The Loner: Dead Man’s Gold

by J. A. Johnstone

  “You don’t believe there’s any beauty, any goodness in the world?”

  “That’s not what I said. Sure, there’s plenty of beauty and goodness both. If you’re lucky, you might have some of those things for yourself. But then, if you’re not careful, the world snatches them away.”

  Father Jardine said, “What does this have to do with those savages wanting vengeance on us?”

  “Any time anybody loses something they care about, it makes them mad,” The Kid said. “Somebody who has a clearer view of what the world is really like knows he has to strike back. If you just accept it, you’re showing weakness, and then there’ll be even more folks who want to take advantage of you and hurt you.”

  Annabelle sounded disgusted as she said, “So you’re saying that the whole world is against you, and if you don’t go around seeking bloody-handed vengeance on everyone who does you the least little wrong, the world will sense your weakness and crush you.”

  The Kid smiled at her, but the expression held no warmth. “Now you’re starting to understand,” he said. “You have to pick your battles, of course, but if somebody hurts you bad enough, you’d damned well better make them hurt worse, if you want to have any chance in life.”

  “You’re insane,” Annabelle said, her voice as cold as his smile had been. “You’re as much a savage as those Apaches.”

  The Kid shrugged. “Been called worse.”

  She shook her head and turned away. Father Jardine came closer, though, and said quietly, “You’ve been hurt very badly in life, haven’t you, my son?”

  “No offense, padre, but my life is my business.” The Kid paused. “For what it’s worth, there was a time when I was a lot like Dr. Dare. But then I learned better.”

  “And I’m sorry you had to learn that, Mr. Morgan. It must have been a very painful lesson.”

  Painful? The Kid thought about what had happened to Rebel.

  It had ripped his heart right out of his body, that’s all.

  Nothing else was said the next morning about what had taken place the night before, except for one moment when Father Jardine asked The Kid, “I don’t suppose you buried those two men who died last night?”

  “Sorry, padre, I didn’t. After what Jackson did back in Las Cruces, I didn’t figure he deserved anything better than being left for the buzzards.”

  “And I don’t suppose you can understand how I—and the Lord—can forgive a man for his sins.”

  “You and your boss are in the forgiving business, padre,” The Kid said. “I’m not.”

  No one had bothered the wagon during the night. The Kid took the horses back down the slope and hitched them up while Annabelle and Father Jardine loaded the rest of their supplies that had been unloaded the night before. Then Annabelle drove the wagon over to the waterhole known as Paraje Perillo, named after the little dog that had found it for those conquistadors a couple of hundred years earlier.

  It didn’t amount to much, just a little pond with some grass growing around it and down into its muddy edges. The Kid took the lids off the water barrels and used a bucket to fill them after checking the water and determining that it was suitable to drink. He didn’t toss the bucket into the back of the wagon until the barrels were full to the brim.

  “There may be water at Laguna del Muerto,” Annabelle said. “That’s three or four days north of here. If it’s dry, the next water will be at Fra Cristobal, three or four days north of that, where the trail goes between the mountains and the lava fields to the east. That’s the northern end of the Jornada.”

  “So we’re looking at maybe a week’s travel without coming to any water,” The Kid mused.

  “That’s right.”

  He slapped one of the barrels. “These will get us through, if nothing happens to them.”

  “Bite your tongue!” Annabelle said.

  “No thanks.” The Kid rubbed his jaw for a moment, then went on, “So somewhere between here and this Fra Cristobal, you expect to find the Konigsberg Candlestick and the secret of the Twelve Pearls.”

  Annabelle and Father Jardine glanced at each other. The Kid didn’t miss the look that went between them.

  “That’s right,” Annabelle said. “That’s why we’re here, after all.”

  The Kid waved a hand toward the north. “Mighty big stretch of nothing up there. How do you intend to find what you’re looking for? Look under every rock when you drive past it? Poke your hand into every little hole you see? What about what the ones you don’t see?”

  Father Jardine sighed. “We might as well go ahead and tell him, Doctor. We knew we had to, sooner or later.”

  “Yeah, considering the fact that you asked me to come along and help you, I reckon you ought to start trusting me, sooner or later,” The Kid said with a flash of anger he didn’t bother to suppress.

  Annabelle glared back at him stubbornly, but after a moment, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “All right. We know a little more about the location of the candlestick than we told you. One of the journals I read in Mexico City was written by the officer in command of an outpost at Fra Cristobal. It’s generally thought that Albrecht Konigsberg, or El Aleman, as he called himself by that time, died at a spot about halfway between here and Laguna del Muerto. Some human bones were found scattered near there, years later, and they were assumed to be his. But according to the journal I read, Konigsberg actually made it as far north as the southern end of the lava field. It was there he realized that he probably wasn’t going to survive, so he hid his treasure and sent his servant for help.”

  “Have you got a map?” The Kid guessed.

  Annabelle shook her head. “No map. Just directions, and sketchy ones, at that. But if we can find the right landmarks, not far from the southern edge of those lava fields, we should be able to find the hiding place.”

  The Kid nodded slowly. “So you’re going into the malpais.”

