It was over in a moment. The guns were behind him and he was out in the open. The horse shambled to a stop, shuddering with the exertion. Quantro was almost shaking too, but he had no time for that. His heart still pounding, he grabbed his Winchester and slipped to the ground. A slap on the horse’s rump and it took off away from the canyon.
Now for the slow bit.
He knew where Upton and Dobey were, but the chances were they would shift positions before he got to the top. If they had any sense, that was. From his point of view, the worst move they could make was to meet him headlong at the crest. They would have him cold.
Soft-footed, cautious, he made a start on the slope. Over on the right the sun had begun its long climb to noon. He hoped matters were resolved one way or another by then. Midday on top of the rim would be unbearable. Already sweat had soaked his armpits and was running down his ribcage, and his shirt was stuck fast between his shoulder blades.
After twenty feet he paused to study the rim. One careless move, that’s all it would take. But there was only a blank skyline staring immovably back. He took a deep breath, shifted his weight on to his bad leg. It was holding out. He started up again, picking his way through the scramble of boulders. Another pause to catch his breath and scout the horizon.
Nothing.
He moved on. His legs were beginning to show the strain of the climb and he was growing edgy. It had to happen soon. It was the law of averages. Up to now it had been too easy. A sudden premonition crept into the corner of his mind to plague him. A solitary gunshot echoing through the canyon and he would be dead, eyes open to the sun.
Where were they?
If Upton was trying to retain the edge, Quantro had to admit he was making a real good job of it. The whole thing was unreal. It was as if he was the only man in the desert, climbing a slope in the middle of nowhere, only the cactus and the hot wind watching him lazily, knowing he would pass along, as had all men. The gunfire had long since died away, contributing to his uneasiness.
Ten feet from the rim he fell into a crouch. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and checked the Winchester once again. There was nothing more he could do. Again he studied the rim with no result other than he had begun to distrust his vision. And a heat haze was starting to build up, distorting his view of the land into a shimmering mirage. Everything felt wrong. That heavy silence that always seemed to precede a burst of violent action was missing. Quantro called the sun to account on that score. He waited, nervy.
Nothing happened.
The waiting was over. Quantro sprang up from the ground to run the last few yards. He was at the rim. He threw himself over bracing himself for the death rain of lead. He hit dirt and rolled, the Winchester coming up ready.
Nothing but the breeze.
The land up there was almost flat with little cover. He could see clear along the east side of the rim. He frowned, then slowly came to his feet, the rifle dangling from his right hand.
His eyes had not lied. There was nobody there.
The rim was deserted.
***
“He’s making a break!” Upton had yelled. Below them, Quantro kicked the buckskin into a gallop, racing down the canyon in a thunder of hooves. Upton opened fire, teeth gritted against the jarring his nicked arm was receiving from the repeating rifle’s recoil. It wasn’t painful, just sore, and it would not stop bleeding. The makeshift bandage was already sodden. He fired twice, but before he could line a really good shot Quantro was gone.
“You think we got him?” Dobey’s voice asked from along the rim.
“He got out,” Upton countered, “unless you saw him come off. I didn’t.”
Dobey crabbed across towards him. “You hit?”
Upton nodded, adding a grimace for good measure.
“What d’you think he’s at?”
“He’s going to circle ’round behind us, that’s for sure.” Dobey looked around in panic. Upton touched his wounded arm gingerly and winced, hamming it up. “I’ll tell you what we’ve got to do. We gotta leave here fast. I don’t think I’ll make it with this arm, so I’ll stay and slow him down a little to keep him off your back.”
“What if you don’t make it? You’ve got to ride. Half the money is yours.”
“You bet,” Upton whispered under his breath. Aloud he said, “Well, can you hold him for a spell, then when he gets too close, jump your horse and catch me up? I’d sorely ’preciate that. I won’t be able to ride fast with this.” He indicated the blood-soaked bandage. “You can catch me up easy.”
