Flintlock

by William W. Johnstone

  “You’re a white man, Pleasant,” Pagg said.

  “Well, I’ll take pleasure in seeing you hang, Asa, but I won’t torture a man for no good reason.”

  Tyrell used a folding knife to cut the rope. “Your hands and wrists are a mess,” he said. “And your back is even worse. I got something in my saddlebags that will ease them wounds. You ever hear of Dr. Wilson’s Miracle Balm?”

  Pagg flexed his fingers and the pain of returning circulation made him wince. “No, I never have,” he said.

  “It says right on the bottle in printed letters that it cures the croup, rashes, cancer, ague, toothache and the rheumatisms. So it’ll cure your back and wrists, I reckon.”

  Pagg’s eyes slid to a spot farther up the dry wash where a chunk of ancient driftwood stuck out of the sand.

  He hatched his plan.

  Pleasant Tyrell had survived so long in a dangerous profession because he was a careful man. Normally he would’ve stepped warily around Asa Pagg and watched for any fancy moves because the man was a killer and he was almighty sudden.

  But Tyrell let his guard down a little, thinking that a naked man, weak from a terrible whipping, exposure and loss of blood, presented no great danger.

  It was the kind of mistake that kills a man.

  As Pleasant Tyrell rummaged in his saddlebags for the balm, Pagg, barefooted and silent on sand, stepped to the chunk of wood. It was part of a hardwood branch, bleached and hard as iron, a sharp, splintered spike at one end.

  Pagg advanced on the lawman, making no sound.

  “Got it!” Tyrell said, turning his head.

  Pagg swung, a roar of triumph escaping from his open mouth.

  The wooden spike, shaped like a claw, crashed into Tyrell’s left ear and drove deep. Tyrell fell against his horse, the side of his head scarlet with sudden blood. Stunned, his eyes glazed, he made no move toward his guns.

  Pagg, growling like an animal, had to work the spike to free it from muscle and bone. Tyrell dropped to his knees and Pagg swung the club again, this time aiming for the marshal’s head.

  Tyrell’s skull shattered like an eggshell and he groaned then fell, his head and shoulders covered in blood, brain and bone.

  Pagg threw the club on top of Tyrell’s body. “Damn you, you’ll never come after me again with an alive or dead warrant,” he said. “May you rot in hell, old man.”

  Tyrell’s fancy buckskin shirt was too small to stretch across Pagg’s great beer barrel of a chest and enormous shoulders, but the old man’s pants and boots, though snug, fit him. He found a slicker behind the marshal’s saddle and donned it in place of a shirt.

  Like Tyrell, Pagg favored butt-forward shoulder holsters, but the old marshal’s gun rig felt awkward to him. No matter, he’d trade gun belts with the next man he killed and try them for fit.

  He went through the old man’s pockets and found a nickel railroad watch that he kept and a mouth harp he tossed away. He’d already found eight dollars stuffed in Tyrell’s pocket.

  Pagg kicked the old man’s body. “Damned pauper,” he said. “You were hardly worth killing.”

  He stepped to the marshal’s horse, then stopped where he was, his back stiff.

  His instincts honed to a sharp edge by a lifetime of outlawry, Pagg knew when he was being watched.

  He turned and saw at least two score of Apaches sitting their ponies not twenty yards away, Geronimo among them.

  Asa Pagg raised his open hand in a gesture of peace and friendship.

  But, judging by the ferocious scowl on Geronimo’s face, he’d some sweet talking to do . . . and fast.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Sam Flintlock woke to a hand shaking his shoulder.

  When Jack Coffin felt the muzzle of the Colt pushing into his belly, he smiled and whispered, “Come. Quietly.”

  Not by nature a questioning man at times like these, Flintlock got to his feet and shoved the revolver back into his waistband. He looked around him. Everyone else was asleep, though Ayasha stirred and muttered something, her dreams full of demons.

  Flintlock picked up the Hawken and followed Coffin into the trees.

