by Tony Masero
‘So which way would they head from here?’ asked Logan.
‘Cross the Rio Grande and head east and you’re into the Sangre de Cristo mountains, down south is New Mexico. Dupree heads for the mountains he’s got some hard riding, south is easier and to my way of thinking he’ll be heading over the border for Mexico. Pretty gals, easy living, it’ll be heaven for a rich Yankee down there.’
‘What about this Alberplas fellow?’
Fetch smiled, ‘I reckon he’ll make our job a touch simpler. We’ll let him root out Dupree, he’s got enough incentive, the bastard stole his cash. I reckon we follow him and he’ll lead us to Dupree.’
‘Maybe he’s still in town.’
‘Could be, keep looking and find that fool Rusthead, I don’t want him all liquored up.’
They were too late though.
Rusthead was already into the booze; he had enough cash left over from Soapy’s payout and was using it to good effect, standing at the bar and solemnly sinking beer after beer. Despite himself, Rusthead felt intrusive waves of guilt at his betrayal of Joe and he was trying to assuage the pangs with the hazing effect of alcohol.
He was into that drunken mode of remorse which does open battle with inner justification, and in such a state he felt it was necessary to confess with whomsoever would listen.
‘Couldn’t help it,’ he blurred to the fellow standing next to him at the bar. ‘I got needs, you know?’
‘What you saying?’ asked the man, glass in hand and curious about the stranger talking to him as if they where in a regular conversation.
‘Look here, Joe is a grand fellow. Saved my life and I owe him for that but a man’s gotta do things sometimes…. You know? Stuff.’
‘What things?’ smiled the man companionably, recognizing Rusthead’s drunkenness and forgiving him easily. ‘You ain’t talking about that same Joe that spoke up there on the porch, are you? Damned fine speech that, I thought.’
‘Good old Joe, I shouldn’t have done him wrong.’
‘You know him, you did him wrong?’ frowned the fellow drinker.
‘I did, betrayed all to Soapy. The whole story about his millions.’
‘Millions?’
More than one along the bar was beginning to take interest now.
‘Is that cows, dollars or chicken eggs?’ one asked with a laugh.
‘Money, of course!’ spat Rusthead in disgust. ‘What else is there?’
‘Best to cast aside the temptations of Mammon and choose the riches of righteousness,’ intoned a deep voice at Rusthead’s shoulder.
Rusthead swallowed hard and looked around to see the ex-preacher Jacob Barnes looming over him. Barnes was stood tall and prone to dressing in somber colored clothes and he wore a face that looked as if it had just exited a pine box after three weeks of burial.
The beer was forgotten as Barnes laid a heavy hand on Rusthead’s shoulder, ‘Come with me, sinner. It isn’t what you put in it but what comes out from your mouth that brings damnation on its heel.’
‘No, no,’ said Rusthead’s earlier drinking companion. ‘You’ve got that all wrong, mister. Ain’t nothing wrong with a man speaking his mind.’
Barnes turned a malevolent eye on the man, ‘You question the sanctity of the scripture?’
The bystander was taken aback by the intensity of Barnes’ glowering presence, ‘Just that it’s used in a kinda different context, that’s all I’m saying.’
‘Blessed is he who speaks only wisdom, for the words of the foolish are like chaff in the wind,’ Barnes glared at the man and dragged Rusthead away by the collar of his seedy jacket.
‘I wasn’t doing nothing,’ Rusthead complained feebly.
‘Be still,’ growled Barnes. ‘Before retribution falls.’
There was no contending with that particular warning so Rusthead just shut up.
‘Anybody seen anything?’ asked Fetch as Barnes dragged Rusthead up to join the others.
There was a collective negative shaking of heads.
‘What about you Rusthead, you’re the one that knows what they look like?’
‘Ain’t seen a thing.’
‘You been drinking?’
‘Who me?’
‘Only a little for his stomach’s sake,’ adjudged Barnes.
‘I warned you,’ said Fetch, jabbing a finger in Rusthead’s chest.
‘It weren’t nothing,’ whined Rusthead. ‘Just a sip.’