Dobey nodded thoughtfully. He glanced down into the canyon and back at Upton. “Reckon I can handle that. “
Upton climbed slowly to his feet, a hand supporting his wounded arm to good effect. “You sure now?”
“I’m sure.” Dobey raised a grin. “See you at the border.”
Upton flashed a grateful smile. “The border, then.”
He walked over to where his horse stood, trailing reins. He climbed aboard, sawing at the reins, digging in his spurs as the horse wheeled, waving adios.
Dobey watched him go, then switched his attention to the rim. He hadn’t liked to admit it to Upton, but the prospect of facing Quantro alone almost scared the pants off him. He liked to make out he was a hardened gunfighter, but the truth of it was he had shot at very few men. His reputation had been made at county fairs and the friendly contests of skill that always take place around men who use their guns a lot. But killing men was different, especially men with reputations like Quantro.
Dobey figured Upton had been lucky in a way to get wounded. It had got him out of this situation. Then he got to thinking about Upton’s wound. He hadn’t seen him bandage it. That must have been hard. He must be some tough hombre to keep on shooting after he’d been hit. But then it occurred to Dobey that Upton couldn’t have been hurt that bad if he’d still managed to handle the kick of a rifle.
That discovery bothered him. His thoughts returned more and more to it as he waited on the rim. The way Upton had cradled the arm as though it was about to fall off. And all that wincing. Didn’t fit with the tough image somehow. Dobey could remember seeing a cowhand once whose horse had fallen on him and smashed his hip so badly there had been white bone poking out through the broken skin. He had lain on the ground and said matter-of-factly, “Damn, I guess that puts me out of the dance Saturday.” He had fallen quiet, then added, “This week at least.”
No, there had been something odd about Upton’s behavior that Dobey couldn’t place. It would come. He moved on to the problem of Quantro. How long would it take him to get up on to the rim? Dobey reckoned his best bet was to stay put, then when Quantro came sneaking over, he could just squeeze off one shot. He measured the distance from his position to the rim with his eye. Like shooting a turnip off a stick. Unless, of course, Quantro got over without him seeing. That thought made him jumpy.
Then he remembered.
When Upton had swung his horse he had been holding the reins with his left hand. That meant he had to have waved with his right. And it was the right arm that was wounded, so weak he’d had to cradle it as he walked away.
The bastard. Upton had buffaloed him.
Dobey ran for his horse.
***
Quantro stared at the empty rim. He walked over to where the first gunman had been. Sure enough, shells littered the ground. Farther along, he found the second gunman’s stand. Mixed in with the empty brass casings were unused bullets. It had to have been Dobey. It was a sign of nerves, working the action of a rifle twice between shots.
“Pete!” he yelled over the rim, stooping to collect the good bullets, threading them into the empty loops of his belt.
“Yeah?” came back the reply.
“They’ve cleared out. Put the coffee back on and dig me out some chow. Lost me the last lot.” Quantro followed Dobey’s tracks to where his horse had waited, then began to cast in a circle. He picked up Upton’s trail without any effort, but no others. He made anoth
er cast, wider this time, but still picked up nothing. The only two sets of hoof prints led north.
They had run for the border once more.
***
Quantro ate hungrily. The wasted climb had sharpened his appetite. Pete sat by, sipping his coffee.
“We camping here again tonight?”
Quantro mopped at his plate with a hunk of bead. “Meaning?”
“Way you’re chewing at that, it’ll be sundown before you’ve finished.”
“Soon’s I’ve had coffee we’ll break camp.”
“You said they’ve run north again?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we’d better move. Once they hit Arizona Territory there’s no end of towns to get lost in, all within spitting distance of the border. There’s Bisbee, Packard, Watertank, Charleston, Fairbank…”
“You trying to depress me?”
“There’s worse. Three miles on the American side is the railroad. One way runs clear to El Paso.”
“How far’s that?”
