Black as Death

by George G. Gilman

  ‘I figured you’d do as I told you, son,’ he growled through teeth clenched to the stem of the pipe that angled from a side of his mouth. ‘My guess is you had cause for the killin’. What the courts call extenuatin’ circumstances. You’re bein’ stupid now.’

  ‘Appreciate it, Mr. Glazer, if you’d have Mr. Murchison, Sam Grogan and Slim Wilder come join you. It would make Mr. Brodie here happier, too. Less chance of him getting his face blown off by accident. If they did something behind my back.’

  ‘Gold, you’re bein’ real—’

  ‘Just do as I say, Sheriff. And have Mr. Murchison saddle my horse and bring it out front here.’

  ‘Please, mister, do it!’ Brodie begged. ‘If he’s really killed four guys already, he ain’t gonna care about one more, is he?’

  Surprise became mixed with the grimness on Glazer’s face. But he suppressed the impulse to demand an explanation. Did not shift his attention away from the two men in the doorway when he raised his voice to yell: ‘Slim, Sam! Come over here! Dan, go to the stable and saddle his horse! Bring it out front! And no heroics! There’s a man with his life on the line here!’

  Grogan cursed, but there was otherwise no vocal response to Glazer’s orders. The tall and thin Wilder appeared first, then the stockily built Standing butcher. Both were resentful of the situation and obviously blamed the lawman for mishandling the attempted arrest.

  ‘Toss your guns out on the trail.’

  They did so.

  ‘You killed four men?’ Glazer posed.

  ‘Guess the one you know about is Floyd Channon, Sheriff?’

  Although Glazer was on the Standing town payroll, Fairfax made a contribution and was included within his jurisdiction. The lawman and the two temporary deputies flanking him showed their puzzlement. But only Brodie was aware of a reaction from Gold, as he felt an increase in pressure of the Peacemaker barrel on his shoulder.

  ‘It’s not a name I know. We’re here to take you in for the murder of Clay Ward.’

  Barnaby Gold made the clicking sound and murmured: ‘Goddamnit to hell.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘WHEN’S the next stage scheduled through, Mr. Brodie?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He asked the time of the next stage,’ Glazer growled.

  ‘Westbound. One o’clock this afternoon.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘You know somethin’, son, I think you’re innocent. But that ain’t gonna make any difference to what you plan to do, is it?’

  ‘Right, Mr. Glazer.’

  When the elderly Dan Murchison appeared with the black gelding saddled and the bedroll lashed to the animal, he was obviously relieved to be instructed by the lawman to toss his gun out on to the trail with the others. And he was equally compliant with the politely worded instructions that Barnaby Gold gave him. To go out back to the stable again, fetch some rope and cut it into lengths and bind the wrists of Glazer, Grogan and Wilder behind their backs.

  Grogan cursed, Wilder shouldered with silent rage and Glazer continued to give his reasons for believing the young man innocent of the killing of the Standing undertaker. When these three were securely bound, Gold moved Brodie off the threshold of the way station and had him tie Dan Murchison in a similar manner. But first allowed him to use a length of the rope to form a belt for the blanket Then he holstered the .45 and bound the wrists of Brodie.

  ‘Be back in a while,’ he said, swung up into his saddle and rode the rested, fed and watered gelding along the east trail. Found where the Standing men had left their horses, made a string of them and returned to the way station. Reached there as Grogan was trying to curse Wilder into standing back-to-back so they could untie each other’s bonds. ‘In time, you’ll do it,’ he told the glowering butcher evenly.

  ‘And have to take the one o’clock stage because you’re takin’ our horses?’ Glazer countered dully.

  ‘Unless you can talk Mr. Brodie into loaning you the exchange team in the stable, Sheriff.’

  Only the lawman showed he had already thought of this, by his lack of reaction.

  Whichever, we’ll find you, kid!’ Grogan snarled. ‘And it won’t matter a shit whether you’re innocent or guilty of knifin’ Clay Ward. Horse thieves get hung, too.’

