Gun (A Spur Western Book 8)

by Matt Chisholm

  Maddox looked pleased.

  ‘If Spur doesn’t come along pretty soon,’ he said, ‘old Ben’s going to have a tongue as big as his head.’

  They collected his clothes and his horse and they went to their own mounts. Ben was starting to come around by the time they were in the saddle. The girl tried to get back to Ben, but they tied her hands to the saddlehorn and led her horse away.

  As they rode off, Ben stood and cursed them. They laughed.

  Maddox was satisfied. The message would get to Spur all right now. With two lives at stake, Spur would hold off.

  They rode on south. Very shortly they would be in Mexico and they could dispose of Doolittle. Maddox looked at the girl and the thought of her belonging to him went to his head like wine.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was nearing dusk when Spur came on Ben.

  The Negro was in pretty bad shape and for a while Spur couldn’t get any coherent words out of him. Ben was stripped to his longjohns and there were marks on his neck where he had been gun-whipped. Spur gave him water and found what he could among his own gear to cover him. Gradually, Ben came around. By this time Spur had worked his way through the rocks and understood what he could from the sign.

  When Ben could talk, they exchanged their stories.

  Ben told his briefly, because his tongue was still swollen and talking was difficult, but the message he gave was clear enough for Spur. Maddox had Netta and Doolittle. The latter was dispensable. He could be killed and dumped anywhere along the trail. Spur’s blood went cold in his veins. Charlie had been a good friend to him and, in fact, had saved his life on at least two occasions. When Gaylor had been sheriff and nearly had a rope around Spur’s neck, Charlie had kept his faith in Spur and done all he could to free him. Juanita Morales and her father Manuel had been the other two with faith in Sunset.

  Maybe Doolittle couldn’t be saved, but the girl had to be.

  Spur could never have lived with himself again if anything happened to her. Maybe he wasn’t in love with her any longer, but the fickleness of a man’s passion didn’t change his responsibility. He had to save the girl.

  He looked down at Ben, lying under the blanket, his face gray.

  The Negro knew the terrible fix he was in. If he went ahead, both of them could die. They both knew Maddox and they knew what the man was capable of. Yet he dared not stop. Maddox’s actions were unpredictable. Both the prisoners could die whatever Spur did.

  ‘I’ll wait till dawn,’ Spur said. It would eat his heart out, waiting, but he could not follow sign till light.

  ‘No, boy,’ Ben said. ‘You ride now.’

  ‘I’ll be ridin’ blind till light,’ Spur said.

  ‘Anticipate, Sam,’ Ben said. ‘That’s the tracker’s art. Them boys is a-goin’ dead south. They have to reach the Border fast. They don’t have nothin’ more in their minds. They think the line that ain’t there is a-goin’ to stop you. They made a big mistake. You go dead south. If you have luck you could find yourself on their sign. If you don’t, you circle till you find it. They won’t be far from a dead line.’

  ‘I’ll have to leave you, Ben,’ Spur said.

  ‘Sure you’ll have to leave me. I find water and I set by it. I ain’t goin’ to die.’

  Spur hated to leave his friend, but he knew he would have to. He stood up.

  ‘I’ll leave some rations with you, Ben,’ he said.

  Two-three days,’ Ben said, ‘an’ you’ll be back with Doolittle an’ the girl, you mark my words.’

  Spur unbuckled his gun-belt and dropped it by the Negro.

  ‘Best I can do,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t need no gun,’ Ben said. ‘You need all you have.’

  ‘Rifle’s enough,’ Spur said and bent down to pat Ben on the shoulder. ‘Look out for yourself, old-timer.’

  ‘You bet.’

  Spur walked to the mare and mounted in the dusk. He rode off slowly into the south.

  Ben picked up the gun and checked it. He might have known—it was in first-class condition.

  Then he lay back and thought about the situation.

  Most likely Charlie Doolittle had been able to reach town. If he hadn’t, the Basque had. Therefore the town knew something of what was happening. That meant that most likely somebody like Vince Marvin had raised a posse.