“Somewhere over two hundred miles, give or take twenty. And westwards it runs through Tucson and on to Yuma.”
“The bad news?”
“Three hundred and fifty miles.” Pete considered Quantro’s face. “If they get on those rails it’ll take us years to find ’em, hunting through every rat-hole in every town along the way. If and when we do haul up on ’em, chances are there’ll be none of the silver left.”
“You’re real bright company.”
Pete shook his head. “Just the cold facts of life.”
***
The buckskin shifted restlessly beneath Quantro as he waited for Pete to mount up. He guided the stallion between the walls, then turned east out of the canyon mouth before he stuck his heels in so the horse would jump at the climb up to the rim. Out of the shade of the canyon walls the sun was a furnace in the clear sky that sucked hungrily at their sweat. When Pete topped out, Quantro was walking the stallion, leaning out over its neck.
“Must have run a straight line for the border.”
“Maybe,” Quantro conceded, stepping down to examine the tracks more closely. “Doesn’t figure. Seems to me Upton pulled out first, the way this sign reads. But if he left Dobey here as a rearguard, why did Dobey cut out before I hit the rim?”
“So what?”
“Something else, too. They must have left the packhorses away from the canyon so they’d make less noise when they sneaked back last night, but they sure as hell didn’t bring them here on to the rim.”
“You saying if you don’t pick up their sign soon, they left them some place else?”
“That’s about it.”
“Then they’ll be riding like hell for wherever the silver is,” Pete sniffed. “Can’t see Upton letting it out of his sight for long. “
“Me neither,” Quantro agreed, vaulting back into the saddle. “What I don’t like to think about is there could be somebody else in on it, maybe someone with a place near the border who’s minding it for Upton. That could make it even more difficult.”
“If that’s so, we can forget it. We’ve lost ’em.”
Quantro looked up, face grim. “Not yet we haven’t.”
CHAPTER 9
Upton wished his arm would stop bleeding. He had already changed the makeshift bandage once since he had left the canyon but the material was again soaked. It was that way sometimes. You got hit bad and you hardly bled at all, but when you just got nicked you bled like a neck-cut buffalo.
He was almost there.
He had it all to himself now, and that was the way he had planned on from the very beginning. The only trouble was he would have to load all the packhorses himself. The original scheme hadn’t called for Dobey to be disposed of quite so soon, but what the hell, Quantro would take care of that for him. With any luck, Dobey would keep Quantro occupied on the rim for a while. Maybe he would even kill him, but Upton didn’t think Dobey was anywhere near as good as that. Keeping him tied up for a while would be good enough. As long as there was time to reload the silver and cover the short ride to the border.
The border spelt freedom. And rich. Rich with a capital R.
The horses were penned in a dry wash Dobey’d found. When Upton had decided to turn tail and go back to the canyon to get Quantro, it had been a simple matter to weave some brushwood to form an effective corral gate to cover the end of the wash. In one of the shale walls Upton had found a hollow deep enough to hide the saddlebags that contained the silver, then covered them over.
He pulled his lathered horse to a standstill and studied the land. If he cut west a little he would soon be there. Good. He turned to inspect his back trail. No telltale plumes of dust. Also good. Dobey was probably still holding off Quantro. Wishful thinking perhaps, but any additional minute that Quantro was kept off the trail was another minute for Upton to make his getaway.
He urged his weary horse forward, angling across the rising ground. It was a good hiding-place he had chosen; there was no sign of the dry wash as he approached it.
He passed through a saddle in the rise then swung west into the beginnings of broken ground. Jagged rocks thrust through the earth as though grasping for a handhold in the clear sky, and on the south side, a huge saguaro cactus pointed swollen fingers accusingly at the fireball of the sun.
The brushwood gate was still in place. Still mounted, he fashioned a loop in his lariat, then made a cast on to the twisted weave of thorny wood. He hauled in the slack. Once satisfied the rope would hold, he wound a coil around his saddle horn and backed his horse. The gate swung open.