  Old Barnabas, his face streaked with yellow paint, sat at the base of a juniper braiding ribbons of the same color into his beard.

  He stared at Flintlock, shook his head and sighed.

  Then the old mountain man was gone and Flintlock heard the wind sigh through the pines.

  “What delays you?” Coffin said, appearing out of the gloom.

  “Nothing,” Flintlock said. “I thought I heard a voice.”

  Coffin stepped to the juniper and picked up something. He came back and held the yellow ribbon high for Flintlock to see. “Yours?” he said.

  “No, it’s not mine,” Flintlock said.

  “Then I’ll keep it,” Coffin said.

  Flintlock let that go, then said, “Why do you wear death paint?”

  “My time is close.”

  “Is it because of the bell?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think the bell is cursed.”

  “Bad old Barnabas told you so?”

  “I saw him. He was wearing yellow paint and he sighed. But I think it was the wind in the trees I heard.”

  Coffin nodded. “Yes, you saw only the brightness of the ribbon and heard the wind. That was all.”

  “I reckon that was the case.”

  “Good, now let us go from here.”

  Flintlock followed Coffin through the trees but looked back at the juniper.

  He saw nothing but darkness and the bony light of the moon.

  From a clump of pines near the bottom of the slope that rose to meet the ridge, Sam Flintlock’s eyes tried to penetrate the gloom.

  “I don’t see a cave,” he said. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Nonetheless, it’s there,” Coffin said. “The cave of the golden bell is there. I saw it.”

  “I wasn’t even sure the cave existed,” Flintlock said.

  “Well, now you know.”

  “Yeah, but I still don’t know if there’s two thousand pounds of golden bell.”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “Well, should we go take a look-see?” Flintlock said.

  Coffin answered that question with silence. But after a while he said, “We’ll go closer, Samuel. I want to show you something.”

  The breed crouched low and made his way carefully toward the base of the slope. Flintlock, following, wondered at that. The trees and brush hid all movement, yet Coffin was wary, afraid to be seen.

  The man was scared . . . of what?

  Crouching on his heels, Coffin stared through pines and pointed out a massive outcropping of sandstone rock that ran the whole length of the ridge.

  “Do you see it?” he said.

  Flintlock nodded. “I see it. The damned thing’s big enough.” He craned his head forward, searching into the distance. “Where’s the cave?”

  “Below the rock shelf,” Coffin said.

  Flintlock figured that, during the passage of ages, the tremendous weight of the towering mountain that loomed behind the ridge had pushed a great slab of rock over the rim. The shelf had come to rest about fifty feet above the cave mouth and hung there, brooding and threatening.

  “The whole rock shelf could come down, Samuel,” Coffin said.

  Flintlock said, “Hell, it’s hung up there for thousands of years. It’ll stay for thousands more.”

  “No. The sandstone is rotten,” Coffin said. “It wouldn’t take much to bring it tumbling.”

  The outcropping projected about twenty feet from the ridge and it was webbed with deep cracks. But how long it had been like that, Flintlock had no way of knowing. The fractures could’ve happened yesterday or ten thousand years ago.

  He grinned at Coffin. “We’ll have to step careful, huh?”

  “If there is a bell in the cave as large as you say, you’ll need a heavy wagon and mules to get it out and carry it down t
he slope.”

  “Not if we break it up first,” Flintlock said.

  “And then the noise and vibration of sledgehammers could bring a whole mountain down on top of you.”

  “So what do you suggest, Jack?” Flintlock said, remembering that he disliked this man.

  “I suggest nothing. My task was to bring you to the cave, and that’s what I’ve done.”

  “Not until we’re sure this is the right cave,” Flintlock said. “There could be dozens, hundreds in the Carrizo Mountains.”

  “This is the cave, Samuel. I’m sure of it.”

  “I’m going to take a look,” Flintlock said. He checked the action of the Hawken, then smiled. “I’m loaded for bear.”

  Coffin shook his head. “You leave the Winchester behind and carry the old Hawken, Samuel. You are a strange man.”

  “It brings me luck,” Flintlock said.