  Spur had told him that the Kid had gone on back to town with the man he and Spur had taken. So if the Basque hadn’t raised the alarm, most likely the Kid had. The little varmint had his uses. By God, he thought, Maddox must have lost some men along the way. He must be fit to be tied.

  The hoofbeats of Spur’s mare died away in the distance.

  Full dark came down suddenly over the land and Ben lay there, awaiting the desert chill of night, running his mind over the shape of the country around him. In daylight there was an endless stretch of waterless desolation which would have appalled any man without Ben’s knowledge of such places. If there was water around here, he would find it. He was quietly confident of himself.

  When the cool came, he would start walking. And he knew just where he would walk. The mountains started due northeast of where he lay. He could reach them before dawn broke and then he would find himself in the high country where there would be water and from where he could see over a vast sweep of land.

  As soon as he felt the cold of night cutting at him with its sharp fingers, he rose, rolled the blanket and slung the gun-belt over one shoulder. The canteen and the blanket went over the other. His neck felt as if it had been broken, his head ached intolerably. But he had been in worse conditions and survived. He didn’t doubt he would come through this. His main worry, however, was not for himself. It was for Spur, for Netta and Charlie Doolittle. Charlie was a dead duck if ever he had seen one.

  He walked steadily all through the night, resting every couple of hours like a wise man. By dawn, he was in the hills and slowly climbing. An hour after dawn, when the sun was riding the heavens and wilting the earth with its remorseless heat, Ben came on a few willows and their accompanying water. Here he drank his fill and more, replenished the canteen and climbed some more. When he had reached a good position, he inspected the trail north and south, saw nothing move on the arid landscape and then fell into a light doze.

  It must have been instinct as much as anything for, when he awoke, he saw that the sun was directly above him and that, to the north of him, there was a wisp of telltale dust. As he watched, he saw that there were two riders steadily making their way south. This, he knew, could be friend or enemy. He rose and climbed down toward the trail. He slung the gun-belt around his waist and reached the trail. Taking cover behind some rocks, he awaited the arrival of the two riders.

  As they came close, he saw, to his astonishment, that one of them was a woman.

  Coming toward him in the company of Doolittle’s Basque was none other than Juanita Morales.

  Ben swore. Ben wasn’t customarily a hard-swearing man, but now he needed a good swear. Juanita had intervened when he and Spur had rounded up the Gaylor gang to the north of Sunset not so long before. She was plain hell on wheels when she had gotten herself into locomotion. When it came to taking risks, she had every man he knew beaten to a frazzle.

  There were endless complications here. There was Netta Manson for a start. If the two women met ... His loyalty to Spur made him shudder at the thought.

  He stepped out onto the trail.

  At once the man and the woman slowed their pace. A lone man at the side of the trail in this country could mean danger. He saw Cilveti reach down for the rifle under his knee. Ben lifted a hand. The Basque rode off the trail to one side, so they could come at him from two directions. A careful man, that Basque.

  Then the Mexican girl recognized him.

  ‘It’s Ben,’ she called in Spanish and lifted her horse into a trot.

  Within a few moments, they were off their horses beside him and the questions came thick and fast. Where was Spur? Had he seen Spu
r? Ben wondered if this girl ever had any thought but Spur in her head. Yes, he said, he’d seen Spur. He was no more than eight-nine hours ahead of them. How had they found Spur’s trail? She threw that question aside. She had to be with Spur. She had no time to waste. Had she seen the Kid? Ben demanded. No, she hadn’t seen the Kid. But there was a posse out looking for the men who had stolen the girl.

  Ben wondered if she knew that this was the girl Spur had sworn to marry.

  In the next sentence, Juanita showed that she knew right enough. ‘It is not right,’ she declared, ‘that Samuel should die for this girl. If he dies for any woman, it shall be me. And if I am around there will be no need for him to do that. I shall kill with my own hands any man who tries to do that.’

  Looking at her, Ben believed every word she said.