The packhorses were still there, but it was the silver his mind was uneasy about. The shale in the hollow was undisturbed. Distrusting appearances, he swung down off his horse and prodded the ground. It felt right. The shale shifted, allowing a corner of the tarpaulin to poke through. He lifted it carefully. The saddlebags were underneath it.
He unhooked his canteen, sitting down next to the heap of his wealth. He wiped his face, then swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm water.
Only a few miles to the border.
The lure of freedom fed his muscles with waking energy. Refreshed, he came to his feet. Now for the horses. He hung the canteen back on the saddle and filled his hand with the lariat. Ready, he began to croon softly, starting toward the packhorses where they milled restlessly against the back wall of the wash.
He caught them one by one. As soon as each was saddled and bridled, he attached it to a lead rein from his riding horse, then went to catch the next. It grew easier as the line of harnessed mounts lengthened.
Sweat was rolling down through the dust on his face by the time he had finished, but he was smiling. He wanted to sit down and rest, but he was too close to waste time now. Instead, walking slowly, the harsh sun sapping his strength, he crossed to the cache and pulled away the tarp.
The pile of polished leather bags glistened an invitation. Unable to resist, he unbuckled a flap then dipped his hand inside. Coins. Hard currency. Piles of them. When his hand emerged, sunlight flashed sparks off the silver dollars. He rubbed them appreciatively between his fingers before pressing one of the coins to his lips and kissing it.
Rich. Rich.
With the first of the heavy bags hanging from his hand, he came to his feet. Swinging it over the packhorse’s back brought a grunt of effort. He found himself panting as he threaded the saddle buckles, but he slapped the animal’s rump in sudden good humor. Rich. Grinning stupidly, he turned back to the cache.
Hard work, but nice work if you can get it.
***
Christ, he was tired. But it was done. Upton tested the last fastening on the packsaddle, then walked to his riding-horse. All the fetching and carrying had stiffened up his nicked arm. He inspected it. The bleeding looked as though it had at last stopped. He reached up to grip the saddle horn then hauled himself up on to the horse’s back.
How long had it taken? He squinted from below the protection of his hat brim at t
he sun. About an hour. Just that quick glance upwards was enough to make him more aware of his dry throat and his cracked lips and how drained he felt.
He groped for his canteen. He pulled out the stopper and held it to his mouth, gulping the water. With his free hand he patted the horse’s neck.
“Well, old hoss, we’ve got us a piece to ride.”
A Colt barked.
The canteen was ripped from his hand to spin away across the dry wash. He watched it land. Dented, it lay on the parched earth, water dribbling from the unplugged neck. He was too tired and too surprised for any lightning reactions. He was welded to the saddle. His only means of defense was the pistol at his hip.
His hand snaked toward the holster.
The Colt barked again. The bullet was close. Too close.
“Don’t,” a voice said quietly.
Dobey.
“How in hell did you get here so fast?” Upton asked.
“We’ll talk about that in a minute. Get your hands up above your head and sit still.”
Upton’s hand eased away from his gun, but he was slow in raising his right arm.
“Get that arm up, Upton, or I’ll put a hole through your head.”
Upton turned a little in the saddle. “What you so jumpy for, boy? I loaded the horses ready for when you got here. That was the deal we made back at the canyon, wasn’t it?”
“Get those hands high.” There was a loud click in the stillness as a hammer was drawn back.
“Slow down, boy. I can’t get this arm up. That bullet must be stuck in it. It hurts like hell.”
“Save it, Upton, I’m past believing you. You don’t get that arm up, you’re dead.”
Upton stretched.
“Got you figured, Upton. You fake a bad wound, then you leave me a sitting target for Quantro while you light a shuck for the territories.”
“Naw. You got it all wrong. I wouldn’t do that to you, boy. We’re partners, fifty-fifty.”
The Copper City Page 9