  “I think that’s what they call it, yes. It’s still considered part of the Jornada del Muerto, because there’s certainly no water out there.”

  “What about that so-called secret of the Twelve Pearls? Do you know what that is, too?”

  Father Jardine gave a solemn shake of his head and said, “No, Mr. Morgan, we don’t, and I give you my word on that. No one has ever been able to discover what the German meant by those references. Our hope is that when we find it, we’ll know.”

  “This place where we’re going, from what you’ve said, it’s still a good ways north.”

  “That’s right,” Annabelle said. “And we’ll have to leave the regular trail and cut off to the east into the lava field as well. It’s not going to be an easy journey.” She paused. “You’re not thinking of leaving us, are you, Mr. Morgan? If you are, it’s only two days’ ride back to Las Cruces. You can fill up your canteens here and make it without too much trouble.”

  “I already plan to fill up my canteens,” The Kid said. “You can’t take too much water with you out here. But if I turn around and head back, I’m liable to run right into Count Fortunato.”

  “There’s a chance he doesn’t know who you are. He might not bother you.”

  The Kid shook his head. “He had to be using a telescopic sight when he winged you that day his men were chasing the wagon across the flats and I butted in. I’m betting he took a pretty good look at me through that sight.”

  “He may have had agents watching us at other times, as well,” Father Jardine added. “The man is a devil. He always seems to know more than he should.”

  “I’ll stay with you two,” The Kid said as he knocked the lids down on the water barrels. “I’ll admit, by now I’m pretty curious about that fancy candlestick. I’d like to take a look at it. I wouldn’t mind knowing what that business about the Twelve Pearls is all about, either.”

  “All right, if that’s what you want,” Annabelle said. Although she made a show of being casual about it, The Kid thought she really was relieved that he wasn’t running out on them.


  That wasn’t going to happen. Like he had told her before, once he took cards in a game, he stayed in it until the end.

  The bitter, bloody end.

  “Ready to go?” Annabelle asked as she took the reins of the team.

  The Kid swung into the buckskin’s saddle. “Ready to go,” he said.

  Chapter 22

  The soft knocking on the hotel room door gradually penetrated Count Eduardo Fortunato’s brain. He swam up out of the deep slumber he’d been in and shifted in the bed. The woman beside him responded to that movement even though she was still asleep. She snuggled her nude, lush body closer against him.

  Fortunato forced his eyes open. He blew a strand of Jess’s hair away from his nose, where it had been tickling him. She murmured, “Mmmmm?” but didn’t actually wake up. Fortunato had an arm around her. He pulled it back and sat up, throwing the covers aside so that he could swing his legs out of bed.

  He knew who was knocking on the door. It had to be Arturo. The pattern was familiar—three soft raps, followed by “Excellency?” Then the knocking was repeated, and the servant called out quietly again. That would go on until Fortunato opened the door, no matter how long it took.

  Growling a curse, he stood up, grabbed his robe from the foot of the bed, and wrapped it around him as he went to the door. He knotted the belt around his waist, then jerked the door open and asked harshly, “What is it?”

  Arturo blinked and sniffed, offended by Fortunato’s tone but pretending he wasn’t going to show it. “There are men downstairs looking for you,” he said. “Six of them.”

  “The men Braddock sent from El Paso? It’s damned well about time.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, Excellency. All I know is that there are six men downstairs in the lobby who wish to speak to you.”

  “All right. What the hell time is it, anyway?”

  “Eleven o’clock in the morning.”

  Fortunato grunted. It was easy to slip into a life of ease when all he had to fill his time were liquor, cards, and a beautiful, willing woman.

  But it was time to focus on his goal again. His backbone stiffened. “Tell them I’ll be down shortly,” he instructed Arturo.

  “Of course, Excellency. Will there be anything else?”

  He started to tell Arturo to see to it that the whore was dressed and out of his room as soon as possible after he went downstairs. But he decided to wait on that. It was possible, though unlikely, that the men looking for him weren’t the ones Braddock had sent from El Paso. In that case, he would still need Jess around to help him pass the idle hours.

  “No, that’s all,” he said. He stepped back and closed the door.

  From the bed, Jess asked in a voice heavy with sleep, “What’s going on? I thought I heard voices…”

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, my dear,” Fortunato replied. “Just some business I must attend to. Why don’t you just go back to sleep?”

  “Is it noon yet?”

  “No.”

  She snuggled down deeper in the pillows. “All right, then.”

  She really was a decadent animal, Fortunato thought as he dressed in a dark suit and a white shirt. He buttoned the shirt collar but didn’t put on a tie. He glanced at the shape of her under the sheet and thought that he would miss her…a little. She had met all of his desires with enthusiasm, no matter how unusual they might be, and she had come up with some intriguing variations of her own.

  Fortunato pushed those thoughts out of his mind as he left the room and went downstairs. When he reached the lobby, he saw the six men waiting near the front doors. They turned, and one of them walked toward him.

  The man was several inches taller than Fortunato, with hair as black as a raven’s wing and a rugged, lantern-jawed face. He carried a black Stetson in his left hand. He wore a red shirt, a black leather vest, and black whipcord trousers. The gunbelt strapped around his lean hips was black, as well, as was the butt of the gun that stuck up from the holster. The clothes gave the man the look of a dandy, but one glance at the cold, agate-like eyes told Fortunato that the man was no harmless fop.