‘Listen boy, you’d best stay on the wagon, we need your eyes clear. You hear what I say or there’ll be hell to pay, you understand?’ warned Fetch. ‘You watch him, Barnes. He steps out of line then you cut off one of his fingers with that axe of yours. He steps out of line again, and then you take another one. And so on and so on until he gets the message.’
‘I got it, I got it. I won’t be no problem,’ Rusthead promised quickly.
Slowly, Barnes grinned down at him, peeling back his thin lips to give a humorless smile like a row of tombstones, ‘Repentance is worthwhile but penance is better.’
‘Oh, shit!’ breathed Rusthead, wishing he was back in his cave and had never met Joe Alberplas.
‘Right,’ said Fetch, ‘If there nothing here then lets head out and catch up with this dumb cowhand and then take down Dupree.’
Joe meanwhile was talking with a crippled Confederate soldier.
The poor man was begging on a street corner in a small no-name place with a few adobe buildings that straddled the road. He had lost both legs and his torso rested on a small wooden cart that he propelled with his hands. Still wearing an old forage cap pressed onto a mop of overlong hair and wearing a tattered butternut and grey tunic, the veteran held a tin cup and a small handwritten sign proclaiming that he had stood tall at Chickamauga and was now in need of some charitable assistance.
‘Lost both of them,’ the man professed with a crinkled nose and a show of brown teeth. ‘Took off below the knee by a Yankee shell. Damned ball bounced towards me. I seen it coming. I watched that damned thing a-coming on like a steaming train. Nothing I could do it come so fast. Next thing I know I’m walking on air ‘cos there’s nothing where my feet once was.’
He chuckled a throaty laugh and rattled his tin mug at Joe.
‘Got a nickel for a loyal soldier?’
Joe tossed a coin in the cup.
‘Thankee, sir.’
‘Got a question for you,’ said Joe.
‘Oh, yeah and what might that be?’
‘You been here most days, I guess?’
‘Well, I don’t get around so much anymore,’ observed the fellow ruefully.
‘Small fellow, dark haired driving a surrey loaded with luggage, you seen anyone like that pass through?’
‘You serve in the conflict, young fellow?’
‘No, but my pa did. We lost him, I don’t know where it was.’
‘Lot of ‘em went like that,’ said the old soldier sadly. ‘Unknown and unloved, lying in some forgotten ground. Gone but not forgotten, heh?’
‘That’s right,’ Joe agreed. ‘You seen anyone, like I say?’
‘Think I did,’ said the soldier, scratching at his head and looking thoughtful. ‘Might have been yesterday or day before. Came through here lickity spit, driving his horse like hell and the devil was after him.’
‘That’ll be him,’ said Joe. ‘Which way did he go?’
‘Hmm,’ ruminated the fellow a while longer. ‘I guess he went that-away, took the east road, I reckon.’ He waggled a finger in the direction of the distant mountains.
Joe scratched his chin thoughtfully, ‘You sure? Seems a mite odd, to suddenly head east.’
The old soldier shrugged, ‘I seen what I seen. Lost my legs but not my eyesight, you know?’
Joe shook his head, ‘Well, okay. Obliged for your time.’
‘Think nothing of it.’
As Joe and Justine turned their ponies and moved off the soldier scooted his trolley away up the alley and was lost to sight. Joe was pon
dering over Dupree’s sudden change of route.
‘Don’t make much sense you know,’ he said to Justine. ‘I could have sworn he was heading due south, straight for the border.’
‘I agree,’ said Justine. ‘Why the change? Did something happen, you think?’
‘Could be, might have heard about something bad up ahead. Indians, or some such.’
‘That’ll be it,’ Justine agreed.
They rode on for another hour before Joe pulled up again. It had scratched and worried at him the whole time they had travelled and he could not get it out of his mind. ‘No,’ he said abruptly. ‘This ain’t right. There’s something wrong here.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that soldier back there,’ Justine mused.
‘What about him?’
‘He was dirty all over, right?’
‘’Deed he was,’ Joe agreed.
‘His nails was clean though, clean and manicured.’
‘Maybe he took care of himself, being a military man.’
‘He shunted that trolley along by hand, there was no way he could keep his paws neat and tidy.’
They both looked at themselves a long moment.
‘Hot damn!’ Joe burst out. ‘Dupree!’