  Coffin stared at the ridge, his eyes pensive. “Something tells me you’re going to need it.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Sam Flintlock got to his feet and angled across the bottom of the slope until he reached a well-worn ribbon of path that led upward, only to lose itself in a patch of brush. Where the trail went after that was not visible.

  The Hawken at the slant across his chest, Flintlock took to the path and made his way up the incline.

  Beyond the ridge the mountain peaks were black against the sky, blotting out the stars. The wind tugged at Flintlock as though to slow his progress and his booted feet slipped now and then and dislodged small showers of shale.

  He followed the path into the brush and stepped around stands of cholla and prickly pear that threatened to invade the path.

  After Flintlock cleared the scrub the slope grew steeper, but rose straight as an arrow before disappearing into darkness.

  Breathing hard, he stopped and looked behind him. There was no sign of Jack Coffin. The shy moon had pulled a cloud in front of its face and the land around him was everywhere deep in gloom and silence. Only the moaning wind made a sound.

  Despite the coolness of the night, sweat beaded Flintlock’s forehead and dampened his shirt between his shoulder blades.

  He had the urge to yell, “Hello, the cave!” if only to shatter the smothering quiet.

  But he decided that would be foolish and resumed his climb.

  The cave came in sight a few minutes later, Flintlock’s view of the opening aided by the no longer bashful moon.

  He planted his feet, raised the old Hawken and made a scan of the opening, about the width of a tall man with his arms outstretched and maybe twice as high.

  Nothing moved within the line of his vision. The cave was deserted, unless the entity that guarded the place was asleep. Flintlock smiled to himself. Did Death ever take a nap? No, he was way too busy for that.

  He was wary enough to study the cliff face for a couple of minutes until he climbed the last few yards to the opening.

  The Hawken still at the ready, Flintlock said, “Anybody to home?”

  He was greeted by the echoes of silence. This close, the cave entrance looked like a great open mouth, ready to devour him. The wind whispered a secret into Flintlock’s ear, but who can understand the wind?

  He stepped into the cave and total darkness shut down his vision.

  For a moment Flintlock stood still, listening. There was no sound. The air smelled stale and old, like opening an old clothes trunk that had lain undisturbed in an attic for years.

  In moments of stress a smoking man will turn to tobacco. Flintlock propped the Hawken against his leg, then, his movements skilled and practiced, he built a cigarette and thumbed a match into flame. There were things to look at in the cave, but he had eyes for only the oil lamp that stood just inside the entrance.

  The unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, he lit the lamp and flooded the cave with thin, yellow light. The match burned his fingers and he shook his hand and let it drop. He lit his smoke from the lamp and only then did he look around him.

  An old, ornate armchair dominated the small space. A footstool and a natural rock shelf made up the other furnishings. The shelf held a loaf of round, peasant bread, standing beside it an earthenware jug and two clay cups.

  But what caught Flintlock’s attention was a hanging Navajo blanket, its top pinned in place by a series of iron nails driven into the sandstone. He decided that the blanket must partition off another part of the cave.

  And he figured that the golden bell must be behind the curtain.

  The damp, gloomy and smelly cave was an improbable place to hold such a fabulous treasure, like a diamond in a pack rat’s nest.

  Suddenly Flintlock was anxious to see what two thousand pounds of gold looked like.

  He jerked back the curtain . . . and stared into a tunnel of darkness.

  Disappointed, Flintlock raised the lamp and light splashed on walls about ten feet apart. Here the roof of the cave was so high it was lost from sight. He had no way of knowing how far the cavern tunneled into the ridge and the mountain behind, but he guessed it could be a considerable distance.

  He propped the Hawken against the cave wall, ground out his cigarette butt under his heel and then, the oil lamp raised above his head, made his way forward, glad of the solid, reassuring weight of the Colt in his waistband.

  Flintlock didn’t know what lay ahead of him . . . but he had an odd sense of dread and the feeling that he was being watched.