  “Mr. Fortunato?” he said.

  “Count Fortunato,” the Italian corrected.

  A faint smile tugged at the man’s mouth, as if to say that he’d go along with whatever Fortunato wanted, but he didn’t really give a damn either way.

  “My name is Thomas Novak. An hombre called Braddock said you were looking for six good men.” Novak used the hat in his hand to gesture toward his companions. “There are five of them, right there.”

  “And the sixth?” Fortunato asked.

  “The best of the bunch. You’re looking at him.”

  The man didn’t lack for confidence, even arrogance. That was often a good thing, as Fortunato knew very well since he possessed the same sort of confidence. But it could lead to trouble when two such men met and one had to take orders from the other.

  “Twenty thousand dollars,” Fortunato said sharply. “Five to you, the remaining fifteen divided among the others. And you do what I say.”

  Best to get everything out in the open right away, so there would be no misunderstandings later on.

  “The price sounds fair,” Novak said. “As for the rest of it…Braddock said you’re going into the Jornada del Muerto.”

  “That is correct.”

  “You know much about it?”

  Fortunato shrugged. “Some. I have never been there.”

  “Well, I have. Been across it a couple of times, in fact. So here’s my counteroffer. We’ll follow your orders without hesitation…unless you tell us to do something that’s going to get us killed. Then there’s gonna have to be some discussion.”

  Fortunato fought down the impulse to slap the gunman across his smirking face. The man obviously had no concept of the way the world worked. Those who were superior made the rules. Novak would learn that before this was over, Fortunato vowed.

  But only after he had outlived his usefulness.

  “Before we reach an agreement, don’t you want to know why I’m hiring you?”

  Novak shrugged. “Braddock just said you needed men who are good with their guns and willing to use them. All of us fit that description.”

  “And you don’t care how you have to use those guns?”

  “For that kind of money, I don’t care, and I don’t reckon those other fellas do, either.”

  Fortunato thought it over, but only for a few seconds. He prided himself on being a shrewd judge of character, and he didn’t like Thomas Novak. Not one damned bit.

  But he believed that the man could be trusted, at least to the extent that any hired gunman could be. He didn’t think that Novak would shrink from killing a woman or a priest, either, if it came to that.

  “A thousand apiece now, the rest when the job is done.”

  Novak’s eyes narrowed. “I was thinking half.”

  “You were thinking incorrectly.” With the bulk of the payoff postponed, they would be less likely to betray him, Fortunato knew.

  After a moment, Novak shrugged. “Done.”

  “You can speak for the others?”

  “That’s right. I’m ramrodding the bunch. You can ask them if you don’t believe me.”

  “No, I’ll take your word for it. If we’re going to be working together, we should trust each other.”

  “Sure,” Novak said with a smile. His eyes remained as reptilian as ever, though.

  No, he didn’t like this gunman, Fortunato mused. But he knew a kindred spirit when he met one.

  Novak introduced him to the rest of the men. Wesley was the youngest, barely twenty but with a wild light in his eyes. Green was the oldest, white-haired and stolid. The other three—Hobart, Bayne, and Donaldson—were typical hardcases, men in their thirties who had seen and done enough to have grown calluses on their souls. After meeting them, Fortunato nodded in satisfaction and turned to Novak.

  “I assume you all have horses?”

  �
�Sure. How do you think we got here?”

  Fortunato ignored the question and went on, “Go to every livery stable in Las Cruces if you have to. Buy the twelve best horses you can find, the absolute best this primitive settlement has to offer.”

  Novak frowned and asked, “Why do we need a dozen more horses? Our mounts are good ones, and Braddock said you have a wagon you travel in.”

  “I’m leaving the wagon here. Our quarry has had several days to gain on us. We have to eliminate that lead. Therefore, we’ll be switching horses on a regular basis, so our mounts will stay fresher and faster.”

  Novak thought it over and then nodded. “Makes sense, I reckon. Can you stand up to a long, hard ride like that, Count?”

  “Of course. I’m an excellent horseman.”

  “It’s a little different, traveling through the desert instead of cantering around some park in Europe.”

  “I said I can do it,” Fortunato snapped.

  Novak shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

  “That’s right.”

  Arturo was going to complain about the decision to abandon the wagon, Fortunato thought, although he would do it subtly. Fortunato knew that the servant could ride a little, but Arturo’s experiences hadn’t prepared him for what was to come. Fortunato wasn’t going to set out into the Jornada del Muerto without him, though.

  Something else occurred to him. He turned back to Novak and added, “We’ll need pack animals, too. Three or perhaps four.”

  “All right. We’ll get mules for that. They can handle the job better than horses.”

  “I’ll leave that to your discretion.”

  “Anything else?”

  “There are some supplies in my wagon, but we’ll need to replenish them. We should take enough to last all of us at least a week. Ten days would be even better. Then there’s the matter of water.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Novak said. “Like I told you, I’ve been through the Jornada a couple of times. I know what we’ll need.”