  The Basque nodded his head. Such sentiments were seemly, he said.

  Ben said: ‘Señorita, let Inaki and me go on ahead. Lend me your horse. This is work for men.’

  She snorted in the most unladylike fashion. By God, Ben thought, Spur has gotten himself a woman and a half here. She scared the pants off him.

  ‘The day will not come,’ she said, ‘when I cannot ride to save my man. Inaki and I shall go on and we will not stop till we have Spur riding back toward Sunset.’

  Ben begged her, but she would not listen.

  Within minutes, she and the Basque were mounted and were riding south. Once more Ben was alone, feeling as if he had been speaking with two desert ghosts. He felt out of everything, missing the action. Moodily, he climbed the hill and looked out over the country. He could see the small specks which were the girl and Cilveti eating up the miles into old Mexico.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye another movement caught his attention.

  Turning his head, he saw the light pall of dust. Alarm touched him. He knew that was raised by a number of horsemen heading south-west. It could possibly be the posse the girl had mentioned. It could, he surmised, also be some more of Maddox’s men. Either way, there was going to be a hell of a fight and men were going to die. And here was he stuck fast in the hills without a horse and with nothing but a fool belt-gun for an arm. It went against nature for him not to be able to ride alongside Spur.

  During the afternoon, he spotted dust to the west. He watched it for some time and after a while judging the dark speck that emerged from it to be a two-wheeled Mexican cart. As it came closer he saw that it contained a Mexican man with a white-beard, a woman and several children. Riding on either side of the vehicle were two men, one mounted on a mule and the other on a horse. Their immediate destination, he decided, was the water among the willows below him.

  Accordingly, he made his way down to the water and got himself under cover.

  Not so long after, the cart swayed and creaked its way into sight. Both the horseman and the man on the mule urged their animals toward the water and came on ahead of the cart.

  As they reached the edge of the water and were about to swing down from their animals, Ben appeared from cover with Spur’s Colt in his hand. Their terror at the sight of a strange black man stripped to his longjohns was apparent and understandable. They cried out in alarm and at once begged that he would have consideration of the fact that they were poor men and that one of them was the husband of that poor woman yonder and the father of the three children who were with her.

  Ben explained that he meant them no harm, but that he had appeared before them with a gun in his hand because he had no means of knowing whether they were dangerous men or not. They protested loudly at this. Anybody could see that they were poor honest men. Could not the señor see that?

  Yes, certainly, he assured them, he could see that. And, like them, he was also a poor but honest man. Now he had need of the loan of that fine mule there. Nothing more than a loan, he swore on the Virgin. He knew Mexicans like to swear on the Virgin.

  They threw up their hands. A loan of this fine mule, they cried. Why, this animal was their livelihood. The black gentleman must surely see that.

  He had been robbed, Ben told them, by evil men, Anglo bandidos, and he needed to go after them for they had taken much gold and a fine mule. When he regained his gold he would be in a position to compensate his fine Mexican friends beyond their wildest dreams.

  They declared that they had no need of dreams, but that mule was extremely necessary to them.

  Ben told himself that he did not have all the time in the world to stay around here dickering over a stove-in mule. He needed some action fast. He therefore changed his role and told them bluntly that if he didn’t ride out of there in a few minutes flat, somebody would end up with a slug in his brisket.

  That showed them truly what their relative positions were. Their manner altered, as will the manner of all men when threatened with a gun. It wasn’t the wisest way to settle an argument, as Ben knew full well, and had no lasting effect except to create hate, but this moment constituted an emergency. Spur was down the trail needing him.

  The mule changed hands with an impressive alacrity. Ben mounted in the glory of his longjohns, the Mexican woman wept and the kids all started howling. Ben learned where they lived and promised to return the mule, but somehow he did not seem to reassure the Mexicans. They did, however, look like men who were appreciative of the fact than they were still in one piece.

  Ben rode off in a southerly direction, feeling a little more cheerful. That Spur couldn’t get along without him and, for all Ben knew, had gotten himself in one hell of a tight by now.