  ‘He isn’t exactly stealing them, Sam,’ Murchison said placatingly.

  ‘Takin’ them without the owners’ permission,’ Glazer put in, revealing a trace of suppressed anger for the first time. ‘Amounts to the same thing.’

  ‘Bye bye,’ Barnaby Gold said, and clucked his gelding forward, still clutching the reins of the lead horse in the string.

  ‘And good friggin’ riddance,’ Steve Brodie growled sourly. ‘Strangers is almost always trouble. I’ve always said it.’

  Gazing after the departing black-clad rider, Walt Glazer ruminated: ‘And they don’t come much stranger than that one.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SHE had run the scrawny grey gelding into the ground some five miles to the west of the Huachuca Vista way station. Winded him into agonized exhaustion and left him to his fate where he had collapsed at the side of the trail on the bank of an arroyo. The dusty ground on which he lay was thick with signs to show how he had struggled without success to get to his feet. The white lather of sweat, crusted by the cold of the night desert air, indicated the extent to winch she had driven him in her terror after seeing the face at the way station window,

  There was a baleful look in his deep brown eyes when he raised his neck and turned his head to look at the dismounting Barnaby Gold. As if he blamed any passing human being for the ill-treatment he had received at the hands of one of them. His diminished strength did not allow him to keep his head turned and his neck raised for long. And he lay flat out on his side again when the man reached him, slid the Peacemaker from the holster.

  ‘Maybe if she hadn’t seen me back there, boy,’ he said quietly in a soothing tone: as he stooped to stroke the animal’s matted coat along his neck. Simply to have something to say. To comfort the gelding in his final moments before the big .45 cracked out and drilled a bullet into his head from point-blank range.

  His own gelding did not even prick his ears to the explosion which sounded louder than it was in the desert stillness. The other four horses were made uneasy by the report.

  Then Gold studied the ground beyond the area of dust disturbed by the struggles of the horse. And saw that she had taken the obvious route — continued on foot along the trail west. Frightened still by the face at the moonlit window and of the barren wilderness to either side.

  He lit the first cheroot of the day before remounting and setting off in her wake. And before he was many yards away, the first of several buzzards soaring high against the unblemished blue of the sky had swooped from a speck to a discernible shape to take a closer look at the fresh carcass.

  One saddlebag and a canteen had been held fast underneath the doomed gelding but cut leather showed she had taken their mates. So hunger and thirst would be no problem to her for awhile. Just the cold of the night and the heat of the day — and the fear in her mind.

  He rode at a measured, easy pace through the morning and into the afternoon. Unskilled at tracking, he made no attempt to hunt for difficult to see signs of her passing. Did see where she had relieved herself and, nearby, two screwed up candy wrappers.

  Then spotted her, far ahead on the fringe of the shimmering heat haze, a few minutes after he had started to direct occasional glances over his shoulder: seeking a first sight of the westbound stage.

  He asked for a trot from his gelding and the string of horses at his back matched the increased pace. Anything more would have been too much to demand of these animals, which had been ridden all night from Standing to the way station.

  She saw him and the horses emerge into clarity from the heat shimmer and lunged into a run, dropping her burdens from terror. But then realized escape was impossible and stopped, turned around and retraced her steps
. Was sitting on the ground between the saddlebags and the hooded cape, drinking from the canteen, when he halted the string of horses in front of her.

  There was no fear in her bruised face or posture now. Just sad resignation to whatever he had in mind for her.

  ‘Barnaby, I thought you would be well on your way to Europe.’

  ‘Not yet, Maria,’ he told the whore who had failed to please Clay Ward.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SHERIFF Walt Glazer had told Barnaby Gold as the men at the way station were being tied up: ‘It was Maria from the cantina found him, son. In his bedroom with a knife stickin’ out of his back. Sprawled out on the floor near the hole under the boards where he stashed his money.

  ‘He was still alive. Just Accordin’ to the woman. Seems she was payin’ Clay a regular nightly visit when you showed up to dicker a price on the hearse. And he told her to take a walk and come back later. She heard you and him cussin’ each other on account of you wanted more than he was willin’ to pay.’