  After counting a hundred paces, Sam Flintlock figured he was well beyond the ridge and somewhere deep under the mountain. The air was fetid and hard to breathe and the oil lamp guttered, casting shifting scarlet and black shadows on the walls.

  He stopped two or three times and stood very still, listening for sounds, but heard none. He kept moving through the cave, steadily and quietly.

  After another fifty steps or so, the tunnel made a sharp jog to Flintlock’s right. He made the turn and kicked something that skittered away from his boot and made an odd, metallic clink!

  When he shone the lamp on the spot, light gleamed dully on an old helmet, its steel showing here and there through a patina of green mold and rust. Flintlock had seen pictures of its like, the elegant, crested morion worn by the old Spanish soldiers.

  A moment later he found the wearer.

  The skeleton lay sprawled on the ground, the position of the bones suggesting that the man had been crawling on all fours when death took him. The yellow skull grinned without humor and the eye sockets were dark with shadow.

  Raised by mountain men, a superstitious breed, Sam Flintlock had heard stories of ha’ants and boogermen and the like, and he hurried past the skeleton, wishing that he’d never seen the damned thing.

  As it happened, he didn’t have far to walk. The cave turned again, this time to the left, and directly in front of him was a huge bell, black as night, squatting on a plinth of rock like a great toad.

  Warily, his breath coming fast and hard, Flintlock stepped closer.

  The crown of the bell, where the rope attached, had been cast in the shape of a bird, in the act of plucking feathers from its own chest.

  Unbidden, words swam into Flintlock’s mind . . .

  The bell that never rang . . . the bird that never sang.

  He shook his head. Where did that come from?

  There was no time to consider the question. He had other, more important things to do.

  Flintlock’s head spun and he felt as though an anvil was crushing his chest. He smelled something he couldn’t identify, something vile, something dangerous....

  Weakening fast, he opened his pocketknife and stepped to the bell. He placed his hand on its side. It was cold. Cold, impersonal to the touch.

  Working carefully, Flintlock scraped the black surface with the Barlow’s carbon steel blade and as he’d expected, he uncovered the gleam of gold.

  He stepped back, his red-rimmed eyes wide, unbelieving.

  The legend had been right. The whole damned bell was made o
f solid gold.

  Gold!

  Flintlock’s reeling mind immediately built fantasy castles in the air, parapets, ramparts, battlements, towers and spires . . . the stuff of his wildest dreams . . . and all of them made of glittering, solid gold.

  Gold!

  Gold enough to keep a man in luxury for the rest of his life, penned up in a golden cage and never the need to kowtow to anybody.

  But wait! There wasn’t enough to share!

  No, by God, he had only enough for himself.

  Why, to satisfy his ravenous gold hunger he was willing to pour it molten, down his throat until he gagged. But he was not willing to part with an ounce of it.

  Flintlock growled like an animal and bared his teeth.

  He’d kill to keep his gold. He’d kill everybody—Abe, Charlie, the women, every damned one of them. They were all thieves and they’d get together to plot how they could steal his fortune.

  He threw back his head and screamed, “It’s mine! The golden bell is all mine!”

  His face contorted, the expression of a madman, Flintlock staggered away from the bell that now seemed to have grown bigger and more ominous.

  “I’ll be back,” he said. “You know I’ll come back for you, don’t you?”

  The great bell rang in reply . . . a clashing, clanging, cacophony that clamored through the cave, the echoes reverberating louder and louder . . . deafening Flintlock, threatening to shatter his fragile hold on sanity.

  He screamed and ran.

  As he bolted through the cave, the oil lamp dropped from his hand. He couldn’t breathe, his chest hurt terribly and he tasted raw blood in his mouth.

  Finally, unable to run any longer he fell headlong, sprawling onto the hard rock of the cave floor.

  Flintlock groaned and turned his head. The yellow skull grinned at him and said, in a voice that sounded like the rustle of dry parchment, “Welcome to your golden death. . . .”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Asa Pagg had a feeling that death could be close. Geronimo didn’t look like he was in the mood for conversation.