‘You think?’ asked Justine.
‘Actor and master of disguise. It has to be him, I’ll bet on it. Sending us off in the wrong direction. Fellow folded his legs under him and made like a wounded veteran, by heavens he even had the accent right.’
‘If that was the man, he’s certainly good at it.’
‘Only one way to find out,’ said Joe, turning his pony.
They raced back and covered the ground in less time than it took them heading out. Joe and Justine quartered the area of the small village, delving into the back alleys and yards but all they found were chickens and suspicious villagers.
‘Gone, dadblast it! No way he could have been a genuine legless veteran,’ cursed Joe. ‘He’s got a good lead on us now.’
‘If he’s going to keep popping up in a variety of shapes and forms, how the devil are we ever going to find him?’
‘He’ll make a mistake,’ Joe was sure. ‘One time he’ll make a mistake and we just have to make sure we’re there when he does.’
‘So, what now?’
‘South, we head south again.’
Justine looked at the poor hovels around them and the prospect of seeing a multitude more of them before they were through made her heart drop but she could see that Joe barely noticed or considered the difficult task ahead.
With his features set grimly, Joe pulled his pony around and headed up towards the main road again. Without looking to see if Justine was behind him he urged his pony around the last building and ran straight into Rusthead Peak.
Ten
‘Damn my eyes!’ Joe burst out.
‘Joe!’ Rusthead gasped in the same breath.
Joe barely had time to notice the mounted men behind Rusthead he was so surprised. They were not so slow however.
Guns were out in in instant, ‘This the one?’ bawled Fetch.
Wildly, Joe looked away from Rusthead at the cry and saw the arrayed weapons and the determined look on the gunmen’s faces.
‘Thi….’ Rusthead began but he was cut off as Joe leapt forward out of the saddle and jumped across the gap between and flung his arms around the old prospector. The pony whirled under them in panic as Joe looped his leg over behind Rusthead and grasped the reins from the rider’s hands.
‘You sold me out?’ Joe husked in Rusthead’s ear.
‘I…. I….’ Rusthead stuttered, as the four gunmen struggled to bring their ponies around for a clear shot. As they did so, Justine appeared at the alley entrance and Joe called out to her. ‘Get out! Go back!’
Justine took in what was happening in an instant and swung her pony around, heading back up the alleyway.
Fetch nodded at Devian, who dodged Rusthead’s spinning pony and charged into the alleyway after Justine.
Joe brought the pony under control, his hands circling Rusthead’s waist and holding both him and the horse in check. From behind the prospector’s shoulder, he eyed the three men before him.
‘What you fellow’s want with me?’ he asked.
‘You would be Joe Alberplas?’ Fetch asked.
‘I am and what’s it to you?’
‘You got some answering to do back in Creede, we’re deputies sent down to find you.’
‘That a fact? I doubt it, I really do,’ said Joe, turning the pony to keep Rusthead between him and the guns. ‘What’s this about, Rusthead?’
‘Soapy knows about the money,’ Rusthead confessed in a rush. ‘I’m sorry, Joe, I let it slip somehow. These are his boys come after you.’
‘I ain’t got any money,’ Joe said, loud enough for them all to hear.
‘No, but you’re after it,’ said Fetch.
‘Damned right I am but I ain’t got any of it right now.’
They had come to an impasse and for a moment both parties stood still facing each other and wondering what to do next.
‘Let’s just plug the pair of them,’ muttered Logan.
‘Now wait a minute,’ bleated Rusthead as he overheard. ‘There’s no need for that. You need me anyway.’
‘What for?’ asked Fetch coldly. ‘We already found Alberplas.’
Joe heard the sound of pony hooves coming from the alley mouth and saw a grinning Devian arrive pulling Justine’s pony behind, Joe levered on the reins and backed off the pony a few steps as the victorious gunman pulled up.
‘I got her,’ Devian leered at him. ‘And ain’t she a pretty one?’
Joe knew he was in a tight spot, the only cover he had in the bare dusty street was the old drunk sitting before him and they held the girl he was beginning to fall for as prisoner.