  ‘Maria didn’t like goin’ with Clay. So she stayed clear of him a long time. But after a while she got curious about why he wasn’t down at the cantina raising’ hell because she hadn’t come back.

  ‘So she went back to his place on Silver Mine Road and found him like I said. He had enough life left in him to tell her you’d stuck the knife in him, son. Then cleaned out his cache. Two thousand four hundred and six dollars and ninety cents.

  ‘Rang true, that part. Be just like Clay Ward to recall exactly how much he had to the cent in the last seconds of his life.’

  The sullen Steve Brodie had made no mention to Glazer of the woman who had ridden by the way station in the pre-dawn hours.

  Now it was Maria talking, as dull-voiced as the sheriff had been, while she rode the lead horse in the string behind Gold as they headed back eastward along the trail.

  ‘Barnaby, you heard — perhaps saw — some of what he was doing to me. He was an evil man.’

  ‘He was no saint, Maria.’

  ‘Nor me. I am a whore and must expect to be humiliated and sometimes hurt by the men I go with. But I have no wish to be a whore for the rest of my life.’

  ‘You’re through with it now.’ He arced the stub of the cheroot away as the Tucson-bound stage showed on the trail ahead.

  ‘I heard you talking with Senor Clay Ward, Barnaby. When you agree to take what he offers, I look through the window. It is well known in Standing that he has much money hidden at his place. After you have gone, I go in to steal his money. But he finds me. And I used the knife on him. This is the way it happened, Barnaby. But I will tell it differently to Sheriff Walt Glazer.’

  ‘You say whatever you like to him, Maria. Long as it’s not what you told him the first time.’

  ‘Barnaby, I waited long time before I tell the lies. Until after you are gone. To Europe, I think. Then I tell him. And leave the town while the sheriff is getting together the other men to come after you. I do not know but I think that if they do not find you and come back to town — find me gone — they might guess I lie. That it was really me who killed him. But by then, I will be far away. Not to Europe, but far away.’

  ‘Sure, Maria.’

  The stage was much closer now, moving no faster than the two riders and the three riderless horses behind them.

  ‘Barnaby, do not think too badly of me. We had some good times together, yes?’

  ‘You provided a service, Maria. And I paid for it.’

  He unhooked the Murcott from where it was hung on the saddle and rode with the twin barrels of the shotgun resting across the horn. When there was just a hundred yards between the gelding and the lead pair of the Concord’s team, he thumbed back the safety catch to free the internal hammers.

  The driver said something to the shotgun rider, who pumped the action of the Winchester resting across his thighs. Both men looked hard at Barnaby Gold but said nothing. Four faces peered out of the windows on the passing side. Initial trepidation altered to intrigued curiosity on the faces of four men passengers and the crew up on the seat as the stage and the string of five horses passed without any vocal exchange. And it was obvious that everyone aboard the Concord knew of the events at the Huachuca Vista way station earlier in the day. But all the passengers were unknown to Gold.

  The team in the traces were reasonably fresh — had shared stable space with the black gelding during the night Which meant the men from Standing had had to be content with the animals that had hauled the stage from Tombstone to the way station.

  Neither the young men nor the whore astride the horses said anything until after the dust from the Concord’s passing had settled on their clothing and sweat-tacky flesh.

  Then: ‘Barnaby?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You think they will hang me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I am a woman.’

  ‘That I do know.’

  She displayed emotion for the first time. Said angrily: ‘And you do not care?’

  ‘It’s not the time nor the place and I don’t have the inclination, Maria.’

  ‘Damn you! I mean you don’t care if they hang me!’

  ‘There are a lot more whores in a lot more brothels Maria.’

  ‘Madre de Dios, I hate you!’

  He made no response and she fell into an angry silence. Could not maintain such a high emotion for long during the glaring heat of afternoon, and became sullen.