  The Mexicans debated the nice point of whether they hated Anglos or Negroes the worst. The old man pointed out that they were one of a piece. They were all gringos and not to be trusted. The others agreed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  There were now five main pieces moving on the chessboard. Maddox and his party, unaware that they were being followed. Doolittle now half-dead across the back of the horse, the girl Netta beside herself with concern for him as the saddle beneath him pounded the life out of him mile after mile. This man was as he was now because he had tried to save her. She had been born and raised on the frontier. The first sound she could remember clearly from her childhood had been the shrill yell of the Comanche as they ran off the Texan horses. Her father had been killed in front of her by the Kiowas. She had been raised hard and she could think hard thoughts. If she had her hands free and a gun in one of them, she would deal with these three men as Doolittle would have dealt with them.

  Half a day behind them rode Sam Spur, his mind weary with anxiety, not knowing what lay ahead of him, yet with the terrible thought in his mind that Netta and Charlie Doolittle were already dead and he was merely riding toward the chore of digging twin graves. The mare was going well, steadily covering the hot and dusty miles. He had circled for sign as Ben had suggested and had cut it an hour after dawn. Now it was plain before him and could have been followed by a city-man born. Following it, he crossed the international line and put his marshal’s badge away in a pocket. Now he was a private citizen with murder in his heart.

  Half a day behind him, Cusie Ben tried to get some speed out of a mule that was reluctant to run and indeed had little run in it. He sweated and despaired as he rode being ever tortured by the thought that he would be too late.

  Further to the east and slightly south were five men riding to what they considered to be their freedom and a year’s good living, blissfully unaware of the fact that they had been sent on the trail they had taken merely to be posse-bait. They weren’t quite sure when they crossed the Border, but every man of them reckoned they were now pretty safe. They slackened their pace to save the tiring horses and they talked about how they were going to enjoy spending the gold among the Mexes.

  As unaware of the posse behind them as Maddox was of Spur behind him, they laughed and joked as they rode, declaring that Maddox was a prince among men. George Maddox never let a man down. They had no idea that if Maddox’s timing had not been so poor they would now be shooting it out with
a dozen good men and true from the town of Sunset.

  The good men and true of Sunset had not taken too kindly to the heat, dust and unending travel of the trail. They were willing enough and probably would have been found to have guts enough for the job if they had come face to face with the men they followed. But when they thought that they were in the proximity of the Border, they stopped and debated among themselves on the subject of how unkindly the Mexican authorities were to visiting armed bands of Americans who violated the soil of Mexico. A few of them, led by Vince Marvin, declared that they didn’t give a damn for international law and that they should ride on till they met up with the men they were after. The fate of a blue-blooded, or was it red-blooded? American girl was at stake. The others declared that they sure felt bad about that, but, hell, it wouldn’t help her none if they were all in a Mexican jail. Finally, the do-nots prevailed and the posse turned around for home.

  Maddox, knowing that he had left Cusie behind him on the trail to meet Sam Spur, knowing also that he was now in the republic of Mexico where he had friends who had a certain influence in political circles and that therefore he was approaching comparative safety, allowed the horses to slacken their pace. This was just as well for the animals had been run cruelly since they had left the town of Sunset. Maddox was a man who liked to leave a certain reserve in his horses as a safety precaution. Something he had learned over his years as a professional. No matter how safe you felt, there could always be a source of danger around the corner.

  He thought now that at least he could dispense with the encumbrance of Charlie Doolittle. From here on he needed only the girl. And Spur would never get his hands on her again. He measured the miles ahead of him in the eye of his mind and knew that there was not a hope of reaching his destination more than a few hours after dark. The light was starting to fail and the country was of the kind that could offer good cover for a fire. He and the other two would turn off into the hills with their two captives, find a well-sheltered spot and camp. He could handle good hot coffee and some well-cooked food. Wayne Gaylor always fancied himself as a cook and tonight he could prove it one way or the other. Holy could take Doolittle off into the hills and dispose of him.