‘Dupree was here,’ he said as he studied the three men facing him. Logan sat watching, his grim face as steady and cold as ice, the gun held loosely and almost indifferently in his hand whilst the dark figure of Jacob Barnes next to him steadily unfastened his woodsman’s axe and looped the strap around his wrist.
Fetch, who was holding his pistol directly out before him and pointed at Joe asked, ‘Where and when?’
‘Not more than a couple of hours since,’ said Joe. ‘He posed as an old soldier and set us off on the wrong path. We come back to find him once we figured it out but he’s long gone. This guy is a master of disguise, you’re never going to find him without help.’
‘And that help would be you I suppose?’ asked Fetch doubtfully.
‘Justine and I know him, we stand a darned sight better chance than you.’
‘If you’re so damned smart, how come he fooled you?’ asked Logan.
‘He’s that good,’ Joe admitted. ‘But you fellas have never even seen him, he’ll walk rings around you.’
Fetch thought about it, ‘Okay, toss down your gun.’
‘What about the other two?’ asked Logan, his eyes glinting dangerously.
‘We keep the woman, that’s a given,’ grinned Devian. ‘She’s too nice to lose.’
‘Get down, Alberplas,’ said Fetch. ‘You ride with us. You stay alive long enough to find this sucker but try anything funny and it ends right there. Now take off that rig.’
Joe slid from the pony’s back and unbuckled his gun belt.
‘What about me?’ pleaded Rusthead. ‘You ain’t about to leave me out of this. I brought it to Soapy’s door, I got a right.’
‘You’re so right,’ agreed Fetch. ‘You deserve your cut. Don’t he, Jacob?’
‘The righteous shall collect their reward in heaven and the sinner shall be cut down like wheat in the field,’ preached Barnes as he urged his pony forward. His axe whirled in a great flashing arc as he pulled level with Rusthead and he brought the blade down with a forceful thud in the junction between the prospector’s shoulder and head. The axe head sunk in deep and Rusthead juddered in the saddle as a welter of blood sprung f
rom his severed artery. He made no sound but his eyes and mouth opened wide in a silent cry.
Justine screamed and looked away and Joe jumped back as Rusthead’s pony whirled at the sudden attack. Barnes tugged out the axe and drawing back his arm he struck again and Rusthead’s gray head sprung clean away from his shoulders and bounced solidly on the ground. The pony, with Rusthead’s headless body still locked in the saddle sprung off and galloped away, the blood-spouting corpse bumping unevenly in the saddle.
‘My God!’ gasped Joe. ‘You have to do that?’
‘What you care for?’ asked an indifferent Fetch, steadying his pony. ‘He sold you down the river. Weren’t nothing but a sad old man with whiskey breath just marking time and filling space.’
Distain showing on his face, Joe moved over to Justine who was weeping openly.
‘You stand away from her,’ ordered Fetch. ‘Get on your horse. We ‘re riding out right now!’
Obediently, Joe handed over his gun belt and mounted his pony.
‘Which way?’ asked Fetch.
‘South,’ mumbled Joe. ‘He’s heading south.’
Barnes was wiping the axe blade clean with a rag and muttering invocations, ‘I am the right hand, and it is in my province to bring the fiery retribution of heaven upon the worldly.’
‘You murdering swine!’ sobbed Justine.
‘Oh, he’s that all right,’ sympathized Devian, with a winning smile. ‘But pay him no heed, sister. He won’t harm you, I’ll see to that. You are much to pretty to lose your head, ain’t that right, Alberplas? Guess you’d know, huh?’
Morosely, Joe ignored him and mounted up. He detested seeing Rusthead end up like that even though he was his betrayer but at least Justine and he were still alive and as long as they were breathing they stood a chance of surviving.
Setting a fast pace, Fetch took the lead with Barnes alongside as they rode out of the village. Joe and Justine followed on behind and Logan and Devian kept guard at the rear.
Behind them, nervous villagers finally peeked curiously out from their homes at the decapitated head lying gaping at them through the dust of the departing riders and wondered what could bring a man to such an unfortunate end.
By pushing it they made twenty-five miles by midday but without sight of another living soul. It was dry and arid land they travelled through broken only by gaunt mesas and rocky crevasses. A harsh desert land with little to offer a body but dry heat and scorpions.
