus. A patch of shade at the base of a standing rock offered hope of relief from the heat and Flintlock made his way there. He sat, put his canteen to his parched mouth . . . and stopped in midgulp.

  The ghost of old Barnabas sat on a nearby rock, watching him.

  The wicked old sinner fluttered a large Chinese fan embroidered with dragons to cool himself and he wore a round Oriental hat with a tassel.

  “Find your ma yet?” he said.

  “You know I haven’t,” Flintlock said.

  “Better find her before the Old Man of the Mountain does. I did some studying on him and he’s a rum one, he is, has a kind of Chinese style about him and a violent streak that I like.”

  “Where is she, Barnabas? Where is my mother?”

  “I don’t know. Around here someplace, I reckon.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Sammy, I have nothing to tell. She’s around, that’s all I know.” The old mountain man smiled. “Here, did I ever tell you about the Chinee man at the Horse Creek Rendezvous up Wyoming way in the summer o’ ’33?”

  “No, that’s one I missed,” Flintlock said, thumping the stopper back into the neck of his canteen.

  “Well, see, I was trapping for the American Fur Company with Bill Sublette and Joe Meek an’ them and Joe had a heathen Chinaman with him. He’d picked him up somewhere but God knows where. Well, sir, we mountain men were about two hundred strong and there were ten times that many Indians, mostly Nez Perce an’ Blackfeet camped with us. We was all drinking whiskey and carousing and having a grand ol’ time, white men and red men alike, but our excesses was interrupted when there occurred one of them incidents of wilderness life that makes the blood curdle with horror. You listening, boy? I said, curdle with horror.”

  Flintlock nodded. “Yeah, I’m listening. At the moment, I’m so used up I don’t feel like doing anything else.”

  “Good. Now attend, because you ain’t very smart, Sammy, and you have to listen close. Well, this mad wolf had been hanging around the camp for two or three days and then came the night it snuck into camp and bit twelve white men and the Chinee. Two of them boys were seized by madness in camp and ran off into the mountains where they perished. One was attacked by a seizure on a hunt and that very same day the Chinaman himself had a fit. He threw himself off his horse, started to gnash his teeth and foam at the mouth and howl like a wolf. Well, me and Meek and Sublette hastened back to camp in search of assistance, but when we returned the damned Hindoo was nowhere to be found. It was thought that he was seen a day or two later, but no one could come up with him. Then Ben Harrison, he was the son of William H. Harrison, soon to be the president of these United States, said he’d spotted him clear as day. Ben had been brought west by his father to cure his drinking problem, but he was a real affable feller when he was sober and not much given to big windies. He told us he’d seen the Chinaman up in the mountains, running through the pines with a wolf pack. Ben fired a shot to bring the wild man down so he could take a closer look at him, but missed. So as far as anybody knows, that Chinee is still up in the forests hunting with the wolves.”

  “Barnabas, usually, if I look hard enough, your stories have a moral,” Flintlock said. “Damned if I see a moral to that one.”

  “The moral is that the Old Man of the Mountain ain’t a Chinee, though he looks like one, but he runs with wolves. Sammy, if you want to save your ma and yourself, you’d better leave this neck o’ the woods mighty fast and take her with you.”

  “Good advice, Barnabas, but I can’t find her.”

  “Keep looking, boy. Now I got to go. Oh, by the way, You-know-who”—Barnabas used his forefingers to make horns on his head—“says he’s mighty disappointed in you.”

  “Oh yeah, why is that?”

  “Because you didn’t do that blond gal while she was naked at the spring. He said, ‘That boy just ain’t right.’”

  “Well, you tell him . . .” But Flintlock was talking to thin air. Barnabas had vanished and only the smell of brimstone marked his passing.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Barnabas was right about one thing,” O’Hara said. “We can’t do this alone, Sam. I say we go find some help.”

  “And by that time Louise Smith could be dead,” Flintlock said. “And maybe my ma with her.”

  Bridie O’Toole stepped out of the bedroom and frowned. “Sam, are you still talking about the ghost you saw when you’d had too much sun and were imagining things?”

  “Yeah, I guess I am. But Barnabas made sense when he said we can’t take on the Old Man alone.” He glared at the woman. “What do you suggest, huh? That the three of us storm Pitchfork Pass and force him to surrender?”

  “You’re being silly again,” Bridie said. “You already hurt Jacob Hammer when you killed one o
f his operatives and took his money. All right, so it’s a drop in the bucket, but if we can do it often enough eventually he’ll come looking for us.”

  “With a hundred gunmen,” Flintlock said.

  “I need just one clean shot,” Bridie said. “Kill Hammer and his organization will collapse. Cut off the snake’s head and the whole snake dies.”

  “And what about Louise Smith?” O’Hara said.

  “Forget Louise Smith. She’s already dead.”

  “I don’t think Hammer has any intention of killing his pretty young bride,” Flintlock said.

  “Then by now she wishes she was dead and there’s not a thing we can do to save her,” Bridie said. She read the stunned expressions on the faces of the two men and said, “I know that sounds harsh and unfeeling, but we must face the facts. I think you boys have the idea that we can wait for dark, sneak deep into the mesa and free the girl from Hammer’s camp or compound or fortress or whatever it is he has in there. We’d survive a couple of minutes and that’s if we’re lucky.”

  Flintlock shook his head. “Bridie, Miss Pinkerton detective, ma’am, all you have to offer is to lure the Old Man of the Mountain outside, draw a bead and kill him. I’d say that’s also thin, mighty thin.”

  “And somehow breaking into Hammer’s quarters, hauling Louise Smith from his bed and then living to tell the tale is any better?”

  “No, it isn’t any better,” Flintlock said. “We’ve already agreed on that. Now let me think.”

  Flintlock’s face went blank, a brilliant or even mediocre idea eluding him.

  O’Hara talked into the void. “The task here is too big for three people, four, if you count in Sam’s mother.”

  “You’re a master of the obvious, Crazy Horse,” Bridie said. “So, what do you suggest?”

  “There’s a small town to the east of us called Dexter and we’ve met the local lawman there,” O’Hara said, ignoring the dig.

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” Bridie said. “Go on.”

  “The place is bound to have a wire, and I suggest you use it to get in touch with Pinkerton headquarters and ask for help. You can even get the Pinks to use their influence with the government and demand soldiers.”