  They reached the spot where he had put down the gelding. Many buzzards had been attracted to the carcass after the first bird swooped down. All that was left was the skeleton with, here and there, shreds of skin clinging to the bones.

  ‘It was not hard to kill him in town. I could not bring myself to put that miserable creature out of its agony. I hope he did not take long to die.’

  Barnaby Gold said nothing in reply to her sad-toned excuse.

  She had emptied her own canteen at the time she submitted to capture, but occasionally drank from those hung on the saddle of the Standing man’s horse. Then, as soon as the sun was down and the warm evening was on the brink of becoming cold night, she donned her hooded cape.

  The moon was up, hard and glittering and casting long shadows, when the pinyon stand with the way station in it showed up ahead. Smoke rose from its chimney.

  ‘We are going to stop here to eat and rest, Barnaby?’

  ‘Mr. Brodie wouldn’t like that, Maria.’

  She made a sound of disgust ‘I think you have become the kind of hombre who cares nothing for what others like. If you want it.’

  He held his silence. Unhooked the Murcott again as he started across the front of the way station. The lamp in the parlor had been doused at the sound of hooves on the trail, but he could see Brodie’s head and shoulders in silhouette against the stove’s glow at the window.

  ‘That’s right, you cold hearted sonofabitch! You just keep ridin’ on by here!’

  ‘Shoot him! Shoot him!’ Maria yelled. ‘There is much money I can share with you!’

  ‘I got nothin’ against whores!’ the scrawny man at the window edited sourly. ‘But twice I got a bad dose of the clap off Mex whores!’ Then he vented a mirthless laugh. ‘But I reckon that’s better than what you give that guy over at Standin’!’

  ‘All hombres are bastards!’ Maria hissed venomously.

  Then they were beyond the way station. With Brodie still yelling at them. Something about the Standing posse being happy about it if he had cause to blast both Gold and the woman into eternity.

  But moments later the voice faded from earshot and the clop of hooves on the moon-whitened trail provided the only sounds to invade the riders’ private thoughts, as they skirted the vast tract of desert plain and started down the valley through the Huachuca Mountains.

  ‘Barnaby, I am sorry.’

  ‘Save it for the judge, Maria.’

  I mean for calling out what I did to the man back there. But I have no wish to hang.’

&
nbsp; ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘You will tell them how easily I gave myself up to you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  They reached the intersection of the trails and it was not until then that the whore made another attempt to gain the sympathy of the silent man riding ahead of her.

  ‘That sign, Barnaby. The way one piece of wood sticks out from another. It looks almost like el patibulo. How you say it, the...’

  ‘Gallows, Maria.’

  She gasped. ‘Let me go, Barnaby. You can tell them you found me, but I escaped. You have the money I took. If you set me free here, I could go to Tombstone. You could say I went the other way. Or not say anything at all. Because you could take the money to Europe.’

  He tugged on the reins to head his horse and the trailing string down the trail toward Standing.

  ‘Barnaby, por favor!’ There was a sob of desperation in her voice. ‘That man who does food like you back there. From what he said about what I did to Clay Ward, it is certain Sheriff Walt Glazer knows I am guilty. There will be no more looking for you. It is me they will be searching for.’

  ‘Sure, I heard him say that.’

  She began to shed tears now, at the lack of emotion in his voice and the relentless way he kept his back to her as he continued to ride toward Standing. ‘Then why, Barnaby? Why you take me back to face el patibulo? You are free to go where you wish. You cared little or nothing for Clay Ward.’ She paused in her tearful listing, frantically searching her mind for other items to add weight to her argument. ‘If having the money troubles you, you can send it through the mail.’

  ‘And there’s the horses. Some think I’ve stolen them.’

  ‘Then leave them with the man at the place in the trees, Barnaby. Surely he will see...’

  Now he turned to look back at her and she abruptly curtailed her pleas: fear of the utter coldness of his expression driving her into silence. And he was totally unmoved by the sight of her, a pathetically helpless creature hunched in the saddle with large tear drops coursing down her bruised cheeks.